Maria Shriver

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the celebrated author of Inward comes the second in series, a collection of poetry and short prose focused on understanding how past wounds impact our present relationships. In Clarity & Connection, Yung Pueblo describes how intense emotions accumulate in our subconscious and condition us to act and react in certain ways. In his characteristically spare, poetic style, he guides readers through the excavation and release of the past that is required for growth. To be read on its own or as a complement to Inward, Yung Pueblo’s second work is a powerful resource for those invested in the work of personal transformation, building self-awareness, and deepening their connection with others.

Thou Shalt Not Be Horrible. Imagine for a moment what the world might look like if we as people of faith, morality, and conscience actually aspired to this mantra. What if we were fully burdened to create a world that was more loving and equitable than when we arrived? What if we invited one another to share in wide-open, fearless, spiritual communities truly marked by compassion and interdependence? What if we daily challenged ourselves to live a faith that simply made us better humans? John Pavlovitz explores how we can embody this kinder kind of spirituality where we humbly examine our belief system to understand how it might compel us to act in less-than-loving ways toward others. This simple phrase, "Thou Shalt Not Be Horrible," could help us practice what we preach by creating a world where: spiritual community provides a sense of belonging where all people are received as we are;the most important question we ask of a religious belief is not Is it true? but rather, is it helpful?it is morally impossible to pledge complete allegiance to both Jesus and America simultaneously;the way we treat others is the most tangible and meaningful expression of our belief system.In If God Is Love, Don't Be a Jerk, John Pavlovitz examines the bedrock ideas of our religion: the existence of hell, the utility of prayer, the way we treat LGBTQ people, the value of anger, and other doctrines to help all of us take a good, honest look at how the beliefs we hold can shape our relationships with God and our fellow humans―and to make sure that love has the last, loudest word.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER “Brilliant . . . riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick, as heard on Fresh Air This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery. Review “Anna Lembke deeply understands an experience I hear about often in the therapy room at the nexus between our modern addictions and our primal brains. Her stories of guiding people to find a healthy balance between pleasure and pain have the power to transform your life.” —Lori Gottlieb, “Dear Therapist” columnist at The Atlantic, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone “Just when you thought you knew all you needed to know about the addiction crisis, along comes Dr. Anna Lembke with her second brilliant book on the topic—this one not about a drug but about the most powerful chemical of all: the dopamine that rules the pain and pleasure centers of our minds. In an era of overconsumption and instant gratification, Dopamine Nation explains the personal and societal price of being ruled by the next fix—and how to manage it. No matter what you might find yourself over-indulging in—from the internet to food to work to sex—you’ll find this book riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued. Lembke weaves patient stories with research, in a voice that’s as empathetic as it is clear-eyed.” —Beth Macy, author of Washington Post Best Book of the Year, New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and bestseller Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America “We all desire a break from our routines and those parts of life that upset us. What if, instead of trying to escape these things, we learn to turn toward them, to reach a peaceful harmony with our selves and the people we share our lives with? Lembke has written a book that radically changes the way we think about mental illness, pleasure, pain, reward, and stress. Turn toward it. You’ll be happy you did.” —Daniel Levitin, New York Times bestselling author of The Organized Mind and Successful Aging “Explore[s] the dichotomy between seeking a readily accessible hit of dopamine—from our phones, gambling, or a bag of Fritos—and maintaining healthy, productive, stable lives.” —The New York Times, Inside the Bestseller List “[An] eye-opening survey on pleasure-seeking and addiction . . . Readers looking for balance will return to Lembke’s informative and fascinating guidance.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Fascinating case histories, and a sensible formula for treatment.” —Kirkus Reviews About the Author Anna Lembke is the medical director of Stanford Addiction Medicine, program director for the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding research in mental illness, for excellence in teaching, and for clinical innovation in treatment. A clinician scholar, she has published more than a hundred peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and commentaries in prestigious outlets such as The New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA. She sits on the board of several state and national addiction-focused organizations, has testified before various committees in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, keeps an active speaking calendar, and maintains a thriving clinical practice. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction The Problem Feeling good, feeling good, all the money in the world spent on feeling good.-Levon Helm This book is about pleasure. It's also about pain. Most important, it's about the relationship between pleasure and pain, and how understanding that relationship has become essential for a life well lived.Why?Because we've transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance: Drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . the increased numbers, variety, and potency of highly rewarding stimuli today is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. If you haven't met your drug of choice yet, it's coming soon to a website near you.Scientists rely on dopamine as a kind of universal currency for measuring the addictive potential of any experience. The more dopamine in the brain's reward pathway, the more addictive the experience.In addition to the discovery of dopamine, one of the most remarkable neuroscientific findings in the past century is that the brain processes pleasure and pain in the same place. Further, pleasure and pain work like opposite sides of a balance.We've all experienced that moment of craving a second piece of chocolate, or wanting a good book, movie, or video game to last forever. That moment of wanting is the brain's pleasure balance tipped to the side of pain.This book aims to unpack the neuroscience of reward and, in so doing, enable us to find a better, healthier balance between pleasure and pain. But neuroscience is not enough. We also need the lived experience of human beings. Who better to teach us how to overcome compulsive overconsumption than those most vulnerable to it: people with addiction.This book is based on true stories of my patients falling prey to addiction and finding their way out again. They've given me permission to tell their stories so that you might benefit from their wisdom, as I have. You may find some of these stories shocking, but to me they are just extreme versions of what we are all capable of. As philosopher and theologian Kent Dunnington wrote, "Persons with severe addictions are among those contemporary prophets that we ignore to our own demise, for they show us who we truly are."Whether it's sugar or shopping, voyeuring or vaping, social media posts or the Washington Post, we all engage in behaviors we wish we didn't, or to an extent we regret. This book offers practical solutions for how to manage compulsive overconsumption in a world where consumption has become the all-encompassing motive of our lives.In essence, the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery. Part I The Pursuit of Pleasure Chapter 1 Our Masturbation Machines I went to greet Jacob in the waiting room. First impression? Kind. He was in his early sixties, middleweight, face soft but handsome . . . aging well enough. He wore the standard-issue Silicon Valley uniform: khakis and a casual button-down shirt. He looked unremarkable. Not like someone with secrets. As Jacob followed me through the short maze of hallways, I could feel his anxiety like waves rolling off my back. I remembered when I used to get anxious walking patients back to my office. Am I walking too fast? Am I swinging my hips? Does my ass look funny? It seems so long ago now. I admit I'm a battle-hardened version of my former self, more stoic, possibly more indifferent. Was I a better doctor then, when I knew less and felt more?We arrived at my office and I shut the door behind him. Gently, I offered him one of two identical, equal-in-height, two-feet-apart, green-cushioned, therapy-sanctioned chairs. He sat. So did I. His eyes took in the room. My office is ten by fourteen feet, with two windows, a desk with a computer, a sideboard covered with books, and a low table between the chairs. The desk, the sideboard, and the low table are all made of matching reddish-brown wood. The desk is a hand-me-down from my former department chair. It's cracked down the middle on the inside, where no one else can see it, an apt metaphor for the work I do. On top of the desk are ten separate piles of paper, perfectly aligned, like an accordion. I am told this gives the appearance of organized efficiency.The wall decor is a hodgepodge. The requisite diplomas, mostly unframed. Too lazy. A drawing of a cat I found in my neighbor's garbage, which I took for the frame but kept for the cat. A multicolored tapestry of children playing in and around pagodas, a relic from my time teaching English in China in my twenties. The tapestry has a coffee stain, but it's only visible if you know what you're looking for, like a Rorschach. On display is an assortment of knickknacks, mostly gifts from patients and students. There are books, poems, essays, artwork, postcards, holiday cards, letters, cartoons. One patient, a gifted artist and musician, gave me a photograph he had taken of the Golden Gate Bridge overlaid with his hand-drawn musical notes. He was no longer suicidal when he made it, yet it's a mournful image, all grays and blacks. Another patient, a beautiful young woman embarrassed by wrinkles that only she saw and no amount of Botox could erase, gave me a clay water pitcher big enough to serve ten. To the left of my computer, I keep a small print of Albrecht Durer's Melencolia 1. In the drawing, Melancholia personified as a woman sits in a room surrounded by the neglected tools of industry and time: a protractor, a scale, an hourglass, a hammer. Her starving dog, ribs protruding from his sunken frame, waits patiently and in vain for her to rouse herself.To the right of my computer, a five-inch clay angel with wings wrought from wire stretches her arms skyward. The word courage is engraved at her feet. She's a gift from a colleague who was cleaning out her office. A leftover angel. I'll take it. I'm grateful for this room of my own. Here, I am suspended out of time, existing in a world of secrets and dreams. But the space is also tinged with sadness and longing. When my patients leave my care, professional boundaries forbid that I contact them. As real as our relationships are inside my office, they cannot exist outside this space. If I see my patients at the grocery store, I'm hesitant even to say hello lest I declare myself a human being with needs of my own. What, me eat?Years ago when I was in my psychiatry residency training, I saw my psychotherapy supervisor outside his office for the first time. He emerged from a shop wearing a trench coat and an Indiana Jones-style fedora. He looked like he'd just stepped off the cover of a J. Peterman catalogue. The experience was jarring. I'd shared many intimate details of my life with him, and he had counseled me as he would a patient. I had not thought of him as a hat person. To me, it suggested a preoccupation with personal appearance that was at odds with the idealized version I had of him. But most of all, it made me aware of how disconcerting it might be for my own patients to see me outside my office. I turned to Jacob and began. "What can I help you with?" Other beginnings I've evolved over time include: "Tell me why you're here," "What brings you in today," and even "Start at the beginning, wherever that is for you." Jacob looked me over. "I am hoping," he said in a thick Eastern European accent, "you would be a man." I knew then we would be talking about sex. "Why?" I asked, feigning ignorance. "Because it might be hard for you, a woman, to hear about my problems." "I can assure you I've heard almost everything there is to hear." "You see," he stumbled, looking shyly at me, "I have the sex addiction." I nodded and settled into my chair. "Go on. . . ." Every patient is an unopened package, an unread novel, an unexplored land. A patient once described to me how rock climbing feels: When he's on the wall, nothing exists but infinite rock face juxtaposed against the finite decision of where next to put each finger and toe. Practicing psychotherapy is not unlike rock climbing. I immerse myself in story, the telling and retelling, and the rest falls away. I've heard many variations on the tales of human suffering, but Jacob's story shocked me. What disturbed me most was what it implied about the world we live in now, the world we're leaving to our children. Jacob started right in with a childhood memory. No preamble. Freud would have been proud. "I masturbated first time when I was two or three years old," he said. The memory was vivid for him. I could see it on his face. "I am on the moon," he continued, "but it is not really the moon. There is a person there like a God . . . and I have sexual experience which I don't recognize. . . ." I took moon to mean something like the abyss, nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. But what of God? Aren't we all yearning for something beyond ourselves? As a young schoolboy, Jacob was a dreamer: buttons out of order, chalk on his hands and sleeves, the first to look out the window during lessons, and the last to leave the classroom for the day. He masturbated regularly by the time he was eight years old. Sometimes alone, sometimes with his best friend. They had not yet learned to be ashamed. But after his First Communion, he was awakened to the idea of masturbation as a "mortal sin." From then on, he only masturbated alone, and he visited the Catholic priest of his family's local church every Friday to confess. "I masturbate," he whispered through the latticed opening of the confessional."How many times?" asked the priest. "Every day." Pause. "Don't do it again." Jacob stopped talking and looked at me. We shared a small smile of understanding. If such straightforward admonitions solved the problem, I would be out of a job.Jacob the boy was determined to obey, to be "good," and so he clenched his fists and didn't touch himself there. But his resolve only ever lasted two or three days."That," he said, "was the beginning of my double life." The term double life is as familiar to me as ST segment elevation is to the cardiologist, stage IV is to the oncologist, and hemoglobin A1C is to the endocrinologist. It refers to the addicted person's secret engagement with drugs, alcohol, or other compulsive behaviors, hidden from view, even in some cases from their own. Throughout his teens, Jacob returned from school, went to the attic, and masturbated to a drawing of the Greek goddess Aphrodite he had copied from a textbook and hidden between the wooden floorboards. He would later look on this period of his life as a time of innocence. At eighteen he moved to live with his older sister in the city to study physics and engineering at the university there. His sister was gone much of the day working, and for the first time in his life, he was alone for long stretches. He was lonely. "So I decided to make a machine . . ." "A machine?" I asked, sitting up a little straighter. "A masturbation machine." I hesitated. "I see. How did it work?" "I connect a metal rod to a record player. The other end I connect to an open metal coil, which I wrap with a soft cloth." He drew a picture to show me."I put the cloth and the coil around my penis," he said, pronouncing penis as if it were two words: pen like the writing instrument, and ness like the Loch Ness Monster. I had an urge to laugh but, after a moment's reflection, realized the urge was a cover for something else: I was afraid. Afraid that after inviting him to reveal himself to me, I wouldn't be able to help him."As the record player move round and round," he said, "the coil go up and down. I adjust the speed of the coil by adjusting the speed of the record player. I have three different speeds. In this way, I bring myself to the edge . . . many times, without going over. I also learn that smoking a cigarette at the same time brings me back from the edge, so I use this trick." Through this method of microadjustments, Jacob was able to maintain a preorgasm state for hours. "This," he said, nodding, "very addictive." Jacob masturbated for several hours a day using his machine. The pleasure for him was unrivaled. He swore he would stop. He hid the machine high up in a closet or dismantled it completely and threw away the parts. But a day or two later, he was pulling the parts down from the closet or out of the trash can, only to reassemble them and start again. Perhaps you are repulsed by Jacob's masturbation machine, as I was when I first heard about it. Perhaps you regard it as a kind of extreme perversion that is beyond everyday experience, with little or no relevance to you and your life. But if we do that, you and I, we miss an opportunity to appreciate something crucial about the way we live now: We are all, of a sort, engaged with our own masturbation machines. Circa age forty, I developed an unhealthy attachment to romance novels. Twilight, a paranormal romance about teenage vampires, was my gateway drug. I was embarrassed enough to be reading it, much less admitting I was enthralled by it. Twilight hit that sweet spot between love story, thriller, and fantasy, the perfect escape as I rounded the corner of my midlife bend. I was not alone. Millions of women my age were reading and fanning Twilight. There was nothing unusual per se about my getting caught up in a book. I've been a reader all my life. What was different was what happened next. Something I couldn't account for based on past proclivities or life circumstance.When I finished Twilight, I ripped through every vampire romance I could get my hands on, and then moved on to werewolves, fairies, witches, necromancers, time travelers, soothsayers, mind readers, fire wielders, fortune-tellers, gem workers . . . you get the idea. At some point, tame love stories no longer satisfied, so I searched out increasingly graphic and erotic renditions of the classic boy-meets-girl fantasy. I remember being shocked at how easy it was to find graphic sex scenes right there on the general fiction shelves at my neighborhood library. I worried that my kids had access to these books. The raciest thing at my local library growing up in the Midwest was Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

From some of our most prominent spiritual and religious leaders, poets and thinkers, singers and writers, a book of wisdom to light our way in dark times. AN OPEN FIELD PUBLICATION FROM MARIA SHRIVER At the start of 2020, in what felt already like an age of disorder, our world faced one of the gravest global challenges in a century. Covid-19 raced around the earth, and chaos erupted. Yet in the midst of this crisis, billions of human beings responded with love. Across the globe, people sought to connect, whether in person from a socially distant six feet or via a screen from 10,000 miles away. In that moment, Tim Shriver saw an opportunity for those hungry for community to answer a call to heal, a call to hope, a call to unite. He asked monks and nuns, artists and activists, nurses and doctors, ex-presidents and ex-cons to come together to share messages of inspiration, transformation, and love. This book captures the spirit of that 24-hour event. Featuring stories and insights from Bishop TD Jakes, Elizabeth Gilbert, Van Jones, Amy Grant, Dr. Rheeda Walker, Pastor Rick Warren, Rev. Jacqui Lewis, Jewel, Deepak Chopra and many others, The Call to Unite offers readers a book of wisdom to turn to in hard times - filled with prayers, poems, spiritual insights and lessons to live by that will stand the test of time. Those seeking affirmation, solace, and inspiration need only look inside for guidance in finding the light in any crisis. Only in embracing each other can we amplify the love that creates our global community. Only in coming together can we be our happiest, and our best.

This exquisite, deluxe edition contains the complete illustrated texts of both Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. In full-color and featuring a satin ribbon marker, it is the perfect gift and a cornerstone of every family's bookshelf. Since 1926, Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends—Piglet, Owl, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, and the ever doleful Eeyore—have endured as the unforgettable creations of A. A. Milne, who wrote two books of Pooh’s adventures for his son, Christopher Robin, and Ernest H. Shepard, who lovingly gave them shape through his iconic and beautiful illustrations. These characters and their stories are timeless treasures of childhood that continue to speak to all of us with the kind of freshness and heart that distinguishes true storytelling. This deluxe volume brings both Pooh stories—Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner—together in one beautiful, full-color edition. The texts are complete and unabridged, and all of the illustrations, each gloriously recolored, are included. Elegant yet simple, whimsical yet wise, this classic edition is a book to savor and treasure. The perfect gift for holiday, to welcome a new baby, or for your favorite collector and book lover.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! “[The Gift of Forgiveness] will spark conversations across families, across friendships, at workplaces, everywhere.” –Maria Shriver A fresh, inspiring book on learning how to forgive, with firsthand stories from those who have learned to let go of resentment and find peace. "When we learn to embrace forgiveness, it opens us up to healing, hope, and a new world of possibility." --Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt Written with grace and understanding and based on more than twenty in-depth interviews and stories as well as personal reflections from Schwarzenegger Pratt herself, The Gift of Forgiveness is about one of the most difficult challenges in life--learning to forgive. Here, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt shows us what we can learn from those who have struggled with forgiveness, some still struggling, and others who have been able to forgive what might seem truly unforgivable. The book features experiences from those well-known and unknown, including Elizabeth Smart, who learned to forgive her captors; Sue Klebold, whose son, Dylan, was one of the Columbine shooters, learning empathy and how to forgive herself; Chris Williams, who forgave the drunken teenager who killed his wife and child; and of course Schwarzenegger Pratt's own challenges and path to forgiveness in her own life. All provide different journeys to forgiveness and the process--sometimes slow and thorny, sometimes almost instantaneous--by which they learned to forgive and let go. The Gift of Forgiveness is a perfect blend of personal insights, powerful quotations, and hard-won wisdom for those seeking a way to live with greater acceptance, grace, and peace. A PAMELA DORMAN BOOKS/VIKING LIFE TITLE

“These are not just nine Irish lives but nine extraordinary lives, their struggles universal, their causes never more important than today. As the saying goes, the best stories belong to those who can tell them. And these are well told, by some of our best storytellers.” —Timothy Egan, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Irishman In this entertaining and timely anthology, nine contemporary Irish Americans present the stories of nine inspiring Irish immigrants whose compassion, creativity, and indefatigable spirit helped shape America. The authors here bring to bear their own life experiences as they reflect on their subjects, in each essay telling a unique and surprisingly intimate story. Rosie O’Donnell, an adoptive mother of five, writes about Margaret Haughery, the Mother of Orphans. Poet Jill McDonough recounts the story of a particularly brave Civil War soldier, and filmmaker and activist Michael Moore presents the original muckraking journalist, Samuel McClure. Novelist Kathleen Hill reflects on famed New Yorker writer Maeve Brennan, and historian Terry Golway examines the life of pivotal labor leader Mother Jones. In his final written work, activist and politician Tom Hayden explores his own namesake, Thomas Addis Emmet. Nonprofit executive Mark Shriver writes about the priest who founded Boys Town, and celebrated actor Pierce Brosnan—himself a painter in his spare time—writes about silent film director Rex Ingram, also a sculptor. And a pair of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists, Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan, take on the story of Niall O’Dowd, the news publisher who brokered peace in Northern Ireland. Each of these remarkable stories serves as a reflection—and celebration—of our nation’s shared values, ever more meaningful as we debate the issue of immigration today. Through the battles they fought, the cases they argued, the words they wrote, and the lives they touched, the nine Irish men and women profiled in these pages left behind something greater than their individual accomplishments—our America.

In The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster you will learn the best strategies Darren has ever collected from the most successful people on the planet, covering the four essential skills necessary for entrepreneurial success: sales, recruiting, leadership, and productivity. This essential guidebook will prepare you for the wild ride of entrepreneurship. It will warn you (of forthcoming fears, doubts, and the self-defeating conditioning of your upbringing and past), inoculate you (from the naysayers, dream-stealers, and pains of rejection and failure), and guide you (as you build those underdeveloped skills of independence, self-motivation, and self-accountability) safely past the landmines that blow up and cause the failure of 66 percent of all new businesses. Discover why NOW is the best time to #JOINTHERIDE.

The instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller A groundbreaking plan to prevent and reverse Alzheimer’s Disease that fundamentally changes how we understand cognitive decline. Everyone knows someone who has survived cancer, but until now no one knows anyone who has survived Alzheimer's Disease. In this paradigm shifting book, Dale Bredesen, MD, offers real hope to anyone looking to prevent and even reverse Alzheimer's Disease and cognitive decline.  Revealing that AD is not one condition, as it is currently treated, but three, The End of Alzheimer’s outlines 36 metabolic factors (micronutrients, hormone levels, sleep) that can trigger "downsizing" in the brain. The protocol shows us how to rebalance these factors using lifestyle modifications like taking B12, eliminating gluten, or improving oral hygiene. The results are impressive. Of the first ten patients on the protocol, nine displayed significant improvement with 3-6 months; since then the protocol has yielded similar results with hundreds more. Now, The End of Alzheimer’s brings new hope to a broad audience of patients, caregivers, physicians, and treatment centers with a fascinating look inside the science and a complete step-by-step plan that fundamentally changes how we treat and even think about AD.

The devastating truth about the effects of wheat, sugar, and carbs on the brain, with a 4-week plan to achieve optimum health. In Grain Brain, renowned neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, exposes a finding that's been buried in the medical literature for far too long: carbs are destroying your brain. Even so-called healthy carbs like whole grains can cause dementia, ADHD, epilepsy, anxiety, chronic headaches, depression, decreased libido, and much more. Groundbreaking and timely, Grain Brain shows that the fate of your brain is not in your genes. It's in the food you eat. The cornerstone of all degenerative conditions, including brain disorders, is inflammation, which can be triggered by carbs, especially containing gluten or high in sugar. Dr. Perlmutter explains what happens when the brain encounters common ingredients in your daily bread and fruit bowls, how statin drugs may be erasing your memory, why a diet high in "good fats" is ideal, and how to spur the growth of new brain cells at any age. Dr. Perlmutter's revolutionary 4-week plan shows you how to keep your brain healthy, vibrant, and sharp while dramatically reducing your risk for debilitating neurological diseases as well as relieving more common, everyday conditions -- without drugs. Easy-to-follow strategies, delicious recipes, and weekly goals help you to put the plan into action. With a blend of anecdotes, cutting-edge research, and accessible, practical advice, Grain Brain teaches you how to take control of your "smart genes," regain wellness, and enjoy lifelong health and vitality.

After collaborating on two major books featured as PBS specials, Super Brain and Super Genes, Chopra and Tanzi now tackle the issue of lifelong health and heightened immunity. We are in the midst of a new revolution. For over twenty-five years Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. have revolutionized medicine and how we understand our minds and our bodies—Chopra, the leading expert in the field of integrative medicine; Tanzi, the pioneering neuroscientist and discoverer of genes that cause Alzheimer's Disease. After reaching millions of people around the world through their collaborations on the hugely successful Super Brain and Super Genes books and public television programs, the New York Times bestselling authors now present a groundbreaking, landmark work on the supreme importance of our immune system in relation to our lifelong health. In the face of environmental toxins, potential epidemics, superbugs, and the accelerated aging process, the significance of achieving optimum health has never been more crucial—and the burden to achieve it now rests on individuals making the right lifestyle choices every day. That means you. You—not doctors, not pharmaceutical companies—are ultimately responsible for your own health. Chopra and Tanzi want to help readers make the best decisions possible when it comes to creating a holistic and transformative health plan for life. In The Healing Self they not only push the boundaries of the intellect to bring readers the newest research and insights on the mind-body, mind-gene, and mind-immunity connections, but they offer a cutting-edge, seven-day action plan, which outlines the key tools everyone needs to develop their own effective and personalized path to self-healing. In addition, The Healing Self closely examines how we can best manage chronic stress and inflammation, which are immerging as the primary detriments of well-being. Moreover, Chopra and Tanzi turn their attention to a host of chronic disorders such as hypertension, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s Disease, known to take years and sometimes decades to develop before the first symptoms appear. Contemporary medical systems aren’t set to attend to prolonged low-grade chronic inflammation or the everyday infections and stresses that take their toll on the body and can lead to disease, aging, and death. Thus, learning the secrets of self-healing is not only urgent but mandatory for optimum health. The Healing Self then is a call to action, a proven, strategic program that will arm readers with the information they need to protect themselves and achieve lifelong wellness. There is a new revolution occurring in health today. That revolution is you.