This book was a wonder to read: chill, relaxing, comforting, and so far away from any sort of field I have interests or specialties in that I couldn't even publish a review in my usual outlets.
Alas, @siggy47 has the great misfortune of seeing EXCLUSIVE DEN MATERIAL in action.
I was even so slowpokey on this that @Shugard beat me to it, by running some of the material we discussed on his YT show:
Jebelli's The Brain at Rest is perfect illustration that a) cover marketing works -- seriously, just LOOK at that view... straight out of a @gnilma hiking adventure -- b) book stores serve a function.
I walked into a bookstore on a whim, saw a bunch of random books that looked interested, grabbed this one but didn't decide to buy it (=and actually read it) until the adorable salesperson (lady, probs in her 60s) said it just arrived and it had received excellent reviews.
Off we go: Jebelli takes us on a journey into neuroscience and what we know about the brain. The main misconception he focuses on is that the brain doesn't, like a computer, shut off or slow down when we're not running it at maximum. The default network, basically the brain's background operations, if anything increases when we slow down.
It's why we connect things or get great insights or realize important things in the shower, on a walk, while meditating, while hiking a mountain.
RESTING (or the subtitle: Why Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life) isn't just a recovery thing... it's straight-up additive to your life.
...and yes, the PHONES really suck for this. Nobody relaxed anymore; nobody stares into the void in the small dead-time in between things to do. (#944961, #1025290)
Fight that dopamine addiction
Anxiety, mental health, ADHD, blah-blah-blah all the modern mislocations are consequences of us not living like humans were meant to:
"...it was a call to return to the roots of human existence, to the place where we, as a species, have spent 99.9 per cent of our time"
primary cause for anxiety = "our growing dislocation from nature"
Here's another crazy observation:
There are literally anti-depressants secreted from your skeletal muscles when you walk ("myokines").
Just get the fuck out, dude. Touch grass; feel the sun.
Jebelli talks about hugging trees... about the woo-woo connection between a forest and the human brain...
I obviously can't speak to the science of this (he's the science expert, I'm just the schmuck critically evaluating his statements), but the story resonates deeply. Slow down; get outside; move your body; shut off the screens.
I have TWO major criticisms...
FIRST: and it almost made me put the book down early on. I wrote in my notes: "If I hear 'neurodivergent' or 'neurodiversity' one more time, I may just puke up my breakfast" -- It's typical wokey-speak, and it's just soft and ridiculous. FUCK. THAT.
SECOND: the sly, ridiculous, Marxian undertones of capitalism-being-bad and "the way we live" forcing us, helplessly, to sacrifice our mental health etc, etc. REALLY FUCKING STUPID... and really fucking unnecessary for the story.
But what's worse isn't that the author is a typical ivory tower nutjob, having no understanding/respect for the economic processes that uphold the civilization from which he parasitically exists, but that he's inserting small hints and comments here and there about it:
There are all these stupid, unexplored, silly statements — like "I'm trying to be realistic given the economic system we live in" — hinting at the author's opinion (but really bias)
"Equating this with capitalism, whatever its meaning, is both intellectually lazy and flat-out retarded"
...I wrote in my notes.
So yeah... KIND OF recommend the book -- I really appreciated and enjoyed some of what I learned from it -- but going into it, beware that the author will subly chalk up everything that's wrong with how we live to "capitalism" and "our economic system."