Richard Davidson

Mindfulness meditation carves new channels in the streambeds of the mind.

As with every dimension of Emotional Style, enduring change will come about through mental practice that shifts patterns of neural activity.

The brain is neither immutable nor static but continuously remodeled by the lives we lead.

Transforming your skill in attention will require some practice, but because attention is the building block for so much else, I believe it’s worth the effort. And I’m confident that most people will experience some benefit in a short period of time.

Since the brain contains the physical underpinnings of Emotional Style, and since the brain can change in these fundamental ways, Emotional Styles can change.

I wasn’t interested in measuring the patterns of brain activity that accompany meditation, though that might be perfectly interesting. Instead, I hoped to see how thousands and thousands of hours of meditation alter brain circuitry in a sufficiently enduring way as to be perceptible when the brain is not meditating.

Just as each person has a unique fingerprint and a unique face, each of us has a unique emotional profile, one that is so much a part of who we are that those who know us well can often predict how we will respond to an emotional challenge.

I would go so far as to assert that of all the forms of human behavior and psychological states, the most powerful influence on our physical health is our emotional life.