Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant Relationships Using the Science of Mindfulness

In Rewire Your Brain for Love, neuropsychologist Marsha Lucas brings together neuroscience and mindfulness meditation in an exciting program to help readers create and sustain better, healthier, juicier romantic relationships.

With a passion for neuroscience and the ability to relay it in a clear, unintimidating -- and entertaining -- manner, Lucas delves into how the human brain works in relationships, exploring the neurological connections that fuel our reactions. In an inviting and reassuring tone, she describes how we developed our current relationship wiring and how to modify it through mindfulness meditation.

Focusing on seven high-voltage benefits -- including everything from being able to better manage your reactions, to improved communication with yourself and others, to an enhanced ability to handle fear -- Lucas shows how a short daily meditation practice can change the way you interact with everyone around you . . . especially those closest to you. Each chapter focuses on one benefit, including an in-depth description of exactly what that benefit is and how it will improve the reader's life. She looks at the science and research associated with mindfulness meditation in relation to each benefit, and then provides readers with a specific meditation to help bring that benefit into their relationships.

Imagine, instead of blowing up at an off-hand statement your partner makes, you are able to stop, breathe, and respond in a thoughtful manner. And as the author says, "You don't have to become a monk, or a vegetarian, or spend hours contemplating your navel" -- you simply need to notice your mind's busyness and not get all tangled up in it. This simple process truly can help you break free of knee-jerk, "autopilot" relationship habits -- the ones where you say to yourself minutes or months later, "Why did I say that?!" -- and move forward into healthier, more vibrant relationships.

Marsha Lucas, PhD is a licensed psychologist and neuropsychologist, and has been practicing psychotherapy and studying the brain-behavior relationship for nearly twenty years. Prior to entering private practice, she was a neuropsychologist on the faculty at the Emory University School of Medicine.

She has a special interest in the practice of mindfulness, especially in how it stimulates the brain to grow new, more integrated circuits -- which may be at the heart of well-being, including emotional balance and resilience, enhanced relationships and friendships, and greater empathy and connectedness.

Dr. Lucas' psychology practice is located in Washington, DC. She lives in suburban DC with her husband, their son, and their dog.