Matthew Taylor
speaker
407 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2011
last heard Nov 2011
Matthew Taylor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
But the final stop in my journey is one that I believe provides an answer to his scepticism about the utility of neuroscience.
It's an example of how I think future generations can be the first in human history to develop strategies for living which are informed by an accurate understanding of what makes us behave and feel as we do.
In a quiet classroom in South London, there's evidence that brain culture is not just about manipulation.
A number of neuroscientists are studying what happens to the brains of people who practice mindfulness.
This class, being led by Shamash Ali Dina, has no religious element.
In effect, it's a kind of secular form of meditation.
Becoming aware of the fact that you're breathing.
These studies are yielding a new and big idea.
It's still underexplored scientifically, but it's exciting everyone from doctors trying to reduce pain, to American defense chiefs wanting to cut down stress among soldiers, to ordinary folks just looking for more everyday contentment in their lives.
By understanding the nature and power of automatic feelings like fear, pain, and anxiety, we can learn to regulate those impulses.
For example, some studies suggest that when people can see pain impulses in their brains during scans, they can learn to handle those impulses and even make the pain more bearable.
It's a beautiful irony.
Through appreciating the limits of the conscious brain, we could actually give that conscious brain more control.
It almost sounds like an arms race.
While the marketers and governments try to use brain science to influence our behaviour, there's potentially an opportunity for us to use the same science to get more control.
It's mindfulness as an antidote to mind control.
The resemblance of mindfulness to meditation can sometimes give it an otherworldly, even cranky image.
But Professor Reid Montague, of Coke and Pepsi fame, has been researching which people are most able to deflect the so-called sponsorship effect, the natural bias we have towards brands which we associate with good causes.
And he found there was one group that was particularly able to resist the sponsorship effect.
It was the people who'd done mindfulness training.
Showing 101–120 of 407 · page 6 of 21
← Previous
Next →