Featured Author Valerie Johnstone Published Titles Understanding Us Understanding Us How do you feel when stressed? Muscles tense? Palms sweaty? Heart racing? Don’t worry ­ it’s all part of being human. All we Homo sapiens have such sensations. Why? Because we still have our old mammalian brain. Its red-alert system is primed to react immediately to protect us from any perceived threat. But we also have our new human brain. It has a vivid imagination, which invents irrational psychological threats. These needlessly activate the old primitive fight or flight mechanism. Result? Uncontrolled, chronic stress. Understanding Us simplifies the complexity of our brain’s evolution. It also shows how we can harness and harmonise the strengths of both old and new brains to modify our body’s over-active stress response and so take control of our lives. Book Review & Contributors Valerie Johnstone Valerie Johnstone has a background of primary and secondary teaching, school administration, counselling of parents and students, organising of self-help groups, and many years of researching the human stress response. Her interest in the evolutionary input into so many of Homo sapiens’ physical, mental and emotional ills, has been the impetus for her latest book. Her previous books are Winning over Worry and Secrets of Success.