Hardwiring Happiness: How to reshape your brain and your life

A revolutionary guide to finding happiness through the very latest neuroscience and contemplative techniques.

‘A book to savour, to practise, and take to heart’ Professor Mark Williams

‘As clear and inspired as it gets’ Ruby Wax

Four steps to counterbalance your brain’s negativity bias and learn to hardwire happiness in only a few minutes each day.

Recent scientific breakthroughs have revealed that what we think and feel changes the brain. Dr Rick Hanson’s Hardwiring Happiness is the first book to show how to transform the simple positive experiences of daily life into neural structures that promote lasting health, contentment, love and inner peace.

To keep our ancestors alive, our brain evolved a ‘negativity bias’, which lets positive experiences flow through it like water through a sieve. Yet positive experiences are the building blocks needed for health, happiness and fulfilling relationships. Drawing on neuroscience and the contemplative traditions, Hardwiring Happiness shows how to overcome that negativity bias and get those good experiences into the brain where it can use them, providing the tools we need to heal old wounds, develop our inner resources and, ultimately, transform our lives.