Know Thyself

Posted on 03. Feb, 2010 by gilly in READ

It’s a fact: female brains have not only more interconnections than men’s but also more interconnections than they did merely 20 years ago. This allows us to multi-task and be many things at once (really great, and really challenging), lots of lit on that over the past 5 years. Now comes The New Feminine Brain by Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz (psychiatrist and brain expert) who explains how the way we cope with our life, our sadness, our aches and pains (i.e. how we respond to stuff, or don’t) physically rewires our brain. Meaning: there are physical consequences to ignoring your emotions and vice-versa.

Schulz describes the links between the physiological and the emotional and invites us to tune into our emotions and bodies at all times, or else. The complaints in attention and memory deficit and chronic mood swings I witness in my (balanced and objectively healthy) female friends is indication enough that we could stand to pay more attention to what the emotions coursing through us are signaling, and to what our body is trying to tell us.

This may seem obvious, it does to me, yet this book takes “being aware” to a deeper level. Don’t worry, nothing new-agey or voodoo here, Schulz simply melds her insights with medical research and with her clinical experience as a neuropsychiatrist. Her book is filled with expert health advice and self-help tips namely, cool ‘brain rewiring’ exercises, herbal and nutritional supplement recommendations, and even a generous amount of common sense. If you want to get a better handle on why you or are sad, angry, tired or restless this book could well provide the Aha’s you need.