Frontal Fatigue

Book excerpt: If technology is making modern life easier, why are we suffering from more stress and mental illness? In this trailblazing book, Dr. Mark Rego, who has practiced psychiatry in the community and taught at Yale for thirty years, explores why mental illness and stress are skyrocketing alongside technology that was ostensibly created to improve our world. Using decades of experience and pioneering scientific research, Dr. Rego presents his innovative hypothesis of Frontal Fatigue, the background condition from which many of us now suffer. Frontal Fatigue exists when the unique pressures of modern life overwhelm the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brains that can make us susceptible to mental illness. Frontal Fatigue examines • why mental illness is increasing in modern times, • how the demands of our technology-centric lives place countless people at risk for mental illness and lacking in basic psychological well-being, • solutions for finding stability and peace within the noise of modern life. This astute perspective in the battle for our collective and individual peace of mind illustrates why mental illness is on the rise in these technologically advanced times and how we can act to adjust our lives in response.