Today I came across a highly interesting TEDx talk, recommended by Russell Simmons in his new book “Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple”.

It is a wonderful book, and I will definitely be writing more about it in future posts.

But for now, let’s get back to this talk.

The talk is by Hedy Kober PhD Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and of Psychology at Yale University, and was held earlier this year at a TEDx event in Buenos Aires.

So why shit (you might have noticed the strange title)?

She starts her talk by saying the following:

“I’m gonna give you some good news, and some bad news. I’m gonna start with the bad news: and the bad news is that shit happens. And you might’ve had an intuitive understanding of this, or the slightly less known is the good news, which is that each and every one of you has the power to control and change your experience of this shit when it happens.”

She goes on to tell us about her interesting research where she, and her team, have discovered (among other things) that “learning how to meditate can significantly alter your experience of stress, it can change not only the way that your brain functions during stress, but also the way that it’s structured over time”.

And in regards to pain reduction, they found that even just “a little bit of mindfulness, applied in the right moment, can go a long way”.

She ends the talk by attempting to inspire and motivate (it worked on me!) you to look closer at mindfulness and meditation.

Have a look for yourself (the video is embedded above, and can also be viewed at youtube by clicking here).

My hope is that you not only get some insight into Hedy’s highly interesting research, but that you also get inspired to dive deeper into meditation and mindfulness, and make it a bigger part of your life.