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Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: The New Science of Optimism and Pessimism
by
Elaine Fox
Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Glass half-full or half-empty? Do you look on the bright side or turn towards the dark? These are easy questions for most of us to answer, because our personality types are hard-wired into our brains. As pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Elaine Fox has discovered, our outlook on life reflects our primal inclination to seek pleasu...more
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
June 7th 2012
by William Heinemann
(first published June 1st 2012)
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**A favorable brain forecast**
What's the weather like in your brain?
As Elaine Fox clearly demonstrates in _Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain_, our emotional climates and forecasts are deeply influenced by the unique neurological wiring of each of our brains:
“The roots of our sunny brain are embedded deep in pleasure, the parts of our neural architecture that respond to rewards and the good things in life, while the roots of our rainy brain lie deep among the ancient brain structures that alert us to dan...more
What's the weather like in your brain?
As Elaine Fox clearly demonstrates in _Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain_, our emotional climates and forecasts are deeply influenced by the unique neurological wiring of each of our brains:
“The roots of our sunny brain are embedded deep in pleasure, the parts of our neural architecture that respond to rewards and the good things in life, while the roots of our rainy brain lie deep among the ancient brain structures that alert us to dan...more
I think that emotion regulation and rational / reasonable optimism (‘a healthy and responsive rainy-brain as well as a healthy and responsive sunny-brain’) are very important but, until now I haven't been able to find a serious popular book on the topic. Mostly I find magical thinking or an elaborate system of recommendations with some hand waving, and I can't understand how and why they work. Here, I finally get a theory with plenty of supporting scientific evidence to start considering it seri...more
I reviewed this new book on the neuroscience behind optimism for The Philadelphia Inquirer. http://bit.ly/RainySunnyBrain Turns out the brain is malleable, which is good news for us pessimists. Fox details the why and how of brain wiring and emotion without stooping to the promises of cheap self-help. Highly recommended. (Teaser: Meditation changes the brain for the better!)
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This book definitely had some interesting stuff (particularly how optimism and pessimism relate to the fear and pleasure centres of our brain), and is worth reading. BUT, was still a bit of a let down. I think I was hoping for more of the "how", when instead I got more of the "why". There was a lot of detail explaining the science behind brain functioning, and the specific mechanics of optimism and pessimism. Which, again, was interesting, but didn't offer much in the way of concrete steps on ho...more
This is another of the new surge of psychology and brain science books being cranked out by the scientists themselves.
In this case, Elaine Fox, an Oxford University researcher, travels some well-worn ground on earlier experiments showing how our emotional center, the amygdala, and our control areas in the prefrontal cortex are linked to each other, and how dysfunctions in those connections underlie everything from anxiety to OCD to depression.
But her larger purpose in Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain is...more
Excellent summary of recent neuroscience research on how the brain works to create pessimistic and/or optimistic outlook. I agree that the subtitle is misleading - it is not a how to self-help book. I imagine that was not the author's choice of title but rather the publisher's marketing attempt to draw in readers. I do think that this book fits in well with explaining the biological underpinnings of the different sorts of cognitive therapies that use thoughts to "re-train" your brain.
I would als...more
I would als...more
It's hilarious to me that all this 'new' science and ways of helping/curing people with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and OCD has been written in the Bible for thousands of years. Re-training the brain for a more happy life, epigenetics, CBM procedures...yep...it's all there. Goes to show that if you want to know how a massively complicated piece of machinery works, you should ask the guy who designed and built it, not the guy who tickers with it on weekends in his garage!
This book is very misleadingly titled. It has a lot of info on how the brain works to interpret stimuli, and why, but almost nothing on "how to retrain your brain", aside from meditation, and striving to come up with 3 positive thoughts for every negative one. It provides proof that the brain retains plasticity, and thus, pessimistic people by nature can, over time, with effort, become more optimistic, but this is most definitely NOT a "how to" book. And it's incredibly boring.
Fascinating book about optimism and pessimism and the science behind it. I found this really interesting and everything is explained really well. A good book to read if you are interested in psychology.
Wow, so, so boring!
WARNING!!! Not at all as described on the cover.
Excellent and readable overview of current research and experimentation in brain science.
But no actual "help" as to "how" to actually retrain your own brain. Only that science is proving that it is possible and that the brain has so much power to heal and expand in its abilities.
Excellent and readable overview of current research and experimentation in brain science.
But no actual "help" as to "how" to actually retrain your own brain. Only that science is proving that it is possible and that the brain has so much power to heal and expand in its abilities.
Cbt, meditation , try to find realistic positives , keep learning
Well written and guides us through the steps we should all try!
Strong explanation of neural networks & how they correlate to optimism/pessimism. Last chapter is the best with an overarching firebombing of good advice/treatment explanation.
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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Elaine Fox is a psychologist and neuroscientist who has researched widely on the science of emotions. She grew up in the 1970s in Dublin and has worked at St James Hospital Dublin, University College Dublin, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and has been a visiting senior scientist at th...more
More about Elaine Fox...
(2)various
Elaine Fox is a psychologist and neuroscientist who has researched widely on the science of emotions. She grew up in the 1970s in Dublin and has worked at St James Hospital Dublin, University College Dublin, Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and has been a visiting senior scientist at th...more
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