The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity

What a great synthesis of all the stress and brain information that we have now! Starting with understanding exactly what kind of stress I’m facing, there were wonderful “ah ha!” moments for me in this book like: depression can be a “freeze” response; chronic stress can create not just weigh problems, but the ever dreaded “belly fat”; and when it comes to stress “if you can name it you can tame it”. I really loved the list of “thinking traps” to avoid, and the list of characteristics of mindfulness. And with each idea there were really do-able exercises and practices to integrate the intellectual information into my daily life. I’m loving the gratitude journal, and the author’s approach to letting go of perfectionism. Throughout the book, the impact of mindfulness is woven in, in ways that help me see how to apply it. After reading this book I am actually experiencing a significant difference in my stress levels. Such a huge relief!

Stress and anxiety have had major seasons with differing impacts over the years. And one of the hardest lessons I've learned is that anxiety about anxiety can make it worse. This book helped me to shift away from the psychological aspects - ie get out of my head - to understand what happens biologically. It really changed the narrative, and I go back to this book often, and refer it all the time. Breaking the chain of thinking stress/anxiety are "flaws" in the way one thinks, and instead, realizing it's more complex and also the biology brought so much hope and excitement. It's so good to have this book close at hand, especially when life throws lots of lemons your way, and you need a little help making your lemonade stand :-)

(Read this in Kindle) This is a wonderful book. The main takeaway for me from this book is how your brain works (or reacts to) under stress. How the amygdala releases (automatic stress response) hormones and affects organs to put you into a fight, flight or freeze mode leading to a impulsive behavior, constant anxiety, avoidance, procrastination and rumination (how it affects). And the long term physiological effects of it such as hypertension, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart diseases etc., Learning the biological aspects of stress was an eye-opener for me as I used to wonder about avoidance and rumination habits I had. And the practical solutions such as mindfulness (most important thing), emotional awareness, self compassion, perceiving control, living healthy (exercising and avoiding weight gain/overeating/alcohol) and how to reduce perfectionism. I would re-read this book so that I hardwire these takeaways so that I can help if anyone is in need.

An excellent book! In part 1 Dr. Greenberg describes the parts of the brain that deal with stress and explains how they work together. In parts 2 and 3 she describes how one can retrain their brain to react in a less stressful way. Includes many practical exercises and suggestions to guide the reader towards a stress proof brain. Thank you, Dr. Greenberg!

It wasn't a bad book, however I found myself struggling to stay interested. It's full of great information though. I was just really struggling to keep picking it up for some reason.

Used, but good condition.

This book offers a great holistic model of life in high-stress environments and everyday life in general. I can't say many of the practices or advice was completely new to me - I'd most of it is familiar to self-help kind of book readers. But this book does a great job of walking you through the underlying mechanisms of your body and mind's stress response that often generates much of the daily suffering and anxiety, and then provides an array of tools on how to tame this.

A fairly good book for developing a better attitude toward life. Well written for moderate stress.