Courtland Dahl, UW Research Scientist, talks Meditation and Mindfulness (Hour 1)

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From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.

It's Night Light with Pichuaba and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes sharp humor and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, I'm on.

Here's Pete Schwabba.

Dude.

And Greg Bach.

Dude.

Welcome to Nightlight, ladies and gentlemen.

Hey, it's great to have you here with us tonight.

I am Pete Schwabba sitting across the state from Mr. Greg Bach, coming to you live from Radio Park.

It's Radio Park, right Greg and Racine?

Correct.

Radio Park.

See, I need a nickname like that for my studio here up in the north.

Radio House.

Yeah, that's got a ring to it.

I was trying to build Marinette as Christmas City USA.

That didn't really take off.

Well,

you gave it one day.

You gave it one show.

That goes back a year and not even people in Marinette like it.

They just look at me and they go, I think you can

wait.

Oh, wait.

Oh, take a step back here.

Yesterday when you were insisting on me calling a Christmas town, USA Christmas,

I insisted.^?

Yeah.^?

You kept on

correcting me.^?

You kept on correcting me.^?

Christmas city.^?

I thought that this was some sort of, like, worldwide honor that Marinette had.

I didn't realize it was something that just lived within the confines of your brain box, Pete Schwabba.

It's

gotta start somewhere, dude.

We need to be on the map, and it's cold here, and we have pine trees.

Why not Christmas City, USA?

That's what I'm going for.

Use that

radio park.

Give me Christmas City,

USA.

There's already a place called Christmas Town, USA.

That doesn't have the same... You have to fight them.

Christmas City, Christmas Town, does not have that kind of mellifluous sort of a literal hint.

Christmas... Big words.

Big words.

Big words.

City, USA, Maryland, Wisconsin.

I love it.

All right.

We'll get that worked out, folks, but welcome to Nightlight.

It is a Tuesday night edition of our fine show that covers current events and some entertainment, and hopefully we make your drive home.

Or, you know, you're just your evening a little happier.

Greg,

when you

think of this show, do you think of mom and dad gathering the kids around the radio, listening to Nightlight?

Post some water on the cable.

We got to get the radio working.

Pete and Greg are on.

Mom's made a nice meatloaf.

Yeah.

What about you, Tom?

Yeah, I'd say, yeah, you know what?

Yeah, let's go around.

Yeah, exactly.

Whatever.

You can't fake enthusiasm

like that.^?

Wow.^?

Well,^?

I know that for I know that my mom I know my mom Listen, so that that's you know, so it is mine my

mom listens to yeah^?

Yeah, my mom and her and her and her companion, but I don't know Dennis calm Dennis.

That's his name They they they listen and they send me text messages letting me know they enjoy it.

So to a certain degree.

Yes

Yes, I love that and that your mom texted the

show the other night that

was she did exactly exactly Exactly, so we're very appreciative of that.

Um, I would love that to be the case because you know I grew up with stories like that like oh back on Saturday nights We'd listen to the Grand Ole Opry and that

was all we

did We'd stop everything we were doing and we'd get out the we get the battery hook it up to the car then hook it up to the radio because we only had one radio we only had one battery so

I love that.

Maybe we bring that back for America.

The idea of just sitting around listening to the radio.

Put your phone down.

Turn the TV off.

Unless you're listening to us via the Civic Media app.

And that's very simple.

Get the Civic Media app and you can listen through your phone or your tablet or your device of choice.

It's absolutely free.

You can call, text, leave a voice message.

You can also enter into contests.

From what I understand, there's a new text when contests coming down the pike, but listen more for details.

But yeah, it's...

Appointment listening, that's what I would love to call it.

Appointment listening.

It's a can't miss.

I want to say too, Greg, tonight we should give away some Chicago tickets.

Chicago, and that's Jason's chef.

I'm sorry.

Jason's chef.

Yeah.

It's Jason's chef who basically is, was the soul of Chicago for 30 years or so.

Yeah.

And^?

we had the pleasure of interviewing him last week.

He is performing here in Christmas City, USA, Marinette, Wisconsin.

This coming Saturday night and I'm gonna introduce them at the community rec center.

So come on out folks if you want tickets text in let's say Chicago text in the word Chicago and We will we can give you up to four pick a winner.

We'll

pick a

winner Just put in Chicago in the text and then Dom will get your information and we'll and we've got more to give away throughout the week though So it'll be fun.

We have a great show tonight though, too, Greg

Oh my goodness.

Yes, we do.

We have such an amazing show ahead of us.

Tonight, after the 530 News, we are going to be speaking to, I'm trying to want to get his name correctly here.

Where did his name go?

There it is, Cortland Dahl.

He'll be talking to us.

He is a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his area of expertise is meditation.

He is the creator of the Healthy Minds program.

Healthy Minds is a well-being training program that integrates insight from scientific research with a comprehensive path of contemplative training.

So like to me, that was interesting because when you think of research and that kind of thing, you don't really put mindfulness and...

meditation into that, into that, you know, stew pot.

It's usually those are two separate things, spirituality versus science.

But you have a great discussion with court, Cortland coming up.

Yeah, it's going to be, he was, he was great to talk to.

He's just a guy like there are people you meet in your life where I kind of like wish they were neighbors.

Like I

would love to pick his brain periodically, you know, and just kind of have that around me to motivate me to meditate more.

I always call, I call that a friend crush and crush does not mean anything romantic.

It just means like you meet someone where you're like, man, I really want to be friends with you.

Can we just,

can we just hang out?

I'd like to just

hang

out once.

That'd be cool.

And then you tell your spouse, you're like, you know who's really cool?

Oh, Cortland.

He's really cool, man.

We should invite him over for dinner sometime.

Oh man, I show him my garage and all my tool.

Like that's to me.

Cause it's very hard to make new friends as an older person.

When you get older, it's just more,

difficults.

And when you meet that person, you're like, I want to be friends with them.

You're like, I really want to be friends with that person.

So.

And you feel weird about it almost.

Yes.

Even though there's nothing weird about it.

You just

want a cool friend, not even cool like Fonzie cool, like you want someone who's interesting, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.^?

So we say, like, there's a plumber.

Oh, I got a leaky pipe.

Oh, come over and help you out.

Oh, I got a back problem.

My brother's a, you know, chiropractor.

He lives down the road.

When you're a comedian,

That

doesn't work.

Nobody wants to be your friend.

Nobody's going to come over and go, Hey, my daughter's a little down.

She broke up with her boyfriend.

You mind going over and cracking a few jokes.

Yeah, exactly.

Keep it clean.

She's in high school.

So,

you

know,

Hey, man, you're in comedy.

Uh, do you know Jerry Seinfeld?

We want to get to a company party.

Can you, do you have his phone number?

No, I don't have his phone number.

He changed his number because I kept calling him because I wanted him to be my friend.

No, I get what you're saying.

Yeah, it's just a weird, uh, it's just a weird dynamic, but I totally get the Frank crush thing.

Yeah.

And there's

nothing, uh, I appreciate you putting yourself out there and saying that.

That's awesome.

Uh, all right.

So we got Cortland all, uh, Dom, let's not, let's not, let's quit messing around.

The kidding around is pretty much over.

Let's get to our nightlight question of the night.

Let's

talk about

the

question.

Okay.

Question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Here, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

OK.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, website, whatever, Yummy, Yummy, Yummy by The Ohio Express was the worst song from the 60s.

So tonight's question is, what do you think is the worst song ever?

You can let us know at eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic or Let us know on the app that just Greg just talked about and saying it's praises.

It's very easy to use It's awesome.

If you're watching the radio on YouTube Facebook or X Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment But let us know what you think is the worst song ever will read your texts early in our number two.

So don't go away How does that Greg did I cover it?

How do you think it's going so far?

So far, so good.

I did want to tell people, though, in the second hour, we've got some cool stuff happening.

Yeah.

We're going to be talking about a story regarding Goodwill doing a quiz that Dom, our producer, Dom in Madison, has put... Oh, stop it.

Oh,

there's a devilish demon's laugh.

I'm going to make you look like fools, fools, fools, fools.

And then...

This is, I mean, we're just starting week three.

This is Tuesday, a week three of Nightlight 2.0.

And one of the things that, you know, we realize hasn't happened is Pete and I have known each other for a while.

We've talked on very many occasions.

We've been on each other's shows, but we don't know enough about each other.

And tonight, we're going to ask some questions.

So it's going to be Greg and Pete get to know each other.

The Licebreaker.

Yeah, Little Licebreaker, you know.

It'll be

fun.^?

And I've said, I'm an open book, so bring it, baby.

Okay.

All right, so you got that to look forward to in hour number two, folks.

It's great to have you here.

Before we go any further, though, let's get to our three big things.

The first big story.

It's only

week three, Greg.^?

It's only week three.^?

Folks, I am very excited about this one.

This was reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel late last week, but I wanted, I thought that we should talk about this cause I think it's great.

Amtrak could begin Madison rail services as early as 2030.

I think the more train in Wisconsin, the better Pete, the plans to begin the Madison rail service have begun in the works, have been in the works for years, but we're revived in 2021 as a result of the bipartisan infrastructure law.

Remember when that happened?

It's a weird word.

Yeah, exactly.

We were a recipient of part of $102 billion in federal funding.

And part of that is going to go to getting medicine, a rail service.

And I think that I just, I think one of the worst, one of the darkest days in Wisconsin's history in recent memory, I should say, is when we.

poo pooed and canceled the commuter rail service or the light rail service that we were going to put into the state that we had all the money allocated for once again.

And Scott Walker on like day one or two said, nope, goodbye.

And then all that money went away.

So did the jobs.

So did the transportation.

We could go back in time and relive those worlds, but let's not.

Let's move ahead.

2030.

We're getting more train access.

And that's on top of the fact that the Borealis train service that goes to Minneapolis is absolutely breaking records right now.

People love that train service.

It's a cash cow.

And this is like, what frustrates me about this, Greg, is it's about 20 years too late.

Oh, yeah.

We could, if it's going to start in 2030, we could have had this, you know, let's say

it^?

would

have

been done 2014 or whatever when the funds went through and all the construction.

But it is so, I love traveling by train.

I love the, it's just not a hassle.

You can do other stuff while you're riding.

I do find it weird that Madison doesn't already have a stop.

You know, there's a stop in Columbus.

I

thought that was like on purpose.

I don't know what the thinking about that was.

Well,

this is going to be the world famous Hiawatha train.

So that's the one that goes from Milwaukee to Chicago.

I've taken that train many, many times.

Love it.

And I think you add a stop in Madison.

Oh my goodness.

Chicago, I know there's Chicago, Sturdivant, the airport, Milwaukee.

And then you move that right up to Madison, maybe one stop in the middle there.

I mean, that is going to be, that would be so good for so many people.

I just, I think this is, you're right, it feels too late, but if we can get it done, I think that would be fantastic.

If we can get a rail service up to Canada too, oh my goodness, come

on

now.

It's good for the economy too.

I

don't know if people realize that.

Like we were supposed to, I read about almost a year ago where you're supposed to get a line from Milwaukee up to Green Bay too, which would be fantastic.

I mean, the Fox Valley has like a half a million people.

I would like to see them go north too and just make the whole state accessible or as much of it as you can where all the business stuff happens and where there's hustle and bustle.

I mean, I had to explain to friends of mine who are like, yeah, get rid of the train.

We don't need it.

I said, okay.

Here we go.

This is how it works.

You get rid of the train.

That money doesn't go away.

It goes to other States.

And that's what it did.

It went to other States

on top of

that.

You talking about the construction jobs that came from the train.

You come, you talk about, you talk about all of the construction that has to accommodate like things at stops.

So people are going to be building like mini malls and things like that.

And the jobs, like all the things that we lost because of it is.

very comprehensible and very, very right there in your face.

Lots of money lost because of it.

Hopefully this can make up some sort of whatever.

I'm just happy this is happening.

I think this is very important for Wisconsin.

I hope so too, buddy.

I think

it's, uh, yeah, better late than ever, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

We're sorry.

All right.

We are coming back after a very short break to talk about two more big topics.

Folks, you don't want to miss this.

The train was just the icing on the, it's not the icing on the cake.

It's the start.

We are coming right back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

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started.

I

was kind of jamming and I was like, oh, yeah, you're on the radio.

You got to start talking now.

So great to have you with us, folks.

It is Tuesday night here on the Civic Media Network.

And you've got Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

And we are discussing some current news stories today.

And we just talked about the train coming back to it'll run through Madison, which is great.

But we've got other stuff to get to.

Don't we, Greg?

We got two other big ones.

The second big

story.

I saw this today.

Yeah.

I don't know that I was surprised by it, but it was a poll that I saw on Yahoo about Democratic front runners in the in the 2026.

And listen, I have my thoughts on the Democrats drive me crazy sometimes, Merrick Garland.

But subtle.

You know, they just can't like, OK, so I'm not saying this is a bad thing.

I was a little surprised.

23% of the people in a poll said they favor Kamala as the front runner.

19% said Gavin Newsom.

Okay.

10% said Pete Buttigieg, who I like a lot.

I like Pete Buttigieg a lot.

In fact, I've come around to him like when he, like a couple of years ago, I said, no, I just didn't dig him.

Now I'm like, maybe.

Yeah.

He would, I think, I just think he's too measured for America.

He your boy, that's a great way to put it right.

He just talks.

He's very sensible You know, I like I like I know you have issues with Newsome I love that he gave Trump some of the business of what Trump does and that resonated I thought Kamala in a short time ran a good campaign.

I'm not saying she did it perfectly but

Um, there's other people here too.

Uh, AOC got 7% of those surveyed.

Then you had a 5% tie between Josh Shapiro, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, uh, and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

I'm surprised he's

in those

guys.

Yeah.

Pass.

The age got 5% and JB Pritzker got 4%.

Gretchen Whitmer, 3%.

So there you go.

I would, of this group, I mean, this is like we are.

We're a little less than three years away, I should say.

Oh, God.

If there is an election, by the way.

Oh, God.

Oh, yeah.

It's so painful.

It's so painful in my brain.

Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Mark Kelly are the ones that I would be like, yes, let's bring them more to the front and have more conversations.

Gavin Newsom is a great governor for California.

I just think that I don't know if he would go over well in America.

AOC, very controversial.

Don't, don't at me.

I have my reasons.

I don't, and by the way, I don't dislike any of these people.

I worked in campaigning.

I worked in government.

I know how these work and I know what it's like to like look and say like, all right, who, who are, who's better?

Who should, like someone like a JB Pritzker should stay the governor of Illinois.

I think he's doing a fantastic job as the governor of Illinois.

And

You know, this is a bigger conversation for down the road, but I just, you know, this is amazing.

They did this and I'm, I'm very surprised that Kamala Harris came out on top.

Yeah.

There's, doesn't seem to be any, uh, uh, anger towards her.

And again, I, you know, Biden dropped out kind of late.

You can't put it all on Harris, but are on, uh, yeah, on Kamala, but, um,

I'd like to hear more from Mark Kelly.

I agree with you.

And a lot of it is I like what these people do in their lane.

But are they electable?

Are they electable nationally to win the presidency?

Because if you're a Democrat, that's what you want.

You want someone who's electable.

Yes.

I mean, that's just how it works.

I mean, you want the person you want.

I get that.

But are they the best person who can?

Are they the same person who can appeal to the Los Angeles?

liberal versus the Oklahoma versus the Wisconsin versus the Rhode Island look like you have to look at all of that before you say this is our person and right I think it's part of the either was part of the failure of the Kamala Harris campaign or just the fact that the Democrats saying no primary necessary folks here you go and people were upset about that

right yeah that would have been interesting if they tried to squeeze a primary in there to complain of a lot

of^?

people but such a small window anyway absolutely absolutely yeah

Uh, all right, well, should we get to our, uh, let's get to the final thing down, please.

The

third big story.

Uh, the time we have left coming out of the Wisconsin public radio, Jeff Robbins has the byline prescribing improv to improve patient doctor relationships.

I see what they did there.

Uh, so basically, uh, associate professor and director of education and innovation.

at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and public that's a very long title a lot

of these individuals

have very long title teaches an elective course in improvisational theater and she has decided that they are basically working with doctors to do this to help them create better bedside manner better attitude relationship with their patients and What do you what do you think about that Pete improv as a as a teaching tool?

Well, we just talked about politicians staying in their lanes.

I think doctors, if they don't go crazy with it, like I know a lot of people that take improv classes do it for just to interact better with people.

So yeah, why not doctors?

As long as they don't work blue when they take suggestions from their patients.

I like a doctor who just tells me what I want to hear and they don't do that anymore.

But when I was younger, I remember I had a lump in my ear, it was frostbite.

And I go,

you don't

think it's cancer?

And he goes, I'm virtually certain it's not.

And that's with the no tests or whatever.

I walked out and they're like, yes.

So I don't know if I want a doctor cracking jokes.

Well, I mean, I don't know if it's so much about cracking jokes.

It's just about.

to me, and this is what I learned from improv, because I took improv because I wanted to be a lawyer.

And one of my friends said, you should take an improv class.

Well, I wanted to do comedy, but I used it also as the excuse saying, I want to be a lawyer.

And it's just, I think it's less about comedy and just more about how to work in a flow with people.

And like, you know, it's people, you know, doctors aren't the easiest people to communicate with sometimes.

I think that's very much true.

And I think this is just more to build their skills at creating relationships with their.

Patience instead of being like wackety-schmackety take two and call me in the morning

Yeah,

so I think it's cool.

I think I think everyone should take an improv course period I think everyone should do it everything will help you greatly in your life.

So that's

fun It's fun too and you but then that begs the question Do you have to teach the patience the yes and theory?

Because what

if you shut

you down?

What if you're going into a scene as a doctor before you give someone earth-shattering news and they shut you down?

It's just bad manners

That's very, very bad manners.

Yeah.

Bad improv, bad improv.

All right.

We are coming right back after news, sports and the weather with a courtland doll.

Great interview folks.

Don't miss this.

We are, we're coming right back.

This is Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Our question of the night, what is the worst song ever written?

Share it with us.

Be part of the show.

It's nightlight on the Civic Media Network.

a lot of different kinds of research expands from very geeky stuff where we put advanced meditators and new meditators in the brain scanner.

And we look at what's going on in their brains when they meditate and see how it affects their overall well-being and mental health, but also, of course, their brain function.

And then on the other side of the spectrum, we work in systems.

We've done a lot of work in the educational systems throughout the US.

We've done work in health care systems.

And there we're looking not only at how practices like meditation affect our individual mental health and our ability to flourish, but even systems, even looking at how the individual well-being of a person ripples out into an entire system, again, like education.

So we do all sorts of things.

But I would say the main thing these days is we created an app called the Healthy Minds Program.

We did this for research.

We thought it would just be kind of a small thing for our own studies.

But it ended up getting picked up by the New York Times and was recommended as one of their top meditation apps.

And now we have hundreds of thousands of people who have used it.

And we have millions upon millions of data points.

So we can ask very different scientific questions with that kind of data.

So there's actually a lot going on.

And I could geek out on any one of those little threads.

But it's quite a wide terrain, you could say.

Listen, feel free to geek out as much as you want.

I'm truly fascinated by this.

To dumb it down even more for someone like me, there are different kinds of meditation.

There's sitting meditation, active meditation.

How, you know, an active meditation, as I understand it, is kind of being aware of your feet hitting the ground or you gave one example, folding laundry you can meditate while you're folding laundry.

Is it just focusing on what you're doing or what is the practice?

you

literally could meditate anytime and anywhere, right?

Now, for example, you gave the example of just noticing the feelings in your body.

So if you feel what's going on, like the sensations of your feet resting on the floor, it's the simplest thing.

You just activated networks in your brain that are doing basically two different things.

One is around intention rather than letting the world pull your attention as it does all the time.

you are in the driver's seat of what's happening with your attention.

So when you choose where to place your attention, you are activating brain networks that will allow you to focus and allow you to resist the pull of distraction.

So it's not about paying attention to your breath or in this case to your feet.

It's just you're in the driver's seat.

You're choosing what you want to be happening in your own mind and you're training that capacity.

But you could also equally in this moment practice a very different skill.

Appreciation is one of my favorites because it's so easy to do.

So normally our brain is wired to have a negativity bias.

There's important evolutionary reasons why that is the case.

It's not a personal failing.

It's just kind of how we're wired.

But you can change that by choosing to notice the positive.

So again, it goes back to intention.

And I'm looking at you gentlemen and we're talking and I could think, wow, this is great.

These guys have chosen to talk about this.

I hope it's beneficial to people.

How wonderful that they're making space for these important conversations.

And then right there, I just chose to orient my mind to something positive.

That's the skill of appreciation.

So you could do that while you're walking, going for a walk and walking your dog.

You could do it while you're folding the laundry.

You could do it while you're commuting to work.

Or you could do it as a formal sitting meditation practice.

So again, there's many different skills, and you can practice those skills many different ways.

And sitting meditation is just one of those ways, a powerful one, but just one.

So I'm sorry, excuse me one second great.

So just to stick with this while we're on the sitting meditation How is that different than the active?

Is it just you're focusing?

Reflecting breathing like you say measure or being aware of your breath that kind of stuff How did the two differentiate?

So what sitting meditation uniquely brings is that you are completely immersed in Training whatever that skill might be so if it's mindfulness for example, you're training these attentional networks that I mentioned your

learning to focus and resist distraction.

Or if you're doing appreciation, as I just mentioned, you're kind of immersed in that.

So the benefits of sitting meditation is that you're not doing anything else.

You're totally focused just on that inner process of whatever form of meditation you're doing.

And that's the unique benefit of a formal sitting meditation.

Active meditation, you don't get that immersive quality.

So you're probably not going to feel like you're as relaxed or as

immersed in the experience as you would be if you were just in a quiet space doing it.

But the unique benefit of active meditation is that you're linking that skill with your everyday life.

So it's not just like a nice little vacation you have for 20 minutes in the morning and then you're totally distracted and reactive the rest of the day.

You're learning how to practice that skill of appreciation or how to be less distracted and more calm and centered.

while you're going about your day.

So each of them has its own unique benefits.

They're just different.

They do different things and they even activate slightly different networks in the brain.

I want to go back to something you just said about the wired for negativity evolutionary on evolutionary scale.

And I've talked to people about this and something that I've done for myself is trying to practice more gratitude instead of looking at

things as maybe a small inconvenience as to say, Hey, I have this thing.

I can do this thing.

I have a house.

I have a car, whatever it may be.

But that is work.

And it almost feels like part of therapy too, where you have to work to, to find the good.

Why is it that we are hardwired to immediately take on the negative them?

Yeah, it's a great question.

Simply put, we did not evolve as a species to be happy.

We evolved to survive.

So our brain and our biology, our nervous systems have all evolved over time to keep us safe.

And the way they've done that is to become exceptionally good at detecting threats.

So our brains, in many ways, are prediction machines and threat detection machines.

And that's good if you're foraging in the forest and on the lookout for wild animals or you're in some physically dangerous situation.

But although our minds are good at detecting threats, they're exceedingly bad at discerning emotional threats or psychological threats from physical threats.

And so oftentimes our nervous system is responding the same way as though we're being physically attacked when it's somebody said something snarky at the office or got into a

an argument with our partner or a friend or we're just doom-scrolling and reading about all the scary stuff in the world these days.

And our nervous system doesn't really know that.

It's acting as though we need to fight or flight or flee or simply freeze.

But really, where are you going to run?

Who are you going to fight?

What are you going to, what's going to happen if you freeze?

Like it's not the correct response, right?

But it's what our nervous system is telling us to do.

So again, it makes sense in a certain context.

We don't want to lose that.

But oftentimes we get stuck

when we're chronically in this fight-or-flight response.

It's like our nervous system is chronically activated and it just doesn't know how to adapt to the environment.

And meditation is one powerful way to help it learn to be more adaptable to what's actually happening in the moment.

That's great.

Yeah.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

And you are joining us now.

We're talking meditation with Cortland Dahl.

He's a PhD and leading expert in mindfulness

And the science of well-being, and he's a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

So how is this different than transcendental meditation where you have a mantra and I believe you do have to sit?

Or at least that's how I do it poorly.

What are the differences between the two and what are the benefits that you might get from one that you might not get from the other?

So again,

You can think about meditation as being this very, very broad umbrella category under which there's many subtypes of meditation, just like there's many forms of exercise and they do different things.

So transcendental meditation is one specific form of meditation.

It is in a family of meditation, what we call the attentional practices, where the main focus is you are orienting to some particular experience, which could be your breath.

It could be, as in this case, you're repeating a mantra in your mind over and over.

It could be other things.

It could even be a visual object.

And you're simply resting your attention.

You're basically focusing your mind, resting your mind.

And what happens through those practices is your mind becomes very still.

You're training your attentional capacity.

So part of that process is you're noticing the pull of distraction.

You're bringing it back.

And you're basically rewiring your brain to be more focused and less distracted.

there's all sorts of benefits to that.

And it's very different than cultivating appreciation or a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

So again, there's many forms and that's just one, one very powerful form of meditation, but again, just one of many.

A question I would have is I feel like there are people out there who could say, you know, I'm a spiritual person.

I love meditation.

I don't like, I don't enjoy the science is not for me.

And then people who say science, I'm science.

Meditation is just what they

however they want to refer to it.

But how do you, as a research scientist in this field, blend the two for people on both sides to understand, to say, you are connected in more ways than you understand, and this is how you are and present your findings?

Well, one common thing you could find in the world's more spiritual meditative traditions and equally in science is you're trying, we're basically trying to understand the mind and how it works.

So that is equally true, you know, if you're

into Buddhist psychology and you're meditating, you know, in that tradition or really any meditative tradition, you're just getting familiar with your own mind.

And as scientists, we're basically doing the same thing.

We're just using different tools.

So they're very powerful actually together.

Each of them is the scientific perspective is giving us a very unique vantage point, a very unique set of tools to better understand the mind, how we can optimize these teachings and practices so they simply work for us better.

And similarly, there's this accumulated knowledge and wisdom and experience in the world's meditative traditions in which there's a tremendous amount of wisdom.

And we're trying to connect those traditions so we can create a little more cross-pollination between the both.

Nice.

Wow.

What was your experience like?

I think you lived in China for eight years and you studied with the Buddhists.

Actually, we have to do a quick break.

But think about that.

And I also want to ask you about the challenges

of meditation in this day and age with smartphones and all that kind of stuff.

And Greg, I'm sure you have more questions as well.

Loads of them, so many questions.

What's it like being a guy that people just want to be around to get information out of you?

All right, we're talking with Cortland Dahl.

He's a PhD and leading expert in mindfulness.

meditation and the science of well-being.

We will have more with our guests after this very short break.

I would encourage you all to take this time and reflect and meditate because we are coming right back on Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

There you go.

Nice change up there, buddy.

Hey, this is Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

You are listening to the Civic Media Radio Network.

Our guest is Cortland Dahl.

an expert on mindfulness and meditation.

He has also studied in Tibet and with refugee settlements in India and Nepal.

What was your time like there, Cortland?

And how is it different than here?

And, you know, that's kind of the birth of meditation.

Isn't it that that area of the world?

Yeah, very much.

I spent almost a decade living in Tibetan refugee settlements all over the place, but mainly in Kathmandu, Nepal, where I'm actually headed in just a couple of days.

Man, it's just a completely different world and I would say the biggest thing is That the value system is just different and and there's many I mean we could talk for hours just about that But one of the things that will always stay with me is being in a culture Where the value of human beings where our our sense of worth as human beings is not tied to what we do and accomplish but more to who we are and there's this whole kind of

distinction between doing and being and seeing that we don't have to be on this endless march of getting stuff done to be a value.

Whereas I feel like in the modern world, certainly in the US, where I grew up, it's kind of like if you're not productive, if you're not just doing something active, you just don't have any value.

You're kind of viewed as sort of worthless.

And this was just a totally different value system.

And there were getting a lot of stuff done.

It's not like they were sitting around.

So it's not like that leads you to just being unproductive.

but yet your sense of worth can be located somewhere else, not in the to-do list.

Is that an American quality or do you see that in other countries around?

Not just like from what you saw in your studies, but like I know exactly what you're talking about, but is that an American thing or is that in a lot of countries around the world where you see it's your value is tied to who you are and what you create essentially?

I think perhaps it's

uniquely intense in the US.

But whether it originated here or we've successfully exported it everywhere around the world, I've traveled in more than 40 countries and lived all over the place.

And I can say it's alive and well in many countries, pretty much every...

continent in the world, maybe Antarctica's, you know, holding out for a while longer.

But, you know, like there, I think it's everywhere, but there's places where it's more or less intense.

And sure, certainly here, you know, we have this narrative, you know, you got to lift yourself up by the bootstraps and do it yourself, you're on your own, you got to get stuff done.

And yeah, and it just creates a pretty massive blind spot about when it comes to mental health and well-being and what actually really supports us and are to lead fulfilling lives.

I think that definitely can speak to the point you made about hooking on to negativity.

If you live in that kind of mindset where you just, you need to live in that world of, I'm defined by what I create and whatnot.

It can create a place where you don't understand, you don't accept gratitude or joy immediately.

You have to find the back end, like, how is this going to hurt me?

And I think that's something that is very American in our distrust of each other, where we could very much

benefit from saying, hey, why did this person come to me?

Like you said, they came to me, they wanted to talk to me, where's the joy?

Where's the happiness in there?

And I think that's a really good way of looking at it as far as at least in this country with what's going on right now.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

I mean, we have an abundance of progress, but at the expense of wellbeing and our ability to even just have some sense of emotional balance in life.

I mean, there's a lot of costs to it.

And I think you can have both, but we've just prioritized one at the expense of the other.

So we need some kind of rebalancing for sure.

I'm someone tied to my smartphone.

I love to watch color television.

I binge watch a lot of stuff.

It's kind of been my adult entertainment life.

But what do you tell people how important meditation is?

Do you tell them that it's even more important now in the age of technology and that we have to disconnect and decompress a little bit?

Or can you meditate while watching an episode of the Jeffersons?

Both.

I mean, like I said, you can meditate anytime, anywhere right now.

pay attention, if you bring attention to your breath right now, or if you hear the sound of my voice and you are intentional about it, you're basically meditating.

And again, there's many ways you could do that.

So you definitely can meditate when you're using your phone.

You can meditate when you're watching TV.

The challenge is that technology in particular, and specifically things like social media, are architected and built to hijack your prefrontal cortex, which means they're designed to undermine

intentionality.

So while you can, in theory, do it anytime and anywhere, you can be present and focused.

We're living in a world where our attentional networks and our brains are being hacked continuously by the surroundings we're in.

So I would say we're in the world we live in.

Nothing's going to change that.

We have phones.

We're now in the world of AI.

That's just the way things are.

That's fine.

I think the most important practice and skill to have in the 21st century

is intention.

Be cognizant of the way this stuff is built and be intentional about how you use it.

Let me give one very concrete example.

I was using my phone as an alarm clock for a while, and I realized that I would pick up my phone first thing in the morning to turn off my alarm.

Before I knew it, I'd be checking my email and checking messages, and I'm scrolling through my... And I didn't intend to do that, right?

I just was stuck down this little rabbit hole.

And I realized, I just need to leave it outside my bedroom.

I don't bring my phone in my bedroom.

It does not

enter my bedroom anymore.

And that one thing, being intentional about that one thing has made a huge difference.

So it doesn't have to be that.

It might be something different.

But the key is we're just cognizant of what's going on and we're making choices rather than the technology dictating how we use it, which is usually what happens if we're not intentional about what we're doing.

Wow.

So start small.

Yeah.

Yes.

I think that's something I've learned over the past just a few years is something where instead of looking at a problem from its entirety, look at how I can

create solutions small in that, in whatever I'm trying to fix.

And as you say, like, you know, I have a brother-in-law who's a neurological oncologist and he tells me all the time, and he says, Greg, he says, put your phone down three hours, or he says, put your phone down an hour before you go to bed, turn off the TV two hours before you go to bed and stop working three hours before you go to bed.

You will sleep better.

And to me, that seems like such an overwhelming.

thing to do.

But instead looking at saying like, all right, tonight, I'm just going to try to stop working three hours if I can do that.

I think that's the other thing, Cortland, is that people see the whole problem is so overwhelming, they don't even want to try to hit a solution.

Whereas what you're saying is, find a small portion, what can I do to fix that small portion, and then take on another thing and then create a larger solution, which I think will

make you happier in the long run.

Great stuff.

Cortland, thank you so much.

Keep up the great work.

We would love to make this kind of a regular semi-regular thing.

We can't offer a signing bonus, but we love your intellect and your advice.

It's outstanding.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's been great to be here.

Thank you both.

All right.

That's Cortland Dahl, PhD and expert on mindfulness meditation and the science of well-being, something I would like to get better at.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

We are coming right back.

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