Richard j davidson biography of barack obama

Krista Tippett, host: What if the future of well-being is about tipping the scales in the world away from fear and toward love? And what if it’s a surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who talks this way? I engaged him, together with his friend, the groundbreaking neuroscientist Richard Davidson.

I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being.

[music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoë Keating]

This conversation was part of a Zoom event hosted by the Center for Healthy Minds. Richard Davidson, who everyone knows as “Richie,” welcomed the online audience, and I offered an introduction.

Hello. It’s such an honor and a pleasure to be here. If any of you have listened to me or read things I’ve been writing over the last few years, I have so often used these words. I have said, you know, as we walk beyond what we’ve been living through, we have a world to remake. And so, of course, I had to say yes to this invitation, to this event called “The World We Make,” and in the context of drawing out Richard Davidson and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and their deep intelligence and vision from the realms of science and public health, expansively understood, about the agency we have and how we are learning about the [agency] we have to grow and shape our minds and our bodies and our presence, in and to the world.

It’s such a strange and hard and fascinating time. We are called to be part of so much healing and so much growth, and at the same time, we are learning a great deal that can help move us forward as a species. So I think that is my audacious vision for what we’re going to — the ground we will traverse in this next hour. So. I also want to encourage the two of you to speak to each other. This will be a conversation.

And I’d like to start with the language of well-being. That is kind of a primary concept. It’s a word and a phrase that is used a great deal by the two of you. It’s relatively new in our life together, and really, we are having these rapidly

On a bone-chilling night in late January, a capacity crowd of roughly 400 people packed the main auditorium at First Unitarian Society on Madison's west side.

The man everyone came to see was selected by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the world's 100 most influential people. He's in regular contact with the Dalai Lama. His work has made him a veritable rock star in the world of neuroscience.

Yet UW-Madison researcher Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., known simply as "Richie" to friends and colleagues, seemed to genuinely enjoy taking questions from the public just as much as he might from scientific colleagues.

Punctuating his talk with humor, and frequently flashing a broad smile, Davidson seemed thoroughly at ease. The 57-year-old Madison resident (he lives on the west side with his wife, Susan, a perinatologist at St. Mary's Hospital) spoke fluidly without notes for more than an hour, moving freely about the stage.

Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry and director of the UW's Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience, was speaking on neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain to remain flexible, adaptable and trainable. It's one of the foundations of his work.

The adult brain, scientists now realize, continues to make about 5,000 new cells per day. It is ever changing, or "plastic," throughout life.

"Traits formerly considered to be fixed are really not," said Davidson. "They're characteristics that can be changed through training."

In other words, human beings have more control over our minds than previously thought. And one way of training the brain is meditation - another main focus of Davidson's work.

"We're carrying our own laboratory between our ears, and we just need to use it," Davidson told the crowd.

One audience member asked about the potential benefits of meditation for prisoners. It was a prescient question: On Thursday, March 26, Davidson will participate in a panel discussion following a