Center Founder Richard Davidson received a "total wake-up call" in 1992. Davidson met His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, who asked him why he was using the tools of modern neuroscience to study negative qualities of mind, like anxiety and depression, rather than positive qualities of mind, such as kindness and compassion. This question transformed Davidson's research and led to the founding of the Center for Healthy Minds.

From this research, we know that the mind can be transformed and that well-being is a skill that can be learned. The invitation in all of this work is that we can take more responsibility to shape our brains by engaging in healthy habits of mind.

I had an intuition that the human mind was... the next scientific frontier. And that if there were some way to cultivate more positive minds, we could change the world for the better.

Richard Davidson
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