My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey Paperback – 4 Nov 2006

Since my brother had a stroke last year I've read several books in an attempt to understand what he's experienced and how best to help him up the long slope to recovery. This is definitely the best book I've read so far. It reads like a novel (even the two technical chapters are fascinating) and I can't put it down. It has a really good combination of science, an account of what happened to her, how she felt and what she needed in order to recover. I finally feel I have some understanding of what has happened to him and what he may need from the people around him. This book has really helped me to feel a little less helpless. I agree with other reviewers that a)the last section is very American, "touchy feely" and a bit spiritual which some people might find offputting and b) it would have been really useful to have more information on the nature of the care and therapy (speech, cognitive and physical) which enabled her to recover.

This book was recommended to me by a colleague who had seen the author on Oprah and had then read the book inflight from America. She was so enthusiastic about it and I could see why when I read it myself. At times painful it will evoke emotions in anyone who has relatives affected by stroke or other serious illnesses.

In the early chapters as she described what happened I found myself saying; "just ring the emergency services, why are you trying to remember your work number!" And this sense of frustration obviously mirrors what she was feeling/thinking at the time. She also includes sections on the brain anatomy and what the stroke actually did to her.

The author has a unique take on the subject as a brain scientist who suffered a stroke at age 37 and was able to analyse it as it happened. She was also a musician and an artist so may have have had better use of both sides of her brain than most of us but it took her 8 years to recover, particularly her mathematical ability, and get back to where she was. In the meantime she experienced a sense of one-ness with the universe and I wondered if this is what zen adepts and people practising mindfulness also experience.

I was interested in her advice for helpers eg believe in recovery, don't bring negative energy into my life (and how that must resonate with anyone undergoing hospital treatment). She also wanted people not to ask closed questions ie Yes/No but multiple choice ones to force her to think and create new connections in her brain.

She doesn't say much about her personal life except to talk about her brother who suffered mental illness which influenced her career decision and the support she received from her mother. You get the impression she didn't have anyone else close to her. The trauma also wiped out lots of memories which meant she could start over again and she made conscious decisions about the kind of things and people she wanted to have in her life.

This is an easy book to read, however it is very American - touchy feely. The book is split into 4 parts, and is worth getting for the first 3 parts.

The intro is well written and interesting. The next part covers the science of the brain. This is slightly heavy going, but worth reading if you are interested in the subject (why else would you buy a book about strokes?!). The author encourages you to read this to understand the next part, and it is useful but certainly not essential.

The next part of the book is what you are buying it for, the description of what happenned to Jill and how it affected her and her insights to this and understanding of what was happening, followed by her recovery and her personal take on the differing support she got from different people. It is a thrilling and scary journey, and for this part I would absolutely recommend anyone to read this book to help undertand brain injury a little and the support required. I feel that I have learnt a great deal from this book.

The final part, is more about what Jill has learnt about how to control her brain and return to her nirvana whenever she wants. She has certainly turned what could so easily have been a tragedy into an asset that has made her a happier person and she encourages us to enter that same mental space. This bit was for me the touchy feely self help spiritual guidance bit. I didn't get it, but if you are looking for that, it is a nice extra - possibly would have been worth putting into a seperate book though.

All in all, this is two books in one, and the book about the stroke is excellent and well worth reading.

This is a short book and it's also easy to read. Being quite the hypochondriac, I liked it because Jill Bolte Taylor portrays strokes as nothing to be afraid of. In fact, for her it was a lifechanging, almost spiritual experience.

Essentially the book is in three parts. The first part is a simple explanation of how the brain functions and what happens when you have a stroke. I have no great scientific knowledge but I found this quite easy to follow. The second part (most of the book) is about Jill Bolte Taylor's personal experience of having a stroke (specifically, a haemorrhagic stroke in her left cerebral cortex) and going through the recovery process. Her account of the stroke is fascinating because she is able to describe very specifically what was happening to her brain as well as how she felt and how it affected her as it was happening.

This section also has a lot of information about how you can best communicate with and help someone who's had a stroke to recover. There are lots of tips on basic things that you can do, for example: speak quietly but slowly and clearly, don't hurry them, don't overwhelm them with stimulation (no TV or radio), keep visitations brief.

One thing that I found very interesting in terms of her recovery process was how long it took: after four years of work her brain became capable of multi-tasking, after six years she could climb two steps at a time etc.

In the final part of the book, Dr Taylor takes what she learned from her experience and explains how she believes that better understanding of the ways that our brains operate can allow us to choose what thoughts we will give attention to and to consciously override the negative aspects of left brain thinking.Read more ›