Laurel Mellin - Wired for Joy: A Revolutionary Method for Creating Happiness from Within

Praise for Wired for Joy

So many authors today promise to bring joy to your life,
help you lose weight, or inspire you to overcome addictions using
a magical method that turns out to be completely inapplicable. But
Wired for Joyis the real deal! With inspiring anecdotes about real
people, clear language, and lovely diagrams,Wired for Joydelivers
a technologybased on more than 30 years of researchthat can
lift us from the stressed-out state to the natural state of pure joy,
where the need for the fixes of food, drink, drugs, and workaholism
melt away. I am heartily recommending this book to everyone
this is the one book to read if you have no time to read!

Candace B. Pert, Ph.D., best-selling author of Molecules of
Emotion and Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d

A remarkable book by an internationally acknowledged expert
in the field of stress management. Laurel Mellins method for
rewiring the emotional brain is revolutionary... a practical
approach for decreasing stress, enhancing health and happiness,
and rediscovering joy! Highly recommended.

John Foreyt, Ph.D., author of The Xenical Advantage
and The Living Heart Diet; director of the Behavioral Medicine
Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine

Wired for Joyoffers a brain-based solution to stress and
practical tools that are the missing link in health care.

John Gray, Ph.D., #1 New York Times best-selling author of
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

Chronic stress and anxiety are enormous problems for many people
in our fast-paced and rapidly changing society. EBT offers a novel and
compelling approach to gaining control over ones life and thereby
containing the physiological and psychological toll of chronic stress.

Bruce S. McEwen, Ph.D., author of The End of Stress as
We Know It; Alfred E. Mirsky professor; and head of the
Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of
Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University

Laurel Mellin applies the principles of brain-plasticity
science to help you grow and nourish your positive
energies. Consider it a gift, from science to you.

Michael Merzenich, Ph.D., neuroscientist and professor
emeritus of physiology, University of California, San Francisco

Also by Laurel Mellin

The Pathway

The Solution

The 3-Day Solution Plan

The Shapedown Program

Copyright 2010 by Laurel Mellin

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published and distributed in the Republic ofSouth Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributed in Canadaby: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Emotional Brain Training and the EBT 5-Point System are trademarks used under license by the Institute for Health Solutions, a nonprofit organization. A nonprovisional patent is pending for The EBT 5-Point System of Emotional and Behavioral Regulation.

To learn the details of the science behind the method presented in this book, please refer to: www.ebt.org.

Design: Jami Goddess

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for emotional or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. If you have or suspect you may have a medical or a mental health condition, or if you are taking any medications, consult with your physician before embarking on any health regimen or program. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mellin, Laurel.

Wired for joy / Laurel Mellin. -- 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-4019-2586-4 (tradepaper : alk. paper) 1. Joy. I. Title.

BF575.H27M45 2010

158.1--dc22

2010003535

ISBN: 978-1-4019-2586-4

13 12 11 10 4 3 2 1

1st edition, June 2010

Printed in the United States of America

For Mackey and Papa

Contents

Imagine yourself in the spring of the year 2020the daffodils are in bloom, the weather is gorgeous, there are children playing, and you pick up the paper to find one of the strangest headlines youve ever read: Drug Companies Having Bake Sales to Raise Funds.

Perhaps youre saying to yourself, How can this be? What on earthcould make drug companies sell coconut cupcakes and chocolate creampies? But then you start thinking. Maybe its those five simple tools the ones that help you control your emotional brain and keep it from sending you into stress. After all, they have reduced your meltdowns, your jaw clenching, and your late-night refrigerator raids. You are taking fewer and fewer medications as you perfect the use of the tools. But could it be that everyone had started using them?

Wired for Joy introduces you to the five simple tools of emotional brain training (EBT) that help you gain control of your emotional brain, the clearinghouse for regulating the stresses of life. The point of the method is to acquire tools that harness the emotional brains natural capacity to process daily life. Using these tools creates a revolution from within, decreasing stress symptoms and helping you uncover what lies beneath that stress: joy.

JOY BY CHOICE, NOT CHANCE

The human brain has an amazing capacity to create joy not by chance, but by choice. Everyone has the equipment to do thisand it is uniquely human. Unlike other animals, the human brain has multiple strong connections between areas of conscious thought and pleasure. The thinking brainthe seat of consciousnessis strongly linked to the emotional brain, where pleasure centers abound. You can learn to use your consciousness to send chemicals and electricity through those connections and create ripples of pleasure that you can feel in your body.

There are only two glitches. First, the message that arouses such pleasure cannot be about eating ice cream, sipping fine wine, or buying the latest shoes. It cant be anything you acquire, ingest, or inject. Instead, that pleasure comes from the desire to be of service, to do good. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors survived based on their capacity to cooperate and share. As a result, this