You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life
Jeffrey M. Schwartz, Rebecca Gladding
Language: English
Pages: 328
ISBN: 2:00348480
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Two neuroscience experts explain how their 4-Step Method can help break destructive thoughts and actions and change bad habits for good.
A leading neuroplasticity researcher and the coauthor of the groundbreaking books Brain Lock and The Mind and the Brain, Jeffrey M. Schwartz has spent his career studying the structure and neuronal firing patterns of the human brain. He pioneered the first mindfulness-based treatment program for people suffering from OCD, teaching patients how to achieve long-term relief from their compulsions.
For the past six years, Schwartz has worked with psychiatrist Rebecca Gladding to refine a program that successfully explains how the brain works and why we often feel besieged by bad brain wiring. Just like with the compulsions of OCD patients, they discovered that bad habits, social anxieties, self-deprecating thoughts, and compulsive overindulgence are all rooted in overactive brain circuits. The key to making life changes that you want-to make your brain work for you-is to consciously choose to "starve" these circuits of focused attention, thereby decreasing their influence and strength.
As evidenced by the huge success of Schwartz's previous books, as well as Daniel Amen's Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, and Norman Doidge's The Brain That Changes Itself, there is a large audience interested in harnessing the brain's untapped potential, yearning for a step-by-step, scientifically grounded and clinically proven approach. In fact, readers of Brain Lock wrote to the authors in record numbers asking for such a book. In You Are Not Your Brain, Schwartz and Gladding carefully outline their program, showing readers how to identify negative brain impulses, channel them through the power of focused attention, and ultimately lead more fulfilling and empowered lives.
monster, 62, 66, 74, 80, 127–28, 129–30 Fifteen-minute rule, 248–49, 311, 313, 316, 321, 340 Fight-or-flight response, 23, 76n1, 164, 254 5 A’s (Attention, Acceptance, Affection, Appreciation, Allowing), 122–24, 126, 137, 187, 212, 222, 228, 272, 281, 299, 301, 302, 339, 344, 345 Focusing of attention: in beginning Four Steps, 138; beneficial, xiv, xv, xvi, 21, 22, 23–24, 33 (see also Refocusing; Refocusing with Progressive Mindfulness; Regulate & Refocus); choice in, 67, 70, 71, 95–96;
define our sense of self—our concept of who we are. Safe Zones Help Us Process True Emotions Constructively That emotional safe zone in childhood was critical because it provided you with the necessary training ground to learn how to deal with your true emotions, such as anger, sadness, grief, fear, happiness, and anxiety, in a constructive, loving way. It is in this space that you would have been taught that allowing and expressing (rather than suppressing) your true needs and emotions was a
your life to some other entity, not the real you. Rational faith, in contrast, encourages you to believe that by trusting in the process, focusing on your true goals, and expending effort by following the Four Steps, you will achieve positive results that get you closer to those true goals. Steve agrees that rational faith is important, especially at the beginning of using the Four Steps when the deceptive thoughts, impulses, cravings, and uncomfortable sensations are the strongest. When he
Step adage to help you out when the thoughts, impulses, or sensations feel like they are getting out of hand. As he explains, “Just like alcoholics learn to say, ‘Don’t take that first drink,’ I learned to say, ‘Don’t take that first thought’ because it spirals from there, gains a hold, and makes it difficult to stop and realize what your brain is doing.” The sensations can also seem to get more uncomfortable when you do not give in to them. As Abby knows, you need to endure the distress “to get
decisions that are in your best interest and will see the falseness of the deceptive brain messages. There’s no way a loving figure like that would let you believe those negative things your brain is telling you—no way.” For example, Liz thinks about her grandmother, whereas Ed wonders how his best friend would respond. Similarly, many of our religious patients have found that using God or Jesus as the Wise Advocate can be beneficial and comforting. We’ve even seen young children effectively