"In this groundbreaking book, neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, who herself experienced the terrible grip of depression, asks: 'What if there were a way to conquer this awful illness - and even to prevent it in the first place - by altering the brain's response to stress without debilitating and ineffective drugs? The answers she details here offer a bounty of good news for depression sufferers and the people who love them." "Lambert's theory suggests that important clues to the mysteries of depression have been in our hands all along. Drawing on innovative research (with rats, whose brains are similar to those of humans), Lambert identifies a circuit in the human brain - connecting movement, feeling, and cognition - that is responsible for emotional emptiness, negative thinking, and other symptoms of depression. She reveals how stimulating this "effort-driven rewards circuit" with hands-on physical activities that yield tangible rewards builds resilience against the disorder. Involving the hands is especially effective, since so much of the brain is devoted to hand movement." "Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply repair a lamp, you are bathing your brain in feel-good chemicals and creating a kind of mental vitamin. Based on the latest scientific advances and filled with moving stories, Lifting Depression offers a compassionate and common sense way of preventing and treating one of the modern era's most vexing diseases."--BOOK JACKET.