#552. Understand Your Brain, Upgrade Your Life | Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
The better you understand your brain – and the more effectively you can work with it – the happier and healthier you will be. This is the central contention of today’s extraordinary guest, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and she makes this assertion based on two levels of deep expertise. First, Dr. Taylor is a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist. Second, back in the ‘90s, she experienced a severe hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of her brain causing her to lose the ability to walk, talk, read, write or recall any of her life. She later recovered, but that experience, which you will hear her describe in riveting detail, gave her incredible insight into how the brain works.
She wrote a massive best-selling book called, My Stroke of Insight, which she has now followed up with a book called, Whole Brain Living, where she lays out exactly how to understand your brain and how to work with it.
In this episode we talk about:
- Dr. Taylor’s personal story and how her life has changed post-stroke
- The marvels of the human brain
- The differences between the brain’s two hemispheres
- How our society is skewed towards the left hemisphere and how living too much in the left hemisphere can burn us out
- The brain’s “four characters” and how to work with these characters through a practice she calls “The Brain Huddle”
- The differences and similarities between “The Brain Huddle” and another practice we’ve talked about before on this show called, “RAIN”
- And she describes a tool for understanding your emotions called, “The 90-Second Rule”
Where to find Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor online:
Website: www.drjilltaylor.com
Social Media:
Books Mentioned:
- My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
- Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life
Other Resources Mentioned:
