rapt (adj.) – deeply engrossed or absorbed.

This book provides many reasons to foster rapt attention within one’s life. The author has done her homework: the book contains numerous references and tidbits from her discussions with some of the most well-respected researchers in the field of psychology. She puts the wealth of information together to argue that attention may be one of the most important aspects of life; indeed that may be all life is.

For example, people who were asked to attend to the pleasant sights as they ran for 20 minutes a day for a week had better moods than those asked to attend to the unpleasant. While the advice may be obvious to most, many people forget to heed to the lesson, so the author forcefully reminds the reader. From taking the time to appreciate the food one eats, forming a laser-focused attention on the work one does,  or changing the way one attends to pain, the experience can be made more or less pleasurable. Not surprising to those familiar with findings in psychology: pain can be lessened with meditation, the costs of multitasking are not worth the benefits, attention on the good rather than rumination can lift people out of depression.

In this book the author provides a multitude of practical  lessons: for those experiencing anxiety, chronic pain, marital trouble, unruly children, or just lack of life satisfaction. Most recommendations are research-based and when the advice is too opaque the author provides references for further reading.

There is too much to summarize and praise, so I’ll simply provide one of numerous gems one should expect to find when reading this book:

Research shows that contented spouses see each other through rose-colored glasses, holding an even more favorable view than their partners have of themselves. Sandra Murray, a psychologist at the State University at Buffalo, finds evidence of something even better: over time, each person actually becomes more like the mate’s benignly biased vision.