Dr. Richard Davidson – Harvard educated professor, expert in emotions, author and long time friend of the Dalai Lama.

Do you know how long “meditate daily” has been on my to-do list? Probably twice as long as “go to the dentist” has been on yours.  For me, the act of meditation represents everything that is calming, and the fact that I never meditate represents everything that is hectic.  In a world where you have so many worries including your family, bills, career, and more, when do you have time to sit in a room and think about….well….nothing?

The truth is, our brain wasn’t meant to be so over stimulated every second of the day.  With the pace of life increasing at an almost unimaginable rate, it becomes more imperative to sit down, relax,  get out of the way, and let your brain just be.  Especially given all of the research that shows, the better we treat our brain – the better it will treat us.  The cool thing is, meditation is just one tool in our tool belt that we can use to change the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we experience the world. Given the plasticity of the brain, there are many ways to improve the quality of our life through optimizing our brain.  Want to learn more about it? That’s what I thought.

This week we interview Dr. Richard Davidson, a true expert in the field of neuroscience. Dr. Davidson is the Director of the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, and Founder and Chair of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Psychology and is the author of the new book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain.  Oh, and Dr. Davidson has the Dalai Lama on speed dial – they’re that tight.