From the Blog
Writings on Well-Being Dr. Rick Hanson
Being Well Podcast: Improving Focus and Fixing Your Attention Span
Dr. Rick and Forrest explore improving focus and fixing our attention spans in a world that is constantly trying to distract us.
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Being Well Podcast: Empathy
Today we’re focusing on Empathy, which allows us to tune into and understand other people. Empathy is a key social skill that helps us make sense of nuance, read intentions correctly, recognize the hurt under anger, and communicate and interact more skillfully.
Take in the Good
Taking in the good is a brain-science savvy and psychologically skillful way to improve how you feel, get things done, and treat others.
One Minute for Good
Practicing taking in a sense of protection, relaxation, pleasure, enthusiasm, self-compassion, feeling like a good person—and of course the hallmarks of the responsive brain: peace, contentment, and love, creates a foundational inner strength that I've seen change my...
Stay Well
To stay well, make sure you’re getting enough sleep, eating correctly, doing exercise regularly, avoiding health hazards, and having regular checkups.
Being Well Podcast: Linking
On today’s episode of the Being Well podcast, Dr. Rick Hanson discusses “linking” – how we can use new, positive experiences to soften and eventually replace old, negative ones.
Being Well Podcast: Key Resource Experiences
On today’s episode of the Being Well podcast, Rick and Forrest Hanson talk about how we can find and use “key resource experiences” – experiences that we can match to our unique vulnerabilities in order to grow the strengths we need the most.
How Your Childhood Experiences Shape You
Your experiences as a child make a big impact on your own sense of autonomy, and how it affects your relationships. In the excerpt below, we’ll explore how your childhood has impacted your own sense of intimacy.
Being Well Podcast: Enriching and Absorbing
On today’s episode of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Rick Hanson explores the “installation” stage of learning in detail, including how we can internalize the various positive aspects of any experience to grow the strengths we need the most. 0:50: What attracted you to...
Rick Hanson on the Deconstructing Yourself podcast
Learn about the tension between accepting and changing how you’re feeling, spiritual bypassing, cultivating positive states of mind, and more.
Feeling Successful
Experiences of meeting your goals feel good, lower stress, and build positive motivation. They reassure you that you’re making progress, which helps you stay in the Responsive mode – in the green zone – as you go through your day.
Three Reasons to Be For Yourself
Imagine treating yourself like you do a friend. You’d be encouraging, warm, and sympathetic. You wouldn’t pour salt in your wounds, and you’d help yourself heal and grow. Think about what a typical day would be like if you were on your own side. Would you appreciate your good intentions and good heart? Would you be less self-critical?
Being Well Podcast: Being On Your Own Side
In this episode of Season 2 of the Being Well Podcast, Dr. Rick Hanson focuses on the importance of self-compassion - and particularly on why it's important to get "on your own side" in order to be more resilient and create lasting, positive change in the brain....
Wise Brain Bulletin: Volume 11.6
In this volume of the Wise Brain Bulletin from December 9, 2017, Dr. Jeff Tarrant explores 4 meditation styles, Poet Jeanie Greensfelder invites us to embrace duality in A Love Story, Rick Hanson offer some tips for a stress-free holiday, plus a customizable gratitude meditation, and Stephanie Noble invites us on a rather insightful scavenger hunt.
Twelve Good Things
Each year I dedicate one issue of the Just One Thing newsletter to Twelve Good Things that I feel are really worth your attention.
The American Mindfulness Research Association
The American Mindfulness Research Association’s mission to support efforts to establish an evidence base for the process, practice, and construct of mindfulness; promote best evidence-based standards for the use of mindfulness research and its applications; and facilitate mindfulness-related dialogue and discovery.
The Neurology of Awakening: Using the New Brain Research to Deepen Your Practice – Selected Readings
A selection of books about the brain and buddhism referenced throughout The Wise Brain blog postings.
The Neurology of Awakening
Learn the methods of the Neurology of Awakening, as well as a list of nutritional supports for inner peace presented at the follow-up workshop on Awakening Your Brain.
Giving Is Good: Generosity from Everyday, Buddhist, and Evolutionary Perspectives
Giving is the first of the ten “paramis” or perfections of a Bodhisattva, a highly Awakened person who postpones his or her ultimate enlightenment to bring all beings to liberation. You can read this article within a Buddhist framework or simply for its reflections on the deeply human, widespread, and everyday matter of giving.
The Brain in Lust and Love
The marvelous human capabilities for understanding each other, and feeling understood, developed in the brain over millions of years. Learning about these can help you understand and work better with your own empathic capabilities.
Two Wolves in the Heart: The Evolution of Empathy and Aggression, Of “Us” and “Them”
Learn about the origin of the best and the worst characteristics of human beings . . . and how to nurture the good that lies inside every heart.
Empathy
This article is adapted from a talk given at James Baraz’s Awakening Joy class, 9/26/07, and it considers four questions about empathy.