Deepak Chopra, MD, Founder of The Chopra Foundation

Deepak Chopra, MD, discusses his insights on well-being, mindfulness and purpose during these challenging times. 

On mindfulness during the crisis: “A lot of people say be optimistic, be positive and anyone who is trying too hard to be positive will be stressed because if you’re trying to be positive, but not feeling positive, you’re going to get stressed. So a positive mind can be a very stressed mind. What you need is a quiet mind and when the mind is quiet, then the body is quiet. And when the body is quiet, it regulates itself, it decreases inflammation, optimizes immune function and starts to heal itself. So a quiet mind is much more important than a positive mind.”

On creativity during the crisis: “I can guarantee you right now that smart people are looking at developing new technologies and new algorithms that will correlate our mental, emotional and biological states with our distancing in the real world and our access to creativity. Because the worst use of imagination is anxiety. And the best use of imagination is creativity. And we are going to develop techniques to enhance that. It's happening right now.”