Unstoppable Brain: The New Neuroscience that Frees Us from Failure, Eases Our Stress, and Creates Lasting Change

We all want the autonomy and power to change our lives for the better and yet many of us feel stuck in the same bad habits, patterns, and short-term fixes. We know what we should do, but often we cannot get ourselves to actually do it.

In Unstoppable Brain, Dr. Kyra Bobinet debunks today’s over-dependence on performance-driven tools such as calorie counting, SMART goals, and likes/followers that attempt to motivate us into behavior change. These methods work well in the short term but have a long-term downside of negative emotions and harmful behaviors. Yet despite these poor results, we keep using the same performative approaches over and over. Something is missing.

Emerging research into the neuroscience of behavior and motivation has brought to light to a little-understood area of the brain, the habenula; possibly the most powerful controller of behavior ever found. If left untended, the habenula acts as a failure detector and motivation kill switch that can rob you of positive or lasting change, leaving you stuck in relapse, frustration, and suffering.

Understanding the habenula’s inner workings is must-have knowledge to obtain the freedom and agency for the life you long for. New research reveals that the habenula is a primary gating mechanism for everything that does or doesn't happen in your life, what you do or do not do and. It is among our biggest obstacles to change.

In this book, you will learn that an activated habenula can dominate even the dopamine and reward systems that the scientific world for decades has esteemed the most powerful behavioral drivers. We will explore exactly what is wrong with today’s overly used performative approaches and how you can free yourself to reach your optimal health and best life. Dr. Bobinet unpacks mounting evidence on the habenula and other discoveries that change everything about changing behavior. With this new vision and understanding, your natural tendencies, purpose, and passions can emerge organically and inspire permanent, satisfying, and healthy life change.

Unstoppable Brain frees you from being too performative for others and being too hard on yourself. It provides all you need to restore your sovereignty and empowers you to change your life and habits whenever and however you want. It offers a therapeutic dose of three “medicines” that help you go from stuck to unstoppable. This potent elixir is an antidote to recovering your innate motivation wherever you’ve been stopped by the past or overwhelmed by the future. Most importantly, this book gives you the key to unlock lasting change.

Dr. Bobinet shares relatable examples from her own story and impactful research studies in resounding instruction for a full, vibrant life. Throughout the book, her engaging voice, relatable vulnerability, and empowering message infuse readers with the tools and reinvigorated power to unlock true, lasting change. Become unstoppable!

KYRA BOBINET, MD, MPH, has passionately pursued and studied the truth about behavior change for nearly three decades as a physician, public health leader, healthcare executive, and behavioral expert. An award-winning health innovator and thought leader, Dr. Bobinet has an MD from UCSF School of Medicine and an MPH from Harvard University. She belongs to the Stanford Medical School AIM lab, where she teaches occasionally on health behavior change, and Founder/CEO of Fresh Tri, a behavioral software based on the latest neuroscience of habit formation and lasting change. Her first bestselling book, Well Designed Life, is a collection of globally influential brain science and behavior change. Dr. Bobinet is an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. She enjoys meditation, horsemanship, and herbalism, and lives with her family and animal and plant teachers in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains.