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August 15, 2009
RRN: "Rapt"
Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am enjoying this book very much. My copy has become a sea of little pink post-its flagging all the quotes I want to refer back to and remember. Here are some of my favorites so far:
"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." (quote from William James) (page 6)
"The difference between 'passing the time' and 'time well spent' depends on making smart decisions about what to attend to in matters large and small, then doing so as if your life depends on it." (page 12)
"...to enjoy the kind of experience you want rather than enduring the kind you feel stuck with, you have to take charge of your attention." (page 28)
"In short, it seems that simply going about your business, whether it's driving a taxi or spotting pottery shards, teaches your brain what to attend to and customizes your nervous system to suit your experience and modify who you are." (pages 68-69)
"Davidson speculates that deliberately focusing on feelings such as compassion, joy, and gratitude may strengthen neurons in the left pre-frontal cortex and inhibit disturbing messages form the fear-oriented amygdala." (page 73)
"When they're focused on either a social activity or a task, the moods of even fragile or stressed people, including breast-cancer patients, bulimics, and chronic depressives, are no different from those of average subjects in control groups but drop precipitously when they're alone or have nothing to attend to." (page 85)
Plus the book gets bonus points for referencing this "Pearls Before Breakfast" experiment that put a famous violinist in a busy Metro station to see if anyone took notice of his virtuoso playing.
Posted by Selena at August 15, 2009 08:29 AM