Bernd Hufnagl, neurobiologist and management consultant, is one of the most fascinating brain researchers of our time.

Allowing more time for daydreams increases performance. Bernd Hufnagl offers practical yet effective advice on how to interrupt everyday life to mentally regenerate, including putting away your smartphone, looking at the world outside the window and taking regular micro-breaks. In his opinion, short periods of relaxation are even more important than a two-week vacation.

Bestselling author and sought-after keynote speaker Bernd Hufnagl has a revolutionary theory: “Take more time to daydream!”

Bernd Hufnagl has been researching the relationship between health and the world of work for two decades. In his dynamic lectures, he draws on his professional experience as a researcher and consultant and presents exciting neuroscientific and evolutionary findings that show how “brain-friendly” work and leadership can be designed.

Hufnagl's lecture topics will focus on the concept of New Work. He discusses how adapted work can help people escape constant digital stress and preserve humanity in a working world increasingly dominated by AI.

Bernd Hufnagl Lecture topics

- The stressed brain: stress, burnout and mental health
- Digital permanence: Brain-friendly working in multitasking mode
- The empathic brain: How we can find more respect and empathy
- In search of meaning at work: framework conditions for brain-friendly work
- Complaining culture and problem orientation
- Success culture and obsession with key figures
- Resilience and the acceptance of the unchangeable
- The bio-logic of leadership: the biology and neuroscience of leadership
- Courage and willingness to change
- Hybrid working world: brain-friendly work in the New Work era
- Emotional intelligence in the age of AI and ChatGPT
- Better done than done! Brain-friendly work instead of digital exhaustion

Bernd Hufnagl: “Work processes can be optimized, people can't.”

Bernd Hufnagl believes it's time to realign our brain. In this context, he has been focusing on self-efficacy for many years. The feeling of being able to influence and control one's own life, which is massively hindered in the modern working world: by work that is imposed on us without us understanding its purpose and by the tremendous speed that digitalization with its condensed tasks and rapid communication processes imposes on us.

Bernd Hufnagl studied biology and medicine and worked in brain research and university teaching for over a decade before founding his own consultancy Benefit GmbH in Vienna in 2002. Together with his team, he supports well-known international companies on their way to New Work.

Bernd Hufnagl's scientific work was honored by the award of the prestigious Theodor Körner Prize for the Promotion of Science and Art by the Austrian Federal President.