The Happy Brain cover art

The Happy Brain

The Science of Where Happiness Comes From, and Why

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Happy Brain

By: Dean Burnett
Narrated by: Matt Addis
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Do you want to be happy?

If so - listen. This audiobook has all the answers!

Not really. Sorry. But it does have some very interesting questions and at least the occasional answer.

The enthusiasm for and expectation of happiness are so widespread today that fundamental questions about it are often overlooked. For starters, the most basic question of all: where does happiness come from? Is it your brain - a mere concoction of chemicals or network of neurons? Is it in fact your gut? (Spoiler alert: yes. Sort of) Or is it external? Is it love or sex or money or success? And what are these doing to our brains anyway?

In The Happy Brain, Neuroscientist Dean Burnett delves into our most private selves to investigate what causes happiness, where it comes from and why we are so desperate to hang on to it. The questions he raises are ones we so rarely ask today, but they address a major part of what it means to be a modern-day human.

©2018 Dean Burnett (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Biological Sciences Career Success Motivation & Self-Improvement Science Happiness Human Brain Career Inspiring Mental Health Thought-Provoking

Listeners also enjoyed...

 9 Secrets to Thriving cover art
Psycho-logical cover art
Emotional Ignorance cover art
Why Does E=MC2 and Why Should We Care cover art
If I Could Tell You Just One Thing cover art
The Science of Sin cover art
Psychology in Plain English cover art
Angst cover art
The Luck Factor cover art
I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t) cover art
Tribes cover art
Algorithms to Live By cover art
Sway cover art
On Romantic Love cover art
The Science of Introverts cover art
How Emotions Are Made cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
Dean takes you on an entertaining, and at times funny, look at brain function and the key to human happiest. As with all things human nothing is that simple.

Another great book from Dean Burnett.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The combination of Dean's humorous writing and Matt's delivery makes this an instant classic. Thanks guys!

Brain pleasing duo

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I liked humor and science being so close and at ease with each other. I think the only thing missing is to provide a bit more of advise on what to try to improve all things which make you happy. But then, author is not a life coach, he is scientist!

good book to understand brain better

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I bought this book because I’d previously read The Idiot Brain and could barely put it down, but while I also found the subjects covered in this book fascinating, I found the book itself much heavier going both in print and as an audio book.

Now this looks more like a review of me than the book, but there you are. Top marks for the content of the book, not so many for the readability and delivery.

Felt heavier than The Idiot Brain

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I was very disappointed with this book (the audio version). Having a book devoted to 'the science of where happiness comes from' I would have hoped that at the end I would have a definition of happiness and know how it affects the brain, what causes it and so on. Unfortunately, I do not.
The book comes across to me as long-winded waffle. There is some useful nuggets of information, but they are embedded and almost hidden in a lengthy ramble. The book is more of a story about the author's journey exploring the subject rather than concentrating on the subject itself.
The author provides most of his insights from interviews he undertook with various people. To derive conclusions from the commentary of a few individuals seems to me to be quite unscientific. However, the circumstances of each interview are described in excruciating detail. How the author travelled to the interview, where they met, what they ate, etc. etc. In the chapter covering the importance of home to happiness, the author describes at length how he travelled to his childhood home and his feelings on finding it abandoned.
The narration is excellent, but I found the subject matter so dry and drawn out that at times I found myself switching off and not really listening. At other times I wanted to shout out 'Get on with it'. I think that the information provided could have been condensed into a book a tenth of the size.
In the early part of the book the author describes why you cannot see happiness in the brain with an MRI scanner for various reasons, but partly because all of the brain is active all of the time to a greater or lesser degree and emotions such as happiness affect so many parts of the brain. Therefore, it is not possible to point to certain parts of the brain and say they are responsible for happiness. Yet for the rest of the book that is exactly what he did. He kept listing parts of the brain that responded to certain stimuli, but no normal person could have possibly remembered the parts of the brain he was naming so I really did not see the point of doing that apart from trying to add weight to his ramblings.
In the end, I learned that happiness means different things to different people and that all sorts of things can contribute to happiness and some things that can contribute to happiness can have the opposite effect when experienced in excess. Not exactly ground breaking stuff.



Disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Very injiyable and informative. Excellently narrated too. I will certainly listen to it again. I thought it better than his first.

Better than Idiot Brain!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Lots of interesting details in the story and a good conclusion. Nothing sensational but very sensible.

Liked the conclusion

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The Happy Brain tickled my dopamine neurons and made my brain happy. The book is superbly written by Dean Burnett with his mix of high quality science writing, making complex ideas easier to understand, punctuated with sharp yet good natured humour. Matt Addis deserves great credit for his narration too, his perfect pace, rhythm and tone bring the words to life. Most impressive is how both Dean & Matt move between the science and the humour so effortlessly, there is a cheeky grin behind both the writing and delivery I'm sure. Writing and narration in perfect harmony.

The book is a real adventure into the multiple complex causes of happiness and just how different we all are. The book journeys through the whole range of life experiences from childhood, to home, work & fame, money, sex, drugs, social connection, the darker sides of happiness, health and ultimately mortality. The overriding message is that we have find out what makes us happy, there is as far as science knows, no one single answer.

The book added to my understanding of the current neuroscience and there are a number of studies referenced that were new to me. What Dean adds is his ability to make all that science so human with real world stories, his own sometimes painful emotional experiences which he then breaks up with some unexpected humorous twist, some skill that.

For me, The Happy Brain accords with the better science-based books on positive psychology that suggest many ways people have found meaning and happiness in their lives. Just like the best of those books the conclusion is that you have to try the ideas for yourself and see what works for you. Even then the happiness may be fleeting and will almost certainly change over time. The one theme that remains constant across all the work I've seen to date is our need for social connection and to be part of something.

A fact filled, honest, truthful and balanced book that can help us understand that most human search for happiness and just how individual a journey it is for each of us to find it.

More simply, I flippin loved it, thanks lads.

A neuro adventure, facts, honesty and fun

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It’s incredibly interesting and exciting book.. with fantastic narrative.. 👌I would recommend to everyone to better understand yourself

Fabulous!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Dean took me through an exploration of myself whilst also giving me insight into everybody else.

Fantastic book and a great follow up to the Idiot Brain which I also found to be superb.

What a wonderful read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews