How to Make Good Things Happen: Know Your Brain, Enhance Your Life

Book excerpt: An empowering journey through the mechanisms of the mind from one of the world’s leading mental health experts. For those in pursuit of a better life, psychiatrist Marian Rojas Estapé presents the essential guide to neuroscience-driven mindfulness. Understanding your brain, managing your emotions, and being aware of your responses to stressors can give you greater self-control. Rather than a gimmicky guidebook, this is a thorough look at how our brains react to stress, threats, hyperstimulation, and the vices of our digital age. With proven techniques backed by solid, up-to-date psychiatric research, Estapé teaches us how to make the best of our lives. Combining science, psychology, and philosophy, Estapé delivers practical advice about how we can cultivate a happy existence. This includes understanding the parts of the brain, setting healthy goals and objectives, strengthening willpower, cultivating emotional intelligence, developing assertiveness, avoiding excessive self-criticism and self-demand, and mastering the proven art of optimism.