What does Whoopi Goldberg have to do with neuroscience?<\/p>\n
A lot, says Jeff Brown, co-author with Mark Fenske<\/a> of \u201cThe Winner\u2019s Brain.\u201d Goldberg, an Oscar-winning actress and now the frank and hilarious moderator of \u201cThe View,\u201d is a model of resilience, according to Brown, an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School<\/a>. She has weathered some of life\u2019s hardest knocks, including growing up in a New York City housing project, three divorces, and her daughter\u2019s teenage pregnancy, but has always bounced right back.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to the brain, winning equals success,\u201d said Brown. \u201cAnd success can be obtained across many different aspects of life, from being able to evaluate what is important, recognizing valuable opportunities, to finding the motivation to achieve your goals. Each of us is geared with different preferences, desires, hopes, and drives. When it comes to deciding how we want to win \u2014 how to be successful \u2014 we\u2019re in the driver\u2019s seat.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Winner\u2019s Brain\u201d combines cognitive neuroscience and fMRI scanning (\u201cwhich gives us the best look we have so far at the brain in action\u201d) with cognitive behavioral psychology that, said Brown, has long provided specific tools with marked results for making lasting behavioral and emotional changes. (fMRI stands for functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.) With this dual understanding, Brown and Fenske navigate and identify the functions of a healthy, winning brain: memory, adaptability, emotions, self-awareness, motivation, and more.<\/p>\n \u201cA New York City window washer and London cab drivers are examples of people we interfaced with to learn how they optimize the human brain,\u201d said Brown. \u201cIn each case illustrated, we\u2019ve identified credible fMRI research to help illuminate the stories and give firm foundation to the suggestions we make for readers.\u201d<\/p>\n But along the way, the authors also interviewed some well-known winners such as actress Laura Linney, athlete Kerri Strug, and artist Andrew Wyeth.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we never actually made it to Kevin Bacon,\u201d joked Brown, \u201cin most cases, we gravitated toward an individual because of their expertise and what the research was guiding. B.B. King talked with us about current research with jazz musicians, and Phyllis Diller was glad to talk and laugh with us about risk.\u201d<\/p>\n For those of us lagging in the brain department, there\u2019s hope yet. The book features more than a dozen brain exercises (called \u201cbrainstorms\u201d), but the biggest success factor appears to be self-awareness.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe self-awareness is key to reaching your goals,\u201d said Brown. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have an accurate sense of self-awareness, then it\u2019s much more likely that you\u2019ll be incompetent at the tasks you undertake.\u201d<\/p>\n Brown calls this \u201cthe double whammy of incompetence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe first whammy occurs because the person is not particularly good at something \u2014 and the second whammy comes as a result of them not knowing that they are not very good at it,\u201d he said. \u201cKnowing our strengths and weaknesses is key for effectively using the skills we already possess and working to improve the skills we would like to possess.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What does Whoopi Goldberg have to do with neuroscience? A lot, says Jeff Brown, co-author with Mark Fenske of \u201cThe Winner\u2019s Brain.\u201d Goldberg, an Oscar-winning actress and now the frank and hilarious moderator of \u201cThe View,\u201d is a model of resilience, according to Brown, an instructor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has weathered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-500061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}