Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being

by Linda Graham, Rick Hanson (Foreword by)

Overview

Winner of the 2013 Books for a Better Life Acorda Wellness Award and the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award

Resilience is the ability to face and handle life’s challenges, whether everyday disappointments or extraordinary disasters. While resilience is innate in the brain, over time we learn unhelpful patterns, which then become fixed in our neural circuitry. But science is now revealing that what previously seemed hardwired can be rewired, and Bouncing Back shows us how. With powerful, time-tested exercises, Linda Graham guides us in rebuilding our core well-being and disaster-proofing our brains.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608681297
Publisher:	New World Library
Publication date:	04/09/2013
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	424,344
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Linda Graham, MFT, is a marriage and family therapist, mindfulness teacher, and expert on the neuroscience of human relationships who trains other clinicians in applying neuroscience in their work.

Table of Contents

List of Exercises xv

Foreword Rick Hanson xix

Introduction: What Resilience Is and How We Rewire Our Brains to Recover It xxiii

Part 1 How the Brain Develops Resilience - or Doesn't

Chapter 1 How the Brain's Strategies of Resilience Become Wired In 3

Chapter 2 How the Wiring In of Resilience Can Go Awry 29

Part 2 Harnessing the Brain's Neuroplasticity to Recover Your Resilience

Chapter 3 Using Mindfulness to Foster Self-Awareness and Flexible Responses 49

Chapter 4 Using Empathy to Create Connections and Self-Acceptance 69

Chapter 5 Five Additional Practices That Accelerate Brain Change 89

Chapter 6 Self-Directed Neuroplasticity 113

Part 3 Recovering Resilience through Resonant Relationships

Chapter 7 How Bonding and Belonging Nourish Resilience 129

Chapter 8 Creating Inner Security and Confidence 157

Chapter 9 Developing Relational Intelligence 171

Part 4 Keep Calm and Carry On: Recovering Resilience through Resources of the Body

Chapter 10 Losing and Recovering Our Equilibrium 191

Chapter 11 Recovering Our Balance through the Body 209

Chapter 12 Developing Somatic Intelligence 229

Part 5 Recovering Resilience through Emotional Well-Being

Chapter 13 How Neuroscience Is Revolutionizing Our Thinking about Feelings 249

Chapter 14 How Positive Emotions Build Resilience 273

Chapter 15 Developing Emotional Intelligence 293

Part 6 Shift Happens: Recovering Resilience through Reflection and Response Flexibility

Chapter 16 Using Reflection to Identify Options 307

Chapter 17 Shifting Gears: Modifying Our Patterns of Response 323

Chapter 18 Discerning Wise Choices and Responding Flexibly 337

Part 7 Recovering Resilience through Simply Being

Chapter 19 Resting in the Wisdom of Being 349

Part 8 Launching into a More Resilient Life

Chapter 20 Moving Resilience beyond the Personal Self 373

Acknowledgments 387

Endnotes 391

Index 413

About the Author 433

Editorial Reviews

“Creative in its groundbreaking integration of ancient contemplative wisdom, relational psychology, and modern neuroscience — and supremely useful in its compassionate focus on what will help you here and now.”
— from the foreword by Rick Hanson, PhD

“Linda Graham offers a beautiful and wise understanding of neuroscience combined with immensely practical tools for healthy living and genuine well-being.”
— Jack Kornfield, PhD, author of A Path with Heart

“Written with great lucidity and compassion, this book helps us cultivate a heart that is ready for anything.”
— Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge

“This intelligent and very readable book is more than informative; it is a heartfelt conversation with a wise and compassionate friend — and we can all use more of those.”
— Louis Cozolino, PhD, author of The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy

“Linda Graham has written the ultimate handbook for dealing with life’s inevitable bumps, challenges, and, yes, even traumas. It is both practical and inspiring.”
— Christine Carter, PhD, author of Raising Happiness

“Bouncing Back is the perfect guidebook not only to get through hard times but to develop the capacity for thriving in their midst.”
— James Baraz, coauthor of Awakening Joy

“This book will deepen your self-understanding as it moves your heart.”
— Rick Foster, coauthor of How We Choose to Be Happy

“Bouncing Back offers the rigor of science, the beauty of art, and the wisdom of deep reflection and contemplation....In this illuminating work, Linda Graham has given us a treasure.”
— Shauna L. Shapiro, PhD, coauthor of The Art and Science of Mindfulness

“I’ve never read a book so packed with information and wisdom and so engagingly, imaginatively, and charmingly written.”
— Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, author of It’s Easier Than You Think

From the Publisher