Rewire Your OCD Brain: Powerful Neuroscience-Based Skills to Break Free from Obsessive Thoughts and Fears

by Catherine M. Pittman, William H. Youngs (Contributor)

Rewire the brain processes that cause obsessions and compulsions - and take back your life!

If you’ve ever wondered why you seem to get trapped in an endless cycle of obsessive, compulsive thoughts, you don’t have to wonder anymore. Grounded in cutting-edge neuroscience and evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), 'REWIRE YOUR OCD BRAIN' will show you how and why your brain gets stuck in a loop of obsessive thinking, uncertainty, and worry; and offers the tools you need to short-circuit this response and get your symptoms under control-for good. 

Written by clinical psychologist Catherine Pittman and clinical neuropsychologist William Youngs, this groundbreaking book will show how neurological functions in your brain lead to obsessions, compulsions, and anxiety. You’ll also find tons of proven-effective coping strategies to help you manage your worst symptoms.

The brain is powerful, and the more you work to change the way you respond to obsessive thoughts, the more resilient you’ll become. If you’re ready to rewire the brain processes that lie at the root of your obsessive thoughts, this book has everything you need to get started today.

Genres: Psychology, Self Help, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Health, Science

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2021

Reviews

[A.E. Bross · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, rounded to 5.0 because that's how math works ;)

I was pleasantly surprised with this book I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but apparently this audiobook not only met but exceeded my expectations. It was a deep, thorough exploration of the mechanisms of the brain that deal in anxiety, stress, and worry (all foundations on which OCD thinking usually comes from), how those mechanisms work, and various techniques that a person can practice in order to disrupt the mechanisms when they are working a bit too frequently or strongly to be of use.

The first third of the book goes into a deep understanding of the parts of the brain most affected by anxiety & OCD (the cortex and the amygdala) and how they interact or send messages to one another to ramp up the body's response to something that the brain has deemed threatening (whether it is or not). This section was a little dense. There was a lot of terminology (which the audiobook did explain quite well) and it was sometimes tricky to maintain focus on it.

The second and third sections of the book go more into disrupting both the amygdala led reactions and the cortex led reactions. To be honest, this book spend a majority of the time on how to manage the anxiety that often leads to OCD, which seems to be the best method to approach easing symptoms of OCD. I think this book was really useful for my mental health toolbox, to be honest, and I'd actually recommend it to people who have anxiety as well as OCD. Many of the methods can be translated over quite easily and it might help alleviate the stresses that people are dealing with.

My only "complaint" was that the narrator spoke very, very slowly. I had to listen to this on 1.5x speed, which sometimes made it difficult to follow (Hoopla's app doesn't have a 1.25x speed, which might have been the perfect happy medium). It obviously didn't ruin the experience, but it is worth noting for those who might listen to this audiobook.

[Ashley Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rewire Your OCD Brain by Catherine M. Pittman and William H. Youngs explains how your brain works and how you can take advantage of that to manage OCD.

The book focuses on the two main areas in the brain that are relevant to OCD, the cortex and amygdala. It explains the role of each, how they communicate with each other, and how that contributes to symptoms. Key points that are emphasized repeatedly are that thoughts are just thoughts, but the amygdala assumes they represent truth and generates the fight/flight/freeze response, which is misinterpreted as being a signal that there’s actual danger.

The authors also explain that the feeling like you’re going crazy sometimes actually makes a lot of sense when you know how the brain works, because the cortex (and therefore your conscious thought) isn’t in control of the vehicle when the amygdala is getting you ready to run away from the tiger that only exists in your thoughts. The authors aren’t dismissive with any of this, and reassure the reader that your amygdala is reacting the same way whether the tiger is in your thoughts or in front of you. There’s a lot of normalizing in a good way, as in, your brain does [x], so for you to experience [y] is to be expected, and it doesn’t mean you’re a freak.

The authors say that people with OCD underestimate how commonly people have random intrusive thoughts (it actually happens all the time), and a key difference is that in OCD, people get fused to their thoughts, thinking they represent absolute truth. These intrusive thoughts may come from the left hemisphere, which uses words, or the right hemisphere, which uses visuals and other sensory material.

After explaining all the background information on how things work, the book shifts into strategies for rewiring both the cortex and the amygdala. These strategies are all tied back into brain functioning, and the authors acknowledge that they may sound too simple to work, but they actually do. Exercise can help in the moment when you’re experiencing distress because the amygdala is preparing you to run away from the tiger, so exercising helps burn off some of that adrenaline rush. Slow, deep breathing recommended as the best anti-anxiety strategy there is, as it’s the most effective way to calm the amygdala. Exposure and response prevention is also discussed, and framed as the only way for the amygdala to learn what’s not dangerous.

I love the biology focus, because I’m really into that kind of thing in general. Even if it’s not generally your thing, though, knowing the underlying processes really helps to make it clear why OCD does what it does. Although it’s very brain-focused, the authors used clear, simple language without relying on a lot of jargon, and it doesn’t go into unnecessary detail. Everything is clearly related to how the brain stuff impacts the way people are feeling.

I think this book makes a great choice for anyone wanting to gain a greater understanding of the nuts and bolts behind OCD.



I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

[Emily Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really useful read for anyone with OCD. I had no idea about how the neural circuitry in the cortex and the body’s defence reaction triggered by the amygdala cause and contribute to obsessions and compulsions. The amygdala’s job is to protect us. Our brain is *trying* to protect us. Unfortunately, for people with OCD, it does this in a misguided way, keeping us focused on intrusive thoughts that produce frightening bodily reactions.

The authors outline ways to change thought patterns, accept the thoughts as just thoughts, and the importance of mindfulness in recovering from OCD. I would have liked to have seen more examples of specific types of OCD and these strategies being implemented, but overall it’s a very useful guide for individuals with OCD.

“What’s most important for you to know is that it is not your fault that OCD developed, and you should not blame yourself for that.”

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides valuable information on the OCD brain and outlines tools to help get OCD symptoms under control. As someone who lives with OCD, here is why I loved it.

The authors do an excellent job of explaining the inner workings of the OCD brain using everyday language and comparisons that are easy to digest and understand. Even when it got a bit scientific, I never became overwhelmed or confused, and I learned so much about how and why my brain functions the way it does. I also learned more about how and why some people may be predisposed to OCD.

Also, this book outlines so many helpful coping strategies and methods, and includes different types of tools for different types of people. I already practice some of these methods, but others are brand new to me!

Personally, I feel so seen and heard in this book. The authors sprinkle in little scenarios that are so incredibly relatable to someone with OCD, and reading these scenarios made me feel less alone.

Finally, it’s easy to see that the authors genuinely care about helping people who live with OCD, and that goes a long way for me as a reader and as someone who lives with this disorder.

I highly recommend this to anyone struggling with OCD or to anyone who wants to learn more about this mental health disorder.

Thank you to NetGalley and New Harbinger Publications for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. This book publishes June 1, 2021.

[Dianna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It would had been a 5/5 but it's too much science related (not a lot of advice).

[Clare · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok maybe my bad for reading this because it’s CBT based but this was not super helpful.

[Lindsay Doyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and easy to comprehend without a background in psychology or neuroscience. I learned a lot of things that I believe I can implement into my OCD management!

[kale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a while to finish this one but it did have a lot of valuable information in it. I would recommend this book to anyone else that struggles with OCD

[Kimberly Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rewire your OCD brain by Catherine M. Pittman and William Youngs attempts to explain how and why your brain gets stuck in obsessive thoughts. This book delves deeply into the underpinnings of the brain and the two main areas of the brain that directly impact obsessive thinking: the amygdala and the cortex. The authors clearly explain these parts of the brain and how they contribute to and impact obsessive thinking patterns. Not only is the anatomy discussed, but also, proven strategies to combat your OCD. Some of these include: relaxation, exercise, sleep, distraction, and changing your thinking. This book is an amazing resource for anyone trying to not only gain a greater understanding of the biology behind OCD, but also, those that are trying to engage in techniques to combat OCD. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Jung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learn how your brain works to gain control over your obsessive mind

Let’s begin this book with an example.

Manuel has been brilliant at work, but faced with the prospect of an upcoming presentation, he becomes anxious. As the day of the presentation draws closer, he starts to fret more and more about what he’s left out.

After going over his work several times, he starts to scrutinize sentences to make sure they’re well structured. The idea of standing in front of his bosses terrifies him so much that he finds himself sweating even at the thought of it.

Manuel is a classic case of an obsessive person. Every obsessive person has some behavior that has a hold over them and, in extreme cases, can seriously impair their lives and relationships.

Luckily, recent advances in neuroscience and brain imaging have now provided some answers to what’s going on in the brain when we worry, and with this knowledge, we can begin to reverse obsessive habits before they get out of hand. That’s the gift you’re about to unwrap in this book Rewire Your OCD Brain by Catherine M. Pittman and William H. Youngs.

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Worries, anxieties, and obsessions

What qualifies as an obsessive thought? To answer this, it’s important to first make the distinction among worries, anxieties, and the thoughts that come to dominate a person’s life.

When you worry, you’re thinking about what could go wrong. Unlike an obsessive thought, this changes from time to time, depending on the circumstances or the day. In this situation you move on once you get a result.

Anxieties tend to hang around longer, but usually also dissipate with time.

Obsessions, though, simply don’t go away. Let’s say you just had an interview for a job. You keep thinking about what happened, what might have happened, or what will happen once they start reviewing your file.

Then you pick up your certificates and start searching for the grades that might bring you down. From here you start stressing about that math class you hated in school – and it just goes on and on and on. That’s an obsessive behavior you’re likely to repeat even after you get the job.

Whether inherited or acquired through experience, these thoughts have one thing in common: they work in cycles. They lurk in the background and influence the way you live and the decisions you make.

For another person it might be the image of a violent scene that keeps popping up in their mind – maybe an accident or thoughts of an assault, and the fear that that generates.

An obsession might also take the form of an impulse. Someone might suddenly feel the urge to drive in front of a moving train, and then hold that thought to the point where the person starts obsessing about self-harm.

Obsessive thoughts take different forms, but they embody common themes – the fear of contamination, a strong desire to organize things and events in a particular order, violence and aggression, sexual violence and impulses, and the desire to avoid mistakes.

Religious obsessions can cripple people with guilt or embolden them with a conviction to act in the hope they’ll find relief. Every obsessive person will do something to find relief, repeatedly performing an act till it becomes a compulsion.

Do you find yourself going to check the door every ten minutes, or getting annoyed if your shoes are not in a particular order? Maybe you keep reading that email you’ve read 20 times already.

Compulsive behaviors provide relief, but it’s only temporary. Long-term solutions start with addressing the root cause of anxiety – and that’s what you’re going to learn next.

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The amygdala’s role in anxiety and obsession

Now, imagine it’s a Friday and you’re driving to a neighboring town to catch up with some old friends. Suddenly, a car speeds into your lane as you drive down the freeway. Your reaction is instant. You swerve off the road and hit the brakes as you pull up on the grass.

You might think you made that call, but the decision was actually made before you became consciously aware of it.

You go through this same decision-making process every second, it just happens on a smaller scale. Your five senses are always picking up information to feed to your brain. Most of this feedback happens subconsciously, so you’re hardly aware of how you come to some of the decisions you make.

There are two possible sensory pathways information can take when picked up by any one or more of your sensory organs.

When, say, you enter a hot room, your skin sends that information to your thalamus, near the center of your brain. From here the information is relayed to your brain’s cortex, where the information is processed.

At this stage, you’re not reacting yet to how hot the room is. This is because the processed information hasn’t reached the captain of the ship. When the cortex interprets the information and sends it to the captain, a small part of your brain called the amygdala, it’ll steer you into action. That’s when you open the window or turn on the AC.

This thoughtful action uses the cortex pathway to process information. That’s the first of our two sensory pathways.

Now, if you’re walking down the street and someone fires a weapon, your reaction has to be more urgent. Processing the information in the cortex will waste valuable time, so it goes straight to the amygdala.

The amygdala tells your body to produce more adrenaline and glucose so you can sprint off to safety. It narrows your eyes to focus on where you’re running to. The amygdala is the organ kicking off the reaction that diverts blood flow from your digestive system to your muscles so you can vanish.

You’ll barely be aware of some of the moves you make. That’s because information will be going from your thalamus straight to your amygdala through what is called – you guessed it – the amygdala pathway. That’s the second of our two sensory pathways.

When this works, it’s a lifesaving mechanism. Trouble is, the amygdala lacks the capacity to read and interpret information. If it sees a barking dog coming toward you, it assumes the worst and triggers a reaction even when there might be no problem at all.

Why can’t you just order this illiterate watchman to behave, you might wonder.

Well, that’s really difficult. Millions of years of human evolution have trained the amygdala to sniff threats and either fight, flee, or freeze. You’re dealing with a wily client that can’t seem to forget how it helped our ancestors escape wild animals and invading tribes.

Its motto is “Better safe than sorry.”

This human defense mechanism is meant to protect you, but once it falsely labels an action as a threat, it will continue to trigger a reaction whenever it comes across something similar, causing you anxiety. For people with OCD, this reaction is intense.

And while people can't control the data that bypasses their cortex for their amygdala, there are other ways they can start controlling their own anxiety.

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How your cortex causes anxiety

You’ve learned how your amygdala activates an uncontrollable defense response when unprocessed information reaches it directly from the thalamus. But sometimes it’s not just your amygdala causing your anxiety – it’s you. This means you can control this.

Take Sheila, for example, who wakes up with a headache. Her thoughts soon drift to fears about a brain tumor as she contemplates the pain in her head. Sheila’s aware of these thoughts because they’re happening in her cortex, but her amygdala’s monitoring through connections it has with the cortex. It misreads the commotion and triggers a defense response, causing distress.

In Sheila’s case, it’s a sensory input from her pain that’s causing her anxiety.

Now consider Tony, who’s enjoying his coffee on a cozy train ride. He starts thinking about his girlfriend, and how she hasn’t texted him this morning. Now he wonders if he’s doing enough to make her happy. And then he starts worrying about losing her. He feels an urge to text, but is scared she’ll be mad if he wakes her.

Unlike Sheila’s anxiety which is triggered by her headache – a sensory input – Tony’s anxiety is purely thought-generated. Both cases produce the same result. The conscious thoughts generated in the cortex will trigger a defense response in each person.

The defense can cause hormonal changes as the body prepares to fight, flee, or freeze. A person with OCD might interpret the emotional changes as a validation of their fears. This validation reinforces the anxiety, and they start to spiral into cycles of distress.

Cognitive fusion – the tendency to believe things we imagine – can be amplified by the human capacity to anticipate and react well before danger is close. In many ways it’s a superpower. That’s how humans organize to build skyscrapers and predict storms.

The defense mechanisms of people with OCD, however, overestimate the danger, sending the amygdala into overdrive. When a woman with OCD randomly thinks about hurting her child, she has no idea that 90 percent of people will have flashes of thought that make no sense to them. The only difference between her and others is that she dwells on the thought, which reinforces it to the point where she is afraid she poses a danger to her own baby.

Knowing the root cause of anxiety is a great step to ridding yourself of guilt and engaging in the processes that will help you manage obsessions.

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Managing obsessive behavior

By now you have a good understanding of your body’s defense response and how that leads to anxiety and fuels obsessions. So how do you use that knowledge to live a more fulfilling life?

First, it helps to review a situation when your internal alarm goes off. Remember, false signals can trigger a defense response. When the alarm goes off and you start to feel extreme anxiety, observe and acknowledge your body’s reaction and take note of the symptoms.

In the case of a panic attack, notice the rate at which your heart pounds, how tense your muscles feel, and whether you’re sweating. This level of self-awareness diverts some attention from the crisis, reducing the activation level of the amygdala. You’ll also learn to see these reactions as normal and less threatening afterwards.

Another trick when you panic or experience obsessive thoughts is diversion. The mind can’t give the same level of focus to two things at once, so replace a thought with another, more interesting or engaging one. Go out, call someone, and try fun tasks that require less effort.

While these conscious attempts at pacifying your defense response can be helpful, you have to remember that the troops must go to war once they’ve been rallied. The defense response has to run its course once it’s been initiated. Fortunately for you, you can redirect these restless forces to show their bravado in less harmful places.

Spend that extra energy on exercise and outdoor activities. Once it's spent, the amygdala will order a retreat, and you’ll experience less stress. Your muscles will then relax and your heart rate will begin to slow down. Exercise also releases some of the same feel-good hormones that are triggered by prescribed anxiety medication, giving you a boost without side effects.

You now understand your amazing capacity to contemplate things in the distant future – a superpower that triggers a defense response when it anticipates problems you might never even encounter. Bring yourself back to the present when you notice yourself drifting. See, feel, listen, and experience the things in your immediate environment.

Practice deep breathing, mindful meditation, and muscle relaxation exercises to mitigate defense triggers. If you can’t dismiss obsessive thoughts when you go to bed, try reading or listening to a podcast to divert your thoughts. Imagine something pleasant you’d like to see or experience, or hold tight to a fond memory.

As you incorporate mindfulness, presence, deep breathing, and exercise into your daily life, try as much as you can to recognise those things you can control, and those that are out of your reach. Acceptance and gratitude for what you have will make you less obsessive about things you can’t control.

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Rewiring your brain

Taming your brain’s natural defense mechanism is tough, but the brain has an intriguing property that makes it pretty malleable with consistent effort.

Spiders and barking dogs might scare a little kid, granted, but consider the case of kids eating at a McDonald’s with their parents. Not so scary, right? But if one of them – say, Tom – is yelled at for rubbing barbecue sauce on his face, his brain might later register barbecue sauce as a threat because of its association with yelling.

That’s how your brain learns – by associating circumstances or objects with emotion, whether positive or negative.

Tom might grow up to be suspicious of barbecue sauce, depending on how that event affected and shaped him. Maybe he even forgets that it ever happened, but his amygdala remembers and rings the alarm whenever it encounters barbecue sauce in the future.

Because the amygdala lacks the capacity to process and explain what’s going on like the cortex can, it triggers a fight, flight, or freeze response, resulting in anxiety or obsessive thoughts.

What’s going on here?

In simple terms, barbecue sauce code travels in the brain through a particular set of neurons every time. Yelling code travels its own route, every time. Firing these two codes through their different routes at the same time strengthens their association as well as the trauma that’s linked to them.

This sounds depressing, but it should actually give you hope. What this means is that if you’re firing a different set of neurons associated with delightful objects or events, you initiate and memorize warmth.

Use this knowledge to engage in new activities that create new associations, and new pathways and structures will start to form in your gorgeous brain. Done repeatedly, the physical structure of the brain will actually change – no matter your age. This is what neuroscientists call neuroplasticity.

This technique can be used to slowly reintroduce you to your anxieties through exposure therapy. When this happens, you’re teaching your amygdala not to fear what it previously fought against.

Through this process, you’re also learning to tolerate the symptoms it activates. It’s crucial that you resist compulsive behaviors while you take this step. Indulging in compulsive behavior will fire neurons associated with your obsessions and trigger a defense response. A good exposure can guide you through this process.

Taking these steps in the right doses over time will rewire your OCD brain.

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Obsessive thoughts can dominate your life, but understanding how your brain works is the key to managing distress and anxiety. What happens when you become anxious is a natural defensive mechanism that’s meant to protect you, yet your system can be triggered based on false or exaggerated threats.

Your capacity to think can also trigger your system to anticipate and fight phantom threats. Sometimes the war in your body is declared without your knowledge. So try to always maintain a second perspective or look at the evidence critically when you become aware of anxiety. When you do get triggered, find a distraction, exercise, or just observe and let a panic attack run its course. Don’t over think random thoughts.

To achieve the best results, use your brain’s ability to form new routes and structures to create new memories and associations. Gradually engage your fears through exposure therapy till your body learns how harmless some threats can be. Doing this consistently will set you up to live your best life.

[Gunjan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a person who lives with OCD, starting this book in itself was a challenge for me, as I lived in this perpetual fear of making my OCD worse by reading about it and I have been proved wrong. This book has helped me beyond anything, I can actually feel the results. I now know two mischievous kids of my brain who create all this ruckus and whenever I feel anxiety or obsession to get over with that ancient I just scold those two kids or just show them their place, life has become fun this way, honestly.

[Katelyn Childs]

A good resource for those experiencing OCD

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had found this book years ago. Feel a lot more compassion for myself and recognition that I'm not a terrible person, it's just how my brain is wired.

[Christine B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow that was such a eye opening book!

[Panda Incognito · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a lot of different books about OCD, and this one stands out as unique. It focuses on the origins of OCD in the brain, and even though it provides self-help ideas, coping skills, and information about effective OCD therapies, a significant part of the book addresses the neuroscience of OCD, helping readers understand the role of the amygdala and cortex in fueling and prolonging anxiety.

This book is perfect for readers who are interested in a scientific angle on the subject, but people who aren't interested in science shouldn't let this element scare them away. The authors explain everything in clear, simple terms, and they use real-world analogies and illustrated figures to help people understand the workings of their brain. This can be a huge encouragement and help for people who have already read about intrusive thoughts and compulsions, but want to get a glimpse behind the curtain to why their brain has created and prolonged this issue to begin with.

Because this focuses so much on the brain's role in OCD, rather than the details of how people experience OCD, I wouldn't recommend this as someone's first resource. The authors do a great job of explaining different sub-types of OCD, and they illustrate their abstract points with concrete, detailed examples from OCD sufferers' diverse experiences, but if someone is just beginning to learn about OCD for themselves or a loved one, I would encourage them to start with another book that covers the topic more broadly, and then turn to this resource. This is a great way to build on an foundational understanding of the disorder, but I believe that people will get the most out of it if they have already addressed more basic questions and considerations about what OCD is.

I really appreciate this book and respect the effort that went into writing it. The coauthors write in a single, unified voice, and they keep the complex content easy to understand, instead of relying on psychological jargon. They also provide good, well-evidenced advice for the benefits of mindfulness, sleep, and healthy breathing to regulate anxiety, and include tips for how people can pursue these things if they find them difficult. They also write about CBT and ERP, and what they had to say about ERP was particularly helpful because of what they had already written about how the brain works. Someone who is resistant to trying exposure therapy is likely to find this book especially eye-opening, persuasive, and helpful.

This book is suitable for people to work through independently or alongside a therapist, and it can be helpful to a variety of audiences. I would recommend it to anyone suffering from OCD, and to those who support them, but it can also be helpful for people who suffer from anxiety, worry, or perfectionism more generally, even if they wouldn't quality for an OCD diagnosis. I found this book's content and perspective very helpful, and appreciate the authors' expertise and unique approach.

I received a PDF copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We are the descendents of the frightened people…Just think about what could go wrong in that situation and you have a worry.” Anxiety is “our brain’s interpretation of a set of physiological reactions…but which don’t always indicate danger.”

“If you want to understand your amygdala, don’t listen to the cortex…What starts in the amygdala does not always stay in the amygdala.” Anxieties “are not part of the amygdala’s language but come from the cortex’s interpretation.”

In the courtroom of the mind, the cortex serves as a defendant, justifying amygdala based reactions. “The cortex produces thoughts and images, and the amygdala initiates…the emotional and physical” response are two pathways to get to the root of anxiety.

“Cortex circuitry follows the law of ‘survival of the busiest.’” Cognitive fusion is “the tendency to take thoughts, images, or urges as accurate indicators of reality” (aka “mistaking a thought for reality”). “Memories are formed when two neurons are firing at the same time…neurons that fire together wire together…What is paired leads to ‘SCARED!’”

“Obsessions need to be starved of attention.” ERP reduces “a fear that is blocking you from accomplishing a goal that is important to you.” Anxiety is overestimating threats; courage is learning to respond differently despite anxiety.

“Any intellectual accomplishment is ultimately the result of multiple influences in one’s life.” In Rewire Your OCD Brain, Catherine M. Pittman, PhD, and William H. Youngs PhD act as treasure hunting guides through the labyrinth of the mind and provide the tools to access your funds of bravery and break free of OCD!

[chaptersbydani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seeks to help folks with ODC by describing the brain function behind OCD as well as suggesting tips to help cope. Overall, I do think this book is helpful and I would suggest reading it if you can borrow it from a local library. My issues with the book:

* short as it is, the book is highly repetitive. I kept double checking to see if my e-book had malfunctioned because entire passages sounded the same just slightly re-worded.
* the science parts were really science-y. It’s not layman friendly despite their target audience. It took me days to get through Part 1 of the book (when traditionally I can get through the same number of pages in less than an hour).
* The solutions are pretty much all of the same ones you’ve heard before if you’ve been to therapy once or twice.
* A couple of the solutions conflicted with the science parts of the book. For example, if you have OCD you’re not supposed to obsess or worry about keeping your mind free/clean from your obsessive thoughts but you should set “obsession free” times during the day?

[Jas’s library. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me understand just how common anxiety is, helping me feel less alone in my struggle. It also helped me understand that avoiding, seeking reassurance and ruminating are also forms of compulsion and how limiting these coping mechanisms will actually help with the problem. Unfortunately the saying my mum has always told me feel the fear and do it any way is something that rings forever true in this book, as retraining your amygdala to not expect the worst case scenario can only be accomplished through facing the fear and seeing that it isn’t as scary as your brain makes you think it is.

[Lubinka Dimitrova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally known stuff, but clearly explained, good advice offered, simple steps outlined. Honestly though, some of the examples used were rather disturbing - seeing a beautiful child, I wouldn't immediately jump to the thought that I might molest it or kill it, creating a source of anxiety for myself. That (and a few others very much like that) were oddly specific and even more oddly, repeated way too many times to simply brush it off as some random example among many. Still, quite an insightful book.

[Libby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a good read if you are new to learning about OCD, but I found it relatively surface level. I was hoping for a neuroscience perspective on OCD, which I was starting to get in the first chapter, but then it quickly dissolved into explaining for far too long why sleep and exercise are the solutions. Might recommend to someone who doesn't know where to start- but not to someone who already has experience/knowledge of OCD.

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great place to start with understanding OCD. The book focuses on treating OCD through neuroscience by explaining how the amygdala and cortex function, and how they are affected by OCD. With a this explanation, the book also provides realistic activities to work on OCD compulsions.

The only complaint I have is that the section on rewiring the cortex is a bit weaker than the one on the amygdala. I would have liked to see some more activities incorporated into the section.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb!
Such a balance between "this is your brain, this is what's happening, and it's your problem to solve" and "Betterment is totally possible and here's how, let's do it, let's do it together." The authors were masterful at showing realities while also instilling hope and passion.
I'm definitely reading this again.

[Jessie Vogel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is hands down the BEST book I have ever read regarding anxiety, how the brain works, and how to literally rewire your brain. I’m a therapist and this book has helped me with so many clients and even myself. Author does a phenomenal job of explaining the science of the brain, and the science of rewiring the brain to have a better and less anxious life. 1000/10 recommend to ANYONE

[Elena P.O. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one is more scientific and goes into the 'how this happens' than the 'how you fix it'. That part of the book (mainly the first part) is the most engaging and gives a lot of useful information on how an OCD brain works (TLDR; overactive amygdala). Overall, it's good for educational purposes, but not the best if you want to treat the OCD.

[Tsinoy Foodies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explains how our brain response works so we can acknowledge, avoid overthinking and gradually reprogram by neuroplasticity to form new routes and structures and create new and positive memories and associations.

[Marjan Kloosterboer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely great. It has helped me so much by understanding what is happening in my brain. I can highly recommend it to anyone struggling with anxiety, panic and/or OCD themselves or someone near to them who wants to understand it better.

[Castles · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very good little book that deals mostly with the latest technical things we know about OCD and how the mechanism of it works in the brain. what I liked most about it is the conclusion that mindfulness meditation is one of the biggest answers to dealing with OCD and anxiety, which is very true.

[Samuel Domenico · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing, absolutely life changing. I was skeptical, but I cannot recommend this book enough. It really helps you to do as the title says "Rewire your OCD brain." I highly recommend this for anyone with anxiety related from OCD. You will not regret it.

[Roy Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author understands Obsessive Compulsive Disorder better than other experts I have come across. However, I wouldn't recommend this book to someone with OCD or someone who has a loved one with OCD. They miss the biggest aspects of resolving this disorder.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic! Not only did I learn about the science of OCD/anxiety, but different tools to utilize to ease compulsions. I have already started putting into practice some of the techniques and they are working. Very glad I read this.