Surviving Sane with 
a Bouncing Brain 
by Carla Nelson Berg 

Almost everyone feels like a bouncing brain in this hurry-up world where the demands on our minds are being Super-Sized while our support systems and leisure time are steadily shrinking. Never before have we been asked to attend to so much yet given so little support for getting it done, or asked to filter so many competing distractions from screaming headlines to quick-take sound bites and jam-packed web sites.

As Scott Adams joked in one of his Dilbert strips, there are times that all of it feels like having a fire hose aimed at the teacup of your brain.

The result is a hurried mind goaded into a harried life where it is doubly difficult to stay tuned in from start to finish. Whether or not you were born with a bouncing brain, you wind up feeling like one anyway. Small wonder the experts now talk about things like an "Attention Economy" or an "ADD-o-genic" society.

All of this clearly takes a toll on our mental energies and splinters our attention spans. Yet despite all the obvious strain on our focusing, we rarely put our attentions on attention itself. While most of us have a few self-help tools for improving a wayward mood, few have been shown any tools for improving an attention span, or even know which words to use if we wish to describe our focus as well as our feelings.

These books fill that gap. The first self-help guides of their kind, this series is aimed at everyone who wants to learn more about how to rein in a roving mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the same way John Gray improved our grasp of gender with his portraits of Venus & Mars, Carla's colorful metaphors will help you take better aim with your brain. The vivid imagery in this book will help you visualize the dynamics of an attention span where a shifting landscape of mental, emotional and physical forces combine to sustain (or disrupt) your focusing.

You will see a series of attention styles and shown how they shade across a continuum that ranges from Under- to Overfocusing. This "spectrum of inattention" will give a clearer picture of the patterns in your own attention span, as well as a stronger sense of how much these patterns can vary from one kind of mind to the next. It also offers a framework that will help you better express what is happening in your own head.

This first book in the series begins with a "Short History of the Short Attention Span," a closer look at the forces which are converging today to make just about everyone feel like a bouncing brain. Then it explores some of the factors that may distinguish the bouncing brain who was born that way from those who acquired their traits in response to the overstimulating hypercompetitive pressures of modern living in this 21st century global village.

 

In the heart of the book you will explore what every kind of mind can do to aim and sustain its attention more reliably. You will consider the role attention plays in the choices you make and the hurdles that get in your way. With catchy concepts such as "how to vary your day at the Stim Buffet," you will see which tasks are more or less likely to raise or lower your focusing power and gain added insight into the hooks, lines and sinkers which can psych you up or shut you down. You will also see some of the more puzzling parts explained, such as the paradoxical "Catch-22s of the stimulus-driven" that make many a bouncing brain feel as if their greatest gifts are often also the source of their biggest problems in life.

In the final chapter, Carla will take you through a clear and balanced discussion about when being a bouncing brain may cross over the line into a clinical attention deficiency such as ADD or ADHD. Then, in closing, she provides a concise and useful overview of options for professional diagnosis and treatment of a persisting, pervasive attention difficulty.

 

If you would like to build a better attention span, this book is the place to begin, whether you have always been a bouncing brain or simply feel like one today.

Click on this link to see some of the questions
that this volume will help you answer, or scroll
down below to read more about the author.

 

 
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About the author: Carla Nelson Berg  has had an unusual perch from which to compare and contrast the theory, the practice and the practicalities of building better attention spans. Drawing on her schooling in psychology at UC Berkeley, she spent much of the 90s answering queries from thousands of bouncing brains worldwide as a virtual "Dear Abby" online, while reviewing scores of histories from people grappling with attention difficulties and interviewing dozens of authors and experts in her role as a virtual talk show host. During this time she was also expanding her career as a commentator and analyst with a newspaper column providing perspective on the everyday impacts of leading edge science and tech, after which she enjoyed a stint as host of the Mind-Brain Sciences Forum, a digital gathering place for scientists and clinicians exploring connections between brain and behavior. She has presented her "spectrum of inattention" at several academic and professional conferences and been applauded for her ability to convey the complex dynamics of mind and brain in creatively vivid ways that make it easier for patients and pros to communicate.

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Future titles in the bouncing brain series...

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