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Buddha’s Brain

•-Feature Health & Well-being Spirituality

Can you come home to yourself?

The Practice

Meditate.

Why?

Meditation is to the mind what aerobic exercise is to the body. Like exercise, there are many good ways to do it and you can find the one that suits you best.

Studies have shown that regular meditation promotes mindfulness (sustained observing awareness), whose benefits include decreased stress-related cortisol, insomnia, symptoms of autoimmune illnesses, PMS, asthma, falling back into depression, general emotional distress, anxiety, and panic, and increased immune system factors, control of blood sugar in type 2 diabetes, detachment from reactions, self-understanding, and general well-being.

In your brain, regular meditation increases gray matter (neuronal cell bodies and synapses) in the:

Insula – Handles interoception (sense of your own body); self-awareness in general; empathy for the emotions of others

Hippocampus – Key role in personal recollections, visual-spatial memory, establishing the context of events, and calming down both the amygdala (the alarm bell of the brain) and production of stress hormones like cortisol

Prefrontal cortex (PFC) – Supports the executive functions, self-control, and guiding attention

Regular meditation also:

Increases activation in left PFC, which lifts mood

Increases the power and reach of very fast, gamma range brainwaves, which promotes learning and perhaps a sense of integration in awareness

[in a three month retreat] Preserves the length of telomeres, the caps at the ends of DNA molecules; longer telomeres are associated with fewer age-related diseases

Reduces cortical thinning due to aging in the insula and PFC

Meditation is the quintessential training of attention. Since attention is like a vacuum cleaner – sucking its contents into your brain through what’s called “experience-dependent neuroplasticity” – getting better control of your attention is the foundation of changing your brain, and thus your life, for the better. (For more information, see my slide set for psychiatrists that summarizes research on meditation and mindfulness; also see the references.)

The research summarized above just scratches the surface of the benefits of meditation. It is you saying to the world (and yourself): I’m going to step off the hamster wheel now. This time is for me. It is a way to center in being rather than doing (what a relief!). And a way to see the mind streaming along, transient and insubstantial, an unreliable basis for lasting happiness, not worth chasing after or struggling with.

The minutes I spend meditating are usually the best ones of my day. They feel like coming home. It’s good to be home.

How?

The best meditation of all is . . . the one you will do. So find what you like and will stick with. There are tons of books, talks, even videos about meditating, plus great teachers all over the place. Here I will offer a down-to-earth and super-concise summary.

Relax. Rest. Intend to meditate. Come into a sense of presence with yourself. Know whether you are meditating in relationship to something transcendental (such as in prayer) or not (if this distinction is relevant to you); I’ll describe a “secular” meditation here.

Find something to anchor attention, such as the sensations of breathing, a work or phrase (e.g., “peace”), or an image. Use an anchor that is stimulating enough to keep yourself present; feel free to do walking meditation or use an audio program to guide you. Meditating with others can help you stay focused.

Start by giving attention fully to the anchor, letting go of everything else. Center in it, becoming absorbed in it, even for just a few breaths or few minutes.

Then, with an ongoing awareness of your “anchor,” let your attention widen to include your body . . . thoughts . . . feelings . . . and overall atmosphere of your mind. You are not trying to make your mind blank or quiet. Instead, let things come and go, just don’t jump on board of them. Without stress or strain, gently open to relaxing and quieting, and to an increasingly stable presence as experiencing, being a body breathing in peace.

Meditate for as long as you like. Even one minute is good – and ten, twenty, or even forty-five minutes could be even better. I suggest you join me in being committed to meditating every day for at least one minute.

Toward the end of each meditation, let the benefits sink into you.

If you tend toward dissociation or getting flooded with painful feelings when you relax into yourself, then you may need to build up more inner resources before meditating. Also, try to not be self-critical; this is not a performance test! Meditation is a skill and like any other, you’ll get better at it over time, and its benefits for you will grow.

Most of all, find the enjoyment in meditation. Follow that enjoyment home.

June 18, 2015 0 comment

•-Feature Health & Well-being

GIFT YOURSELF by Rick Hanson, PH.D.

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Who’s left off your gift list?

The Practice:

Gift yourself.
Why?

Can you remember a time when you offered a gift to someone? Perhaps a holiday present, or a treat to a child, or taking time for a friend – or anything at all. How did this feel? Researchers have found that giving stimulates the same neural networks that light up when we feel physical pleasure, such eating a cookie or running warm water over cold hands. Long ago, the Buddha said that generosity makes one happy before, during, and after the giving.

Then there is receiving. Can you remember a different time, when someone was giving toward you? Maybe it was a tangible, something you could hold in your hands, or perhaps it was something like a moment of warmth, or an apology, or some kind of restraint. Whatever it was, how did it feel? Probably pretty good.

Well, if you are giving . . . toward yourself . . . it’s a two-for-one deal! And besides the benefits noted above, there are the implicit rewards of taking action rather than being passive (which helps reduce any sense of learned helplessness, to which mammals like us are very vulnerable), and of treating yourself like you matter, which is especially important if you haven’t felt like you mattered enough to others.

Further, when you give more to yourself, you have more to offer others when your own cup runneth over. Studies show that as people experience greater well-being, they are usually more inclined toward kindness, patience, altruism, and other kinds of “prosocial” behavior. As Bertrand Russell wrote: The good life is a happy life. I do not meant that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

How?

Gifting yourself comes in many forms, most them in small moments in everyday life. For example, as I write this, the gift is to lean back from the keyboard, take a breath, look out the window, and relax. It’s a do-able gift.

Less tangibly, earlier this week I was getting wrapped up mentally in wanting a friend to succeed in his business, so I gave myself the “treat” of letting go of my over-investment in things beyond my control. Sitting in a meeting earlier today and thinking about this practice, I took in the gift of appreciating how fortunate I was to learn from the other people in the room.

Not doing can also be an important gift to yourself: Not having that third beer, not interrupting a friend’s irritated account of a hassle at work, not bugging a lover who wants some space right now, not staying up late watching TV, not rushing about while you drive . . .

You can see how many opportunities there are each day to offer yourself simple yet beautiful and powerful gifts. Routinely ask yourself: What could I give myself right now? Or: What do I long for – that’s in my power to give myself? Then try to actually do it.

Focusing on a longer time frame, ask yourself: What’s the gift I want to offer myself today? This week? This year? Even: This life? Try to stay with the listening to the answers, letting them ring and ring again in the open space of awareness.

You could also imagine a deeply nurturing being and see what this one gives you – and then open to giving this to yourself.

Knowing your own giving heart – which is usually offered to others – can you extend that heart to yourself? Out of kindness and wisdom, cherishing and support, let your gifts flow to that one being in this world over whom you have the most power and therefore to whom you have the highest duty of care – the one who has your name.

* * *

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (in 20 languages) and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time (in 8 languages). Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s been an invited speaker at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, FoxBusiness, Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report, and O Magazine and he has several audio programs with Sounds True. His weekly e-newsletter – Just One Thing – has over 36,000 subscribers, and suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. If you wish, you can subscribe to Just One Thing here

Read more from Rick Hanson:

Avoid the Rush by Rick Hansen

DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP by Rick Hanson, Ph. D.

May 26, 2012 0 comment

•-Feature Health & Well-being

READ: MAKE THE OFFERING by Rick Hanson, M.D.

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

What could you offer?
The Practice:
Make the offering.
Why?

One of the strangest and most meaningful experiences of my life occurred when I going through Rolfing (ten brilliant sessions of deep-tissue bodywork) in my early 20′s. The fifth session works on the stomach area, and I was anticipating (= dreading) the release of buried sadness. Instead, there was a dam burst of love, which poured out of me during the session and afterward. I realized it was love, not sadness, that I had bottled up in childhood – and what I now needed to give and express.

We can hold back our contributions to the world, including love, just as much as we can muzzle or repress sorrow or anger. But contribution needs to flow; it stagnates and gets stinky if it doesn’t. Thwarted contribution is the source of much unhappiness. For example, the wound of loneliness and heartache is about not having others to give to as much as not having others to get from. And one of the major issues with adolescence in technological cultures is that there are few opportunities for teenagers to make a real difference, to matter and feel a sense of earned worth.

Now, “contribution” covers a lot of ground. It includes big things like raising a child, inventing the paperclip, or composing a symphony. But mainly it’s a matter of many little things. You give or receive hundreds of small offerings each day, such as doing the dishes, treating customers with respect, picking up a gum wrapper, encouraging a friend, having good intentions, or staying open to feedback. You contribute with thought, word, and deed, and both by what you do and by what you restrain yourself from doing.

In addition to the offerings you already make, you may sense other things inside that want to be offered. Can you open to these and let them flow? It does not matter how large or small they are. As Nkosi Johnson – a South African boy born with HIV who became a national voice for children with AIDS before dying at about age 12 – once said:

Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.

How?

Appreciate some of the things you already contribute through thought, word, and deed. Let yourself feel good about this.

Moving through your day, try considering your contributions as offerings – particularly the little things that are easy to overlook, such as the laundry, courteous driving, or saying thanks. When you relate to everyday actions as offerings, you feel an intimacy with the world, more kindness, perhaps even something sacred.

Also try on a sense of being unattached to the results of your offerings. Sure, it’s OK to hope for the best. But if you get fixed on some outcome, it’s a set up for pressure and disappointment. I got a good lesson about this from my friend David, who was becoming a priest in an urban zen center and preparing for his first public talk. I asked David if it bothered him to work hard to present something precious to people who might not value it. He looked at me like he could not understand my question. Then he made a gesture with both hands as if he were setting something at my feet, saying: “My part is to give the talk as best I can. Whatever they pick up is up to them. I hope it’s helpful, but that’s out of my hands.”

It’s alright to make offerings from enlightened self-interest. When you give, you receive. Which helps you keep giving. To be benevolent to others, you must be benevolent to yourself.

Also listen to your heart for additional offerings calling to be expressed. Maybe it’s the offering of never speaking out of anger, or really starting that novel, or determining to give love each day. It could even be an offering to your future self – the being above all others you have the greatest power over, and thus the highest duty to – such as regular exercise or taking steps toward a better job.

Help yourself sustain this practice by feeling good about your contributions, regarding actions as offerings, staying focused on a key new offering, and holding self-criticism at bay. As Leonard Cohen sings:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
That’s how the light gets in

* * *

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of the bestselling Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (in 20 languages) – and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s taught at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Consumer Reports Health, and U.S. News and World Report and he has several audio programs. His blog – Just One Thing – has over 30,000 subscribers and suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. If you wish, you can subscribe to Just One Thing here.

Read more from VividLife.me bloggers:

DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP by Rick Hanson, Ph. D.

The previous JOT – admit fault and move on – was about our relationship with other people. This JOT applies the same practice to ourselves. Most people know their less than wonderful qualities, such as too much ambition (or too little), a weakness for wine or cookies, something of a temper, or an annoying tendency to rattle on about pet interests. We usually know when we make mistakes, get the facts wrong, could be more skillful, or deserve to feel remorseful.,…

WHERE IS YOUR ATTENTION? By Cynthia James

There are some people that are experiencing greater challenges than ever before in their lives. Others are experiencing spiritual awakenings that are awe inspiring. The news tells us that our culture is in a crisis mode and spiritual teachers tell us that this is a transformative moment in time. The question becomes; through what personal lens are you viewing life and the world around you? How are you framing the hard moments of feeling disconnected and afraid?,…

February 1, 2012 0 comment

•-Feature Health & Well-being

READ: DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP by Rick Hanson, Ph. D.

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Are you hard on yourself?
The Practice:
Don’t beat up yourself.
Why?

The previous JOT – admit fault and move on – was about our relationship with other people. This JOT applies the same practice to ourselves.

Most people know their less than wonderful qualities, such as too much ambition (or too little), a weakness for wine or cookies, something of a temper, or an annoying tendency to rattle on about pet interests. We usually know when we make mistakes, get the facts wrong, could be more skillful, or deserve to feel remorseful.

Some people err on the side of denying or defending these faults ( a word I use broadly here). But most people go to the other extreme, repeatedly criticizing themselves in the foreground of awareness, or having a background sense of guilt, unworthiness, and low confidence.

It’s one thing to call yourself to task for a fault, try to understand what caused it, resolve to correct it, act accordingly, and move on. This is psychologically healthy and morally accountable. It’s another matter entirely to grind on yourself, to lambaste your own character, to fasten on the negative and ignore the good in you, to find yourself wanting – in other words, to beat up yourself. This excessive inner criticism tears you down instead of building your strengths; it’s stressful and thus wears on your mood, health, and longevity.

Nor does beating up yourself help others. Most of the time, they don’t even know you’re doing it, and if they do, they usually wish you’d stop it. Harsh self-criticism can also be a way to avoid feeling genuine remorse, taking responsibility, making amends for the past, and doing the hard work of preventing the fault in the future.

Further, the charges and scorn we throw at ourselves are often based on nasty scoldings, shamings, rejections, and humiliations experienced as a child: bad enough that they did this to you back then, and even worse that you’re doing it to yourself today.

How?

Pick a small fault – such as being a few minutes late, interrupting, or having too much dessert – and then try on two approaches about it. First, talk to yourself about it like a supportive but no-nonsense friend, coach, teacher, or therapist. Notice what this feels like, and what the results are for you. Let’s call this the encouraging approach. Second, talk to yourself about it like an alarmed and intense critic – maybe like your dad, big sister, or a minister or teacher talked to you. What’s this approach feel like, and what are its results?

Let the differences between approaches sink in. How do you feel inside when you’re “listening” to each one? What’s your sense of the influences in your life that have created each approach? What are the distortions or fixations on the negative in the critical approach?

Let a real conviction form as to which approach is better for you – and a real resolve to truly use the one that’s best for you.

Then, when you find a fault in yourself – no need to go looking, they appear on their own! – really try to use the encouraging approach. Name the fault to yourself and admit the facts of it unreservedly. Open to any appropriate remorse. Commit to skillful corrections for the future.

And then take a big breath and very deliberately name to yourself three strengths or virtues you have. Let the sense of them, and of your natural goodness, sink in.

And then take another big breath and move on.

* * *

Read more from Vividlife.me bloggers:

Admit fault and move on by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

What gets you stuck? The Practice: Admit fault and move on. Why? Have you ever watched two people quarrel, or otherwise be stuck in a conflict with each other? Usually, if either or both of them simply acknowledged one or more things, that would end the fight. Read On…

LOVING A WABI SABI SLOPPY JOE by Arielle Ford

Even though Diane truly loved Jerry (her husband who is 20 years her senior), she was confronted on a daily basis with something about him she found very hard to embrace: his passion for poppy seed bagels. Since childhood, Jerry has had a love affair with poppy seed bagels. In fact, he enthusiastically devours one nearly every day. Jerry’s slices and toasts his bagel, then takes it into, Read On…

January 24, 2012 0 comment

•-Feature Family & Relationships Health & Well-being

READ: KNOW YOU’RE A GOOD PERSON

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Who are you, deep down?

The Practice:
Know you’re a good person.
Why?

For many of us, perhaps the hardest thing of all is to believe that “I am a good person.” We can climb mountains, work hard, acquire many skills, act ethically – but truly feel that one is good deep down? Nah!

We end up not feeling like a good person in a number of ways. For example, I once knew a little girl who’d been displaced by her baby brother and fended off and scolded by her mother who was worn down and busy caring for an infant. This girl was angry at her brother and parents, plus lost and disheartened and feeling cast out and unloved. She’d been watching cartoons in which the soldiers of an evil queen attacked innocent villagers, and one day she said sadly, “Mommy, I feel like a bad soldier.”

Later in life – whether in school or adulthood – shamings, moral indictments, religious chastising, and other criticisms come in many shapes and sizes. Feeling morally compromised – the essence of not believing you’re a good person – is fed by related though different experiences of worthlessness, inadequacy, and unlovableness: as my ranch-born father would say, “feeling like you’re the runt of the litter.”

I’ve also known people – including myself – who have done bad things, or said them or thought them. Things like hitting an animal, risking the lives of their children while driving buzzed, being mean to a vulnerable person, stealing from a store, feeling contemptuous, or cheating on a partner. These don’t need to be felony offenses to make one feel guilty or ashamed.

In effect, to simplify, it’s as if the psyche has three parts to it: one part says, “you’re not good”; another part says, “you’re good”; and a third part – the one we identify with – listens. The problem is that the critical, dismissive, shaming voice is usually much louder than the protecting, encouraging, valuing one.

Sure, there is a place for healthy remorse. But shining through our lapses of integrity, no matter how great, is an underlying and pervading goodness. Yes it may be obscured; I am not letting myself or others – from panhandlers to CEOs and Presidents – off the moral hook. But deep down, all intentions are positive, even if they are expressed problematic ways. When we are not disturbed by pain or loss or fear, the human brain defaults to a basic equilibrium of calm, contentment, and caring. And in ways that feel mysterious, even numinous, you can sense profound benevolence at your core.

Really, the truth, the fact, is that you are a good person. (Me, too.)

When you feel deep down like a bad soldier – or simply not like a good person – you’re more likely to act this way, to be casually snippy, self-indulgent, selfish, or hurtful. On the other hand, when you feel your own natural goodness, you are more likely to act in good ways. Knowing your own goodness, you’re more able to recognize it in others. Seeing the good in yourself and others, you’re more likely to do what you can to build the good in the world we share together.

How?

I’ve learned five good ways to feel like a good person – and there are probably more!

Take in the good of feeling cared about – When you have a chance to feel seen, listened to, appreciated, liked, valued, or loved: take a dozen seconds or more to savor this experience, letting it fill your mind and body, sinking into it as it sinks into you.
Recognize goodness in your acts of thought word and deed- These include positive intentions, putting the brakes on anger, restraining addictive impulses, extending compassion and helpfulness to others, grit and determination, lovingness, courage, generosity, patience, and a willingness to see and even name the truth whatever it is.You are recognizing facts; create sanctuary in your mind for this recognition, holding at bay other voices, other forces, that would invade and plunder this sanctuary for their own agenda (such as the internalization of people you’ve known who made themselves feel big by making you feel small).
Sense the goodness at the core of your being – This is a fundamental honesty and benevolence. It’s there inside everyone, no matter how obscured. It can feel intimate, impersonal, perhaps sacred. A force, a current, a wellspring in your heart.
See the goodness in others – Recognizing their goodness will help you feel your own. Observe everyday small acts of fairness, kindness, and honorable effort in others. Sense the deeper layers behind the eyes, the inner longings to be decent and loving, to contribute, to help rather than harm.
Give over to goodness – Increasingly let “the better angels of your nature” be the animating force of your life. In tricky situations or relationships, ask yourself, “Being a good person, what’s appropriate here?” As you act from this goodness, let the knowing that you are a good person sink in ever more deeply.

Enjoy this beautiful goodness, so real and so true.

* * *

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of the bestselling Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (in 21 languages) – and Just One Thing: Developing a Buddha Brain One Simple Practice at a Time. Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, he’s taught at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard, and in meditation centers in Europe, North America, and Australia. His work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Consumer Reports Health, and U.S. News and World Report and he has several audio programs with Sounds True. His blog – Just One Thing – has over 27,000 subscribers and suggests a simple practice each week that will bring you more joy, more fulfilling relationships, and more peace of mind and heart. If you wish, you cansubscribe to Just One Thing here.

November 2, 2011 0 comment

•-Feature Arts & Entertainment

WATCH: Rick Hanson – How to Take in the Good

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

In this video, Rick Hanson explains how we can boost our positive emotions and positive experiences. This video was taken at the Greater Good Science Center in UC Berkeley as part of the Science of a Meaningful Life Series.

Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist and has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being, psychological growth, and contemplative practice as well as about relationships, family life, and raising children.

October 8, 2011 0 comment

VividLife Talks

Change your brain, you can change your life with Rick Hanson on Keeping Life Simple Monday Sept 6th, 6pm PST / 9 pm EST

written by VividLife Admin

Listen to Vividlife Radio on Blog Talk RadioCALL IN TOLL-FREE in North America 1-877-572-4270 or 1-646-200-3448

Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist who has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being, psychological growth, and contemplative practice, as well as relationships, family life, and raising children. His first book, Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships shows how to support the long-term health, well-being, and intimate partnership of mothers. Many related articles and other resources can be found at www.NurtureMom.com.

Dr. Hanson‘s latest book is Buddha’s Brain: The Practical

Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom

(New Harbinger, 2009) www.buddhasbrain.com

September 3, 2010 0 comment

Uncategorized

5000 Synapses in the Width of a Hair

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

How much change in the brain makes a difference in the mind?

That’s the issue raised by a very interesting comment regarding my previous blog, The Brain in a Bucket.

So I’ve taken the liberty of posting the comment here (hoping that’s OK in blog etiquette; still learning as I go), and then responding. Here it is:

I was pondering your statement that long term meditators show a thickening in certain areas of the brain. As I understand it, the volume of the skull is fixed in adults. This would seem to require that if one part thickens, another part must be reduced. I am curious as to whether anyone has considered what the implications of a loss of volume in these other areas might be. I enjoyed your article, and look forward to more on the topic of neurology and meditation.

While the size of the skull is indeed fixed in adulthood, we can both lose gray matter volume due to the normal effects of aging and gain it through mental training of one kind or another.

August 3, 2010 0 comment

•-Feature

The Brain in a Bucket

written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D.

Have you ever seen a real brain?

I remember the first time I saw one, in a neuropsych class: the instructor put on rubber gloves to protect against the formaldehyde preservative, popped the lid off of a lab bucket, and then pulled out a brain.

It didn’t look like much, a nondescript waxy yellowish-white blob rather like a sculpted head of cauliflower. But the whole class went silent. We were looking at the real deal, ground zero for consciousness, headquarters for “me.” The person it came from – or, in a remarkable sense, the person who came from it – was of course dead. Would my brain, too, end up in a lab bucket? That thought gave me a creepy weird feeling completely unlike the feeling of having my heart or hand in a bucket some day – which gets right at the specialness of your brain.

That blobby organ – just three pounds of tofu-like tissue – is considered by scientists to be the most complex object currently known in the universe. It holds 100 billion neurons (see the schematic illustration just below) amidst another trillion support cells. A typical neuron makes about 5000 connections called synapses with other neurons, producing a neural network with 500 trillion nodes in it. At any moment, each node is active or not, creating a kind of 0 or 1 bit of information. Neurons commonly fire five to fifty times a second, so while you’ve been reading this paragraph, literally quadrillions of bits of information have circulated inside your head.

Neuron

Your nervous system – with its control center in the brain – moves information around like your heart moves blood around. Broadly defined, all that information is the mind, most of which is forever unconscious. Apart from the influence of hypothetical transcendental factors – call them God, Spirit, the Ground, or by no name at all – the mind is what the nervous system does. So if you care at all about your mind – including your emotions, sense of self, pleasures and pains, memories, dreams, reflections – (and who doesn’t?) then it makes tons of sense to care about what’s going on inside your own brain.

Until very recently, the brain was like the weather: you could care about it all you wanted, but you couldn’t do a thing about it. But new brain imaging technologies like functional MRI’s have revolutionized neuropsychology much as the invention of the microscope transformed biology. According to Dr. Alan Lesher, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, our knowledge of the brain has doubled in the past twenty years.

These breakthroughs have informed – and been informed by – practical applications in psychotherapy. For example, trauma therapies have been improved by research on memory, while the results of interventions such as EMDR have suggested new lines of investigation. Like other therapists, I feel clearer about a client’s mind because more is known about his or her brain.

I’m also a meditator – started in 1974, at the tail end of college – so it’s been inspiring to see something similar happening with contemplative practice. Some of the most interesting studies of brain function have been done on long-term meditators, the Olympic athletes of mental training. For example, experienced meditators actually have thicker cortical layers in the brain regions responsible for self-awareness and the control of attention.

This illustrates a fundamental point with extraordinary potential: when your mind changes, your brain changes, both temporarily – with the momentary flicker of synaptic activity – and in lasting ways through formation of new neural structures. Therefore, you can use your mind to change your brain to benefit your whole being – and every other being whose life you touch.

The new neuroscience, combined with the insights of clinical psychology and contemplative practice, gives you an historically unprecedented opportunity to shift your brain – and thus your mind – toward greater happiness, love, and wisdom.

And that’s what this blog is about: skillful means – from the intersection of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice – for relieving distress and dysfunction, increasing well-being, and deepening mindfulness and inner peace.

We’ll focus on scientifically informed but eminently practical tools, skills, and perspectives – things you can use in the middle of daily life: on the job, in traffic, raising kids, when you’re nervous or mad, or working through a sticky conversation with your mom or your mate. For example, the next several entries in this blog will look at the power of gratitude to undo the threat reactivity of the brain, how to weave positive experiences into your brain and your self, and the three neural circuits of empathy.

With just a little understanding of your own brain, you can reach down inside the enchanted loom of your very being and gradually weave greater strength, insight, confidence, contentment, and loving intimacy into the tapestry of your life. That’s the great opportunity here: your brain is not in a bucket, it’s alive and pulsing with possibility, waiting for the skillful touch of your mind to guide it in increasingly wonderful directions.

I hope you’ll join me on this incredible journey.

***

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist, author, and teacher. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, he founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, and teaches at universities and meditation centers in Europe, Australia, and North America. His work has been featured on the BBC and in Consumer Reports Health, U.S. News and World Report, and other major magazines.

Rick’s most recent book is Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (with Rick Mendius, M.D.; Foreword by Dan Siegel, M.D. and Preface by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D.), which has been praised by numerous scholars, therapists, and teachers, including Tara Brach, Ph.D., Roger Walsh, Ph.D., Sharon Salzberg, and Fred Luskin, Ph.D. An authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, he edits the Wise Brain Bulletin, and his articles have appeared in Tricycle Magazine, Insight Journal, and Inquiring Mind; his Your Wise Brain blog is on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites. He has a chapter – 7 Facts about the Brain That Incline the Mind to Joy – in Measuring the Immeasurable, as well as several audio programs with Sounds True. His first book was Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships (Penguin, 2002)

Rick is currently a trustee of Saybrook University. He also served on the board of Spirit Rock Meditation Center for nine years, and was President of the Board of FamilyWorks, a community agency. He began meditating in 1974, trained in several traditions, and leads a weekly meditation gathering in San Rafael, CA. He enjoys rock-climbing and taking a break from emails. He and his wife have two children. For more information, please see his full profile at www.RickHanson.net. You can find him on the social web at http://www.facebook.com/BuddhasBrain and http://www.YouTube.com/BuddhasBrain

July 6, 2010 0 comment

•-Feature

Do What You Can

written by VividLife Editorial

What can you actually affect?

The Practice

Why?

In a groundbreaking series of studies in the 1960’s and 1970’s, Martin Seligman and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania showed that it was remarkably – and sadly – easy to produce “learned helplessness” in dogs, whose emotional circuitry in the brain is similar in many ways to our own.

Essentially, it took only a handful of “trials” – rounds of training – to make the dogs feel helpless and just whimper passively in painful situations they could easily escape. But then it would take many dozens, even hundreds, of trials to help them unlearn that approach to life. And the dogs with learned helplessness also seemed depressed (the dog version), with little interest in food, sex, or normal doggy liveliness.

People are just the same. We are also sadly vulnerable to developing learned helplessness, which is hard to undo. Think about all the times you’ve felt like a nail instead of a hammer. Each time was another little training in learned helplessness.

The consequences can be serious. In children and adults, learned helplessness fosters depression, anxiety, pessimism, low self-worth, and less effort toward goals. Not good.

So this part is really important: Researchers have also found that two key things can protect you against learned helplessness:

• Your attitude about events – Try to see them as temporary rather than permanent, due to lots of causes and not your fault, and specific, localized problems rather than general, global issues.

• Taking the actions that are available to you – There may be a lot you cannot influence in a situation, but there is always something you can do, even if it is only inside your own head. Consider this quotation from Viktor Frankl, who was in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose one’s own way.

In life there are basically three areas where you can take action to make things better: out there in the world (including your relationships), inside your body, and inside your mind. To the extent you possibly can, “choose your own way” in each of these areas.

Then you’ll feel better, make a better life for yourself, and have more to offer others.

How?

Start by sorting out your “circle of influence and circle of concern” – an idea from Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There are the things we have power over (“influence) as well as the things we value and care about (“concern”).

Where those circles overlap is the sweet spot where we can actually make a difference in the things that matter to us (out there in the world, in the body, and in the mind).

(A quick but vital point which I’ll say more about in the next Just One Thing: Sometimes there are things we care about but can’t change personally, like children being mistreated or people going hungry. I’m not saying just ignore those things or be indifferent to them. Not at all. We could focus on what we can do, which includes bearing witness to the suffering of others, staying informed, letting them move our hearts, wishing them well, and looking for the opportunities that do come along to make a material difference, such as signing a petition or making a donation for a good cause.)

Think about those circles each day. Ask yourself from time to time: Where do I have influence? And where are things out of my hands?

Then consider this blunt question:

How could I pull my time, money, energy, attention, worry, etc. out of . . .

. . . tunnels with no cheese

. . . dogs that won’t hunt

. . . stones that will never give blood

. . . houses built on sand

. . . [choose your own metaphor] . . .

And instead, shift those resources to where they will actually make a difference?

Facing this blunt question head on has changed my life.

And, if you want go further with this, here are some practical steps you could take:

• Take a mental inventory of all the resources, strengths, and opportunities you do have. (Maybe write down some of them, which will give this step more impact for you.) Most people have much more capacity to influence their life for the better than they recognize. Your circle of influence is probably a lot bigger than you think it is!

• Identify your top five or ten values in life. Write them down any way you like, as a single word (e.g., health, family, spirit) or phrase or sentence (e.g., building a safety net for retirement). See if you can put them in priority order, with no ties allowed (!). If you could achieve only one of your values, which would it be? Take that one off the list and ask the question again about the values that remain, and repeat the process. Then step back and consider the ways you are – and are not – living true to that list and the priorities on it.

• Consider how you could take action – toward your important values – in your world, body, and mind in ways you haven’t ever done, or have never sustained. Challenge your assumptions, like: “Oh, I just couldn’t do that.” Are you sure? Bring to mind someone you know who is very self-confident, and then ask yourself: “If I was that confident, what are some of the new things I would do?”

• In particular, think about actions you could take inside your own mind. Compared to trying to change the world or the body, the mind is where we have the greatest influence, and the results are usually most enduring and consequential. For example, how could you shift your perspective, or nudge your emotional reactions in a better direction over time, or develop stronger mental capacities such as focused attention, openness, and warmth? These are all within your reach.

* * *

Each day, look for the ways – mainly little ones, with some occasional bigees – you could take the actions you can toward your values, out there in the world, in your body, and in your mind. It may not be much on any single day, but over time it will add up to make a big difference for you and those around you.

When I don’t know what to do about some difficulty, sometimes I think of a saying from a boy named Nkosi Johnson, from South Africa. Like many children there, Nkosi was born with HIV, and he died when he was 12. Before that happened, he became a nationally-known advocate for people with AIDS. His “mantra,” as he called it, always touches my heart:

Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.

That’s all anyone can ever do.

November 26, 2010 0 comment

VividLife Talks

Buddha’s Brain with Rick Hanson LIVE Wed. Jan. 13th at 2 pm EST

written by VividLife Admin

Tune in LIVE on Wednesday, January 13th at 2 pm EST on VividLife Radio.

Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist who has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being, psychological growth, and contemplative practice – as well as about relationships, family life, and raising children. He founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, www.WiseBrain.org.

Dr. Hanson’s latest book is Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom with Rick Mendius, M.D. (Foreword by Daniel Siegel, Preface by Jack Cornfield, PhD.; New Harbinger, Nov 2009) www.buddhasbrain.com

Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and other great teachers were born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s. Then they used their minds to change their brains in ways that changed history.

Well-referenced and grounded in science, the book is full of practical tools and skills readers can use in daily life to tap the unused potential of the brain—and rewire it over time for greater peace and well-being.

With a Foreword by Daniel Siegel, M.D. and a Preface by Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., Buddha’s Brain joins the forces of modern science with ancient teachings to show readers how to have greater emotional balance in turbulent times, as well as healthier relationships, more effective actions, and a deeper religious or spiritual practice. The book shows readers many effective ways to light up the brain circuits that relieve worry and stress, and promote positive relationships and inner peace.

If you can change your brain, you can change your life.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist, a meditation teacher and is a weekly contributor to psychology-today.com. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles and a graduate of the Community Dharma Leader training program of Spirit Rock, he teaches at Spirit Rock, Sati Center, and other organizations. He and his wife have two children and live in Marin County, CA.

January 12, 2010 1 comment

•-Feature Spirituality

A Caring, Joyful Heart

written by VividLife Editorial

by Rick Hanson, Ph.D

As you probably know, compassion and lovingkindness are central elements of

Buddhism.

They arise naturally in response to one of those three fundamental characteristics of

existence: interdependence/not-self/emptiness. They are also a beautiful path of

spiritual practice. And they just feel good: “Through compassion one is free from

lethargy and depression.”

(Acariya Dhammapala)

Interestingly, a scientifically based tradition as hard-headed as Western psychology

is also beginning to find that working with compassion and related heartfelt feelings

has both mental and physical benefits.

For example, the Institute of HeartMath (in Boulder Creek, California) has researched

connections between the heart and emotional well-being.

Even a regular heartbeat – e.g., 60 times a minute – still has a little variability in the

interval between each beat. A large and smoothly changing variation in those

intervals changes your brain waves, activates the para-sympathetic nervous system,

lowers blood pressure, supports the immune system, and has other health benefits.

It also helps you feel more peaceful and happy and caring.

So let’s try a simple technique that can bring your heart beat into a healthier rhythm.

It has three parts:

• Breathe in such a way that the length of your inhalation and exhalation are the

same (perhaps counting in your mind to make the breaths even).

• Imagine that the breath is coming into and out of the area of your heart.

• As you breathe evenly through your heart, call to mind a pleasant, heartfelt

emotion such as gratitude, kindness, contentment, or love — perhaps by thinking

about a happy time, being with your children, gratitude for the good things in your

life, a close friend, etc. You can also imagine that feeling moving through your heart

as part of the breath.

Why don’t you try this for a few minutes, right now?

Just three to five cycles of this sort of breathing can have a noticeable effect. Also try

five to ten minutes straight sometime, and see how that feels.

Of course, there are other ways to cultivate compassion, such as through metta – or

compassion and lovingkindness – meditation that many people here are familiar

with. In fact, metta practice could also help release oxytocin, a hormone that is

involved in warm feelings of safety and contentment – and is released in women

when they are nursing, to give you a sense of its qualities.

Enjoy!

* * *

A Meditation on Gratitude

Set aside a quiet time during which you can reflect on some of the many things you could be

thankful for. As a starting point, you might read the passage below to yourself or out loud,

adapting it to your situation as you like.

There really is so much to be thankful for.

I am grateful to my friends. For their good qualities, for the good things they have

done for me. For the ways they are fun, for the good times we’ve had.

I am grateful for my children – if I have any – for the delight and love they bring, for

the sweet smell of their hair and the soft touch of their skin. For the first time they

smiled at me or walked into my arms. For the meaning they bring to life. For

receiving my love and lessons. For being their own persons, for giving me their own

love and lessons. Having them at all is a miracle, and the rest is details.

I appreciate myself. For the love I have given to others, for all the conversations had,

for all the helpful acts toward others, for all the dishes done. For the long hours I’ve

worked, the hoops I’ve jumped through to keep all those balls up in the air. For the

efforts I’ve made, the many times I’ve stayed patient, the many times I’ve found

more to give inside when I thought I was empty.

I appreciate my lovers and mates, past and present. I can focus on one of these

persons, perhaps my spouse or mate if I’m currently in a relationship, and bring to

mind the ways he or she has been good to me. I appreciate the fun we’ve had

together, the humor and the companionship. I feel grateful for the times of support,

understanding, and sympathy. For sweating and suffering too.

I feel thankful for the life I’ve already had, for the good parts of my childhood, for

everything I’ve learned, for good friends and beautiful sights. For the roof over my

head and the bread on my table, for being able to have a life that is healthier, longer,

and freer than most people have ever dreamed of. For this beautiful world, where

each breath is a gift of air, each dawn a gift of light. For the plants and animals that

die so I may live. For the extraordinary gifts of evolution I carry in each cell of my

body, for the capabilities accumulated during three and a half billion years of life’s

presence on our planet.

I feel thankful for the wonder of the universe, for all the atoms in my body—the

carbon in my bones, the oxygen and iron in my blood—that were born in the heart of

a star billions of years ago, to drift through space, to form a sun and planets, to form

the hand that holds this piece of paper and the eye that reads this word.

I feel thankful for all that was in order for me to be. For grace, for wisdom, for the

sacred, for spirit as I know it. For this moment, this breath, this sight. For every good

thing that was, that is, that ever will be.

As you probably know, compassion and lovingkindness are central elements of Buddhism.

They arise naturally in response to one of those three fundamental characteristics of existence: interdependence/not-self/emptiness. They are also a beautiful path of spiritual practice. And they just feel good:

“Through compassion one is free from lethargy and depression.” (Acariya Dhammapala)

Interestingly, a scientifically based tradition as hard-headed as Western psychology is also beginning to find that working with compassion and related heartfelt feelings has both mental and physical benefits.

For example, the Institute of HeartMath (in Boulder Creek, California) has researched connections between the heart and emotional well-being.

Even a regular heartbeat – e.g., 60 times a minute – still has a little variability in the interval between each beat. A large and smoothly changing variation in those intervals changes your brain waves, activates the para-sympathetic nervous system, lowers blood pressure, supports the immune system, and has other health benefits.

It also helps you feel more peaceful and happy and caring.

So let’s try a simple technique that can bring your heart beat into a healthier rhythm.

It has three parts:

• Breathe in such a way that the length of your inhalation and exhalation are the same (perhaps counting in your mind to make the breaths even).

• Imagine that the breath is coming into and out of the area of your heart.

• As you breathe evenly through your heart, call to mind a pleasant, heartfelt emotion such as gratitude, kindness, contentment, or love — perhaps by thinking about a happy time, being with your children, gratitude for the good things in your life, a close friend, etc. You can also imagine that feeling moving through your heart as part of the breath.

Why don’t you try this for a few minutes, right now?

Just three to five cycles of this sort of breathing can have a noticeable effect. Also try five to ten minutes straight sometime, and see how that feels.

Of course, there are other ways to cultivate compassion, such as through metta – or compassion and lovingkindness – meditation that many people here are familiar with. In fact, metta practice could also help release oxytocin, a hormone that is involved in warm feelings of safety and contentment – and is released in women when they are nursing, to give you a sense of its qualities.

Enjoy!

* * *

A Meditation on Gratitude

Set aside a quiet time during which you can reflect on some of the many things you could be thankful for. As a starting point, you might read the passage below to yourself or out loud, adapting it to your situation as you like.

There really is so much to be thankful for.

I am grateful to my friends. For their good qualities, for the good things they have done for me. For the ways they are fun, for the good times we’ve had.

I am grateful for my children – if I have any – for the delight and love they bring, for the sweet smell of their hair and the soft touch of their skin. For the first time they smiled at me or walked into my arms. For the meaning they bring to life. For receiving my love and lessons. For being their own persons, for giving me their own love and lessons. Having them at all is a miracle, and the rest is details.

I appreciate myself. For the love I have given to others, for all the conversations had, for all the helpful acts toward others, for all the dishes done. For the long hours I’ve worked, the hoops I’ve jumped through to keep all those balls up in the air. For the efforts I’ve made, the many times I’ve stayed patient, the many times I’ve found more to give inside when I thought I was empty.

I appreciate my lovers and mates, past and present. I can focus on one of these persons, perhaps my spouse or mate if I’m currently in a relationship, and bring to mind the ways he or she has been good to me. I appreciate the fun we’ve had together, the humor and the companionship. I feel grateful for the times of support, understanding, and sympathy. For sweating and suffering too.

I feel thankful for the life I’ve already had, for the good parts of my childhood, for everything I’ve learned, for good friends and beautiful sights. For the roof over my head and the bread on my table, for being able to have a life that is healthier, longer, and freer than most people have ever dreamed of. For this beautiful world, where each breath is a gift of air, each dawn a gift of light. For the plants and animals that die so I may live. For the extraordinary gifts of evolution I carry in each cell of my body, for the capabilities accumulated during three and a half billion years of life’s presence on our planet.

I feel thankful for the wonder of the universe, for all the atoms in my body—the carbon in my bones, the oxygen and iron in my blood—that were born in the heart of a star billions of years ago, to drift through space, to form a sun and planets, to form the hand that holds this piece of paper and the eye that reads this word.

I feel thankful for all that was in order for me to be. For grace, for wisdom, for the sacred, for spirit as I know it. For this moment, this breath, this sight. For every good thing that was, that is, that ever will be.

VividLife.me Contributor

drrh@comcast.net

www.WiseBrain.org

www.rickhanson.net

December 2, 2009 2 comments

•-Feature

Buddha's Brain with Rick Hanson LIVE January 13th at 2 pm EST

written by VividLife Admin

Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist who has written and taught extensively about the essential inner skills of personal well-being, psychological growth, and contemplative practice – as well as about relationships, family life, and raising children. He founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, www.WiseBrain.org.

Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and other great teachers were born with brains built essentially like anyone else’s. Then they used their minds to change their brains in ways that changed history.

If you can change your brain, you can change your life.

January 11, 2010 0 comment