Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves - Paperback

by Sharon Begley (Author)

In this fascinating and far-reaching book, Newsweek science writer Sharon Begley reports on how cutting-edge science and the ancient wisdom of Buddhism have come together to reveal that, contrary to popular belief, we have the power to literally change our brains by changing our minds. Recent pioneering experiments in neuroplasticity-the ability of the brain to change in response to experience-reveal that the brain is capable of altering its structure and function, and even of generating new neurons, a power we retain well into old age. The brain can adapt, heal, renew itself after trauma, compensate for disabilities, rewire itself to overcome dyslexia, and break cycles of depression and OCD. And as scientists are learning from studies performed on Buddhist monks, it is not only the outside world that can change the brain, so can the mind and, in particular, focused attention through the classic Buddhist practice of mindfulness.

Author Biography

Sharon Begley is the senior science writer at STAT, the life sciences publication of The Boston Globe. Previously she was the senior health and science correspondent at Reuters, the science editor and science columnist at Newsweek, and the science columnist at The Wall Street Journal. She is the author of Can't Just Stop: An Investigation of Compulsions and Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain and the co-author of The Emotional Life of Your Brain (with Richard J. Davidson) and The Mind and the Brain (with Jeffrey M. Schwartz).