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Bestselling Author Daniel Bergner on the Mind and the Moon

Bestselling Author Daniel Bergner Talks Mental Health –
Are there more options than just drugs?

Odds are you probably know someone in your life who deals with anxiety, or bipolar disorder.  Maybe someone who deals with delusions, or hears voices.  And maybe it’s even you. For example, I get panic attacks when I drive on the freeway. But we haven’t always done a good job in dealing with mental issues. We are only now starting to talk about it in any kind of meaningful way. It used to be that we only talked about it in whispers, or in private conversations, but never out in the open.

Bestselling author Daniel Bergner says it’s time to talk about the mind -and its mind of its own- and he does just that in his new book The Mind and the Moon. In our chat he talks about what we used to do to people dealing with mental challenges, what we know about drugs being used today (not much), and what exactly happens in a lobotomy. It’s an eye-opening discussion that hopefully will encourage you to start a conversation with friends and family about mental health.

Click the player below to hear the chat with Pam and Daniel

About Daniel Bergner
Daniel Bergner is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of five previous books of award-winning nonfiction: the New York Times bestselling Sing for Your Life, What Do Women Want?, The Other Side of Desire, In the Land of Magic Soldiers, and God of the Rodeo. His writing has also appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, Harper’s Magazine, Mother Jones, Talk, and the New York Times Book Review.

For his book, The Mind and the Moon: Click here
Click here to for more about Daniel Bergner

 

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Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain, the Science of Optimism with Dr. Elaine Fox

Half Empty or Half Full?
Psychologist and Neuroscientist Dr. Elaine Fox
Shares the Science of Optimism

Do you typically look on the bright side, or turn towards the dark? Were you born that way? And if you had a cheerier outlook, would it affect your business and your health?  Psychologist and neuroscientist Elaine Fox has discovered we actually CAN change the way our brains react to fear and optimism. Her research has been journaled in her book Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: How to Retrain Your Brain to Overcome Pessimism and Achieve a More Positive Outlook.

Elaine’s discovery of the optimism gene has paved the way for explaining the psychology behind optimistic people. Can we change? Plus – find out why we like our news bloody and our politics dirty!

Click on the player below to hear the chat with Dr. Fox and Pam


About Dr. Fox
Elaine Fox is a psychologist and neuroscientist who has researched widely on the science of emotions. She has always been fascinated by why some people are very resilient and can deal with whatever life throws at them, while others are fragile and at risk of developing anxiety and depression. She grew up in Dublin and has worked at St James Hospital Dublin, University College Dublin, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and the University of Essex where she was head of the Department of Psychology & Centre for Brain Science from 2007- 2010, before moving to the University of Oxford in 2013.

Elaine is currently a Research Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford and Director of the Oxford Centre for Emotions & Affective Neuroscience (OCEAN), where she leads a program of research combining cognitive psychology, neuroimaging, and genetics. She has recently been awarded an ERC Advanced Investigator Award to support her research in the development of emotional vulnerability and resilience. Her work has been discussed in Nature, Science, New Scientist, The Economist, and the New York Times. A Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science (APS), she lives near Oxford in England.

Her scientific discoveries on optimism, happiness and optimal mental health have been discussed widely across the national media, and led to her appearance in an ABC documentary presented by Michael J. Fox (no relation) entitled The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist in 2010 and in a 2013 BBC Horizon documentary called The Truth about Personality in which she attempts to shift the presenter Michael Mosley’s brain from pessimism to optimism.

To learn more about Professor Fox’s findings please visit www.rainybrainsunnybrain.com.

To purchase her book, click here.