#439： Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
Episode Stats
Summary
Dan Harris used to be a skeptic himself. But after falling into drug use and suffering a nervous breakdown on national television, he gave meditation a try and found that it made him calmer and more resilient. He s now on a mission to make meditation approachable for the masses.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. You've probably read
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or heard about the benefits of meditation, but you've probably, like a lot of people, never given it a try
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because it seems a bit too woo-woo. You're not alone. My guest today used to be a skeptic himself,
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but after falling into drug use and suffering a nervous breakdown on national television,
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he gave meditation a try and found that it made him calmer and more resilient. He's now on a mission
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to make meditation approachable for the masses. No meditation pillow required. His name is Dan
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Harris. He's a news reporter at ABC and you can see him on the show Nightline. He's also the author
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of the books 10% Happier and Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Today on the show, Dan shares a story of
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his nervous breakdown in front of millions of people and how that led him to meditation. He then takes
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us through the latest research on the benefits of meditation, including the way it reduces depression
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and anxiety. Dan and I then discuss some of the myths that people have about meditation, such as the idea
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it takes a lot of time, requires you to sit on a pillow, and will cause you to lose your edge. We end our
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podcast with Dan taking us through a one-minute guided meditation, which will give you a nice moment
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of practical zen, whether you're on your way to work or just sit in your office. After the show's over,
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check out the show notes at aom.is slash meditation.
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Well, you are the co-anchor of ABC's Nightline. You do weekend editions of Good Morning America, and in your spare time,
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you've become a meditation advocate. So how did this happen? Because, you know, I think of TV
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journalists, hard charging, you've probably done, have you done war stuff for a correspondent? Okay,
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so you've done that, like type A. How did you become this advocate for meditation and being mindful and
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Well, the war stuff is actually part of it. I spent a lot of time after 9-11. I'm dating myself now,
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because I'm almost 47. But when 9-11 happened, I was actually reasonably young. I think I was 30
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years old, and I was very ambitious and single and just pretty new to ABC News at that time and
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really just leapt into the fray and spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And then the
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second intifada happened in Israel. So I was in the West Bank and Gaza. And then Iraq happened,
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and I was there six times. And I, in the middle of that, got depressed and didn't actually know I
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was depressed. And then I did this dumb thing that I've talked about quite a bit publicly now. But for
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those who haven't heard it before, I started to use recreational drugs, including cocaine. And that
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produced a panic attack on live television in 2004 on Good Morning America. I was the newsreader that
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morning. I was the guy who comes on and reads the headlines of the morning at the top of each
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hour. And I was in the middle of my little shtick, and I just lost the capacity to breathe or speak.
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And that was really embarrassing. And then I went to a doctor afterwards who
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was an expert in panic, and he's trying to figure out what happened. And he asked me whether I do drugs.
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And I said, yeah. And I told him it was pretty intermittent. It wasn't like,
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I wasn't high on the air. And I wasn't high. It wasn't like, I often point out that it wasn't
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like the Wolf of Wall Street, where they're pounding quaaludes every minute. But it was enough,
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according to the doctor, to raise the level of adrenaline in my brain and make it more likely
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for me to have a panic attack. And that moment of realizing what an idiot I'd been kind of set me
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off on a journey that I talked about extensively in my first book, and I won't bore you with it now.
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But the punchline is it ultimately led me to meditation. And I had no interest in meditation.
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I thought it was bullshit. But what changed my mind was the science. There's all this science that
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suggests it can rewire key parts of your brain having to do with focus and self-awareness and
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compassion, and that it can lower your blood pressure and help your immune system. And so that
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really got me interested. And I kind of had this entrepreneurial feeling. You know,
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you and I were chatting before we started rolling about the entrepreneurial feeling you had in law
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school that, you know, all of the publications, the men's publications weren't speaking to you.
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And I was, at this point in like 2009, reading a lot of stuff about meditation, and it always felt
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like there was a little pan flute playing in the background. And it was just, you know, I mean,
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it was very smart. And I've now become very close friends with a lot of these people. But
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it's a little annoying. And then it's written, I think, for, you know, baby boomers and hippie
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people who, you know, had exposure to the hippie generation. And I, you know, came up in the age of,
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you know, punk rock and indie rock and Generation X and nihilistic sarcasm. And I wanted something that
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was more embarrassing and, you know, like told more embarrassing stories about what it's like inside
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any human mind. And so that's why I wrote my first book, 10% Happier. And then I followed it up with
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a much more sort of how-to oriented book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics.
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So I'm curious, was there a person you encountered that introduced you to the science of meditation?
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Or were you like researching something for a story you were doing? Like, how did that,
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how did you go from like, okay, meditation is for these baby boomers, like, you know, ponytail
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guys wearing Birkenstocks to, oh, there's, this can actually benefit me. So like, what,
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what was it that caused you to actually look into that as a, as a, look at the science of it?
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Well, there were a few people, I can't remember the exact order of operations now, but so I had
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read a book by a guy who I'm going to say, I'm going to talk about him. I'm not necessarily
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recommending him per se, but out of sheer happenstance for a variety of reasons that we
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don't need to go and do now. I ended up reading a book by a self-help guru named Eckhart Tolle,
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who some of your listeners will have heard of. He's a really successful self-help guru.
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And I thought the book was at least the first blush, like incredibly ridiculous.
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And, but, but as I was continuing to read it, and again, this, I had no, at this point,
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meditation wasn't on my radar in any way. I was reading the book largely because I was thinking
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about doing a story on this guy because he was so popular. And he started talking about this notion
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that we all have a voice in our heads and, and, and he's not referring to schizophrenia or any
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mental illness. He's just talking about the human condition that we have this nonstop conversation
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in our heads all the time, a voice that chases you out of bed in the morning. And it's just
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yammering at you all day long. It's just blah, blah, blah, all the time, thinking about the past,
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thinking about the future, instead of focusing on what's happening right now, criticizing people
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or criticizing yourself, wanting stuff, judging just this nonstop nattering. And it totally his
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argument is when you're unaware of it, it owns you. It's, and that was a very powerful thing for
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me because I realized, yeah, that's definitely true for me. And this idea of the voice in the head
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really explained my panic attack because it was because of my ego, my inner voice that I went off
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to war zones without thinking about the consequences. And then I came home and got depressed and didn't
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even know I was depressed and then did a very dumb thing by reaching for recreational drugs.
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And so that was really powerful, but totally did not have any advice for, that I could discern for
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dealing with the voice in the head. And so I started looking around at first, I looked in some
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very unfruitful places. I don't even know if that's a word, but in places that were not fruitful,
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like self-help. And then I ultimately, my wife gave me a book by a shrink in New York city named Dr.
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Mark Epstein, who wrote about, he writes beautiful books about the overlap between psychology and Buddhism.
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And, and I realized that all the stuff I liked the most in Eckhart Tolle had been taken from
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somebody known as the Buddha and, and that the Buddha actually did have practical advice,
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which was meditation. And at first I was like, well, I'm not going to do that. So next.
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And then I, I don't, it might've been just Google. Well, I actually met Mark Epstein. I called him up and
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said, well, you have a beer with me. And we became friends. We're still very good friends. And, and
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he, maybe he pointed it out to me. Maybe I Googled it, but I realized that there was this explosion of
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scientific research that had at that point had not gotten a lot of press attention. And so I then
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started to cover that stuff. And I made friends with the, the preeminent neuroscientist who's really
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looked into this. His name is Dr. Richie Davidson, Richard Davidson. He goes by Richie. He's at the
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University of Wisconsin. And he's done all many of the most, you know, sort of prominent studies on
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what meditation does to the brain. And so I started reporting on that. And in that process, I just
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started to do it. And I realized that it wasn't hippie nonsense, that it is exercise for your brain
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and that it has all of these benefits. And that in fact, then I started to learn that all these really
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impressive people and C suites, you know, executive suites and athletes and entertainers and all these
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really sort of high performing people have been embracing the practice and even in the military
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because the benefits are becoming clear. And so then I really started to think, okay,
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there's something I can do here, which is to hopefully make the practice more attractive to
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people who would otherwise just reject it. So, I mean, you mentioned some of the benefits
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in the beginning, but like fleshing out, like what, what are the, what does the research say that
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meditation does to our brain and to our overall, I mean, even physical health?
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Yeah. This will be slightly repetitive, but I'll flesh it out. It reduces the release of,
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there's just a really long lift. Actually, before I get into that, let me just step back and just say
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one thing, which is that the science is, you know, science moves slowly and it, and it kind of moves
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if you're paying attention in a, in a sort of one step forward, two steps back kind of way,
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because it's basically science is an argument taking place in public because scientists in different
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labs are doing different kinds of research under different theories. And they're trying to prove
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their points. And then other people try to replicate their points to see if they're full
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of shit or whatever. And so you got to be careful. I've really learned, my wife is a scientist. My
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parents are scientists. I was not good enough at math to be a scientist, but I have a lot of respect
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for it. And I, I've tried to learn not to over hype the science around meditation because at times
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people in my position talk about it in ways I think are irresponsible. So I just want to issue that
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caveat. But that being said, the research is really impressive. And so it's been shown to
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reduce, reduce the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which is linked to all sorts of, you
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know, stress is a killer. It's been shown to reduce blood pressure. It's been shown to boost
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your immune system. So they've shown that, you know, short daily doses of meditation can make you
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less likely to get sick. It's been shown to have a salutary effect on things like irritable bowel
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syndrome and psoriasis, both of which are linked to stress. It's been shown to help with ADHD.
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One of the areas where it's the strongest, the research is the strongest is anxiety and depression,
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both of which I've dealt with since I was a child. So that, that's a really big deal. And then I would
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say that we get into the neuroscience and it's just fascinating. It shows that it, it, it, it changes
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the structure of your brain. You know, it's this science has, has actually overturned a long lived
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piece of dogma in the medical community. It was received wisdom for generations. It was in
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textbooks that the brain doesn't change after age 25 or something in there about. In fact, what this
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research has shown is that the brain is always changing. It is, it's been called the organ of
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experience. So it changes based on what you do. So if you start practicing violin, certain areas of
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your brain are going to change in response, having to do with manual dexterity and other things.
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Meditation is a systematic way to change key areas of your brain. So focus is a big one. This is an
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area where the research is reasonably strong. It should have been shown that you can through this
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daily exercise and we can talk about what it is, but, but very briefly, most in its simplest sense,
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meditation is just paying attention. And then every time you get distracted, you start again and again
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and again. So usually you just pay attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out.
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And then your mind's going to mutiny on you and you'll start thinking all these random thoughts
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and that's totally fine. The whole game is just to notice you've become distracted and start again
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and again and again. And this daily kind of mental bicep curl changes the area of the brain associated
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with focus. Another study that shows that short daily doses of meditation literally grows the gray
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matter in the area of the brain, the areas of the brain associated with self-awareness and with
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compassion. And it shrinks the gray matter in the area associated with stress. So we're talking about
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physical changes on the level of your brain. Another interesting one, since you, you asked me to geek
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out is a study that shows that it, it, it changes the default mode for our brain. So there's a network of brain
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regions called the default mode. So when, if, if you, if I was to stop talking and we would agree
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to sit in silence for a minute, the odds are one or both of our brains would go into what's called the
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default mode, which is thinking about yourself, thinking, worrying about stuff, thinking about
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the past, thinking about the future. This is where the mind goes when we like are just defaulting to
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our baseline. And, and then you can see this in the brain scans. You can see the default mode
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activating. Well, when people are meditating, the default mode actually goes quiet. And really
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interestingly, experienced meditators actually are seeing much less activation in the default mode,
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even when they are not meditating. So in other words, their lives change. What is your life? Your
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life is whatever is happening in your mind right now. That is your life. You're mostly not paying
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attention to it, but if, and so therefore, if your default mode is like most humans, much of your
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life is just this nonstop, mostly negative yammering internally that can change. And see, to me,
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this is the animating insight of the whole thing, which is that we think that our traits, our attributes,
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our psychological attributes are factory setting that cannot be changed, that we are born with a
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certain amount of patience, compassion, calm, focus, gratitude, whatever, all the things that we want,
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you know, we may think we want actual things, but what are the things give us? They give us
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mental states. They make us feel happy or excited or fulfilled or connected or whatever. So at the end of
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the day, what we really want are positive mental states. All of these positive mental states actually
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are not factory setting. They are skills that you can train. The mind is susceptible to training.
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And that is what meditation is. It's not sitting on a mountaintop with loincloth and the wind blowing
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through your hair, the way it's been presented, what I call as part of what I call the worst marketing
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campaign for anything ever. We've been sold a bill of goods when it comes to meditation.
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And that robs us of this, of our birthright, which is to take responsibility for the nature of our
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mind. And so I stumbled across all of this. I did not set out to be a self-help guru or whatever the
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hell I am. But this is really important stuff and it's the best story I've ever covered. So I talk about
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it. Yeah. I mean, I think that was the big, that flipped the switch for me on meditation is thinking of
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it as like dead, I, I, I barbell train. So I think of like, okay, when I meditate, it's like deadlifts
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from my brain. I'm exercising my brain. Yes. Um, all right. Well, I mean, what I, what you do in this
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book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, it's your second book. It's a how-to book, but you, what I love
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about you, you lay out the most common, you know, hurdles or excuses people give for not meditating.
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Well, before we get to that, let's talk about this. What exactly are you, what kind of meditation
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you're talking about? Cause there's lots of meditation out there. There's, there's a transcendental
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meditation, which I think is the one that a lot of people like think of is like, that's the, when
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they like, you know, do the, um, or they, they say a word over and over again, there's mindfulness
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meditation, there's loving kindness or self-compassion meditation. So like, what is it that
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you're talking about when you talk about meditation? That's a great clarifying question. So that Richie
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Davidson likes to say that he's the neuroscientist, um, that the word meditation is a bit like the
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word sports. So, you know, badminton and a water polo don't have a lot in common. So when you use
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the word meditation generically, you can be referring to any number of things. Some of them
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completely ridiculous. And most of your listeners would never want to do them. When I talk about
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meditation, I'm talking about mindfulness meditation, which is actually derived from Buddhism,
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but it is stripped of any metaphysical claims or religious lingo. And it's taught in a secular
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context, incorporation in the military and schools all over the place. And within my, there's a,
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so mindfulness meditation is the beginning instruction is mostly just to pay attention
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to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. And then you're going to get distracted a
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million times. And then you just, the whole game is just to notice you've become distracted and to
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start again and again. And again, there is a, you refer to loving kindness, which is kind of an
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annoying word. Uh, we, we try to reframe that as friendliness. In other words, to train the ability
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to kind of have a overall friendly attitude toward yourself and others, which is really, you know,
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actually a much more congenial way to go through life. That is often taught as a, and we teach it as
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a, um, cause it's also a Buddhist practice. It's also been secularized the way mindfulness has,
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and they're taught in conjunction, I think, and in a very powerful way, because as it turns out,
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there's a really deeply self-interested case for not being an asshole. And when you can reduce
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your actual quotient, when you can be nicer to yourself and to others, that changes the nature
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of your inner weather. And, and that makes for a better atmosphere for, well, happiness generally,
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but also for mindfulness meditation. So these, these two practices where you learn how to kind of calm
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the mind, focus the mind and become more self-aware that that would be mindfulness
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twinned with friendliness, where you train yourself. And I can tell you how to do it. It's,
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it's a little bit annoying, but actually there's a lot of science that shows that it's very good for
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you. Where you, when you twin these two practices, that is, I think where the sweet spot come.
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And so just cause we're on it, loving kindness meditation is, or friendliness meditation,
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whatever the hell you want to call it is. And it's, this is going to sound incredibly annoying
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to people and you're not wrong to think it. It basically asks you to envision. Usually you
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start with yourself, you envision yourself. And then you say these little phrases, may you be happy,
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may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you, may you live with ease. And then you go to a next
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person. Usually it's a mentor. And then you go to a close friend, which could be a human or an animal.
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I have a cat on my lap right now. You could, and then you go to somebody you don't really pay
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attention to often referred to as a neutral person that you overlook. And then you go to a difficult
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person and then you go to everybody. And I have referred to this exercise as Valentine's day
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with a knife to your throat. It really is annoying. However, there is a significant amount of science
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that shows it has very serious health benefits and that it can change behavior. And I like to point
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out like, what is it like in that moment when you do a small act of kindness? Like if you hold the
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door open for somebody on your way into a building or out of a room or whatever, if you're paying
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attention, what does that feel like? It feels good. And that feeling is infinitely scalable.
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And trainable. And that is what you're doing in this exercise. So those are the two things
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we teach. Just to answer your question about transcendental meditation, that is derived from
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Hinduism as opposed to Buddhism. And it involves a mantra, which is a word you repeat to yourself
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silently. And I think there's plenty of evidence that it's really good for you. And I have no beef
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with it, but it's not what we teach. It's just a different kind of meditation.
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Yeah. Well, you know, going back to the benefits of self-compassion or compassion meditation,
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they found that like it actually showing, having self-compassion actually boosts success than like
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being hard on yourself, right? Like, you know, it's like, I suck. I'm never going to like,
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like cutting yourself some slack can actually help you do better.
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This is, this is so counterintuitive for, for me. And I think for a lot of people,
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because most of us feel that the internal cattle prod is what get is, is the source of any success
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that we're achieving. And as it turns out, it is possible to have high standards, but to not
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be so self-lacerating, so self-flagellating, so self-critical that you actually reduce your
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ability to recover after inevitable setbacks. You know, you can, nobody is perfect a and B you're
00:23:11.740
not in control, man. The universe is characterized by entropy and impermanence. And like, you can work
00:23:17.240
as hard as you want on your podcast or your YouTube channel, whatever it is. And for exogenous forces
00:23:22.900
way outside of your control can ruin the thing. And you need to be resilient in the face of this and
00:23:29.180
your inner, whether your inner dialogue, the way you talk to yourself is a huge part of this.
00:23:34.380
And so this training actually boosts your ability to do it. It doesn't, you're not telling yourself,
00:23:39.400
Hey, sit on the couch and eat ice cream in perpetuity. You're just saying, Hey, you, yes,
00:23:43.500
you do need to work hard, but when there are setbacks, you don't need to like crush yourself for it.
00:23:48.740
It's not pity. It's not self-pity. It's right. There's a difference.
00:23:52.420
Okay. Well, let's get into these hurdles here. The one hurdle you often hear people say is, well,
00:23:56.140
I, I just don't have time for that. Right? Like I've got kids, I got my career, I've got stuff
00:24:01.380
after my job that I have to do. How do I make time for sitting on a cushion and thinking about my
00:24:08.320
breath? Yeah, I, I have a lot of sympathy for that. I get it. We're busy. And we, I think the
00:24:14.820
perception of time starvation is even more prominent now because of technology. I'm not anti-technology
00:24:21.160
by the way, but, but I think one of the downsides of technology is that we feel besieged. So I have
00:24:27.620
a lot of sympathy for this. And I, my little shtick is that I have good news and then I have
00:24:33.060
even better news. The good news is that I think five to 10 minutes a day is a great meditation habit.
00:24:38.820
And while we don't, while the science has not yet answered, uh, everybody wants to know what's the
00:24:44.580
least I can do to derive the advertised benefits. And science has not answered that question, but I
00:24:51.100
have spoken to many scientists and the, the sense I get is that five to 10 minutes a day would be a
00:24:56.400
great way to get many of the benefits. And you can always scale from there if you want. The, the better
00:25:02.680
news is that I, I actually believe one minute daily ish counts. You know, if you did one a minute,
00:25:09.320
most days, you would get a lot of benefits. The two most prominent are one is just this,
00:25:14.820
the ability to stay on task, to notice, notice when the mind has wandered and bring it back.
00:25:21.080
But the bigger one is mindfulness, which is, you could call it self-awareness, the skill of knowing
00:25:27.540
what's happening in your head right now without getting carried away by it. And it's these
00:25:32.500
mindlessness, the un-self-awareness that leads us to do all the stupid shit we do. It's why you find
00:25:39.920
yourself with your hand in the fridge when you're not hungry, or you're checking your email in the
00:25:44.160
middle of a conversation with somebody else, or you're sending an inappropriate email or making a
00:25:48.500
comment that ruins the next 48 hours of your marriage, whatever. That's all because you're just
00:25:53.320
carried away by your emotions. You're yanked around and meditation throws you up against this
00:25:59.200
inner conversation. As soon as you sit and try to focus on one thing, your breath, you're going to
00:26:04.220
see how crazy you are because all these thoughts are going to rush into your head, motions, random
00:26:08.380
factoids from your childhood, whatever. And seeing that is the game. That is the important thing because
00:26:15.660
it gives you more of a leg up for when you're ambushed by anger or whatever during your daily life.
00:26:21.660
And you're, you're better able not to get carried away.
00:26:24.840
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of a website or domain. And now back to the show. All right, so five minutes, everyone's got five
00:28:51.280
minutes. Instead of scrolling through Instagram, you can meditate for five minutes. Just think about
00:28:56.060
your breath for five minutes. Yeah, you know, I really like what you just said, because I'm not,
00:29:00.740
I go through Instagram, but I think it's, you know, one of the things you see when you start to have a
00:29:06.100
little bit more self-awareness is at some point, Instagram goes from being kind of a fun little
00:29:10.940
diversion to maybe sparking FOMO or making you think that your life is insufficiently curated or
00:29:17.120
you don't have enough money or, or you're just doing it for reasons you don't even understand.
00:29:20.940
And you're just sucked into a hole and it's like you're whatever. I actually think that you can do
00:29:25.920
both. You know, you may use that as a trigger to say, oh, you know, I've done this for a couple
00:29:30.340
minutes, but now that I'm on my phone, let me use an app to meditate. So I think in there,
00:29:35.040
there are lots of ways to create habits and that, that, that may be one of them.
00:29:38.740
I mentioned apps. There are lots of really good meditation apps. I'm obviously partial to mine,
00:29:43.740
which is called 10% Happier. But, but I, I do love the fact that the, this industry has
00:29:49.640
grown up to use, to sort of co-opt the phone, which is the engine of our distraction and
00:29:55.880
often misery and use it to teach you how to do, you know, what, what can be kryptonite for
00:30:01.760
the aforementioned unhappiness. All right. So time is not an excuse. You don't need to do
00:30:05.720
very much meditation, five, 10 minutes. Okay. What about, this is one that my wife brought up.
00:30:09.540
It's like, what do you do to people, what do you say to people who think it's just really boring
00:30:13.180
to, to sit there? So, I mean, what, what's, how do you get people over that hurdle?
00:30:18.800
So boring is just another thing to notice. What we're doing in meditation is really just
00:30:24.040
getting a sense of what our actual life is about and getting a sense of how rapidly thoughts come
00:30:30.840
and go and how powerfully emotions take us over. And boredom is just one of those emotions. And so
00:30:38.360
the antidote to that is to get curious about it. Like, what is this? What kind of thoughts are
00:30:43.800
accompanied by boredom? How does it show up in my body? Like, well, is my, do I get a dull feeling
00:30:50.260
in my head? Uh, and then when that boredom hits you in the middle of a conversation with your elderly
00:30:58.280
aunt or in the middle of work, you're not so busy to ignore your aunt and be unkind or pull yourself
00:31:08.620
away from the task that you actually need to get done and reflexively go check Twitter. You actually
00:31:15.000
are surfing your emotions as opposed to being, uh, as opposed to drowning in them. And so boredom is,
00:31:24.020
is one thing. Anger is another sadness is another, all of these emotions that for guys, we don't like
00:31:30.220
to talk about, I'm not big on talking about emotions, but I think we can all admit it's an
00:31:34.480
incontrovertible fact that we have them. And when we're unwilling to sort of become a connoisseur of
00:31:40.460
our neuroses, they own us. And then they, they dominate how we show up in relationships. They
00:31:46.200
dominate how we show up at work. They dominate in how we perform, uh, in our work. And so boredom
00:31:53.260
is a very powerful force and it's gotten more prominent in an era when at any given moment,
00:31:59.360
you can conquer boredom on your phone. And I think it's worth looking at your life. It's like,
00:32:05.360
how, how constructive is that for you? And if you actually boosted your ability to be curious,
00:32:11.920
to pay attention, how much more effective would you be?
00:32:15.160
All right. So lean into the boredom, like actually just observe it. Okay.
00:32:18.780
That's what we do in meditation. That's what we do in meditation. Sorry. I apologize.
00:32:22.500
But, but you got me excited. What we do in meditation is this counterintuitive thing.
00:32:27.140
When we're overtake. So we're sitting there paying attention to our breath.
00:32:30.220
We're not actually just a slight direction correction. We're not actually thinking about
00:32:34.740
our breath. We're doing this counterintuitive thing of just feeling it, the raw data of the
00:32:39.160
physical sensation, feeling the belly rising and falling. And then we're, we're carried away.
00:32:44.340
We're off very quickly, half a breath in some thought comes along and then you notice you become
00:32:50.440
distracted and you start again and again and again. But if you get ambushed or overtaken by a
00:32:56.940
powerful emotion, boredom, sadness, anger, then the move is to investigate and to see,
00:33:02.740
you know, what kind of thoughts accompany this? How is it, you know, what does it feel like in my
00:33:06.860
body? You know, when I'm overtaken by this emotion and that, and that curiosity boosts your
00:33:12.080
familiarity with what an emotion is like. And then in how does that show up in real life? What's the
00:33:17.140
point? You'll be having a conversation with your wife. She'll say something that annoys you.
00:33:22.040
And then 10% of the time, instead of just being on a hair trigger and saying something that you're
00:33:28.380
going to pay for for years, you might actually understand how anger shows up in your body.
00:33:34.560
What kind of thoughts is your face getting red? Is your chest buzzing, whatever. And then you're
00:33:39.300
able to note, it's like having an inner meteorologist who sees the, the, the storm before it makes
00:33:47.240
landfall. And then you are able to respond wisely to the situation instead of reacting blindly. And
00:33:53.940
that's one of the big things we talk about all the time, respond, not react. And that's what this
00:33:59.140
does for you. Well, here's another, I think, hurdle that people encounter with meditation is that,
00:34:04.180
you know, we're goal oriented beings, right? We have dopamine that makes us want to achieve things,
00:34:10.400
go after things. And we need to see like progress, right? Like I, what I love about barbell training is I
00:34:15.320
can see that I, if I put in the work, the effort, I can add weight to the bar. Is there like a metric
00:34:21.660
like that with meditation? Like, how do you know you're progressing, right? And making progress?
00:34:25.480
So what, cause a lot of people, they say, Oh, I'm just not seeing any benefit. I'm just going to stop.
00:34:32.320
Well, I think, I think it's a great question. I feel the same way. I think we're heading toward a
00:34:36.440
universe where you'll have neurofeedback, where you'll actually start to see, you know, you'll,
00:34:41.260
you'll start to be able to measure your brain activity in real time. And then, then you'll
00:34:45.340
really get answers. But in some ways that's actually, for anybody who's done and stuck with
00:34:54.000
meditation more than say a month, all of this stuff becomes a little laughable because you don't,
00:35:02.240
you may start meditating because you, you get a brain scan that shows you that your brain is changing or,
00:35:08.700
you know, you're performing better on some sort of neurofeedback test, but that is not what will
00:35:13.920
keep you meditating. What keeps you meditating is because you're less of an assault to yourself and
00:35:17.900
others. And, and that is what changes your life. And at that point, whatever a neurofeedback thing
00:35:23.420
tells you doesn't make a difference because it's irrelevant. And so what I see as the tipping point
00:35:29.920
for people in terms of establishing this habit is starting to see that they're responding,
00:35:34.880
not reacting in their actual life. And that actually, whatever their experience on the
00:35:40.340
cushion is, is irrelevant in many ways. For many of us, myself included still nine years into
00:35:46.080
meditating, I can, I can sit down and meditate and be utterly distracted. That is not the measure the
00:35:51.960
mat. You're not meditating to become a better meditator. You're becoming, you're meditating to
00:35:56.380
become better at your life. And that is why we do this thing. And so I don't know anybody,
00:36:02.560
or I know I can only think of one person. And I've been in this game for a while who has meditated
00:36:07.420
more than a few weeks at a time who has said, I'm not seeing any benefit. I'm out.
00:36:13.960
I've never, I just haven't seen it in nature. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You may have
00:36:18.060
listeners who are raising their hand right now or pounding their theory well and saying, no,
00:36:21.200
I'm that person. And to you, I apologize. But I've had this, I've had this standing challenge
00:36:26.880
since I wrote my first book four and a half years ago. And I've said this, try meditation for a
00:36:32.980
month. And if you feel like it's bullshit, send me a note on Twitter and tell me I'm a moron.
00:36:39.080
People tell me I'm a moron on Twitter all the time, but never for that. And so I feel really
00:36:45.800
confident that a, if you make a commitment to do this for a few weeks, that the measurement
00:36:52.240
issue will evaporate because you will notice that in the middle of conversations where once
00:36:58.820
you would have taken it to 11, that you're no longer doing it as much. You will still do it.
00:37:04.760
You will not be perfect. That is not on the table here. Imperturbability and perfection are not on the
00:37:10.380
table here, but gradual 10% improvement, which compounds over time, like any good investment that
00:37:16.380
is on the table. And that is really exciting. Well, another hurdle you talk about too,
00:37:21.340
is some people think, well, I'm not going to meditate because it's going to make me lose my
00:37:26.080
edge. And I think one of the examples that was given is like, if I become too chill because of
00:37:30.600
meditation, am I going to become like Rocky in Rocky three? And I get beat up by Mr. Was it Mr. T?
00:37:36.420
That was the one where you get beat up by Mr. T, right? So, I mean, does meditation cause you to
00:37:40.540
lose that edge and sort of like, you know, like that drive that you have that you wanted to just go
00:37:45.900
after things? I worried about this for years because I really believe that, you know, I have
00:37:52.860
this expression that was this motto that was handed down to me by my father, who was an academic
00:37:58.000
physician in Boston. His, his, his theory is the price of security is insecurity, which is a great
00:38:06.520
thing to tell your child. But I really believe that. I still believe it to be honest with you,
00:38:11.420
that, that, that you have to work really hard and a certain amount of worrying and plotting and
00:38:16.840
planning is part of the deal, but it's inescapable. The question is how far are you going to take it
00:38:23.900
and what are the ramifications? And at some point the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth
00:38:32.020
is actually counterproductive. And what meditation helps you do is to boost your self-awareness so that
00:38:39.120
you can see when you've crossed the line from what I, from you, you know, from what I call
00:38:45.900
constructive anguish, you know, useful worrying into useless rumination, which just reduces your
00:38:53.120
effectiveness, reduces your resiliency, makes you unpleasant, damages your relationships.
00:38:59.220
Um, so I am not arguing for, uh, what might be described as complacency. That's that, that is,
00:39:08.280
that's different from what I'm arguing for, which is a kind of a sort of higher order happiness,
00:39:13.260
um, which is more complicated than, you know, just being blissed out and blank.
00:39:18.960
Um, okay. So I, I got you. So, I mean, and you highlight that, um, you know, even there's the
00:39:23.360
military is exploring meditation for this purpose that it, I mean, instead of like blunting the edge,
00:39:28.280
it actually find like sharpens it even more because of the, the awareness that you build up
00:39:33.240
through meditation. Do you think if you were more focused and less yanked around by random
00:39:39.840
emotions that you'd be better or worse at your job? Better for sure. Yeah. So that's what we're
00:39:44.820
doing here. I like that. All right. Another hurdle people have is, uh, you know, meditation looks
00:39:49.960
self-indulgent. I think there was actually an onion headline about this, like, like, uh, mindful
00:39:55.780
a-hole is even more of an a-hole since he started meditating. And he lectures everybody. Right.
00:40:02.740
So what, what about that, uh, that hurdle that it just looks like, Oh, you're just, just, just,
00:40:07.900
just self-indulgent. Okay. Well, I think there are two issues here. I love that onion piece and I
00:40:13.900
can't remember the headline. So there are two issues. One is, is just sitting there, you know,
00:40:20.060
feeling your breath coming in and going out totally navel gazing, self-centered, self-indulgent.
00:40:26.760
And I mean, I think you could take it too far and it would become bad if you were neglecting your
00:40:32.440
responsibilities. But, uh, you know, the, the cliche that often gets thrown around, which I,
00:40:38.020
which I like actually is the airline safety instructions. They always say, put your own
00:40:42.940
oxygen mask on first. So if you want to be a useful person in the world, it's very hard to do
00:40:49.960
so if you're a mess. And so a few minutes of mental exercise is roughly akin to the hour or so
00:40:58.540
that many of us spend in the gym. Is that self-indulgent? No, because your kids need you
00:41:03.560
to be healthy. Your wife needs you to be healthy. You're happier when you're fit and it makes you a
00:41:08.480
better person. So by the same token, a few minutes of doing the barbells for your brain, I don't think
00:41:13.900
is self-indulgent. Now, again, you could take it too far. Speaking of too far, the onion article speaks to,
00:41:19.520
I think a related issue, which is that, are you going to become very preachy and annoying?
00:41:24.840
That is a real danger because people, and I think for the best of intentions,
00:41:29.240
yet they start meditating, they start seeing that they're responding instead of reacting. And it's,
00:41:34.240
it's a very exciting feeling. The first time you start to notice that showing up in a, in a,
00:41:39.040
you know, in a stress test in the crucible of work or your relationships, and then you start telling
00:41:44.080
everybody about it. I would recommend strongly that you not do that because it's incredibly annoying
00:41:51.240
and it's preachy. You're basically saying to people, you're broken. That's the way the messages
00:41:57.760
receive. And so I always talk about the, the, I love this article, this cartoon that ran in the New
00:42:05.500
Yorker that had these two women having lunch. And one of them says to the other, I've been gluten-free
00:42:10.520
for a week and I'm already annoying. And I, that is what happens with meditation. And so I just
00:42:17.240
recommend extreme caution. I love, of course, when people recommend my book or my app or my podcast
00:42:23.220
or whatever to somebody else. I think I love that. And so I have to tread carefully here because I
00:42:27.960
don't want to like step on my own, you know what, in order to, uh, you know, to help people here.
00:42:33.320
But I do think you need to be very careful in how you recommend this practice to others. And I think
00:42:40.540
there are two modalities. One I think is to just talk about what it's done for you. If it comes up
00:42:47.200
naturally, my rule is I actually never talk about meditation unless somebody asks. And the other
00:42:52.420
modality, which I think is the more successful one is, you know, just, just let people come to you.
00:42:57.060
You, I think most of us, if we start to meditate, we will start showing up differently in the various
00:43:03.260
areas of our life. Eventually somebody is going to ask you, you know, and I think you can just very
00:43:07.640
simply say, yeah, I started meditating and it's been, it's made a big difference. I kind of leave
00:43:11.820
it at that because I think the excitement is off putting for people. And this is a lot of people
00:43:16.340
really resist meditation for, for many, for a whole variety of reasons, some of them quite profound.
00:43:22.720
And so I think you just want to be, you know, there's nothing more intimate than the mind.
00:43:27.380
We, we can talk about sex in ways that are actually pretty comfortable to talk about because it,
00:43:32.180
you know, it's, we've, you know, reduced it to cliche or we're talking about other people or just,
00:43:37.460
we have a pretty coarse culture these days, whatever. But, but the mind is like really where
00:43:43.800
the game is played. And so I think, you know, it's a, it's a fraught freighted area. And I think
00:43:48.900
you just want to step gingerly. And going back to this idea that it's,
00:43:52.720
it's actually not self-indulgent to meditate. I mean, I'm sure your wife really appreciates that
00:43:58.340
you started meditating because I'm sure you're less of a hair trigger. She doesn't have to walk
00:44:01.880
on eggshells around you anymore as much maybe. So yeah, it, it actually was great for your
00:44:07.700
Yes. Yes. It's, but it's not perfect. You know, I retain the capacity to be a schmuck in all sorts
00:44:13.580
of ways. As an aside, you know, I'm working on a new book right now about kindness, which is,
00:44:19.860
I think a really interesting concept because it's hard to talk about kindness and without being
00:44:25.420
incredibly annoying. And so I want to call it the self-interested case for not being an asshole
00:44:30.060
because actually there, there's a ton of research that shows that kind, compassionate people are
00:44:36.180
healthier, happier, and more successful at work. And, and they have better relationships. And,
00:44:41.160
and as part of this project, I did what's called a 360 review. Some, you may know what it is. Some of your
00:44:46.840
listeners may know what it is. I actually did, wasn't familiar with it, but it's this incredibly
00:44:50.340
intense thing where you hire a firm and they interview a dozen, maybe more people in your
00:44:56.020
life, personal life and professional life off the record anonymously. And they can say whatever the
00:45:02.200
hell they want about you. And then they write up a report and you read it. And two days ago, I read
00:45:07.160
mine and it was brutal. And I've been meditating for nine years and I am still a schmuck in many,
00:45:13.060
many ways. And so you are not, I mean, it was super, super humbling. And so you are going to,
00:45:21.240
this is not going to solve all of your problems. And that's why I called the first book 10% happier.
00:45:25.720
That's why my app is called 10% happier because I'm counter-programming, I think,
00:45:29.240
against some of the sort of irresponsible people in the self-help world who are peddling, you know,
00:45:33.740
snake oil. Well, um, where can people go to learn more about the book and the app and what you're
00:45:37.700
doing? I think the one-stop shopping is 10% happier.com where you can get the app,
00:45:43.060
I mean, the app's available, you know, Google play and the Apple app store. And you can do it there
00:45:48.980
too. Podcast is everywhere you get podcasts, books or wherever you get books, but one-stop shopping
00:45:55.660
would be 10% happier.com. And, uh, yeah. Awesome. Well, if you're up, if you're game for it, Dan,
00:46:01.120
would you be game for like guidance through like a one minute meditation, like giving people know,
00:46:05.840
like what, what it's like, giving us a taste? Yeah. Okay. So I would, I would just say,
00:46:10.400
if you're driving, listen to this and don't do it, but listen to it because it'll, you can do it on
00:46:16.380
your own later. It's, it's not complicated. The cliche is that it's simple, but not easy.
00:46:21.320
So it's actually hard, but it's not, it's not rocket science. So for anybody who's not driving,
00:46:26.520
the first step is to assume the position, which does not have to be cross-legged on the floor or
00:46:32.900
anything like that. You can, you can sit in a chair. You can, if you're on a subway, you can sit on the
00:46:37.700
subway, wherever you're sitting is fine. You can sprawl yourself out on the ground too. It's totally
00:46:42.500
fine too. And if you're, even if you're standing up, it's fine. So wherever you're sitting or
00:46:46.900
standing, it's totally cool. The second is close your eyes. If you're in a place where you don't
00:46:51.340
want to close your eyes, if you're on a subway and you actually would prefer to just kind of gaze
00:46:55.080
neutrally at, uh, and softly at us at a spot on the ground, that's totally, that's cool too.
00:47:00.900
Then you can be an incognito meditator. So either close your eyes or just kind of dim them and then
00:47:07.420
bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out, you know, pick one
00:47:12.380
spot, like your nose, your chest or your belly. And you're not thinking about the breath, but you're
00:47:16.720
just like, as I said earlier, feeling the raw data of the physical sensation, rising the belly,
00:47:28.820
It might help. I find it very useful to use a little mental note of in and out.
00:47:39.920
And then as soon as you start to do this, you're, you will notice very quickly that you get
00:47:44.460
distracted. You hear some background noises. Like there was a big car horn that just honked outside
00:47:49.680
of my building or you're start thinking about what, what's for lunch? What do I have to do today?
00:47:54.500
Where do gerbils run wild? Whatever. And the whole game is just to notice when you've become
00:47:59.780
distracted and to start again. And again, and again, and again, this is like a golf game with
00:48:11.880
Okay. All right. So yeah, I'm going to, I was actually doing a little bit. Then I heard the car horn
00:48:16.320
in your, in the building, but no, it was great. Well, Hey, Dan, thanks so much for your time.
00:48:23.000
Yeah. Great questions. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
00:48:25.400
My guest here was Dan Harris. He's the author of the books, 10% Happier and Meditation for
00:48:29.240
Vigity Skeptics. They're both available on amazon.com. You can also find out more information
00:48:33.060
about 10% Happier at 10%happier.com. You can even try the app free for seven days. Also check out our
00:48:39.100
show notes at aom.is slash meditation where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper
00:48:43.340
into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For
00:48:59.500
more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the art of manliness website at
00:49:02.480
artofmanliness.com. And if you want to check out the rest of our archives, the podcast, make sure
00:49:06.180
to go to artofmanliness.com slash podcast. See all 400 plus there as always. Thank you for
00:49:11.360
continuing support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.