Ok, so I have been doing some reading since my last post... Of what I read, two books stand out. First, a book by David Eagleman, called Incognito. A very well written and enjoyable book about the subconscious brain and how it plays a role in your actions and feelings. I especially like his take on the brain as a competition of brain systems. He reiterates some of the observations about people who change personalities due to tumors or other brain damage.
The book I just completed, by Oliver Sacks, called The Mind's Eye is very compelling. The book is both a collection of case studies of his patients and a self study of his own ailments which makes it very personal and engaging. In the first part of the book, he talks about his and others who have face blindness. Hearing testimony from someone who has this condition really drives home the point that there are conditions that some of our fellow humans deal with that we don't understand and may not even realize they have. I don't have this condition but I do have a real problem remembering most names of people I have just met. It takes me several meetings to start remembering someone's name.
In the second part of the book, he talks about blindness and his ordeal with loosing the sight in one of his eyes due a tumor. Again, very compelling as he details his thoughts and shares his diary.
Both the above books are well worth the read.
Currently I am reading "Magnificent Mind at Any Age" by Danial G. Amen. His is a pragmatic view of how to improve your brain function and slow down the aging of your brain. He notes that many minor personality disorders can improve greatly just by changing a few bad brain habits. A couple things hit home with me here. First he talks about nutrition and how Artificial sweetener and caffiene are bad for you. A few years ago I started drinking diet pop instead of regular. Honestly I thought it would help me loose weight. It did not but I kept drinking it. I am thinking about changing that. Caffeine might be a hard one as I do tend to drink a fair bit of that. The other thing that really made me think about how I live is that sleep is really important for the brain. Less than 6 hours a sleep a night is bad for your brain. In the summer this is not problem as I get about 7 hours a sleep, but in the winter it is more like 6 to 6.5. I think this drives my caffeine consumption.
I am only 50 pages through this book, so I will update you when I am done.
