First three chapters were great. I was fascinated to have an explanation of why the brain (The most powerful organ) would work improperly, causing stress, anxiety, depression, etc. The explanations were clear and also offered hope to change the neural paths that led to improper brain function. The next six chapters were about making the changes necessary day to day. It got very repetitive then. I believe all those chapters could be summarized in one or two chapters. I didn't finish the book. I read about half of it but still recommend it.

Hanson explains some good research that may increase your happiness (very simply put: taking time to savor good experiences strengthens their neural pathways in your brain) but runs out of gas after 40 pages or so; from there on, it's all filler and repetition. There isn't enough here to justify a book; a long magazine article would have been enough.

This is a good book on how important it is to really make sure you notice the good stuff and replace the bad stuff with 5x more good stuff in order to rewire your brain so you can enjoy more of life. I found it helpful. But it doesn't cover how to reclaim your nervous system once fight/fight has hijacked your brain.

Awesome book. Currently letting a friend borrow it. Love Hanson's explanation about the brain and how it works. This book appeals to your those who are more logically minded while also introducing some spiritual aspects but without getting too far off on the spiritual side which can turn some people off. He keeps his explanations clear, and makes you want to find out more. Highly recommend this book.

Truly intelligent, interesting and insightful; this is a great book for understanding why negative experiences are so impactful; whereas our positive life experiences have a way of sliding out of our thoughts due to our innate fight or flight response and modern day life not properly allowing our bodies to take in and store in our brains our happy experiences without a little extra work, but very doable work. I have extensive psychology background (though not a professional) and I read this as part of a book club consisting of only professionals. They suggested this book not be read by those who may be suffering PTSD, or if someone is but still wants to give it a read, maybe do so with a professional as the book can trigger some strong emotional responses from some readers.

I read this book and two other books about happiness at the same time. The other books were by Shawn Achor. They were a much more enjoyable read than this book by Rick Hanson. Although Hanson’s research and ideas are solid his writing is so redundant. He says the same things over and over again in ways that I find vague and boring. I recommend Achor’s books on happiness, they are fascinating and easy to apply to our own lives.

Ever wonder why we live in the most affluent society in the history of the world, and yet so many people are still unhappy? Dr Rick Hanson explains this baffling fact in "Hardwiring Happiness" and offers us some potent remedies for the negativity bias of the human brain.

In simple terms, being a little jumpy and fearful had survival value for our ancestors for millions of years. So now, even though no predators roam the range and we're not likely to be bludgeoned by a neighboring tribe, we're the descendants of those nervous souls and our brains still have "Velcro for negativity and Teflon for positivity." Which means that many of us are pointlessly jumpy and stressed.

So how do you switch this around so more of the positive sticks and more of the negative slides off? How do we take our brains from reactivity (stressful!) to responsivity (much better)?

Here Dr Hanson's book excels and may be the most practical manual of its genre. His central premise is that good stuff is happening all the time - e.g. you're breathing, heart's beating, sun's shining. All you have to do is take in more of the good. To help us take in the good, he's devised a 4-step protocol with the acronym HEAL:
1) Have a positive experience.
2) Enrich it.
3) Absorb it. Let it really sink in!

Now you practice this HEAL protocol on a regular basis, which can take less than a minute. The more you do this, the more you're training your brain to stay in the happy, responsive "green zone" all the time, even in stressful conditions.

If that were all I got out of the book, it would already be far more than my money's worth. And you, eagle-eyed reader, may have noticed that I haven't yet mentioned the 4th letter of the HEAL acronym:

4) Link positive and negative material.

This step allows you to overwrite and/or *erase* negative experiences with positive ones ("pulling weeds with flowers", in Hanson's poetic terms). This is an extraordinary feat of mental jiu-jitsu: to heal the mind using the mind. What's even more extraordinary is that anyone can do it. I've used it in my own practice, both for myself and patients, and it works nicely. Dr Hanson's simple, step-by-step protocol to pull the weeds from your own mental garden is easy to use and quite effective.

Some of the other things that I appreciate about this book:
-- The organization is clear and coherent - first the Why, then the How - making the material easy to absorb.
-- Dr Hanson is a trained neuropsychologist with 30 years of practice. This means that what he's teaching you works on real people like you and me.
-- Not only does Hanson have thorough command of the science, but he's also a master of explaining complexity in terms everyone can understand and implement.
-- Real-life anecdotes from patients illustrate some of the techniques. I'll always remember the one about writing positive experiences on strips of colored paper and turning those into a chain that grows every day.
-- The book has an actual recipe for getting yourself to practice the piano more. I'm hoping it's translatable to other tasks productive if not wholly pleasant.
-- A big bonus towards the end called the "21 Jewels": "a collection of practices for growing key strengths inside yourself," oriented around the three basic needs of safety, satisfaction and connection. Hanson leads you through a HEAL-based meditation for each one. Top 5: refuge, peace, enthusiasm, love, and feeling like a good person.

Ultimately, this is a manual for healing yourself and your family. Using the procedures laid out in this book, you can solve problems that may have seemed insurmountable for years: mediocre mood, poor relations, stress, guilt, self-criticism. If it saves you even half of a session with a shrink, it's worth the twenty bucks you plunk down for it.

I met Dr Hanson at one his talks here in the Bay Area, and find him to be a competent and compassionate healer and teacher. If you wish to turn up the color of joy in your life for the long term, you would do well to read his book.

-- Ali Binazir MD, Happiness Engineer and author of The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible, the highest-rated dating book on Amazon for 157 weeks

Not sure what was missing but felt it was missing something. It is an easy read, maybe a bit simple or repetitive for my taste. Love the H.E.A.L. idea though. That tidbit was worth the price.