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Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal Hardcover – November 8, 2016

by Erik Vance (Author)

42 customer reviews

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This riveting narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events. Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvard’s research labs to a witch doctor’s office in Catemaco, Mexico, to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called “China’s Hogwarts”). Vance’s firsthand dispatches will change the way you think—and feel.

Expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our “internal pharmacy”—the very real chemical reactions our brains produce when we think we are experiencing pain or healing, actual or perceived. Supporting this idea is centuries of placebo research in a range of forms, from sugar pills to shock waves; studies of alternative medicine techniques heralded and condemned in different parts of the world (think crystals and chakras); and most recently, major advances in brain mapping technology. Thanks to this technology, we're learning how we might leverage our suggestibility (or lack thereof) for personalized medicine, and Vance brings us to the front lines of such study.

Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"An eye-opening exploration of the intersection between philosophy and science and a fascinating peek into our innermost selves." —Kirkus Reviews

"Science journalist Vance takes an inspired journey into the profound and often unnoticed powers of our brains." —Publishers Weekly

About the Author

ERIK VANCE is an award-winning science writer based in California and Mexico City. Raised as a Christian Scientist, he graduated with honors from the Christian Science school, Principia College in 1999 with a degree in biology. After working as a scientist on research projects dealing with dolphin intelligence and coastal ecology, he became an educator and then an environmental consultant. In 2005, he attended UC Santa Cruz’s famed science communication program and discovered a passion for journalism. There he learned that only through compelling characters can stories touch and inspire us. Since then, he has built his career around science-based profiles of inspiring, dedicated, or controversial figures in society. His work has appeared in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Utne Reader, Scientific American, and National Geographic. He is also a contributing editor at Discover magazine.

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Product details

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: National Geographic (November 8, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1426217897
ISBN-13: 978-1426217890
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.9 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #117,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #179 in Books > Medical Books > Medicine > Internal Medicine > Neurology > Neuroscience
- #251 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Neuropsychology
- #358 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Neuropsychology

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Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars

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Top Customer Reviews

Woo-woo not included

ByJodi Wibbelson April 21, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Fascinating read. I picked it up on the recommendation of a person who reviewed "You are the Placebo" by Joe Dispenza. "Suggestible You" is more investigative and historical, along with being science-based, where "Placebo" is anecdotal and goes more into the parts of the brain and brain function. I went with audible on "Suggestible" and wasn't sorry. At the end there is a sample meditation/hypnosis exercise that was worth the extra 4 bucks with my Kindle edition.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It's written in somewhat of a Mythbusters style, and the author has a great sense of humor. For those of us who wonder about all kinds of strange things but are turned off by magical thinking, pseudo science, and woo-woo, this book is quite satisfying.

0Comment 8 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Let me suggest

ByHande Zon December 30, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

We know what we know – or do we? The mind is the most unfathomable subject in the world of knowledge. Yet we cannot begin to understand it without knowing more about our brain. This is what this book seeks to do. It hopes to enlighten us on the way our mind make us believe things that are not true, or not proven to be true.

Vance found out that he was cured of Legionnaire’s disease not by the miracle of the Christian Science faith that his parents believed. He went on to inquire into how the human brain can perform miracles of its own. He treats us to a study of the effect of placebos. He explains how they work and why some people are more prone to responding to placebos than others. He explains what the converse – nocebo – is and how that works.

Placebos and nocebos are driven by the power of suggestion. Hence, Vance engages us in a detailed study of hypnotism. He explains how it works and how trickery may also be infused in a hypnotic act. More importantly, he shows us ‘With both hypnosis and the placebo effect, people rely on nothing but their own brains, mixed with a little suggestion, to yield sometimes dramatic results’.

At other times, the same factors just lead us to less drama. They may, for example, predispose some of us to believing in gods, ghosts, and superstition. The chapter that discusses the enzyme neurtin (chapter 3) will enlighten us as to how we are what we are, and what it is (valine) that makes us regulate dopamine in our brain. Vance explains that people with methyltransferase (met/met) instead of valine, are more sensitive to pain, rate experiences as more pleasurable than valine people do. Methyltransferase people are also more responsive to the placebo effect. Vance identifies Obama as a valine (what he describes as ‘val/val’ genetic contribution from both parents) and Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise as ‘met/met’). He goes on to explain the effect of other genes such as the OPRM1 which determines how the brain absorbs a drug (such as dopamine).

This book goes a long way to answering the question why some people are more suggestible than others. It is important to fully understand how our own brains may be deceiving us. The con artist can only do so much, the rest is left to us.

0Comment 12 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

You will look at all your beliefs and experiences in ...

ByJohn Dalpeon January 24, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

You will look at all your beliefs and experiences in a new light and don't be surprised if you begin to re-examine everything you think you know.

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If you like understanding the human mind

ByLCon March 30, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Fascinating science that the lay person can comprehend. If you like understanding the human mind, you'll find it interesting.

0Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

An eye opening Book

ByAmazon Customeron February 17, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Should be required reading for those who think memory to be infallible or to understand how we color the world around us with our misconceptions.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Look in the Mirror

ByAmazon Customeron January 30, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Very thought provoking with wide reaching implications for how each of sees the world. It appears that we really do create much of our own realities.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Five Stars

ByReeve-wilson Law Officeon April 30, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Thorough and readable on placebos and hypnosis.

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Some new thoughts.......

ByPatricia Birkelon April 7, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A little more elementary than I had expected tho.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

excellent, but llke all such books

excellent, but llke all such books, the message could be condensed down to about three pages... but those three pages are worth it.

Published 1 month ago by charles Bugni

Fascinating and engaging

Erik Vance’s SUGGESTIBLE YOU takes readers on a grand tour of the world of placebos, hypnosis and memory, encouraging us to take a closer look at everything we thought we knew...Read more

Published 2 months ago by BookLady

You'll learn a lot and enjoy the journey

Erik Vance gets you from the very beginning with a story from his youth, and how he seemed to be miraculously cured of Legionnaire's disease through faith.Read more

Published 2 months ago by Jeff Grabmeier

The potentials we overlook.

This is an excellent review of a topic that has significant implications for human potentials.

Published 3 months ago by W. L. McCraney

Fascinating Study of the How Medication Works

The exploration of mind/ body interaction in the efficacy of drugs based upon the expectations of the patient and the presentation of the Doctor

Published 3 months ago by Michael S. Johnstone

Interesting read

Great book, recommend it to anyone.
Thought I wasn't going to like it as the first few pages dealt with Christian Science, but that changed and I got a lot more interested in...Read more

Published 4 months ago by Cars

Four Stars

very interesting

Published 4 months ago by private

Better understand Placebos and Nocebos

Very engaging. A bit of a page-turner for a science-referenced work of non-fiction. Worth reading by anyone interested in health, wellness, and human recovery from illness and...Read more

Published 4 months ago by R. Gohring

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