Hardwiring Happiness

The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence

By: Rick Hanson

Narrated by: Rick Hanson

Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

With New York Times best-selling author Dr. Hanson's four steps, you can counterbalance your brain's negativity bias and learn to hardwire happiness in only a few minutes each day.

Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? Because your brain evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences and slowly from good ones, but you can change this.

Life isn’t easy, and having a brain wired to take in the bad and ignore the good makes us worried, irritated, and stressed, instead of confident, secure, and happy. But each day is filled with opportunities to build inner strengths, and Dr. Rick Hanson, an acclaimed clinical psychologist, shows what you can do to override the brain’s default pessimism.

Hardwiring Happiness lays out a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace. You’ll learn to see through the lies your brain tells you.

Dr. Hanson’s four steps build strengths into your brain to make contentment and a powerful sense of resilience the new normal. In just minutes a day, you can transform your brain into a refuge and power center of calm and happiness.

©2013 Rick Hanson (P)2013 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Rick Hanson is a master of his craft, showing us a wise path for daily living in this book. Based in the latest findings of neuroscience, this book reveals that if we understand the brain a little, we can take care of our lives a lot, and make a real difference to our well-being. Here is a book to savor, to practice, and to take to heart." (Mark Williams, PhD, Professor, University of Oxford, author of Mindfulness)

"The cultivation of happiness is one of the most important skills anyone can ever learn. Luckily, it’s not hard when we know the way to water and nourish these wholesome seeds, which are already there in our consciousness. This book offers simple, accessible, practical steps for touching the peace and joy that are every person’s birthright." (Thich Nhat Hanh, author of Being Peace and Understanding Our Mind)

"In this remarkable book, one of the world's leading authorities on mind training shows how to cultivate the helpful and good within us. In a beautifully written and accessible way, Rick Hanson offers us an inspiring gift of wise insights and compassionate and uplifting practices that will be of enormous benefit to all who read this book. A book of hope and joyfulness." (Paul Gilbert, PhD, OBE, Professor, University of Derby, author of The Compassionate Mind)

Fantastic

The science works. The last chapter is worth listening to every week. Loved the book. It does go a little slow but I liked it as almost a meditation exercise

Fantastic Book!

Would you listen to Hardwiring Happiness again? Why?

Yes, and I have multiple times!

What did you like best about this story?

the positivity and incorporation of evidence based theories.

Which character – as performed by Rick Hanson – was your favorite?

n/a

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

yes, laugh, cry, happy, sad, etc.

Any additional comments?

Fantastic book a must buy.

(optional)? yet required? hm

this is a good book. it is well read. I recommend listening to this book.

Definitely a Good LIsten!

Any additional comments?

I listened to the Audible version of Hardwiring Happiness, which was narrated by the author, Rick Hanson. The book included a lot of familiar background material that provided new insights, as well as a good review of psychology 101. I have mixed feelings about listening to the audio version. Hanson’s narration was excellent and it was helpful to just be able to listen and do the meditations. His reading of the practice exercises made them very easy to follow. However, I did miss seeing the charts that were included and may actually check the book out of the library, so I can review them. I think the ideal way to do this book would be to have both the audio and hard copy available. It was definitely a valuable listen and might be even more so if read.

A musr experience....not just for self directed

if u hv done Byron Katie or peeked at Vitalie or even Sheinfeld. ...this will enhance everything u hv learned...spend the money and the time....

what i needed

loved it. definitely have to listen again. a lot of information to observe and register

this book is really helpful re-readable

This book teaches smooth relaxing effective simple strategies for self love and happiness. I have read it twice so far and might read it again.

Great tools to better understand our brains

I loved Hardwiring Happiness. I loved the concept of our brains having different operating systems and this has helped me be more self aware. When I’m in reactive mode it is not a good time to do certain things. Best to wait and do the antidote exercises taught in this book to get my brain back in green or responsive mode. This book had impacted my life for the better in a time when I really needed it!

Good concepts but not very engaging

I really liked a lot of the concepts of the audiobook but there was a lot of repetition in his HEAL practices that I found difficult to engage with in an audiobook format.

Creating & savoring positive experiences

In "Hardwiring Happiness," Rick Hanson, Ph.D. provides an easy and actionable "recipe" for giving positive experiences greater weight to enable an ongoing sense of peace and contentment. I'd learned of Dr. Hanson's books based on my interest in meditation and his articles about the benefits of using meditation in his psychology practice. I chose to listen to this book when I realized I'd become so focused on worries about loved ones' health issues that I wasn't appreciating happy events as much as I would normally.

Dr. Hanson's approach focuses on identifying (or creating) positive experiences and then extending and reinforcing the good feelings those experiences evoke. Wait, isn't this just taking the time to smell the roses? Absolutely, but it's all too easy to overlook stopping to savor positive experiences when one is feeling especially busy or preoccupied with day to day concerns... and not taking the time to savor positive experiences actually reduces one's ability to cope with stresses as they arise. I listened to the audio version in order to benefit from the guided meditations included within, and also picked up the kindle ebook as a handy reference. The author narrated the audio version and I found listening to his observations helpful in reinforcing the concepts he shared.

I recommend "Hardwiring Happiness" to anyone who feels they aren't appreciating life's gifts as much as they'd like, and wants to take effective steps to more fully savor the good.