The worst personal development book?

[Will]

My pick is Keep Your Brain Alive: 83 Neurobic Exercises.

The basic premise of this book is that you should exercise your brain by doing lots of unusual activities, thus keeping the brain busy and flexible. Hardly a revelation.

But the lack of insight isn't the only problem. The real problem are the specific exercises recommended by the author. IIRC, the book says you should "surprise" your brain by doing daily tasks blindfolded so you can explore your other senses. Some of these recommended tasks range from stupid to dangerous.

What books do you consider absolutely useless or even harmful?

[arcadian]

i read a book about increasing intelligence by win wenger. he offered this really radical advice about holding your breath under water.

he claims by holding your breath, your body will assume that you are drowning, and therefore open up the artery flow to your brain to supply it with as much oxygen as possible. do this often enough and your arteries will be permanently expanded. supposedly bigger arteries give you more oxygen permanently, thus making you more intelligent.

this didn't sound too safe to me. i did some research and found that some people black out while holding their breath swimming under water. wenger is not just offering bad advice. that's incredibly dangerous!

here's info from his website:

Two GUARANTEED Ways To Profoundly Increase Your Intelligence

Held-breath underwater swimming builds up carbon di-oxide in the bloodstream which, in turn, expands the Carotid arteries feeding circulation to the brain.* The recommended hour per day over three weeks, permanently expands those Carotids and the circulation to your brain. This not only improves your "wind," you see, this held-breath underwater swimming improves the physical condition of your brain and is an easy way to increase intelligence, even your own already-high intelligence.

That CO2/Carotid-expansion relationship is a safety system which was bred into all of us, from a time when our ancestors lived under much more rigorous conditions than we do. Any of our ancestors from such times who did not have the ability, did not live long enough to become our ancestors. We still have that Carotid-expansion trait, a fact that every medical doctor in this country has had to memorize while coming through medical school.