Preface to the New Edition When this book was first published in 2011, we had recently entered a new era of understanding the brain-behavior connection. The question, "Why do we think as we think and do as we do?" was taking on new meaning, particularly because neuroscience was increasingly offering ways of examining the question that weren't available even a decade prior. In the few years since, it's difficult to quantify just how much new research has hit the scene that in one way or another touches on these questions, which are always gaining more attention in both scholarly and popular press. As someone who writes science and health articles for popular magazines, I'm shoulder-deep in new research much of the time, and, as a result, I have a decent perspective on the latest understandings emerging from labs around the world. Allowing for variability in research quality, certain trends are clear in the best of these results. Viewing these trends over time leads to a few conclusions, and one is that the original thesis of this book is more strongly supported now than even when it was first published. The brain is a prediction and pattern-detection machine with a penchant for storytelling that craves certainty, stability, and predictability. Begin with that understanding, and a great deal starts making sense when we ask, "Why do we think as we think and do as we do?" Begin with that understanding, and you'll also begin making sense of yourself. That was, and continues to be, the main driver for why I started writing about these topics to begin with: making sense of, specifically, why I think as I think and do as I do. As I've mentioned in many interviews since the first edition was published, that was my starting point when I started writing about the subjects in these pages, and it's with this same flavor of introspection that I'm happy to see this book going back into the world with a few new content adjustments and research findings. The thesis that the content orbits around feels more relevant and well-supported now than ever before. And that's heartening to know, not only because it makes the book in your hand worth reading, but because it shows that we're getting somewhere--in the really big sense of that statement. The human brain, and by association human thought and behavior, is a tremendously complex thing to understand, but we're getting closer to true understandings that yield clearer answers. Having said that, what's also true is that we're always uncovering questions that aren't close to being answered, no matter how much we'd like to claim otherwise. One of the perils of popular-media science treatments is jumping to answers that really don't exist. We'd like them to exist. We'd like answers to guide us. We'd love to create how-to systems around these answers for others to follow. But when you break it down, this is little more than either well-intentioned wish fulfillment or, sometimes, manipulation of peoples' need for answers and ways to change their lives. As a journalist, part of the challenge is to know which way is which, and to check myself continuously when approaching questions that are likely to remain open for a good long while, if not indefinitely. With that, I leave you to read this edition, which I hope has judiciously followed a path that celebrates what we know while acknowledging what we don't, always preserving the space between. Excerpted from What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite by David Disalvo All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
