Rein In Your Brain: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery

Those in recovery are often stuck in a dangerous loop of making poor choices based on instant feel-good payoffs. Rein in Your Brain offers 10 proven techniques for intervening on faulty impulsive thinking and actions that have a negative impact on our lives and relationships.

Addiction--whether to mood-altering substances, gambling, sex, or food--stems in part from an over-reliance on the reward system of a primitive part of the brain that can push us to make poor choices based on an expectation of immediate gratification. Those of us in recovery often struggle with the compulsive thoughts and behaviors that are still programmed in our addictive brains well after the drinking and drugging has stopped. These often play out thoughtlessly in our interactions with others, damaging our relationships and growth as balanced human beings.Rein in Your Brain, by addiction expert Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, offers ten tools for breaking the cycle of impulsivity. These time-tested self-interventions include standing still in the moment, giving up control, not assuming the other person’s intent, tolerating differences, accepting emotions without giving them free reign, and differentiating between immediate fear-driven reactions and measured thoughts. By incorporating these tools in your daily interactions, your relationships can move from those of conflict to mutual respect and understanding.

• The Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction: A Guide to Coping with the Grief, Stress and Anger that Trigger Addictive Behaviors (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)
• The ACT Deck:55 Acceptance & Commitment Therapy Practices to Build Connection, Find Focus and Reduce Stress
• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma
• It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
• Rewired Workbook: A Manual for Addiction Recovery
• The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)
• 12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery: Avoiding Relapse through Self-Awareness and Right Action
• Rewired: A Bold New Approach To Addiction and Recovery
• The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma