The High-Performance Mind [Paperback]

Anna Wise (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 27, 1997

"Her purpose here is to discuss and illustrate the four types of brain waves—beta, alpha, theta, and delta—with emphasis on what they do, how they work together, and whether we can use their power."—Booklist.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Wise wants to provide readers of her first book with a methodology for developing specific brainwave patterns for achieving an awakened state of mind. She believes a high-performance mind can provide self-healing, solve emotional problems, improve relationships, and promote better general health, relaxation, and stress management. Wise depends heavily on the work of her late mentor, Dr. C. Maxwell Cade (The Awakened Mind, LJ 2/15/79), the progenitor of British EEG biofeedback. This is not a book for casual readers; the many diagrams of brainwave patterns may not always be accessible to those without a solid introduction to the topic, and the language requires much a priori knowledge; some of it is just plain confusing. The brief explanation of four brainwave types at the beginning of the book to define exactly what she intends to deal with provides only a cursory overview and raises more questions than it answers. The exercises that readers are asked to perform to reach the desired higher-performance mind are time-consuming, require a deep commitment to persevere, and may best be accomplished with the help of a qualified therapist. A marginal purchase.
Scott Johnson, Meridian Community Coll. Lib., Miss.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Wise studied for eight years with C. Maxwell Cade, codeveloper of an electroencephalograph, the Mind Mirror EEG, which was specially designed to read the brain waves of those in a meditative state. Continuing Cade's research into brain-wave biofeedback, Wise has become the leading authority on this device. Her purpose here is to discuss and illustrate the four types of brain waves--beta, alpha, theta, and delta--with emphasis on what they do, how they work together, and whether we can use their power. Harnessing human brain waves for heightened creativity, inspiration, and self-healing is the major goal. Several pages of meditation exercises are included with tips on how to relax, all designed to trigger specific brain-wave patterns and achieve a high-performance mind. With so much attention currently focused on achieving more from our hectic lifestyles, these techniques may benefit those who are committed to mastering their brain waves. Wise's strong beliefs and evidence of success are convincing arguments for giving her methods a try. Jennifer Henderson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Tarcher; First Edition edition (January 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874778506
• ISBN-13: 978-0874778502
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.8 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #651,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't be put off by the title... March 11, 2002

By Yuri Kuzyk

Format:Paperback

I'm not sure why Anna Wise gave this book its rather inappropriate title but it is very misleading. The books sounds like some sort of low-grade improvement guide meant for high-power executives searching for ways to increase their ability to outwit dumb consumers and investors; nothing could be further from the truth.

There was a lot of interest in biofeedback in the 1960's and then interest turned to more "scientific" endeavors such as genetics; we're only just beginning to realize our folly. Luckily a few researchers continued what was begun and their hard work and determination can now be seen to have a lot of value.

Wise owes a lot of her background to her mentor, Max Cade, and some rather personal problems she outlines in the book. She combines experience and theory from Eastern meditation with EEG biofeedback work, something Pelletier and others have alluded to for a while. However, Wise really puts a lot of valuable tips and information together and that is the beauty of this book.

The book outlines some basic information about brainwaves and then gets into a great overview of some typical patterns and their apparent link to various personal states. Of course there is no purely theoretical link between what EEG measures and what is happening in your head but there can be no doubt that there is a connection. And this book details some of the important connections.

There is an excellent overview of meditative "states" and their subjective "landmarks". Wise offers some great insight for people who are starting on the path to meditation and are getting stuck at certain points. This material has been available through other sources, notably from the Zen tradition, but these days it can be difficult to make sense of the multitude of books and so-called "masters". Wise's suggestions are straight-forward, simple and clear which is great.

There are guided meditations, again taken from EEG studies, that allow anyone to make his/her own tapes. The visualization exercises have been used successfully in beta-theta biofeedback studies and anyone who has participated in Qigong or Zen will recognize many common elements. But the best part of this book is the clarity and the way information is presented in a manner better suited to those of us from the scientific framework.

That's the funny thing, the information has been available for thousands of years but science is only just beginning to acknowledge it. In the book's final pages Wise details her own struggles with healing blindness and Kundalini rising; something that most Western readers would scoff at without the preceeding pages "explaining" the link to something we can relate to.

Definitely worth buying and, more importantly, using.

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awaken Your Mind December 5, 2001

By Robert Kall VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This is a book about biofeedback, but from a different perspective. Just about every other book ever published on biofeedback has a clinical, reductionist medical approach (except for Elmer Green''s books, Beyond Biofeedback and Ozawkie Book of The Dead.) Anna Wise, a regular trainer at Esalen, takes a more holistic approach based on her 25+ years of experience observing the brain wave patterns of people with awakened mind-- yogis, top executives, artists, etc.

Rather than talking about treating illness, she talks about optimizing brain function and mental states, about enhancing the contents and quality of consciousness.

She discusses how she uses the Mind Mirror, a technology originally developed by her Mentor Max Cade and engineer Geoff Blundell, to assess how our brains are operating and then, she devises strategies to get our brains working more like a person with an awakened mind.

She offers exercises and a strategies which help you learn to put your brain in better places.

If you want to see the whole picture of the biofeedback world, Anna is definitely not a part of the medical pathology mainstream and that's the way she likes it.

When she is a speaker at the EEG biofeedback conference I run, she speaks a different language, which addresses spirit and the whole person. There have been some academic researchers who were really turned off by her, at first. But after discussing her approach, in detail and not just reacting to her "soft" approach to brain technology, many have turned around, and found common ground with her.

Jim Robbins book, Symphony in the brain, is a good history of the more recent developments in higher frequency brain biofeedback, mostly focused on treatment. Evan's and Abarbanel's Quantitative EEG and EEG Biofeedback is a strictly professional text, with about 15 contributed chapters. Anna Wise's contribution to the writing on brain biofeedback provides a very nice feminine ying to the masculine yang that has predominated in the field.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT AND CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING July 31, 2000

By Judy Pennington

Format:Paperback

In this superbly written book, Anna Wise explains how anyone can use meditation (i.e. brainwave mastery) to reduce emotional stress, sharpen thinking skills and increase psychic sensitivity and awareness. She is an authority on this subject, having worked directly and hands-on with hundreds of clients over a 20-year period, in which she used a specially designed biofeedback machine to teach mental mastery through meditation. Her experience with these clients and her intimate knowledge of people and their patterns make this book a real mind-opener. It is a powerful, convincing study of the unlimited brain-mind and how its aspects of ordinary thinking, visual images, subconscious thoughts and memories, and dreaming/healing/psychic unconscious can link up to animate the "awakened" mind and the genius of fully expanded human consciousness. Graphics in the book enable readers to grasp these concepts easily and to see how their own mental states relate to these brainwave frequencies. The book is easy going and gives its best when read carefully and with a studious, open mind. If you want to move into higher consciousness--that is, higher mental productivity--you can't do any better than to learn about and follow the pathways so clearly outlined in this brilliant book.