Well done. You've sorted through the embarrassment of riches that is the modern podcast landscape

and found me Rob Briden on my podcast. In this series of Briden and I talk to among

others Harry Hill, Ben Elton, Charlotte Church, Steve Cougan and Dame Harriet Walter.

And that's just a few. We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer.

It's terrific conversation, reminiscent where appropriate and exchange of anecdotes.

So do join me Rob Briden wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of Briden and

are available early and ad free on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple

Podcasts or the Wondery app.

Not to brag what we've had lots of big shots on this podcast. Today though in this bonus

podcast we've got two big shots. Danny Goldman or Daniel Goldman as he's known professionally

wrote a huge book called Emotional Intelligence. Many years ago he's a renowned science journalist

and has some experience as a scientist as well and as a long time meditator. He has a new

book along with a co-author by the name of Richard Davidson. He goes by Richie Davidson. The two

are old old friends. Richie is one of if not the premier neuroscientist who looks at what

meditation does to the brain. And these two have been friends as you'll hear and they have

a very interesting sort of joint story about how they both got interested in meditation

and science and the intersection of two. And in this book what they do is really take

a kind of dry eyed clear eyed look at the big body of research that's been generated

in recent years as it pertains to meditation. And they kind of they try to tell you what's

quality science and what's not. And they even take a hard look at some of the science

that Richie himself has done. And they also what they really do that's fascinating is they

sort it. They tell you what what can you expect as a beginner meditator what what kind of

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