Your Daily Brain: 24 Hours in the Life of Your Brain
Author: Marbles: The Brain Store
Release Date: August 18, 2015
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Source: Blogging for Books
Genre(s): Non-Fiction, Psychology, Self-Help
Spoilers: Mild
Rating: ?????
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If you’ve ever wanted to know why you do and think the things you do, Your Daily Brain will tell you. Snarky, sassy, and smart, this book takes you through an entire day of thoughts. From the morning, “How many times can I hit the alarm before I’m late?” to the afternoon’s, “How am I ever going to make it through work?” and on to the, “Why can’t I just fall asleep?!” This book covers it all.
This book is easy to read in short chapters that are outlined by times. They range from two to five pages, and answer the biggest questions on your mind in easy to understand science jargon for those of us without neuroscience degrees. Readers honestly starts to feel a little bit smarter while reading this book. With a tone that is a little snarky, and a little sassy at times, it doesn’t get boring or dry. One of the best parts of the book is how it manages to keep you entertained, while you learn stuff about your grey matter and why it matters.
At the end of most chapters there are helpful tips and hints where you can go and find places and ways to use your new found knowledge and expand your mind. Most of them are links to the internet, or helpful keyword phrases that will get you to the games to learn more. One of the best tips in this book for those afternoons at work where you’ve just hit a mind slump, is that just standing by an empty cardboard box it encourages your subconscious to think outside of the box. So next time you need a little creativity boost, you can just find an empty box (presumably any box will do) and let your mind do its thing while you gaze into it.
The book also answers those old questions like, “Are men better parallel parkers?” Spoiler Alert! They aren’t. It all goes back to society and the gender roles placed on us. And it turns out, playing Tetris can help you get better at spatial relations, but only if what you’re looking at happens to be shaped like a game piece. It does give some promising research though for first person video games and how those can help your ability to navagate through the world without Google Maps!
Final Thoughts:
Your Daily Brain is a good lunch break read. I enjoyed getting to learn more about why minds do what they do, and how to hack my brain’s performance to function just a little bit better and more efficiently. It’s one of those books that either you’re going to really be interested in, or will feel a little blase about. For myself, it was interesting and fun. The short chapters and neat little tricks were well worth the read in my book.
English 