HEALTH & DIET

Unstoppable Brain: The New Neuroscience that Frees Us from Failure, Eases Our Stress, and Creates Lasting Change Kyra Bobinet | Forbes Books 208p, trade paper, $27.99, ASIN B0CN288FHD

“We are being controlled, without even realizing it, by our failures,” writes Bobinet (author of Well Designed Life). In this illuminating guide to adjusting one’s mindset, breaking old habits, and understanding the neuroscience of everyday choices, motivations, and anxieties, with an emphasis on the habenula, the “failure detector” and “kill switch” of future motivation,” the area of the brain that ensures that “whenever you think you have failed at something, you will suddenly find yourself unmotivated to keep doing it.” Unstoppable Brain is a transformative original resource that offers fresh approaches to mindset adjustment and behavioral changes, as Bobinet lays out, with welcome clarity, and the ways that the habenula might be diminishing our motivation in life, at work, on social media, and everywhere else.

Packed with tools to help with goal setting and tracking progress through wins and failures, Bobinet’s inviting book blends brain science and practical advice for creating a lifestyle that builds on habits and progress instead of checklists and disappointments. Bobinet’s explanations of some heady science about the brain’s hardwiring is always clear, relatable, and backed with anecdotes and case studies providing real-world context. Bobinet demonstrates throughout the technique and tools of iteration (performing or repeatedly doing something), highlighting, with a coach’s warmth and patience, ways to restructure mindset, to “trick” the habenula that responds to perceived failure, and begin successfully seeing results through changed behavior and creating habits for life.

Bobinet writes with persuasive power about the demotivating effects of common ideals of failure and success, and the somewhat more familiar material covering the development of life-changing habits is presented with a vigor for coinages and compelling research. Whether focusing on business, health, or self-growth, this stand-out guide will have readers quite literally changing their minds.

Cover: A- | Design & typography: A | Illustrations: – Editing: A | Marketing copy: A

Standout guide to training the brain not to fear failure. Great for fans of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, Wendy Suzuki’s Healthy Brain, Healthy Life.