Episode Description

For episode 241 Sharon speaks with psychologist Zindel Segal, PhD and neuroscientist Norman Farb, PhD about their new book, Better in Every Sense: How the New Science of Sensation Can Help You Reclaim Your Life. Zindel is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology in Mood Disorders, University of Toronto Scarborough. He is a clinical psychologist whose research examines the use of mindfulness meditation in promoting affect regulation skills in people suffering from a depressive and anxiety based disorder. Norm is an Associate Professor, University of Toronto Mississauga and studies the social neuroscience of the self and human emotion, with a focus on how biases in self-representation shape emotional reactions that determine well-being.

In this conversation, Sharon, Norm and Zindel discuss:

• How Norm came to this work

• What inspired the new book, Better in Every Sense

• Why people are languishing

• The Default Mode Network versus Sensory Network

• The positives of the “house of habit” aka DMN

• “Breaking Frame” to solve problems

• Sense Foraging: shifting from thinking to sensing

• The three steps in Sense Foraging

• The role of equanimity in the Sensory Network

• How Interoception relates to empathy

Additional Resources

The conversation closes with a meditation breathing practice led by Zindel. You can learn more about Zindel and Norm’s book Better in Every Sense, right here. You can also check out Zindel’s first appearance on the Metta Hour Podcast from 2020 in Episode 144.

Listen to the Metta Hour Podcast in the following places: