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The Science

Equa’s training program is based on psychology and neuroscience from Carnegie Mellon University. Our Health and Human Performance laboratory is a world leader in clinical trials of mindfulness meditation training, and we plug those insights directly into Equa.

Perhaps most pivotally, our clinical trials show that even just 14 days of this training can fundamentally rewire your brain and reshape how you react to stress.

Our research has shown that our mindfulness training is effective in improving attentional control and focus (Chin et al., 2021 JEP; Slutsky et al., 2019 JofOcc Health), and it is effective at improving your mood and happiness in daily life (Lindsay et al., 2018 JPSP). So we also offer simple ways for you to track your focus, mood, and sleep through our app. You can see for yourself how our training helps you by engaging with your own statistics throughout your journey with Equa.

We have found that integrating your mindfulness techniques into daily life is a key for better outcomes (Manigault et al 2022) – so in Equa much of our training is about applying practice techniques that you can deploy in your daily life.

We’re confident that if you stick with our training, you will feel better, focus better, and perform better. We mean it when we say that we know how to help you Free Your Best.

Placebo-controlled Trials

In the most rigorous placebo controlled mindfulness meditation training trials to date, our lab showed that three days of mindfulness training rewired the brain at rest (Creswell et al., 2016, Biological Psychiatry) and that 14 days of training significantly reduced cortisol and blood pressure reactivity under pressure (Lindsay et al., 2018 PNE). These scientific papers showing that we fundamentally change our users’ biology put us on the cover of The NY Times and a guest appearance on the Today Show.

Dr. David Creswell

Dr. David Creswell is the CEO and Chief of Science at Equa. He is a Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University, and Principal Investigator of the Health and Human Performance Laboratory. David has published over 75 scientific articles and several books, including the foundational Handbook of Mindfulness. For his work on mindfulness, he has received early career awards from the Association for Psychological Science, the American Psychological Association, the Social Personality Health Network, and the American Psychosomatic Society.

Dr. Creswell has written the full story about how he got into the science of mindfulness training.

Dr. David Creswell

Dr. David Creswell

Chief Executive Officer

Olympic Training

Nearly 25 years ago, David met Apolo Ohno while serving as a coach with the Short Track Speed Skating team at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. There, the two worked together to create a meditation and visualization routine to run through each tactical decision Apolo would make in advance of his races. In a setting where every micro-decision counts, this type of psychological preparation helped Apolo perform better under the pressures of Olympic competition.

Apolo has written extensively about his training with David, and how meditation helped him become the most decorated US Winter Olympian. From these early experiences David built a science of mindfulness meditation training, and he continues to consult with elite athletes.

What David also learned is that the applications of his research translate to populations far beyond the world’s top athletes. The science in his lab has shown that learning equanimity skills – or the resilience muscle – is critical to improving happiness, lowering feelings of loneliness, and can significantly reduce stress biology reactivity over time.

For his contributions to exploring the furthest reaches of mindfulness training in healthy and patient populations, the magazine Mindfulness recognized Dr. Creswell as one of the top 10 researchers in the world you should know.

Below we provide links to all of our mindfulness scientific papers. But if there’s one you should read, it is this review that Dr. Creswell wrote describing the state of the science on mindfulness, which was recognized as the most cited annual review paper in 2017.

For a list of all publications, click here.

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