Your Better Instincts (Uncover Your Inner Power to Improve Health, Happiness, and Performance)

Tap into your natural superpower for peak health, happiness, and performance.

After a lifetime of working and coaching in the health and fitness industry, Dr. Stacy Irvine was puzzled that no one had been able to find a solution to successfully motivate our whole population to lead healthier lives. In North America, rates of many chronic diseases are increasing, obesity is still on the rise, our consumption of processed junk food continues, we’re sleepless, and our mental health is suffering. We have all the science to understand what we need to do and clear ways to communicate it to a diverse population, but this does not seem to be enough. So, what’s the secret?

Dr. Irvine believes our instincts are our natural superpower for improving our health, happiness, and performance. In our extremely busy, highly connected lifestyles, we are ignoring our basic human instinctual patterns. These patterns are part of us from the moment we are born—think of a toddler who learns to crawl, then stand and eventually run, or our basic human need to communicate and connect. We develop our instincts as we age and as we navigate our environments. Instincts are responsible for our survival as a species, and they are the amazing attributes that separate us from machines.

Using personal reflection and scientific studies—and drawing on interviews with top performers including astronaut Chris Hadfield, Jimmy Kimmel Live animal expert Dave Salmoni, and Rush’s Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee—Dr. Irvine demonstrates that our instincts are our superpower. Tapping into them in our daily lives leads to improvements in our overall health, performance, and happiness. In an increasingly technological world, relying on your better instincts is the counterintuitive way to get ahead.