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Index
Your Brain: The Missing Manual
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A Note Regarding Supplemental Files
The Missing Credits
About the Author
About the Creative Team
Acknowledgements
The Missing Manual Series
Introduction
About This Book
About the Outline
Separating Truth from Speculation
About MissingManuals.com
Safari® Books Online
I. Warming Up
1. A Lap Around the Brain
A First Look at Your Brain
The Brain: An Archeological Site
The Outer Wrapper
The Middle Ground
The Basement
The History of the Brain
Ancient Brain, Modern World
The Brain's Wiring
Neurons
Synapses
The Nervous System
The Endocrine System
The Pituitary Gland
Mental Fitness
2. Brain Food: Healthy Eating
The Brain's Energy Use
Brain Fuel
Raw Sugar at Work
The Sugar Rush Myth
Complex Carbohydrates: The Ultimate Time-Release Pill
A Brain-Friendly Diet
Meal Sizes
Meal Timing
The Secret Gears of Appetite
Ghrelin and Leptin
Your Anti-Starvation System
The Set Point Trap
Emotional Eating
3. Sleep: Taking Your Brain Offline
Your Biological Clock
The Circadian Rhythm
The Perfect Day: 24 or 25 Hours?
Why We Sleep
Sleep in the Animal Kingdom
Sleep in Humans
Long-Term Sleep Deprivation
Short-Term Sleep Deprivation
The Sleep Cycle
Sleep Through the Ages
REM Sleep
How Sleep Boosts Learning
How Sleep Manages Emotions
Dream Analysis
The Content of Dreams
Keeping a Dream Journal
II. Exploring Your Brain
4. Perception
The Doors of Perception
Optical Illusions
Your Shifty Eyes
Keeping Focused
Distortions and Mismeasurements
Faulty Comparisons
Color Confusion
The 3-D World
Seeing Things
Making Something out of Nothing
Ignoring Things
Other Perception-Distorting Assumptions
Dizzy Yourself Silly with Optical Illusions on the Web
5. Memory
The Remembrance of Things Past
Short-Term Memory
Chunking
Long-Term Memory
How Memories Are Stored
The Man Who Couldn't Remember
The Reconstruction of Remembering
Leading questions shape memories
People incorporate new "information" into old memories.
People remember "facts" more readily than sources
Rehearsal turns suggestions into memories
Memories are influenced by mood
People distort memories to fit the concepts they know
Easier to understand means easier to remember
Why We Forget
The Man Who Couldn't Forget
Techniques for Better Remembering
Paying Attention
Repetition
The Method of Loci
Stories
Word Games
Codes
Indexing Memories with Pegs
Journals, Pictures, and Other Memory Aids
Gimmicks
Better Learning
6. Emotions
Understanding Emotion
Your Built-in Emotional Programming
What an Emotion Feels Like
How the Brain Assesses Emotions
Pleasure: The Reward System
Running out of Pleasure
Motivation
Cheating the Reward System
Fear: Avoiding Death
The Fight or Flight Response
Emotional Memories
Stress
The Effects of Stress
Conquering Stress
In Search of Happiness
The Set Point Theory
How to Accept Your Happiness Set Point
Looking Forward and Looking Back
Responding to Good and Bad
7. Reason
The Thinking Brain
The Prefrontal Cortex
Common Sense
Anchoring
Conservatism
The Mere Exposure Effect
Grouping
Moral Calculus
Statistical Blunders
Small Samples
Selection Bias
Regression to the Mean
Probability
Random Events and Games of Chance
Critical Thinking
Accepting Uncertainty
Overcoming Bias
Baloney Detection
Winning Arguments with Logical Fallacies
Use value-laden words
Attack the arguer instead of the argument
Argue from authority
Distort the opposing view
Shift the goalposts
Present a false choice
Criticize the consequences of a belief
Use circular logic
Problem Solving
Creative Thinking Tools
The Art of Provocation
Solve the Opposite Problem
Prompt Ideas with SCAMPER
The Six Thinking Hats
8. Your Personality
The Building Blocks of Personality
How Realistic Is the Five Factor Model?
A Personality Test
Scoring the Test
Dissecting Your Personality
Extraversion
Accommodation
Conscientiousness
Neuroticism
Openness
The Personality Fit
Career Testing
Flow
III. Understanding Other People's Brains
9. The Battle of the Sexes
Gender in the Brain
Sex and DNA
The Y Chromosome
Sex Hormones
Male Brains and Female Brains
Are Gender Differences Real?
Gender Myths
Studying Young Children
Studying Wrongly Sexed People
The Statistical Picture
Love and Relationships
The Love Effect
The Timeline of Love
Bonding
The Habits of Highly Successful Relationships
10. The Developing Brain
Before Birth
Childhood
Wiring the Brain
Critical Periods
Baby Myths
The Teenage Years
Parenting a Teenage Brain
Old Age
Alzheimer's: The Nun Study
Nature vs. Nurture
Heritability
Family Studies
Nature: Your Genes
Nurture: Your Environment
The Interaction Between Genes and Environment
Index
About the Author
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