New book: “Your Brain: The Missing Manual”

Your Brain: The Missing Manual is a practical look at how to get the most out of your brain — not just how the brain works, but how you can use it more effectively. What makes this book different than the average self-help guide is that it’s grounded in current neuroscience.

You get a quick tour of several aspects of the brain, complete with useful advice about:

• Brain Food: The right fuel for the brain and how the brain commands hunger (including an explanation of the different chemicals that control appetite and cravings)
• Sleep: The sleep cycle and circadian rhythm, and how to get a good night’s sleep (or do the best you can without it)
• Memory: Techniques for improving your recall
• Reason: Learning to defeat common sense; logical fallacies (including tactics for winning arguments); and good reasons for bad prejudices
• Creativity and Problem-Solving: Brainstorming tips and thinking not outside the box, but about the box — in other words, find the assumptions that limit your ideas so you can break through them
• Understanding Other People’s Brains: The battle of the sexes and babies developing brains

Learn about the built-in circuitry that makes office politics seem like a life-or-death struggle, causes you to toss important facts out of your memory if they’re not emotionally charged, and encourages you to eat huge amounts of high-calorie snacks. With Your Brain: The Missing Manual you’ll discover that, sometimes, you can learn to compensate for your brain or work around its limitations — or at least to accept its eccentricities.