Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Rick Hanson: Rewiring Your Brain for Happiness and Resilience | Mental Health | YAPClassic
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
Dr. Rick Hanson’s transformative journey from a struggling adolescent to a leading expert in mental health is a powerful testament to how psychology and mindset can shape our lives. Battling unhappiness in his youth, Rick discovered the key to wellness wasn’t just in changing circumstances, but in transforming his brain health. As a result, he now shares his expertise in neuroplasticity and self-healing to help others achieve a balanced life. In this episode, Dr. Hanson reveals how positive neuroplasticity and practical biohacking techniques can rewire your brain to foster happiness, productivity, and emotional resilience. In this episode, Hala and Rick will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:00) Rick Hansen's Teenage Turning Point (03:29) Early College Experience and Its Impact (05:08) Exploring the Roots of Unhappiness (07:38) Discovering Buddhism and Its Teachings (10:29) The Concept of Neuro Dharma (14:16) The Importance of Steadiness of Mind (24:21) Understanding Monkey Mind (27:22) Biological Reactions and Brain Influence (32:11) Shifting Perspective for Stress Relief (33:12) Understanding Neuroplasticity (33:50) Brain Changes with Meditation (35:14) The Power of Small Practices (36:27) Four Key Brain Changes from Meditation (39:36) The Concept of Add-On Suffering (43:23) Three Keys to Reducing Suffering (47:09) The Seven Ways of Being (56:10) The Five Minute Challenge Dr. Rick Hanson is a New York Times bestselling author, psychologist, and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom. His work, which blends modern neuroscience with ancient Buddhist wisdom, has been featured on major media outlets like the BBC, NPR, and CBS. With books translated into 30 languages and a wealth of experience as a speaker at institutions like NASA, Google, and Harvard, Dr. Hanson’s teachings offer listeners actionable strategies to foster happiness and transform their minds for personal growth. Sponsored By: Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - Find yourself a co-host at airbnb.com/host Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/profiting Microsoft Teams - Stop paying for tools. Get everything you need, for free at aka.ms/profiting LinkedIn Marketing Solutions - Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at linkedin.com/profiting Bilt - Start paying rent through Bilt and take advantage of your Neighborhood Benefits™ by going to joinbilt.com/PROFITING. Mercury - Streamline your banking and finances in one place. Learn more at mercury.com/profiting Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset, Mental Health, Health, Psychology, Wellness, Biohacking, Motivation, Mindset, Manifestation, Productivity, Brain Health, Life Balance, Self Healing, Positivity, Happiness, Sleep, Diet
Chapter 1: Who is Dr. Rick Hanson and what is his journey to mental wellness?
As a practicing Buddhist, he blends ancient wisdom with cutting-edge neuroscience to help people cultivate greater joy and resilience. In this conversation, Rick broke down the science of neuroplasticity, shared quick hacks for handling stress, and introduced what he calls neurodharma, a powerful approach to deepening happiness and inner peace.
So get ready to learn simple yet profound ways to transform your mind. First, I want to start off by hearing a little bit about your childhood. So I learned that you had a big turning point when you were just 15 years old. You were a little bit awkward. You were unhappy and just pretty dissatisfied with life until you realized this big aha moment in your life.
So talk to us about this turning point when you were a teenager.
Oh, thanks for queuing me up there. So I grew up in a decent, fairly stable, lower middle class environment in Southern California. No abuse, no trauma, nothing horrible. And still for a lot of complicated reasons, including being really young while going through school, I was really unhappy. I was a lot of awkward, a lot of miserable, a lot of neurotic, and it just seemed pretty hopeless.
Chapter 2: What was Rick Hanson's teenage turning point towards happiness?
And right there, right about age 15, and I know it was about age 15 because I was reading Dune at the time, and the main character, Paul Madib, is also 15 when the book starts right about. And I suddenly basically realized that as bad as my past had been and as much the present might suck,
the future was open to me in the sense that I could always learn a little, heal a little, and grow a little every day. I could learn how to be a little less completely tongue-tied around girls. I could learn how to be not so scared of these big aggro, alpha male types in the locker room. I could learn how to manage my own mind. bit by bit.
And in effect, I learned that learning itself, knowing how to help yourself develop, not just memorize the multiplication table, but develop as a person was the strength of strengths. Learning is the superpower of superpowers because it's the one we tap into to grow the rest of them.
It took me many years, including becoming a neuropsychologist, et cetera, to really understand the how of that, how we can actually heighten neuroplastic change inside our own brains and gradually hardwire things like grit, gratitude, compassion, and happiness altogether into our own nervous system. And there are things we can do to do that.
But the fundamental idea that I was in charge of who I was becoming has shaped the rest of my life.
That's an incredible story. And I can't wait for us to dive deep on neuroplasticity and all the ways that we can improve our brain and actually change our brain. But first, you've got some interesting things that I want to talk about in terms of your journey. So it turns out you started college when you were just 16 years old. So that's pretty incredible.
How did you end up going to school so early? And what was that like? Because at that age, two years difference in terms of college is a big deal.
Oh, thanks for remarking that. So I skipped a grade. It was second grade, not a big deal. And I was a bright little kid and all the rest of that. And that had some advantages, but it also, plus my own kind of shy, anxious temperament, led me to feeling like the runt of the litter, as my dad put it, because he grew up in a ranch in North Dakota. So I felt really shy and awkward.
Going off to college, though, on the other hand, breaking away from home and having a sense of being able to step into all kinds of new possibilities was wonderful for me. And to locate it in our culture, I started UCLA in 1969. So just imagine the height of the political changes of the time.
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Chapter 3: How did early college experiences influence Rick Hanson's path?
So how did this curiosity lead you to starting to study neuroscience and psychology?
Maybe I'd like to kind of draw people to a level of, I don't know, a kind of tender intimacy with themselves a little deeper and ask people, what are some of the things you knew when you were really young? Maybe you didn't have words for it, but you just had a knowing. You had a sense of what it was like for people around you, or you had a sense of who you were, your fundamental capabilities.
Maybe there was a dream for your life that really was starting to take form even when you were in kindergarten. And for me, in my earliest memories, and I have a lot of memory of my childhood going all the way back probably to late two years old,
In all of them is this wistful, poignant sense of the needless unhappiness, the needless strife, the needless bickering, nothing horrible, but the needless hassles, the needless stresses, the needless worries, the needless feeling less than other people or being uncertain about where we stand with other people. Just ick. Needless. And so, yeah, absolutely.
I had this sense of it and this kind of movement, not just observing it, but a movement of compassion, a movement of compassionate action to do what one can. And I'm far from unique. I think so many people, I suspect for you as well, Hala, right, in your own background, moving you to do what you do, there also was that sense that there's so much unnecessary unhappiness
And there's so much more wellbeing and harmony, even in a very real world, including in a competitive marketplace that we can forge together. And there's a movement in you, a movement in me, and probably a movement in many other people as well to try to be helpful in that way.
Yeah, totally. I think you bring a really solid point across. The fact that so many of us, we live decently privileged lives, you know, and we all have food on the table. Most of us are able to go to school and just, you know, we have roofs over our heads. And we take all this for granted. And like the little things become such a big deal, even though we have so much to be thankful for.
And so I think that's a really great point. So I want to talk about Buddhism because... Like we just mentioned, you grew up decently privileged. You know, you're from LA. It's pretty unique that your religion is Buddhism. So talk to us about how you fell in love with that ancient Asian religion.
Oh, sweet. So I grew up a casual Methodist. That was kind of the framework and tons of respect, certainly for Jesus as a teacher and a realized being. That said, the forms of all that just didn't somehow connect with me. The way I was communicated just felt kind of... small and dogmatic and kind of bossy. So then I land in college, the doors are kicked wide open, right?
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Chapter 4: What sparked Rick Hanson's curiosity about unhappiness and neuroscience?
if we fight the fact that things are changing and we try to cling to our experiences and try to make certain things happen inside our minds and we try to push away various things, we create suffering and harm for ourselves and other people, pure and simple. And so that's kind of where it really began for me.
And I guess I should add as well that that's what's been the heart of the matter for me, these fundamental, very psychological teachings about the deep nature of the mind and what are the causes of our happiness and wellbeing and welfare and harmony in the way we live with others. And then how can we embody those causes through personal practice, learning, right?
Now we're coming back to that principle of learning, personal development, cultivation of what's skillful and useful and good and enjoyable inside ourselves. How can we actually develop ourselves in that way? So that's my orientation to all this. And later on, I learned a lot about both clinical psychology and then certainly neuroscience.
So if you think about the combination of hardcore brain science, clinical psychology, and contemplative wisdom, that combination of those three things is just packed with power and full of skillful means for how we can help ourselves and other people.
Yeah, 100%. And honestly, I've interviewed a lot of neuroscientists and neuropsychologists, and so far nobody has brought in this element of this wisdom that you're talking about, this Buddhism element. So it's really unique, and I'm excited for this conversation. So let's talk about neurodharma. Dharma is something that I didn't know what it meant. So just starting off, what does the name mean?
Oh, great. It's a word from India originally. It means essentially the way it is. The truth of things. And it also can mean accounts of the way it is. So like a body of wisdom, we could say, whether it's a body of wisdom in Western psychology or a body of wisdom in a particular tradition, such as the Buddhist tradition, which has many aspects to it, right?
Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Pure Land, other forms of it as well. And I put those two terms together because if you kind of think about it, I'm going to get a little geeky here, we can know ourselves in two ways. First, we can know ourselves subjectively from the inside out in terms of our experiences. And that was all that was available to the early teachers, such as the Buddha.
And certainly until very recently, that's the only way we could know ourselves, right? But with modern biology and then neuroscience, and then especially in the last 10, 20 years or so, neuropsychology really coming together, we can know ourselves from the outside in, objectively. The combination of the two, these two ways of knowing ourselves, is what I call neurodharma.
And we can go back and forth, right? Here we are, we're upset about something. Somebody, our boss frowned at us. Somebody else took credit for one of our good ideas. If you're, let's say a woman, as our daughter has reported to us many times, you're sitting in meetings and you say something, everybody ignores you, then some dude,
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Chapter 5: How did Buddhism and ancient wisdom shape Rick Hanson's mental health philosophy?
Can I build on what you just said there?
Yes. Sorry.
So this is great. So I'm talking first, and I misunderstood you, I think a little bit about steadiness of mind. Additionally, you're talking about what could be called equanimity, being even keeled. Because you can have steadiness of mind while being roaring upset about something and super rattled by it. But at least you're steadily aware, which is better than being swept away.
Additionally, I totally agree. And I think a lot about... what it feels like in which we can be authentic. You know, I'm a longtime therapist too. People are upset. Things happen. Other people are jerks. You're living in a time of COVID right now. We're tired. We're two plus years in. Come on, right? We feel these things. We can authentically feel what we feel.
Nothing in what you and I are talking about is about lying about how we really feel or suppressing it or joining with others who are trying to suppress how we really feel, or talk us out of it, or blame us for how we feel based on how they treated us. We're not saying anything like this.
What we are saying, as you well know, is that a person can maintain and grow a core, what feels like a core of being inside themselves that is...
has resilient wellbeing in it, is calm and steady and even keeled, as you said, even when the world around us is flashing red, even when there's physical pain or sorrow or fear or anger flying around inside your mind, there can be that felt sense of a core of being. And what's really interesting is to build it out increasingly through positive neuroplasticity.
We can gradually build up this kind of resting state, this sort of underlying touchstone. It feels like home. You can get in touch with it, you can come home to it, and you can stay in touch with it. And over time, it can become more and more your resting place. As you look out at the world going, whoa, there's a lot of wild stuff flying around out there.
Yeah. And I know it takes a lot of practice and it takes a lot of building to make it more of a habit and to actually change your brain, like the makeup of your brain, which we'll get into. So I do want to dig in on some more definitions because I think the concept of awakening is one that a lot of us have heard about, but we don't really know exactly what it means.
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Chapter 6: What is Neurodharma and why does it combine neuroscience with Buddhist wisdom?
What are the qualities that they have that we could internalize and live from increasingly in ourselves? Which I think is one of the great services that you perform in your podcast, because in part yourself and also those you talk with, you're giving the rest of us access to some of what it's like to be those people that we can actually, that's within reach. for us to bring into ourselves.
And so in that sense, I think of awakening very broadly as the gradual process of waking up and moving increasingly up the mountain of human potential. Whatever route we take could be an entirely secular route, it could be a more religious route, it could be a more spiritual route. As we move up the mountain, those different routes start to converge.
And we find as well that on each of those routes, the same seven steps again and again and again, which I'm sure we'll get into in a second, what are those seven steps? But that's the fundamental process of awakening. I think of it as the birthright of all of us. A person doesn't have to go all the way to the top to be inspired. I will never climb Mount Everest.
But I'm inspired by what it is like at the top there and the fact that people actually get up to the very top. And I can use that in my more humdrum, local rock climbing kind of adventures. So that's the thing I would just say. And the things that we're going to talk about are not just for so-called spiritual practice. Man, oh man, oh man, they are so useful.
I have a good background in business and they are so useful in the trenches of everyday life.
Oh, 100%. I couldn't agree more there. I mean, it's really just kind of like emotional intelligence, to be honest. When I was reading your stuff, I was like, oh, this is really just how to like control yourself and make sure that you don't go out either like mentally get into a rut or do something wrong with other people. And also, what kind of...
I mean, almost all of us have had an experience or more where everything just clicks. You know, you're at the beach or the barbecue or your child is born or you're just hanging out or you walk outside, you see the stars, something, and kaboosh, all your cares and concerns fall away.
you're still functioning, you're still aware of that email you need to write, the thing you need to do in the morning, but it just falls away and you feel just dropped in to a deep sense of well-being and all rightness, often with a sense of some kind of maybe mysterious connection to everything, extending beyond time and space even. And we've all had a sense of that.
Most of us certainly have had a sense of that. why not spend more time there, right? Why not have that be more and more of your daily living? And when people spend more time there, they don't become selfish, narcissistic, navel-gazers. They actually are moved increasingly to be helpful to other people, to cause less trouble, and to bring others along into their own stream of happiness.
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Chapter 7: Why is steadiness of mind important for emotional resilience and success?
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So to help further drive this point, I'd love for you to explain how we actually react to things on a biological level. Like how does our brain influence the way that we react to our reality?
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Chapter 8: What is monkey mind and how does it affect our mental focus and wellbeing?
not as a spiritual or other kind of bypass of what is the bad, the problematic, and the painful, but in part as a way to resource yourself to deal even more effectively with what has gone so horribly wrong. Turn to the good, and then especially learn from the good. Most people skip this step. They don't take in the good. they're experiencing something useful.
A moment of feeling gritty, a moment of determination, a moment of commitment to work to their exercise program, or being more patient with their aging relatives, or being more rested in their own sobriety, or just simple happiness or wellbeing. They're having that feeling. but they don't marinate in it for a beat or two or three or a breath or two or three. They don't marinate in it.
And so in the famous saying, the neurons that are firing together don't yet have time to wire together as well. Take in the good, slow it down, I talk a lot about the how of this. It usually takes a breath or two at a time. You can take longer if you really want. But slow it down to receive into yourself, you know, the hard-won fruits of whatever you're practicing in the time.
So to me, those are the big headlines, those three. And there's a lot of research that underlies, that describes and documents the neuropsychology of this process.
Yeah, and I think in your book, you said it in a really catchy way. You said, let it be, let it go, let it in. And I thought that was super catchy and something that we could just do anytime throughout the day when we just hit any sort of obstacle. It's something that we can tell ourselves to kind of reset and focus on the good.
Yeah, super. Thank you for calling that out.
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Chapter 9: How does our brain biologically influence our reactions to reality?
As you rest there, you will be changing your brain. you will be changing your nervous system in your body and gradually hardwiring that sense of peacefulness, contentment, and love into the core of your being so that you can take it with you increasingly wherever you go. That's the five-minute challenge.
I love that. So I was just gonna ask you and you answered it for me, what is one actionable thing we can do every day to become more young and profiting tomorrow? So thank you for that. And the last question we ask all of our guests is what is your secret to profiting in life?
It's a fantastic question because the way I'm going to slightly translate it, including from my own business experience, is durable gain, lasting gain, the good that lasts. So much of what we experience is nice in the moment, but it runs right through our fingers. There's no return on investment. There's no ROI. So what is it that leads to lasting gain?
Which might be translated, I have a business myself. I'm interested in financial profit in addition to personal profit, if you will. In terms of personal profit, lasting gain inside yourself, I think the thing that has really helped me is a kind of humility that makes me value learning.
A kind of sense that, wow, we're vulnerable, we're frail, we don't know everything, life is challenging, we depend on things. And that's not shame, it's humility that says, I need to value growing. I need to look for ways every day to become a little unburdened from my childhood and my life
to become a little clearer, a little more skillful with other people, a little kinder, a little wiser, a little happier. And I have the power to do that every day. And it really does come from me, this kind of intimacy of humility in a sense that says, ah, I don't know everything already. I really need to help myself grow and heal and learn every day.
It's so true. And it's like it never stops. There's always room to improve and to continually better yourself and your mind and the way that you operate in the world. So I totally agree there. Where can our listeners go find more about you and everything that you do?
Oh, very kind, Hala. I think my website's the best place, Rick Hansen, S-O-N, rickhansen.net. And it's chock full of freely offered resources, tons of quick little video snippets, audios, practices, things people can do, access to all kinds of other tools that are grounded in brain science and contemplative wisdom and practical psychology.
So rickhansen.net, that's where I would encourage people to go. You might also like the podcast I do, like you do a podcast. I do a podcast with our son, Forrest, the Being Well podcast, which is really rising in the charts, thanks to him especially. And we also have lots of great guests there too. So people might want to check that out as well, Being Well.
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