← The library

Reading collection

Hack Your Brain

Neuroscience and psychology, distilled into things you can actually use.

Books
21
Insights
119
A still life that evokes the Hack Your Brain reading room

Collection index

A shelf with an argument.

Every collection gathers books around a practical life problem. Open the title that feels closest, then let the shelf widen the frame.

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01

Barbara Oakley · 2014

A Mind for Numbers

Technical mastery is not a gift. It is a loop: focus, release, retrieve, and return.

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02

Jeff Hawkins

A Thousand Brains

Intelligence is not where one model wins. It is where many models learn to agree.

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03

Kristen Willeumier

Biohack Your Brain

A better brain is not usually built by adding more. It is built by removing what keeps repair from happening.

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04

John Medina

Brain Rules

A better brain day is mostly a design problem.

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05

Joe Dispenza · 2012

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself

A new self begins as an unfamiliar state you are willing to practice before the old world knows what to do with you.

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06

Rick Hanson, Richard Mendius

Buddha's Brain

The mind may chase what is wrong by default. Practice teaches it how to keep what is nourishing.

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07

Thibaut Meurisse

Dopamine Detox

Make ordinary life vivid enough that you stop needing every hour to be intensified.

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08

Lisa Feldman Barrett

How Emotions Are Made

The feeling is real. The category is made.

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09

Michael Pollan · 2018

How to Change Your Mind

The mind changes when wonder becomes safe enough to study and disciplined enough to integrate.

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10

Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein · 2008

Nudge

A good nudge does not win by force. It wins by arranging the path so your better intention is the easiest one to keep.

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11

Joshua Foer · 2011

Moonwalking with Einstein

Our memories make us who we are. They are the seat of our values and source of our character.

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12

Maxwell Maltz · 1960

Psycho-Cybernetics

You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.

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13

Rolf Dobelli · 2011

The Art of Thinking Clearly

Clear thinking is not the absence of bias. It is the habit of catching your favorite mistake before it spends your future.

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14

Bessel Van Der Kolk

The Body Keeps the Score

Healing is not forgetting. It is living in the present without your body being hijacked by the past.

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15

Steve Peters · 2012

The Chimp Paradox

Your Chimp is not bad. It is emotional, powerful, and yours to manage before it manages you.

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16

Daniel J. Levitin

The Organized Mind

The goal is not to become a human filing cabinet. The goal is to think clearly in a world that keeps trying to scatter your attention.

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17

Jose Silva

The Silva Mind Control Method

Change feels less mystical when it becomes a ritual of state, image, and repetition.

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18

Alex Korb · 2015

The Upward Spiral

The upward spiral begins when one small action gives the brain evidence that the next small action is possible.

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19

Kelly McGonigal · 2011

The Willpower Instinct

The pause is where willpower stops being punishment and becomes care for the person you are becoming.

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20

Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney · 2011

Willpower

The secret of willpower is not to spend the whole day proving you have it. It is to build a life where the best choice costs less.

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21

Daniel G. Amen

You, Happier

A happier life is not found by chasing a feeling. It is built by caring for the brain that generates it.

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