What if well-being could be taught, just like reading or mathematics? This question was what guided Professor Richard J. Davidson in his work in the neuroscience of emotion. The founder of the Centre for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison delivered the first keynote at the Science of Learning in Education Centre (SoLEC) Symposium 2025, where he shared compelling evidence that well-being is not a fixed trait. Instead, Professor Davidson argues that well-being is a skill that can be cultivated, and that it is a skill that matters deeply for both educators and learners alike.

The Decline of Well-Being: A Growing Challenge

Across the world, well-being is in decline – loneliness, social isolation and psychological distress are increasingly recognized as serious public health issues. Citing the 2023 U.S. Surgeon General’s report, Professor Davidson described loneliness as an “epidemic”, noting that the lack of social connection posed a greater health risk than smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to the U.S.; Singapore also faces similar challenges. From the National Youth Mental Health Study in Singapore, it was found that nearly one in three young adults (aged 20 to 24) experienced severe to extremely severe symptoms of anxiety.

Professor Davidson warns that these are rising trends that reflect a deeper erosion of connection and community, affecting individuals and societies alike. “Well-being isn’t a luxury,” he stresses. “It is essential for how we live, learn, and flourish together.”

The Four Pillars of a Healthy Mind

To understand what supports human flourishing, Professor Davidson and his team developed a research-based framework called “The Four Pillars of a Healthy Mind“. These four pillars represent Awareness, Connection, Insight and Purpose, and are trainable dimensions of well-being supported by distinct neural circuits.

As Professor Richardson explains, “The same mechanisms that encode suffering, such as neuroplasticity and epigenetics, can be harnessed for good. They are the very mechanisms that allow us to intentionally cultivate well-being.”

Pillar 1: Awareness (Training the Mind to Pay Attention)

Awareness is the foundation of a healthy mind. It involves mindfulness, defined as the ability to be present and notice what is happening both within and around us. Apart from mindfulness, it also includes self-awareness and meta-awareness, simply defined as knowing what the mind is doing.

The 19^th-century psychologist William James once described attention as “the very root of judgement, character, and will”. He also lamented that while it was easy to define this ideal, teaching it was difficult.

However, the Centre for Healthy Minds has proven otherwise. Studies from the Centre have shown that even eight weeks of simple mindfulness practice can produce measurable changes in brain connectivity and white matter structure. Additionally, participants who practiced daily showed stronger links between regions of the brain associated with attention and emotional regulation.

“Attention can be trained,” shares Professor Davidson. “And when we strengthen this capacity, we strengthen the roots of learning, empathy and resilience.”

Pillar 2: Connection (Cultivating Kindness and Compassion)

The second pillar, Connection, is about feeling linked to others and one’s environment. It encompasses qualities such as appreciation, gratitude, kindness and compassion – all of which can be intentionally developed.

In one randomized controlled trial, participants underwent compassion training for 30 minutes a day. This consisted of wishing happiness and relief from suffering for other people, including those they found “difficult”. In just 2 weeks, these participants became significantly more generous in decision-making tasks. Brain scans also showed enhanced connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens – regions in the brain linked to empathy and reward. Professor Davidson also points out that these changes happened in people who had never meditated before – even after only a few hours of training, researchers could see compassion being strengthened in the brain.

The same principles have been applied in education. In a study with teachers, compassion and mindfulness training led to a reduction in implicit bias, or the unconscious attitudes that can influence classroom interactions and disciplinary decisions. Encouragingly, these effects persisted 6 months later.

“This suggests that cultivating compassion can not only improve teacher well-being but also foster more equitable and caring classrooms,” explains Professor Davidson.

Pillar 3: Insight (Changing Our Relationship to the Self)

Insight, the third pillar, is about understanding how we construct our sense of self through stories and beliefs. Everyone carries an internal narrative – an ongoing story about who we are and what we can or cannot do. For some people, this narrative can be overly negative, feeding them self-criticism and low expectations.

Professor Davidson further elaborates that well-being isn’t about changing the story immediately, but is instead about changing the self’s relationship to the story. It is about seeing the story for what it is: a constellation of thoughts.

To illustrate this, his research team studied long-term meditation practitioners using pain as a test case. While non-meditators’ brains showed heightened activation in anticipation of pain, experienced meditators exhibited no anticipatory anxiety and recovered much faster after the stimulus. Their brains showed strong activity during pain but a rapid return to baseline – a pattern Professor Davidson called the neural signature of resilience.

“This capacity to experience discomfort without being overwhelmed can be trained,” he says. “That’s what insight allows us to do – to see experiences clearly, without being consumed by them.”

Pillar 4: Purpose (Finding Meaning in Everyday Life)

Purpose is what gives direction and motivation to our lives; it involves clarifying our values and aligning our actions with what truly matters.

Importantly, Professor Davidson emphasises that purpose need not be grand or extraordinary. It is not about finding some heroic mission, he shares. Instead, it could be as simple as discovering meaning in simple things, such as caring for others, teaching a class, or doing household chores with intention.

Like the other pillars before it, purpose, too, has measurable effects on health. In one long-term study of adults aged 70 and above, those who reported a strong sense of purpose lived significantly longer than those with little or no sense of purpose, even after accounting for differences in medical status. “Purpose gets under the skin,” Davidson remarks. “It literally influences our biology.”

Educational Implications: Well-Being in the Classroom

For educators, the science of well-being carries practical and transformative implications.

Teaching is a profession that depends heavily on relationships – between teachers and students, among colleagues and with the wider school community. However, it is also one of the most emotionally demanding careers, often marked by stress, burnout and high turnover.

Professor Davidson’s work shows that supporting teacher well-being is not just about care for the individual – it is about enhancing the entire learning environment. “When teachers cultivate awareness and compassion, they not only thrive personally but also create more supportive and effective classrooms,” he explains.

Training in the four pillars equips teachers with practical skills:

• Awareness helps educators stay focused and emotionally regulated even in challenging situations.
• Connection nurtures empathy and patience, improving teacher-student relationships.
• Insight fosters self-understanding and resilience, allowing teachers to respond rather than react under stress.
• Purpose helps educators align their daily work with deeper values, renewing motivation and meaning in teaching.

This approach also benefits students. “Flourishing is contagious,” Davidson says. “When teachers flourish, their students benefit too.” Research has shown that when teachers experience reduced stress and greater emotional balance, student well-being and academic outcomes improve correspondingly.

Ultimately, the science points toward a vision of schools as communities where emotional awareness, compassion and meaning are part of daily learning, not add-ons but essential components of holistic education.

From Research to Practice: The Healthy Minds Programme

To make these insights accessible, Davidson and his team developed the Healthy Minds Program, a freely available mobile application that offers short, evidence-based practices in each of the four pillars.

In a large-scale study with over 600 U.S. teachers during the pandemic, those who used the application for an average of 5 minutes a day reported dramatic reductions in stress, anxiety and depression. These effects lasted months after the 4-week intervention ended.

A follow-up study found that students taught by these teachers performed significantly better in both language and Math. The benefits extended beyond student outcomes: teachers who participated in well-being training were six times more likely to remain in the profession, resulting in substantial cost savings for schools.

“For every dollar invested,” Davidson notes, “there was a return of more than three dollars within 3 years. These findings show that investing in well-being is not a luxury – it’s a necessity.”

Teaching the Mind to Flourish

Professor Davidson’s keynote closes with a reminder from the Dalai Lama, who inspired his early research: “The cultivation of happiness and inner transformation is possible because our brains are adaptable.”

For educators, this message is both scientific and deeply human. The same brain mechanisms that encode stress, anxiety or fatigue can also be used to nurture focus, compassion and joy.

“Well-being is a skill,” Davidson concludes. “And like any skill, it requires practice. When we teach these skills to ourselves and our students, we’re not only enhancing learning – we’re helping shape a more caring, resilient world.”