The western world's flirtation with mind training began decades ago, but has quickened in the last few years. As mindfulness, TM, and other brands of meditation sweep through businesses, schools and clinics, Altered Traits brings a startling new perspective to an understanding of our relationship to our brain, our personal traits, and even our genome - showing that smart practice can alter these for the better.

Drawing on a one-of-a-kind data pool - brain studies of world-class meditators - Goleman and Davidson sweep away common misconceptions and neuromythology to open reader's eyes to the ways data has been distorted to sell mind training methods. Simultaneously, they share for the first time remarkable findings that show potential for our cultivation of highly positive, lasting qualities, such as selflessness, equanimity, love and compassion, through meditation.

Altered Traits shifts the conversation of precisely how and when mind training benefits us, revealing reveal the power of intentional, sustained mental exercise to redesign neural circuitry. Anyone who cares about improving the human condition - or their own - will find much to ponder.