Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability

Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal

This riveting narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events. Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvardâ€™s research labs to a witch doctorâ€™s office in Catemaco, Mexico,Â to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called â€œChinaâ€™s Hogwartsâ€). Vanceâ€™s firsthand dispatches will change the way you thinkâ€”and feel.Â

Expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our â€œinternal pharmacyâ€â€”the very real chemical reactions our brains produce when we think we are experiencing pain or healing, actual or perceived. Supporting this idea is centuries of placebo research in a range of forms, from sugar pills to shock waves; studies of alternative medicine techniques heralded and condemned in different parts of the world (think crystals and chakras); and most recently, major advances in brain mapping technology. Thanks to this technology, we're learning how we might leverage our suggestibility (or lack thereof) for personalized medicine, and Vance brings us to the front lines of such study.
Country USA
Manufacturer National Geographic
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2016-11-08
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	National Geographic
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2016-11-08
Format	Kindle eBook

Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal

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