Rick Hanson's Blog, page 116

Modern Science Meets Ancient Wisdom

In the 21st century, modern brain science and ancient contemplative wisdom are illuminating each other. Besides being fascinating in its own right, this cross-fertilization and growing integration spotlights increasingly effective waysfor using your mind to change your brain to benefit your whole being– and those you touch.

The Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, of which I am a Founding member, offers a growing body of information about theneuroscienceof psychologi...

Interview on Self-Directed Brain Change – Part 2

In the second half of a two-part interview, based on my program Self-Directed Brain Change,Tami Simon and I speak about how we can move from a “red” reactive state to a “green” state of calm, how this progression aligns with the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, and my vision for how how healthy brains can change the state of our world. Listen here.

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Accept Difficulity

Is it hard?

The Practice:

Accept difficulty.

Why?

Sometimes things are difficult. Your legs are tired and you still have to stay on your feet another hour at work. You love a child who’s finding her independence through emotional distance from you. A long-term relationship could be losing its spark. It’s finals week in college. You’re trying to start a business and it’s struggling. You’ve got a chronic health problem or a disability. Sometimes people don’t appreciate your work. You’re being discr...

Handling Blocks to Any Inner Practice—Meditation, Yoga, Gratitude, Mindfulness

When you try to change your life for better, sometimes you bump into a block, such as distracting thoughts. Blocks are common. They’re not bad or wrong—but they do get in the way. What works is to explore them with self-acceptance, and see what you can learn about yourself. One valuable aspect of taking in the good is that it often reveals other issues, such as an underlying reluctance to let yourself feel good. Then you can address these issues with the suggestions below. With practice and t...

The Importance of Gratitude and Gladness for a Happy Life

Gratitude and Gladness

Gratitude is a feeling of thankfulness about something you have been given. Gladness is a more general sense of feeling pleased, rewarded, delighted, or happy about something, without it necessarily being a gift. Much of the time these two sweet feelings form a blend, so we’ll explore them together here. Gratitude, gladness, and related feelings like appreciation may seem so homey and Hallmark cardish that they’re easy to dismiss, but studies in fact show that cultivatin...

Preliminary Findings on the Taking in the Good Course

Resilience, positive emotions, compassion, gratitude, and other inner strengths lower stress, grow well-being and effectiveness, and heal anxiety and depression. Like any other mental capability, inner strengths are supported by structures in the brain. So, how can a person develop the neural networks that support inner strengths?

Through what’s called “experience-dependent neuroplasticity,” the main way to develop inner strengths is to have experiences of them; repeated feelings of gratitude...

Hardwiring Our Children’s Happiness

I’ve used taking in the good with young people in therapy and also spoken with parents and teachers who have used it with their own children or students. As with an adult, there are four ways to offer the HEAL steps to a child, while naturally adapting them to the child’s age and situation.

First, you can guide a child through the steps of taking in the good without drawing explicit attention to them. You either encourage a positive experience in the first place or if one is already happening,...

Turning a Negative Nelly Into a Positive Polly

I’ve been talking about ways to Hardwire Your Happiness on the blog lately. So I thought it would be great to give you a sense of how it feels to take in the good. If you are someone who usually focuses on the negative experiences in the world you can turn that around over time by Taking in the Good. I’ll suggest some prompts here that you can use in your everyday life to start changing the negativity bias in our lives into Teflon for the positive. Take my prompt and go through the first thre...

How to Build a Happier Brain – Atlantic Article Tweet

Here's my latest article in The Atlantic – "How to Build a Happier Brain" – http://t.co/vHQ4IpAaPW

— Rick Hanson (@drrhanson) October 24, 2013

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Interview on Self-Directed Brain Change – Part 1

In the first half of a two-part interview based on my program Self-Directed Brain Change,Tami Simon and I speakabout the ways we can “install” positive brain states as lasting traits; how we can respond in situations when we feel our basic needs are threatened; and the three ways of working with unpleasant experiences—letting be, letting go, and letting in. Listen here.

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