Revisit - Overstimulated and Touched Out

Our brains are uniquely complex information processors, yet most people know little about how they work. In Brain Rules, John Medina writes that when we understand how our brains have evolved, we can use their natural impulses and tendencies to our advantage, improving our thinking and learning in all aspects of our lives.

John Medina is a molecular biologist who focuses on psychiatric disorders. Medina wrote this book in order to help the general public understand in a simple, accessible way how brains work and how the functions of the brain affect how we interact with the world. In this guide, we discuss the 12 rules he’s identified that summarize the brain’s core functions, abilities, and limitations. We also offer ways to apply Medina’s principles in your daily life and discuss scientific and cultural ideas related to his brain rules.

Trauma can stem from abuse to a severe car accident to wartime combat—and cause a lifetime of flashbacks, nightmares, isolation, insomnia, hypervigilance, and rage. In The Body Keeps the Score, the author explores how diagnosing and treating trauma has evolved as new technologies, research, and fields of science emerged.

Trauma’s impact is not only mental, emotional, and neurological, but also physiological: Trauma rewires the brain to put people in a constant state of stress or numbness, leading to a host of physical problems.

In this summary, you’ll learn:

• Why trauma survivors feel like their trauma is never-ending
• How flashbacks make parts of the brain shut down and others to go into overdrive
• Why some trauma survivors can’t recognize themselves in the mirror
• How activities like choral singing, yoga, and theater can be therapeutic

If you often find yourself needing to duck out of parties early, covering your ears at loud concerts, or crying at sentimental commercials on television, you might be a highly sensitive person. In The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron explains the trait of high sensitivity through case studies, personal experiences, and years of research. Aron is a psychotherapist, an author of multiple books on high sensitivity, and a highly sensitive person herself.

In our guide, we’ll explore what high sensitivity is and where it comes from, as well as the strengths and challenges associated with it. We’ll also discuss how you can manage your sensitivity in your personal, social, and professional life and how to cope with any negative symptoms you may experience from it. We’ll also add advice from other experts on how to tap into your abilities as an HSP and manage its challenges, and we’ll contextualize Aron’s advice in the broader field of psychology and social science.

If you often find yourself needing to duck out of parties early, covering your ears at loud concerts, or crying at sentimental commercials on television, you might be a highly sensitive person. In The Highly Sensitive Person, Elaine Aron explains the trait of high sensitivity through case studies, personal experiences, and years of research. Aron is a psychotherapist, an author of multiple books on high sensitivity, and a highly sensitive person herself.

In our guide, we’ll explore what high sensitivity is and where it comes from, as well as the strengths and challenges associated with it. We’ll also discuss how you can manage your sensitivity in your personal, social, and professional life and how to cope with any negative symptoms you may experience from it. We’ll also add advice from other experts on how to tap into your abilities as an HSP and manage its challenges, and we’ll contextualize Aron’s advice in the broader field of psychology and social science.

In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry describes a series of child abuse and neglect cases to illustrate how trauma impacts the developing brain and explain how he and his colleagues established a more effective therapy model for traumatized children.

In our guide, we’ll explain the psychiatric principles that Perry discovered during his years of working with traumatized children, including the stress response, the effects of trauma in infancy versus trauma at a later age, dissociation in response to trauma, and the role that relationships play in the treatment of traumatized children. We’ll also look at specific case studies that contributed to Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Our commentary explores research supporting and expanding on Perry’s ideas, as well as scientific and social context on how trauma can manifest and the nuances of treatment.

No, you’re not a bad parent. And your kids are actually good kids—parenting is just hard. Do you wish it came with a manual? Clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside might be just what you need.

Good Inside is a parenting manual to help you make changes in your child’s behavior while building a positive relationship with them. Most parenting advice sees children’s behavior as a problem to be fixed through time-outs, rewards, and serious conversations. But Becky Kennedy argues that these strategies jeopardize your connection with your children. That’s a high price to pay for band-aid strategies that don't deal with the root causes of problematic behaviors.

Our guide lays out the core principles of Kennedy’s approach to parenting, her essential toolkit for dealing with challenging behavior, and strategies to deal with 10 common parenting challenges. We complement Kennedy’s advice with that of other experts, including the authors of parenting classics The Whole-Brain Child, 1-2-3 Magic, and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk.

No, you’re not a bad parent. And your kids are actually good kids—parenting is just hard. Do you wish it came with a manual? Clinical psychologist Becky Kennedy’s Good Inside might be just what you need.

Good Inside is a parenting manual to help you make changes in your child’s behavior while building a positive relationship with them. Most parenting advice sees children’s behavior as a problem to be fixed through time-outs, rewards, and serious conversations. But Becky Kennedy argues that these strategies jeopardize your connection with your children. That’s a high price to pay for band-aid strategies that don't deal with the root causes of problematic behaviors.

Our guide lays out the core principles of Kennedy’s approach to parenting, her essential toolkit for dealing with challenging behavior, and strategies to deal with 10 common parenting challenges. We complement Kennedy’s advice with that of other experts, including the authors of parenting classics The Whole-Brain Child, 1-2-3 Magic, and How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk.

From sibling arguments to temper tantrums, parents constantly have to manage conflict. These challenging moments are pivotal opportunities to promote your child’s psychological development. The Whole-Brain Child explains the neurological and developmental reasons for many of your child’s meltdowns and misbehaviors. When the different parts of your child’s brain—such as the logical left brain and the emotional right brain—are not integrated, it makes your child mentally and emotionally off-balance, which causes her to act out.

The book teaches you how to diagnose signs of dis-integration, as well as strategies to help your child to re-integrate her mind. With these tools, your child will develop a stronger relationship with you, increase her self-awareness and emotional self-control, and build the foundation for a lifetime of healthy relationships and mental and emotional stability.