Peak Mind

Attention is an issue of urgent concern. What we pay attention to is our life: Attention is our brain's boss, determining what we focus on, how we perceive the world, and ultimately, what we experience. And yet many of us are feeling distracted, scattered, and ineffective, and looking for real solutions - not sticking plasters. In a work culture that expects us to be available at all times, we struggle to both accomplish our career goals and remain present and engaged for the passing, priceless moments of our lives with our children, partners, families, and friends. In PEAK MIND Dr Jha unpacks her decades of research on the science of attention and its power to define our lives: what we experience, how we remember it, and what we can achieve. PEAK MIND will take us on a journey into the inner workings of our own brains, revealing how we can use the latest insights in neuroscience to realise our own potential. It will take readers behind the scenes into fascinating new studies and research, debunking common assumptions and offering stunning new insight into where presence, purpose, and mental fitness really come from. Through her work with those in high stress, high consequence professions (soldiers, firefighters, athletes, and more), she reveals her discovery that of all the cognitive training techniques and gadgets she's tested in her lab, only one results in improvements to attention and performance: mindfulness practice. Through multiple studies in the lab and in the field, Dr. Jha has scaled down her training program to reach the lower limit of training time, and a minimum required dose - 12 minutes daily - for people with limited time (i. e. almost all of us) who nevertheless want to protect and improve their attention and cognition.