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Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body cover art

Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

By: Daniel Goleman,Richard Davidson
Narrated by: Daniel Goleman
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Summary

Two New York Times best-selling authors unveil new research showing what meditation can really do for the brain. In the last 20 years, meditation and mindfulness have gone from being kind of cool to becoming an omnipresent Band-Aid for fixing everything from your weight to your relationship to your achievement level. Unveiling here the kind of cutting-edge research that has made them giants in their fields, Daniel Goleman and Richard J Davidson show us the truth about what meditation can really do for us, as well as exactly how to get the most out of it. Sweeping away common misconceptions and neuromythology to open listeners' eyes to the ways data has been distorted to sell mind-training methods, the authors demonstrate that beyond the pleasant states mental exercises can produce, the real payoffs are the lasting personality traits that can result. But short daily doses will not get us to the highest level of lasting positive change - even if we continue for years - without specific additions. More than sheer hours, we need smart practice, including crucial ingredients such as targeted feedback from a master teacher and a more spacious, less attached view of the self, all of which are missing in widespread versions of mind training. The authors also reveal the latest data from Davidson's own lab that point to a new methodology for developing a broader array of mind-training methods with larger implications for how we can derive the greatest benefits from the practice. Exciting, compelling, and grounded in new research, this is one of those rare books that has the power to change us at the deepest level.

©2017 Penguin Group (USA) LLC (P)2017 More Than Sound, LLC

What listeners say about Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

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    5 out of 5 stars

Top read if you are into meditation

Well worth the listen. Excellent book, masterfully read. The overview of the science behind meditation makes a very compelling case.

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10 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars

Not for me, unfortunately.

Having read previous books by Daniel Goleman I was excited about this one. Unfortunately I struggled to finish it as I thought he was going on and on about things and not getting anywhere. Perhaps it's one to be listened to whilst resting rather than running errands, exercising etc.
Narrator is excellent though. Sometimes it felt like he was an acquaintance just having a chat.

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9 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars

Morally Bankrupt

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

By displaying a modicum of ethical consistency and integrity. The authors make a big deal of the truth and evidence (and an even bigger deal of being Harvard researchers, on and on they go about it.)
But their opening story is of a heroic general who led the slaughter of untold numbers of people in Afghanistan and Iraq following the 9/11 attacks. But the whole rationale for those invasions was a pack of lies. Yet this goes unremarked by the Harvard professors, who obviously feel that those lies and deceits are excusable, as long as you don't lie about the results from the lab. And so evil is done, and the evil doers are protected from feeling bad by the techniques developed by people at Harvard.

Has Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body put you off other books in this genre?

It has put me off any psychology popular science books with the word 'bestseller' in the advertising material.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Daniel Goleman?

George W. Bush

What character would you cut from Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body?

Its not a fiction, so your question is meaningless.

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8 people found this helpful

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Decent

Really good, nice the author read it but his voice can lose you, however I find with these kinds of books a little and often rather than all at once helps. Off setting the tone of the reader and I’m glad he read it!

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3 people found this helpful

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Outstanding

If you're considering taking up meditation, this book is a must read. A work of research spanning some forty years, including the most recently available data, it demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt the many - and often profound - benefits of practising meditation.

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderful Science

What a wonderful book. I think we can no prove that meditation works . love it, my fight and flight response has abated since I started meditation, I thought it was mumbo jumbo, but once I started meditating I felt calmer and more caring. what a brilliant read. I am convinced this is the right path for me. I hope to aspire to reach 9000 hrs my 360hrs seems a long way off , I will reach it with peace in my heart.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A good mixture of science, intuition, and enquiry.

This book contains an animal into the explorations of two scientists into the world of meditation. Furthermore, it offers re-sources and concepts that can improve daily life, using the different kinds of meditation.

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2 people found this helpful

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Indepth but not over reaching

No crazy claims made, points out holes in research. Fascinating stories and findings. Good narrator!

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very insightful and inspiring.

Great insight into the benefits of meditation and the science and positive change it can bring to each indevidual as well as society as a whole.

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1 person found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Wanted to give it 5 but.....

Practising TM twice a day saved my life. Needs greater respect than you give it!

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1 person found this helpful