Is meditation really the key to good health? Steven Gundry MD and Dr. Dan Siegel discuss the truth about meditation, the difference between meditation and mindfulness and whether it's a daily practice that can truly "grow" your brain. Keep listening if you've ever been curious about how to meditate, or about whether meditation really boosts good health. Dr. Dan Siegel: Website - http://www.drdansiegel.com/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/DrDanSiegel Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/drdansiegel/ Buy Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence here - https://amzn.to/2Qe4jqP Dr. Gundry: Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. Today we're speaking with New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Dan Siegel. He's just come out with "Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence." That's not what's under the tree at Christmastime. The book ... this book has really an in-depth look at the science that underlies meditation's effectiveness. This book teaches readers how to harness the power of the principle where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows. I like that. That's very nice. So, okay, tell me more about this. What does that mean? Dr. Dan Siegel: Well, what it means is that we now know from science that if you do a regular practice of focusing your attention in particular ways, ways we could talk about, you actually do a number of things in the brain that include basically growing particular networks that are what are called "integrative." They link differentiated areas together. That's what integration is. We can talk about the specific areas, but the overall frame for brain plasticity, for how the brain changes in response to experience, is that you can use your mind to change the structure of your brain. That, actually, can cultivate a kind of brain functioning that develops resilience, insight, and emotional balance in your life. Then, there are a whole bunch of physiological changes we can talk about, but that's just to address the brain aspect of it. Dr. Gundry: Okay. So, you're obviously a neuroscientist. In fact, you're a psychiatrist. Dr. Dan Siegel: Yep.