By Max Strom, guest contributor 

Why is it that so many people in urban environments across the world are now experiencing exponential growth in anxiety and depression? What can we make of the fact that anxiety is now an epidemic in America? It’s also alarming that suicide was the second leading cause of death among people between the ages of 10 and 34. 

Most of us are thankful that we live in a time when we have medications for anxiety and depression, but I haven’t met anybody who wants to li…

By Tia Philipart, guest contributor 

There are plenty of workers who are guilty of taking work home with them. Not only are they finishing projects up at home, but they are ruminating about their work during their drives to and from the office when they are least capable of physically completing their work. The frustration of overthinking work tasks is detrimental to these commuters’ mental health. It might not be obvious at first, but ruminating upon work thoughts leads to an unsuccessful work…

By Karen Alexander, guest contributor

Student levels of stress and depression have been climbing at an alarming rate, and science is showing the negative effects of such states of mind and emotions on learning. With a persistent national achievement gap, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affecting almost half of US children, and a staggering 52% national rise in adolescent major depressive episodes from 2005 to 2017, more states and school districts are recognizing the need for a holistic view…

By Steven Cohen, guest contributor

As more people meditate regularly, we are seeing the benefits more clearly. Can meditation make you more effective at work? Absolutely.

Core leadership traits such as self-awareness, focus, creativity, listening, relationship development, influence, grit and having a growth mindset can be developed through meditation, thus improving professional performance. These fundamental leadership traits can be grouped into four foundational pillars: Awareness, Connecti…

The ongoing problems in business leadership have underscored the need for a new kind of leader in the twenty-first century: the Mindful Leader. Author Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor and the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, will explore why mindfulness is essential to your performance as a leader, why organizations are focusing on developing authentic leadership, and how you can become a more mindful leader.

This Free Summit Talk has Expired

Bill George is a Senior Fell…

By Kathryn Goldman Schuyler, guest contributor

As the use of what is called “mindfulness” expands in the workplace, I have been reflecting on what mindfulness has meant over the centuries. Although mindfulness-based practices can be used to reduce stress, they have long been intended for more profound purposes. Rather than becoming a “technology” of stress relief, such practices can develop an understanding of interdependence and impermanence. This, in turn, generates compassionate connections …

By Marc Brackett, guest contributor

As we all know, our best attempts at calm, thoughtful reflection work only when we feel in control of our emotions. If you’re raging with resentment or crushed by disappointment, you’re probably not capable of the reasoning required to see a situation in a new light. You first need to bring down your emotional temperature, lower your activation, and give yourself the space required for rational thought. Maybe you take a few deep breaths, a few steps back, a w…

By Christopher Lyddy and Darren Good, guest contributor

If you’re like most people, you’ve had the experience at work of sitting at your computer and suddenly coming to realize that you haven’t typed a word in ages. Instead, you may have just been mindlessly ruminating about a past incident with a colleague, or imagining the next encounter.

Getting “stuck” in this thought process, according to numerous interviews we conducted in a study of working professionals, can really interfere with being…

See how neural mechanisms underlie unconscious bias and learn how to provide a framework for mindful and compassionate observation. Discover how to deconstruct your biases, and how to activate neural pathways that enable you to more effectively engage with people whose perspectives may be very different from your own.

This Free Summit Talk has Expired

By Rhonda Magee, guest contributor

What we call the self is shaped by the cultures in which we live. And because race is a cultural feature of societies built on racism, notions of self include notions of race. The racialized self is produced by and helps reproduce racism in our cultures. Mindfulness helps us understand and expand our notions of race. And yet, talking about race and racism and examining these through the lens of mindfulness is uncommon. This is not to say that it is not being d…