How brain chemistry controls your emotions

9:20 AM, June 15, 2012

(Book cover courtesy of publisher)

Audio

How brain chemistry controls your emotions (program audio)

On the radio

Richard Davidson: Professor of psychology and psychiatry and founder of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, at the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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In "The Emotional Life of Your Brain," psychologist, psychiatrist and brain researcher Dr. Richard Davidson looks at how our brains emotionally respond to events in our lives. He and science writer Sharon Begley explain how your brain chemistry controls your emotions and, ultimately, your personality.

Davidson will join The Daily Circuit Friday to discuss his book and how we can better understand our emotions through brain science.

From the Chicago Tribune review:

Davidson argues that our response to such events -- and even to full-on tragedies, such as the death of a loved one -- is as much a part of our identity as our fingerprints.

"Each of us is a color-wheel combination of the resilience, outlook, social intuition, self-awareness, context and attention dimensions of emotional style," he writes in his new book, "The Emotional Life of Your Brain" (Hudson Street Press), "a unique blend that describes how you perceive the world and react to it, how you engage with others and how you navigate the obstacle course of life..."

"It's best to regard your emotional well-being as a skill that can be trained," he says. "In many ways, it's no different than learning to play the violin. If you practice, you'll get better."

VIDEO: Emotional Life of Your Brain