Posts From Author: neuroscience

Master Your Mind with Ruby Wax

Sane New World: A User’s Guide to the Normal-Crazy Mind by Ruby Wax NY: Perigee Trade, 2014; 256pp Mindfulness seems to be less a case of mind over matter than mind over emotion. In this entertaining introduction to neuroplasticity, mental illness, and coping with the tricky business of being, Ruby Wax outlines the potential benefits of employing a mindfulness-based approach to life. The Sane New World of the title is the other side of mental illness, the world beyond what can seem insurmountable to the one in four of us who live with recurring emotional difficulties. The secret? You can change your mind. Sane New World is both self-help and a personal account of life with mental illness. Wax is an American comedian who’s had a prolific career in the UK as a stand-up, script editor (for Absolutely Fabulous), interviewer (check out her program on O.J. Simpson) and TV personality. But as she points out in the early pages of her book, her busyness may not have been an entirely good thing. “You could say that multitasking has driven us mad,” she writes; “like having too many windows open on your computer, eventually it will crash.” The need to be so busy is a symptom of […]
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