Dr. Richard Davidson

And procedural learning is learning

that is skill-based, it's acquired through practice and we know that it's instantiated in different brain networks compared to declarative learning.

And human flourishing requires both.

And most of the academy privileges declarative learning over procedural learning.

And so this course that we teach is an unusual course because it includes a lab every week, so to speak, a little section where students do the procedural learning for the stuff that they're learning declaratively in the lecture part of the class.

So I actually talked a little bit about connection earlier, but there's a lot more to say.

But one kind of connection is doing a little appreciation practice when we eat.

That's one I talked about earlier.

Where we connect to the people, even if we don't know them, who have brought us food to the table.

Some we may know, some we might not know.

There are formal kinds of connection practices.

There are meditation practices that we call...

loving-kindness and compassion practices.

And so we've shown in a randomized controlled trial that just a few hours of this practice over two weeks is sufficient to produce a measurable change in the brain.

And so here's a way you can do this.

You can begin with a loved one and bring the loved one into your mind and your heart and envision a time in their life when they may have had some challenge or difficulty.

And then cultivate the strong aspiration that they be relieved of that difficulty and that they have a life of ease.

That's it.

And you can use a simple phrase that you can repeat to yourself that embodies, that captures that theme.

It could be something as simple as, may you be happy, may you be free of suffering.