Dr Lynda Shaw is a cognitive neuroscientist whose book Your Brain is Boss draws on scientific research to show how sensible ways of living our lives can be based on, and are explained by, our biological makeup. It is a self-help manual shot through with erudition, fascinating facts and wisdom. Dr Shaw challenges many taboos, often with pithy aphorism; she for instance debunks those who would scoff at the Unseen World by pointing out: ‘The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!’

Shaw brings scientific findings down to earth.

Do you remember when you were at school and the teacher would tell you off for staring out of the window. Admonitions such as ‘Stop daydreaming and get on with your work!’ were often said but were foolhardy.

It sounds homely, doesn’t it? Don’t bother about reflection! But, why does Shaw settle down for the charge?

According to researchers Rani and Rao (1996) dreaming or slowing brain frequencies down to alpha is one of the most sensible things you can do to improve attention, and Sobolewski and colleagues (2011) show that this will also help you gain greater emotional control….Sara Lazar at Harvard Medical School found that after people meditated daily for eight weeks, several areas of the brain changed resulting in an increase in memory, resilience, compassion and empathy. This all follows a run-down of alpha, beta, theta, gamma and delta waves, solid science underpinning the theory.

Time and again, vignettes about daily incidents in life highlight pointers about thinking in patterns that accord with a modern perspective. It is for instance remarked on elsewhere in this website that humour can play a key part in defusing over-tense situations, with good health spin-offs, with some Indian cults enjoining a hearty belly laugh before settling down to a session of meditation. This may be true in terms of personal experience but why is it so? Shaw goes into the neural biology:

A network of cortical and sub-cortical structures in the brain are involved in processing the surprising incongruity that leads to laughter. These areas include the temporo-occipito-parietal regions. Add to this the structures in the brain which are involved in reward attention and memory and it shows that a lot of the brain is involved when we are having fun.

There is so much meat, so much entertainment, in the book that it is almost a matter of opinion as to whether it is of more use to scientists starting off in their speciality or for psychiatrists and life-coaches suggesting ways of attaining a rounded, better perspective. The advantages of thinking quietly on one’s own, namely reflection, emotional intelligence – Self-awareness is the first step to improving emotional intelligence – or forming useful habits that increase the likelihood of success or thinking long and hard and with pleasure about what it is that matters to the reader. It follows as common sense that decision-making skills are enhanced by reflection.

The book is a counter-blast to those who choose to ignore the deeper qualities like intuition that are inherent in us all because they can defy crystalised explanation.

Insight is a deep understanding followed by suddenly seeing a pattern and the realisation of what the answer is.

So, what is going on with intuition and how can science explain it? It is gone into in detail in the book, which is science to underpin the confidence of those who wish live a life to the full.

What ups the game in Your Brain is Boss is detailed research spiced up in an extremely readable style.

Buy Your Brain is Boss by Dr Lynda Shaw