Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist's Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain's Healing Power

by Kelly Lambert

Overview

In this fascinating exploration of depression, neuroscientist Kelly Lambert highlights her groundbreaking research suggesting that important clues to the mysteries of this disease have been in our hands all along. She identifies a circuit in the human brain—connecting movement, feeling, and cognition—that is responsible for symptoms of depression, and shows that when we knit a sweater, prepare a meal, or simply repair a lamp, we're actually bathing our brain in “feel-good” chemicals. Highlighting inspiring accounts of change and growth, Lifting Depression offers a compassionate and commonsense way of preventing and treating one of the modern era's most debilitating diseases.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786732166
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	01/05/2010
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	356,340
File size:	400 KB

About the Author

Kelly Lambert is chair of psychology at Randolph-Macon College. Her writing has appeared in Nature, Scientific American, Behavioral Neuroscience, and more. Her research has been featured on ABC World News Tonight and in Scientific American Mind. She is president-elect of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society. She lives in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

Table of Contents

1 Depression Strikes Deep 1

2 Why Are We So Depressed? The Lifestyle Paradox 25

3 Building the Effort-Driven Rewards Brain Circuit: Use It or Lose it 47

4 Giving the Brain a Hand 69

5 Coping Effectively with Stress 91

6 Our Social Brains 119

7 The Building Blocks of Resilience 143

8 Nonpharmacological Treatments for Depression: A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action 173

9 Effort-Driven Rewards and Our Evolving Brains 201

10 The New Rx for Preventing and Lifting Depression 227

Acknowledgments 245

Notes 249

References 261

Index 281