Richard Davidson:
of cultivating positive outlook.
When you do those simple kinds of practices
we've shown that both behavior and the brain changes
and it doesn't take much.
( Applause )
There are four constituents of well-being that have been
seriously neuroscientifically investigated.
And one of the interesting things
about each of these four is
we understand something about the brain circuits
that are associated with them
and each of these circuits exhibits plasticity.
The first is resilience. We define resilience as
the rapidity with which you recover from adversity.
And it turns out that
people who recover quickly from adversity do much better.
They clearly have higher levels of well-being
and we understand something about
the brain mechanisms that underlie this
and we can measure this in particular neural systems.
The amygdala is a region of the brain
which is critical for emotion, in particular for threat.
And we can measure the time course of activation
in the amygdala and it turns out that after a certain period
of doing simple forms of mindfulness meditation
you begin to show a more resilient profile.
The second is positive outlook.
Positive outlook is being able to see
the innate basic goodness in each other.
And being able to savor positive experiences.
So that when we have a warm hearted interaction
with a loved one, say in the morning
how long does that glow last?
Does it permeate most of your day?
Or does it dissipate very quickly?
There are very simple ways of cultivating positive outlook.
There are whole group of simple, contemplative practices
that focus on generating loving kindness and compassion
for individuals who are loved ones, who may be suffering
as well as for individuals who may be strangers
people you don't really know very well
and then even individuals who push your buttons
who are difficult people.
And envisioning them in a genuine way
and cultivating the strong aspiration that
they too be relieved of suffering and are happy
and enjoy well-being.
When you do those simple kinds of practices
we've shown that both behavior and the brain changes
and it doesn't take much.
We published a study just a couple of years ago
where we did this training online.
This is just a very simple form of compassion training.
And we see that after two weeks of training
where people are practicing for 30 minutes a day
people behave in a more pro-social way on tasks
that are designed to measure altruistic behavior.
And these changes in behavior were highly correlated
with changes in the brain.
And these are regions that are important for positive outlook
and they show systematic changes
after just two weeks of modest training.
The third constituent of well-being is something that
you might not typically regard as important for well-being.
But to paraphrase a subtitle
of a recent, important scientific paper
"A wandering mind is an unhappy mind."
Recent evidence suggests and this...
this was collected using smartphones and
probing people with text, simple text messages
as they go about their day.
And they ask people three questions.
One is, "What are you doing right now?"
And they had to just click off on a list
and indicate what they are doing.
Second question is, "Where is your mind right now?"
Is it focused on what you're doing
or is it focused elsewhere?"
And the third question is, "Right now--
how happy or unhappy are you, right at this moment?"
Those are the three questions.
The findings from that study revealed
that the average American adult
spends 47 percent of her-his waking life
not paying attention to what they are doing.
( audience laughter )
Forty seven percent of the time!
I would like to invite us to consider the possibility
that we can do better!
( Audience laughter )
And just imagine, the cost in human suffering
in economic terms of that kind of distractibility.
It is staggering!
If there's one body of evidence that
we really have confidence in it's that
attention indeed can be learned.
And one of the ways to think about this
one of the most commonly taught forms of mindfulness meditation
involves becoming aware of your breathing
where you focus your awareness on the abdomen
as it's rising and falling when you're breathing or
the sensations at the tip of your nostril. I mean this is not
the most interesting compelling stimulus in the world.
But, if you can pay attention to your breath
you can pay attention to almost anything else.
And so, this is really a very effective form of training.
And, when you notice your mind has wandered, which it will
you simply gently bring it back to the object of focus.
It really is about the simplest kind of practice imaginable yet
it has these profound effects on the brain and on behavior.
The fourth is Generosity.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence now showing
that acts of generosity promote well-being
they activate specific brain networks and
it's the single easiest way to get these networks activated.
One of the things that we've been doing
is exploring the nurturing of generosity early in life.
And we've developed a curriculum for pre-school children
that we call the "kindness curriculum".
This is a curriculum that includes
both mindfulness and kindness.
Now, why did we choose pre-school kids?
There are three major periods of increased plasticity
in the brain in the early years of life.
One is right around birth.
The second is around the onset of schooling
between the ages of five and seven years.
And the third is around adolescence.
These are periods when the brain is radically reorganized
and are opportunities for intervention.
So, that's one reason why we chose the pre-school period.
The second reason is that there are robust data showing
that a child's ability at four and five years of age
to regulate his or her own behavior is a strong predictor
of major life outcomes when they are in their early 30s.
In fact, it's a better predictor than IQ
than grade point average
and standardized test scores all put together.
And what it predicts in the early 30s
are major life outcomes. It predicts physical health
it predicts the likelihood of substance abuse.
It predicts the likelihood of court-verified
criminal convictions in large longitudinal research
and it also predicts financial success
with very careful controls for the socio-economic status
of the families of origin.
So, we have a moral obligation, I think
in this culture to do everything we can
to facilitate kids starting out on a positive trajectory.
And one of the things that we did
to assess the impact of this curriculum is
we needed to develop novel measure of kindness
and pro-social behavior in these young kids.
And so, we developed what we call
the "Self-Other Sharing" task. So, what is this?
We chose a currency that is valued very highly
among pre-school children.
( Audience laughter )
Stickers.
And what we did is something incredibly simple.
We gave the kids two envelopes.
One envelope we had a picture of themselves which is not on here.
And another envelope we had pictures
of different kinds of kids.
And we did socio-metric ratings in each classroom
and we found out who each child's best friend was, and
we found out who each child's least favorite person was.
And then we also had a picture of
an obviously sick looking child, which is shown here
and we also had a picture of a child
that we call the stranger child
who the child had never seen before.
And then we gave them a bunch of stickers each time and we said
"Please place the stickers in the envelopes
according to who you'd like to give them to.
You can keep as many for yourself
or you can give them to others."
What we found is the kids who were
randomly assigned to the kindness curriculum
showed more pro-social behavior, more kindness on this task
than the kids who were receiving the standard curriculum.
And actually the sad fact is that at least in the classrooms
that we studied over the course of the pre-school year
kids who get the standard curriculum
become increasingly selfish as the year goes along.
We also gave them other metrics that measure self-regulation.
And one of those metrics is something that
many of you have probably heard about before
which is a measure of the delay of gratification.
And it turns out that a child's ability to delay gratification
at four and five years of age is one of the
strongest predictors of these adult life outcomes.
And I'd like to just show you a little video clip
that illustrates these original experiments
for how it was originally done.
Okay, so here's the deal.
Here's a marshmallow. You can either wait
and I'll bring you back another one, so you can have two.
Or you can eat it now.
So, you can eat it now
or you can wait and I'll bring you back two, okay?
Okay, I'll be back.
( instrumental jazz music )
-Careful. -Miss?
Oh, what happened?
Oh, okay.
( instrumental jazz music )
Oh, how good! You waited.
You get two!
Woman: Good job! ( clapping )
You can eat it.
You can eat it now.
( Audience laughter )
Okay, very important skill
and it turns out that although kids differ dramatically
as you can see in their behavior
this can be changed and this can be learned.
Thank you very much.
( Applause )