Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience have revealed that many mental and physical conditions once thought to be irreversible can, in fact, improve through the power of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire and adapt. The Top 10 Neuroplasticity Books to Read for Brain Retraining below showcase how modern neuroscience is transforming our understanding of the brain’s potential to heal and adapt.
Neuroplasticity shows that we can rewire our thoughts, emotions, and even physical responses through consistent, intentional practice, a process often called brain retraining. Understanding how this works is the first step toward lasting change, and the right resources can guide you through that process. Neuroscientists, clinicians, and individuals who have experienced transformation firsthand have contributed to a wealth of research and practical tools for retraining the brain. These methods are now being used to support recovery from chronic conditions, improve mental clarity, and restore emotional balance.
In this list, you’ll find ten of the most insightful and evidence-based books on neuroplasticity and brain retraining. Each one offers practical techniques and inspiring perspectives to help you strengthen your brain’s capacity for healing, growth, and resilience.
At re-origin, we help you implement many of the insights learned in these neuroplasticity books to rewire your brain and reclaim your health. Learn more about the re-origin program here.
Top 10 Neuroplasticity Books
1. The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge M.D.
In this new look at the human brain, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., delivers an introduction to both the scientists advocating and developing neuroscience and the people whose lives have been transformed by this new science. This best-selling book delves into stroke patients’ journey of re-learning to speak to the unprecedented case of a woman born with only half of her brain who worked with neuroscientists to rewire her incomplete brain to work as a whole. The Brain That Changes Itself will forever change the way we see our brains and the potential they hold for living a better life.
2. The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity by Norman Doidge M.D.
Being one of the best neuroplasticity books, this new book analyzes the healing process in four stages: neuro-stimulation, brain modulation, rest, and learning new skills. The brain’s complexity makes for a unique way of healing itself.
3. Livewired by David Eaglemen
The author of this book, Dr. David Eagleman, considers varied approaches and methods through which the brain readily adapts to its environment while still making sense of the world around it. Through the cerebral cortex, which is the computational center of the brain, external stimuli such as light, pressure, and vibration are interpreted into meaningful information, which you normally apply in day-to-day life.
His great book describes how the processes of synthesis, dreaming, and the application of Neurotech Devices can manipulate the perception of our senses.
4. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by Daniel G. Amen M.D.
This Amazon best-selling book describes a breakthrough program to conquer anxiety, depression, obsessiveness, anger, and impulsiveness. The author, Dr. Daniel Amen, focuses on overcoming these conditions by utilizing methods akin to brain plasticity, and discovering how they interrelate with specific faculties in the brain.
Deficiencies in different brain sections cause the named effects; thus, medical, and natural measures aimed at correcting these deficiencies are broadly discussed in this book. This includes various ways of self-improvement through better exercise, better rest, and tips on mood improvement.
5. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel A. van der Kolk
Unfortunately, everyone experiences trauma at some point in their life. For example, many veterans and their families face the difficult task of dealing with combat-related trauma. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is a world-renowned expert on trauma who has devoted his career to helping survivors heal from their traumas. In his book, The Body Keeps the Score, Dr. Peter uses recent scientific advancements to illustrate how trauma physically changes both the body and brain, which decreases sufferers’ abilities for joy, involvement, self-control, and trust.
Dr. van der Kolk studies Brain-Body treatments – such as neurofeedback and meditation, sports, drama, and yoga in order to offer patients new paths of recovery by activating the brain’s natural ability to heal itself. According to Dr. van der Kolk’s own research as well as other specialists, The Body Keeps The Score explains the immensely negative or positive effect our relationships have on us – offering sufferers a ray of hope.
6. Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel J. Siegel M.D.
Dr. Daniel M. Siegel describes mind-sight as a brain skill that enhances the creation of positive change in life. The book describes how our well-being depends on the balance between the left and right brain. How being consciously aware of the responses of the mind and body enables one to avoid negative thoughts and reactions by reprogramming the brain toward healthier connections between both left and right brain hemispheres.
Being one of the best researchers in the frontiers of brain science, the author focuses on how the inner world of the mind can be harnessed and controlled to change the wiring and architecture of the brain.
7. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
In this book, flow is described as the power that enables one to draw maximum brainpower from any experience in life. It enables people to realize total enjoyment, creativity, and involvement in life.
The author, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, shows how to take control of a positive state of mind through the sequential ordering of information absorbed by our consciousness to unlock our full potential, improve the quality of our lives and discover true happiness.
8. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E. P. Seligman Ph.D.
Martin E.P. Seligman, the book’s author, teaches how to cultivate new approaches in life through well-reasoned and flexible optimism, which will help anyone overcome pessimistic thinking and the depression that follows negative thoughts. He describes how to boost your immune system and improve your thoughts through healthy thinking to acquire maximum personal achievement. Check out Learned Optimism to learn more.
The book also teaches brain retraining, or how to change your internal mental dialogues toward better thinking, and thus how to instill optimistic patterns of thought in people at the early stages of life.
9. Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy
This book, authored by Amy Cuddy, describes presence as the focus of self and own feeling instead of being mindful of the impression we create on others. It describes some basic methods that an individual can take to achieve personal liberation against pressure, anxiety, and fear. The resources in this bestseller book equip the reader with the methods and skills to approach the greatest challenges with confidence while giving our best output in life.
10. Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza
In this book, Dr. Joe Dispenza gives the reader a step-by-step guide and information required to effect positive changes in any area of life. Applying a variety of stories of personal triumph, the author equips the reader with the necessary strategies toward gradually creating the ideal self that any individual could desire. The book describes the process of parting with your current mindset and creating an entirely different mind.
10 More BONUS Neuroplasticity Books
11. Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Catherine Pittman and Elizabeth Karle
Authors Catherine Pittman and Elizabeth Karle dive into how different parts of the brain, such as the amygdala and cortex, are crucial players in the game of stress and anxiety. This great book offers readers specific examples of how to best handle fear and anxiety by taking advantage of our brain’s ability to adapt to new stimuli. Readers gain a better grasp on how stress, anxiety, and fear are created by the brain. This book is available to purchase through various retailers such as Amazon and is available in Kindle format.
12. Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson
Hardwiring Happiness describes a simple technique that utilizes the secret power in everyday situations to form new neural brain structures meant to increase mindfulness, calmness, and overall better mental health. In this best-selling new book, Dr. Hanson lays out four simple steps that build stability into your brain to foster a sense of resilience and well-being.
13. Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson
Rick Hanson does a remarkable job of marrying the concepts of neuroplasticity and thousands of years of mindfulness approaches to aid in fostering mental peace, overall well-being, better self-confidence, and psychological growth. The book contains guided meditations and neuroplasticity exercises meant to activate your brain and foster immense personal growth during everyday life. This book offers an exceptional convergence of psychology, neurology, and mindfulness practice and is packed with practical techniques and skills that can be used every day.
14. The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
Shawn Achor flips the old conventional wisdom of Happiness on its head. Most people believe if you work hard enough, make enough money, or fit into those old jeans from college happiness will follow. However, Anchor, who was a Harvard University professor teaching about the frontiers of brain science, turns the happiness perspective on its head; success doesn’t cause happiness; happiness causes success. Drawing from his own research, new discoveries about the human brain, and case studies, this book explains how happiness stimulates engagement in our brains leading to more success in our lives. In his book, Anchor explains how we can rewire our brains to be calmer, more positive, and, therefore, more successful. This book is available to purchase through various retailers such as Amazon and is available in Kindle format
15. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain by Sharon Begley
Author Sharon Begley delves into how the ancient knowledge of Buddhism, paired with new insights into the human brain, has revealed that we have the ability to alter our brains for the better. This new brain science is called neuroplasticity (the capability of the brain to alter itself as a response to experience), demonstrates that the brain has the power to completely change its structure down to the neurons, and it is the brain’s way of handling situations it deems helpful or harmful to us. Sharon Begley reveals how this new science and old Buddhist knowledge can come together to help the brain heal after trauma and illnesses such as depression and OCD through the practice of mindfulness.
16. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
In The Power of Habit, award-winning enterprise journalist Charles Duhigg takes readers to the compelling center of scientific findings that demonstrate why our habits occur and how even the most deep-seated habits can be altered through the use of neuroplasticity. This book provides extensive knowledge into engaging narratives that take readers from Procter & Gamble boardrooms to the NFL sidelines to the forefront of civil rights movements. Duhigg offers an entirely new understanding of the human brain and its ever-present potential. The Power of Habit includes an exciting idea: The key to more regular exercising, weight loss, increased productivity, and gaining success is comprehending how our habits operate. This book explains that by harnessing neuroplasticity, you can improve your business, community, and overall health.
17. Soft-Wired: How the New Science of Brain Plasticity Can Change Your Life by Dr. Michael Merzenich PhD
Dr. Michael Merzenich examines brain plasticity research and its applications across the human lifespan. The book explains how our brains adapt based on our experiences, learning, and environment. Merzenich describes how memories, skills, and emotions develop through brain plasticity, and discusses practical methods for improving brain function at any age through targeted mental exercises and activities.
18. The Neuroscience of Change by Kelly McGonigal PhD
Psychologist Kelly McGonigal examines what brain research reveals about making lasting personal changes. The book explores how awareness and mindfulness relate to the brain processes involved in forming and changing habits. McGonigal presents practical applications of neuroscience findings for understanding motivation, attention, and emotional regulation in the context of personal development.
19. Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel by Candace Pert
Neuroscientist Candace Pert, who discovered the opiate receptor in 1972, investigates the biological foundations of emotions and their connection to physical health. The book explores how brain chemicals affect our feelings and examines the relationship between emotions and the immune system. Pert discusses research on how thoughts and emotions may influence health conditions, presenting findings on the biological connections between mind and body.
20. Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain Power
Science journalist Dan Hurley investigates whether people can actually increase their intelligence. Starting from his own childhood experience of being labeled a “slow learner” before becoming a strong student, Hurley explores a 2008 study that challenged the belief that IQ is fixed from birth. He documents his personal experiment with various brain-training methods, including computer games, exercise, music lessons, meditation, and brain stimulation. The book examines research on cognitive enhancement while sharing Hurley’s journey to understand and potentially improve mental abilities.
What is Self-Directed Neuroplasticity?
Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to gradually enact positive changes in the neural networks by replacing old and unproductive neural pathways with new positive pathways. Self-directed neuroplasticity is the process of rewiring your brain from a dysfunctional state into a healthy and productive one, thus integrating the positive change with both body and mind.
Learn more: What is re-origin? Harnessing Neuroplasticity to Heal from Chronic Health Conditions
Top Reasons to Retrain Your Brain
The main goal of brain retraining is harnessing brain power to restore balance between your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. With consistent practice, it can help reduce stress, sharpen focus, and build healthier habits that last. By retraining your brain, you’re teaching it to respond differently to challenges and stressors. Over time, this leads to clearer thinking, greater emotional regulation, and stronger patterns of resilience and calm.
Brain retraining is especially powerful for those recovering from chronic illness, trauma, or other health challenges, as it helps rebuild and strengthen disrupted neural pathways. But its benefits extend to anyone looking to enhance their overall mental performance and quality of life.
Top benefits of brain retraining include:
- Reduced stress and anxiety
- Improved focus, clarity, and memory
- Greater emotional balance and resilience
- Stronger motivation and healthier habits
- Enhanced adaptability to change
- Support for recovery from symptoms of chronic conditions or trauma
- Increased sense of calm, confidence, and control
Self-Directed Brain Retraining with re-origin
When you’re ready to go beyond theory and start applying neuroplasticity in your daily life, re-origin provides the tools and guidance to make it happen. Our self-directed brain retraining program helps you translate the science from these books into practical, step-by-step exercises designed to calm your nervous system, rewire old patterns, and restore balance to your mind and body. Whether you’re recovering from a chronic condition or simply want to build greater resilience, re-origin offers a clear, supportive path to lasting change. Learn more about the re-origin program here.
