“When people go to the gym, for example, they know pretty much what’s going to happen, and how it’s going to happen. Lifting weights causes muscles to stretch and even tear a little, causing lactic acid to build up, causing the muscles to rebuild themselves bigger and with more capacity than they had before. It’s a physical process, and while trainers will debate the best methods until the end of time, the basic operation is clearly understood.

Meditation is similar. If you do the work, predictable changes in the mind and the brain tend to result, in a fairly reliable way. This, in a sense, is the very opposite of spirituality—and it’s certainly not religion either. It’s more like working out: Each time I come back to the breath, I’m strengthening very specific neural networks.”

~ Jay Michaelson

"There's a lot more going on in your brain and your body than you can ever be aware of. And yet, most people identify themselves with this little flash-lit area of consciousness."

~ Rae Armantrout 

"Brains seek a balance between exploiting the knowledge we’ve earned and exploring new surprises. In developing over eons, brains have gotten this tension well balanced – an exploration/exploitation tradeoff that strikes the balance between flexibility and rigor. Too much predictability and we tune out; too much surprise and we become disoriented. We live in a constant tug-of-war between routine and novelty. Creativity lies within that tension."

~ David Eagleman

"We're all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It's just that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call that reality."

~ Anil Seth

"If one practices the skills of well-being, one will get better at it." 

~ Dr. Richard Davidson

Readers like stories when they feel engaged by them. Whether the story is pleasant, neutral or unpleasant matter doesn’t really matter. Readers simply enjoy the feeling of being engaged by a story.

"The implication here is that every moment of your life becomes an opportunity for changing your worldview and facilitating a sustainably healthy mind."

~ David R. Vago, Ph.D.

"The entire orchestration of the symphony of mind unfolds like changes in a music score, and while there is no single, master conductor, the decentralized process does have hot spots of top-down modulation linked by connections built over evolutionary time."

~ Antonio Damasio

"We have this strong idea, in the culture and in the language, that emotion and touch are deeply linked, and I think the neuroanatomy bears this out."

~ David Linden

How exactly does meditation affect your body?

On a mindfulness retreat, Anderson Cooper puts down the microphone and learns to love silence, as well as life without a cell phone.

Have Judson Brewer and his colleagues finally found a clue to how the reduction of suffering looks in the brain? Not the activation of a specific region, but a more general deactivation, a neurological letting go that parallels the experiential one?

Broadcaster, meditator, and author Dan Harris engaged mind scientist and renowned sceptic Sam Harris about his new exploration of spirituality recently released book, Waking Up.

"I think we’re looking at meditation as the next big public health revolution." ~ Dan Harris

"Educators are worried that you need that content for the exams that you're going to take, but what's more important is that you should want to learn. What's more important is for you to know how to find that information if you need it. What's more important is for you to learn how to problem solve and use that information." ~ Adele Diamond

"If you've put off practicing meditation because you envision that it requires long periods of practice before realizing any benefit, take heart: These studies show even a short period a day—probably less than what you spend surfing the Internet—increases your cognitive judgment and your emotional resilience." ~ Doubglas LaBier