Your Kids Are Wired to Flourish — Here's How to Get Out of Their Way

Summary

Podcast Summary: Raising Good Humans

Episode: Your Kids Are Wired to Flourish — Here's How to Get Out of Their Way
Host: Dr. Aliza Pressman
Guest: Professor Richard Davidson
Date: May 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode welcomes neuroscientist and psychologist Professor Richard Davidson, author of Born to Flourish, to explore the practical science behind helping children flourish. Centered on the concept of neuroplasticity, the conversation tackles how parents can influence – and sometimes simply step aside for – their kids’ natural capacity to thrive. With empathy and actionable advice, Dr. Pressman and Dr. Davidson discuss sensitive periods of development, the contagiousness of flourishing, and how a parent’s self-care benefits the whole family. The episode highlights easy, science-backed practices (including “five minutes a day” protocols) for families eager to cultivate resilience, connection, and wellbeing.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. What is Neuroplasticity? (01:31)

• Definition: The brain’s capacity to change in response to experience and training.
• Wittingly vs. Unwittingly: Most of the time, our brains change without our awareness; the invitation is to steer this change intentionally.
  • “Neuroplasticity happens wittingly or unwittingly. Most of the time, neuroplasticity happens unwittingly.” – Davidson, (01:37)
• Application: Parents can take responsibility for shaping their children’s (and their own) brains in healthy directions.

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2. Sensitive Periods of Development (05:13, 07:00)

• Even Before Birth: Prenatal environment, especially maternal emotional balance during pregnancy, significantly impacts infant brain development.
  • “A mother’s demeanor, her emotional balance during pregnancy, is a significant influence on early infant brain development.” – Davidson, (05:15)
• Three Major Sensitive Periods:
  1. Around Birth/Prenatal
  2. Early School Age (5-7)
  3. Adolescence
• Lifelong Plasticity: The brain remains adaptable throughout life; change is always possible, but easier in early years.

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3. Emotional Style & Flourishing (08:22)

• Emotional Style: Consistent ways of responding to emotional information; it’s not fixed and can be shaped.
  • “How we respond to emotional information in our environments is not something that’s fixed. We can modify that.” – Davidson, (08:33)
• Flourishing is Contagious: Children absorb caregivers’ emotional states through social learning – focus on embodying positive qualities yourself.
  • “If the caregivers are flourishing, you can be very sure that the infant will osmotically absorb those skills…through social learning mechanisms.” – Davidson, (09:45)
  • “Flourishing is contagious.” – Davidson, (10:24)
• Resilience Passes Down Too: Just as trauma is transmitted across generations, so are resilience and flourishing.

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4. Supporting “Challenging” Children (12:06)

• No Magic Bullet: The more parents cultivate their own resilience, the more they can support an infant or child who struggles.
• Break the Negative Spiral: Parents’ stress responses can amplify children’s difficulties; mindfulness and self-regulation by the parent are crucial.
  • “It becomes a really negative spiral... I can’t emphasize enough the importance of cultivating these skills of flourishing for optimal parenthood and optimal child development.” – Davidson, (13:27)

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5. The Four Pillars of Flourishing (14:05)

Davidson identifies four empirically-supported “buckets” of wellbeing:

1. Awareness

   • Being fully present and undistracted.
   • Meta-awareness: Knowing what your mind is doing (e.g., realizing your attention has drifted).
   • “Any form of human transformation requires meta awareness... You can’t transform your mind unless you know what’s going on in your mind.” – Davidson, (16:15)

2. Connection

   • Skills like gratitude, kindness, compassion, and social appreciation.
   • Essential for healthy relationships and wellbeing.

3. Insight

   • Understanding (but not being fused to) your internal narrative and self-beliefs.
   • Shifting how you relate to negative self-narratives, not just trying to dismiss them.

4. Purpose

   • Finding and reframing meaning in everyday activities.
   • It’s not about a grand mission; it’s about seeing purpose in “even the most pedestrian activities of daily living.”
   • “Can taking out the garbage be directly connected to your sense of purpose? And of course it could be. Everything could be.” – Davidson, (18:08)

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6. Addressing Negative Beliefs in Kids (21:16, 25:21)

For Infants:

• Emotions are transmitted nonverbally; your anxiety, for example, is sensed by your baby.
• “Most of our emotional life is communicated in [nonverbal] ways…for young infants, it’s all nonverbal.” – Davidson, (21:36)

Simple Tool for Parents: (24:33)

• Sit with your baby on your lap, facing outward, and “send love”; create a sense of relaxed, secure presence.
• “Just be relaxed and send love to the baby. And the baby will feel the love, feel secure, and also be able to explore…” – Davidson, (24:01)

For Young Children (School Age):

• Help children see their negative beliefs or feelings as temporary parts – not their whole identity.
• Use language like “Is all of you sad, or just a part?” and encourage bodily awareness of emotions.
• Instill curiosity about their minds, teaching that thoughts and feelings are fluid.
  • “Being able to make that distinction…that helps to loosen the grip that this excessive over-identification has.” – Davidson, (25:44)

For Adolescents:

• Digital hygiene is essential; parents' own screen habits should model healthy use.
  • “The best way to teach our kids digital hygiene is to have good digital hygiene ourselves, to walk the talk.” – Davidson, (27:47)
• Time in nature powerfully lifts mood and supports brain development.
  • “We know that being outside, being around nature is actually incredibly good for the brain.” – Davidson, (29:53)

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7. Five-Minute-a-Day Practice for Parents (32:36)

• Make Mental Hygiene a Priority:

  • “If we took even as short a time each day as we spend brushing our teeth nourishing our mind and our heart, this world would be a different place.” – Davidson, (32:48)

• Science Shows: Five minutes daily for four weeks produces measurable positive change.

• How To Fit It In:

  • Practice during activities like commuting, exercising, or brushing your teeth.
  • The key: daily consistency, not duration.
  • “Five minutes a day, if you do it consistently for four weeks, is enough to produce measurable changes in human flourishing, including biological metrics.” – Davidson, (33:17)

• Free Resource: The Healthy Minds Program app (nonprofit, free, teaches all four skills of flourishing).

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8. Can All Brains Change? (38:19)

• Some brains are more flexible than others, but all can change.
• “More distressed” or “challenging” brains often benefit most from short daily practice.
  • “To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever shown that a brain shows no plasticity.” – Davidson, (39:18)
• High neuroplasticity is neutral — if the environment is toxic, it can encode negative patterns too.

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9. Differential Susceptibility & Plasticity (40:51)

• Sensitive individuals (“orchids”) may benefit more from positive interventions, and are more vulnerable in negative environments.
• “Particularly at the early stages…those practices are more beneficial for people who are more distressed.” – Davidson, (41:21)
• Ideal: combine high plasticity with opportunity-abundant environments for flourishing.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Flourishing is contagious.” – Davidson, (10:24)
• “If the caregivers are flourishing, you can be very sure that the infant will osmotically absorb those skills…” – Davidson, (09:45)
• “If we took even as short a time each day as brushing our teeth nourishing our mind and our heart, this world would be a different place.” – Davidson, (32:48)
• “For a parent, I think the most easily in their control is their own behavior, their own mind. And so that’s really the lowest hanging fruit.” – Davidson, (43:49)
• “Let’s all together commit to this. I’m doing it with you. Five minutes a day.” – Pressman, (44:12)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Explaining Neuroplasticity: 01:31–02:37
• Sensitive Periods of Development: 05:13–07:50
• Emotional Style & Social Learning: 08:22–10:24
• Supporting “Harder” Kids & Parental Self-Regulation: 12:06–13:48
• The Four Pillars of Flourishing: 14:05–19:02
• Practical Tools for Infants & Young Children: 21:16–26:37
• Advice for Adolescents: Digital Hygiene & Nature: 27:34–29:53
• The Five Minutes a Day Protocol: 32:22–35:34
• Plasticity in “Stubborn” Brains: 38:19–39:45
• Differential Susceptibility Discussion: 40:51–43:49
• Final Call to Action: 44:12

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Final Takeaways

• Parents’ own wellbeing is the lever for family flourishing—self-care is not selfish.
• Consistency trumps intensity: five mindful minutes daily can rewire even “challenging” brains.
• Flourishing passes between generations just as effectively as adversity.
  • “The things that, for a parent, I think are most easily in their control is their own behavior, their own mind.” – Davidson, (43:49)
• Start small—commit together!
  • “Five minutes a day. Let’s all together commit to this.” – Pressman, (44:12)

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For more resources, visit The Healthy Minds Program (free mindfulness training app) or Dr. Aliza Pressman’s Substack and Instagram @RaisingGoodHumansPodcast.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

You've probably all heard the term neuroplasticity, and yet it's kind of hard to actually understand how you can influence the actual plasticity of the brain in your everyday life. And so I have the guy, the brilliant professor Richard Davidson, giving us those kind of nuggets that really help you translate science from page to stage. And I just love those. He's talking about the relationships we have with our infants, what happens when you have negative beliefs, and how we can help shift those negative beliefs in ourselves, in our children, in our adolescence. And the most important nugget is a five minute a day protocol. If you do it every single day, it actually changes your brain. Five minutes a day. Even the busiest of us can do so. I love when research is actually able to be applied to our real lives. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman, and this is Raising Good Humans podcast. Okay, so I want to start with neuroplasticity. What is it? What is it really?

[A]

Neuroplasticity is the brain's capacity to change in response to experience and in response to training. And one of the things I often say is that neuroplasticity happens wittingly or unwittingly. Well, most of the time, neuroplasticity happens unwittingly. Most of the time, we are not actually aware of how our brains are being literally sculpted, shaped, and hijacked, if you will, by all the forces around us. And the invitation in our work and in this new book, Born to Flourish, and is simply that we can take more responsibility for our own neuroplasticity, for our own brain, and direct the brain in healthy directions as opposed to allowing it to be just randomly influenced, willy nilly, by the forces around us.

[B]

Okay, so before we get into how to do that, which we definitely will, can you help us understand how you came to understand neuroplasticity?

[A]

Sure. Well, I'm a neuroscientist and a psychologist by training, and so I have really grown up during the time that neuroplasticity was discovered. We can say really that that is one of the key insights of modern neuroscience, and particularly discovering the different mechanisms of neuroplasticity. And in my own work, neuroplasticity became a very central concept because we were interested in strategies that can promote human flourishing, strategies that lead to personal transformation. And if they are changing how we experience the world, how we behave in the world, then they have to also be changing the brain. And so that led us to consider the underlying mechanisms of neuroplasticity. And how these simple mental strategies, we can think of them as mental exercises, are literally changing the brain. Not just the function of the brain, but literally the wiring of the brain.

[B]

Okay, so I want to do this kind of with a developmental lens and start with the caveat that you can't really separate infant and caregiver. But let's say you could. Can we talk about the infant, like the most plastic time for the brain, and then we could go from there, but just those first couple of years. And also, I know, you know, we will address. I hope that the brain remains plastic if it does, and how. But I really want to start with infancy, because we don't really. I mean, you probably do, but. But generally speaking, the infant brain in those first couple of years, how are we influencing that little brain?

[A]

Yeah, well, first, I love taking a developmental lens, and you talked about starting in infancy. We actually need to start before infancy.

[B]

Ah, great. You're even better.

[A]

Because there's very good evidence, including some of our own work, showing that there are influences that are prenatal that begin to shape the function and structure of the brain. And a mother's demeanor, her emotional balance during pregnancy, is a significant influence on early infant brain development. And so we've actually done empirical studies looking at the relationship between mothers experience during pregnancy and infant brain outcomes. We put the babies in the scanner and scan them over the course of the first two years of life. And we see very strong associations between the mother's emotional style and emotional balance during that period, particularly the second trimester of pregnancy and subsequent brain development. But let me just say that there are really three major periods that we call sensitive periods that have been very well documented. The first is around birth, but that would include the prenatal influences. The second is at the onset of schooling between the ages of five and seven, and. And the third is around adolescence. Those are three sensitive periods of development that we. Where we know that the brain is especially plastic. It's especially sensitive to plasticity during those periods. But as you said in your introduction to this segment, plasticity happens throughout life. And there is really good evidence for that now, unequivocal evidence. And so we know that plasticity doesn't stop. It is enhanced during these early developmental periods. But it doesn't mean that an adult cannot learn these new skills. They can. It's just easier to do if we do it earlier in life, just like it's easier to learn a second language or easier to learn to play a musical instrument if you. It's easier to nurture Qualities like kindness and compassion and pro social behavior if they are nurtured early in life.

[B]

So we're going to start with nurturing early in life and then we'll get to the later brains. And I also just want to check in because you mentioned emotional style. And so I want to start with just explaining emotional style. And so what can we do thinking about emotional style, even the maternal emotional style, and then during infancy to help support that plastic delicious growing brain?

[A]

So first, emotional style is simply consistent ways of responding to emotional information. And in a previous book of mine, the emotional life of your brain, I delineated different kinds of emotional styles that we've gleaned from modern neuroscientific research. It would take us far afield to really describe in detail those emotional styles. But for the present conversation, it's simply important to know that how we respond to emotional information in our environments is, is not something that's, that's fixed. We can modify that. We can learn to become more emotionally balanced, to become more resilient by nurturing these simple skills of flourishing. And really the best way to support the developing infant is for caregivers around the infant. But to embody these qualities of flourishing, One of the things that we know, which is super important for this conversation, that we and others have discovered, is that flourishing is contagious. And if the caregivers are flourishing, you can be very sure that, that the infant will osmotically absorb those skills and will learn those skills through social learning mechanisms and does not need to be taught those skills explicitly. The most important thing we can do for our developing offspring is to embody these qualities ourselves.

[B]

So when you said flourishing is contagious, first I just want to thank you because we spend a lot of time talking about the more challenging, you know, like anxiety is contagious, or you know, generally speaking, your nervous system is a bit contagious. But I don't know that anybody has emphasized that flourishing is contagious. So I really appreciate that framing.

[A]

Yeah. So just on that point, people, there's a lot of work that I'm sure you're well aware of on the inter generational transmission of trauma. And that's true, and there is very good scientific evidence for that. But if that is true, there also needs to be the intergenerational transmission of resilience, the intergenerational transmission of flourishing, because they operate through the same basic mechanism.

[B]

So this is like a tiny little departure question. And if it's too much, we can drop it. If I'm throwing This out there. But if you came into this world with a particular emotional style, and so you have a harder time learning some of these, like, it's not as natural to your particular way to embody some of the things you're talking about. And of course, now we're talking about infants. So it's. It may sound silly, but anybody who's had more than one kid probably knows that maybe one seemed like they had an easier time in the world right away than another one.

[A]

It's cool. Ace. For me, as a parent. Yes, I have one. One more challenging one.

[B]

Yeah. So let's say that you're. And in fact, you might even think that this conversation is even more important for the ones for whom you really want to take advantage of the plasticity of the brain. If you have an infant who's struggling more, you have just, like, kind of a harder kid. What are some of the tools that the parents can embody to be able to lend that flourishing to this infant?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, that's a critically important and practical question. And I don't, you know, I don't really think there are any magic bullets. I think that the more skilled the parent is in cultivating basic qualities of flourishing and is resilient in the face of adversity, then that will be helpful to the infant who is experiencing more challenges. Because it's often the case that when an infant is experiencing more challenges, that sets off a parent and increases their level of stress and anxiety, and they become more reactive, which further exacerbates whatever challenge or difficulty the infant is having. And so it becomes a really negative spiral. And so, you know, there's. I. I can't emphasize enough the importance of cultivating these skills of flourishing for optimal parenthood and optimal child development.

[B]

I mean, it's certainly a good ad for taking care of yourself if it benefits so much the babies that we're. Okay.

[A]

Absolutely. Yes.

[B]

Okay. So what are these flourishing skills?

[A]

So in our book Born to Flourish, we. We survey four skills that we have studied extensively that are the key necessary ingredients for human flourishing. And these come from both the neuroscientific literature as well as another body of work that we draw upon importantly, is from the contemplative traditions, particularly the Asian contemplative traditions, which have not received that much attention in the west, but who have really developed strategies for cultivating flourishing in their own cultural context. So the four skills are these. The first we call awareness. And awareness is about being present. It's about showing up fully in an undistracted way. It also includes the skills of self awareness, being aware of yourself, and what psychologists and neuroscientists call meta awareness. And meta awareness is the capacity to know what your mind is doing. Now, some viewers may find that sound strange. Don't we always know what our mind is doing? But I'm sure many viewers have had the experience of this reading a book where they might be reading each word on a page and they're reading and going along from one page to the next, and after a few minutes they realize they have no idea, haven't heard it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's an example of not knowing what your mind is doing, but the moment you recognize it, it's a moment of awakening. That's meta awareness, and that can be trained. And it's very important because we know that any form of human transformation requires meta awareness. You can't transform your mind unless you know what's going on in your mind, how your mind is working. So that's awareness. The second pillar is connection. Connection is about being connected to others and to your sense of place. It includes skills that are important for healthy social relationships, skills like appreciation and gratitude and kindness and compassion and love. And all of them can be nurtured, and all of them are essential for well being. The third skill is one that is less commonly identified in the west. And we call it insight. And it's insight into the narrative that we all carry around in our mind. We all have a narrative about who we are. It's a set of beliefs and expectations of ourselves. And we know that there are some people who have very negative beliefs about themselves with low expectations of themselves. They're on sort of one end of a continuum. And we know that that is a prescription for depression. But what's really important for well being is not so much to change the narrative, but it's to change our relationship to this narrative so that we see the narrative for what it is. What the narrative is is a set of beliefs and expectations that literally filter how we perceive the world. And having that understanding really helps us gain some distance so we're not totally fused with our beliefs and expectations. But we can see that there are other ways of seeing the world that may also be valuable. It's key to empathy, for example. And finally, the last pillar of flourishing is purpose. And purpose is about identifying kind of our true north in life, connecting our values and meaning to our activities of daily living. So purpose here is not so much about finding something more grand and purposeful to do with your life, but how can you find meaning and purpose in even the most pedestrian activities of daily living. Can taking out the garbage be directly connected to your sense of purpose? And of course it could be. Everything could be. It just requires a little bit of reframing and that's a learnable skill. And when you learn each of these four pillars of well being, you will be flourishing. And it actually is not that hard. It's easier than you think.

[B]

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[A]

Yeah, well there's a lot of things that can be communicated non verbally and osmotically to infants and young toddlers so, for example, if a parent is very reactive, and let's say that the parent has some challenge, it may be with their spouse, it may be a work related challenge, and they are worrying about it or they're anxious about it, that anxiety is something that the babies will experience one way or another. So, you know, I'm sure that every parent watching this podcast, you know, their conscious intention is to do only good things for their, for their children. And you know, of course that's what we all wish, but unfortunately there's a lot of stuff that gets communicated that is under the hood, so to speak. In fact, I would say most of our emotional life is communicated in that way. Not particularly to infants because they don't understand what you're talking about. So it's. For young infants, it's all nonverbal. And so if the parent is showing a kind of perseverative reaction where they're not recovering quickly and they're anxious, the infant's going to feel that. The infant's going to feel that in their body and it's, they're going to learn to be unnecessarily reactive. It's going to upregulate their autonomic nervous system. It's going to increase their cortisol output, which is a stress hormone. And it's going to have all these deleterious consequences that of course the parent is not, you know, wishes that it's not happening, but it's all happening just through the course of parent child interaction.

[B]

Okay, so just to like relieve some parents, can you give us a couple tools for the parents who are experiencing that right now?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That can sort of give space between that reaction.

[A]

This was advice given at a meditation retreat by a Tibetan lama who happens to be, you know, he's not a monk, he's married and has two children. And he said the best way to work with your infant is take the baby, put them on your lap, have them face outward so that they can explore the world and just sit there. You can meditate or just, you don't even have to consciously meditate, but just be relaxed and send love to the baby. And the baby will feel the love will feel secure and also be able to explore at the same time that they're feeling this security from the parent. And so that's a simple thing.

[B]

Yeah. Delighting in your baby and sending out that love and letting them sit and look outward is very concrete. And anytime you can just sort of. You talked about being present, but just reminding yourself, like, I've Got this baby right here. It's even just thinking about it right now is making me smile because I'm thinking back to when I had my babies. So now just thinking just about the school, like early school, age 4, 5, 6. If you're noticing that I'm just keeping with the theme of negative beliefs. Just for a concrete way to look at this, you have a little one who's already articulating negative beliefs. What are some of the tools that we can use to help support.

[A]

Yeah, you know, I think that this is the beginning of an age where a child can begin to understand that they have thoughts and to help a child appreciate that if they have some negative belief about themselves, that that's simply a thought, it's not necessarily who they are. And so being able to make that distinction. And you know, a child may say that they're Sad at say 6 years old or that they're worried about something and they can use a phrase like I'm sad or I'm anxious and you know, the parent can explore. When you say that, does that mean that all of you is sad? Can you touch a part of your body that's not sad and really connect with whatever part that may not be sad? Because it's usually not everything that's sad. Right. It's. There's some part of you that is not. And so that helps to loosen the grip that this excessive over identification has.

[B]

And how great if you're starting that early so that that little one maybe turns into an adolescent who knows they're feeling a particular way in that moment, but that doesn't mean that that is their whole being.

[A]

Yes, exactly. And another thing that's helpful here is to help to instill a kind of curiosity about how the mind works, that it's not something fixed, it's very fluid and having an attitude of curiosity to really investigate how things are working and that helps to loosen things up.

[B]

Okay, so that was a really good tool. Just even in shifting the language and getting curious. And so now we're deeper into school age, almost at the transition of adolescence. What are you seeing and what is one tool that can support flourishing?

[A]

Yeah, so, you know, with adolescence, it's a very challenging age and there are a lot of things that we can do. I mean, I would be irresponsible if I didn't mention the, the documented deleterious impact of social media on our adolescents mental health. And so, you know, I do think that working with your, your kids and helping them to regulate to, to really be better one Way to say this is to develop better digital hygiene. And the best way to, to teach our kids digital hygiene is to have good digital hygiene ourselves, to walk the talk. There was a recent study that reported that the average American adult opens their phone 152 times a day. I think most viewers would agree that that is unnecessary. And if you can model being more present for your kids, where you're not on your phone all the time, you really put it away, that will be enormously beneficial. So, you know, that's something really concrete that I think is imperative that we need to do with, with adolescents in particular.

[B]

And so if you have a young person who is prone to negative beliefs, this would be even more amplified by that technology. Right. So what can we do? It's a hard, it's hard because the, the kids who probably are going to be worse had the worst impact from exposure are the ones more likely to sort of deep dive into social media.

[A]

Yeah, it's very challenging. And you know, my own view is that education and digital hygiene needs to start earlier. It really should be part of our educational curricula as well as something modeled by parents. But you know, in terms of other components of flourishing, there are lots of things that we could do with teenagers. One is to simply increase the likelihood that they have positive experiences in nature. We know that being outside, being around nature is actually incredibly good for the brain. You know, studies show that if you have people walk for 10 minutes in green space versus walk for 10 minutes on city streets and then put them in the scanner, their brains look totally different. And so, you know, this is something we can encourage our adolescents to do, to spend a certain amount of time outside and appreciating nature.

[B]

Okay. I just actually watched my daughter, my youngest daughter is 16, yesterday and the day before because it started to be lighter outside. She was like, I'm going to take the dog for a quick walk down the street. Both days at the same, you know, evening time. And it's like a 10 minute walk. And I swear I was thinking, God, sometimes research really is cool. Like, I saw a complete transformation of her mood and I was like, every once in a while you have those moments where you're like the real world and research aligns so beautifully and in a positive way. And it just made me so happy. And she was able to notice it. I didn't have to say a word.

[A]

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that.

[B]

Okay, so now on to this other, the fourth period of brain growth, the transition to parenthood seems like increasingly we're finding out. It's certainly not like at the level of infancy or adolescence, but it does seem to have the, the right opportunity for like, the vulnerability and growth. Because I imagine many parents have a lot of incentive to support their development in a way that didn't matter as much to them before. So since there's so much at stake, and I think you've alluded to this, but given those four buckets of flourishing, what would you want a busy, overwhelmed parent to absolutely, unequivocally commit to in this sort of season of life?

[A]

Yeah, it's a great question. One of the things that I often remind people is I'm sure every viewer in this, of this, this podcast spends a few minutes every day brushing their teeth.

[B]

Hope so.

[A]

When humans first evolved on this planet, none of us were brushing our teeth. And it's something we've learned to do because we think it's important for our personal physical hygiene. And we know it's important for our personal physical hygiene. And what we're talking about here, I think most of your viewers would probably agree, is probably more important than your teeth. And yet we don't treat it with the same respect. And so if we took even as short a time each day as we spend brushing our teeth nourishing our mind and our heart, this world would be a different place. That's really what it would take. Our data, hard nosed, randomized controlled trials show that five minutes a day, if you do it consistently for four weeks, is enough to produce measurable changes in hard nosed metrics of human flourishing, including biological metrics. And so you ask what a parent should commit to, and what a parent should commit to is five minutes a day to really nurture these critical skills of flourishing. Because flourishing is contagious. And so when they nurture their own flourishing, it will have outsized effects on their kids. And it's really every parent's responsibility to do that. The cool thing is that you can do this in a way that is piggybacked onto activities of daily living. So for the busy, even crazy busy parent who says that she or he has no time for anything else, you can do this while you're commuting, you can do this while you are doing physical exercise, you can do this while you're brushing your teeth. You just need to intentionally use your mind during those periods rather than allowing your mind to be hijacked willy nilly by the forces around you. And so it simply requires a reminder. And we have an app that we've produced called the Healthy Minds program. It's produced by a nonprofit organization that I founded that's called Human H U M I N and it's freely available and it's totally free. The New York Times Wirecutter has named it as one of the three best meditation apps for several years in a row. And it teaches all four of these skills of flourishing. And I would encourage people, if they're interested, to try this. There's really no downside. I mean, you don't need the app to do it. You can do it on your own. But it often helps to have a reminder.

[B]

Love that.

[A]

And yes, there are changes in the brain that we've observed with just five minutes a day. But the key is doing it every day.

[B]

Summer is around the corner and you know those times when you feel like I don't want to screen, but you also aren't exactly ready to engage in play. You just want something easy. Let me tell you about Kiwico. Kiwico has the best boxes. They come with an activity. They've got all the materials in it. You don't need to find it. And you can work on projects like making ice cream or making a bow and arrow or decoupage. Whatever your child is interested in. There's something fun about a Kiwico box they can get really excited about. You don't need to do any work except enjoy hanging with your child. They have a whole series of hands on summer projects that are focused on outdoors. So build the best summer ever with Kiwi Coca Cola. Get $10 off on your summer adventure series at kiwico.com summer promo code humans that's $10 off your summer adventure at kiwico.com summer Promo Code humans and now for a quick break so I can tell you about Great Wolf Lodge. Are you trying to think of a fun weekend with the family? Do you want to find a place that has everything under one roof and a room that has a little room where everybody can hang out in and then a bunk room for the kids and a room for you because that's what Great Wolf Lodge has so you can have a great time. An unforgettable memory with the kids. Go down gazillions of water slides. They have very cool things like the Magi Quest, a live action game kids can play throughout the lodge to the Northern Lights Arcade. They have so much fun. Dance parties at night, tons of restaurants. Everything is easy. You just need to pack and get in the car. Learn [e-mail] and strengthen the pack. You'd rather five minutes a day, every day than, you know, intermittent, lengthy commitments.

[A]

Yes. You know, we often have people tell us, what's the shortest amount of time that you think you can make a commitment to do this every day? That's what's really important. You know, if on some days you can do it longer, that's great. And if you want to, wonderful.

[B]

Are there some brains without being too deterministic, are there some brains that are just a little bit more stubborn than others?

[A]

Yeah, I think, putting it that way, first of all, I appreciate how you put it. And yeah, I would say that some brains are going to be less flexible than other brains, but that's different than someone saying, are there some brains which can't be changed? That's very different. And, you know, to someone who says that there's some brains that can't be changed, or there's some people that have certain characteristics that are irrevocably scarred. If you will and cannot be changed, I will say to them, show me the data. And, you know, I think it is irresponsible of us to say something like that because it is not based on real evidence. It's just based on some belief system that certain kinds of people may be unchangeable. But again, as you said, and you put it, I think, in the right kind of nuanced way, yeah, there are some brains that are more challenging than others, that just require. They may require a little bit more or a little bit differently to work with. But to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever shown that a brain shows no plasticity.

[B]

Oh, I have one last question. I was thinking about how when we talk about brain plasticity, there's evidence that the more environmentally sensitive brains are actually more plastic. So differential susceptibility, more susceptible to flourishing, and also to more vulnerable to the bad. But then on the other side of it, if I'm. If we just go with Tom Boyce, the dandelions are more resilient, so they have less plasticity because they're not going to necessarily be that all that different based on the environment, but they're going to remain robust. So do you think that means that there are some people for whom meditation is going to be infinitely more impactful and those people actually might need it more because they have that more reactive system? Or do you think I'm just, like, way too out there right now for a real conversation?

[A]

No, no, no. I think you're touching upon some really important themes, and there's several things that can be said. First of all, there's really good evidence to show that, particularly at the early stages with simple kinds of practices of the sort that we have on our app that can be done for five minutes a day, that those practices are more beneficial for people who are more distressed.

[B]

Ah, okay.

[A]

Come to this. With higher levels of stress, of anxiety and depression, we've demonstrated that robustly. So that we see bigger gains among people who start off at a worse baseline, so to speak. And, you know, in sense, it's not that surprising because. Or room to move. If you take someone who's really doing well and you give this to them, you know, you may see a little bump, but because they're doing so well, it just. There's not that much room to move. They're kind of at ceiling.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

So we definitely see bigger gains among people who are more distressed. And that's also very hopeful news because it means that, you know, this is something that is really useful for people that are showing this kind of more active suffering. Now, in terms of plasticity, one of the things that you implicitly said, which is very, very true, is that plasticity is neutral with respect to flourishing. If you have high levels of plasticity and you're in a very toxic environment, it's actually going to make things worse because it will be more effectively encoding all the toxic cues in your environment. And so in that sense, neuroplasticity is really neutral. And so, you know, what we ideally want is the combination of high levels of plasticity along with an environment that is imbued with opportunities for flourishing.

[B]

Well, I mean, yeah, I, I just like, I noticed the cultural language is very much about resilience. And so it's like this confusing message because if you're highly adaptable, but you're not highly plastic, you might not get the same benefits, like, from what you're talking about. I don't know. It's like the language has always confused me because you want your kids to have like, natural resilience and be surrounded by opportunities to bolster resilience. But like, if. But the ones that are more. Anyway, I'm like, it's. I'm going down a rabbit hole.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, there are things that are more easily within our control, things that are less easily within our control. The things that, for a parent, I think are most easily in their control is their own behavior, their own mind. And so that's really the lowest hanging fruit.

[B]

Yes, that is perfect way to end this conversation. That is the lowest hanging fruit. And we could spend a lot less time trying to control other people, which is not even on the tree. Okay, just let's all together commit five minutes and day for a mindfulness based practice. Whether you're using the Healthy Minds program, that's the free app that Richie Davidson recommended, or whether you're just having those micro meditations. I have one at the end of every chapter of my book. The five principles of parenting or whatever suits you. Five minutes a day. Let's all together commit to this. I'm doing it with you. Five minutes minutes a day. We'll check back in four to six weeks and just do a check in. How do I feel like, is this actually making the changes that I was hoping for it to make? I have a feeling you'll see that it will. If you enjoy this episode, don't forget to write a little review. Give it a rating. Go to my substack drlisapressman substack.com for free articles and of course, Instagram @RaisingGoodHumans podcast. Have a wonderful week.