Title: The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain
Author: Annie Murphy Paul
Genre: Pop Psychology
Trigger Warnings: Ableism (mentions), racism/racial discrimination (mentions)
Back Cover:
For centuries, we’ve believed that our thoughts happen entirely inside our brains. But in the last decade, new research has revealed that our bodies, our gestures, and our surroundings dramatically impact our intelligence and mental health. For example, did you know that closing your eyes makes you smarter, that half an hour among trees is as effective as a dose of Ritalin at controlling ADHD, that certain hand gestures aid memory, and that negotiators win an average of 80 percent more value when on their own turf? Indeed, as Annie Murphy Paul shows, we are constantly thinking outside our brains.
Like Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences or Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence, The Extended Mind offers a dramatic new view of how our minds work, full of practical advice on how to think–and feel–better.
Review:
Don’t read this book like I did. This is not a book that should be started 40 hours into a 60-hour workweek on six hours of sleep and while barely functional and not completely awake. (It has been a rough week at work, can you tell?) This is not a book that you can use to engage your brain and wake you up. You have to be already fully awake and ready to think to grasp this one.
The idea behind this book is that thinking doesn’t all happen in your brain, it also happens in your environment, your body, and between people. I absolutely agree that your body, environment, and interactions affect your thinking. In my writing, I find some of my best ideas while walking and when talking things through with my husband. But I’m not sure that “thinking outside your brain” is the best way to phrase it – it seems more like “using things outside your brain to support your thinking process.” Your body may know things your mind doesn’t, but it still has to end up in your brain for you to be able to use it.
This is not an incredibly practical book. It does offer some recommendations and it is extremely easy to draw out principles from the research, but the main purpose of this book seems to be presenting all the research already done on this topic of “thinking outside the brain.” Since it was published only three months ago (June 2021), it includes all the most recent research. There is a lot of it, and it’s presented well and in a logical order. But it’s difficult to comprehend if you’re half asleep.
To me, this book read like an academic meta-analysis rephrased as pop psychology because pop psychology sells and academic papers don’t. If you’ve ever read an academic literature review, reading this book feels like reading one of those but with fewer long words. It wasn’t horribly boring (although it did drag at times) and once I was fully awake I found the information presented fascinating, ringing true to my own experiences, and likely interesting to apply. However, it wasn’t nearly as engaging as I’d hoped, and if you do choose to read it be prepared to read a LOT of citations.
Bluejay Reads 