The Stress Test: How Pressure Can Make You Stronger and Sharper

by Ian H. Robertson

BOOKS

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Personal Development, Health, Science

256 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Ian Robertson is Professor of Psychology at Trinity College, Dublin and founding Director of Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience. Robertson is the first psychologist in Ireland to have been elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Robertson also holds the positions of Visiting Professor at University College London, Visiting Professor at Bangor University, University of Wales, and Visiting Scientist at the Rotman Research Institute, University of Toronto. Robertson was previously a Senior Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge, where he was also a fellow at Hughes Hall. Robertson sat on the Wellcome Trust Neuroscience and Mental Health Committee from 2006–2011.
Robertson is Director of the NIEL programme (Neuroenhancement for Inequalities in Elder Lives[3]). He was founding director of Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience.
A graduate of Glasgow University, Robertson gained his Masters (Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry) and Doctoral (Neuropsychology) degrees at the University of London.
Ian Robertson has published over 250 scientific articles in leading journals, including Nature, Brain, Journal of Neuroscience, and Psychological Bulletin. Ian has also contributed to public communication and understanding of science, contributing regularly to The Times and The Daily Telegraph, he was also a columnist for the British Medical Journal. Robertson is author and editor of ten scientific books, including the leading international textbook on cognitive rehabilitation (Cognitive Neurorehabilitation), and several books for the general reader which have been translated into multiple languages.

Reviews

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad I read this book. Being quite a stress prone individual myself, The Stress Test taught me some harsh truths and I learnt plenty along the way. Ian Robertson has been working hard for his entire career dealing with stress (and some major shifts in opinion within his fields of research) to find out whether or not Nietzsche's maxim 'What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger' is really true and to what degree.

IR knows stress inside and out but over the years he has been putting the pieces together via his case studies and research to find out how good/bad stress really is. In The Stress Test, IR takes us on a trip through some of the main types/areas of stress like attention/concentration, to the chemical reactions that happen during stressful situations and why some people who have been through hell and back are fine and those who have suffered a minor setback have crumpled to pieces.

Over the course of the book IR elaborates on how stress really effects us and how much stress can actually make a positive difference to our health and outlook on life. He does this so well using personal experience, case studies, relationships and research to fluidly explain aspects of stress and its effects. Though IR does use technical jargon at times, he always clarifies his points in a clear and general fashion.

I really appreciate the fact that he used his own research and case studies to give depth to his content as it is quite common in these types of books for authors to continually use famous or over used stories and concepts to make their points clear. This individuality gave this book a different feel and you could definitely sense IR's appreciation for his work and the fact that even after 40 years of doing his job, his is still as invested as he has always been.

I was amazed by some of IR'S findings and revelations in this book and they have already changed my views on past experiences with stress and also given me lots of tips and tricks to consider when dealing with stress in the future. This book is extremely important for many reasons but the ones that stuck out to me the most are the rising levels of stress and depression we all experience even in our modern, healthy and technology filled existence and the fact that almost 50% of the elderly are experiencing some form of Dementia or Alzheimer's Disease. Ian Robertson and his colleagues are doing amazing things to change our understanding of stress and mental health and how we combat it in the future and The Stress Test is the essence of that progress.

Thank you for checking out this review. I appreciate you coming by, please leave a comment about you thoughts on my review and I hope you come back for more reviews, Q&As and much more at Always Trust In Books.

[Saarah Niña · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book through my library. I was seeking something that will help to make my brain more orderly (as if it were a messy room!) and me, less 'scatterbrained' or 'all over the place.' The first chapter 'Why Do Engineers Build Bends In Roads?' was perhaps the most informative in my case, and coincidentally, I wanted to look for something to improve my focus during long car journeys. I do remember learning the answer to this when I first took driving lessons. I love a good, long, winding road.

And according to the scatter-brained test (Broadbent's 1982, Cognitive Failure Questionnaire/ CFQ for absent-mindedness) I'm only slightly above average. I got 69 but ironically I can't remember the average... 40-65? Or 40-60? [Just checked, 40-60 is adult average. But I just did the same questionnaire again just now and got 74 so perhaps I'm worse than I thought. Too bad that improving attention was not this book's primary focus.]

Stress, itself, for me was always connected to exams which came too soon. But even then, thankfully, it was never unbearable. I think, I mostly have a good relationship with stress. After all, it doesn't last forever (Thank God for small mercies.)

I carried on reading because I found the case studies to be irresistible. Robertson doesn't re-write studies we've all heard of, but offers something that will be new to most of us- particularly when he writes the experiences of his own patients.

This book is more of a recount of Robertson's experience in understanding stress, over decades, through his work as a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist. This book was more scientific than psychological theorising- something I definitely appreciated. Invaluable work but I do have to add there will be some messages you'll have read elsewhere as some of his discoveries are a few years older than this book, itself. For instance, he includes how adapting a power-pose or, telling yourself you're excited instead of afraid, will boost your confidence temporarily. (This is something that is rather over-stated in Women's Health magazines ...)

Finally, The Stress Test is one I recommend, for dipping in and out of. No one is immune from stress, so it's important to reshape our understanding as we learn more about the powerful, and often debilitating, emotion.

[Marianne Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished reading “The Stress Test” by Ian Robertson Ph.D., an in depth look into the study of the effects of stress and mental illness in our lives. He also wrote how the treatments have evolved over the years of his career to now treat mental health as a whole and not as either a hardware or software problem to resolve.

Throughout the book, case studies are utilized to illustrate the effect of stress and how some of those effects can actually provide a positive influence on our both our physical and mental health. He offers examples of how some people go through hell and come out stronger while others crumble under the stress of a minor setback. That we need some stress to keep us motivated to continue, as long as we do not allow it to overwhelm us.

While the author covers some very clinical and scientific discussions of the physical and chemical reactions of what happens to us under times of stress, he offers clear definitions of the technological terminology employed in the clinical mental health community.

“The Stress Test” provides an insightful opportunity to learn both the importance of stress in our lives and practical ways to deal with it.

It is not a quick read, but rather a book that should be read slowly to allow time for the words to be absorbed. I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to take the stress in their life and turn it into a positive instead of a negative influence.

[Jennifer Hankel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am going to try to apply this directly to my life! Really fascinating and an exciting read

[Kat Riethmuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Nietzsche saw people as capable of managing their own destiny. He didn’t see them as passive entities who couldn’t challenge fate. Psychologist and neuroscientist Ian Robertson reports that recent research backs Nietzsche’s position. If you wish to overcome adversity you must believe that you can. Robertson draws on his professional experience plus advances in neuroscience and psychology to offer a compendium of case histories that add up to a hopeful, inspiring message. getAbstract recommends his report to those responsible for employee welfare or those who’d like insight into their own ability to meet challenges

Takeaways:
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
He believed people were capable of managing their own destiny.
In the past, many psychiatrists thought patients had few choices in how to address their mental health problems.
Recent neuroscience agrees with Nietzsche that people can learn to control their lives by how they apply their will.
You can use the “hardware” of your brain and the “software” of your mind to cope with challenges.
If you don’t give in to anxiety about your abilities, some stress can strengthen you.
The Yerkes-Dodson law says that as people become more alert and engaged, their performance improves up to a point and then declines.
Neuroscience reports that two tiny parts of the brain work against each other as you move from sleepiness to alertness and back again.
Daydreamers tend to think more about worrisome subjects than about pleasant ones.
Accept what life presents to you, and persevere with belief in your ability to overcome challenges. 

Summary:
The Brain and the Mind 
In the book Twilight of the Idols – one of the few volumes available when author Ian Robertson taught in a small town in Fiji – Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” He saw people as capable of managing their destiny. He didn’t see them as passive beings who are helpless or unable to challenge or reverse their fate.

The big idea…was trying to understand the interactions of the mind and the brain in order to help explain why some people are crushed by the problems life throws at them while others seem toughened by them.
Now a psychologist and a neuroscientist, Robertson tackles this issue. He began his professional life as a clinical psychologist and shifted to brain research. His career followed a different trajectory than that of most people in either of his fields: He brought the two specialties together. Robertson sought insight into how the “software” of the mind interacts with the “hardware” of the brain. He regarded his initial work treating people who had emotional issues as distinctly different from his later work as a neuroscientist. His colleagues agreed. Most neurologists rarely talk to psychologists. However, Robertson dealt with both the software and the hardware issues affecting the mind. He wanted to understand how people calibrate their minds and brains to cope with life’s difficulties.

Changes in Therapy
Psychiatrists who once relied on electroconvulsive therapy believed that their patients had little choice in addressing their mental conditions and that their trauma came from the structure of their brains. However, as early as 1984, research showed that the brain can change with experience. This contradicted the earlier belief that the adult brain is not malleable. Further research in the early 1990s forced scientists to re-evaluate the role of genes. Most professionals believed that human genes didn’t change, but new research revealed that genes function through the regulation of proteins that affect a person’s body and behavior. Genes might not change, but people’s environment and experiences affect the interactions among their genes and the generation of proteins that influence them.

We can ‘tune’ our mind-brains, using both hardware and software, to increase our performance, to cope positively with life’s adversities and to rise to challenges.
People react to stress in different ways. Robertson’s patient, a student named “Lucy,” had lost the ability to sleep. She missed lectures and suffered introversion. About six months before she first came to see Robertson, she’d failed a midyear exam. She made another attempt and passed, so that failure shouldn’t have become a major problem. But since she had always done well on tests in the past, she took this minor problem far too seriously.

Six basic emotions…play out across every culture…fear, surprise, happiness, sadness, disgust and anger.
Another student, “Peter,” came to Robertson because he also was missing lectures. Peter’s mother had died six months earlier, and his unemployed father had begun drinking heavily. Peter took a second job to help financially protect his younger sister. But Peter didn’t suffer from mental problems. His misfortunes made him apply himself more assiduously to his life and studies. Peter and Lucy both faced challenges, but Peter acted in the spirit of Nietzsche’s maxim and his troubles made him stronger. He reoriented his approach to life – his mental “software.” Lucy didn’t do that and almost collapsed.

Curved Road Ahead
Engineers sometimes build expensive bends in roads in places where they could have made straight roads. Robertson never wondered why until two people he knew died in two different train accidents. One friend died when the driver of her train went past a red light and rammed another train. One of Robertson’s former colleagues died when a car drove off the road and landed in front of his train. The car’s driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. 

We have the ability to gain some control over these emotions by the way we label them in our minds.
This relates to your brain: When the human brain gets accustomed to a new activity, it moves the management of that activity away from “the higher cortical regions to subcortical areas,” the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. The brain conducts these familiar jobs without involving the cortex. That leaves two small centers in the brain working at cross purposes. The tiny suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) acts as a controller that reduces the level of activity in the cortex so a person can sleep at night. It then helps increase activity in the cortex to wake people up. Another small cluster of cells in the brain, the locus coeruleus, helps kick the brain into high gear when something interesting happens. It increases the output of norepinephrine, which helps the brain stay alert. The SCN calms the locus coeruleus at night and, in the morning, the locus coeruleus turns down the SCN. The two centers work in opposition as a person moves from sleepiness to alertness. And that’s why engineers create bends in long roads: to help the locus coeruleus combat the SCN – and keep drivers awake.

A Double-Edged Sword
Harvard psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson observed a pattern that psychologists call the “Yerkes-Dodson law of arousal,” referring to the psychological state of alertness. They found that as people become more alert, their attention and performance improve – to a point. Beyond that point along a U-shaped stress curve, when they become too stressed, performance worsens.

Thoughts and emotions turn genes on and off, physically reshaping the brain as they do so. And then these physical changes in turn mold our thoughts and emotions.
To illustrate, in 2008, Sian Beilock of Chicago University conducted a test on a group of students. The students had equal math skills, but some felt more nervous about their abilities. Beilock had the students answer math problems in front of an audience. She measured the presence of the stress hormone cortisol in their bodies before and after the performance. Both sets of students – the ones who were anxious and the ones who weren’t – felt stress during the performance. Anxious students did worse because they felt more stress. The less anxious students did better the more cortisol they produced. The conclusion: If you don’t let yourself feel anxious about your abilities, stress can make you stronger.

Public Speaking
In the late 1970s, Robertson had a patient named “Simon,” a successful professional who feared public speaking. Speaking at a large conference, he had become anxious, mixed up his lines and ended his speech prematurely. He felt he’d made a fool of himself. Now he felt great anxiety because he had to speak again before the same group. During treatment, he talked to four of his colleagues about his earlier experience at the conference. They hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. None of them realized he’d had an anxiety attack. His experience demonstrates that when you are anxious, you may become “hyper-vigilant” about potential threats, even if they aren’t meaningful. You can always find something, no matter how small, to worry about.

Self-reappraisal is hard to do, but if you practice, you can get better at it.
Researchers in North Carolina gave the Robertson’s diagnostic Sustained Attention to Response Test (SART) to 72 adults. Eight times a day, study participants noted their mood and how often their minds wandered. Those who performed poorly found their minds wandered more than those who did well. Daydreamers tended to have more worrisome thoughts than pleasant thoughts.  

Pressing Ahead
Nobel Prize–winner Samuel Beckett ends his novel The Unnamable with the words, “You must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” That is, you need the ability to press on amid challenges even if you don’t know which direction to take. If you want to use adversity as a source of strength, accept life and persevere without thinking about how you’ll benefit from your efforts.

One of the secrets of getting through the day without too many hitches is to be able to stop routines at the right time and not get carried along under the control of the automatic pilot parts of the brain.
In 2012, Robertson wrote a book called The Winner Effect. In it, he explained that if you can recall a time when you controlled someone, for instance while evaluating their work, you will feel more confident and intelligent. If you remember a time when someone else controlled you, the memory will make you feel diminished, wary and less capable of solving problems. Your interactions with other people and your environment also can change your psychological temperament and the chemical constitution of your brain. A sense of power increases the body’s production of testosterone in both males and females. This in turn increases the production of dopamine, which also alters the brain.

A Psychology Classic
In 1962, Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer conducted a study titled “Cognitive, Social and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State.” They injected some volunteers with adrenaline and others with a placebo. They told some of the volunteers that as a result of the injection, they would feel an elevated heartbeat, unsteady hands and a faster rate of breathing. Researchers gave other volunteers incorrect information about what they would feel, so those volunteers wouldn’t understand what might happen after being injected with adrenaline.

The biggest obstacle to being creative is having to shake off previous assumptions.
The researchers placed each volunteer in a room with an actor who behaved as if he or she were angry and discontented or as if he or she were happy and good-natured. The actor’s mood affected the volunteers who’d had adrenaline injections, even though they didn’t know what symptoms they’d feel. Those who spent time with the happy-behaving actor felt excited and energized. Conversely, those with the discontent actor felt unhappy. This shows how much context affects your moods. Many moods share common bodily feelings, like excitement and anger. How you decode your feelings in a situation affects the amount of stress you experience.

Dealing with Dementia
As people worldwide live longer, more of them struggle with dementia, often in one of its most common forms, Alzheimer’s disease. Your chances of having the disease decline if you sought more education than the norm. In the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, the hippocampus – which helps the brain encode memories – fails. Sufferers tend to remember things from a long time ago, but often don’t remember things from a few minutes earlier.

How do our minds interpret…sensations? The answer…is clear: My mind uses the context to explain the symptoms to itself.
But, even in cases of dementia, education can create a “cognitive reserve.” Postmortems show that people with high cognitive reserve have denser “grey matter” in the brain’s cortex. Researchers studied the mental acuity of a group of Chicago residents in their 80s and continued to follow them until their deaths around three years later. The scientists conducted postmortems to investigate how much Alzheimer’s and dementia had affected the subjects’ brains. Some had noticeable deposits of tau protein (associated with dementia) and related memory loss. Others, including some with significant tau deposits, hadn’t suffered any loss of memory.

People who have never known adversity tend to get sucked into…‘catastrophizing’ about their pain.
The size of each person’s network of friends and relatives distinguished the two groups. The number of people each person saw in a month made the difference. Those in the top 10% of “social network size” showed no correlation between memory loss and the amounts of tau protein in their brains.

The Question of Belief
Nietzsche had a big idea – that people could control their lives if they drew on their will to empower change. This approach works only if people believe they have the power. Many people think they have little control over their emotional afflictions, which, they believed, came from outside themselves.

Stress…seemed to push nonworriers into a performance sweet spot and worriers out of it.
People’s reaction to stress depends on this perception of how much power they have over the challenges they face. If they feel they can’t change their character, they will feel the same way about their emotional problems.

They might normally lack the determination to learn to control their emotional reactions in difficult circumstances. For instance, feeling that something is going to creep up on you can make you feel anxious, especially if you believe you can’t do anything about your anxieties and have to let them pass in their own time. Your apprehension can make your feelings spiral downward.

People who believe that they have some control over their lives, no matter what the objective circumstances are, are more likely to see stress as a challenge… rather than as a threat.
Psychologist Carol Dweck suggests that as children mature, they develop two broad types of beliefs about their intelligence. Those with a “fixed” view believe that people have a limited amount of intelligence that can’t and won’t change no matter what they do. Those with a “malleable” view believe people can work at improving their intelligence and succeed.

Nietzsche was inclined to see individuals as agents who could learn to harness their own power, as opposed to subjects of forces over which they had little control.
Accept that your brain and mind remain innately flexible. You have the ability to gain control over how you feel. Understand the importance of how you describe your feelings in your mind. Holding this belief strongly gives you the ability to use an appropriate combination of your brain’s hardware and your mind’s software to cope with life’s problems.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't be surprised if this ends up being the most important book I ever read

[John Maguire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got to 51%.

[Areej Khaddaj · Rating 1 out of 5]

The subtitle of the book is "How pressure can make you stronger and sharper" indicating that it's full of advice, achievable steps to take, best practices… however it turned out to be a narration of the author's journey of research that he took to prove his theories and reach his conclusions. If I were interested in such "proofs" I would've read his journal papers instead of what-seemed-to-be a self-help book.

Going through the scientific, psychological, and physiological theories to support the arguments or advice is not a problem per se, however the author excessively narrated his thought process on how he studied and interpreted these theories, that made the book sound more of an auto-biography or thesis defense than a self-help book. One can find the pronoun "I" maybe 100 times more than "you" or "a person"… The real action items and takeaways probably fill no more than 10% of the book, at best. While reading the book, I heard myself telling the author "dude I believe you, I'm just a reader not your research paper reviewer"

I never read self-help books before because I had a prejudice that they wouldn't really help, and can be very generic and hence not applicable to everyone. Reading this book somehow confirmed my theory (though I know it's a flawed theory) and convinced me more not to read self-help books. Maybe if I had read something else 1st of that genre, I would've loved self-help books, who knows..

[Vijayan Dharmaraj · Rating 5 out of 5]

Key takeaways :
1.What doesn't kill u makes u stronger
2.By reading,the grey matter of your brain actually grows overtime ,which intern protects from Alzheimers (proven in various researches conducted)
3.Maintain a balance between good and bad stress ,good stress is good for your brain until u reach the tipping point and which in turn changes to bad stress.
4.Anger can be used to do things which we want to do in a good way by showing anger, but inside being control so that anger doesnt consume you.

How each of your brain chemical functions,

How u loose your focus without knowing yourself when u do the routine work.

And a ton of research in cognitive functions.brain development mostly this book contains the authors meticulously researched treatment methods used to cure his patients.

A great & must read atleast 2times to grab the essence of this wonderful book ..

[Libor Mertl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the book fascinating. For many years I have been learning that stress is bad for us, damaging, debilitating and for sure not good for our health. Stress is something what should be avoided. How does this corelates with the Nietche maxim „What does not kill me, makes me stronger? The statement itself evokes a stressful situation. Why adversity, difficult and stressful moments make some people stronger and the others not? Why some people can overcome very difficult life or working moments and become stronger and some people collapse facing much easier issues? Can we learn such ability, can we deliberately become more resilient? Is there a such a thing as good stress? That what is the book all about.

[Luigino Bottega · Rating 5 out of 5]

By reacting with positive energy, our character will guide us towards constructive thoughts, such as: “What have I learnt from this situation?”. It’s an attitude that leads us to ask introspective questions, an approach to change as a fundamental element in personal growth. In this case, we’re inclined to take responsibility for the situation; we feel in control of how we react and that we can direct our future in the best possible direction. It’s a perspective from the subjective point of view of reality: I am the architect of my destiny.
Inspiring book!

[Simone Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this thinking that it would probably be a step-by-step guide on how to use stress to your advantage and that I'd perhaps get a couple of tips I could apply to my own life.

To my surprise, this book was full of thorough research and I found myself fascinated by the numerous case studies discussed in this book. This goes deep into the human psyche, exploring how our brains work. It explains, with evidence, why a certain level of stress can be beneficial, motivating and even life-prolonging when approached with the right mindset. I genuinely came away with a lot to think about.

[Anna-Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked many of the ideas in this book... it referenced interesting studies that interfaced with what Robertson learned from his work in clinical psychology and his research in neuroscience. I was a bit puzzled by the way he structured the book... really long prologue and epilogue, and he finally referred to Carol Dweck's research in the epilogue. Perhaps a second read would be warranted, as I hoped I would get more out of this book.

[Jay Christie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Robertson's The Stress Test is an insightful book which attempts to understand Nietzsche's maxim "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" from different angles. In the end, Robertson leaves the reader with many takeaways from his experience in the field of psychology which has already had a profound affect on the way I view my mind, emotional state and battles with adversity; as malleable and flexible and not fixed. I believe this book will help many readers.

[Paiman Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ac­cept that your brain and mind re­main in­nately flex­i­ble. You have the abil­ity to gain con­trol over how you feel. Un­der­stand the im­por­tance of how you de­scribe your feel­ings in your mind. Hold­ing this be­lief strongly gives you the abil­ity to use an ap­pro­pri­ate com­bi­na­tion of your brain’s hard­ware and your mind’s soft­ware to cope with life’s prob­lems.

[Altan Suphandag · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a superb read. I like reading clear minded books written by scirnrist. Bu
Every chapter starts with a brief story, delves into the topic , and argues with authors personal research in the area, all made sure comprehensible by anyone who chooses read, from every walk of life.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the storytelling and knitting together of learning from various experiences that span decades. I felt my eyes widen as if lightbulbs were being turned on in my mind to illuminate nuggets of wisdom.

[GM · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting but not exactly groundbreaking

[Robert Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and found the author's theory convincing. But, can people please stop referencing the now debunked power posing research, please!?

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so glad I read this book. Robertson explains the connection between the brain and emotions, and helps the reader understand the cause/effect relationship.

[Chris Hakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book on the research behind stress but would have benefited for a more pragmatic summary of how to apply findings

[Sherly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for people who want to understand anxiety and how to channel it to make it more positive

[Vicki Lannerholm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Psychopathology can be real but so is stress... a must read book for every one of us. We have more power than we think.

[hemlet kiai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book!

[Candy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gets you thinking about the importance of being proactive in life.

[Reza Mahani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to read it a second time to write something meaningful, but I found the book fascinating.

[Cate (Kate) Caruso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a good read, but the fairly simple concept- your belief systems play a significant factor in your overall happiness - could be condensed into a smaller volume. Still, time well spent with a pioneer in the research of brain malleability.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished half
"This very simple technique worked because a straight posture and increased his arousal in the brain, as does a deep breath. Seen the word helps create what's known as an attentional set in the brain, in other words a plan or intention in this case to focus attention"