Suggestible You by Erik Vance
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 Harvard's research labs to a witch doctor's office in Catemaco, Mexico, to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called China's Hogwarts). Vance's firsthand dispatches will change the way you think--and feel.Continuing the success of National Geographic's brain books and rounding out our pop science category, this book shows how expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our internal pharmacy--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.
"An eye-opening exploration of the intersection between philosophy and science and a fascinating peek into our innermost selves" —Kirkus Reviews
"Science journalist Vance takes an inspired journey into the profound and often unnoticed powers of our brains." —Publishers Weekly
"Science journalist Vance takes an inspired journey into the profound and often unnoticed powers of our brains." —Publishers Weekly
Erik Vance is a science writer based in California and Mexico City. He has moulded his career around science-based profiles of inspiring, dedicated, or controversial figures in society.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781426217890 |
| ISBN 10 | 1426217897 |
| Title | Suggestible You |
| Author | Erik Vance |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | National Geographic Society |
| Year published | 2016-11-08 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |