The FitMind Podcast: Mental Fitness, Neuroscience & Psychology

Dr. Rick Doblin is the Founder and Director of MAPS, which has raised over $100 million for supporting psychedelics research.   Rick is one of the key leaders of this current psychedelic renaissance. He received a doctorate in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.  Topics include Stan Grof's theories, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, and the journey towards the legalization...

Steven Kotler is the bestselling author of Stealing Fire and Founder of the Flow Research Collective. Steven is a leading expert on human peak performance. His work has appeared in over 70 publications, including The New York Times , National Geographic , Wired , and Time . This episode centers around the neuroscience and psychology of flow states, as well as the future of flow technology using ma...

James Nestor is a science journalist and bestselling author. His most recent book, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art , explores the fascinating evolutionary biology and ancient practices of breathing. He's also written about freediving, created an Emmy-nominated documentary, and been on various shows, such as The Joe Rogan Experience. Topics in this episode include nose breathing, surgical bre...

Dr. Rick Hanson is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and New York Times bestselling author. He's lectured at NASA, Google, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. An expert on positive neuroplasticity, Dr. Hanson's work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and other major media. He also founded the Wellspring Institute for Neuro...

Cyndi Lee is a world-famous yoga and meditation teacher, Founder of the OM yoga center in New York, and a renowned author. Cyndi is the first female Western teacher to fully integrate yoga with Tibetan practices. She has trained thousands of yoga teachers across the world and appeared on a number of TV shows. Topics in this episode include misconceptions about yoga, some advanced breathing methods...

Mark Divine is an ex-Navy SEAL Commander, serial entrepreneur, and NY Times bestselling author. Mark, a self-described "warrior monk," is a master of human performance, both mental and physical. As you'll hear he started out on Wall Street before getting into martial arts, entering the SEALs (where he was the Honor Man of his class), and starting multiple million-dollar businesses, including SEALF...

Dr. Harriet De Wit is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Chicago with a PhD in Experimental Psychology. She has been researching psychoactive drugs for over 40 years. Dr. De Wit takes a cautious, scientific approach to these potent compounds. She's excited about their transformative power, but not caught up in the hype. Topics in this episode include MDMA an...

Dr. Steven Hayes is one of the most cited psychologists in the world. He was listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as the 30th "highest impact" psychologist worldwide and is the author of 46 books and nearly 650 scientific articles. His career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language, cognition, and the application of this for the understanding and alleviation of hum...

Gretchen Rubin is the New York Times bestselling author of several books about happiness, habit and human nature. Her books, including The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, Happier at Home, and The Happiness Project, have sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide. Gretchen also has a popular blog and podcast, called Happier. Previously, she received a law degree from Yale and clerked for U.S. Supr...

Dr. Jay Sanguinetti is a scientist and technologist trained in philosophy, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology. Jay's SEMA Lab is researching ways of using noninvasive brain stimulation to enhance cognitive function and wellbeing. For example, he's working with one of the world's best-known meditation masters, Shinzen Young, to create a neuromodulation device for augmenting mindfulness meditati...

Dr. Andrew Hill is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and biohacker. He's the Founder of Peak Brain Institute, a brain fitness center, and Lead Neuroscientist at TruBrain, a nootropics company. Dr. Hill holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA and is best known for his mission to bring the brain-hacking technology of neurofeedback into mainstream practice. His community-oriented company Peak B...

Dr. Erik Won is a Harvard-trained doctor and the President of Wave Neuroscience, a biotechnology company developing innovative solutions for mental disorders like PTSD. Dr. Won served as a U.S. Navy Flight Surgeon for Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 and became CTO of medical at Boeing before joining Wave Neuro. He also has an MBA and has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. In...

Dr. Tucker Peck is a meditation teacher, clinical psychologist, and founder of Drugfreesleep.com . He holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology with a focus on the scientific study of meditation's effects on the mind, brain, and body. Tucker began training in meditation in 2005 and has studied with Sharon Salzberg of the Insight Meditation Society and Dr. John Yates of Dharma Treasure, a previous guest o...

Donald Hilton, MD is a neurosurgeon and internationally recognized expert on the neuroscience of pornography. Dr. Hilton is currently listed in Best Doctors of America and serves as a clinical associate professor in the Department of Neurology at UT Medical School. He graduated summa cum laude with a degree in biology from Lamar University and cum laude with a medical degree from UT. In this episo...

Sean Fargo is the Founder of Mindfulness Exercises, where he has taught meditation to some of the top executives in the world at companies like PG&E, Reddit, and DocuSign. Sean is a meditation instructor at Google and advisor to technology startups like Elevate Labs and WellBrain.io. He was formerly a Buddhist monk for two years and worked at the famous Spirit Rock Meditation Center with Jack Korn...

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist with the 7th most viewed TED talk of all time, titled "My Stroke of Insight." She's been named by Time Magazine on a list of the 100 most influential people in the world and was the first guest on Oprah's SoulSeries show. Dr. Taylor founded the nonprofit Jill Bolte Taylor Brains, Inc. and is the national spokesperson for the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource C...

4x USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis tells us how to remember (and forget) anything. Nelson Dellis is an American memory champion, mountain climber, and consultant. He has won the USA Memory Championship four times and is an official Grandmaster of Memory (for which you must: memorize 1,000 random digits in one hour, memorize the order of 10 decks of cards in 1 hour, and memorize the order of one...

Michael Taft is a meditation teacher, bestselling author, and podcaster. He teaches meditation at top tech firms like Google and is a core faculty member of Wisdom Labs in San Francisco and an official advisor to the Therapeutic Neuroscience Lab. He has served as editor-in-chief of Being Human and long-time editorial director of Sounds True. Having meditated in various traditions and techniques fr...

Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD taught the most popular course in Harvard history and helped give rise to the positive psychology movement with his research into happiness. He lectures and consults globally for multinational corporations, Fortune 500 companies, and educational institutions and has appeared on major television, like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Tal is also the Co-Founder of Potential Life,...

Dr. Tamara Russell is a clinical psychologist, martial artist (with a black belt in Shaolin Kung Fu), and neuroscientist. She's the Director of the Mindfulness Centre of Excellence in London and a visiting lecturer at King's College London in the Neuroimaging Department of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. Dr. Russell's clinical and academic research explores the link betwe...

Michelle Zellner is the Founder of Better Beings and the author of The YOU Revolution. She's a former competitive gymnast and holds a Master of Science in Kinesiology, which has helped inform her work as a wellness coach and personal trainer. Michelle's company Better Beings hosts corporate workshops, retreats, and other programs for promoting wellness and motivation. In this episode, we talk abou...

Dr. Steve Taylor talks about self-transcendence and peak experiences (terms famously coined by Maslow) and gives a psychological view of what causes them to occur. Steve is an author and psychologist who comes highly endorsed by leaders like Eckhart Tolle. He is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and the author of several bestselling books on psychology and self-transcende...

Melanie Greenberg is a clinical psychologist and consultant who wrote the bestselling book The Stress-Proof Brain . An expert on stress management and general wellbeing, she draws on neuroscience, mindfulness, and positive psychology in her work, blending western science with eastern wisdom. Melanie also writes the popular "Mindful Self-Expression" blog for Psychology Today , which has over 8 mill...

Bob Roth is a famous American Transcendental Meditation (TM) teacher, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, and the Director of the Center for Leadership Performance. In 1972 Bob began to study TM with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Beatles' guru, a physicist, and founder of the TM movement. Nicknamed "Meditation Bob" by David Letterman, he has now taught TM for over 40 years, including to numerous celeb...

Laura Bakosh is the Co-Founder of Inner Explorer, which has brought meditation to over 1 million students in grades PK - 12. Previously, Laura worked in GE's healthcare division for 13 years before co-founding her meditation and mental health organization and has spoken at major venues like TEDx and Wisdom 2.0. She has a Ph. D. in Psychology and was trained as a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction...