Brain Changer

di Janine Kovac (Autore)

Noelle & Noelle Publishing, 2016

Sometimes as a parent, you know exactly what to do. You just don’t know how to get it done. Brain Changer is a short self-help book designed to give parents a new perspective on how to trouble-shoot and strategize in times of conflict—all with a twist of cutting-edge cognitive science. Each of the nine chapters is rooted in a different scene at the NICU and pairs a challenge at the time with a strategy gleaned from cognitive science. Chapter subjects include: practicing self-care, building community, monitoring progress, practicing gratitude and empathy, fostering resilience, and moving on when the science falls short. Follow Janine Kovac as she relies on her research to help her cope when her twins are born fifteen weeks before they are due and spend three months in the hospital in the newborn intensive care unit. Based on her thesis “A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of Parenting,” for which she received U.C. Berkeley’s Robert J. Glushko Prize for Distinguished Undergraduate Research in Cognitive Science, Janine Kovac’s Brain Changer is a must-read for parents looking to practice self-care, manage flow, and cultivate a growth mindset as they model these healthy behaviors for their own children. The boys spent the next three months in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) where they had IVs, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, x-rays, blood transfusions, and surgery to fix their heart murmurs. An undergraduate in cognitive science learns the basics of neural networks: when some neurons are activated, other networks must be inhibited. It’s called mutual inhibition. It’s the reason a person can’t feel fear and joy at the same time. Fear activates the fight-or-flight resources while joy makes one want to stop and smell the roses. Cognitive science students, at least the ones at UC Berkeley, learn something else, too. They learn that words and concepts are directly connected to neural networks. In other words, fear-related thought and messaging is directly connected to a network. Joy-related messaging is directly connected to a different network. If you could activate the joy-network through words, then you’d simultaneously inhibit the fear network. The doctor’s advice, “Try not to think about it” was actually not that ridiculous. And according to her thesis, Janine already knew how to do it. These essays explore some of the techniques that helped her cope as a mom: the practical application of putting on her oxygen mask, expressing gratitude, managing flow, and cultivating a growth mindset—but with a twist of cutting-edge cognitive science.

• Autore: Janine Kovac
• Anno edizione: 2016
• Editore: Noelle & Noelle Publishing
• Formato: EPUB2 con Adobe DRM
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• EAN: 9780692782217

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