Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence

by Rick Hanson Narrated by Rick Hanson

Overview

Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence shows you how to tap the hidden power of everyday experiences to change your brain and your life for the better.

This bias evolved to help ancient animals survive, but today it makes us feel needlessly frazzled, worried, irritated, lonely, inadequate, and blue. Instead, in just a few seconds at a time in the flow of daily life, you can turn your experiences - the pleasure in a cup of coffee, the accomplishment in finishing a tricky email, the warmth from a friend's smile - into lasting inner strengths built into your brain, such as resilience, balance, and positive emotions.

Grounded in neuroscience, Hardwiring Happiness is super-practical, full of easy-to-use methods and guided practices to grow a steady well-being, self-worth, and inner peace. And it has special sections on children, motivation, relationships, trauma, and spiritual practice.

The program also covers managing the Stone Age brain for life in the 21st century. It tells you how to take in experiences of your core needs being met, so that you gradually leave the "red zone" of fight-flight-freeze stress and get centered in the brain's "green zone" in which you feel an ongoing ease, fulfillment, and love - even while you deal with life's challenges.

A Better Listen audio production.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Rick Hanson is a master of his craft, showing us a wise path for daily living in this book. Based in the latest findings of neuroscience, this book reveals that if we understand the brain a little, we can take care of our lives a lot, and make a real difference to our well-being. Here is a book to savor, to practice, and to take to heart." -Mark Williams, Ph.D., Professor, University of Oxford, author of Mindfulness
 
"The cultivation of happiness is one of the most important skills anyone can ever learn. Luckily, it’s not hard when we know the way to water and nourish these wholesome seeds, which are already there in our consciousness. This book offers simple, accessible, practical steps for touching the peace and joy that are every person’s birthright." -Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Being Peace and Understanding Our Mind
 
"In this remarkable book, one of the world's leading authorities on mind training shows how to cultivate the helpful and good within us. In a beautifully written and accessible way, Rick Hanson offers us an inspiring gift of wise insights and compassionate and uplifting practices that will be of enormous benefit to all who read this book. A book of hope and joyfulness." -Paul Gilbert, Ph.D., O.B.E., Professor, University of Derby, author of The Compassionate Mind
 
"Rick Hanson's new book works practical magic: it teaches you how, in a few seconds, to rewire your brain for greater happiness, peace, and well-being. This is truly a book I wish every human being could read - it's that important. I hope we'll soon be saying to each other, in meetings, over coffee, in crowded subway cars: “Take in the good?” -Jennifer Louden, author of The Woman's Comfort Book
 
"Learning to take in the good is like fully and mindfully breathing in life: it allows us to access our inner strengths, creativity, vitality and love. In his brilliant new book, Rick Hanson gives us the fascinating science behind attending to positive experiences, and offers powerful and doable ways to awaken the deep and lasting wellbeing we yearn for." -Tara Brach, Ph.D., author of Radical Acceptance
 
"Hardwiring Happiness teaches us the life-affirming skills of inverting our evolutionary bias to hold on to the negative in our lives and instead soak in and savor the positive. What better gift can we give our selves or our loved ones than an effective strategy to increase joy through brain-based steps that are both accessible and pleasurable? Bravo" -Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., Clinical Professor, UCLA School of Medicine, author of Mindsight, The Mindful Brain, and Brainstorm
 
"Rick Hanson is brilliant at making complex scientific information about the brain simple. For anyone wanting to decode the black box of the brain and take advantage of its potential, this is the book to read." -Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., co-author of Making Marriage Simple

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169630466
Publisher:	Better Listen
Publication date:	07/01/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Hardwiring Happiness"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Rick Hanson.
Excerpted by permission of Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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