Mental training

We all know that physical exercise is healthy, easier to maintain than regain, and that despite diverse innate abilities we can all dramatically improve from our baseline.

Seeking a trained psychologist only in severe distress is like considering gym memberships and nutrition programs only after becoming a dangerously obese diabetic. Or like taking up meditation only when neurosis derails your life.  But like physical attributes, mental well-being can be monitored, maintained, and enhanced.

Mental states we crave (joy, focus, calm) are available to us.  Ground-breaking science (e.g., epigenetics) is confirming what many wise contemplatives throughout history noticed: the powerful insight that these positive states are not unchangeable, factory  human settings.