DEBUGGING YOUR BRAIN

A “toolkit” focuses on understanding and improving the brain’s performance.

In his slim debut guide, Watts begins with the simple assertion that the human brain is “buggy.” He proceeds from that declaration to offer readers insights into how the brain works and how to fix its stubborn shortcomings. The author’s 10-year history in software development informs his use of terms like debugging. He combines this expertise with a psychological approach centered on introspection and cognitive behavioral therapy to create a method of reworking old thought patterns and rewiring dated habits. Key to this technique is the differentiation between what Watts calls the “inner” and the “outer” brain, the inner being the more instinctual, unthinking center of visceral reaction and the outer being the more rational and evaluative part. This reality—that humans feel first and think second—prompts the author to imagine a software-style “Input-Process-Output” model that can be modified in one of two ways: either Input-Habit-Output or Input-Mindful-Output. Watts furnishes many hypothetical situations (quite a few from his personal life) that his readers will find immediately recognizable and follows all of those scenarios with quick and incisive analyses. In all cases, some variation of CBT is his suggestion for resolving the problems he poses. In friendly, engaging prose, he urges his readers to talk things out with a friend (or a rubber ducky if no cohort is available at the moment), write things down, and even read some fiction to help with the brain’s processing techniques. Most of his procedural suggestions boil down to common sense (think about your own actions; express yourself; be a good confessor and a superb listener), but they’re no less valuable for that, particularly when delivered with the energy and optimism Watts employs throughout his book. Regardless of their stance on CBT, readers will find a great deal of useful advice here.

A worthy, tightly organized, and intriguing program for rethinking thinking.