Rick Hanson
PhD
Free
Rick Hanson : Bio Expert
Rick Hanson Quick Facts
- Main Areas
- Neuroscience, Meditation
- Best Sellers
- Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom.
- Career Focus
- Author, Speaker, Meditation Teacher
- Affiliation
- Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, APA, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence.
You can follow Rick on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/rickhansonphd.
Free Articles & Book Excerpts
Free Audio & Video Samples
Rick Hanson Audio & Video Programs
Buddha's Brain on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/buddhasbrain
The Enlightened Brain Online Course
http://bit.ly/RickHansonAudio
Awaken Your Brain
http://bit.ly/RickHansonAudio
Stress-Proof Your Brain
http://bit.ly/RickHansonAudio
Meditations for Happiness
http://bit.ly/RickHansonAudio
Meditations to Change Your Brain
http://bit.ly/RickHansonAudio
Rick Hanson Books
Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572246952?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwrickhanson-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1572246952
Mother Nurture
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000620?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwrickhanson-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0142000620
Articles by this expert
SelfGrowth articles and saved writing connected to this expert. Showing 12 of 254.
Article
Give No One Cause To Fear
We evolved to be afraid. The ancient ancestors that were casual and blithely hopeful, underestimating the risks around them - predators, loss of food, aggression from others of their kind - did not pass on their genes. But the ones that were nervous were very successful - and we are their great-grandchildren, sitting atop the food chain.
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Speak From The Heart
One Christmas I hiked down into the Grand Canyon, whose bottom lay a vertical mile below the rim. Its walls were layered like a cake, and a foot-high stripe of red or gray rock indicated million-plus years of erosion by the Colorado River. Think of water - so soft and gentle - gradually carving through the hardest stone to reveal great beauty. Sometimes what seems weakest is actually the most powerful.
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What Can I Do?
I'm doing a series on my personal top five practices (all tied for first place), and have so far named three: meditate (including mindfulness, self-awareness, and, if you like, prayer), take in the good, and bless (including compassion, generosity, and love).
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Receive Faces
[Note: this practice involves our visual system, which for many people is impaired. If this is the case for you, you could adapt my suggestions to focus on the voices of others or a sense of their “energy.”]
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Turning a Negative Nelly Into a Positive Polly.
I’ve been talking about ways to Hardwire Your Happiness on the blog lately. So I thought it would be great to give you a sense of how it feels to take in the good. If you are someone who usually focuses on the negative experiences in the world you can turn that around over time by Taking in the Good. I’ll suggest some prompts here that you can use in your everyday life to start changing the negativity bias in our lives into Teflon for the positive. Take my prompt and go through the first three steps outlined below on your own. STEP 1. Have a positive experience
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Wishing well?
Lately, I've been wondering what would be on my personal list of top five practices (all tied for first place). You might ask yourself the same question, knowing that you can cluster related practices under a single umbrella, your list may differ from mine, and your practices may change over time. In these JOTs, so far I've written about two of my top practices: - Meditate - Mindfulness, training attention, contemplation, concentration, absorption, non-ordinary consciousness, liberating insight
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What Can You Do When Nothing Is Working?
In response to a previous JOT - Find Stillness - a wise therapist, Betsy Sansby, reminded me that sometimes a person just can't find any stillness anywhere. Maybe you have epilepsy or chronic pain, or are wildly worried about a child or other loved one, or have been rejected in love or had the bottom fall out financially. In other words, as Betsy put it, like there's a nest of bees in your chest. She's right.
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Drop Tart Tone
I remember times I felt frazzled or aggravated and then said something with an edge to it that just wasn't necessary or useful. Sometimes it was the words themselves: such as absolutes like "never" or always" or over-the-top phrases like "you're such a flake" or "that was stupid." More often, it was the intonation in my voice, a harsh vibe or look, interrupting, or a certain intensity in my body. However, I did it.
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Is It Truly Urgent?
Things come at us with so much urgency and demand these days. Phones ring, texts buzz, emails pile up, new balls have to be juggled, work days lengthen and move into evenings and weekends, traffic gets denser, financial demands feel like a knife at the neck, ads and news clamor for attention, push push push PUSH.
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Be At Peace With The Pain Of Others
Humans are an empathic, compassionate, and loving species, so it is natural to feel sad, worried, or fiery about the troubles and pain of other people. (And about those of cats and dogs and other animals, but I'll focus on human beings here.)
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Accept Difficulty
Sometimes things are difficult. Your legs are tired and you still have to stay on your feet another hour at work. You love a child who's finding her independence through emotional distance from you. A long-term relationship could be losing its spark. It's finals week in college. You're trying to start a business and it's struggling. You've got a chronic health problem or a disability. Sometimes people don't appreciate your work. You're being discriminated against or otherwise treated unjustly. The body ages, sags, and grows weary.
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Where Does It Hurt?
We're usually aware of our own suffering, which - broadly defined - includes the whole range of physical and mental discomfort, from mild headache or anxiety to the agony of bone cancer or the anguish of losing a child. (Certainly, there is more to life than suffering, including great joy and fulfillment; that said, we'll sustain a single focus here.)
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Other highlights
View all upcoming teaching and speaking engagements at http://www.rickhanson.net/teaching/calendar.