Hi Peter,

All of the material featured on Enterprising Investor is excerpted from CFA Institute's Meditation Guide for Investment Professionals. If you are a CFA Institute member you may access this content using your password for your membership. The Guide is fully referenced. Beyond the references, you will also learn what the difference is between mindfulness and meditation. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing. Hint: mindfulness is a form of meditation, so is a subset of the larger topic.

You may also find it interesting that meditation and its benefits have been demonstrated in well over 30,000 peer-reviewed scientific journal studies. In that history only several studies have found negative effects to the practice, and minor ones at that. For example, those who practice open-monitoring meditation, commonly called 'mindfulness,' have a greater susceptibility to forming false memories. If you have an understanding of which brain regions are affected by this practice then you would almost expect this result. The reason is that open-monitoring meditation helps people separate themselves from their prejudices, preferences, and biases. Normally this is a highly desirable result, especially for financial professionals seeking to overcome their behavioral biases. In order to counteract the very slight higher susceptibility to forming false memories, I highly recommend coupling open-monitoring practice with focused awareness mediation, too.

Yours, in service,

Jason