Emotions are short-lived. Happiness is just one of the many emotions we experience. I think the world will eventually realize that it's not "happiness" but a feeling of calm and peace which lasts longer that comes after practicing meditation.🙏

If these introductions in every TEDx video weren’t so prolonged, I would actually be motivated to watch more of their videos.

Really loved this! She did a great job at drawing some complex topics into a short talk!

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Will Durant "Excellences we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing, e.g. men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts." - Nichomachean Ethics 2:1 or 1103a15-b25 (trans. W. D. Ross)

Thank you Willoughby Britton for this example of successfully engaging a fairly young audience and getting across the value of studying contemplative practices!

brilliant - her dialogue pulls together all the information that we need to actually, and practically, do something about our destructive habits. so helpful, so inspiring, so real. awesome, thanks heaps xo

This is an inspiring video. Hang in there with it, I think you'll be glad that you did.

I was having a bad day and this video cheered me up and gave me hope for at least myself! Thanks.

7:55 Basically our brain changes with experience and we get good at what we practice.

Such an epitome of my thoughts lately, ..love the connections~

Poignant words and inspiring thoughts. Brilliant talk :)

Thanks so much!

Excellent! I liked your concise reduction of one of the most complex, interesting and important emerging fields of study on the planet. I also liked your Vimeo sessions with Dan Ingram. Keep up the fabulous work!

Yes if you want to see the world as a better place start with yourself, create a better you.👍❤️

Awesome Will! A great primer for the Contemplative Neurosciences.

Impressive and inspiring talk I must admit

Great talk! Need more like it.

She might not be a very good public speaker, but that talk was amazingly brilliant! It had pretty much everything in it that you could want from a talk about mindfulness and neuroplasticity.

Happiness comes from within. from a bunch of activities such as meditation, gratitude, achieving professional/personal life goals you set yourself. and happiness comes from giving love and social connection. a burst of happiness comes from exercise (endorphins) but ultimately its how good you feel about yourself that really matters, not really from buying things or necessarily from money. Although money can be the conduit to happiness such as affording good nutrition a gym membership.

I can tell how nervous she is. I'm glad the crowd was so good and she was prepared enough that this went so well. Great talk

KNOWING is the first necessary step; change can only come with PRACTICE. I like this talk a lot, professor Britton; what I miss in it is: 'I HAVE practiced my mind (kindness, empathy etc.) a lot, and and I'm no longer that ...person, you know, I used to be' :)

Thank you. : )

Omg I’m a neuroscience major and I’ve been actually reading books on Buddhism

@Haseeb2 Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Great book!

Being able to quickly come up with something you don't like about yourself can show the level of introspection the person has done . Most people cannot come up with it because they haven't spent time with themselves. I disagreed how the conclusion was - oh that's self criticism. No, for people who meditate it can be self-awareness so that one can consciously improve instead of suppress.

If someone is fast in judging it was this woman. She presented a single task and three person's could not complete the task. She could have said that these people had no or low intrapersektive ability. or that they had wondering minds. And the group that could come up with what she asked, they are just good at judging/criticizing themselves and others? They could also be attentive, cooperative, fast thinkers, great at knowledge of themselves. For after this question she should also have asked, think of one strong personal trait or ability that you have. But in the way she focused on the negative she actually could have told us something about her thoughts about herself. Some people only know others thru themselves. Otherwise this was a very fruitful talk and I wish her good luck in coming presentations.

I know right!? This is absolutely awesome. And if you like this, you should definitely check out Dr. Brewer's TEDxRockCreekPark talk "You're already awesome" on meditation/neuroscience/addiction. And actually also the TEDxCollegeHill by Dr. Kerr (also at Brown Univ with Dr. Britton) called "Mindfulness starts with the body." All three are amazing. This field is too cool, and growin fast!!

an interesting approach to minfulness.

Is there a source where transcription of TED Talks are available for the befit of Hearing impaired?

The question is 'what counts as meditation' and why would meditation cause these disturbances as supposed to dreaming or just mere relaxing? There are a manifold of different meditative practices. What would be the problem with say Zen, where the focus is on not thinking (A state consonant to extremity to less than that of daydreaming, etc.) The statement that meditation can cause harmful effects might then be attributed to other Transcendental states like dreaming, daydreaming, deep thinking, on the same metric than that of meditation and might even disturb more hence the over-stimuli as supposed to just a basic relaxation otherwise known as Vipassana or Zen. Would Zen counts as Meditation in this definition?

Flow is the name of the book

Front Roll, Girl at 10:52 ! Aye Curamba!

Subtitles pleaseee

@Luciizza contemplative practices = meditation

also, can anyone in the neurosciences tell me why neuroplasctiticy seems to be still somewhat new, yet it seems built entirely on Hebbian Principles, outlined in 1949?

02:49

my criticism was that I'm way too critical way too quickly. lol.

aam aam aam good talk

this kind of goes along the same lines os the documentary of what the bleep do we know

yeah but people's baseline networks, or genetic without the epi, probably tend in one way or another, so yes plasticity means hope but you may have the "genetic" wind blowing in your face or at your back. So you may just have a baseline transcription/ translation for testosterone mores than another, leading to or from a more easily solidified neural network for aggression. sure you can work against it, but you may never through a lifetime reach your neighbors state of calm just because you are fighting against a hormonal baseline he doesn't have. I don't think all of these personality drivers are purely epigenetic with equal baselines, i mean that would seem as absurd as saying I expect everyone could look identical if they tried hard enough. Our genes are different, and no new neural growth takes place without some ease/difficulty of transcription of our pre-existing genes. Post-synaptic competition though can be vied for significantly, but how much choice do we have in the post-synaptic neurons doing the vying?

assistant professor

Would be great content, except when mixing with politics. Selfishness, hatred... are deep rooted with humanity, and to cultivate good mental habit to overcome the problems has been our history. The world needs good role models not just fancy talks. OBL practices hatred in the first place, and peoples found a relief from his hatred when he was killed. They found sense of relief and not just hatred as mentioned. I am the starting point by practicing goodness instead of other elements...

This is the basic message for every self help book for the last 30 + years with some new "terminology" not to mention thousands of years of scholars and so called mysticism.

Would. HI NEOGAF!

tldr - think positive and be positive... this is new, lol

No content in the talk...few technically wrong terms...confused ideas...

i cant pay attention to this

cliffs: hurrrrrrrrrrrr durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr herp derpderpderp derka skooglywoogly

Is it me or she felt like crying sometimes?

Olympic athletes of self-criticism eh? Sounds about right, sad to say.

What she is saying is pretty much common sense bottom line. I think we've created all these "syndroms" via our hideously short attention spans!

I am sorry, these types of talks drive me insane, happiness is linked to comparisons - how happy are we now vs how happy were we last year,how happy are we in comparison to our peers. We are a relatively new species, We are biologically programmed to survive and procreate NOT to pursue happiness, we are blessed in this country,We dwell to much on self because we have time,we need to stop thinking about ourselves and start looking beyond to ourselves to our fellow man,then we will find happiness.

cant listen, cant even watch... "this". bye.