Dr. Wendy Suzuki is a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University and a celebrated international authority on neuroplasticity and mental health. She was recently named one of the top ten women changing the way we see the world by Good Housekeeping and regularly serves as a sought-after expert for publications including The Wall Street Journal, Shape, and Health. Her TED talk has more than 31 million views on Facebook and was the 2nd most viewed TED talk of 2018. She received her undergraduate degree in physiology and human anatomy at the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 studying with Prof. Marion C. Diamond, a leader in the field of brain plasticity. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from U.C. San Diego in 1993 and completed apost-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before accepting her faculty position at New York University in 1998.
Her major research interest continues to be brain plasticity. She is best known for her extensive work studying areas in the brain critical for our ability to form and retain new long-term memories. More recently her work has focused on understanding how aerobic exercise can be used to improve learning, memory and higher cognitive abilities in humans. Wendy is passionate about teaching, about exercise, and about supporting and enhancing mental health in our schools and communities.
Dr. Suzuki has appeared on and been featured in: CBS This Morning, Dr. Oz, National Geographic, Tamron Hall, Parade, Sirius XM, Maria Shriver’s Move for Minds, The Moth, The Dana Foundation, World Health Organization, The Big Think, Live Science, Mindbodygreen, HuffPost, Yahoo News, and several others.
About Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion
World-renowned neuroscientist and author of Healthy Brain, Happy Life explains how to harness the power of anxiety into unexpected gifts.
We are living in the age of anxiety, a situation that often makes us feel as if we are locked into an endless cycle of stress, sleeplessness, and worry. But what if we had a way to leverage our anxiety to help us solve problems and fortify our wellbeing? What if, instead of seeing anxiety as a curse, we could recognize it for the unique gift that it is?
Dr. Wendy Suzuki has discovered a paradigm-shifting truth about anxiety: yes, it is uncomfortable, but it is also essential for our survival. In fact, anxiety is a key component of our ability to live optimally. Every emotion we experience has an evolutionary purpose, and anxiety is designed to draw our attention to vulnerability. If we simply approach it as something to avoid, get rid of, or dampen, we actually miss an opportunity to improve our lives. Listening to our anxieties from a place of curiosity, and without fear, can actually guide us onto a path that leads to joy.
Drawing on her own intimate struggles and based on cutting-edge research, Dr. Suzuki has developed an inspiring guidebook for managing unwarranted anxiety and turning it into a powerful asset. In the tradition of Quiet and Thinking, Fast and Slow, Good Anxiety has the power to permanently change how we understand anxiety and, more importantly, how we can use it to improve our lives for the better.
