Rick Hanson

The author of the critically successful Buddha's Brain outlines a scientifically valid, four-step method for changing the brain's tendency to focus disproportionally on negative events, sharing recommendations for enabling optimism while alleviating stress, anxiety and irritability.

The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence

Hardwiring Happiness

matej yangwao

** spoiler alert **
           Book has great introduction into basics of neuroscience. Basically you want be more in green brain mode (sympathetic) rather in red (parasympathetic)

Practice HEAL techniques and odds for new life show up eventually ;)

≥Think of your mind as a fertile uncultivated field.


≥Consequently, humanity developed the negativity bias. This bias makes negative experiences stick in our brains while the positive ones pass without notice.

≥Neuroscientific studies reveal that your experiences have the power to change your brain.

≥Fear makes us overestimate threats and underestimate opportunities and resources.

≥The sympathetic enables the pursuit of opportunities and fighting or fleeing in response to threats, while the parasympathetic promotes withdrawal or freezing in a threatening situation. The parasympathetic inhibits or calms while the sympathetic energizes or excites.

≥The gradual accumulation of reactive experiences in your body is called allostatic load. It increases inflammation, weakens your immune system, and wears on your cardiovascular system.

≥A fleeting mental event can become a lasting neural structure when it is heightened by five major factors, namely:
• Duration
• Intensity
• Multimodality
• Novelty
• Personal relevance

≥You can turn a good mental state into good neural traits by enriching and absorbing positive experiences

≥Practice relevance-seeking! How does an experience help you, and why is it valuable to you? Saying something like “This applies to me because…” can help you identify the personal relevance of a good experience.

≥≥There could be value in some of the unpleasant experiences we have in life.

≥Good experience is an antidote for negative material.

If you need help integrating positive experience and finding and focusing on pleasure, this book is good for that. The formula is HEAL, an acronym for stages of a meditation. Hanson applies HEAL to several ways to feel better. I have to admit, I finished the book while sleeping. Which is totally legitimate for a book like this.

Travis Well

Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences but slowly from the good ones. You can change this. Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace. Dr. Hanson's four steps build strengths into your brain balancing its ancient negativity bias making contentment and a powerful sense of resilience the new normal. In mere minutes each day, we can transform our brains into refuges and power centers of calm and happiness.

How to Reshape Your Brain and Your Life

Hala Abdulaziz 

one thing, but actually seeing the very small but noticeable changes in how I stop for a second each time a good thing happens(no matter how small) and just acknowledge how I'm feeling and notice the small little details is actually pretty cool.
However, I found it quit repetitive; I mean I get why it needed to repeat certain parts but i kept getting the feeling that he was saying the same thing over and over but in a different way each time. 
The best thing about this book is that it's sectioned in a way that you can benefit from based on what exactly you're facing problems with, and I found that it hit all the point from all the different angles very well.

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

Reviews