The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain [Hardcover]

Judith Horstman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0470376236 | ISBN-13: 978-0470376232 | Edition: 1

Have you ever wondered what’s happening in your brain as you go through a typical day and night? This fascinating book presents an hour-by-hour round-the-clock journal of your brain’s activities. Drawing on the treasure trove of information from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind magazines as well as original material written specifically for this book, Judith Horstman weaves together a compelling description of your brain at work and at play.

The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain reveals what’s going on in there while you sleep and dream, how your brain makes memories and forms addictions and why we sometimes make bad decisions. The book also offers intriguing information about your emotional brain, and what’s happening when you’re feeling love, lust, fear and anxiety—and how sex, drugs and rock and roll tickle the same spots.

Based on the latest scientific information, the book explores your brain’s remarkable ability to change, how your brain can make new neurons even into old age and why multitasking may be bad for you.

Your brain is uniquely yours – but research is showing many of its day-to-day cycles are universal. This book gives you a look inside your brain and some insights into why you may feel and act as you do.

The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain is written in the entertaining, informative and easy-to-understand style that fans of Scientific American and Scientific American Mind magazine have come to expect.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this thorough health and science overview, journalist Horstman (Overcoming Arthritis) reviews a full day of brainwork by accounting for the mental processes of everyday activities, arranged by hour, beginning with 5 a.m. and "coming to consciousness." Fascinatingly, Horstman shows how, as hormone and neurotransmitter levels change throughout the day, there may be an optimal time for everything. Moving through the workday, Horstman discusses stress, decision-making, hunger and fatigue, ADHD and more, before returning home to cover music, humor, sex, fear and sleep. Horstman's lively prose is packed with useful information: meditation increases attention while delaying aging; brain exercise and a strong social network decrease the odds of developing dementia; diet can quell morning crabbiness, increase afternoon focus, and promote sleep. Multitasking, as Horstman explains, is less like an efficient model of problem solving and more like channel-surfing; stress, she says, "may be the single worst thing your brain does to your heart." Information-packed and fully referenced, this Scientific American publication is perfect for anyone with interest in mind/body interaction, mental health or aging.
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Review

In this thorough health and science overview, journalist Horstman (Overcoming Arthritis) reviews a full day of brainwork by accounting for the mental processes of everyday activities, arranged by hour, beginning with 5 a.m. and “coming to consciousness.” Fascinatingly, Horstman shows how, as hormone and neurotransmitter levels change throughout the day, there may be an optimal time for everything. Moving through the workday, Horstman discusses stress, decision-making, hunger and fatigue, ADHD and more, before returning home to cover music, humor, sex, fear and sleep. Horstman's lively prose is packed with useful information: meditation increases attention while delaying aging; brain exercise and a strong social network decrease the odds of developing dementia; diet can quell morning crabbiness, increase afternoon focus, and promote sleep. Multitasking, as Horstman explains, is less like an efficient model of problem solving and more like channel-surfing; stress, she says, “may be the single worst thing your brain does to your heart.” Information-packed and fully referenced, this Scientific American publication is perfect for anyone with interest in mind/body interaction, mental health or aging. (PublishersWeekly.com, August 24, 2009)

STARRED REVIEW
Drawing on neurology articles from Scientific American and Scientific American Mind, science journalist Horstman creates a seamless and fascinating look at our brain's functioning throughout the day, adeptly noting cycles and processes that may occur by mentioning them in a time context that makes sense. Beginning her exploration at 5 a.m., when the brain begins to return to consciousness, she bases the chapters on each hour in a 24-hour period and groups hours into sections related to typical activities, such as "Winding Down" from 9 p.m. to midnight. She examines how and when other bodily processes and functions, such as hunger, impact the brain. Drops in blood sugar, for example, also indicate lowered levels of serotonin. The explanations are easy to read, and they incorporate anecdotes and callouts that deftly explain neuroscientific content. VERDICT Appealing to lay scientists, Scientific American readers, and all those interested in how to care for their brain as it matures and ages, this book will be a popular science title. (Library Journal)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (August 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470376236
• ISBN-13: 978-0470376232
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #129,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Judith Horstman is an award-winning journalist who writes about health and medicine. She has been a Washington correspondent, a journalism professor, a Fulbright scholar, and has written and edited in just about any medium including newspapers, newsletters, special health publications, radio, video, the Internet, annual reports and books.

Over the past four years she has written four popular neuroscience books in collaboration with Scientific American:
"The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain"(2009)
"The Scientific American Brave New Brain" (2010)
"The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex and the Brain"(2011)
"The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain (May 2012)

She and her aging brain live in California near her children and grandchildren, and travel as widely and often as possible. She is a frequent public speaker and a writing coach and is available for interviews, talks and workshops. Email her at [e-mail]

More about author and educator Judith Horstman:
Her journalism career spans 40 years, from a small-town newspaper, The Ithaca Journal, to USA Today and Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C. In 1986, she was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. From 1988 to 1994, she taught journalism at Keene (N.H.) State College, Oregon State University, Santa Clara (Calif.) University, and in Budapest, Hungary, where she was awarded back-to-back Fulbrights to set up the American Journalism Center and lecture at universities throughout Eastern Europe. While living in Hungary, she wrote the text to a book of photographs by Pulitzer-prize winning photographer Tamás Révész, "Open Air." (http://www.revesz.net/americanwest.html)

She has edited health articles and books for TIME Inc. Health, including "Dr Koop's Self Care Advisor," worked as an editor and writer for the Stanford University Medical Center News Office, and written for the Harvard Heath Letter and Johns Hopkins' White Papers. She was a consultant and editor for a website dedicated to ALS (amytrophic lateral sclerosis) that she helped establish; and contributed as an editor, consultant and writer to a website on lupus (systemic lupus erythematosus, or SLE).

Ms. Horstman has practiced meditation and yoga for more than 40 years, and is known for her expertise in describing complementary therapies. For many years she was a contributing editor for Arthritis Today, the magazine of the Arthritis Foundation, for which she wrote the well-regarded book, "The Arthritis Foundation's Guide to Alternative Therapies." She has been a Tai Chi student of Dr. Paul Lam, who is the co-author of "Overcoming Arthritis," a 2002 book on complementary therapies and Tai Chi for arthritis. (http://www.taichiproductions.com/secureshop/product.php?ProductID=252)