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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

they occur with regularity will lead to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

coarse to talk about these as general

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.

>> Yeah. So, just to continue with the

brain oscillations, I talked about

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

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

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

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

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,

>> 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.

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

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

for most people yes is the answer but I

think there's a lot of individual

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

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

important that we not lump all of

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

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

published some papers uh that uh offer

typologies for classifying different

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

internal. It could be for example your

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

broadened and there is no specific

intention to focus on any one thing or

another. The invitation is to simply be

aware of whatever is arising as it

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

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

trying to score an A with the professor

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

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,

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

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

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

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

actually the first time we had met, but

we become good friends. And he's a

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

form of meditation is and then stick to

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

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."

>> And it turns out that's probably the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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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one.com/huberman

to get six free travel packs and a

bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with your

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

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

atypical state. It's it's not being

stimulated by anything in my

environment. I have to do this

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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, you can be metaware without

being awkwardly self-conscious, if you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

of sector by sector. And one sector that

we're doing a lot of work with is

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

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

control trial with 832 educators in

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

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

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

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

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

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? 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

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

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.

>> Or maybe it's because they're also

paying attention to the things that do

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.

>> Well, he deserves all the credit for all

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

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,

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

tool, it's it's just outsized positive

effects. I think most people come to the

table because it will lower their blood

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

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

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

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

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