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by Dharma Lab
Modern neuroscience meets ancient contemplative wisdom, with Dr. Richard Davidson and Dr. Cortland Dahl
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- 2 days ago3 min
You don’t have to turn ambition off; September AMA with Cort
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dharmalab.coWhat happens to our drive when we stop looking to the next achievement for fulfillment?In our latest AMA, Cortland Dahl explores topics such as how to widen awareness when the mind feels contracted, why the motivation behind a practice matters, and how compassion can become the energy behind an engaged, creative life. Kim brought your questions, and Cort joined us for the hour while Richie was traveling.What’s inside* Three ways to widen the aperture of awareness: the body, the breath, and the mind* Shamatha and loving-kindness: why the same technique can serve different purposes* Meditation, autism, and ADHD: promising research, unanswered questions, and strengths worth recognizing* Career ambition and the shift to a different source of motivation* What we know—and still don’t know—about consciousness* A 2-minute guided practice led by Cort* Practicing with death, impermanence, and the moments before sleepThe full hour mapped below, plus the flashcards and the recording for paid members.Companion Flashcards At BottomYou don’t have to turn ambition offAn anonymous listener asked how to balance “the false promise of desire” with career ambition. If Buddhism teaches being, are we supposed to stop progressing and find contentment in the job we already have?Cort looked to the people who have gone deepest into the practice of being. The teachers he knows are productive, creative, and engaged. Learning to be has not left them sitting on the couch.We are not losing the energy and drive in our life. What we’re doing is we’re changing the energy source.—Cortland DahlHe described the familiar mixture that powers a career: some care and purpose, some competition, some hope that success or status will finally make us feel fulfilled. Practice can change that mixture. We still need to make a living, and we can still want to accomplish things. But caring for our family, our community, and the wider world can become the driving force.There can be an awkward stretch in between. The old motivation has weakened before the new one feels fully available.It’s almost as though they’ve unplugged from the old energy source, but they’re just beginning to find the light socket for the new one.—Cortland DahlCort suggested learning about people who have navigated that transition. Their lives can help us recognize what a different motivation looks like in action. The energy may carry us further along our current path, or it may lead somewhere else.The moment before you start meditatingMary Beth asked what we are actually doing when we “widen the aperture,” and whether there are different ways to practice it.Cort offered three entry points. With the eyes, let attention include the edges of the visual field. With the breath, notice the release that comes with an exhale. With the mind, sit as though you are about to meditate, but haven’t started yet.You are a little more alert because you are getting ready. But you haven’t begun following the breath or running a technique. See whether you can remain in that small space of wakeful presence.So if that feels like nothing’s happening, that’s perfect.—Cortland DahlEven the thought “Am I doing it?” can show up. The invitation is to become familiar with being, without turning it into another task to perform correctly.Cort recommended short doses: five or ten seconds, then return to whatever you were doing. These little moments can happen during meditation or in the middle of the day. With repetition, the opening becomes more familiar.2-MINUTE PRACTICE LED BY CORTIn the recording, 01:25–03:042-minute practice: Wherever you are, if you’re sitting still, let your eyes close or remain gently open. Take a few slow, deep breaths and feel the breath moving in and out of your body. Allow the mind and body to settle. Then bring a little kindness and compassion into the moment. In words or images that resonate with you, form an intention that whatever good comes from this time might ripple outward—benefiting your own life, the people around you, and the wider world. Rest with that motivation for a few breaths.The full hour, mappedRead the gist below, then drop into the recording at any timestamp.01:25 — Begin with a compassionate motivation. Cort leads the opening micro-practice: settle with the breath, then imagine the good from this time rippling outward. He uses this pause before meetings and other activities throughout the day.03:49 — Three ways to widen the apertu
- 1 weeks ago36 min
Your Workout Could Train Your Mind, Too
In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richie Davidson explore how exercising your body can also become a way to train your mind. We asked Richie why exercise supports neuroplasticity, and why a more changeable brain isn’t necessarily a happier one. We also discuss what makes a workout meditation, and share how we bring these practices into our own biking, walking, and yoga routines.Enjoy!Watch on YouTube; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.If these conversations are useful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.Episode Companion Flashcards:Upcoming Events:* From Doing to Being: Effortless Meditation & the Lost Art of Doing Less with Dr. Cortland Dahl and Kasumi Kato, October 9–11 at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. This is an independent Omega Institute program and is not affiliated with Dharma Lab. Learn more / register* Quiet the Restless Mind — November: A gifted online week from Dharma Lab and ServiceSpace, November 15–21, exploring how to meet everyday stress, distraction, and overwhelm with greater clarity and ease. Bringing together ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, the week features leading contemplatives and researchers including Robert Sapolsky, Laurie Santos, Mingyur Rinpoche, Judson Brewer, Sharon Salzberg, Martin Picard, Cortland Dahl, and Richard Davidson.Learn more / registerIn This Episode:00:00 Intro - Is your workout really meditation?01:15 Training body and mind together03:05 Is exercise really meditation?07:51 Why intention matters11:29 Flow versus meditation13:19 Exercise and neuroplasticity16:19 Should you meditate during or after exercise?20:25 Can movement make meditation easier?24:14 How Richie practices while cycling27:26 Cort’s practice: Yoga, jogging, and attention32:12 Interval training for the mind33:32 What the research tells us so farWritten transcript for those who prefer to read:00:00 Intro - Is your workout really meditation?Richie: What I often hear when I give public talks, people often raise their hand and say, my jog is my meditation, or my bicycle ride is my meditation. And my response to that is always, well, maybe, but not necessarily.Cort: It’s not just that your mind was a little more clear or a little more peaceful while you were exercising. In fact, actually that I would say is not at all the deciding point about whether it would or would not be meditation, but rather it’s that you’re doing something very intentional with your mind. You’re training your mind very consciously and very intentionally. So the promise of this all is that you basically can train your mind at the exact same time you’re exercising your body. And not only do you get the benefits of each of those individually, there’s at least the potential that there’s a synergistic benefit that’s greater than the sum of the parts.01:15 Training body and mind togetherCort: Welcome everyone. I am Cortland Dahl, and I’m here with my dear friend and Dharma brother, Dr. Richard Davidson, who of course we all call Richie, one of the most eminent and respected neuroscientists on the planet. And today we’re going to discuss how we can train our minds in the same way that we train our bodies, and especially that we can do this at the same time. So there’s some really interesting science here, but before we get there, I just want to share my own personal experience, which isI’ve been meditating for more than 30, well, more than well over three decades, probably about 35 years or so. And of course, sitting meditation is super important for me. But I noticed at a certain point that bringing meditation into my exercise routine actually has been incredibly powerful. And in some respects, I feel like some of the best meditations I have are when I’m jogging, for example. In the early days, I did yoga every day. I wasKind of very diligently had a yoga routine up until my son was born, and that kind of fell by the wayside. But I was really doing, I was really meditating as part of my exercise routine. And it wasn’t necessarily a replacement for my formal pract
- 3 weeks ago24 min
Are You Meta-Aware?
In this episode of Dharma Lab, Cortland Dahl and Richard Davidson unpack the difference between experiential fusion, being so absorbed in an experience that awareness narrows, and meta-awareness, the capacity to know what your mind is doing while you’re doing it. They explore why activities like movies, video games, rock climbing, Sudoku, and even doomscrolling can feel good in the moment, how they temporarily suppress the brain’s default mode, and why that does not necessarily translate into lasting change. They also discuss whether meta-awareness actually adds something to positive experiences, how it may increase cognitive and emotional flexibility, and a few simple ways to practice it in everyday life. Enjoy!Watch on YouTube; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.If these conversations are useful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.Episode Companion FlashcardsUpcoming Events:* From Doing to Being: Effortless Meditation & the Lost Art of Doing Less with Dr. Cortland Dahl and Kasumi Kato, October 9–11 at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. This is an independent Omega Institute program and is not affiliated with Dharma Lab. Learn more / register* Quiet the Restless Mind — A gifted online week from Dharma Lab and ServiceSpace, November 15–21, exploring chronic stress and human flourishing through ancient wisdom and modern neuroscience, with leading contemplatives and researchers including Robert Sapolsky, Laurie Santos, Mingyur Rinpoche, Judson Brewer, Sharon Salzberg, Martin Picard, Cortland Dahl, and Richard Davidson.Learn more / registerIn This Episode:00:00 Intro: Is It Good to Be Lost?01:17 Experiential Fusion vs. Meta-Awareness02:29 What Is Experiential Fusion?04:55 What Is Meta-Awareness?06:45 Why Being “Lost” Can Feel Good09:09 The Default Mode Network and Temporary Relief11:34 What Meta-Awareness Adds13:21 Flexibility, Attention, and the Ability to Disengage14:17 Responding Instead of Reacting16:53 Can Startle Reveal Meta-Awareness?19:39 Ancient Meditation Instructions for Meta-Awareness21:11 How to Practice Meta-Awareness in Daily LifeWritten transcript for those who prefer to read:00:00 Intro: Is It Good to Be Lost?Cort: We don’t like to ruminate. It’s a deeply unpleasant experience. But isn’t it good to be lost? What’s the problem with being absorbed in a good book or a movie? And would it be better if we had meta-awareness? Does that add anything in a moment like that?Richie: My view of this is that it feels transiently good. In the movie theater or doing Sudoku, when it ends, we go back to our neurotic self and the default mode of the brain comes roaring back. And so it’s a transient state. Meta-awareness is very helpful, I think, in disengaging our attention and enabling us to be flexible.01:17 Experiential Fusion vs. Meta-AwarenessCort: Welcome everyone to another episode of Dharma Lab. I’m Cortland Dahl. I’m here with eminent neuroscientist, And we wanted to talk today about a really important question that you and no one else has ever asked, which is what is the difference between meta awareness and experiential fusion? And I guarantee that although you have not asked that question and probably nobody has ever asked that question, it is one of the most important questions you could ask because it has massive implications for mental health, for emotional well-being, and even for physical health. So these are two terms that we use a lot in our research. We publish papers that are defining these and have been exploring ways to measure them, but they’re just very central to a lot of the work that we do on human flourishing. So why don’t we just start off with, I think, the one that most of us are more familiar with, Richie, and maybe you can... Give some practical examples and share your own insights on this, but that would be experiential fusion. This is, I think, where a lot of us live our lives. So what is this and why should people care? Why is this so important?02:29 What Is Experiential Fusion?<stro
- Aug 27, 20262 min
Your brain builds reality like a dream; August AMA with Richie and Cort
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dharmalab.coHow much of what we experience comes from the world itself, and how much comes from our expectations about it? In our latest AMA, Richie Davidson and Cortland Dahl explore how the brain constructs perception, why the gap between reality and expectation can amplify suffering, and what changes when we begin to notice that process as it happens. We had a few moments of technical issues with frozen screens or background noise, but they don’t last long.What’s inside* Why your brain constructs reality the way it builds a dream* Why controlling the mind backfires* TMS: is it cheating?* Why open awareness loosens pain* The neuroscience of grief and regret* A 2-minute guided practice (free, led by Cort)* A preview of our upcoming November summit* The full hour mapped below, plus the flashcards and the recording for paid membersCompanion Flashcards At BottomYour brain builds reality like a dreamA listener named Linda asked about acceptance, and about the idea, drawn from Anil Seth and Lisa Feldman Barrett, that reality is a construction of the mind. Cort answered first, and reframed where suffering actually comes from.It’s actually the gap between reality and our expectations of what should be happening. However big that gap is, that’s like the size of suffering in that moment.—Cortland DahlCort was clear it is not erasing expectations. It is seeing that they are there and that they are out of step with what is happening, bringing them into the light of conscious experience rather than letting them run under the hood.Then Richie discussed how the brain networks that build our beliefs and expectations are the very networks through which we perceive. He used the dream as proof.Just as in a dream, we can feel those emotions in our body, and there are documented changes in our heart rate and breathing, and yet there’s nothing out there. It’s all in our mind. It turns out that’s actually the way it works with the real world. That’s how our brains construct reality.—Richard DavidsonHis image for the practice came from Mingyur Rinpoche: caught in the middle of a river, you are swept along by the turbulent flow. Become aware of the thoughts and expectations driving your perception, and it is more like sitting on the bank, watching the water move without being pulled in. Cort added a pointer for anyone who wants the science firsthand, calling Anil Seth’s TED talk one of the best he has seen.The picnic and the four police officersVictoria asked why open awareness loosens physical pain. Richie described what his lab calls “stickiness,” the attachment or aversion that makes an emotion reverberate long after the thing that caused it is gone. In open awareness, the reverberation drops away.In some of our own research, the response in sensory regions is actually larger when you’re doing open awareness. It’s not diminished. But there’s no reverberation. It happens and comes back to baseline. We’re not creating emotional zombies.—Richard DavidsonThat fast return to baseline, he said, is a neural signature of resilience. Cort then told a story from the Tibetan tradition that ties to this. Imagine you drive to a park for a picnic, thrilled to be there. Then four police officers walk up and tell you that you are ordered to stay in this park all day, that they will block you if you try to leave.Even though you wanted to go there in the first place, suddenly everybody’s trying to think how they can get out. Life does not like to be constrained and controlled in any way.—Cortland DahlThe mind works the same way. The harder we clamp down on a feeling, the more it strains to escape. Open awareness runs the other direction. Cort called it a practice of trust, close to the opposite of control.FREE · 2-MINUTE PRACTICE LED BY CORT2-minute practice: Wherever you are, settle into a comfortable posture. Let your eyes stay gently open or close them. Take a few moments to simply feel the breath moving in and out of the body. Notice the sounds around you, or the silence. Then open the heart a little by bringing to mind the many challenges in the world right now, the suffering so many are carrying, and form a quiet intention: that wh
- Aug 20, 20261h 1m
Free Guided Meditation Practice Hour (Recording)
Dharma Lab’s First Guided Meditation HourIn Dharma Lab’s first guided practice hour, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richard Davidson took us from talking about wellbeing to actually practicing it. Drawing on the Healthy Minds framework of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, shaped through years of research and practice connected with the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Humin (formerly Healthy Minds Innovations), they led participants through four short practices designed to make each capacity directly experiential. The session explored a central idea running through their work: meditation is less about fixing ourselves than learning to recognize and cultivate qualities of wellbeing that are already present.Keep Practicing — Upcoming EventsIf you’d like to continue exploring these practices, the free Healthy Minds Program App offers guided practices and learning across awareness, connection, insight, and purpose, with Cortland Dahl, Richard Davidson, and other teachers.Our next “Ask Me Anything”with Richie and Cort is live on Tuesday, August 25th, 8pm ET. Please send us questions in advance by replying to this email or dropping a comment.We have an exciting lineup of guest speakers for a free online summit in November to explore the restless mind. More details to come, but check out initial info at the bottom of this email and registration details here. Please share widely!Thank you for your support and we hope to see you at these future events.—The Dharma Lab Team This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dharmalab.co/subscribe
- Aug 13, 202633 min
Why Can't I Stay Focused?!
In this episode of Dharma Lab, Dr. Cortland Dahl and Dr. Richard Davidson explore why attention feels harder to control than it used to, how modern technology exploits basic mechanisms in the brain, and what we can do to regain more choice over where our attention goes. They discuss why we may be more distracted than we were 50 years ago, how novelty and emotion capture attention, and why simple acts of intentionality can function like reps for the brain. Enjoy!Watch on YouTube; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.If these conversations are useful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.Reminder: We have a FREE 1-hour live practice session on Wed Aug 19th, 7pm CT with Richie and Cort discussing how different meditation practices map to the four pillars of well-being (Awareness, Connection, Insight, and Purpose). More details and register here!Companion FlashcardsIn This Episode:00:00 Taking Back Control of Attention01:21 Why Focus Feels So Hard02:51 Are We More Distracted Than 50 Years Ago?05:15 Why the Brain Is Wired for Distraction09:03 How Our Attention Gets Hijacked13:20 Why Surprise Captures the Brain16:35 The Reinforcement Loop Behind Endless Scrolling17:44 How Emotion Disrupts Self-Control21:24 Rebuilding Control Over Attention25:53 Attention as a Practice of Intention29:46 Digital Hygiene: Designing Your Environment for FocusWritten transcript for those who prefer to read:00:00 — Taking Back Control of AttentionRichie: Now we have basically ceded control to the forces around us, and it has led to a kind of impairment, a collective impairment in prefrontal function that we’re all suffering from. There are data to suggest that we are indeed more distracted today than we were 50 years ago. It’s not just a kind of subjective impression.Cort: I would say if there’s one word that captures the heart of this as a practice, I would say intention. And simply being intentional about what’s going on with my attention. Just choose. Before your mind gets pulled somewhere, I just got an alert. I’m going to choose to do that. And I noticed the pull, but I’m going to actually ask myself, do I want to check this message right now? Or I just heard a sound. I’m going to actually choose. Do I want to keep my attention with what I’m doing? Or do I want to You know, turn and look to see what was happening over there, like actually just making a choice. Like you were saying, the reps, you can do a thousand of those a day easily.01:21 — Why Focus Feels So HardCort: Welcome everyone to another episode of Dharma Lab. I am Cortland Dahl, one of the co-hosts here, and of course I’m here with Dr. Richard Davidson. Richie, to all of us who know him well, one of the preeminent neuroscientists on the planet. And today we’re gonna discuss one of the most common problems that probably every human faces, which is how incredibly hard it is just to stay focused. Now, I must admit, maybe this is an embarrassing admission, given that I’m supposedly one of the experts who’s talking about this stuff. But there’s a lot of days where I’m sitting, getting stuff done, answering emails or focused on some project. And it’s just really hard to not get pulled in to other things. You know, I’m answering emails and suddenly I’m shopping online or I’m working on a report and then I’m checking my emails. It’s just it feels like There are so many things in our life that are just pulling us in a million different directions. And I thought today we could just answer two very simple questions. One, why is it so incredibly hard to stay focused? And two, what can we do about it given this chaotic world we’re living in? So maybe we can just I can just turn this over to you, Richie, and you can kick this off however you want to. But I’d love to hear specifically from a neuroscientific point of view at some point. But yeah, what does this spark for you?Richie: Yeah, well, first it sparks familiarity.02:51 — Are We More Distracted Than 50 Years Ago?Richie: So, you know, I think that it’s true. I often say we’re all participants in a grand experiment for which none of us have p
- Aug 4, 20262 min
Strangers could tell who the meditators were — August AMA with Richie & Cort
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.dharmalab.co(The full AMA recording plays in the video pane above, for Dharma Lab members.)In our 11th AMA, Kim read your questions while Cort made his way back from a retreat with Mingyur Rinpoche. Richie spoke to a study where strangers could tell who the meditators were, from a photo alone.What’s inside* Full recording and transcript for paid members* The photo study: what strangers saw in the faces of long-term meditators* You are not your beliefs: a simple two-step practice to see them clearly* A 2-minute guided practice (free, led by Dr. Richie Davidson)* The full hour mapped below, plus the flashcards and the recordingStrangers could tell who the meditators wereThis came up during a question about moods. Richie’s point was that one consequence of long-term practice is that people generally end up in a more positive mood. To show it, he described a study his lab published.Whenever they studied long-term meditators, they routinely took a picture of everyone, both the meditators and age- and gender-matched controls, without telling them what it was for. Then they gave all the pictures to random people who had no idea where they came from, and asked them to rate each face: how friendly the person is, how much you trust them, how happy they are.The long-term meditators were judged, in Richie’s words, “whoppingly more positively” than the controls. The raters had no idea where the pictures came from. He called it a powerful, unobtrusive measure that there is something about an enduring mood that gets expressed on the face and that people pick up on.The study: Goldberg, Hirshberg, Tello, Weng, Flook, Davidson (2019), “Still facial photographs of long-term meditators are perceived by naïve observers as less neurotic, more conscientious and more mindful.” You are not your beliefsAnother listener asked about the difference between a belief and an ordinary thought. Cort put it this way: thoughts are the words and images moving through the mind, the inner commentary, and they are an expression of deeper beliefs about the world that are often not conscious.Richie added the distinction he and Cort work with: when we hold beliefs, especially about ourselves, we misconstrue them as a description of who we actually are. He calls it experiential fusion. Most of the time we are not even aware we hold the belief; it just feels like the narrative of our self. Meta-awareness, or metacognition, is having an awareness that we have these beliefs, which lets us recognize we are not necessarily the same as them.Cort framed the aim in the Tibetan approach he practices: we are not trying to fix ourselves, but to get in touch with the parts that were never broken. Then he gave a two-step practice. First, simply observe your thoughts, like watching a wild animal in its natural habitat, from behind a tree, just watching what it does. Then pause and ask what assumptions, beliefs, and expectations underlie the thought. The point is not to change anything, just to bring the unconscious up to the conscious level.“We’re not trying to fix ourselves. We’re really trying to get in touch with the parts that were never broken.” — Cortland DahlTry this 2-minute practice from the AMA (free, led by Richie)Prefer to read it? Bring awareness into your body. Then bring to mind one person who first introduced you to practice, who opened this door and shined a light where you had not looked before. Hold them in your heart and let appreciation, gratitude, even love bubble up. Carry that glow into whatever comes next.The full hour AMA, mappedRead the gist, then drop into the recording.04:39 — Is it only meditation that slows brain aging? Compared to athletes or chess players, we don’t yet know. But Richie’s informed conjecture: an altruistic motivation may add a biological benefit over and above the activity itself.09:12 — What childhood trauma does to the brain. The well-replicated finding of reduced hippocampal volume, and the honest unknown of how far practice can reverse it. Cort on memory reconsolidation.13:55 — Can practice move your brain’s asymmetry? Functional asymmetry can shift (the first randomized trial of MBSR, 2003), but temperament tends to persist. The masters keep their color; they are not emotional zombies.20:27 — Belief vs. thought, and how to loosen a harmful one. Experiential fusion vs. meta-awareness, Mingyur Rinpoche’s burnt-rope image, and the two-step practic
- Jul 30, 202627 min
Does Meditation Really Change Your Brain?
For years, headlines claimed that meditation could actually grow parts of the brain. But what if that’s not the most interesting question?As the science has evolved, researchers have shifted their focus. What changes in the brain? Which changes matter most? And why might some structural changes grow, then recede, as expertise develops?In this conversation, Richie and Cort explore what decades of neuroscience have taught us, what scientists have gotten right, what they’ve gotten wrong, and where the research is heading.Enjoy!Watch on YouTube; Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.If these conversations are useful, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.Reminder: We have a FREE 1-hour live practice session on Aug 19th, 7pm CT with Richie and Cort discussing how different meditation practices map to the four pillars of well-being (Awareness, Connection, Insight, and Purpose). More details and register here!Episode Companion Flashcards!In This Episode:00:00 Does Meditation Really Change the Brain?03:16 Brain Function vs. Brain Structure05:41 The Gray Matter Studies That Started It All11:45 Why the Gray Matter Evidence Changed15:20 White Matter and Brain Connectivity18:01 What the Research Actually Means21:40 Brain Health, Neuroplasticity, and Human PotentialTranscript for those who prefer to read:Richie Davidson:There’s no question that meditation changes the brain.We’re talking here about both the function and the structure of the brain. There’s no question that meditation changes the brain, and there is overwhelming evidence for that.Structural changes, like increases in gray matter in specific regions of the brain after short amounts of meditation, however, are a different story. The evidence for those findings has really not held up.Even more interesting, some of the effects that have been reported are actually the opposite of what we might expect.Cortland Dahl:Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Dharma Lab. I’m Cortland Dahl, and I’m here with Richie Davidson, one of the pioneering neuroscientists who has helped us understand the relationship between the mind, the brain, emotions, and how we can train ourselves to flourish.Today we’re diving into one of the biggest scientific questions in meditation research: does meditation actually change the brain?When I think about my own life, I can point to experiences that feel like a clear before and after.When I started meditating more than thirty years ago, I had a genuine phobia of public speaking. It wasn’t just that I got nervous. I had a severe fear of speaking in front of people.Years later, not only do I no longer get anxious, I actually enjoy it.I’ve even measured my physiology with devices like my Oura Ring. My heart rate and other biometrics actually shift into a deeply relaxed state when I’m speaking in front of a crowd, something that would have been unimaginable twenty or thirty years ago.Whether or not my brain changed, it seems difficult to imagine that such a profound transformation could happen without the brain changing in some way.At the same time, we often see confusing headlines.One day the headline says, “Meditation changes your brain.”The next day another study appears suggesting the opposite.Even the phrase “changes your brain” can mean different things. Are we talking about how the brain functions? Are we talking about the physical wiring of the brain? Are we talking about changes in structure?Richie, you’ve done some of the most important work in this area, and I think this is one of those topics where the headlines often miss the nuance.How should we think about it?Richie Davidson:You set this up beautifully by distinguishing between functional changes in the brain and structural changes.Functional changes refer to differences in how the brain is operating. We can measure those by looking at patterns of activity in different brain regions.Structural changes are different
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