Science-Based Meditation Tools to Improve Your Brain & Health | Dr. Richard Davidson

We actually have really good data on this that at least for beginning meditators, if you do it for 30 days and you do it just five minutes a day, you

will see a significant reduction in symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, and symptoms of stress. We've

shown that repeatedly in randomized control trials. You'll see an increase

control trials. You'll see an increase on measures of well-being or flourishing, and we can talk about what those actually mean. You can even see

just with this amount of practice a reduction in IL6. IL6 is a pro-inflammatory cytoine.

Welcome to the Hubberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and opthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Dr. Richie Davidson. Dr. Dr.

Richie Davidson is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin Madison. He is a pioneer in the study of how meditation impacts the brain both during

meditations but also how it changes your brain over time, what we refer to as neuroplasticity. Today we discuss the

neuroplasticity. Today we discuss the incredible health and neuroplasticity benefits that come from regular meditation, including very brief meditations of just 5 minutes per day.

Dr. Davidson also dispels many common myths about meditation. For example,

contrary to what most people believe, the point of meditation is not to clear your mind or to feel inner peace during the meditation, but rather to observe your thoughts and any stress you might experience during the meditation. And in

doing so, it's kind of like the final hard repetitions of resistance exercise or the burn you might feel during cardio, which comes from lactate. In

that sense, the stress you feel during meditation and your ability to observe it acts as a sort of lactate of the mind that in turn makes you adapt. It makes

you more stress resilient, focused, and peaceful outside of the meditation. Dr.

Davidson also explains how your brain changes during different types of meditation such as open monitoring meditation or eyes open meditation, walking versus seated, and standing

meditations, and more. I've been doing meditation over many years, but this conversation with Dr. Richie Davidson changed my daily routine. Afterwards, I

immediately started implementing a 5-minute perday meditation of the sort that Dr. Davidson describes specifically for stress resilience. And I have to say it's had a profound impact on my levels

of mental clarity, focus, and sleep and stress, just as he explains. In fact,

it's proved to be one of the most beneficial practices I've taken on, especially on days when I wake up with tons to do, a little bit stressed or a lot stressed, and if I didn't sleep quite as well as I would have liked. So

today you're going to hear about the incredible science of meditation, the brain and bodily changes that occur, but also how you can rewire your brain using meditation. Dr. Richie Davidson is a

meditation. Dr. Richie Davidson is a true pioneer in this field, being one of the first to bring brain imaging and studies of mindfulness and meditation to the west. He has of course authored some

the west. He has of course authored some of the most impactful research papers on these topics, but also popular books, including a new book coming out later this month entitled Born to Flourish:

How to Thrive in a Challenging World, which I myself look forward to reading.

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In

keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Richie Davidson. Dr.

Richie Davidson, welcome.

>> Thank you, Andrew. I'm honored to be here.

>> Well, it's an honor to have you here. I

am a longtime fan of your research, of what you've built at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, uh the books you've written. We'll talk about your new book.

written. We'll talk about your new book.

I didn't even know you had a new book.

This wasn't a book tour invite. I had se uh seen you give a seminar at Stanford and I said great, here's my opportunity to finally get you on the podcast. But

you really transformed the way that I think about not just meditation but all states of mind and how that relates to our individual traits and how those can

change over time. Today we'll talk about concept and protocols, but I'm curious how you think about states of mind generally. I think it's really important

generally. I think it's really important that we frame the discussion with this because we all know what sleep is. Most

people have heard that sleep has different components, REM sleep, etc. We know what it is to be awake, stressed versus calm. But how should we think

versus calm. But how should we think about states of mind? And then once you tell us how you think about that, perhaps then we can better place this thing we call meditation into a

particular bin.

>> So thank you first for having me, Andrew. And I've just want to say I've

Andrew. And I've just want to say I've been a long-term fan of yours. So, uh,

uh, I'm really happy to be here. Uh, in

terms of states of mind, I think that at the outset, it's really important that we, uh, also remind listeners that there

is a thing called traits, too. And so,

we can't talk about states without also talking about traits. And we'll get to traits in a moment. But I think with regard to states, we can think of them

as organized patterns of activity in the brain that have corresponding uh uh organized mental

coralates, if you will, or subjective coralates. And there are certain states

coralates. And there are certain states that occur with regularity that are part of our biological rhythms. And so um

most human beings will have states of wakefulness of deep sleep and of REM sleep every day and that is regulated by

well-known kinds of biological rhythms. And then there are other kinds of states that uh are sometimes described that are

states during what we normally think of as waking. Although I think honestly the

as waking. Although I think honestly the concept of state is often used loosely without um rigorous uh boundary criteria

for what constitutes a state and how it might be distinguished from another state. There are certain states which if

state. There are certain states which if they occur with regularity will lead to a trait. They'll lead to a shift in the

a trait. They'll lead to a shift in the baseline for the next state. Mhm.

>> There was a paper I wrote many many years ago with my dear friend and colleague um Daniel Gleman who I wrote the book Altered Traits with. Uh and the

origin of altered traits is really in a sentence that we wrote in a paper 20 years earlier where we said the after is

the before for the next during.

>> The after is the before.

>> For the next during.

>> Let's drill into that for a second.

>> Yeah. So what we mean by that is that the how you are after a state say you you do a little meditation practice and

it leads to a state change. uh that

state change may persist in some way and that becomes the next before for the next during. The during is the state is

next during. The during is the state is the say the meditation state and so it's a description of how a state can lead to

a trait in the domain of emotion. You

might think that frequent bouts of anger which you can think of as a state can lead to the trait of irritability >> which is sort of chronically having a

low threshold. You can think of a trait

low threshold. You can think of a trait in certain cases as altering the threshold for the elicitation of a state.

>> So a trait of irritability would be uh a trait where you have a lowered threshold for the elicitation of anger. for

example.

>> Mhm. Yeah. I love that example because I know that many people will resonate with it because so much of what we see online nowadays is designed to capture our

attention by engaging negative affect mild anger, frustration or even outrage.

There's other content online too of course and this podcast is online after all um and many other uh sources of what I consider benevolent educational

information. But

information. But it is so true that you know what we experience in one portion of our day

impacts how we are in the rest of our day. And perhaps the simplest correlate

day. And perhaps the simplest correlate for all of it for me anyway is sleep.

You know if I sleep really well for three or four nights in a row I wake up in a certain state that certainly makes my day go differently. And the inverse is also true if I don't sleep well. I

feel like we have such great nomenclature and understanding of brain activity um and how that impacts emotionality for sleep. We know that REM

sleepbased dreams are very vivid. Uh

slowwave sleepbased dreams are less vivid perhaps. We know the electrical

vivid perhaps. We know the electrical activities associated with those different states of sleep.

I'm aware of a lot less information about brain activities and and clear definitions of waking states of mind. Do you mind if we talk about

of mind. Do you mind if we talk about this for a little bit? Sure. It's been a few years since I've heard about and I don't think we've ever really talked on this podcast about, you know, alpha waves, beta waves, theta waves. Maybe

you just educate us a bit on some of the waking brain states that we've all experienced perhaps are in right now, but we just don't hear about that much anymore. So yeah, we can talk about

anymore. So yeah, we can talk about those um oscillations of brain electrical activity and there are broad

suggestions for what kind of state they may reflect. Um uh and you know I'll go

may reflect. Um uh and you know I'll go through that but it's also important to recognize that you can be showing alpha activity in one part of the brain and

beta activity in another part of the brain simultaneously. And so it's a bit

brain simultaneously. And so it's a bit coarse to talk about these as general characteristics. But there could be

characteristics. But there could be times when we see predominantly one oscillation or another. And so talking about generalized states in that context

may be more reasonable. So with that as a caveat, let me say that in um in humans we see uh a broad range of

frequencies that go from approximately one hertz, one cycle per second to approximately 40 hertz. And from roughly

1 to four hertz is delta activity that is typically not seen during waking. Uh

it's predominant during deep sleep. And

there is data that suggests that the density of uh delta activity or slowwave activity during deep sleep is actually

diagnostic of how restorative that sleep is which is a whole separate set of issues and super cool. And there are actually some really interesting um

highly novel strategies now using neuro stimulation to actually boost slowwave activity during deep sleep which may

actually help to potentiate some of the skill acquisition that we do during the day >> including meditation. And we're doing some of that work now and which is

actually you had asked earlier before we started about some novel new work um that we're doing and that's also one of the really cool new things um uh so we can dive into that.

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to save up to $350. I saw a paper recently that described a, and forgive me if this was one of your papers, um, I don't think it was, it described a

pre-sleep meditation that one could do to significantly increase the amount of growth hormone that's released once one gets to sleep. And I thought that wasn't >> and I thought this can't and then I I

realized this makes total sense, right?

I mean, it's it has to do with I forget the the sentence he wrote, but that how we exit one state impacts how we encounter the next one. Yeah.

>> And perhaps even our trait within uh uh that next event of life. Um so we'll definitely get back to this when we talk about protocols because I think that people vastly underestimate the extent

to which um different uh let's call them meditations for lack of a better word uh right now how that can impact how we show up to work how we show up to relating how we show up even to sleep.

>> Absolutely.

>> And it's not just about being calm so you can fall asleep. Turns out this meditation that was described um boosts growth hormone in a you know incredible

way um without altering some of the other features of sleep.

>> I saw that paper too. Okay.

>> It wasn't ours. Yeah. Uh but yeah, super interesting. I I agree.

interesting. I I agree.

>> Yeah. So, just to continue with the brain oscillations, I talked about delta. The next brain the next faster

delta. The next brain the next faster brain rhythm is theta activity which is roughly between five and seven hertz. Um

theta activity is often seen uh during transition from wakefulness to sleep. Uh

and it's associated with these um uh as you were saying earlier these liinal states. It's also been associated with

states. It's also been associated with certain kinds of meditation.

Alpha activity is roughly between 8 and 13 cycles per second or hertz. And uh

it's often characterized as quote relaxed wakefulness. Beta activity is uh

relaxed wakefulness. Beta activity is uh typically defined as roughly 13 to roughly 20 hertz and uh it's associated

with uh activation. uh if there is a cognitive task that a person is engaged in uh you will typically see increases in beta activity um particularly in the

cortical regions that are engaged in those cognitive tasks. And then finally there's gamma activity. Gamma activity

is especially interesting. We see that in meditators uh long-term meditators.

Gamma activity has as its um peak frequency roughly 40 hertz. It is seen in a number of contexts. One of them is

during what some have called insight. Uh

and insight is where uh I think most viewers have had the experience of um working on a problem and all of a sudden they they just have an aha moment. Uh

and things sort of gel. They congeal. Uh

they come together. And there have been some clever experimental designs where investigators have created tasks that increase the likelihood of aha moments.

They're sort of trivial uh in the experimental context or simple cognitive tasks where all of a sudden you just recognize the answer. It might be something like a cross word puzzle and

um you know you're trying to get something a word to fit and suddenly you get the word it comes in a moment and it's kind of an instantaneous recognition and you typically would see

a burst of gamma oscillations that is very short it the average duration would be around 250 milliseconds really short what we see in these long-term

meditators is the prevalence of high amplitude gamma activity that goes on for seconds and minutes.

>> When we first saw that, by the way, and there's a lot of interesting history here, but we first reported this in 2004 with very long-term meditators where the

average lifetime practice of this group was 34,000 hours. Um, listeners can do go do the arithmetic later, but 34,000

hours is a big number. And in these practitioners, we saw these really high amplitude gamma oscillations that actually were visible to the naked eye,

which is unusual for this kind of measurement. Uh, and in the original

measurement. Uh, and in the original paper, which was published in PNAS in 2004, we actually had a figure of the raw EEG from one practitioner just to

illustrate how prominent it is that you can see it with the naked eye. And we've

subsequently replicated that. It's been

replicated by others. We've also seen that this gamma activity is um found during slowwave sleep. It's actually

superimposed on delta oscillations.

>> Is there any evidence that meditation can actually replace sleep or that it can offset some of the negative effects of sleep depriv mild sleep deprivation?

>> This is a great question. I think about it a lot. I don't think that the evidence is is clear on this at all. Um,

and I'll give several examples. First,

the Daly Lama, who probably meditates more than anybody I know, he has a practice of literally doing approximately 4 hours of meditation every day. And he's been doing that for

every day. And he's been doing that for more than 60 years.

>> I'm reassured by that. If you told me the Daly Lama meditates for, you know, 40 minutes a week, I'd actually be concerned about the role of Don Daly Lama. So the title, you know,

Lama. So the title, you know, >> so and he very proudly says, "I sleep 9 hours a night."

>> Wow. Okay.

>> Nine hours a night. And he gets nine hours of sleep. That's his regular sleep. Uh and he gets it all the time.

sleep. Uh and he gets it all the time.

And you know, I don't know whether he would say he needs it, but he gets nine hours a night. And he's very proud of that.

>> Uh >> okay, >> that's one counter example. You know,

myself, I have done a bunch of um sleep science with collaborating with some sleep researchers, and many years ago, one of these people said to me, Richie, you really should give up an alarm

clock. Just don't use an alarm clock

clock. Just don't use an alarm clock anymore. Uh and I was getting at that

anymore. Uh and I was getting at that time between 5 and a half and 6 hours a night of sleep. And I gave up the alarm clock and my average length of sleep

increased by about 30 to 45 minutes.

>> And I feel much better. Oh, sure.

Especially since the extra sleep tends to be toward morning, you're getting more REM sleep. But the difference for me between 5 and a half and, you know, six or six and a half is in terms of

just subjective well-being and focus, etc. is uh tremendous. Slightly related

question. If one were going to choose to meditate and had the option to do it at a sort of liinal state between let's say

uh being awake and going to sleep at night or between sleep um and what shortly after one wakes up and starting the day versus in the middle of the day or in the middle of the morning. Is

there any advantage to placing meditation in one of these what I'm calling liinal states or transition states between sleeping and awake in either direction? I would say probably

either direction? I would say probably for most people yes is the answer but I think there's a lot of individual

variability. In general I would say it's

variability. In general I would say it's useful to meditate when you're feeling most awake uh and uh less sleepy.

Sleepiness is uh an important obstacle in meditation and there's a lot to say about that.

>> Yeah, I'm surprised to hear that. I

expected you to say that one should meditate at a time when the brain is closest to sleep because you want to be in a a state of mind that's less about

controlling your thoughts. But then

again, I could also see an argument for how meditation it involves a redirect of attention. Um, so let's actually drill

attention. Um, so let's actually drill into this a bit.

>> What is the meditative state that that one is seeking for quote unquote effective meditation?

>> Yeah. So, first let me um say that just like there are hundreds of different kinds of sports, there are hundreds of different different kinds of meditation.

They don't all do the same thing. They

have different effects on the brain and the body. And so I think it's really

the body. And so I think it's really important that we not lump all of meditation together. Uh uh so that's one

meditation together. Uh uh so that's one really important thing.

>> Can we divide it up? So for instance, if we were going to draw the parallel with exercise, and maybe we'll do that several times today, we can broadly lump exercise into cardiovascular and resistance training. There's also

resistance training. There's also mobility work, and then and then there's a bunch of other stuff with meditation.

Can we create some broad bins? Yes.

>> And what are those broad bins? And then

we can go into specific practices.

>> Yeah. So yes, we can create some broad bins. So, and we've done that. We've

bins. So, and we've done that. We've

published some papers uh that uh offer typologies for classifying different meditation states. So um one kind of

meditation states. So um one kind of meditation we call focused attention meditation and focused attention meditation is um where you are narrowing

your uh aperture of awareness to a specific uh object. It could be an external object. It could also be an

external object. It could also be an internal. It could be for example your

internal. It could be for example your respiration. uh it could be a sound and

respiration. uh it could be a sound and there is a narrowing of the aperture and this is all broadly within the category of practices that we would say uh are uh

cultivating aspects of awareness. So

another awareness practice is what we call open monitoring meditation and open monitoring is where there is no specific

focus. Um but rather the aperture is

focus. Um but rather the aperture is broadened and there is no specific intention to focus on any one thing or

another. The invitation is to simply be

another. The invitation is to simply be aware of whatever is arising as it arises. One of the aspirations there or

arises. One of the aspirations there or the invitations is not to um try to get rid of thoughts because our minds and our brains are built to generate

thoughts. So there's no um goal if you

thoughts. So there's no um goal if you will to get rid of thoughts but rather to if thoughts arise that's another object that you can be aware of. You

know we talked about sleep and and sleepiness and and that earlier you can even you know you can do you can be aware of being sleepy. You can be aware of being distracted.

The goal, if you will, is not to change or to fix anything, if you will. The the

invitation is to shift from a mode of doing to a mode of simply being.

>> I want to talk about this thing about doing to being. um because the language can sound a bit mystical and vague to people, but as a longtime practitioner

of yoga nidra, um I've talked a lot about on this podcast, there's this instruction inside of yoga nidra to shift from thinking and doing to being and feeling.

>> Exactly.

>> Which is beautiful language, poetic, etc. But also as neuroscientists and for the general public, I think it might be useful for us to just maybe just double click on that for one second.

>> As a neuroscientist, I think of thinking and doing as okay, doing is action.

>> Um, so that would the opposite of that would be stop moving the body. Um,

thinking uh well there's a whole discussion to be had about what is thinking in neuroscience. Um, but

certainly you wouldn't want to plan.

You wouldn't want to be ruminating on the past.

Presumably, you would want to be more in a state of sensation and perceiving what's happening right now. So, is that an appropriate breakdown or is it um is

it wrong? Is it insufficient? I'm not

it wrong? Is it insufficient? I'm not

trying to score an A with the professor here. I'm just trying to I'm trying to

here. I'm just trying to I'm trying to figure out when we hear move from thinking and doing to being and feeling, what does that mean in terms of actionable steps that people can take?

Yeah. So I think that the way you describe it is basically accurate with a little bit of um perhaps uh tweak. Uh so

if if when uh if one is invited to do this and one finds oneself ruminating or planning for example which is supposedly an activity you're quote not supposed to

be doing you know rather than trying to stop it >> um it's simply to be aware of it. Wow

I'm now planning or I'm now ruminating about something that happened in the past. What really is most important is

past. What really is most important is the invitation not to change it, not to actively try to shift it, but to simply

be aware. Um, and one of the, I think,

be aware. Um, and one of the, I think, conjectures in all of this is that there's so much going on under the hood that we're typically not aware of. You

know our lives are moving at such a pace that the information that is

transpiring uh is um is occurring at such a rapid rate that we are typically aware of only a small fraction of that.

And this is a practice that's inviting you to simply um be aware of that. And

uh uh and and you know, not doing is a helpful kind of thing because if we're if we're acting in the world, we

obviously need to navigate and there are things we we obviously need to do to be safe and to protect ourselves and so forth. And so that will engage other

forth. And so that will engage other mechanisms. I'm interested in um the possibility or maybe you've seen this in the data that there are at least two

different types of people. People who

for instance go through life feeling doing being thinking and projecting things out into the world. Or

maybe they're quiet people and they don't project much out into the world, but they're just doing their thing. And

they're not thinking about their thinking. They're not thinking about

thinking. They're not thinking about their doing. They're just doing. We know

their doing. They're just doing. We know

people like this. Then there are people who are always multitracking like uh you know they're self-conscious they're very self-aware and I'm

wondering whether or not a form of meditation where somebody arrives at the meditation very self-aware like oh there's my thought about that again there's my thought about that again and

working perhaps on not judging it could be beneficial but perhaps what that person quote unquote needs or would benefit from was just being in a state of of a freedom from their

selfmonitoring whereas the other person perhaps could uh you know things clinician here could afford to be a little more self-aware and realize oh you know I'm in this mode where and see

their thinking a little bit >> totally and and you're naming something super important uh and you know I think that the way you characterize the the

second person who is more self-aware uh it's um there's more than just self-awareeness awareness in your description. There's a kind of holding

description. There's a kind of holding back. Uh there uh it's not just

back. Uh there uh it's not just monitoring, but there's a kind of suppression almost.

>> It's a lot of work.

>> It's a lot of work.

>> And it's kind and it could be stifling for their creativity. Absolutely.

>> We had my friend David Cho on the podcast. Now we're friends. That was

podcast. Now we're friends. That was

actually the first time we had met, but we become good friends. And he's a brilliant artist. Brilliant artist. and

brilliant artist. Brilliant artist. and

he talks about how the best art comes from just forgetting what anyone thinks or wants. Um, you know, Rick Rubin talks

or wants. Um, you know, Rick Rubin talks about this, just getting the audience out of your mind and just letting it flow through you.

>> And I think great artists do that and it's what we pay money to see. We want

to see that form of expression.

>> We don't want to see the self-monitoring artist.

>> Yeah, that's great. Um, and I I totally resonate with that. And there is a um a phrase in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition

um uh that is called undistracted non-meditation.

>> Undistracted non-meditation. And that's

said to be the highest form of meditation where you just drop all the crap, >> you know, all the the you know, all the techniques, all the control, all the

tightness.

>> This is my goal in life. Watch out folks if this ever happens.

>> But you're totally awake. You're you're

fully aware.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh but there's no artifice. There's no

um uh it's just complete freedom.

>> Uh and and there are, you know, I think there I I've had the um uh the honor of just hanging out with some people who I

think are really in that as a trait. Um

that that's who they are. Rick Rubin's

like that. He's a close friend and I can tell you I've spent a lot of time with Rick and how he appears to people and his kind of mythical status. I think a lot of people his magneticism

is because that's real.

>> Yeah.

>> He can be in very very close proximity to things online, in person. He can see all of it. He's in real touch with it, but he's still him. somehow it doesn't

invade him in a way that changes the way he shows up. He, you know, like if if we were to paint little uh beams of energy, now we're really sounding woo coming out of there's stuff coming out, there's stuff going in

>> and they're interacting but they're not contaminating one another where they interact. It just makes both things

interact. It just makes both things better. Yeah.

better. Yeah.

>> And that's a very very rare trait.

>> Yeah, I agree. You know, there's a term that I often use which, you know, I can talk about how we can define this more technically, but for lack of a better

word, I call stickiness. And it's kind of a an affective hysteresis, if you will. It's um it's kind of where, you

will. It's um it's kind of where, you know, you're hanging on to emotions that um that may not be useful. you're

carrying stuff from a previous experience into a current experience and it muddles things. Uh, and you know the the our emotional lives are so infused

with this kind of stickiness. But with

like like with Rick Rubin uh or with other people who are showing this they're there there's no stickiness.

>> Uh there's no stickiness. uh and you know that's a kind of um uh of freedom that uh I think is very much what we're

talking about as the um trait manifestation of um these kinds of practices.

>> Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of people mistakenly use drugs to try and access that state. And I also think that

we have a real um as a species, as a culture, but also as a species, we have a real affinity to people who can um embody this uh freedom that you're talking

about. Great comedians. Like when

about. Great comedians. Like when

Richard Prior was on, you're just like I mean you maybe he had a a subscript in there. Maybe he was devoting like 2% of

there. Maybe he was devoting like 2% of his prefrontal cortex to monitoring, but it just seemed like we call it flow, but >> we're in their flow, they're in ours, whatever it is. There's a there's a powerful interaction there that there

seems to be very little self-monitoring.

Um, then there are a few other I mean I we see it in athletics.

>> Yeah, totally.

>> We we just see it. We can feel it and it's super powerful.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's from the perspective of, you know, performing arts or comedic arts.

But for people who want to approach meditation, would it do you think it's useful at all to ask themselves um before they go into the meditation,

you know, are they in a are they in a mode of self-monitoring or are they in a kind of or are they more feeling more free, more present to just whatever

they're it is they're experiencing it experiencing, not questioning it. Yeah.

and asking them for >> do you think it's useful in order to get the most out of a meditation practice? I

guess what I'm getting at indirectly here is >> most meditation practices involve shifting from doing one thing to maybe you're walking, maybe you're you're open eyes, but typically I think people

either sit or lie down, close eyes and start focusing on their breathing and try and quote unquote get present.

>> Is there anything?

>> Well, the kind of practice that I most often do is actually with eyes open, but >> really Yeah.

>> Oh, well then just tell us about that.

What what would be a good um uh let's use the parallel to cardio again. I I

would say if somebody is really out of shape and wants to get in shape, I would say the first thing is take two 20-minute walks a day >> and then we could talk about getting on a exercise bike and then maybe doing

some resistance. You'd start layering

some resistance. You'd start layering things in, right? But what would be the equivalent of the two 20-minute walks a day for meditation?

>> So this is the protocol question. I

guess it's you know I would say it's really important to start modestly and we often will ask a person what's the minimum amount of meditation that you

think you can commit to every single day and do it for 30 days consistently >> five minutes perfect whatever that

number is perfect start with that and uh and then the next question is are you comfortable doing it formally as a seated practice ractice or would you

prefer to do it while you're walking or while you're doing another non-cognitively demanding activity? It

could be commuting. Uh it could be washing the dishes. Um there are lots of those kind of activities that we often

do on a daily basis that uh you can actually intentionally use your mind in this way while you're also doing those activities. And by the way, we've shown,

activities. And by the way, we've shown, we actually have really good data on this, that at least for beginning meditators, it doesn't matter if you're doing it as

a formal meditation practice or as an active practice, the benefits are absolutely comparable.

>> And what are those benefits? So if you do it for 30 days and you do it just five minutes a day, you will see a significant reduction in symptoms of

depression, symptoms of anxiety, and symptoms of stress. We've shown that repeatedly in randomized control trials, you'll see an increase on measures of

well-being or flourishing, and we can talk about what those actually mean. You

can even see just with this amount of practice a reduction in IL6. IL6 is a pro-inflammatory cytoine. Uh that is

pro-inflammatory cytoine. Uh that is important in uh systemic inflammation.

Uh and with just this minimal amount of practice, you see a significant reduction in IL is 6 over the course of 28 days, 5 minutes a day. We've actually

seen changes in the microbiome >> uh and we've seen changes in the brain.

uh with just this minimal amount of practice. But the the important point is

practice. But the the important point is that you're doing it every day. When

people ask me what's the best form of meditation that they should do if they're just beginning, I say the best form of meditation that you can possibly do is the form of meditation that you

actually do. So figure out what that

actually do. So figure out what that form of meditation is and then stick to it. Do it every single day.

it. Do it every single day.

>> I love this. I I actually am going to challenge our podcast audience to five minutes a day for 30 days. I'll put

something out on social media. Rob,

please remind me. Um to put something out on social media to do uh 5 minutes a day for 30 days because what you describe are significant health effects.

>> Yeah, totally.

>> And and as you describe them, it made me remember this um set of experiments from neuroplasticity. Do you mind if I share

neuroplasticity. Do you mind if I share these because I have a this is a theoretical practical question as we move into these protocols. But

>> before we do that, what what should we call this protocol? It's the Richie Davidson uh >> five minutes a day.

>> Five minutes a day. Richie's five. It's

the Richie Five uh meditation. I'm going

to start that. Um later I'll share what I've been doing, but it's not even that.

I've been doing 10 breaths upon waking.

10 breaths before I get out of bed. I'm

like, if I can just do 10 breaths of focused meditation before I get out of bed, the whole day will go better. And

it and it tends to. Um, there's this wild set of findings in the neuroplasticity uh research that most people don't talk about because it's very inconvenient for neuroscientists.

We're all familiar with the enriched environment thing where you give rats a bunch of toys or mice a bunch of toys or monkey monkeys a bunch of toys. And the

idea would be if you give kids a bunch of toys or listening to Mozart that their brains will develop more. You see

more physical connections, you see improved cognition, etc., etc. A really smart guy down at University of California, Irvine, Ron Frostig, did an

experiment where he said, "Maybe this is all backwards.

Maybe the normal cages they live in without all these toys are just deprived environments."

environments." >> And it turns out that's probably the case. Yeah.

case. Yeah.

>> So all this enriched environment stuff, it's not that it's BS. It's just that the experimental conditions were so deprived that what you had was most animals just deprived in a certain way.

Then you give them what they needed naturally and all of a sudden you saw more connections, etc. If we applied that to meditation, something that we think of as kind of an enriched mental environment, okay, I'm going to now do

this exercise. I'm going to do five

this exercise. I'm going to do five minutes a day or 10 or 20. We think of it as kind of adding exercise, but riding a treadmill, doing resistance training, I mean, we used to just farm

and go get water and do things. So, in

some sense, all of that is a replacement for a quote unquote deprived environment.

>> Exactly. So, is it possible that what you're describing is not something that people developed over time,

um, but rather something that was core to our experience as humans and that the brain needed, but that with the advent of technologies and busyiness or whatever, we've gotten away from. And so

when you talk about doing five or 10 or 20 minutes of meditation a day and seeing all these health effects, what we're doing is we're actually just putting back what needed to be there in the first place, this is like the equivalent of you getting your 30

minutes more sleep because alarm clocks weren't really a thing >> 2,000 years ago. Does that make sense?

>> It makes sense, but um you know and I think that there's an element of truth to it, but I also think that there's uh some additional um discussion that we

should have about it and and and dialogue. So um first of all uh uh these

dialogue. So um first of all uh uh these practices have been around for you know 2500 years or more. Um it's not like

they've been invented in the modern era to deal with the uh uh the separation that has occurred between humans and the

natural world that is a distinctly modern uh kind of invention. So that's

one thing. The second thing is that yes, I agree with you that the characteristics that we're talking about

as um traits that are outcomes of these practices, there are many ways to get there and there are probably natural ways to get there that don't require

meditation. In fact, you know, when we

meditation. In fact, you know, when we in our early days, we interviewed these practitioners around Dharmala, India, who were um practitioners that the Daly

Lama referred us to who are spending 30 years in retreat um in they're called hermit monks and you know they're you you have to hike for three hours to find

their cave. Uh and we interviewed these

their cave. Uh and we interviewed these these people. you know, they they told

these people. you know, they they told us, well, you know, I need to meditate, but many others are just born or they're just naturally um uh have these

qualities. They don't need to meditate

qualities. They don't need to meditate as much as me. I'm just a simple, you know, um poor monk who really needs to do this because I'm inferior to those

people, if you will. Um and it's kind of modesty, but also, you know, there may be some truth to that. uh uh and so I

think that that is is real but I also think that the qualities like for example kindness I believe and this is the subject of this new book that I

wrote with my colleague Kland Doll born to flourish qualities like kindness are innate um they are part of our innate repertoire but in order for them to be

expressed they require nurturing and it's very similar to the way scientists talk about language Language is innate. I think most scientists would agree with that. But we

know that there have been case studies, for example, of feral children who are raised in the wild and they don't develop normal language. So in order for the language to develop normally, it

requires nurturing of some kind. Uh and

kindness is the same thing. It requires

nurturing. in order for it to be expressed. And similarly for other

expressed. And similarly for other qualities that we're cultivating when we meditate, I think those qualities are innate, but they require nurturing. And

um uh and in certain cases, I think that in order for those qualities to really be expressed at high levels, if you will, intentional nurturing may be

required for at least the vast majority of people. There may be, you know,

of people. There may be, you know, statistically very rare people who emerge who are like this from the start

for whatever reason, but for most of us, I think uh this kind of nurturing is important.

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subscription. Why do you think it is that so many people find it challenging to maintain a meditation practice? I

mean, 5 minutes a day is nothing. 10

minutes a day is barely anything even for the very busiest of person. And the

positive effects that you describe and we could also layer in reduced stress, anxiety, lower resting heart rate, increased uh you know um uh feelings of

well-being and on and on. I mean there there are just so many great studies now including like you said you know double blind trials. I mean it's it's

blind trials. I mean it's it's incredible. Um, so why do you think it's

incredible. Um, so why do you think it's so hard for people to maintain this practice of just saying, "Okay, you know what? I'm going to just go into this

what? I'm going to just go into this atypical state. It's it's not being

atypical state. It's it's not being stimulated by anything in my environment. I have to do this

environment. I have to do this internally. There there aren't gyms to

internally. There there aren't gyms to go to for this." Although I mean there are things there are breath work classes and things like that, but people don't tend to stick to it. That's the

challenge.

>> So I do have a theory about it which I'll share. But before I do that, let me

I'll share. But before I do that, let me just say that um I often use the analogy of brushing our teeth. When when humans first evolved on this planet, none of us

were brushing our teeth. And somehow a a very large swath of humanity has learned to brush their teeth every day. It's not

part of our genome.

>> I think most people brush their teeth so that their breath isn't bad. I think

they like the idea that their teeth look cleaner and they get less um gum disease, etc. But all the scary stuff is actually very um ineffective public

health messaging. I mean that that's my

health messaging. I mean that that's my guess.

>> Yeah. So actually that's quite interesting um that that view. But

getting back to your question, why do people find it so hard? So there was a study published in science not too long ago by a group of social psychologists.

Um and uh it was a study of quote boredom. Um, and what they did

boredom. Um, and what they did essentially in this study, the core of it was they took people into the lab and they said, um, we had a little problem and we're gonna you guys are going to

have to wait for like 15 or 20 minutes before the experiment starts while we fix some piece of equipment. And they

were in a waiting room. there were uh magazines and books around and they also said that they're they're um you know social psychologists are really good at

creating these um scenarios. Uh and so uh another experimentter came in and said, you know, they're from another research group and they understand that they have to wait a little while and we

have another experiment that you can do in the meantime and it involves um receiving electric shocks. Um and of course it's completely voluntary. You

are free to participate or not. And the

bottom line is that this is particularly male undergraduates in the United States prefer to shock themselves than to sit

alone and not do anything. It's a robust finding. People could not sit without

finding. People could not sit without doing something is the bottom line. And

the reason I think is that once we actually begin to inspect our own minds, most people are frightened at the chaos

that they see. One of the things we found when we look at a very in a very granular way is that when people start to meditate,

we see a statistically reliable increase in anxiety in the first week.

interesting. And that's often when people say, "I can't do this. It's

making me crazy." Um, and you know what we tell them is that's exactly you're doing exactly the right thing. You're,

you know, you're noticing the chaos in your own mind.

>> This is the soreness that comes from a new exercise program.

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> But people know to associate the soreness with, okay, the exercise was effective. It's going to lead to an

effective. It's going to lead to an adaptation. And we haven't changed the

adaptation. And we haven't changed the the narrative yet about this, but what we're trying to where we say it this is great that you're feeling anxious. It's

exactly what you should be feeling.

Forgive me, I'm I'm doing all this in real time, so if I if I'm slow, um there's a reason.

The analogy to exercise feels ever more important now because thankfully the narrative has been embedded in people's

minds that you lift objects or you cycle or run or row or swim etc to stimulate an adaptation. I think that the exercise

an adaptation. I think that the exercise scientists, the fields of health and wellness, whatever it is, has been very effective in getting the message out that the the burn in your muscles

is the thing that's going to lead to an easier run the next time, to more fitness, more longevity, more well-being etc. >> But it's discomfort in the moment. For a

long while now, I've been trying to convince people, because it's true, that the agitation that one feels trying to solve a problem or read a hard uh page or passage in a book, the one that you have to return to three times that you

can't wrap your head around, that that agitation is the stimulus for neuroplasticity. If you could just

neuroplasticity. If you could just breeze right through it, the brain has no reason to change. It's not stimulated to change.

>> It can, after all, just do the thing you're trying to do. So it becomes sort of a duh when you compare when you look at exercise or you look at um cognitive

development but somehow when it comes to meditation maybe we can accomplish this today I think you're doing this for us just knowing for me just knowing that in the first week anxiety is going to go up

but that's the equivalent of lactate accumulating in the muscles of of um >> it's the lactate of the mind >> the burn it's the lactate of the mind >> thank you >> yes

>> thank Thank you. Um, perfect.

I believe that languaging and messaging is so critical to get people to adopt practices that require this discomfort adaptation loop that needs to be repeated over time.

>> I love that.

>> I kn I knew we'd get someplace in that in that one. Thanks to you. So glad

you're here. So, week one, five minutes a day, expect and embrace the anxiety.

Yeah.

>> Is it the thing that's going to produce the adaptation?

>> I think it's contributing to it. Yes. Uh

and and you know, it's also being aware of the anxiety without being hijacked by the anxiety, without being lost in the anxiety. So being able to see the

anxiety. So being able to see the anxiety um as it's arising.

Uh and that's um you know this is training in meta awareness. uh meta

awareness is super important. I actually

think metawareness is a necessary prerequisite for any kind of human transformation, mental transformation.

>> Um could you define it for us? Tell us a bit more about it. I'm very curious.

>> Yeah. So I would say metawareness is the faculty of knowing what our minds are doing. And to some listeners that may

doing. And to some listeners that may sound a little strange, but how many of you have had the experience of reading a book where you might be reading each

word on a page and you read one page, a second page, and after a few minutes you have no idea what you've just read. Your

mind is lost. It's somewhere else. But

then you wake up. The moment you wake up is a moment of metawareness.

And it turns out that that's a trainable skill.

And that is one of the really important prerequisites um for all other forms of training of mental training.

>> Do we know where this meta awareness resides in the brain? Is it preffrontal cortex?

>> You know, it's a network of uh prefrontal cortex, anterior singulate, um insula.

uh uh I think those are all structures that are participating in meta awareness.

>> It's interesting because I feel like as we were discussing earlier, people crave forgetting about themselves and just being in experience. It's just such a

powerfully and I think positive seductive thing. I often think about,

seductive thing. I often think about, you know, like at a party dancing like it like people who can just dance and enjoy themselves versus people who are self-conscious about how they're dancing. Even people who are good at

dancing. Even people who are good at dancing, you can be metaware without being awkwardly self-conscious, if you will. So, um, you know, you talked

will. So, um, you know, you talked earlier about flow. Uh, I didn't jump in then, but flow can occur with or without meta awareness.

>> Really?

>> Yes.

A lot of flow I think occurs without metawareness. So you know Chickix Mahai

metawareness. So you know Chickix Mahai who first studied flow he studied rock climbers and like a rock climber who is I mean think about this why do people do

stuff like rock climbing. I think that the reason why people do stuff like that is to produce this state of flow where

um most of those kinds of states of flow I think are states of flow without metawareness where you're completely absorbed in the activity and for a rock climber if there's even a momentary

lapse in attention it could be potentially lethal. uh and so by

potentially lethal. uh and so by arranging one's physical environment in that way you are um basically forcing uh

the default mode to be suppressed.

>> Uh and the default mode is a mode that we know is associated with a lot of self-reerential thought and self-reerential thought often is

anxietyprovoking.

uh and so this is a way to transiently suppress the default mode but flow can also occur with meta awareness

uh and so and it doesn't diminish the quality of the flow and one analogy that we can use is in a movie theater I mean viewers have had the experience of being

in a movie theater and I'm sure people have had the experience of being in a movie theater where you're so engrossed in the movie that you may actually you're not aware that you're in a

theater and you may not be even aware that you're watching a movie. You're so

you are totally absorbed in the plot and we've actually come up with a term to define that and we call it experiential fusion

where you're fused with the experience and that is a kind of the the analogous to flow without metawareness. But

imagine being in the movie theater where your your attention is riveted and there's absolutely no lapse in attention but in the kind of penumbra of

awareness. You are aware you're in a

awareness. You are aware you're in a movie theater. You're aware that you're

movie theater. You're aware that you're watching a movie but that doesn't diminish the quality of your attention.

I want to um ask about this thing about chaos. Noticing the chaos of one's mind

chaos. Noticing the chaos of one's mind because you said that sits at the seat of the anxiety that people will feel when they first start to meditate. Now

everyone knows in the Richie meditation to push through the first week, expect the the lactate of the mind, push through it. I love that so much. Thank

through it. I love that so much. Thank

you. The idea that the mind is chaotic and getting comfortable with that and not reacting to it, not feeling like we have to get away from it. Um, we've

heard this before, but I think it's somewhat of a novel concept to me to think that a goal of meditation is to be able to see that and sit with it, not necessarily eradicate it. You know, I

think you said, you know, the Daly Lama.

I think for most of us, we see the Daly Lama and other monks in robes and you say he sleeps 9 hours per night and he's meditating four hours per day and we think, oh, he looks very blissed out and

that's great for them.

Do you think he has chaos in his mind?

is the idea that extreme meditators or even you know well practitioned meditators are free of the chaos or that

they're just comfortable with the chaos.

I would say that um it's a developmental process that changes longitudinally.

So initially there's a lot of chaos and I think it gradually subsides. I don't

think it it's like a step function. And

I think it really occurs gradually over time and the chaos just sort of naturally diminishes.

Um, but that's a long-term process. Uh,

and I think for most of us, uh, there's always going to be some chaos. Uh, but

part of the chaos also is, I think, a source of creativity. And you know when we talk about metaare meta awareness and awareness of all that's going on in our

mind you know I often give my students the the permission to I even if they're not meditators to just spend a couple

hours a week inspecting your mind. Just

inspect your mind. Pay attention to what's going on in your mind. Don't do

stuff outside. But a and if you come up with some interesting thought, write a little note to yourself as you're doing this, you know, not a lot of words, but just a note to remind you when you're

finished with this session. Um, and I have the conviction that there's a lot of creative work that humans do on a regular basis that's kind of like

dreams. Most people don't remember their dreams, but they occur reliably.

And I think that there's a lot of creative thought that occurs on a regular basis, but we just don't pay attention to it and we we forget it just like we forget our dreams.

But if we have the invitation to really inspect our mind in that way, I think um this chaos actually uh often contains

the seat of real creative insight that potentially could be valuable.

>> I do too. I I mean I wake up every morning with at least one idea from the transition from sleep to waking.

Sometimes it's from a dream. I often

will record my dreams as voice memos.

>> Mhm.

>> After I die if somebody ever finds these voice me they're so crazy. Every once in a while I'll try and listen to one. I'm

like this is crazy. But I don't want to forget things and sometimes I don't want to wake up and turn the lights on and I'll go back to sleep and so I'll just record something in the voice memo.

Sometimes write it down. Um, I think there's so much learning to be had from what's coming up from the uh the unconscious mind in dreams, but also just having a mode of capture during the

day. Some way to just capture the things

day. Some way to just capture the things that spring to mind. The great Joe Strummer from the Clash, he said this.

He said, you know, if you are walking along and an idea comes to mind, you have to write it down because you think you'll remember it later, but you you will remember it in a form that is not nearly as potent. Yeah. Said something

like that. um that this is the mind throwing you ideas that and you got you have to capture them.

>> I love that. I think it's it's wise advice.

>> Friends of mine who are songwriters, poets, they they do this all the time.

They're constantly writing things down that they may not develop something from, but they understand that there's information being like thrown up to the surface for them.

>> If you don't write it down or capture it in some other way, it's it it goes it's eancent. I actually have um I mean this

eancent. I actually have um I mean this may seem contrary to um views of how meditation is done but when I meditate every morning I actually

have a a little notepad by my cushion and occasionally I don't do this every session but maybe twice a week um I'll actually write down something during the

meditation one or two words just to remind me because something comes up in my practice u maybe an idea And I I want to remember it. I know also that I'm I

won't remember it after uh in in the same richness. And so I'll just jot jot

same richness. And so I'll just jot jot it down and then go back to my practice.

>> Is meditation something that kids can do and benefit from? Has that been studied in a formal way?

>> Yes, it's been studied. Um we actually developed a um what we've called a um a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum for preschool kids. preschool

>> preschool and we've actually published a randomized control trial in a public school system of this curriculum and the curriculum is available freely on our

website in both English and Spanish. So

if any teachers are out there or you know teachers and want to use it, please please feel free to to download it and and see how it is. But yeah, so it looks

very different. So, for example, what we

very different. So, for example, what we do with a three-year-old, one of the exercises that they love is we ring a

bell in a classroom and we have them listen tell them listen to the sound and as soon as you no longer hear sound,

raise your hand.

And it's it's amazing to see this because you can get 25 three and four year olds sitting

perfectly still for around 10 seconds, but you know they could taste it.

There's a palpable, you know, sense of of quiet in that 10 seconds and then they all raise their hand excitedly, but they can really

taste it. And so I I do think it's

taste it. And so I I do think it's possible. The other thing is um and this

possible. The other thing is um and this is something really important. There's

something we've discovered empirically recently which is that flourishing is infectious. It's

contagious.

Flourishing is contagious.

>> Can you explain what that means and how you study that?

>> Yeah. So um uh in the example of you asked about meditating in kids and the reason I'm bringing up in this context is one of the best things I can think a

parent can do for a kid is not to have the kid meditate but meditate yourself and just >> be with the child and be fully present

be connected and really show up in that way and you will osmotically transmit through your demeanor

uh and your um your interaction you will transmit these qualities to the child in a completely implicit way and that's what

we mean when we say flourishing is contagious but how we studied it. So let

me actually share one of the this is a finding that we're super excited about and it's not yet published but it's um the paper is just under review. So one

of the things we're deeply interested in these days is how can we scale human flourishing. So, we're doing this kind

flourishing. So, we're doing this kind of sector by sector. And one sector that we're doing a lot of work with is educators. And educators around the

educators. And educators around the world and particularly in the US, but we've done this in in Mexico, too. So,

it's not just US-based, but they're super stressed. They're not well paid

super stressed. They're not well paid and all of that. Um uh so, we did a study with public school educators in Louisville Kentucky.

And there are many reasons why we went to Louisville, but Louisville is a complicated school system. It's diverse.

There are a lot of problems in it. And

um it's a big urban school district, the Jefferson County Public School District in Louisville. And we did a randomized

in Louisville. And we did a randomized control trial with 832 educators in Louisville. And we had them use our

Louisville. And we had them use our healthy minds program which is uh uh a um a digital offering which is freely

available as the healthy minds program uh where we had them cultivate four key pillars of well-being awareness connection insight and purpose. We can

take a deeper dive into each of those after. But they practiced for around

after. But they practiced for around five minutes a day. The average was a little less than five minutes a day.

over the course of 28 days. And we

measured standard outcomes like depression and anxiety and stress and and measures of flourishing. And we find what we found in other studies, which is

that depression and anxiety and stress went down and measures of well-being and flourishing went up. But the real kicker is that we by prior agreement had access

to the um student level data in the school system.

>> So we were able to look at the performance of the students who are taught by teachers randomly assigned to the well-being training and we compared

them to students who are taught by teachers randomly assigned to a control group. the the students had no idea that

group. the the students had no idea that there was any research going on. And

what we found is that on standardized tests, this is in middle school children and the sample size for the students was around 13,000.

Uh and what we found is that the math standardized math scores of the students who were taught by teachers

randomly assigned to the well-being training was significantly greater than the scores of the students who are taught by teachers randomly assigned to the control group.

>> Same curriculum, >> identical.

>> So what do you think is being transmitted there? Is it that the

transmitted there? Is it that the teachers are calmer, therefore the students are calmer? Is it that the teachers are calmer, therefore they're clearer, so the students I mean there are a lot of variables and we don't need

to isolate them. I mean this isn't uh we're not trying to do uh you know pharmarmacology here. Um but what do you

pharmarmacology here. Um but what do you think could be going on?

>> Yeah, I think everything you said is likely to be going on. I think the students are the teachers are are likely calmer. They're more connected. Uh the

calmer. They're more connected. Uh the

and what we know is that you know it was interesting because we looked at reading scores and the the data for the standardized reading measure was in the same direction but it wasn't as robust.

The the biggest signal was in math scores and we know that math performance is degraded by stress more than reading performance

uh uh in this age group. And so it, you know, could be is something as simple as the kids who were taught by teachers that went through the well-being training are simply calmer and less

stressed when they take the exam. Uh and

so their true competence is more likely to be reflected in the test uh uh and not have it degraded by this kind of

added stress and anxiety. So uh so this is you know an illustration that flourishing is contagious in this way.

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It's so interesting and again that I can think of so many different variables that could be at play. Um, we did an episode, one of our most popular episodes of ever, um, with a guy named

James Hollis. Are you familiar with

James Hollis. Are you familiar with James Hollis? No,

James Hollis? No, >> he's a probably by now 85year-old Yungian analyst.

>> Brilliant guy. He wrote he's written a number of books. The Eden Project, which is about uh relationships and relating um uh under Saturn Shadow on the uh

about trauma and healing. Just just an incredible soul, an incredible human and just an incredible educator and um I'm not alone

in in believing that. Just spectacular.

And I said, you know, he's a Yungian analyst. So I said, you know, what's the

analyst. So I said, you know, what's the key to a really good life? Like, but can we talk protocols? And he said something really interesting that I think will resonate uh with what you're saying and

perhaps shed some light on what happened with these students and flourishing in general. He said, "It's so important

general. He said, "It's so important that we wake up each day and we suit up and we show up and we work in school, in

relationships, in life," he said. But

it's also just as important that we take a short amount of time every day and get out of stimulus and response.

>> Because by getting out of stimulus and response, and I'm not being nearly as eloquent as Hollis, we come to know ourselves in a certain way that lets ourselves show up so much more

effectively for everything else.

And so maybe, just maybe, what these teachers achieve is by sitting in this anxiety, because now I'm thinking about the lactate of the mind, they're doing a practice which lets them experience the

anxiety, not respond to it. They're

getting out of stimulus and response.

>> Exactly.

>> And perhaps in the classroom, they're able to teach more, teach more effectively because they're not paying attention to the things that don't

matter. Mhm. Mhm.

matter. Mhm. Mhm.

>> Or maybe it's because they're also paying attention to the things that do matter. Their signal to noise is higher.

matter. Their signal to noise is higher.

>> Yeah.

>> So to speak. Anyway, I couldn't help but reference the Hollis thing because to not do that would would would be remiss.

But also, you know, here's a guy who's saying you got to go to work each day.

This is essential to building a good life and you have to do all these things and and he's also saying but getting out of stimulus response is what makes you effective in everything and of course

improves your self-standing. And I think what you're saying, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but what I think you're saying when you talk about meditation is that it's a it's a way of getting out of stimulus and response.

>> Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great analogy. Yeah.

analogy. Yeah.

>> Well, he deserves all the credit for all of that. um you deserve all the credit

of that. um you deserve all the credit for running all these experiments because I feel like what's been so frustrating over the years has been to

hear how powerful meditation is but that for people in the west um the word meditation brings up ideas

of mysticism and um ancient things and people think well that's not for me.

>> Mhm. Mhm.

>> That's not going to benefit me now in this world. But I would argue we need it

this world. But I would argue we need it even more so now.

>> I I agree. I think that um and I think that the divisiveness and polarization

that is just eating away at our society is um uh underscores the the critical importance of this. I I think it's needed now more than ever before in

human history. And I think that it will,

human history. And I think that it will, you know, with just modest amounts of practice and and one of the other um, you know, kind of slogans that we think

is really important is that it's easier than you think. It really is. It it five minutes a day has a measurable impact.

And so I think that if we really take this to heart, um, you know, if everyone practiced for five minutes a day, I have the strong conviction that this world would really be a different place.

>> Oh, absolutely. I think I think the challenge is convincing people and and that's, you know, you're doing it. We're

we're trying to do that little by little. I mean, for a zerocost

little. I mean, for a zerocost tool, it's it's just outsized positive effects. I think most people come to the

effects. I think most people come to the table because it will lower their blood pressure. They hear that it will reduce

pressure. They hear that it will reduce their stress, maybe make them more effective, make them smarter, sleep better. But there are also the higher

better. But there are also the higher order effects um that people talk about being gaining some understanding of consciousness and what it may or may not

be. When do those effects tend to

be. When do those effects tend to arrive? Um if they ever do, right? Is it

arrive? Um if they ever do, right? Is it

true that by meditating, by getting out of the stimulus and response and just watching one's thoughts and not responding to them and just non-judgment that we can actually gain some

fundamental insight into how our minds work? I do think that that's possible

work? I do think that that's possible and I think that it does occur and um you know I think that uh if we're really

good scientists um there there is an important element of humility uh as we approach this uh that underscores really

how little we know. Uh, and I think that these kinds of practices help us tap into something that I think is part of

what it means to be a human being. Um,

and and part of it is honestly um, you know, we can use the words um, spiritual in some way. Uh, and uh, you know, or

transcendent and by that I mean something connected to something larger than oneself. And I I know that this is

than oneself. And I I know that this is getting into a little bit of woowoo territory uh and uh uh but

people do have a taste of this and it helps to give their life more meaning and and to infuse it with a

kind of purpose that um I think is really beneficial.

I wonder and I'd love your thoughts on this whether by doing meditation and seeing that the mind is chaotic and that it's difficult to control and that

perhaps the best thing we can do is just observe and not respond to it but not try and control it that inevitably in one's meditation practice that the reality surfaces that we're all going to

die and I think for a lot of people the fear of death is terrifying.

I It's inevitable and it's terrifying.

And I do sometimes feel that a lot of the the stuff in the world that we're offered, whether or not it's drugs or alcohol or excessive work or whatever,

that just all the stuff is um that a deeper layer of that offering is that it it distracts us from that reality. Mhm.

>> Um because it's terrifying, right? I I don't most any healthy person doesn't want to die, >> although I don't think it's terrifying

for all people. And I think that it's this is actually one of the dimensions that is shifted by long-term meditation practice unquestionably.

>> Is it shifted because people come to some understanding of energy and the fact that they will likely become part of something else? Or do you think it's that they can just accept the reality

that we're here than we're not here?

>> I think it's more the latter. And also

um imagine that this is the last day we're living right now.

>> Friday the 13th of all days.

>> Of all days.

>> It happens to be Friday the 13th.

>> Uh and you know, are we um are we showing up in a way that feels right for us? uh and making the

most of our lives and not squandering the opportunity that we have. And if we can live every day in that way, uh it really will change, I think, how we

approach our mortality.

And I know for me personally, I mean, we I'm not well, it it I feel very differently about dying today than I did

like 15 years ago. It's that that's one dimension where there's been a dramatic shift.

>> Would you mind elaborating on that? How

how so? How did you feel about it 15 20 years ago?

>> Yeah, I was terrified. you know, in the same way I, you know, had a family. I

have two kids that I have all these, you know responsibilities and um I reflect on this. I really do.

And um you know, if I died today, I would feel like I've lived a very fulfilling life. Um and uh uh and

fulfilling life. Um and uh uh and I'm fine with that.

>> That's a great thing to be able to say.

That's a great thing to be able to say.

I don't think most people would probably be able to say the same wholeheartedly.

Yeah. And you attribute some of that sense to meditation. Definitely. But

it's been gradual. You know, I've been at this my my very first meditation retreat was in 1974.

Uh and I've been practicing daily ever since.

>> Every single day. Well, I may have missed you one or two days a year when I had a 6 a.m. flight, but other than that yes.

>> And what is your practice um your most consistent practice been?

>> You know, my practice has changed many times over these the course of these years and very different traditions in which I've practiced. Um

so, >> what about time of day? Is it typically >> morning? It's always been morning for

>> morning? It's always been morning for me. You get up, use the bathroom, have a

me. You get up, use the bathroom, have a drink of water, and start or you go right into it?

>> No, I get up uh uh and I make myself uh these days a cup of strong black tea >> uh and I drink the tea which takes maybe

15 minutes uh and then I meditate.

>> Got it. Do you set a timer or a chime?

Yeah, I do set a timer and you know I meditate at various lengths but I my modal time sitting is about 45 minutes a

day. Um sometimes it's longer, sometimes

day. Um sometimes it's longer, sometimes it's shorter but uh usually around 45 minutes a day and maybe three or four

days a week I do a really short practice at night, maybe five minutes before I go to sleep.

Since everyone that takes on the five minute a day 30-day meditation challenge will do it uh once they reach 30 days would does it make sense to update that to a longer meditation or would you just

suggest that people stay with that as long as possible? What I would suggest is check in with yourself uh and see how you're feeling about it and um how it's

resonating with you and uh uh and if you feel like you can't really do much more just stick with five minutes a day and keep doing that. The important thing is

to stick with a daily practice. And one

of the things that um we talk about in this new book, Born to Flourish, is a lot of people have a really difficult time coming up with a with really being able

to do this daily. Uh and one of the things that we talk about based on our finding that it doesn't matter at least in the early stages whether you're

meditating uh as a formal practice or doing it while doing other activities of daily living that are not demanding like

walking or commuting. You tie this to regular activities that you do every day whatever those activities are. We we

talk about this idea of social zeitgeabers. A zeitgeab as you know is

zeitgeabers. A zeitgeab as you know is an environmental event, a signal um that is that marks a um in the classical

literature a biological rhythm like um light is a zeitgeab um to set our biological rhythms. But we in the modern

world we have social zeitgeabers that are human created zeitgeab. So eating

for example as a zeitge um we eat typically at roughly similar times every day at least most people and that's an opportunity uh you do that every day you

can pair a little practice with that um and you know one of the practices that you can do which I do every time I eat virtually unless I'm meeting with

someone and it's awkward um but I do it at home is do a little appreciation practice spend just a um 30 to to 90

seconds reflecting on all the people it took to have food on your plate. Um and

it also gives you a sense of interdependence. And when I sit down,

interdependence. And when I sit down, you know, and have my breakfast, uh it's a cue for me. It's a social zeitgeaber.

I do my appreciation practice every single time. Um and then you there's

single time. Um and then you there's crazy things you can do like I have a cat at home. Um, I'm the one who scoops the litter every night. I actually do

that as a practice.

>> Um, uh, and it it literally takes no extra time. I do it while I'm doing the

extra time. I do it while I'm doing the the scooping of the litter, but I I honestly do this in in a very authentic, genuine way. I reflect on, you know, the

genuine way. I reflect on, you know, the cat really appreciates this. My wife

appreciates this. Um, and people who go into the room with the cat litter appreciate that it's clean and scooped on a regular basis. And you know, I just

reflect on that intentionally.

Uh, it doesn't take much. It's easier

than you think.

>> Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean, I I don't want to um contort the message you're you're offering because it's a powerful one about a bringing awareness to the things that we have to do anyway

and allowing that to make us more effective and happier and more present.

But there's also this idea around disciplines and the word discipline gets is kind of heavy. No, nobody really likes it um because we got disciplined

or something. But uh I used to pride

or something. But uh I used to pride myself on working longer hours than everyone and and as the years have gone on, I pride myself in just I can um consistency is my superpower.

>> Mhm.

>> I may not show up with the most intensity every time, although sometimes, but intensity uh kind of waxes and waines, but there's

something about just showing up anyway and just doing it anyway that is so powerful. And I I sometimes wonder

powerful. And I I sometimes wonder whether or not the mind is just it's our foe until we embrace that piece. It's

kind of a little bit of what you're saying.

>> Yeah. And I love the consistency uh theme and also the discipline. And yes,

I think you're naming something real and important. And there's a delicate

important. And there's a delicate calculus uh that ranges between kind of um letting go and discipline and each

person I think falls at a different point in this continuum. Uh and what works for one

continuum. Uh and what works for one person may not work for for another. You

know with with regard to meditation I always say that what's best for one person isn't necessarily what's best for others. And we have to discover what

others. And we have to discover what works for us. Um, you know, what we do know is that in in terms of meditation that consistency is really important.

You know, I was never a particularly good athlete or bad athlete, but I've just been really consistent at exercise and I mean, I play fewer sports these days than than I did. But just that just

continuing to show up um allows you to be the person among your peers. Not that

it's competitive where you go, everyone else seems to have quit and they're talking about how much this hurts and that hurts and you're like and all that you really had to do is just kind of keep keep going. And I I sometimes think

that the people that are max intensity and they you know it's like gold medal or bust, they're always the ones are often the ones that we don't hear from anymore. They're like gone burn out.

anymore. They're like gone burn out.

>> Yeah. So I I love the examples of the Dollaly Lama and you know the the Michael Jordans of every domain, but >> I don't know. I mean, I I'm more interested in um being the person that

at 50 60 I mean, you're in your mid70s.

You look incredible. You're super vital, cognitively sharp, you're in shape, you're excited about life, you're not afraid of death. Clearly, you're on to something, you know? So, and I doubt it's just the black tea. I'm guessing

it's to some extent, I mean, there you have all the other aspects of your life, but this consistency of meditation practice.

>> Yeah. No, I think it's been super important. I do think that the

important. I do think that the discipline that you're talking about is really important and it is part of it.

uh um but again I think we need to find the right balance for each person and initially it's really important to um

have people uh invite them to taste this with the lowest possible friction so that they can can really um experience

the benefit and then it can gradually >> progress and and they can you know um uh harness some discip discipline which

eventually will be important.

>> I'd like to talk about online culture and social media just briefly because I don't want to demonize it. I teach on social media. This will

it. I teach on social media. This will

be aired on various online platforms and clips of it will appear on social media.

But I have this um sneaking suspicion that by going online

um the mind starts to believe this thing that's not true that if we're not online either posting or looking at what people

post or both that somehow will disappear.

And it gets to this idea of the anxiety that one feels when you just go into your own mind and it's chaos in there for so many people. It's like it's chaos in here and then just learning to sit with that. I think a lot of people go

with that. I think a lot of people go into the world because the chaos of the world can occupy their attention and then it's not about the chaos that's in them.

>> Exactly.

>> Again, I don't want to demonize online platforms because I use them, I educate on them, I learn from them and I'm and I gain entertainment from them, too. But I

wonder whether or not the net effect of social media and the internet over the last, let's say, 10 to 15 years has been to trick the mind at an unconscious

level into thinking that if we're not on there, we're going to miss out. But it's

not FOMO of not like we're not going to be included, but that I actually think it may run much deeper than that. That

it's that we that we don't exist. that

life is there and if we're not aware of it, we don't exist. Because I see parents looking at their phones while their kids are running around them. So,

you can't say, "Oh, well, this is only, you know, well, we have kids and you're tending to your kids." And some parents are great parents, but uh I see a lot of kids that are clearly being, you know,

babysat by devices and the parents will say, "Listen, it's the only thing that quiets them down and gets them to settle down while I can tend to things." So I can relate. But yeah, what do you think

can relate. But yeah, what do you think about the idea that the internet while powerful and can be used for great good

may have convinced billions of human minds that they don't exist if they're not observing or engaging on there. I mean I think that

that's um something super important and uh uh I think uh you know with regard to attention we

talk about um uh two big buckets. One is

um stimulus captured attention and the the folks who design products online have been really good at capturing our

attention. uh and uh uh and our

attention. uh and uh uh and our attention gets hijacked by that and uh and it leads to the kind of inference that you're talking about which is that

people feel that they may not exist unless they're um they're online and you know I read uh some survey study that

was done uh um uh within the last year uh that reported that the average American opens their phone 152 times a day. I think most people would agree

day. I think most people would agree they don't need to open their phone 152 times a day. Um but we do it uh for um

for those kinds of reasons. And um uh you know I often say we we are all part of a grand experiment for which none of us have provided our informed consent.

Uh, and I think it's serious and I think that we don't know what the long-term consequences are going to be, but we do know that, you know, the short-term consequences, um, at least in certain

cases are not very good. And I'm someone who is also, like you, Andrew, a great believer in the potential value of technology. And I believe that

technology. And I believe that technology is um is basically neutral and we can use it for the good and we

can also it can be used for harm. Um but

you know the previous surgeon general of the United States who I miss VC Mertie uh issued a health advisory in 2023

on um social media. The title was social media and youth mental health and he has um scary data that that were was

reported in that report. Some of the data show that the psychiatric problems

in adolescence scale linearly with the um hours of social media consumption per day. And so it is really uh eroding the

day. And so it is really uh eroding the mental health of our youth, not to say of our adults too.

>> Yeah, I think a lot of adults now are hitting those uh hitting uh the black ice of internet use just like even among peers of ours professionals. I mean it

was wild to see how many people who were chairs of departments, brilliant um creators, academics, uh

people from all domains of life, um demolished their careers by getting caught up in stuff online and not being thoughtful about what they were posting.

You just go, I can't believe it. I mean,

they they they threw away their professional lives with their thumbs.

It was wild, right? If you think about it, and this is happening less nowadays, but just people just nuking their careers that they had

spent 20, 30 years building. These were

very successful, very smart people.

>> Yeah.

>> But somehow got caught up in it. We see

that less. But I do see a lot of people getting into the the whole polarization thing to the point where there really is no common ground online. It's

impossible. you you can't take a nuanced perspective on something. I try, you know, I said, "Oh, I thought the new food guidelines um could afford to include a few more vegetable suggestions

and some fermented foods and like immediately that the fact that I didn't completely attack it, right, was I got attacked for that, but then I got attacked for the other side for not completely embracing it." So, it's like

you can't win.

>> You can't win.

>> But getting offline is not an option.

>> It's not an option. And the younger generation has been very clear with me about that. It is not an option to get

about that. It is not an option to get to not be on social media platforms to not be texting much of the day is to not exist in the social millu. And so how do

we reconcile that?

>> Yeah. So um these are uh really complicated issues. I think that um you

complicated issues. I think that um you know I certainly don't uh in any way pretend to have the answer but I do think that we need to take digital

hygiene seriously and we need to figure out ways of as part of standard school curricula of educating our youth in how

to change their relationship or how to be to say it a different way. how to be in healthy relationship with their digital devices and the products and

features that are available on those devices. I have the conviction that it's

devices. I have the conviction that it's a trainable skill.

>> Mhm.

>> But we need particularly in youth to start early before they get their first phone. Is there any evidence that

phone. Is there any evidence that meditation because it allows somebody to sit with the lactate of the mind can

also um afford someone less impulsivity and um sort of being less prone to getting hooked by the chaos of the world around them.

>> Yeah, I I don't you know I don't think there's any hard data on that, but I think it's a great question. I think

it's actually empirically tractable.

>> I think it's really worth studying. My

conviction is yes, I think it's it would be helpful, but there the data don't exist.

>> What would an experiment look like that look like? I feel like we should run

look like? I feel like we should run that experiment.

>> That would be cool. I'd love to collaborate.

>> Yeah, I feel like there's got to be established inlab measures of impulsivity.

>> Yeah, there are good measures of impulsivity. And actually with

impulsivity. And actually with impulsivity, um there there are measures that go beyond self-report measures.

their behavioral measures of impulsivity which may have more validity. And so it would be extremely interesting and you know with device use and with with a

person's consent you can actually get backend data so you don't rely on self-report. So it can be really um

self-report. So it can be really um robust kind of evidence. The word

discipline comes to mind again and I think so many people when they hear discipline they think about doing certain things waking up at 5, exercising, meditating, eating clean,

etc. But to me the most interesting aspect of discipline are the don't do.

>> It's all the stuff you don't do. You

know, we're in the Winter Olympics now and I haven't been watching. I like the summer Olympics. But um inevitably when

summer Olympics. But um inevitably when they do the Olympics, they interview the people who win gold medals or they'll do a day in the life of and and they'll say, you know, uh they wake up at 5 a.m.

and then they train and they always want to say, "What do you what do they eat?"

>> You know, they go, "Oh, you have four eggs in my oatmeal or whatever it is."

Um what they really need to show is all the things they don't eat, right?

Because sure, what they eat is interesting perhaps, but far more relevant to their performance is all the things they don't eat. It's all the things they're not doing. Yeah.

>> And of course that makes for much less entertaining um shows. So they don't do that. But I feel like the the training

that. But I feel like the the training that would be so valuable is the to train up the no-go response.

>> Absolutely. One of the things in my own life that I'm very aware of is and apppropo not doing is not taking out my phone.

>> Uh and I'm very intentionally aware of that. I actually do a little practice of

that. I actually do a little practice of feeling my phone in my pocket and I really um will not take it out unless I actually need it. I remind people when I

have meetings at our center, you know, often it's just the cultural habit particularly with young people. You

know, they put their phone on the table and there are data showing that even if you have all your notifications turned off, the simple presence of the device

is enough to uh impair the interaction in some way to have an discernable impact.

>> And cognitive ability, there's this really I don't know if you've seen the study, it's pretty cool. They uh they looked at cognitive performance in people that had the phone upside down on

the table in their backpack beneath their chair or in a different room. And

only by having it in a different room, um do you see the the normal level of cognitive focus, not even an improvement.

>> It turns out that people can focus just as well. It's really interesting. they

as well. It's really interesting. they

focus just as well if the phone is on the table or under uh their chair in their backpack, but that the brain is using additional resources to keep

suppressing the thought about the phone.

So, their cognitive performance is diminished.

>> So, the phone is really a cognitive detractor under those conditions. I

think about that a lot. It's also why I have a lock box for my phone. I keep

keep it in a separate room. It's one of the reasons I love this podcast more and more with every passing week because no phones in here. Uh we can really drop into things. Yeah. I think that um

into things. Yeah. I think that um training the no-go response having that level of discipline is the superpower.

>> Yeah.

>> All the other stuff, the to-dos, I mean, yeah, it's it's it's important. Can't

just not do anything obviously, but we focus so much on what to take, what to do. People always want to know what

do. People always want to know what should I take, you know, what should I do? What's the ideal workout routine?

do? What's the ideal workout routine?

What's the And here we have this five minute a day meditation. Great. But it's

also all the things you're not doing when you can sit for five minutes.

You're not responding to the impulse to get up.

>> Yes.

>> The discomfort of body that can come up during meditation, a pain in the back, um, uh, your hip getting tight. Should

we look at those as an opportunity to train up the mind and our ability to not go into stimulus response or should we get comfortable?

>> It's a great question and uh uh you know my very first meditation retreat in 1974 that I just went into this cold and it

was like meditation boot camp. Uh it was a kind of retreat where we were practicing for 16 hours a day and my body was on fire. I it was so painful

physically that was you know the most predominant experience that I had it just intense intense physical pain and then in this style of practice after the

third day you had to make a vow that you're not going to move during each hourong session so the meditation sessions were hour long and you had to

make a vow that you're not going to move man the pain was so intense the physical pain and you You know, eventually uh after the like the fourth day, there's a

kind of breakthrough that most people have uh which is this remarkable kind of experiential insight where you directly

look at the pain and you see that it's not exactly what it's cracked up to be and uh it's actually much more differentiated and you begin to see all

of its constituents and that's when there's a kind of release. The other

thing to say is that we've done imaging work with physical pain and meditation. It's one of the

most robust kind of probes that you can use to interrogate the quality of the practice and also the the longer term

trade effects if you will. Um, and I liken it, by the way, you know, when you go to a cardiologist, you often do a cardiac stress test. Uh, and so one of

the best ways to probe the integrity of a system is by challenging it. Um, uh,

and not just looking at it at baseline, so to speak. And it's true of the mind and the brain. And one of the best challenges is physical pain. So we've

done work where we've primarily used heat uh as a um a painful stimulus because it can be delivered very

precisely and very safely. In imaging

data there is a signature that is quite specifically tied to the physical pain itself and that there's another signature that is associated with the

emotional reaction to the pain.

>> The interpretation of it >> the interpretation. Got it. And when we subjectively experience distress in response to pain,

it's actually mostly contributed by the secondary response.

That is the emotional response to the initial noxious stimulus itself. And

that is the set of neural changes that we most dramatically see transformed by meditation uh as a trade effect. uh and

it's um particularly in this partic this is published data. We've we this was done with long-term meditation practitioners and we show that actually

it's specifically retreat practice.

So we can have two people who are matched on the total number of hours that they've practiced in a lifetime where in one person it is much more um

during retreat compared to another person and it's specifically retreat practice where you're doing more intensive practice that contributes to the transformation of this emotional

pain signature.

>> What would a good retreat practice look like? It would be presumably a course,

like? It would be presumably a course, but I guess if somebody didn't have the resources, they could take a weekend.

And what does that look like? They're

meditating a couple hours a day, >> more than a couple of hours a day.

>> Okay. So, it' be kind of hard to self-direct.

>> Yeah. Although there are a lot of online resources uh for this and actually for a person who is unable for whatever reason to go physically to a retreat, there are

online resources. But of course, you

online resources. But of course, you know, I think it's probably more beneficial to do it in person because you're more likely to comply with the uh

with the expectations of like not checking your phone and things of that sort and being silent.

>> I'm always impressed by people that can sort of self-direct so much discipline.

It's pretty cool. I have rules in my house like I have a a study area in my basement where I draw and prepare podcasts and I I don't allow phones down there. Mine or anyone else's.

there. Mine or anyone else's.

>> That's wonderful.

>> It's just it's an electronic free zone.

I also now um I noticed I like working out. It's a pleasure for me. Um and I

out. It's a pleasure for me. Um and I have a gym and I noticed that my workouts would take much longer if I brought my phone in. So now I allow

myself to turn on an album or two and leave the phone outside, but there's no phones allowed there either. And now I'm thinking about also making that the rule for uh the loft for the bedroom, like no

phones. So there's fewer and fewer areas

phones. So there's fewer and fewer areas where where things are allowed. But I

think unless you set real constraints that it just starts to permeate everywhere. And I don't think I'm alone

everywhere. And I don't think I'm alone in that. And I grew up in Silicon

in that. And I grew up in Silicon Valley, so I'm not anti-technology. I

just I want to have the richest experience of life possible.

And so I just find that harder and harder to do when it's like inviting all these other things and people into the room when you when you have a phone

there. Well, I love those examples and I

there. Well, I love those examples and I think uh you know you are setting an inspiring example for others and I think that things have gotten so bad with uh

the delletterious impact of technology that um you know we've we've been led to to do those kinds of things which I

think are so important and I think the more examples of that the better.

>> Yeah. I feel like um it took us a while to uh to become the country with such um excessively high rates of obesity that we finally went, "Oh my goodness," you know, and we need to do something about

this. So, better eating, exercise, of

this. So, better eating, exercise, of course, critical. The GLP drugs have

course, critical. The GLP drugs have been, I believe, have been very helpful for a lot of people. I don't I would hope people first embrace lifestyle tools and then and in any case embrace

lifestyle tools, but I don't think we're going to have the so-called ompic for um for uh addiction to devices. There isn't

going to be something to come along and knock us off that uh place. I think it just requires a lot of self-control.

>> But I can promise everyone that the work your workouts get way better, way better. Your work gets way better. I

better. Your work gets way better. I

actually think that for the younger generation, it's become easier than ever to excel simply by not doing a lot of the things that other people around you are doing.

>> Totally. Totally.

>> You know, it's it's it used to be, you know, how do I succeed? How do I succeed? And you know, the I'm joking

succeed? And you know, the I'm joking these days, the shortest um you know, how to become the best at your craft book is going to be uh by turning off your phone 22 hours a day, you will

become best in class. I I I know it.

>> I absolutely know it. And people say, "Well, then you can't access certain things." Is there ways around it? And um

things." Is there ways around it? And um

because it's really the the presence that you bring to things that um allows you to be effective.

>> Yeah, absolutely. And regarding

self-control, I think that self-control is a trainable skill. Uh and it is a byproduct of flourishing uh and one of

the uh central capacities. I mean I we we talked about metawareness earlier and I think meta awareness is really a key ingredient for self-control and

self-control will or self-regulation will improve as a consequence of that and that's a superpower.

You know, there was a study done by these two psychologists, Moffett and Caspby, who uh are um developmental sort of lifespan psychologists, and they've

been studying this cohort in Deneden, New Zealand. Uh it's a birth cohort. So,

New Zealand. Uh it's a birth cohort. So,

these folks have been studied since birth. They're now, I think, in their

birth. They're now, I think, in their 60s. But there's amazing longitudinal

60s. But there's amazing longitudinal data on on these people. And um they had a paper in PNAS uh a number of years ago

that looked at measure behavioral measures of self-control in in these in this cohort when these people were four and five years of age. And this

particular paper was looking at outcomes when they were 32 years of age. And what

they found is that the individuals who are in the upper quintile of self-control at four four and five years of age had

significantly less drug abuse, were significantly less likely to be involved in um in uh court proceedings.

They earned on average $6,000 US more per year and they were matched on socioeconomic status of their families of birth.

>> They were more successful >> more successful. So all these amazing outcomes uh and they I remember this paper was published many years ago but I

remember the um there's a line in the paper that says um uh strategies which will improve self-control will lead to

all these these uh important outcomes and save taxpayers money. I'd like to take a brief break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Waking Up. Waking up is a meditation app that offers hundreds of

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impressive. And I do think that um nowadays we hear so much about the dos.

You need exercise, you eat this and do and five minutes a day meditation. I

think the self-control component that's an outgrowth of meditation seems like a distinct benefit of meditation because when you're exercising, yeah, I suppose

if you if you really hate it and you're constantly forcing yourself not to quit, that's a form of self-control. I feel

like most people once they get going, they're kind of moving through it. But

who knows? I do want to um use this this notion of self-control as an opportunity to look at the other side of it. And I

was planning on doing this at some point. I think now is the point. I'm

point. I think now is the point. I'm

fundamentally confused about something about life. Maybe you can help me. Um,

about life. Maybe you can help me. Um,

I'm still not sure how much of life of a really good life should be forcing ourselves to do things versus

kind of quote unquote honoring what what's right for us. Now, obviously, you know, with respect to morality, with respect to the, you know, the the big stuff in life, that's those are easy

answers, okay? But when it comes to

answers, okay? But when it comes to moving through the day, we're we're now talking here today about starting the day doing something that you probably don't want to do or that you would

reflexively not do as a means to gain some other larger benefit. Um, we're

talking about going against the reflex, against the impulse.

in the Buddhist traditions, in the field of meditation, how is this kind of thought about? And just

personally, how do you think about this?

Because I think a lot of people listening are probably thinking, "Okay, great." Like, I'll I'll do this if it

great." Like, I'll I'll do this if it gives me some benefits. I'll lower my heart rate. I'll have less stress. I'll

heart rate. I'll have less stress. I'll

learn some additional self-control. But

I think people are also feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff they feel like they have to do and fight themselves. And I think people are tired

themselves. And I think people are tired of fighting. And I think part of the

of fighting. And I think part of the reason they're tired of fighting is that they're not picking up the phone and going, "Oh, this is cool. This is cool.

This is great. This is great." I think that they're they feel slightly out of control that they're just can't resist it and it's just happening. And so we've lost

the muscle, so to speak, the mental muscle of resistance. But I think that of overcoming resistance. Um,

but it's also kind of a philosophical question. I mean, how much of our lives

question. I mean, how much of our lives should we be forcing things upon ourselves to be better? And how much of life should we just live and and be free like a like a bulldog, which is the best

breed of dog?

>> When I first started meditating, I was fighting with my mind. Uh, and I thought that that was great. you know, I'm this is uh means I'm really doing the work

that's necessary and sitting through the physical pain, you know, forcing myself to sit for an hour while my, you know, feeling like my knee was on fire. Um,

and my back was killing me. And, you

know, I had a kind of sense of pride.

I'm able to just uh tough this out. Um,

and I was miserable. You know, I did that kind of practice for quite some time and it may have had some benefit uh

in shaping my skills of self-control.

But, you know, at some point I discovered that maybe there's another

strategy that can be effective that is um that that's not about fighting with your mind and not about fixing anything, but it's the invitation is really to

make friends with your mind, to welcome this, to have a completely different stance toward it and to do it with ease.

rather than with you know um this kind of attention stance. I think that that is possible

stance. I think that that is possible uh and and the approach that we are taking in the healthy minds program for example is we're trying to do that. So

there is a bit of discipline involved but it's kind of um really at at the

most minimal. It's inviting people to uh

most minimal. It's inviting people to uh to be where they are not and not and to really um make friends with their mind

uh and not to fight against it. It's not

about pushing away thoughts. It's not

about um you know sitting down to meditate. If if you if you're restless

meditate. If if you if you're restless and can't sit, that's fine. Do it while you're walking. So the discipline is the

you're walking. So the discipline is the intentional use of the mind. Um and

there is discipline involved in that.

But it's kind of what is the minimum level of discipline to begin to get these networks going.

>> And that's kind of the question that we've asked.

>> Yeah. because your lab has been focused heavily on the neuroiming and understanding what brain networks are activated as well as the positive outcomes. So this five minute a day

outcomes. So this five minute a day meditation could be done eyes open could be done eyes closed could be done while you're walking while you're commuting

>> and it shuts down the sort of default mode network and brings higher levels of activity in in these awareness and attentional networks is that I broadly

speaking I'm a neuroscientist but I want to translate this for for people because the names of the structures actually >> are somewhat meaningless right unless we're we're >> exactly we would got someone in a

stereotax, right? So, yeah,

stereotax, right? So, yeah, >> just to be uh transparently honest, there's been very little imaging work on the five minutes per day. We've done

some uh and what we've seen in the work we've done is the biggest and in general I think this is true. The biggest

changes that you see particularly in the early stages of practice are in measures of connectivity. And it could be

of connectivity. And it could be functional connectivity which um uh has to do with the functional integration across different networks or it could be

in measures of actual structural connectivity that we can image with diffusion weighted imaging uh and looking at white matter uh connectivity.

And what we've actually seen with the five minutes a day is changes in um in diffusion weighted imaging looking uh at uh I mean the biggest change we see is

in the superior longitudinal faciculus which um as you know Andrew connects the the preffrontal and the parietal regions and it's basically a major pathway

through which the central executive network is um interacting with the default mode and that's what we See with just 5 minutes a day of practice, we can

see measurable changes in diffusion weighted parameters with just 5 minutes a day for a month. It's super

impressive. More and more incentive to doing the five minutes a day meditation.

I guess that's the protocol we're weaving through this entire episode. And

of course, people could do seven, could do 10. I'd like to see people do six

do 10. I'd like to see people do six months every day. That would be impressive. That's what I'm going to

impressive. That's what I'm going to shoot for.

>> Six months every day.

>> Yeah. just do five minutes a day for, you know, hit 30 days >> and then six months later, >> I don't know. I I feel like if it's just

the repeated showing up, I that's really it. I mean, I have a prayer practice I

it. I mean, I have a prayer practice I do every night before I go to sleep. If

I fall asleep, I get out of bed. My

girlfriend knows this. I'll get out of bed and I pray. Like, I've not missed a night since I started doing this.

>> I love that. I think that's beautiful.

And I, you know, I'd love to see a study done with pre-le prayer and see how it affects sleep.

>> My sleep is definitely better than ever, but there probably a variety of reasons for that.

>> But sometimes I find that I'm falling asleep while I'm praying >> and I just tell myself, okay, just it's the consistency. It's like I I I have

the consistency. It's like I I I have this script in my head that I'm showing devotion by showing up.

>> Yeah.

>> It's just a repeated showing up. And

it's one of the few areas of my life that I was able to really remove the the need to do it perfectly. I mean, what what would that even look like? I

realize how ridiculous that is, right?

But um some perfectionist tendencies in me, you know, we're showing up. Um so for me, the um I won't

showing up. Um so for me, the um I won't even say the the pride in it, the joy in it is from the consistency.

>> Yeah, I love that. And I feel exactly the same way in my consistent practice.

I think that's so important. I wanted to mention one thing about sleepiness because you mentioned that sometimes when you're doing the nightly prayer you're uh sleepy and and sleep

sleepiness is is often uh something reported when people are meditating and particularly in the early stages of practice and uh you know I've uh dealt

with sleepiness a lot uh uh and particularly before I changed my routine of and when I gave up the alarm clock because I was getting too little sleep deprived.

>> Yeah, exactly. And I felt it and I struggled with it. So I have this meditation um teacher Mingar who uh one

of the things he's taught is um is sleep sleepiness meditation. Uh and sleepiness

sleepiness meditation. Uh and sleepiness meditation is simply to be aware of sleepiness.

>> Just be aware of sleepiness. Uh and uh and don't try to fight it. just simply

notice what it what is sleepiness, what is how is it feeling and um investigate it with curiosity and that completely

changed things for me. There does seem to be this this thing where when we fight our state or our nature, it gains power.

>> Yeah. But when we we don't want to give into it, but when you acknowledge it, but you don't completely give into it, somehow it it changes. Martha Beck was the first person to really teach me this first in her books and then on the

podcast.

>> This idea that like if if a feeling sucks or you don't want it to be there, that rather than trying to suppress it, you really look at it and let yourself feel it until it changes shape just a little bit. Her language.

little bit. Her language.

>> Yeah.

>> And then you start to look at it through that different slightly different lens.

And then it morphs and it goes away.

>> Exactly.

>> And I think in her des I didn't again didn't describe it as well as as she uh did or would or could, but what we're talking about over and over again today

is the mind looking at the mind and it does seem to have this ability to, you know, humans have this ability. Do you

think other animals have this ability? I

know you can't answer that qu question for sure, but do you think one of the reasons dogs are so wonderful is because they're not self-conscious?

>> My conjecture is that um that our ability to uh look at our minds is way more developed than in any other

species. And there may be some

species. And there may be some rudimentary kinds of metaareness in other species. And you know some

scientists have suggested that it may be correlated with successful performance on the self test. You know uh recognizing yourself in the mirror. You

know there's a recent report of elephants passing the self test.

>> Um >> so they are smart after all.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Um and you know that's an interesting story. They did this actually in the

story. They did this actually in the Bronx Zoo in New York and they had to construct a mirror that was the size of an elephant to >> how do they know if the elephant knows it's itself because they don't attack it if it's itself.

>> So they they put rouge >> on the trunk and they expose the elephant to the mirror and if the elephant touches the point where the

rouge is, it's recognizing itself in the mirror. And there are very few species

mirror. And there are very few species that um pass the self test in that way.

Most species don't. We were talking offline a little bit earlier about a course that you're teaching about this very thing that you're calling flourishing. So what do the students get

flourishing. So what do the students get in that course and what components could you possibly educate us on right here right now so that we can benefit without having the opportunity to take the course?

>> Yeah, absolutely. So the course is built on a framework that uh we've developed on the plasticity of flourishing.

>> It holds that there are four key pillars of human flourishing and each of these pillars exhibits plasticity and these

are the key trainable ingredients that constitute human flourishing. So what

are these four pillars? The first pillar is and we've talked about some in the course of our conversation already but the first we call awareness

>> and awareness is where mindfulness is would be it's where voluntary attention the capacity to focus resides and it also includes our capacity for

self-awareness and for meta awareness which we've spoken about. The second

pillar we call connection. And

connection is about the qualities which are important for healthy social relationships. Uh qualities like

relationships. Uh qualities like appreciation and gratitude and kindness and compassion. You can think of the the

and compassion. You can think of the the opposite of that being um at least in part social isolation and loneliness.

Again, these are elements that we know can be trained. They are importantly connected to our well-being. The third

pillar we call insight. And insight is about a curiositydriven understanding of the narrative that all

human beings have about themselves. Uh

the narrative that we carry around in our minds. And we know that we all have

our minds. And we know that we all have a set of beliefs and expectations of ourselves. And we know that at one

ourselves. And we know that at one extreme of the continuum, there are people that have very negative beliefs and expectations of themselves. And of

course, that's her prescription for depression. But what's really critical

depression. But what's really critical for well-being is not so much changing the narrative, particularly at first, but it's changing our relationship to the narrative

>> so that we can see the narrative for what it is, which is a set of beliefs and thoughts and expectations. And then

finally, the last pillar is purpose. And

purpose here is not necessarily about finding something grand to do with your life that's more meaningful and purposeful, but rather how can we find meaning and purpose in even the most

pedestrian activities of daily living?

And we actually talked about some of this earlier, but can taking out the garbage be connected to our sense of purpose?

>> Cleaning the kitty litter.

>> Cleaning the kitty litter. And of course it can be. It just requires a little bit of reframing and that's a learnable skill. There are really three things

skill. There are really three things that we've discovered in this work uh uh that can be easily summarized. The first

is that flourishing is a skill. The

second is that it's easier than you think. And the third is that flourishing

think. And the third is that flourishing is contagious. So that when you're

is contagious. So that when you're flourishing, it's going to have beneficial impact on the people around you. And our course, the art and science

you. And our course, the art and science of human flourishing, is built on each of these pillars to give students uh not

just um an intellectual understanding, but an experiential uh um practice, a taste of what these

pillars actually are. One of the important insights that the course is built on is that there are two major forms of learning that we know from

modern neuroscience. One we can think of

modern neuroscience. One we can think of as declarative learning which is learning about stuff. It's conceptual

learning. Uh the other we call procedural learning and procedural learning is learning that is skill-based. It's acquired through

skill-based. It's acquired through practice and we know that it's instantiated in different brain networks compared to declarative learning. And

human flourishing requires both.

>> And most of the academy privileges declarative learning over procedural learning. And so this course that we

learning. And so this course that we teach is an unusual course because it includes uh a lab every week so to speak

um a little section where students do the procedural learning for the stuff that they're learning declaratively in the lecture part of the class.

>> I love that. I've long wanted to do a course that had information and practices involved. Sounds like you've

practices involved. Sounds like you've built that course. Um if people who are not able to take the course wanted to access these different bins with some practical tools um you already gave us

um a tool for awareness. So meditation 5 minutes would be a great place to start done daily um and just to be aware of

what's of the chaos and be able to observe it but not go not follow it. How

does one incorporate connection? So I

actually talked a little bit about connection in in uh earlier but there's a lot more to say but one kind of connection is doing a little appreciation practice when we eat.

That's one I talked about earlier um where we connect to the people even if we don't know them who have brought us food to the table. Some of some we may

know some we might not know. There are

formal kinds of connection practices that we they're meditation practices that we call loving kindness and compassion practices. And so we can um

compassion practices. And so we can um we've shown in a randomized control trial uh that just a few hours of this

practice over two weeks is sufficient to produce a measurable change in the brain. Uh and so here's a a way you can

brain. Uh and so here's a a way you can do this. You can begin with a loved one

do this. You can begin with a loved one and bring the loved one into your mind and your heart and envision a time in their life when they may have had some challenge or difficulty

and then cultivate this strong aspiration that they be relieved of that difficulty and that they have um a life of ease.

That's it. And you can use a simple phrase that you can repeat to yourself um that embodies that captures that theme. It could be something as simple

theme. It could be something as simple as may you be happy, may you be free of suffering. But the words don't matter.

suffering. But the words don't matter.

Whatever words are most well suited for each person. Um but then you move on to

each person. Um but then you move on to different categories of people. So you

start with a loved one. You then move on to yourself.

You then move on to to a category of person that we call a stranger. And a

stranger is someone you recognize whose face you recognize, but you don't know them well. It could be someone that

them well. It could be someone that works in the same building that you work in. It could be a classmate. It could be

in. It could be a classmate. It could be a bus driver. It could be the cashier at a local um store that you go to, a barista. um you don't know anything

barista. um you don't know anything about them but you recognize them and you can envision a time in their life when they may had they may have had some difficulty even if you don't know

anything about their life. So you do that with the stranger and then finally you move on to what's probably the most important category which is a difficult

person. someone who pushes your buttons

person. someone who pushes your buttons >> and you genuinely bring them into your mind and your heart and you recognize a time you imagine a time when they have

been having some challenge and you cultivate the aspiration that they be relieved of that suffering and that practice just done a few minutes a day

can change your brain and it changes your behavior >> and it changes the brain how makes it um capable of more empathy.

>> So, one of the key regions of the brain that's been implicated in empathy is the um the temporal parietal junction. What

we see is that in this kind of compassion practice, there's significantly enhanced activation of the temporal parietal junction particularly

in response to stimula of people in distress. Mhm.

>> There's also uh networks in the brain that are involved in positive affect that are activated by this kind of practice. Uh and behaviorally we've

practice. Uh and behaviorally we've shown using hard-nosed um tasks that are derived from behavioral economics and neuroeconomics.

We actually have demonstrated and other scientists have demonstrated this that people behave more altruistically using you know these hard-nosed

behavioral measures. Uh we've also shown

behavioral measures. Uh we've also shown that on a hard-nosed behavioral measure of implicit bias that there's significant reductions in

implicit bias and those reductions are sustained for at least six months after the formal period of practice ends. So

there's really hard-nosed evidence to suggest that both the brain and behavior change. So the the third pillar um

change. So the the third pillar um insight is um really about it's it's and I should say just backing up for a

moment that two of these pillars connection and purpose are found in virtually every other framework for understanding well-being. Two of them

understanding well-being. Two of them are unique. Uh and the two that are

are unique. Uh and the two that are unique are awareness and insight. And I should just go back

and insight. And I should just go back to awareness for one moment to just point out one other thing. There was a very famous study that was published in science many many years ago by

Killingsworth and Gilbert, two psychologists at Harvard, and they did a study with around 3,000 people. Uh, and

they texted them at different points during the day with their consent over the course of several days. And they

asked three questions. The first

question they asked people is what are you doing right now? And they checked off from a list of activities. Second

question is where is your mind right now? When I queried

now? When I queried and the third question is right at this moment, how happy or unhappy are you?

And the finding from this study, the two key findings are that the average adult on these measures reports that they're not paying attention to what they're

doing 47% of the time. And when they're not paying attention to what they're doing, they're significantly less happy.

Even if what they're doing is boring, >> even if what they're doing is washing the dishes, if their minds are distracted, they're less happy. And the

title of this paper is a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

>> Does that mean that a focused mind is a happy mind or a happier mind?

>> I would say a happier mind but not necessarily happier.

>> I love that study.

>> Yeah.

>> Ever more important with each year that we have more opportunities to for distraction.

>> Exactly. Which also to be fair to social media means that if you want to sit down with your phone and handle some texts or scroll social media for a bit, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

>> Exactly.

>> It's the um it's the intrusion of that stuff into other activities that's likely to be the issue.

>> Exactly. Totally agree. Totally. So,

just to finish this insight. So, a

practice that is easily accessible that can really help with insight is if you're in a difficult situation, whatever it is, at work, in a relationship,

imagine what a person who is different from you that you may know or it could be some famous person who you know something

about. imagine how they would view the

about. imagine how they would view the situation from their perspective.

>> Mhm.

>> And just um allow yourself to get a a taste of how their view of the situation is different from your view of the

situation. That's it. Mhm.

situation. That's it. Mhm.

>> And that is really helpful in giving us some distance from our own beliefs and expectations and helps us recognize that when we're we see the world, we're

actually not seeing the world. We're

seeing how we construct our own construction of the world through our filters of beliefs and expectations. And

so it helps us become less fused, less identified. Um, which is really an

identified. Um, which is really an important ingredient for well-being. And

finally, with purpose, you know, a simple practice is whatever you're doing, whether it's a pedestrian activity like washing the dishes or doing your laundry, just simply reflect

on how this is beneficial not just to yourself, >> but to others in your ecosystem. That's

it. simple.

So much of what you just said, which by the way was spectacular, awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. Um,

who wouldn't want to cultivate more of those, especially given that awareness is correlated with more happiness, lack of awareness and presence with less

happiness. So much of it seems to be

happiness. So much of it seems to be about getting outside ourselves and at the same time not letting the things outside ourselves pull us away from ourselves.

>> You know I and I feel funny even with that language. I mean the language

that language. I mean the language becomes so loop-de-looped. We we don't have unfortunately we don't have lang real language for this. I love lactate for

the mind because it's simple, it's accurate and it's actionable. But so

much of what I think you're describing in these these four bins is, you know, I I think of it as like trying to ride the crest of a very um kind of some cases

choppy terrain until you're there, >> right? We can get pulled into the, you

>> right? We can get pulled into the, you know, the news. And it's important to be aware of what's going on in the world, but pretty soon you just be lost in it and then carry forward the angst, the feel feelings of despair, having gotten

one over on the other team, whatever it is. On the other side of things, we're

is. On the other side of things, we're in our heads and our problems seem so monumental that we forget that we have agency that there are things we can do

right there and then to handle ourselves and show up better. So, it's, you know, if can feel like a pretty narrow bridge to walk.

>> Mh. And I'm wondering if any of the data from meditators shows that that bridge gets wider with time and maybe even

easier to access that in the same way that somebody who's fit, right? I mean,

they can do a really hard workout for them, but somebody who's really fit, they know, okay, when I get there, I'm kind of achy, but I know after five minutes of warming up, I'm going to be

fine. So, there's less resistance to the

fine. So, there's less resistance to the warming up. and therefore there's more

warming up. and therefore there's more energy for the actual workout and then it goes much better.

>> Yeah. I think what you're saying is so important. One of the things you're

important. One of the things you're saying it in the exercise analogy is that you're becoming more familiar >> with what happens. Uh and as you become

more familiar there's less resistance because you know that the initial uh I mean I do when I go out on a bike ride you know the first 10 minutes are agony

for me honestly. I think that's helpful for people to hear. I think I, you know, Rob, who's my producer and close friend, he's done multiple Iron Mans, he runs all the time and I asked him, "Do you do

you feel good when you run?" He's like, "No, usually for the first 20 minutes I feel like garbage and then I feel great." I'm like, "Oh, that's that

great." I'm like, "Oh, that's that good." Because I thought I was the only

good." Because I thought I was the only one. Although I for me it's a little bit

one. Although I for me it's a little bit shorter, but I don't run the way that he runs. I don't cycle the way that you

runs. I don't cycle the way that you cycle. I'm out there just to, you know,

cycle. I'm out there just to, you know, do it, not to, you know, perform at an extreme level. I know that because I'm

extreme level. I know that because I'm familiar with it. I know that you know at a certain mile distance it's going to change and it does very reliably.

>> Uh and we also similarly can become more familiar with our own minds.

The familiarity is the same kind of concept. Um we can become more familiar

concept. Um we can become more familiar with our own minds and when we become more familiar with our own minds our capacities become more readily available more spontaneously available. And one of

the challenges when we first start this work of intentionally cultivating flourishing is that we forget. We know

the things that we could do to be helpful but we forget to use them in the moment in the friction of the moment or even if the moment is not so friction

like but you know I've seen people um even meditators you know when they're if they're coming to a meal and they sit down they just immediately start um you

know very unconsciously uh instead of just taking a moment you know for a little appreciation. Um, but

the more you do it, the more it becomes spontaneous and literally the sitting down to the meal is a cue which um

elicits this response and um it it really becomes more spontaneously available. It takes some time but I

available. It takes some time but I think that this is really a reliable outcome of uh doing this with regularity.

>> Fantastic. Yeah, I'm a big fan of of ritualizing things. I have my

ritualizing things. I have my pre-podcast ritual. It doesn't matter

pre-podcast ritual. It doesn't matter what it is. And uh the consistency is what matters because it's I I think it probably the neuroscientist in me wants

to say that it probably allows a lot of networks that don't need to be active to be less active and probably allows the networks that do need to be active to um

get some of that energy. Literally. I

mean, we had um Martin Peard on here, he's an expert in mitochondria.

>> He's a good friend of mine.

>> Oh, yeah. He's terrific.

>> I love Martin.

>> And you know, when we when we used when we used to talk about energy, it sounded kind of woo. And you know, but it's mitochondria. I mean, we're talking

mitochondria. I mean, we're talking electrical and chemical signaling between neurons and mitochondria are handling so much of that. And so we're no longer living in the space where um

the names don't have substantiation in the textbooks and in biopysics >> and in molecules. Um and while that might not be the most important aspect, I think people that would otherwise say,

"Oh, well, you know, this meditation stuff sounds kind of kind of out there."

No, this is the stuff of biology. It's

the absolutely it's the stuff of physics. It's the stuff of chemistry.

physics. It's the stuff of chemistry.

So, speaking of chemistry, I'm curious what your thoughts are on psychedelics. We've

talked about them before on the podcast and I always um use the usual disclaimer that there's some very very compelling clinical trials, psilocybin for major

depression, maybe for uh other things as well. Um I gain very dangerous unless

well. Um I gain very dangerous unless done correctly with correct you know health monitoring. So has been shown to

health monitoring. So has been shown to be helpful for trauma for uh addictions um uh MDMA and impathogen not a

psychedelic for trauma but that we still don't have FDA approval on these things.

Um many of them are still schedule one so no known medical uh application and still very illegal to possess or sell.

So that's the warning and and certainly populations that shouldn't go near them.

people with predisposition to psychosis or mania. That's very very clear. With

or mania. That's very very clear. With

all of that said, the data are pretty exciting. Uh people's ability to access

exciting. Uh people's ability to access um an understanding of patterns in their unconscious mind um to rewire their

default mode and resting networks to reduce anxiety and on and on. And

psychedelics and meditation have a somewhat overlapping past. I'm curious

what your thoughts are given all the disclaimers. Uh what your thoughts are

disclaimers. Uh what your thoughts are and is there a place for um combining them with meditation to achieve uh more accelerated results?

>> Yeah, those are great questions which uh I have thought a lot about as I'm sure you suspect. Um so I have a few nuanced

you suspect. Um so I have a few nuanced views of this. First, I I'm uh excited about the new research um in the way you

are and I also completely agree with you that there are really promising data from some of the clinical trials. So,

you know, you mentioned um uh in severe intractable depression and there are I think really good data there. There's

also good data for alcoholism.

Um, so the the and I think that this resurgence of research is a great thing and um I'm convinced this is something that really could be helpful in a number

of clinical situations. I'm less sanguin about the use of psychedelics in quote um normal people or individuals who are

doing it for kind of their own um uh self-development or flourishing or spiritual development. I'm less sanguin

spiritual development. I'm less sanguin for for the following reason. Uh I think

that psychedelics can produce a kind of glimpse of a different mode of being which could be helpful. Uh but I think a

lot depends on what happens after that so to speak. Uh and how that experience is actually worked with and integrated.

And one of the things that concerns me about the stuff happening with psychedelics today is um the relative

lack of training of the folks who guide psychedelic sessions.

Uh and you can look in the United States today and see that many major universities, including my university,

not through my involvement, are offering these one-year kind of certificate programs to become a psychedelic guide >> for people with very little prior

training. And this is something that's

training. And this is something that's occurring all over the place. It deeply

concerns me because I wouldn't trust the kind of people who I I mean it's not to disparage these people. I'm sure that they have good motivation, but I I just

don't think that uh taking a person with no prior training and putting them in a program for a year is sufficient to um

to cover all of the issues and nuances that are going to arise. The other

related issue is that when a person has a psychedelic experience, what happens after and what is what is kind of the

residue of that and what and what I what I sense is the residue is that they have a memory of the experience.

Um and so they remember aspects of what happened during the experience and the recollection of an experience is very different than the embodied

transformation that is required to produce real change.

You know for me there there's a simple question you can ask. Is this person kinder?

Does their spouse report that they're that they're more uh enjoyable to be around? Are is their flourishing

around? Are is their flourishing contagious?

>> Um those are the questions that I think can be asked and I haven't seen a lot of convincing evidence of that. I'm a big fan of the research going on and

continuing to use these substances for treating people who are in various states of significant distress. But I'm

cautious about their use in a broader way to promote human flourishing at scale. Thank you for that very very

scale. Thank you for that very very thoughtful response. I Yeah, I'm

thoughtful response. I Yeah, I'm enthusiastic about these compounds. I'm

I just still have a lot of questions about, you know, like what proper integration really looks like. Um how to standardize that. Um and then of course

standardize that. Um and then of course there are many people who perhaps are hearing this and will say well you know there's a long-standing tradition of how to do this correctly and now people in

standardized medicine in the west are now trying to you know overtake this or or change it and raises a lot of interesting questions. I think um

interesting questions. I think um clearly it's growing in its use. Um I

haven't heard of any standard ways of meshing it with meditation. Um certainly

there are people also at Stanford combining it with transcranial magnetic stimulation because they these compounds open up plasticity to some extent and the idea that one could direct the

plasticity towards specific networks in the brain is pretty exciting. I mean

that that I mean what's cooler than that, right? Combining chemistry and

that, right? Combining chemistry and brain machine interface to and people's you know self-report and a really good practitioner and driving the neural circuit changes so that they can emerge

from that better. Um but yeah, we're not quite there. We're not quite there. And

quite there. We're not quite there. And

I think in general the the use of of neuros neuro stimulation, neurom modulation methods in conjunction with other modalities of intervention,

whether it be psychedelics or meditation, for example, is a very promising um avenue for exploration. And we're

doing some research right now combining neurom modulation with meditation to see if we can boost the impact of meditation

uh with some targeted neurom modulation and it's specifically neurom modulation to help facilitate sleep. What device

are you using to stimulate? So we are using this um I'm sure you know something about it but it's actually there are very few groups in the world

currently using this. It's called

transcranial electric stimulation with temporal interference >> testy. Um, and the basic idea of this is

>> testy. Um, and the basic idea of this is that if you have two electrodes that are stimulating at a very high carrier

frequency, say 15 kilhertz, which is essentially from all we know, the brain is not responsive to a 15 kilhertz signal. Um, so that's the carrier

signal. Um, so that's the carrier frequency. And the way it works is we're

frequency. And the way it works is we're stimulating one electrode at 15,000 kHz and another electrode at 15,01 kHz. So

there's just a one hertz offset and the geometry of the targeting is such that we can target deep brain structures

where the delta frequency is maximal. We

are targeting structures that are specifically structures where we know slowwave slow waves are generated um uh

and are therefore an important ingredient in in deep sleep and we're we're doing and this stim the other cool thing about this stimulation is you

cannot feel it. It has no subjective sensations. So it's very different than

sensations. So it's very different than TMS which is >> you know you feel it big time. you don't

feel a thing. So, we are delivering this during sleep. People don't know when

during sleep. People don't know when they're getting stimulated. They of

course know they're being stimulated because they're giving informed consent, but it doesn't wake them up >> and it increases slowwave sleep.

>> We've definitively demonstrated that it increases the density of slowwave activity during deep sleep.

>> How do they feel in their wakeful subjective life? Better.

subjective life? Better.

>> Yes.

>> And how do I become a participant in this study? I mean, I get plenty of slow

this study? I mean, I get plenty of slow wave sleep. My sleep is great lately.

wave sleep. My sleep is great lately.

Um, and has been for a while, but what um are you recruiting subjects?

>> This is a um Yeah, it's a big complicated protocol. So,

complicated protocol. So, >> I don't care. Are you recruiting subjects? We are recruiting.

subjects? We are recruiting.

>> I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I do

care. I'm just teasing. Uh people are probably thinking, "How do I get that?

How do Well, maybe this um pre-le meditation >> protocol should be looked at because that's something anyone can do." I'll

provide a link to that paper.

>> Yeah. And and that's exactly what we're doing in this study. Now we're we're using a um this is a little technical but we're using a micro randomized

design where um so uh in a single participant on some nights they get pre-sleep meditation >> just before sleep just a five minute practice

>> and in other nights they do not receive that. uh and we are looking at the

that. uh and we are looking at the impact of that on slowwave sleep and also looking at the synergistic effects of pre-le meditation with the testy

stimulation to increase slowwave activity and we're getting experience sampling measures during the next day to see if the pre-sleep meditation has a

demonstrable impact on their mood the next day and how that interacts with our boosting of slowwave activity. Very very

cool.

>> I should just say um this is work that's being done collaboratively with uh Julio Tenoni and his group at in Wisconsin. Uh

he's a very well-known sleep and consciousness um scientist lab.

>> Great lab.

>> Yeah, great lab.

>> Are you able to share any preliminary findings um about what the pre-sleep five minute meditation does to deep sleep? We don't know yet. And honestly,

sleep? We don't know yet. And honestly,

it's not me being, you know, super cautious. We just, this is a new study

cautious. We just, this is a new study that we're just in the middle of. We we

have roughly 20some participants who've completed the protocol, but it's it's ongoing right now.

>> Well, given what you just described, um, and given that this other paper described that some pre-sleep meditation can have a really impressive impact on

growth hormone release. Um I'm

encouraged to do the 5 minutes before sleep. So I suppose that um if you want

sleep. So I suppose that um if you want to double up on the benefits, you could just do the 5minute per day meditation folks uh in the hour before sleep.

>> Why not? I think it would be great.

>> What are your thoughts on um open monitoring meditation for increasing creativity? Honestly the um the data on

creativity? Honestly the um the data on open monitoring meditation or for that matter any meditation and creativity I

would say are very limited. In part it's because uh you know the the measures of creativity that are used by

psychologists typically are honestly I think pretty crappy measures of creativity. So we're quite limited by

creativity. So we're quite limited by the measurement tools that we have. Um,

having said all that, I I do think that open monitoring meditation uh can really boost creativity primarily

by helping people become more aware of the associative thoughts that they have.

And this relates to uh something we talked about earlier. I often tell students of mine to spend time inspecting their own mind just um

watching their own mind and and writing down thoughts that may occur that may be interesting. And this is a kind of open

interesting. And this is a kind of open monitoring meditation. Uh it's having no

monitoring meditation. Uh it's having no specific object and just being open, aware, awake, and not distracted. Not

getting lost in a train of thought, but simply being aware. I believe that we probably have much more creative thought occurring than we give ourselves credit

for, and it's simply because we forget.

And I think this can really improve that.

But the data are pretty meager.

>> But you still recommend it if people want to increase their creativity.

>> Yes, I do. Because this is one of those things where there's essentially no downside to it.

>> Um there'll be we know there'll be other benefits that have been empirically >> um documented. Awesome.

Well, Richie, thank you so much for coming here today and educating us on meditation, but really much more than that. You've educated us on states of

that. You've educated us on states of mind, how to access different states of mind, what they mean, um how they impact the state of being and our traits that

we will enter after we meditate. And now

everyone should be inspired to do at least 5 minutes per day of meditation, maybe in the morning, maybe before sleep. Would love to get the update on

sleep. Would love to get the update on this study that you described looking at slowwave sleep. Um and I'm really

slowwave sleep. Um and I'm really excited about your book. It's so great that you have a new book coming out because I of course read altered traits.

I've talked about on the podcast. I love

love love the book. We'll put a link to that. But Born to Flourish, how new

that. But Born to Flourish, how new science and ancient wisdom reveal a simple path to thriving by you. And we

should give credit to your co-author >> Courtland Dah.

>> And he is a neuroscientist as well.

>> Yes, he's a neuroscientist, contemplative scientist, and uh uh chief contemplative officer of our nonprofit human.org.

human.org.

>> Awesome. Well, you're a real pioneer in this space. The field as it were of

this space. The field as it were of meditation really needed a serious scientist to uh break in and and study and share so that everyone can learn

about and adopt meditation and you've just done so much to educate so many people and coming here today you've just done more of that. So I have immense gratitude for you and I know millions of other people do as well. So thank you so

much. Thank you. And I want to express

much. Thank you. And I want to express my immense gratitude to you for bringing science that can make our lives better to so many people and that is such a

gift and such a wonderful uh service that you are providing. So thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Richie Davidson. To

learn more about his work and to find a link to his new book, Born to Flourish, please see the links in the show note captions. If you're learning from and or

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