Category: Health

Patricia Pearson returns to non-fiction with a witty, insightful and highly personal look at recognizing and coping with fears and anxieties in our contemporary world. The millions of North Americans who silently cope with anxiety at last have a witty, articulate champion in Patricia Pearson, who shows that the anxious are hardly “nervous nellies” with “weak characters” who just need medicine and a pat on the head. Instead, Pearson questions what it is about today’s culture that is making people anxious, and offers some surprising answers–as well as some inspiring solutions based on her own fierce battle to drive the beast away. Drawing on personal episodes of incapacitating dread as a vivid, often hilarious guide to her quest to understand this most ancient of human emotions, Pearson delves into the history and geography of anxiety. Why are North Americans so much more likely to suffer than Latin Americans? Why did Darwin treat hypochondria with sprays from a hose? Why have we forgotten the insights of some of our greatest philosophers, theologians and psychologists in favor of prescribing addictive drugs? In this blend of fascinating reportage and poignant memoir, Pearson ends with her struggle to withdraw from antidepressants and to find more self-aware and philosophically-grounded ways to strengthen the soul. From the Hardcover edition.

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Are You A Highly Sensitive Person? Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you “too shy” or “too sensitive” according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the HSP, it’s a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life. Updated with a new Author’s Note, including the latest scientific research, and a fresh discussion of anti-depressants for HSPs, this edition of The Highly Sensitive Person also includes: Self-assessment tests to help you identify your particular sensitivities Ways to reframe your past experiences in a positive light and gain greater self-esteem in the process Insight into how high sensitivity affects both work and personal relationships Tips on how to deal with overarousal Information on medications and when to seek help Techniques to enrich the soul and spirit “Elaine Aron’s perceptive analysis of this fundamental dimension of human nature is must reading. Her balanced presentation suggests new paths for making sensitivity a blessing, not a handicap.” —Philip G. Zimbardo, author of Shyness “Enlightening and empowering, this book is a wonderful gift to us all.” –Riane Ensler, author of The Chalice and the Blade

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Concepts of Physical Fitness and Wellness: A Comprehensive Lifestyle Approach provides readers with self-management skills necessary to adopt a healthy lifestyle. These skills will make a positive difference in one’s health, fitness, and wellness through the use of activity labs and logs. In addition, new copies of the text now come packaged with the HealthQuest Activities CD-ROM. Web addresses to supplemental resource materials, such as a self-study guide, sample exam questions, and definitions of terms, as well as other enrichment materials, are also provided.

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In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music—its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it—and the human brain. Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals: • How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head A Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist, This Is Your Brain on Music will attract readers of Oliver Sacks and David Byrne, as it is an unprecedented, eye-opening investigation into an obsession at the heart of human nature.

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Like its predecessors, this fourth edition of A Guide to Treatments That Work offers detailed chapters that review the latest research on pharmacological and psychosocial treatments that work for the full range of psychiatric and psychological disorders, written in most instances by clinical psychologists and psychiatrists who have been major contributors to that literature. Similarly, the standards by which the authors were asked to evaluate the methodological rigor of the research on treatments have also remained the same. Each chapter in A Guide to Treatments That Work follows the same general outline: a review of diagnostic cues to the disorder, a discussion of changes in the nomenclatures from DSM-IV to DSM-5, and then a systematic review of research, most of which has been reported within the last few years, that represents the evidence base for the treatments reviewed. In all, 26 of the volume’s 28 chapters review the evidence base for 17 major syndromes. Featuring this coverage is a Summary of Treatments that Work, an extended matrix offering a ready reference by syndrome of the conclusions reached by the chapter authors on treatments that work reviewed in their chapters. New to this edition are two chapters at the beginning of the book. Chapter 1 details two perplexing issues raised by critics of DSM-5: the unrealized potential of neuroscience biomarkers to yield more accurate and reliable diagnoses and the lingering problem of conflicts of interest in pharmaceutical research. Chapter 2 contrasts Native American and western ways of identifying effective treatments for mental and physical disorders, concluding that “evidence-informed culture-based” interventions sometimes constitute best practices in Native communities. Two chapters detailing pharmacological treatments for pediatric bipolar disorder (Chapter 9) and pediatric depressive disorder (Chapter 12) have also been added. More than three quarters of the chapters are written by colleagues who also contributed to most or all of the previous editions. Hence, this new edition provides up-to-date information on the quality of research on treatment efficacy and effectiveness provided by individuals who know the research best.

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