The Art of Manliness - #439： Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

00:00:00.000 This episode of the Art of Manly's podcast is brought to you in part by Huckberry. So fall

00:00:03.560 is almost here. So it's time to start getting that fall wardrobe ready. And most of my fall

00:00:07.320 wardrobe comes from Flint and Tinder exclusively at Huckberry. Flint and Tinder has all your casual

00:00:12.320 classic staples you can think of. Denim, Henleys, t-shirts, trucker jackets, jean jackets, you name

00:00:17.880 it, they've got it. And it's all made right here in the USA and you can only find it at Huckberry.com.

00:00:22.740 So go over to Huckberry.com, use code ART15 at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase and

00:00:28.200 make sure to check out Flint and Tinder and stock up on all your fall wardrobe staples.

00:00:33.020 Huckberry.com, code ART15. This episode of the Art of Manly's podcast is brought to you by

00:00:37.240 Squarespace. Turn your great idea into reality with Squarespace. Squarespace makes it easier than ever

00:00:41.340 to launch your passion project, whether you're showcasing your work or selling products of any

00:00:44.640 kind. With beautiful templates and the ability to customize just about anything, you can easily

00:00:47.960 make a beautiful website yourself. If you do get stuck, Squarespace's 24-7 award-winning customer

00:00:52.220 support is there to help. Head to squarespace.com slash manliness for a free trial. And when you're

00:00:56.440 ready to launch, use offer code manliness to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

00:01:15.180 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. You've probably read

00:01:19.600 or heard about the benefits of meditation, but you've probably, like a lot of people, never given it a try

00:01:24.440 because it seems a bit too woo-woo. You're not alone. My guest today used to be a skeptic himself,

00:01:29.340 but after falling into drug use and suffering a nervous breakdown on national television,

00:01:33.760 he gave meditation a try and found that it made him calmer and more resilient. He's now on a mission

00:01:38.120 to make meditation approachable for the masses. No meditation pillow required. His name is Dan

00:01:43.000 Harris. He's a news reporter at ABC and you can see him on the show Nightline. He's also the author

00:01:46.820 of the books 10% Happier and Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Today on the show, Dan shares a story of

00:01:51.720 his nervous breakdown in front of millions of people and how that led him to meditation. He then takes

00:01:55.560 us through the latest research on the benefits of meditation, including the way it reduces depression

00:01:59.160 and anxiety. Dan and I then discuss some of the myths that people have about meditation, such as the idea

00:02:03.420 it takes a lot of time, requires you to sit on a pillow, and will cause you to lose your edge. We end our

00:02:07.760 podcast with Dan taking us through a one-minute guided meditation, which will give you a nice moment

00:02:11.920 of practical zen, whether you're on your way to work or just sit in your office. After the show's over,

00:02:16.600 check out the show notes at aom.is slash meditation.

00:02:28.560 All right. Dan Harris, welcome to the show.

00:02:32.820 Thanks for having me.

00:02:34.340 Well, you are the co-anchor of ABC's Nightline. You do weekend editions of Good Morning America, and in your spare time,

00:02:42.100 you've become a meditation advocate. So how did this happen? Because, you know, I think of TV

00:02:48.820 journalists, hard charging, you've probably done, have you done war stuff for a correspondent? Okay,

00:02:53.900 so you've done that, like type A. How did you become this advocate for meditation and being mindful and

00:03:01.900 quieting the mind?

00:03:04.140 Well, the war stuff is actually part of it. I spent a lot of time after 9-11. I'm dating myself now,

00:03:10.380 because I'm almost 47. But when 9-11 happened, I was actually reasonably young. I think I was 30

00:03:17.120 years old, and I was very ambitious and single and just pretty new to ABC News at that time and

00:03:23.940 really just leapt into the fray and spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And then the

00:03:30.720 second intifada happened in Israel. So I was in the West Bank and Gaza. And then Iraq happened,

00:03:37.000 and I was there six times. And I, in the middle of that, got depressed and didn't actually know I

00:03:45.300 was depressed. And then I did this dumb thing that I've talked about quite a bit publicly now. But for

00:03:51.340 those who haven't heard it before, I started to use recreational drugs, including cocaine. And that

00:03:57.540 produced a panic attack on live television in 2004 on Good Morning America. I was the newsreader that

00:04:04.860 morning. I was the guy who comes on and reads the headlines of the morning at the top of each

00:04:09.180 hour. And I was in the middle of my little shtick, and I just lost the capacity to breathe or speak.

00:04:15.680 And that was really embarrassing. And then I went to a doctor afterwards who

00:04:19.120 was an expert in panic, and he's trying to figure out what happened. And he asked me whether I do drugs.

00:04:24.500 And I said, yeah. And I told him it was pretty intermittent. It wasn't like,

00:04:28.140 I wasn't high on the air. And I wasn't high. It wasn't like, I often point out that it wasn't

00:04:33.940 like the Wolf of Wall Street, where they're pounding quaaludes every minute. But it was enough,

00:04:38.460 according to the doctor, to raise the level of adrenaline in my brain and make it more likely

00:04:43.240 for me to have a panic attack. And that moment of realizing what an idiot I'd been kind of set me

00:04:51.560 off on a journey that I talked about extensively in my first book, and I won't bore you with it now.

00:04:57.320 But the punchline is it ultimately led me to meditation. And I had no interest in meditation.

00:05:03.520 I thought it was bullshit. But what changed my mind was the science. There's all this science that

00:05:08.140 suggests it can rewire key parts of your brain having to do with focus and self-awareness and

00:05:14.960 compassion, and that it can lower your blood pressure and help your immune system. And so that

00:05:19.820 really got me interested. And I kind of had this entrepreneurial feeling. You know,

00:05:24.420 you and I were chatting before we started rolling about the entrepreneurial feeling you had in law

00:05:29.240 school that, you know, all of the publications, the men's publications weren't speaking to you.

00:05:36.940 And I was, at this point in like 2009, reading a lot of stuff about meditation, and it always felt

00:05:43.900 like there was a little pan flute playing in the background. And it was just, you know, I mean,

00:05:48.540 it was very smart. And I've now become very close friends with a lot of these people. But

00:05:52.420 it's a little annoying. And then it's written, I think, for, you know, baby boomers and hippie

00:05:59.980 people who, you know, had exposure to the hippie generation. And I, you know, came up in the age of,

00:06:04.060 you know, punk rock and indie rock and Generation X and nihilistic sarcasm. And I wanted something that

00:06:11.380 was more embarrassing and, you know, like told more embarrassing stories about what it's like inside

00:06:16.240 any human mind. And so that's why I wrote my first book, 10% Happier. And then I followed it up with

00:06:22.860 a much more sort of how-to oriented book called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics.

00:06:28.500 So I'm curious, was there a person you encountered that introduced you to the science of meditation?

00:06:34.340 Or were you like researching something for a story you were doing? Like, how did that,

00:06:38.200 how did you go from like, okay, meditation is for these baby boomers, like, you know, ponytail 1.00

00:06:43.600 guys wearing Birkenstocks to, oh, there's, this can actually benefit me. So like, what,

00:06:49.360 what was it that caused you to actually look into that as a, as a, look at the science of it?

00:06:54.220 Well, there were a few people, I can't remember the exact order of operations now, but so I had

00:06:58.880 read a book by a guy who I'm going to say, I'm going to talk about him. I'm not necessarily

00:07:03.980 recommending him per se, but out of sheer happenstance for a variety of reasons that we

00:07:09.620 don't need to go and do now. I ended up reading a book by a self-help guru named Eckhart Tolle,

00:07:16.380 who some of your listeners will have heard of. He's a really successful self-help guru.

00:07:21.460 And I thought the book was at least the first blush, like incredibly ridiculous.

00:07:27.300 And, but, but as I was continuing to read it, and again, this, I had no, at this point,

00:07:32.340 meditation wasn't on my radar in any way. I was reading the book largely because I was thinking

00:07:36.080 about doing a story on this guy because he was so popular. And he started talking about this notion

00:07:41.560 that we all have a voice in our heads and, and, and he's not referring to schizophrenia or any

00:07:48.940 mental illness. He's just talking about the human condition that we have this nonstop conversation

00:07:52.800 in our heads all the time, a voice that chases you out of bed in the morning. And it's just

00:07:57.880 yammering at you all day long. It's just blah, blah, blah, all the time, thinking about the past,

00:08:02.600 thinking about the future, instead of focusing on what's happening right now, criticizing people

00:08:06.880 or criticizing yourself, wanting stuff, judging just this nonstop nattering. And it totally his

00:08:14.460 argument is when you're unaware of it, it owns you. It's, and that was a very powerful thing for

00:08:20.580 me because I realized, yeah, that's definitely true for me. And this idea of the voice in the head

00:08:27.400 really explained my panic attack because it was because of my ego, my inner voice that I went off

00:08:35.820 to war zones without thinking about the consequences. And then I came home and got depressed and didn't

00:08:40.680 even know I was depressed and then did a very dumb thing by reaching for recreational drugs.

00:08:46.260 And so that was really powerful, but totally did not have any advice for, that I could discern for

00:08:52.680 dealing with the voice in the head. And so I started looking around at first, I looked in some

00:08:58.460 very unfruitful places. I don't even know if that's a word, but in places that were not fruitful,

00:09:03.460 like self-help. And then I ultimately, my wife gave me a book by a shrink in New York city named Dr.

00:09:09.560 Mark Epstein, who wrote about, he writes beautiful books about the overlap between psychology and Buddhism.

00:09:17.560 And, and I realized that all the stuff I liked the most in Eckhart Tolle had been taken from

00:09:25.040 somebody known as the Buddha and, and that the Buddha actually did have practical advice,

00:09:30.640 which was meditation. And at first I was like, well, I'm not going to do that. So next.

00:09:36.780 And then I, I don't, it might've been just Google. Well, I actually met Mark Epstein. I called him up and

00:09:42.540 said, well, you have a beer with me. And we became friends. We're still very good friends. And, and

00:09:47.460 he, maybe he pointed it out to me. Maybe I Googled it, but I realized that there was this explosion of

00:09:52.800 scientific research that had at that point had not gotten a lot of press attention. And so I then

00:09:57.680 started to cover that stuff. And I made friends with the, the preeminent neuroscientist who's really

00:10:02.160 looked into this. His name is Dr. Richie Davidson, Richard Davidson. He goes by Richie. He's at the

00:10:07.100 University of Wisconsin. And he's done all many of the most, you know, sort of prominent studies on

00:10:13.460 what meditation does to the brain. And so I started reporting on that. And in that process, I just

00:10:18.440 started to do it. And I realized that it wasn't hippie nonsense, that it is exercise for your brain

00:10:23.860 and that it has all of these benefits. And that in fact, then I started to learn that all these really

00:10:27.840 impressive people and C suites, you know, executive suites and athletes and entertainers and all these

00:10:34.060 really sort of high performing people have been embracing the practice and even in the military

00:10:39.000 because the benefits are becoming clear. And so then I really started to think, okay,

00:10:44.940 there's something I can do here, which is to hopefully make the practice more attractive to

00:10:49.740 people who would otherwise just reject it. So, I mean, you mentioned some of the benefits

00:10:53.680 in the beginning, but like fleshing out, like what, what are the, what does the research say that

00:10:58.060 meditation does to our brain and to our overall, I mean, even physical health?

00:11:01.880 Yeah. This will be slightly repetitive, but I'll flesh it out. It reduces the release of,

00:11:07.520 there's just a really long lift. Actually, before I get into that, let me just step back and just say

00:11:12.300 one thing, which is that the science is, you know, science moves slowly and it, and it kind of moves

00:11:17.620 if you're paying attention in a, in a sort of one step forward, two steps back kind of way,

00:11:22.000 because it's basically science is an argument taking place in public because scientists in different

00:11:27.800 labs are doing different kinds of research under different theories. And they're trying to prove

00:11:31.740 their points. And then other people try to replicate their points to see if they're full

00:11:35.060 of shit or whatever. And so you got to be careful. I've really learned, my wife is a scientist. My

00:11:40.980 parents are scientists. I was not good enough at math to be a scientist, but I have a lot of respect

00:11:45.220 for it. And I, I've tried to learn not to over hype the science around meditation because at times

00:11:51.880 people in my position talk about it in ways I think are irresponsible. So I just want to issue that

00:11:56.040 caveat. But that being said, the research is really impressive. And so it's been shown to

00:12:01.860 reduce, reduce the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which is linked to all sorts of, you

00:12:06.980 know, stress is a killer. It's been shown to reduce blood pressure. It's been shown to boost

00:12:11.500 your immune system. So they've shown that, you know, short daily doses of meditation can make you

00:12:15.740 less likely to get sick. It's been shown to have a salutary effect on things like irritable bowel

00:12:22.040 syndrome and psoriasis, both of which are linked to stress. It's been shown to help with ADHD.

00:12:28.580 One of the areas where it's the strongest, the research is the strongest is anxiety and depression,

00:12:33.740 both of which I've dealt with since I was a child. So that, that's a really big deal. And then I would

00:12:38.620 say that we get into the neuroscience and it's just fascinating. It shows that it, it, it, it changes

00:12:44.460 the structure of your brain. You know, it's this science has, has actually overturned a long lived

00:12:51.900 piece of dogma in the medical community. It was received wisdom for generations. It was in

00:12:58.040 textbooks that the brain doesn't change after age 25 or something in there about. In fact, what this

00:13:05.140 research has shown is that the brain is always changing. It is, it's been called the organ of

00:13:10.620 experience. So it changes based on what you do. So if you start practicing violin, certain areas of

00:13:16.980 your brain are going to change in response, having to do with manual dexterity and other things.

00:13:22.220 Meditation is a systematic way to change key areas of your brain. So focus is a big one. This is an

00:13:29.980 area where the research is reasonably strong. It should have been shown that you can through this

00:13:33.840 daily exercise and we can talk about what it is, but, but very briefly, most in its simplest sense,

00:13:41.080 meditation is just paying attention. And then every time you get distracted, you start again and again

00:13:46.300 and again. So usually you just pay attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out.

00:13:50.280 And then your mind's going to mutiny on you and you'll start thinking all these random thoughts

00:13:53.940 and that's totally fine. The whole game is just to notice you've become distracted and start again

00:13:58.680 and again and again. And this daily kind of mental bicep curl changes the area of the brain associated

00:14:06.620 with focus. Another study that shows that short daily doses of meditation literally grows the gray

00:14:12.940 matter in the area of the brain, the areas of the brain associated with self-awareness and with

00:14:18.520 compassion. And it shrinks the gray matter in the area associated with stress. So we're talking about

00:14:23.780 physical changes on the level of your brain. Another interesting one, since you, you asked me to geek

00:14:29.720 out is a study that shows that it, it, it changes the default mode for our brain. So there's a network of brain

00:14:39.060 regions called the default mode. So when, if, if you, if I was to stop talking and we would agree

00:14:45.400 to sit in silence for a minute, the odds are one or both of our brains would go into what's called the

00:14:50.520 default mode, which is thinking about yourself, thinking, worrying about stuff, thinking about

00:14:55.900 the past, thinking about the future. This is where the mind goes when we like are just defaulting to

00:15:01.900 our baseline. And, and then you can see this in the brain scans. You can see the default mode

00:15:07.780 activating. Well, when people are meditating, the default mode actually goes quiet. And really

00:15:13.960 interestingly, experienced meditators actually are seeing much less activation in the default mode,

00:15:20.240 even when they are not meditating. So in other words, their lives change. What is your life? Your

00:15:25.760 life is whatever is happening in your mind right now. That is your life. You're mostly not paying

00:15:31.080 attention to it, but if, and so therefore, if your default mode is like most humans, much of your

00:15:37.140 life is just this nonstop, mostly negative yammering internally that can change. And see, to me,

00:15:46.520 this is the animating insight of the whole thing, which is that we think that our traits, our attributes,

00:15:57.140 our psychological attributes are factory setting that cannot be changed, that we are born with a

00:16:04.320 certain amount of patience, compassion, calm, focus, gratitude, whatever, all the things that we want,

00:16:11.620 you know, we may think we want actual things, but what are the things give us? They give us

00:16:17.580 mental states. They make us feel happy or excited or fulfilled or connected or whatever. So at the end of

00:16:23.120 the day, what we really want are positive mental states. All of these positive mental states actually

00:16:28.900 are not factory setting. They are skills that you can train. The mind is susceptible to training.

00:16:35.940 And that is what meditation is. It's not sitting on a mountaintop with loincloth and the wind blowing

00:16:42.260 through your hair, the way it's been presented, what I call as part of what I call the worst marketing

00:16:47.100 campaign for anything ever. We've been sold a bill of goods when it comes to meditation.

00:16:51.720 And that robs us of this, of our birthright, which is to take responsibility for the nature of our

00:16:59.300 mind. And so I stumbled across all of this. I did not set out to be a self-help guru or whatever the

00:17:06.060 hell I am. But this is really important stuff and it's the best story I've ever covered. So I talk about

00:17:12.420 it. Yeah. I mean, I think that was the big, that flipped the switch for me on meditation is thinking of

00:17:17.340 it as like dead, I, I, I barbell train. So I think of like, okay, when I meditate, it's like deadlifts

00:17:21.620 from my brain. I'm exercising my brain. Yes. Um, all right. Well, I mean, what I, what you do in this

00:17:27.460 book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, it's your second book. It's a how-to book, but you, what I love

00:17:32.040 about you, you lay out the most common, you know, hurdles or excuses people give for not meditating.

00:17:38.720 Well, before we get to that, let's talk about this. What exactly are you, what kind of meditation

00:17:42.420 you're talking about? Cause there's lots of meditation out there. There's, there's a transcendental

00:17:46.280 meditation, which I think is the one that a lot of people like think of is like, that's the, when

00:17:50.480 they like, you know, do the, um, or they, they say a word over and over again, there's mindfulness

00:17:54.920 meditation, there's loving kindness or self-compassion meditation. So like, what is it that

00:17:59.380 you're talking about when you talk about meditation? That's a great clarifying question. So that Richie

00:18:04.420 Davidson likes to say that he's the neuroscientist, um, that the word meditation is a bit like the

00:18:09.880 word sports. So, you know, badminton and a water polo don't have a lot in common. So when you use

00:18:14.780 the word meditation generically, you can be referring to any number of things. Some of them

00:18:19.440 completely ridiculous. And most of your listeners would never want to do them. When I talk about

00:18:23.720 meditation, I'm talking about mindfulness meditation, which is actually derived from Buddhism,

00:18:29.280 but it is stripped of any metaphysical claims or religious lingo. And it's taught in a secular

00:18:35.600 context, incorporation in the military and schools all over the place. And within my, there's a,

00:18:43.180 so mindfulness meditation is the beginning instruction is mostly just to pay attention

00:18:47.740 to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out. And then you're going to get distracted a

00:18:52.580 million times. And then you just, the whole game is just to notice you've become distracted and to

00:18:58.180 start again and again. And again, there is a, you refer to loving kindness, which is kind of an

00:19:04.420 annoying word. Uh, we, we try to reframe that as friendliness. In other words, to train the ability

00:19:12.240 to kind of have a overall friendly attitude toward yourself and others, which is really, you know,

00:19:17.660 actually a much more congenial way to go through life. That is often taught as a, and we teach it as

00:19:22.800 a, um, cause it's also a Buddhist practice. It's also been secularized the way mindfulness has,

00:19:28.220 and they're taught in conjunction, I think, and in a very powerful way, because as it turns out,

00:19:33.800 there's a really deeply self-interested case for not being an asshole. And when you can reduce

00:19:42.520 your actual quotient, when you can be nicer to yourself and to others, that changes the nature

00:19:49.160 of your inner weather. And, and that makes for a better atmosphere for, well, happiness generally,

00:19:56.380 but also for mindfulness meditation. So these, these two practices where you learn how to kind of calm

00:20:02.960 the mind, focus the mind and become more self-aware that that would be mindfulness

00:20:09.180 twinned with friendliness, where you train yourself. And I can tell you how to do it. It's,

00:20:15.460 it's a little bit annoying, but actually there's a lot of science that shows that it's very good for

00:20:19.200 you. Where you, when you twin these two practices, that is, I think where the sweet spot come.

00:20:24.760 And so just cause we're on it, loving kindness meditation is, or friendliness meditation,

00:20:29.720 whatever the hell you want to call it is. And it's, this is going to sound incredibly annoying

00:20:33.040 to people and you're not wrong to think it. It basically asks you to envision. Usually you

00:20:39.900 start with yourself, you envision yourself. And then you say these little phrases, may you be happy,

00:20:46.260 may you be healthy, may you be safe, may you, may you live with ease. And then you go to a next

00:20:52.860 person. Usually it's a mentor. And then you go to a close friend, which could be a human or an animal.

00:20:58.760 I have a cat on my lap right now. You could, and then you go to somebody you don't really pay

00:21:04.440 attention to often referred to as a neutral person that you overlook. And then you go to a difficult

00:21:09.340 person and then you go to everybody. And I have referred to this exercise as Valentine's day

00:21:15.360 with a knife to your throat. It really is annoying. However, there is a significant amount of science

00:21:21.480 that shows it has very serious health benefits and that it can change behavior. And I like to point

00:21:28.520 out like, what is it like in that moment when you do a small act of kindness? Like if you hold the

00:21:33.720 door open for somebody on your way into a building or out of a room or whatever, if you're paying

00:21:39.280 attention, what does that feel like? It feels good. And that feeling is infinitely scalable.

00:21:44.600 And trainable. And that is what you're doing in this exercise. So those are the two things

00:21:50.720 we teach. Just to answer your question about transcendental meditation, that is derived from

00:21:56.720 Hinduism as opposed to Buddhism. And it involves a mantra, which is a word you repeat to yourself

00:22:03.460 silently. And I think there's plenty of evidence that it's really good for you. And I have no beef

00:22:09.620 with it, but it's not what we teach. It's just a different kind of meditation.

00:22:14.340 Yeah. Well, you know, going back to the benefits of self-compassion or compassion meditation,

00:22:20.140 they found that like it actually showing, having self-compassion actually boosts success than like

00:22:25.820 being hard on yourself, right? Like, you know, it's like, I suck. I'm never going to like,

00:22:30.080 like cutting yourself some slack can actually help you do better.

00:22:33.200 Yes. Whatever you're trying to do.

00:22:34.860 This is, this is so counterintuitive for, for me. And I think for a lot of people,

00:22:39.740 because most of us feel that the internal cattle prod is what get is, is the source of any success

00:22:48.780 that we're achieving. And as it turns out, it is possible to have high standards, but to not

00:22:56.380 be so self-lacerating, so self-flagellating, so self-critical that you actually reduce your

00:23:03.700 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 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:26:26.820 Audiobooks are a great sidekick for summer activities like hiking, running, road tripping,

00:26:30.260 enjoying downtime, outdoors, and more. And with the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet,

00:26:34.200 Audible lets you fill the summer with lots of audiobooks and lots of books. I actually did this,

00:26:38.280 took a road trip to New Mexico earlier this summer. And along the way, I listened to the Bruce Lee

00:26:43.820 biography and we had Matthew Polly on the podcast. That's, I had, I was like in the car eight hours,

00:26:48.960 both ways. I knocked that book out and was able to get ready for the podcast just by listening to it.

00:26:52.760 It was fantastic. I love Audible also to download books. I can listen with my kids. We listened to

00:26:56.600 The Trumpeter of the Swan, Charlotte's Web, The Hobbit. It's fantastic. Better just pass your time

00:27:01.140 in the car when you're with your kids, listening to books instead of listening to what's ever on the

00:27:04.720 radio. So as an Audible member, you'll get credit every month. That's good for any audiobook,

00:27:08.520 regardless of price. Unused credits roll over to the next month. And if you didn't like your

00:27:11.680 audiobook, you can exchange it. No questions asked. Plus your books are yours to keep. Go back and

00:27:15.760 re-listen at any time, even if you cancel your membership. Better yet, you can switch seamlessly

00:27:19.080 between devices, picking up exactly where you left off, whether it's on your phone, through your car,

00:27:22.800 from a tablet, or at home on Amazon Echo. Start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free.

00:27:27.560 Just go to audible.com slash manliness or text manliness to 500-500. That's audible,

00:27:34.100 A-U-D-I-B-L-E.com slash manliness or text manliness to 500-500. It's 500-500. You can do it with

00:27:42.200 audiobooks. Also by Squarespace, take it from me. I've created lots of websites. And if you don't

00:27:46.620 know what you're doing and you're trying to start a website and you're trying to code it yourself,

00:27:50.260 you're going to break your site over and over again. You miss one backslash or one letter,

00:27:55.380 everything gets broken. It's frustrating. Or you can hire a web designer, but if you don't have the

00:27:58.800 cash, that's not going to be possible for you as well. With Squarespace, you can create a great

00:28:02.320 looking website, get it up and running in minutes, and just design it, customize it however you want

00:28:06.760 with just the point and click of your mouse. They've got beautiful templates created by world-class

00:28:10.040 designers and the ability to customize just about anything with a few clicks. Squarespace also has

00:28:13.820 a powerful e-commerce functionality. It lets you sell anything online and analytics help you grow

00:28:18.060 your site in real time. Everything is optimized for mobile right out of the box, and there's

00:28:21.400 nothing to patch or upgrade ever. Buying a domain is simple. You'll get the help you need with

00:28:25.100 Squarespace's 24-7 award-winning customer support. Squarespace empowers millions of people from

00:28:29.520 designers to lawyers, artists to gamers, even restaurants and gym to turn their great ideas into

00:28:33.260 something real. Head to squarespace.com slash manliness right now for a free trial. When you're ready to

00:28:37.940 launch, use the offer code manliness to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

00:28:42.180 Again, that's squarespace.com slash manliness offer code manliness to save 10% off your first purchase

00:28:47.140 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.

00:32:18.100 It's fine.

00:32:18.780 That's what we do in meditation. That's what we do in meditation. Sorry. I apologize.

00:32:21.880 No, you're fine.

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. 0.66

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.

00:34:29.720 So how do you stop that from happening?

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 1.00

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 0.94

00:44:01.880 on eggshells around you anymore as much maybe. So yeah, it, it actually was great for your

00:44:06.820 relationship.

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,

00:47:22.660 falling of 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

00:48:07.420 a million mulligan.

00:48:09.660 That's awesome.

00:48:10.420 And that's it. That's it.

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.

00:48:21.400 It's been an absolute pleasure.

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.

The Art of Manliness - September 10, 2018

#439： Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript