Title: Brain Reset
Publisher: 29th June 2021 by Pan Macmillan Australia
Pages: 320 pages
How I Read It: ARC book
Genre: Health, Mind & Body | Nonfiction (Adult)
My Rating: 3 cups
Synopsis:
Anxiety, depression and addiction are the scourge of modern-day living. How are they linked? How do we beat them?
According to bestselling author and researcher David Gillespie, we are more addicted than ever before, which is playing havoc with our dopamine levels. This is fuelling epidemic-like levels of depression, anxiety and stress.
Gillespie reveals a large and robust body of research that shows how addictive activities, such as screen use, sugar consumption, drinking, gambling, shopping and smoking, spike our dopamine levels. This, in turn, affects our brain's ability to regulate our mood.
The good news is that we can break the cycle to make things better. There are myriad root causes of mental illness, many of which are beyond our control; David argues that it makes sense to tackle the thing that is within our control - our see-sawing dopamine levels.
Packed with cutting-edge research and practical advice, David's latest book arms us with the tools we need to break our addictions, conquer uncertainty and reset our brains.
My Thoughts
‘We can’t completely avoid stress. There are things which we cannot control, but we will get through those things much better if our brains are not already in an impaired state. Keeping us in a place of mental fitness is about controlling as much as we can and avoiding all addiction.’
The author, David Gillespie, states from the outset that he is not a doctor but a researcher - a very thorough researcher. He wishes to present all the facts thus allowing readers to become aware of addictions, many of them hidden.
This, therefore, is a book about mental health. David spends the first half of the book analysing the problems - typical addictions and also those people might not necessarily label as addictions, such as shopping or screen time. His desire is for his readers to understand the science behind them and how to then take positive steps to overcome the addictions and the consequences of them ie. anxiety/depression which, in turn, can lead to other diseases.
‘We have created a society swimming in dopamine stimulants and we are paying the price. The good news is that a broken reward pathway is absolutely curable. All we need to do is stop taking the addictive substance or doing the addictive behaviour for long enough for our reward system to reset. The bad news is that if it was easy to stop, it wouldn’t be addictive.’
This book is very scientifically based, not focused loosely on changing attitudes alone but rather specific measurable outcomes. How does a person go about basically rewiring their brain away from a reward/punishment based mindset. David provides positive ways a person can go about reducing this addictive behaviour.
By first exploring the relationship between addictions and the consequent diseases, David then goes on to provide practical steps on how we can in fact, reset our brains. I recommend this book for people who are looking for the next level of assistance and desire to know the science behind the problem and concrete actions to then take.
‘We can enjoy life and do things that provide us with shots of dopamine without the risk of addiction, anxiety or depression. The catch is we need to do a system reset before we get to that point. This is a book about how to do that.’
This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.
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