The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology

Surgeon Maxwell Maltz proposed that we are powerfully motivated to—actually must—produce in reality our self-image. If one wants to improve his life, he must improve his self-image. Maltz elaborates this theory, along with advice on improving self-image, in The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology.

In an early chapter, Maltz introduces a though experiment. He encourages you to imagine yourself in a theater. You’ll find that you are also the primary actor in the show. In addition you are the writer and director. This is your self-image and you are in control—if you want to be.

Maltz returns to this concept of watching a film or play throughout the book. You can recall previous successes and bring that sense of confidence and accomplishment into the present moment to help you act with boldness. You can imagine yourself taking on challenges and overcoming them before it happens. You can use your imagination to anticipate problems. People often do this to stir up their fear and talk themselves into withdrawing, but you can also do it to invent solutions and find answers to objections so that you can proceed with reasonable confidence.

After introducing the idea of self-image, Maltz uses the remaining chapters to discuss building a healthy self-image to help you be happier and more successful in various situations or aspects of life. This covers a lot of ground, which is not easily summarized. Some of the advice seemed useful and interesting to me.

For instance, he discusses goals. Goals should be your own (not someone else’s). They should be realistic. Visualize your success (in that theater in your mind).

It’s important to be yourself. Don’t be afraid of being different. Don’t be afraid of seemingly perfect people. Accept yourself as a human being with strength and weaknesses; don’t beat yourself up. Express yourself in positive ways.

It’s natural to experience fear. Be open about it; fears seem less bad when they are brought out into the light. Solve problems as well as you can—imperfect solutions can still make things better. Once you’ve done what you can, think about something else.

Throughout the book, Maltz reiterates the basic theme. Your unconscious mind is working to produce what you want. Give it good and clear instructions by having a good, positive, realistic self-image. Your imagination, Maltz refers to it as your “success mechanism,” will guide you.

Maxwell Maltz also wrote Creative Living for Today.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

This Year I Will... by M. J. Ryan

Maltz, Maxwell. The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology. 1964. New York: Pocket Books, 1970.

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Maltz, Maxwell.  Creative Living for Today.  1967.  New York: Pocket Books, 1973.

Maxwell Maltz is known for his self-help books, especially Psycho-Cybernetics.  He got into the field because of observations he made as a plastic surgeon.  He found that the change in appearance he created brought about a transformation in some, freeing them to be happy, engaged people.  Others were just as depressed and disappointed after the surgery as before.  The difference, he decided, was self-image.

In Creative Living for Today, Maltz encourage people to have a positive, realistic self-image.  He says life should be lively: creative, interesting, engaging, adventurous.  For too many, life is dull, disconnected, and fearful.  We can choose which kind of life we lead, and it is largely a matter of how we think about ourselves.

Maltz intends the book to be practical inspiration for living the good life.  In it, he offers advice on how to practically improve your self-image and your life.

Goals are very important to Maltz. Large and small, long-term and daily, goals give us something to move toward.  Goals and self-image have an effect on each other.  To pursue a goal, we must be able to image we can achieve it.  Achieving challenging, realistic goals strengthens our self-image as people who can succeed.  In addition, activity and productivity is pleasurable in itself.  Endeavor to enjoy what you do.

Engagement is another major issue for the author.  To withdraw from life, and especially to isolate yourself from other people, is to separate yourself from pleasure.  Relationships with people are some of the greatest things we can enjoy.  Admittedly, life and relationships can be difficult, but that is something we all face.  Maltz argues that engagement is good, even necessary, and if we see ourselves as capable of living well and having good relationships even in the face of difficulties, which he says is true, then our self-image will help us live it.

Maltz doesn’t present a world where we can have perfection if we just think right.  Everybody gets hurt; we all have emotional scars.  Maturity is learning to accept this imperfect world and living creatively in it.  We must occasionally create some mental space for ourselves to be refreshed so we can engage life with energy, learn to forgive ourselves and others, and constantly tend our self-image.

Maltz illustrates his points with many stories.  Most of these come from his own life, sometimes his dealings with patients, but often drawing on other experiences.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Attitude is Everything by Jeff Keller

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

The Velveteen Principles by Toni Raiten-D’Antonio

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Become a Better You by Joel Osteen

Become a Better You was Joel Osteen’s follow-up to his first book, Your Best Life Now. Osteen even presents the book as a continuation of the theme and purpose of its predecessor.

Each chapter is a topical sermon on reaching your potential in some aspect of life. The aspects are personal growth, positive self-image, relationships, habits, faith and passion.

I have previously criticized Osteen for taking self-help advice and wrapping it up in religion. I see Norman Vincent Peale and Robert H. Schuller in much the same light. A defense all of these pastors might raise is that they are focusing on practical matters of living well. A head full of religious knowledge that doesn’t change your life for the better is doing no good; it’s not the life Christians are called to.

I agree. I also see in Jesus and the apostles teachers who could both delve deep into the scripture and provide very practical instruction based on it. Religious meditation and working to make the world a better place—even if little seems to come of it—go hand-in-hand in Christianity.

In one area Osteen has a strong foundation: relationships. It is clear from the Bible that God cares very much about how we relate to and treat each other. Osteen’s use of scriptures are apropos in these chapters. The sermons hold up when read with a Bible in the other hand; something that is weaker in the other chapters.

Joel Osteen also wrote

Break Out

I Declare

Readings from Your Best Life Now

You Can, You Will

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Be All You Can Be! by John C. Maxwell

Complaint Free Relationships by Will Bowen

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Faith by Jimmy Carter

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good by Robert H. Schuller

The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell Malts

Positive Imaging by Norman Vincent Peale

Power in Praise by Merlin R. Carothers

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be by Robert H. Schuller

You Can if You Think You Can by Norman Vincent Peale

Osteen, Joel. Become a Better You: Seven Keys to Improving Your Life Every Day. New York: Free Press, 2007.

I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna

McKenna, Paul. I Can Make You Thin. New York: Sterling, 2009.

This is not a diet. Paul McKenna believes they don’t work, so he won’t be recommending one for you. He won’t even be taking much of your time. He says you can read I Can Make You Thin in two hours, and that’s about right.

McKenna dislikes diets because they tell you what to eat and not eat and are prescriptive in other ways, in addition to them just not working. People have trouble with their weight because they’ve become disconnected from their bodies and their natural senses of hunger and satiety. Diets perpetuate this disconnection, so they don’t have lasting results.

What McKenna offers instead of a diet is four simple rules. In fact, he suggest that you may be able to get by with just one rule, and it has nothing to do with what you eat. In fact, the entire system is more about the way you eat that what you eat.

You don’t even have to memorize the rules. One of the back pages has a punch-out card with the rules on it so you can review them every time you eat or want to eat.

The book isn’t quite as short as just four rules. It includes some information to help you stay on track by dealing with cravings, emotional eating, self image and getting back on the system when you fall off.

Included with the book is a self-hypnosis CD. McKenna recommends using the CD to help change your self image and solidify the new habits you’ll be developing as you follow the four rules.



If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey
Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Robbins Blair

The 4:8 Principle by Tommy Newberry

Newberry, Tommy. The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2007.



Newberry takes the title of his book, and his theme, from Philippians 4:8. The verse is an admonition to think on good things. According to Newberry, our potential for joy in life is greatly influenced by our predominate thoughts.

The book has three major divisions dealing with the development of a joyful life: thinking and self-worth, emotion management, and developing good habits. The first section may be old ground for those who’ve read similar books. It asserts the connection between our typical thoughts and the results in our mind and actions. If we want more joy, we must think on those things that bring joy. To have a healthy expectation of joy, we must have an appropriate self-image. Newberry gears his book toward a Christian audience and defines self-worth as “authentic self-esteem rooted in your uniqueness as a child of God.”

Thoughts and emotions are not independent. They influence each other. Because of this, we can affect reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions by out thoughts and the way we look at situations. Newberry devotes a chapter to identifying thought habits that magnify negative emotions and strategies for developing new thinking for better emotional responses. He provides a list of Bible verses that one can dwell on to help combat negative reactions.

The final section deals with lifestyle changes that support joy. It is about taking control of your environment, associations and behavior to protect yourself from negativity and concentrate on joy. Not everything is in our control, but the idea is to respond productively to negativity rather than simply reacting by reproducing the negativity in ourselves.

As part of this, the final chapter is devoted to gratitude. Gratitude is a powerful supporter of joy. One of the best habits to develop to increase joy is to consider what you have to be thankful for and express that gratitude.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
-Philippians 4:8 (NKJV)

How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? by Dorie McCubbrey

McCubbrey, Dorie. How Much Does Your Soul Weigh? Diet-Free Solutions to Your Food Weight and Body Worries. New York: HarperResource, 2002.

Dr. Dorie McCubbrey calls herself the “Don’t Diet” Doctor. McCubbrey has a real doctorate in bioengineering. She bases her approach to better health and life from not dieting more on her work as a licensed professional counselor.

Success in weight management and overcoming eating disorders is an inside job. Throughout the book, this is contrasted with the external sources of weight problems and attempts to deal with them.

According to McCubbrey, weight problems have their source in trying to fit ourselves to standards that come from the world around us. Even seemingly healthy people can have weight problems and eating disorders that come from this external orientation. To deal with these, people play “games” which are strategies and behaviors for controlling weight that don’t deal with the real problems.



McCubbrey herself suffered these problems and played many of these games. Her struggles with body image and perfection led hear into anorexia, bulimia, excessive exercise and periods of being overweight.

The solution to these issues, and to the broader issue of living well, is intuitive self-care. Practicing intuitive self-care involves getting in touch with one’s inner wisdom about what is good in eating, exercise and living. It is living from the inside out instead of the outside in.

McCubbrey offers strategies for practicing intuitive self-care. She describes them as feeding the soul. This “diet” for the soul involves learning to love, listen to, and express your true self. To help readers practice this soul diet, she offers several recipes, which are exercises to practice. Some of these deal directly with the way people eat and think about eating. Others are directed toward meditation and discovery of one’s true desires.

The book is in many ways more of a self-help book that a diet plan. It doesn’t focus on changing behavior of lifestyles (lifestyle change is one of the games), but on living from the soul.

You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

Making money starts in your mind according to Jen Sincero, author of You are a Badass at Making Money. Your wealth, or lack of it, has a lot to do with your mindset.

The things we think and say, even and maybe especially in your subconscious mind, affect our behavior related to money. If you’re making less than you want, you probably have beliefs and thoughts that are holding you back.

Fortunately, you can change your mind. Much of Sincero’s book is focused on ways you can get a new perspective on money and change your habits of thought. New behaviors and more money should follow.

Of course, changing deeply ingrained beliefs and habits that you’ve practice for years can be difficult. It requires persistence and determination.

It also requires action. At first, you’re unlikely to know how you’re going to make more money. You’ll have some ideas, and you should act on them. You’ll have questions and you should seek out answers.

Sincero suggests you’ll have help along the way. This is where things get a little far out. She says there is a universal intelligence trying to give you what you want. Our consistent thoughts tell the universe what we want and how much we want it. If we want positive things, like being rich enough to do a lot of cool stuff, we should have strong positive emotions as much as we can right now.

This notion of universal intelligence is common to self-help literature, especially related to wealth. Sometimes the power is ascribed to the subconscious mind, as in the case of Maxwell Maltz, but often this power is seen to rest in some outside or all permeating force, which is some people’s conception of God.

Actually, a lot of the ideas you’ll find in Sincero’s book are common to the genre. The humorous and entertaining way she presents the material is unique. Books like this are sometimes dense, brow-beating or far out there, but Sincero’s humorous, easy-going tone and straightforward style makes for easy reading.

Jen Sincero also wrote You are a Badass.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Acres of Diamonds by Russel H. Conwell

Creative Living for Today by Maxwell Maltz

Gratitude by Melody Beattie

The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell Maltz

Make Miracles in Forty Days by Melody Beattie

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker

Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klaus

Sincero, Jen. You are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth. New York: Viking, 2017.

The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

Bartlett, Allison Hoover. The Man Who Loved Books too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession. New York: Riverhead, 2009.

I like books. You probably do, too. People like books for different reason. I, and many people I know, love reading. Others enjoy and appreciate books as pieces of history, as art, for associations with their authors or previous owners, as objects with various qualities.

Some people own books because of what the books they own say about them. John Gilkey is such a person. The down side of books is they can be expensive, especially fine are rare books that might burnish the image of their owners. Gilkey had a unique way of overcoming this obstacle. He stole books.


Bartlett seems reluctant to focus on Gilkey. It’s partly because she is reluctant to seem to glorify a criminal or give an outlet to a criminal who is intent on burnishing his image. It’s also because the true story has other interesting participants, especially bookseller Ken Sander who has taken upon himself to track down book thieves. She also seeks to understand the kind of compulsion that goes into collecting, especially when that compulsion drives someone to crime.

It’s a little scary how easily Gilkey accomplished fraud and theft. He took the opportunity to steal a little information, and then picked up the phone to use it to steal books. What is scarier is his capacity for self-justification. Self-justification is a common human activity, but Gilkey has mastered it such a degree that he seems to have almost no conscience. It may be good fortune that his fixation is books and the easy criminal, but not violent, way of acquiring them.

The book is weakest in this last respect. Bartlett didn’t seem to understand the collector’s drive much better at the end of the book than at the beginning. I didn’t. The Man Who Loved Books too Much works as a story about interesting or unusual people.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in
The Private Investigator’s Handbook by Chuck Chambers

New & Interesting Stuff December 10, 2016

Amos

Daniel

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

Hosea

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

Infrastructure News (Mostly Missouri)

Joel

The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell Maltz

New & Interesting Stuff November 14, 2016

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

400 Books Reviewed on Keenan's Book Reviews

I’ve posted reviews of 400 books on this blog. It’s hard to believe.  Here are links to the 50 most recent posts. Further down are links to more reviews.

First Time Reviews

A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran

Amos

Bottled Lightning by Seth Fletcher

Break Out by Joel Osteen

The Caped Crusade by Glen Weldon

Circles by James Burke

Daniel

Do Less Get More by Shaa Wasmund

Ecclesiastes

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

The Explorer King by Robert Wilson

Ezekiel

General Epistles

The Grid by Gretchen Bakke

Habakkuk

Hedy's Folly by Richard Rhodes

Hosea

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley

In Memory Yet Green by Isaac Asimov

Jeremiah

Joel

Jonah

Lamentations

Lights Out by Ted Koppel

The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Maxwell Maltz

Micah

Nahum

Obadiah

The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by David Niven

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Powerhouse by Steve Levine

Psalms

Readings from Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen

The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Costello

Reckless by Chrissie Hynde

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Rising Tide by James M. Barry

Rust by Jonathan Waldman

Song of Solomon

Technology in World Civilization by Arnold Pacey

Why Science Does Not Disprove God by Amir Aczel

The Wright Brothers by David McCollough

The Writings

You are a Badass by Jen Sincero

You Can Become the Person You Want to Be by Robert H. Schuller

You Can, You Will by Joel Osteen

Continuation of list of 400 books reviewed

First 25 Reviews

Reviews 26-50

Reviews 51-75

Reviews 76-100

Reviews 101-150

Reviews 151-200

Reviews 201-250

Reviews 250-300

Reviews 301-350

The Apparitionist by Peter Manseau

Photography was introduced to the United States at around the same time that a new religion was born in the nation. Spiritualism promised a connection to the dead in their realm through human mediums, and some thought photography might capture physical manifestations of spirits. Peter Manseau tells the story of the first spirit photographer in The Apparitionist.

The man who captured the first supposed spirit photograph was an amateur at the time. William Mumler thought he had made in error in cleaning the glass on which the photonegative was captured when a faint image appeared in a self-portrait he shot in 1862. He was using the photo studio owned by Hannah Stuart. The married photographer, soon to be widowed and soon after that to be Mrs. Mumler, was a Spiritualist, and she convinced him that the image was not an error, but an apparition. The photos caught the attention of the Spiritualist press, first in the New York-based Herald of Progress, then in Mumler’s hometown of Boston in the Beacon of Light, which published the address of the Stuart studio.

Soon the studio was producing many spirit photographs; they even took orders by mail from across the country. Bostonian Spiritualists compared photos and found evidence that Mumler was faking the images. Discredited, the Mumler’s moved to New York to quietly offer spirit photographs again. Their practice there let to criminal prosecution in 1869. Photographers knew of ways to produce such images, but no investigators could figure out what Mumler was doing. Though the judge gave did not suggest the photos actually captured images of spirits, he rejected the prosecution’s case because it did not adequately support the charges of fraud and similar crimes.

Even with such tepid vindication, the atmosphere in New York was too hot for the Mumlers, so they returned to Boston. Though Mumler continued to take spirit photos, he had developed a much deeper understanding of the art and science of photography. He developed a process that allowed for the direct reproduction of photos on newsprint; founded the Photo-Electrotype Company of Boston and licensed his process to companies in other cities. This allowed newspapers and magazines to less expensively reproduce images without preparing an engraving first.

Manseau also discussed the development of photography in the United States after the art was introduced here. This includes American pioneers of photography such as Samuel Morse, also inventor of the telegraph, and Civil War battlefield photographers Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Age of Edison by Ernest Freeburg

Arthur & George by Julian Barnes

Billion Dollar Whale by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope

Buried Alive by Jan Bondeson

Chief Engineer by Erica Wagner

Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes

Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini

The Explorer King by Robert Wilson

The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

The Real World of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Costello

Scan Artist by Marcia Biederman

Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein

Manseau, Peter. The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

The Caped Crusade by Glen Weldon

Based on his self-description in The Caped Crusade, Glen Weldon and I are close in age. Unlike Weldon, the limited selection of broadcast television channels in my rural community did not present 1960s Batman series. My childhood impressions of the Dark Knight came almost exclusively from the comics. My favorite version of Batman is the “World’s Greatest Detective” (when I came across his team-up with a very old Sherlock Holmes in Detective Comics 500, I had to have it). I’m also fond of the adventure hero who hues close to his pulp roots—basically the Shadow or Doc Savage in a bat suit (I also had to buy Batman 253, in which the awestruck superhero acknowledges the Shadow as an inspiration).

I suppose that I staked out my position on Batman because that is partly what Weldon’s book is about, the contradictions between Batman the character and Batman the idea, and the tension between stories loved by hardcore fans and stories appreciated by a wider audience who engage with Batman in diverse ways.

Weldon illustrates this tension, and the character’s shift as the pull is sometimes stronger in one direction or another, through the history of the character. He sees a cycle in Batman’s depiction. He starts as a dark loner. He becomes a father figure (most directly to Robin). He grows into the patriarch of a family (Robin, Alfred, Batgirl, and Huntress just to start a list). Then a desire to revitalize the character, get back to roots, or satisfy the core fandom returns him to the loner stage.

The hardcore fans Weldon writes of generally conceive Batman as serious. They want a Batman who is realistic and gritty. In my experience as a reader of comics, “serious,” “realistic” and “gritty” are often code words for prurience, grotesquery and gore. I’m not interested in that in comics or any other media.

These fans have a love-hate relationship with the Batman of other media (they just hate the Adam West version). The Tim Burton films revitalized public interest in Batman when the comics were in a serious sales slump. (The hardcore fans hate the Joel Schumacher movies. I’m with them on that.) In the Chris Nolan trilogy they finally got a Batman who is serious and has acceptance in the wider culture.

That culture is much wider now than ever, especially due to the Internet. Comics fandom was once very insular, and in some ways it still is. In the Internet age, many people are engaging the character and idea of Batman. Comic book fans, cosplayers, fan fiction writers, movie buffs, fashionistas, retro TV watchers, hipsters and a host of others are interacting with Batman’s stories, history, image and iconography. It is a world that some of the old hardcore fans may find discomfiting, but it may be a place where Batman can have lasting relevance.

Weldon plainly likes that prospect. In his view, the super-straight Adam West Batman and the grounded, brooding Chris Nolan Batman can coexist. They are both really Batman. People have always focused on the aspects of the character that resonated with them. They have also imposed on him interpretations that the writers and artists that created his stories never imagined. We do this with every text, but few texts have the longevity of Batman. That may be the Weldon’s other point. We can take any version of Batman as seriously as we want, or we can simply enjoy the stories. He is a fictional character after all.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in:

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

Fic by Anne Jamison

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Will Eisner by Michael Schumacher

Wisdom from the Batcave by Cary A. Friedman

Weldon, Glen. The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016.

The Instinct to Heal by David Servan-Schreiber

Depression and anxiety seem to be the new defining diseases of our age, especially in the West. These disorders, and even severe stress, can affect our health as much as smoking or obesity.

 French psychiatrist David Servan-Schreiber notes that drugs and talk therapy are not especially effective, though the side-effects can be serious. The operating theory behind antidepressant drugs may simply be wrong.

 Dr. Servan-Schreiber suggests we look elsewhere for solutions to depression. The roots of depression are in the emotional brain, rather than the thinking brain, the body and the interaction between them.

 Our brain is layered, an as you go deeper inward, you get to older structures similar to other life forms: first those similar to other primates, then to mammals and finally to reptiles. The wordy, analytical, thinking part of the brain is the newest outer layer, the neocortex. Anxiety and depression are more strongly linked to the inner parts of the brain, which is emotional, image-oriented and much more closely linked to the operations of the body.

 One aspect of the brain-body connection is the heart. The heart has a bundle of nerves associated with it that are practically a simple brain itself, and this heart-brain has a direct connection to the emotional brain in the head. Our emotional and physical states are closely tied this way. Servan-Schreiber discusses techniques related to heart coherence, the variation of heart rate in a regular patter, that can be calming to the heart and brain and put is in a relaxed, restorative mode. His book includes instructions on a type of meditation for increasing heart coherence.

 He also talks about a technique that uses eye movements similar to those that occur while we dream to help the emotional brain process trauma, called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). This therapy will require a trip to a psychiatrist or psychologist, but for the right patients it can provide quick results.

 There is the suggestion that some cases of depression can be a symptom of disease or other issues in the body, especially inflammation. One of the things one can do deal with this type of depression is to get more Omega-3 fatty acids. These can help improve the function of the brain by improving the coating on brain cells. Depression seems to be more prevalent in countries where the typical diet is lower in Omega-3. Exercise can also improve depression and anxiety, especially when it is done regularly; three times a week for 20 minutes is enough to see a benefit.

 In addition, relationships and community are important to mental health and a sense of wellbeing. The quality of ones relationships can have a great impact on physical and mental health. Over the last few decades, people have come to have fewer and shallower relationships and less connections to community and purpose. Servan-Schreiber’s advice on this particularly focuses on ways to communicate that resolve conflicts and build empathy.

 Depression and anxiety are complex. Servan-Schreiber provides a suite of options for treating it. One of these may be helpful along, and some may need to use various ones in combination. In any case, there are things you can do, especially with the aid of a physician or psychologist, to make things better.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado

The Beethoven Factor by Paul Pearsall

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need by Paul Pearsall

The Mindful Way through Depression by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindal Segal & Joh Kabat-Zinn

Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine M. Pittman & Elizabeth M. Karle

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Switch on Your Brain by Caroline Leaf

Timeless Healing by Herbert Benson with Marg Stark

 Servan-Schreiber, David. The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy. New York: Rodale, 2003.