Name: Altered Traits
ISBN: 9780399184383

Daniel Goleman

Richard J. Davidson

Goleman and Davidson sweep away the misconceptions around mindfulness and other brands of meditation, and show how smart practice can change our personal traits and even our genome for the better. Drawing on cutting-edge research, they share findings that show how meditation-- without drugs or high expense-- can cultivate qualities such as selflessness, equanimity, love and compassion, and redesign our neural circuitry.

Science Reveals how Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

Altered Traits

Ludek Bukovsky

Cristhian Tilleria

Coleman McCormick

Two New York Times–bestselling authors unveil new research showing what meditation can really do for the brain. In the last twenty years, meditation and mindfulness have gone from being kind of cool to becoming an omnipresent Band-Aid for fixing everything from your weight to your relationship to your achievement level. Unveiling here the kind of cutting-edge research that has made them giants in their fields, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson show us the truth about what meditation can really do for us, as well as exactly how to get the most out of it. Sweeping away common misconceptions and neuromythology to open readers’ eyes to the ways data has been distorted to sell mind-training methods, the authors demonstrate that beyond the pleasant states mental exercises can produce, the real payoffs are the lasting personality traits that can result. But short daily doses will not get us to the highest level of lasting positive change—even if we continue for years—without specific additions. More than sheer hours, we need smart practice, including crucial ingredients such as targeted feedback from a master teacher and a more spacious, less attached view of the self, all of which are missing in widespread versions of mind training. The authors also reveal the latest data from Davidson’s own lab that point to a new methodology for developing a broader array of mind-training methods with larger implications for how we can derive the greatest benefits from the practice. Exciting, compelling, and grounded in new research, this is one of those rare books that has the power to change us at the deepest level.

Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

Keven Wang

Mounir Bashour

Christopher Wheeler

The western world's flirtation with mind training began decades ago, but has quickened in the last few years. As mindfulness, TM, and other brands of meditation sweep through businesses, schools and clinics, Altered Traits brings a startling new perspective to an understanding of our relationship to our brain, our personal traits, and even our genome - showing that smart practice can alter these for the better. Drawing on a one-of-a-kind data pool - brain studies of world-class meditators - Goleman and Davidson sweep away common misconceptions and neuromythology to open reader's eyes to the ways data has been distorted to sell mind training methods. Simultaneously, they share for the first time remarkable findings that show potential for our cultivation of highly positive, lasting qualities, such as selflessness, equanimity, love and compassion, through meditation. Altered Traits shifts the conversation of precisely how and when mind training benefits us, revealing reveal the power of intentional, sustained mental exercise to redesign neural circuitry. Anyone who cares about improving the human condition - or their own - will find much to ponder.

Altered Traits Science Reveals how Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body