By Terri Schlichenmeyer
For months, your brain has been full.
Full of holidaying and end-of-year-ing and remembering all the things that needed done by the new month. Full of gifts and celebrations and news and weather. Now, maybe it’s time to see what else goes on inside your cranium with these great new books about mental health…
If you struggle to know what’s truth these days and what’s not, then “The Gaslit Brain: Protect Your Brain from the Lies of Bullying, Gaslighting, and Institutional Complicity” by Jennifer Fraser, PhD (Prometheus Books, $34.95) might be the book you need.
Using stories to show, not tell, Fraser helps readers put themselves in situations, so they can learn how to identify a gaslighter. She then looks at the personality traits of someone who gaslights before teaching readers how to deal with the person who tries to lie to you. This is an especially helpful book for anyone who relies on the truth, and accepts nothing less.
(Terri Schlichenmeyer)
Worldwide strife is on everyone’s mind these days, and “Warhead: How the Brain Shapes War and War Shapes the Brain” by Nicolas Wright (St. Martin’s Press, $30.00) is a science-based book that will help you understand long-term ramifications of conflict. It takes you from wars and warriors throughout history, to modern warfare and why it might seem like the world is constantly at battle.
This not just a book for warriors on the field, though. Wright says that we are wired to do battle – whether its overseas, in your neighborhood, or sitting at your workstation. You’ll be fascinated by this book.
So how do you know what you know? Is it because someone else knows it? Do they know that you know? Ach, so confusing, so relax your mind a little and read “When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life” by Steven Pinker (Scribner, $30.00), and it’ll all make sense.
In this book, you’ll see how “common knowledge” is uncommonly necessary for human society, and how we naturally slip right into using it – until we don’t, and then all kinds of bad things can happen. This is a book that may boggle your mind sometimes, but it’ll also open your eyes to how our society works.
If this all enough to keep you awake at night, well, then you need “Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer’s Guide Through the Sleeping Mind” by Michelle Carr (Henry Holt & Company, $29.99).
Your alarm goes off, you’re wide awake, but what do you remember about your dreams? Carr says that you can learn to “harness” the dreams you have for better mental health, including problem-solving, and you can learn to avoid those bad, troubling dreams that ruin your rest – and the rest of your day.
Not enough reading for your mental health? Then ask a librarian or bookseller for more, and they’ll usher you to a section filled with self-help. Grab these four great books and others, then open your mind with good information, and fill it up.