Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking - A Review

Blink, ah, the review's over. No, seriously, there's more to say about this fun, well written, and insightful book than can fit in the blink of an eye. I found it to be another one of those books I want to last for awhile, but it was just too captivating to put down. Gladwell uses great anecdotes and enticing studies, from food and drink taste tests to military strategy games, to illustrate the powerful influence that our unconscious minds have on our decisions.

Blink is billed as pushing to get us to think less and act more on instinct, which seems to run contrary to what this world needs at this point in time. In fact, I found a book by the title of "Think: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye" on the shelf very near Blink. "Think" appears to be a book written as a negative response to Gladwell's idea that decisions should often be made in the blink of an eye.

I would have tended to agree with that response before reading Blink. As a self-help junkie who knows through experience that the more valid information a person has the more likely the person is to act on making change, at first glance, it seemed a stretch to believe that more information and analysis could be trouble. But, Gladwell makes a well reasoned point about how in many, but not all situations, thinking too much and using too much information gets in the way of our making the best decisions. And, fortunately, he was also careful to balance out his discussion with more than a mere mention of how our snap decisions can often be very bad due to what lies in our unconscious minds.

What you'll get from this entertaining read beyond a little fun is an understanding of how training and mastery through experience benefits us. Gladwell doesn't promote that we should run out and make more snap decisions on everything in our lives, but rather he tells us that when we have a broad range of experiences in a particular area we end up with the ability to make strong, accurate, and quick intuitive decisions. And, on the other hand, the book acknowledges that when we have shallow prior knowledge and experiences in an area, we are often handicapped by our biases. That's the gotchya.

Although Gladwell leaves it up to us to discover what this all means in our own lives, I relate it to my experiences in the Martial Arts. Everyone who sticks with a martial art for awhile learns that disciplined training leads to quicker, cooler, and defter responses. There’s another more subtle point reflected in Blink and that can be learned through martial arts. That is that when you are well trained in situations that require quick responses, you know that it's better to avoid those kinds of situations when possible so that they have no chance of escalating and leading to disaster. Blink reinforces these tenets and inspires us to become experts in whatever arenas we choose in life so that we can use our expertise wisely and to our benefit.


I rate Blink a Four Star Experience:

Make a You-Turn: "You on a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management"

My Mom saw Dr. Roizen on Oprah and decided to buy the book for me. I'm glad she did. When the authors used the phrase "owner's manual" in the title they named the book appropriately. "You on a Diet" is an essential book for anyone's library self. It contains a wealth of good information about how our bodies work. And, unlike some books that discuss the details of digestion, this book is written in a playful style that helps take the dryness out of the discussion.

I was especially impressed by the sections on addictive and emotional eating. "You on a Diet" explains the vicious cycle of eating junk for self-medication in a way that brings it home for the reader without creating a sense of shame for the food junkie. And, speaking of shame, according to "You on a Diet" that's #2 on the short list of emotional diet traps. The first is guilt. Few books about eating habits address this truth as directly and as well.

At times while I was reading, I thought perhaps that the book seemed a little light in the area of "what to eat" while very heavy on the "how it all works." But, as if the authors had premeditated my concern, the final chapter of the book addresses it. The book has a "starter" food plan to get us going, but Roizen and Oz tell us that their book is meant to be used as a companion to one of the many great food plans that are already on the market.

If you want more knowledge to help you succeed in making a "You-turn" toward a healthier you, this book is a must read. This book will give you a boost in understanding how to win at the food game and a cute mantra or two to carry with you on your journey toward eating well.

I rate "You on a Diet" a 4 star book.

The Perricone Prescription

I've had this book on my shelf for quite some time and I hadn't touched it. I bought the book awhile back after seeing my neighbor who positively glowed with a healthy look. Really, she almost had a halo! So I asked her what she was doing to look so good and she told me she and her husband were on the Perricone Diet. I was very impressed. I bought the book, but I never put the diet to the test.

Then, recently my husband complained about a skin irritation. Visualize the light bulb over my head. I pulled the book out and we started the diet. At first I hadn't actually read the book. I just started the whole family out on the 28-day program. Then, by the second day of the diet, I was feeling so good that I was prompted to read about how this diet works.

The book is fairly straightforward, basic, and a little dry. Sometimes it reads like a text book due to the scientific names of various nutritional elements and to the descriptions processes like cell metabolism. But, it does a good job of explaining why this diet works to improve your skin and also helps you to lose weight.

Just from my brief experience with this diet, I'm a big fan of using it as a temporary detox. My general mood is up, some weight is dropping (too soon to tell how much) and my husband's dry skin is improving. The diet is pretty easy to follow. The foods are easy to prepare and the recipes result in pretty tasty fair.

Dr. Perricone seems to think it's a way of life, but I highly doubt that most people will want to avoid all breads, pastas, potatoes, and other high-glycemic carbohydrates for the rest of their lives. I've yet to meet anyone who could stay on a low-carb diet indefinitely. This diet is at least a healthy version. And, I'm sure few people will want to eat salmon six times a week forever. The last downside to the diet is that if you follow all of the recommendations from buying all organic to buying fresh fish, you might have to get a new job to support your new diet.

I will definitely add more fish and more low-glycemic carbohydrates into my diet following using this program. I'll save the strict regimen for periodic detoxification.

I rate the Perricone Prescription a 3 star book, but I recommend the diet highly!