The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better

The book explains how you can tap into the power of body maps to do almost anything better

The Body Has a Mind of Its Own: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better 

by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee —

Your body has a mind of its own. You can sense it. You know that your body is more than a vehicle for your brain to cruise around in, but how deeply are mind and body truly interwoven?

Answers can be found in the emerging science of body maps. Just as road maps represent interconnections across the landscape, your many body maps represent all aspects of your bodily self.

Your self does not begin and end with your physical body, but extends into the space around you. When you drive a car, your personal body space grows to envelop it. When you play a video game, your body maps automatically track and emulate the actions of your character on screen.

The book explains how you can tap into the power of body maps to do almost anything better: play tennis, strum a guitar, ride a horse, dance a waltz, empathize with a friend, raise children, cope with stress.

Filled with illustrations, wonderful anecdotes, and even parlor tricks that you can use to reconfigure your body sense, it will change the way you think about what it takes to have a conscious mind inside a feeling body.

$15 — Random House, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 27, Number 5, October/November 2008.