Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 115: Your Meditation Questions, Answered!

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

We close out the year by hearing from you, our loyal listeners! We recently set up a voicemail where listeners left questions for our host Dan Harris and he answers a selection of them that range from how to start a practice, how to tell your friends it's not "weird" to meditate and how to afford retreats. Dan's new book, "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-To Book," is on sale Dec. 26. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Hey Dan. Hi Dan. Dan, this is Savannah from Minneapolis. Hey Dan, what's up Dan?

Hi Dan. I really love the podcast. I listen to your podcast almost every day. I'm going from Switzerland. Going from Singapore. Absolutely loves the podcast. Love your podcast and everything you're doing. I'm Brandon Pajan.

I live in Florida. First from Philadelphia years. I'm a attorney in a just recently started meditating because of it. Hey, this is Shannon from South Carolina. Thank you so much, you guys are great. I tell my students all the time, get Dan's book and listen to Dan's podcast. Hey Dan, my name's Nikita.

Hi Dan, my name's Brian. I'm from Columbus, Ohio. My name is John, and I live in Hawaii. I'm a big fan of 10% happier. Thank you so much for all that you do. Dan, thank you so much for taking all of them. For ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. Dan Harris.

This is an experiment. I have no idea how this is gonna go, but you can completely go pear-shaped. If it does fail, I know exactly who I'm going to blame. Two names for you, Josh Cohan, Lauren F. Ronda, the producers of this show. This whole thing is their idea. So just jot those down and if this whole thing sucks, send them a note. The idea that they cooked up was we wanted to do some special podcasts in conjunction with the release of this new

book that's coming out that I wrote along with two co-authors. The book is called Meditation for Figuity Skeptics and it's all about my attempt to do what I kind of failed to do in my first book. My first book, 10% happier, I wrote my personal story of how I became a meditator and I assumed naively that anybody who read it would probably start meditating because I thought I laid out the case in a somewhat compelling fashion but I've realized in this four years since it came out that I was wrong about that that starting a meditation habit like starting any habit is really hard and so I've

written this new book called Meditation for Figuity Skeptics with some co-authors including Jeff Warren, who's an amazing meditation teacher, was featured on the podcast two weeks ago. And our goal in the, we took this road, cross country road trip in January of 2017 and met all these people who want to meditate but aren't. And we helped them get over the hump. And so the goal of the book is to tell you the story of the Gonzo road trip that we went on and also to help you get over whatever obstacles you faced to starting a habit and also to teach you how to do the thing. Anyway, so that book is out on December 26th and time for a new year, new you and and back to my producers. They came up with this idea that maybe a fun way to do a special show around the release

of the book would be to create a phone number, just we created a phone number, I posted it on social media and said, you can call this number and ask me anything you want to ask me. And so we did that and a bunch of people called in. Nobody has shared with me what the questions are. So I'm gonna hear these for the first time and try to come up with some sort of cogent answer. So anyway, that's the setup. Let's go with the first call, Josh, I'm going to hear these for the first time and try to come up with some sort of cogent answer.

So anyway, that's the setup. Let's go with the first call. Josh, I'm looking at you. Please enter your password. First saved message. Hi Dan. What I'm wondering is I've kind of fallen off the meditation bandwagon and I'm looking for something a way to like motivate me to get back into it because I'm already feeling

good and I'm happy but I know that I could be happier and I know that meditation still has so many good benefits. So if you have any advice for how to kind of get back on the bandwagon that would be much appreciated. Alright, well thank you for that. I have a lot to say about this. Falling off the wagon is not a problem. Everybody does it.

I've been saying this on the podcast in recent weeks, so apologies if you've heard me say this, but evolution did not leave us with a mind that is well equipped for creating long-term healthy habits. It left us with a mind that was really good at avoiding dangerous stuff like saber-toothed tigers and finding rewarding things like good food and sexual partners. Why? Because evolution didn't care about our long-term health it cared about getting our genes into the future generations.

So we are not wired for successful adoption, easy, successful adoption of long-term healthy habits. So, you have to go into the establishing of a habit like meditation with the idea that you're going to start and stop and start and stop or start and fail and start again, and you have to be okay with that. It's going to be a process of experimentation, figuring out the way to anchor the habit into your life in a way that really works for you. And it's not unlike the practice of meditation. The practice of meditation is generally speaking, there are all kinds of meditation, but generally speaking, the kind of meditation that I promote, mindfulness meditation involves sitting in a chair and then you or on the ground cross like it if you're limber enough unlike me and you close your eyes and bring your full attention to the feeling of your breath coming in and going out and then immediately you're gonna get totally

distracted and the whole goal is just to notice when you become distracted when you've quote unquote failed which is not actually a failure and I'll have more to say about that later. To notice when you've quote unquote failed, and to start again, and again, and again. And that same spirit should be brought not only to the doing of meditation, but to the establishing of a meditation habit. It's totally fine if you start and fail and start again. That is the whole game, is just to like notice that you miss the benefits that we're accruing to you from doing this thing and then start again. And so back to what the caller said, he feels happy his life is fine, everything's good,

but he knows he could be happier if he was meditating. Well, that's why I think actually falling off the wagon can be a good thing, because it brings into starker relief the fact that things could be better if you were doing this thing for yourself for a couple of minutes a day. And so I actually, I think everything I heard in that voicemail indicates to me that you sir are ripe for reestablishing a meditation habit because you see the benefits. The benefits, forget willpower. Willpower is a really hard way to establish any habit because willpower is this incredibly ephemeral in a resource. It goes away. It evaporates really quickly. What you want to do is identify the benefits, which is you feel better and to use the benefits to pull you forward. So I would say just in terms of practical advice for reestablishing habits,

set up reasonably low bar, maybe one minute a day. We've got a bunch of one minute meditations, many of them free on the 10% happier app. You can go check those out in one minute a day that you're going to do it daily-ish, not every day, but most days. And we've found that if you set the bar that low, have I'm going to do one minute most days, that's a really good way to get people to actually do the thing. All right, I survived the first call. Josh, number two.

What's up Dan? Huge fan of the show. You've been huge in keeping my enthusiasm going for meditation over the past year and a half now. Probably I think I found out about the show right when it started. My question is I've been really good about, you know, staying on my more or less daily meditation routine. And now I feel like the next big step is going on a retreat. But all these retreats are crazy expensive and kind of intimidating because I don't know which ones are going to be worth the money. I know the inside meditation society and the ones that you mentioned frequently are probably the best, but if I can't afford it, I mean what's a good way to go sit down for 10 days and get something out of it.

I really appreciate that. Thanks. I really appreciate the question. A lot to say about that one. Who, I just got back actually from a 10-day meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society, which is in Central Massachusetts and Barry Massachusetts. Beautiful up there. But, dude, meditation retreats are arduous. I'm not going to lie to you.

I want to be clear that you are not a failed meditator, you're not a JV meditator, if you don't want to do a meditation retreat. It's totally fine. It is not a must. The first time I did a meditation retreat was when I was in the middle of writing 10% happier and I needed some stuff to write about. That's why I did it. So just relieve yourself of the notion that somehow you need to do a retreat. That being said, I think retreats are incredible. They're really hard, at least for me, I really struggle with, it's not the not talking, by the way, that's the problem for me. I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm actually have a pretty pronounced antisocial streak. It's the meditating all day long. And you know, even when you're not meditating, at least on

the retreats that I've been on, you know, you're moving in slow motion because everything should be meditative. And you're not checking your phone. And there's no like dopamine hits in the form of, you know, social media or Netflix. So it is a radical change from the way we lead our lives in the modern world. But I can tell you, especially since the benefits of my last retreat are still very much fresh with me, that this is a really, really productive and healthy thing to do. It can sound insane to go to the middle of nowhere,

ditch your phone, and move in slow motion, and in silence for 10 days at a time. And by the way, they do shorter ones, like, two, three, five, seven days. But I was doing a 10 day one. They also have a three month one. So that sounds completely insane, but there's a way in which several days in,

you realize it's the sanest thing you could do because you're not being led around by a string that all the benefits of basic meditation, what's the biggest benefit? The three of the biggest benefits of basic meditation. One is it makes you calmer. Two is it increases your focus. And three, the biggest one is you really see this thunderously obvious thing, which is you have a mind and are thinking and that when you're unaware of the fact that you have a mind and are thinking thoughts all the time, that those thoughts own you and that most of them are negative and repetitive and self-centered.

And so those basic benefits come into, you know, such become so blazingly obvious and powerfully understood in the context of a retreat that for me it's a really powerful thing to do. So those are some thoughts on retreats generally, but to answer the collars question about cost. Look, it does cost money to go on a retreat. The two places that I have gone on retreat are IMS, the Insight Meditation Society, and it's sister organization, which is out on the West Coast,

in Marin County, North of San Francisco, called Spirit Rock, which I know sounds like, as I've written, Fraggle Rock with a bunch of, you know, crystal-wielding muppets, but whatever, get over it. It's still both of these places are incredibly beautiful. The food is good, the teachers are excellent, and here's where it comes to cost.

They offer financial aid for students who can't afford the tuition for the courses. So you can inquire about financial aid, and they take very seriously making the retreat experience accessible to anyone and everyone. Whatever your background is, whatever your sexual identity is, whatever your racial and ethnic background is, whatever your economic means, there are ways you can actually do a little bit of work. They have these work programs where you do a little bit of extra work

Anybody who's on retreat you get what's called a yogi job? Or you like clean potters and I like that But they'll maybe give you a little extra work I believe as a way to to defray the cost but financial aid is absolutely available So I strongly recommend checking it out and again for those of you who are just utterly repelled by the idea of going on a retreat Don't worry about it. All right, this next one, this next call is from Aggie. Here we go.

Pfft. My question to you is, how do I preemptively stop my talking mind if they call it in meditation? I actually like to call her my evil twin, but she will literally come into a conversation like she puts duct tape on my mouth, takes over the whole conversation, and then later, after having time to reflect about what an idiot I sounded like during that conversation, she's like in the corner giggling at me because she has so much fun doing it.

So I meditate, I do mindfulness, I want to know how do I talk that evil twin from just taking over whenever she feels like it. Love to hear your podcast and look forward to more. Thanks so much. Thank you, Aggie. Okay. So caveat before I answer, I am not a meditation teacher. I am a devoted meditator and I write about it so I don't know nothing.

But as I often say, this is like getting a medical procedure performed on you by somebody who's read Gray's Anatomy or watch Gray's Anatomy or read the actual Gray's Anatomy book. Anyway, so that caveat being issued, I would maybe reframe it a little bit, that you don't need to preemptively stop the voice. And in fact, anything you're trying to stop internally in my experience is a fool's errand. You can't, at least especially, at the deep end of the pool meditatively,

they talk about uprooting all difficult emotions. And that may be possible, but for those of us civilians, rank and file meditators, I think the best way is not to think about ending all of the voices in your head that you don't like. It's about having a different relationship to them. So then when you're evil twin, and by the way, I used to kind of think it was cheesy to name your inner

neurotic programs, but now I think it's a good way to, in some ways, depersonalize them so you're not taking them so seriously. So when your evil twin comes up in the middle of a conversation with another human being, I think what meditation really helps you do is to see that it is happening, not to stop it from happening, but to see, to get better and better at seeing that the evil twin is there and giving you terrible advice right now and making you say something really stupid that you will later regret and that the regretting will be done in the voice of the evil twin. All really for those of us sort of beginner meditators, it's about getting better and better at seeing

that it is happening and that not being owned by the process. Not, you know, seeing that is happening, letting the voice play itself out, don't get hostile toward it. Just notice that it's there, let her say her thing, and then move on and refocus on what's happening right now. Because as long as you're focused on what's happening right now, as long as you're truly mindful of whatever's happening right now, there is no place for the ego. The ego can find no foothold in those moments.

So all you have to do is notice when you're in the middle of a discussion that the evil voice has crept in, carried you away, and given you a terrible idea. Now, easier said than done, and that's why 10% happier. The goal here is not perfection. The goal here is marginal improvement over time, so your formal practice will help you get better and better at seeing your internal processes so that you can apply them in the moment in real life when you're having discussions that you may or may not later regret. So give yourself a break.

Don't expect that you're going to eradicate your evil twin. Just set the goal of doing a better and better job over time, of having a more supple relationship with the aforementioned twin. And then give yourself a break when even after you set that goal, you fail because you will. I meditate a lot and I have been for nine years, which is nothing compared to many great teachers, but it's not nothing overall.

And I still say stupid stuff all the time. I mean, my wife was on the podcast last week, go back and listen to that. I mean, she, there are examples of bound of me doing and saying dumb things. I just think that over time, I've gotten better at seeing when my ego swoops in and gives me a bad idea and not obeying it.

And I've gotten better at knowing when I've messed up and making a quicker and more heartfelt apology. Thank you, Aggie. What's up, Dan? Big fan of your work, man. College student, pretty young, I'm 20. And the college life is pretty damn stressful, so I turned into meditation. A good question I had was, I've been walking on meditating, and it's just awkward, man. Like, how do I raise or explain

myself to people who don't really understand what that is. Thanks for your work, man. That's such a good question. Even I write about this in the new book. In the new book, we do sort of a taxonomy of all the various obstacles that people face when they're contemplating starting a meditation happen. And one of the fears that we tackle is meditation is going to make me look weird. And look, I'm not I'm not going to lie to you. I think I think the stigma around meditation has vastly diminished just as a brief anecdote. I went back to my alma mater, Colby College in Waterville

Maine a couple years ago. They asked me to come back to give a speech about meditation, and I suspected that nobody would be there, but the room was packed. It was standing room only. I later found out that they were getting credit for coming to the class. That's probably why it was packed, but anyway, it was packed. And at the end of my stick, people got up and made comments or asked questions. And one, this is a really good looking dude, got up. It was a jock. He looked like a football player.

I might have been a football player. And he announced that he was the president of the Colby College Mindfulness Club and that they practiced every Wednesday or whatever in the chapel. And I just, for me, that was a huge moment of realizing, oh, okay, this thing that I was so embarrassed of for so long, is actually the stigma is going away in some quarters.

And that's, I think largely because meditation has been adopted by executives and people in the military and entertainers, et cetera, et cetera. That being said, the stigma still does exist in many places. And even for me, um, you know, we have a meditation room at ABC News. And I say this in the new book, um. I sometimes worry about going there or being seen walking out of there. It's like bumping into somebody in the waiting room at the proctologist. It's somehow still slightly embarrassing. I don't know why that is, even after having written two books on the subject. So I get it. I understand why if you're in

your dorm room or wherever you are meditating and somebody walks in on you, it feels weird. So I think there are a couple ways to handle this. One is, if people are making fun of you, you can point to all of the really successful, aspirational figures like the Chicago Cubs, Novak, Jokovic, 50 Cent, Lena Dunham, Katie Perry, and say, hey, these guys are doing it. I mean, it can't be that bad.

It kind of reminds me a little of how I have dealt historically with people making fun of me for owning and loving cats, because people make fun of guys who own and love cats for some reason. And I point to avatars of machismo who also own and love cats like, you know, Vito Corleone and Winston Churchill and Dr. Evil. So I think the just pointing to aspirational figures who meditate is a one way to take the edge off. The other way is to talk about the science.

Look, you know, we're living a competitive world. This is a good way to get an edge, to be calmer, to have more focus, to be less emotionally reactive, to be not for nothing more compassionate, which is a lot of evidence to suggest that people who are more compassionate are not only more popular, but also more successful and happier, not for nothing. So I think that's the other thing to talk about.

And the third thing is the more you meditate, the more you arrange this daily-ish collision with the voice in your head, the more insane, the more you see that you are insane and are able to surf that insanity more in a more successful fashion, the less you may care what other people think about you. And that is the real fruit. Hi Dan, this is Katie and Colleen from Maine. I listen to your podcast every morning. It's the best way to start the day. I'm pretty new to meditation, but maybe in the past two years.

But still working on that practice. But I am a teacher. And I'm always looking for ways to support students with their social, emotional needs, regulation, everything around it because it's a huge problem, and I teach at the elementary level. And with love to hear somebody speak on education and supporting students with mindfulness practices. So thank you for all that you do, and I look forward to your new book. Thank you, shout out to Maine, where not only did did I that's where I went to college, but I also spent the first four or five years of my TV career in Bangor and then Portland. So lots of love for Maine.

Also lots of love for teachers. It's a really hard job and you don't get paid enough. I am not an expert in how to teach meditation to children, and I have a three-year-old, and I plan on becoming an expert and probably writing a whole book about how to teach meditation to kids at some point. But here's what I do know. If you look at the research from what I've seen, it appears to work not only in boosting test scores, but improving behavior, and it seems to work quite well on the parts of the brain that have to do with attention regulation, so focus. And there was one study done by my friend, Richie Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin, where they taught compassion meditation to preschoolers, and the preschoolers who were taught the practice were more likely to give their stickers away to kids they didn't know. Which having a three year old I now know is a really big deal giving away your stickers because my kid doesn't share with anybody. And not even his daddy, especially not his daddy.

So I do think it's a really good idea. I also think it's a really bad idea to look for me to be the source of expertise on it because I haven't yet done my homework to use a appropriate term in this context. However, let me give you this resource, mindful schools. Based out of San Francisco, it's a nonprofit group. They train teachers to teach meditation in the classroom to their students. And I've had a little bit of exposure to them.

I really like them. They seem to be doing really good work. I would check them out. I really like them. They seem to be doing really good work. I would check them out. I work for a 22,000 person architectural and engineering firm. I've been thinking of ways of how I can possibly bring mindfulness activities or maybe, or not, to this corporate environment. I was wondering if you guys had any ideas, programs, places I could go and talk to about how to entice and introduce this to a large corporate setting. Thanks. So first of all, I would say awesome.

It's great that you're into it and that you want to spread it. As second, I would say proceed carefully. I have learned and go back and listen to my podcast with my wife. I have learned the hard way that proselytizing about meditation to anyone, but especially in one's home, is a risky thing to do. I often talk about the cartoon that ran in the New Yorker,

has two women eating lunch, and one says to the other, I've been gluten free for a week, and I'm already annoying. And the same thing is true with meditation. It can be very annoying to sort of, to talk about it. My rule has been I won't talk about it to anybody unless they ask me or put a microphone on me as is the

current situation. That being said, I think it can really have positive impact in a workplace. And so the trick in my opinion is to offer it up very gently to say here it is it's available, go for it, but it's not an expectation that you do it. That seems to be the best way to do it. In terms of finding resources to organize it within the corporation, again I'm at the edge of my expertise here. If you're not the CEO or the head of HR and don't have the power to just make it happen, I would go talk to HR to see if you can get them on board. But another resource that might be useful is,

I believe I'm saying this correctly, the Institute for Mindful Leadership, which is run by a woman named Janice Marta Rano, who was actually a character in my first book. She used to work in General Mills where she was a high-powered corporate attorney and got into meditation and was able to kind of spread the practice virally through the C-suite at General Mills in Minnetonka, Minnesota. And now she lives in New Jersey, I believe, where she's got this institute from my full leadership, where she teaches leaders how to meditate and also I believe how to spread the practice within their own corporate environment. So that's something to check out. But if you don't feel like checking

that out, I think just going to talk to HR and crafting a plan to introduce it in a way that makes it attractive, but not mandatory. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What is happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short with Justin Long.

If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like, what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you, but I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add free on the Amazon music or Wondering app.

Hey Dan, this is Cindy from Cleveland, formerly a Bostonian. I was kind of see if you thought your wife would ever take up meditation within the next couple of years. My husband and I both started as a result of your book. He was the first one to pick it up. And he started meditating. Then I started meditating. We both kind of got off and on until the last year. And now we both meditate regularly.

And I have to say, it really has been just a compliment to our marriage. And I can always tell when he's meditating. And I think he can tell an unmetitating where it gets along so much better when we're both doing it. And with five kids in the house, we need a lot of meditation. Love your podcast and everything you're doing and keep it up. Cindy, thank you very much.

Five kids, wow. And it's like, I can imagine you coming home from work, putting your hand on the door like a fireman, you know, to see how hot it is. Yeah. So as just as I just mentioned in the in the answer to the preceding question, it's really tricky to introduce this to a spouse. I definitely recommend you go back and listen to the podcast I did with my wife because she really gives it to me about the how annoying I was when I started meditating nine years ago and started lecturing her about how she too should start meditating, which basically guarantee that she wouldn't ever do it.

She has, however, in the course of writing meditation for Fijida Skeptics, I introduced her to my writing partner, a co-author, Jeff Warren, this amazing meditation teacher who was able to really get under the hood and figure out what was stopping her from doing it. One of the obstacles was what she lives with me, which was a problem, continues to be a problem for her in lots of levels, that's a side discussion. So Jeff really helped reframe it for her and come up with a practice that works in her life and she continues to do it.

I think she falls off the wagon once in a while but has found that it's created a lot of benefit for her. And I would say that it wasn't obvious to me that she was med- there were many months where she was meditating and I didn't have the guts to ask her whether she was meditating. So the way we set up the book was we went

and interviewed all these people to see, if we could help them start a meditation habit and then we gave them like five months and then at the end of the five months we went back and asked people, okay, are you doing it? And I, when it came time to ask Bianca, I didn't want to do it because I thought that she would take my head off. But I finally did ask her. She said she was doing it and that she was glad I asked because she wanted credit. But I didn't know she was doing it and I think that speaks really to the fact that we have a really good relationship. That's not to say that the relationship that the last caller has with her husband is in any way suboptimal.

They may have more obstacles in their way having five kids and we only have one. But we have a really good relationship baseline and she's really cool. So I've never, you know, to me, it's not like, I wanted her to have meditation because I thought it would reduce the stress of her work life. She's a doctor. But I wasn't like I wanted her to have meditation

because then she would somehow stop being mean to me because she's not mean to me ever or anything like that. So, but knowing that she has a meditation practice gives me, it's while I don't think it's somehow magically transformed our relationship, it's just I'm happy to know that it's helpful for her in managing all of the various difficulties in her life. And again, I commend last week's podcast to you

because she's got a really busy life and has had, you know, breast cancer and has had a kid who's had some intermittent health and sleep problems and got some stuff in her family and she's got a husband who works too much and so she's got plenty of reasons to have emotions, strong emotions, difficult emotions and I'm just happy to know that she has this practice as a way to help managing it.

So thanks for that call. Hi, Dan. I'm already from Hartford, Connecticut. I just took an NBSR course, and that is where my question starts. In the course, we have noticed that our meditation sessions are much more focused, and there's a general sense of well-being in the group in comparison to meditating by ourselves at home. And so my question is, is there any evidence to say that both from a neuroimaging perspective or from a focus perspective that meditating in a group

allows for a better, more focused meditation in general than by oneself. Thanks a lot Dan, and keep it up. You're doing great work. Thank you. Thank you, Ari. Appreciate it. That's a great question. Let me just explain to everybody what MBSR is. So he's taking, he said, an MBSR course. That's mindfulness-based stress reduction. That is a meditation, an eight-week meditation course that was developed by John Kabat-Zinn, who's a former guest on this podcast. He's a MIT microbiologist who was on a meditation retreat at the aforementioned Insight Meditation Society

in Central Mass and had this vision back in the 70s or 80s. And the vision was, yeah, this meditation is really good for people. We should make it secular. We should take it out of the Buddhist context and make a sort of a formalized protocol, a week protocol for teaching it. He started teaching it in a hospital settings and then scientists started measuring what it did to people and their brains and their immune systems and their blood pressure. And that is what gave us the current mindfulness revolution. So, MBSR is a very, very, very important thing and a cool thing. People get a lot out of it. But to your question, to my knowledge,

there have been no studies about what meditating in a group does to the quality of meditation, or to the level of impact that meditation may have on one's brain or body. However, there is an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest that many people get a lot out of sitting in groups, that there is a real power to sitting in a room with other people who are doing it. And in fact, since my new book is all about helping people adopt a practice. Some people, for some people, being part of a group is actually a great way to cement the habit.

One, because if you're part of a group, either at a local meditation center where you meditate with other people and they expect you to show up, or you create a group on your own, a little sitting group, which a lot of people all over the country, all over the world do,

then there's an element of social cohesion and also you're obliged to other people to show up and to do the thing, and that can really put the adoption, can make the adoption more successful for some people. And then just being in the room with other people who are doing it, I don't know if there's any scientific explanation for this, but a lot of people feel that it has an HOV lane effect to it, that it's just like it's more powerful when you're doing it in the room with other people. I'm not sure that I can say that for myself. I sense the power of it, but in this last retreat I did up at IMS. A lot of it I was sitting alone in my room, and those were my most powerful sits. So for some reason, I often get, I feel weird sitting with other people.

If I have to swallow or cough and then I get in my head that I have to swallow and cough even more than on the guy ruining everybody's meditation. Blah, blah, blah. So sometimes my anti-social spirit comes out in this context. One other thing I'd say about the benefit of sitting in a group or taking a class is, and this I've found to be powerfully true, is that there's an enormous benefit to being friends with other people who are doing this practice. And I don't, it's a little weird that I'm now a guy who will once in a while quote the

Buddha, but here I go. There's a great story from the Buddhist scriptures where his right-hand man Ananda Comes to the Buddha after having had a really Interesting conversation with some fellow meditators and he comments to the Buddha that that having good friends is Half the holy life and by holy I think they just mean good life And the Buddha was like no, no, no, no, it's the whole thing And I think there's really something to that that being around people who are endeavoring to apply meditative principles in their lives, who are using it to be better at everything they do from their work to their relationships,

can normalize the thing, can up your game, supply a sort of positive peer pressure. And so I highly recommend that. If you're even if you don't feel like, I'm not part of, I don't go sit at a meditation center once a week or anything like that, but I do make it a big priority to have people in my life who are practicing.

And those friendships feel supercharged to me. Maybe it's because there is much more authenticity that can emerge when you're not wholly owned by the voice in your head. Maybe it's also that this is just such a powerful area of interest that when you share it with somebody, it just puts the friendship at a new level. But I really do think there's a lot to it. Let me just, this is not a question coming in from a caller, but before we get to the next call, one, I would say the most common question I get, which is somehow it's not coming in on the calls today,

that's probably because people who listen to this podcast have kind of sorted this out, maybe in their own heads, but the most common question I get is, how do you find time to do this? And how much time do I need to be doing it in order to make a difference. And I have good news and even better news. The good news is I think 5 to 10 minutes a day is a great habit and from what I can tell

from talking to neuroscientists, it should be enough to derive many of the advertised benefits. Even better news is if you don't have 5 to ten minutes a day, I think one minute counts. And I don't think you have to do it every day. I think you can shoot for daily-ish. And so one minute is all it takes. I mean, it actually just takes one second to wake up from whatever trance you're walking

around in and to wake up from your autopilot, which governs most of our lives. So I think if you can engineer a collision with the voice in your head over the course of one minute, most days, then you're well onto something. And by the way, once that habit is established, you can scale up an experiment with going to 5, 10, 20, whatever it is, you think is the best dosage for you. Ultimately, this is, and I know this is, it may sound like a cop-up, but it is you think is the best dosage for you. Ultimately this is, and I know this is, may sound like a cop-up, but it is an individual thing. And so you gotta figure out for yourself what works.

Unsolicited, but I suspect maybe it'll be useful to some people. Here's the next call. Hi Dan, my name is John, and I'm calling from Hawaii. The question I have for you is, as your meditation practice evolves and you gain insights into our daily experience and some of the sufferings that we have or the people around us have,

how do you address those sufferings among the people that you care about your friends and family when you see them struggling with things in their lives. How do you help them through that? Thank you. John, thank you. Hawaii, I'm jealous. I heard a great thing the other day.

I was taping a course. On the 10% happier app, we do, there are two different modes you can be in. You can take a course where it's me and a teacher talking and you get like a short little video clip of me and the teacher talking, and then it rolls right into a guided audio meditation, or you can just do a guided audio meditation. But some of the most, I think the most popular courses

we have are with my teacher, Joseph Goldstein. He's just an amazing human. Never been on this podcast, which I am trying to remedy, but he's hard to schedule. But we were teaching, we were recording a course with him up in his living room at the, he lives on the grounds of the Insight Meditation Society. So I walked out of retreat and went and shot this course with Joseph. I just love the guy. And he said a great thing. It wasn't it's not his expression, but

it really is apropos. Given the question that John asked, a great phrase to have in your head as an attitude toward life is, how can I help? It doesn't mean you need to be Mother Teresa, or Gandhi, or Nelson Vendela, because that's a really high bar. But if your overall mindset is how can I help? That is a really practical way to approach the world. And when people have problems around you, it helps you skip over the mode of being overwhelmed, which is where I call the sack in which I think many of us get stuck. We hear of people who have a huge problem

and we don't know what to do about it. So we either avoid the person or we swarm them in ways maybe that makes them uncomfortable or we suffer in some way and make them suffer as a consequence. But if you just switch right into how can I help which doesn't mean you know you can solve the problem but it just put you in an active mode which is empowering and to get a little grandiose in no-bling. to get a little grandiose enobling. I find that it is a great shift. And it doesn't mean you're self-righteous or anything like that. It just means that your general attitude is, can I be helpful right now?

And I've had some friends of late for a whole bunch of reasons who've had lots of different crises. And I just found that just being in the mode of, hey, is there anything I can do? And often that question, is there anything I can do? Is actually maybe not the best person thing to say to somebody who needs it because then that puts them in a situation of having to dream something up. But just my inner mindset is, how can I help? And just evaluating their situation from a distance and doing the things that I think could be

useful. And most of that, frankly, is just showing up. And that sounds super cliche, and cliches become cliches for a reason, usually because they're true. And showing up is huge. I had a friend who had a horrible, horrible thing happen to him and his family a couple of months ago, and I didn't want to do it, but I went and just went to his apartment and sat there with some other people and it witnessed some really painful things and it was contrary to all of my sort of initial instincts but it was really appreciated and I think it didn't solve the problem and didn't make the situation go away, but it was helpful. And that's the best you can ask for when people around you are suffering. So that's what I got.

Hi, Dan. Questions about the podcast? Number one is you were threatening to get Joseph on the podcast for quite a while. What's the deal with that? Also if you get him on the podcast, can you also get Sam Harris to join him? One of my favorite things in life is listening to Joseph Goldstein-Kigle. And the one person in the world who seems to be able to get him and Kigle the most is Sam Harris.

So if you get them together in a room, I think that'd be cool. Your book has been great. I've bought it from many friends of family and it's been very helpful. Take care. Thank you. Okay. So I've been bugging Joseph to come on this podcast for as long as this podcast has existed. He lives in central Massachusetts and doesn't

come down in New York City that often. And when he does, I think I can say this about Joseph without him getting angry at me. Joseph is probably the happiest person I know in an unaffected way. He doesn't come off as forcing it or pretending or anything like that, doesn't come off as super spiritual or creamy or these very, he keeps it real, but he seems really happy and I think he is really happy. But he does not like, and he makes this joke all the time, so I don't think I'm speaking out of school,

he doesn't like working that hard. He's always joking about how he wants things to be made as easy as possible. So on the app, for example, we think a lot about how not to work them too hard because then if we make things fun and easy for him, like shooting a course in his living room as opposed to making him travel, he's happier. And we get the best stuff out of him. And so on the podcast, for example, he was here just this past weekend, a couple of days before we're taping this podcast and I asked him, come on, let's do a podcast.

And he, it just like it would have made his day too busy and I know that would have made him unhappy. He would have done it for me, but I know it would have made him unhappy, so I relented. So I'm on it, I'm gonna get Joseph on this podcast, but I wanna do it in a way where he's happy at the time and you get to hear plenty of him giggle. I can assure you that especially if you watch the video content on the 10% happier app that not to compete with Sam, but I can elicit plenty of giggles with Joseph. You will hear them when he comes on.

That being said, Sam Harris, who is the guy who introduced me to Joseph, and if you don't know Sam, he's the host of the very, very popular waking-up podcast. He's written a bunch of amazing books, but in this context, the most relevant one is called waking-up, which I highly, highly, highly recommend. And Sam is a dear friend and just an awesome guy. Sam and Joseph have done two, maybe three, but two podcasts on Sam's podcast in which they basically have like two hour long arguments, which are hilarious and there's a lot of giggling. I, those are really worth listening to. So I'm not gonna share Joseph on my podcast with Sam. So I'm not doing that, but I do recommend

that you go listen to the podcasts that they have done. Sam was on episode 71 on this show, by the way, if you wanna go back and listen to that. And by the way, the only reason why Sam's been able to get Joseph on twice is because Joseph was staying at his house on both of those occasions and all they had to do is go to the basement. So just trust me, I'm working on this and we'll get it done. Hey, Dan, I'm 61 years old. I spent 50 years in the music business playing drums. My first question is why you waited so long to say that you played drums That's the first I heard about it and wanted to hear more about how meditation can help a musician

That's Jimmy Jimmy. Thank you. Yeah, I've been playing the drums since I was 10. I still suck Which is remarkable because I'm 46 so that's a lot of time of sucking. I even have a drum set in my office, but I'm embarrassed, it's an electronic drum set, but I'm embarrassed to admit that it's really not set up properly, and I don't play it. The only person who does is my son who gets on there and slams it with some sticks and then jumps off and breaks other stuff.

But, you know, it really makes me happy to play and I play out my, you know, hands and knees all the time. And I am feeling stupid, as I sit here for not having set up the drum set in my office because I know it would make me really happy. And I think there is, you know, there is a pretty deep connection between music and meditation. Because what is happening when you're playing music when you're in that flow in the zone of playing music, you know, the discursive chatter in your head vastly diminishes unless you get self-conscious and then screw up. But you are right there. You're not off thinking about the past, thinking about the future. You're right there in the song.

And you know, in the times in my adult life, when I've, you know, the brief periods of time where I've kind of started bands with friends where we would play it. Jam and rehearsal spaces in New York City, but some of the happiest moments. So again, I continue to feel stupid for not doing more of this. And in the course of, this didn't make it into the book, but in the course of reporting meditation for fidgety skeptics, we actually interviewed a famous New Orleans jazz drummer who talked very powerfully about the nexus, the overlap between meditation and music.

And I absolutely think there's a lot there for sure. This is the last one, so I feel like I've gotten away entirely unscathed, so unless this one is really weird and or embarrassing, then I'm just gonna call this, this is like a drop that might win, but here we go. Pfft. Mike, the mindfulness community have more impact by focusing on compassion. Realize, of course, that is the tougher sellup front.

But my experience has been, if we can get people to try it, they seem to get more bang for the bucks. So, the question in essence for you or any of your guests would be, why not lead with compassion? Thanks. Love your podcast, huge fan. Thank you, excellent question. Something I have spent some time thinking about. So let me just define terms for people in case you don't

know the difference between, which, by the way, it's totally fine. If you don't know the difference between mindfulness, meditation, and compassion, meditation, because there are two techniques that are often taught in tandem, but they're not the exact same thing. So basic mindfulness meditation is you sit and watch your breath come and go, and then when you get distracted, you start again. And the value of that is one of the big benefits is mindfulness, which is every time you get distracted, you're getting this big drinking from the fire hose view of how crazy you are and you get to see that it's just a thought and you can let it go and start again.

And so, you know, one of the many benefits is that you aren't so owned by the voice in your head. Compassion meditation is actually the wise use of thoughts in order to develop compassion. So it sounds very annoying, this practice, and in fact, it is very annoying, especially at the beginning. You sit and systematically envision people, like you usually start with yourself, and you send, you say phrases in your mind, like may you be happy, may you be healthy,

may you live with ease, may you be safe and protected from harm, and may you live with ease, may you be safe and protected from harm, and then you move from yourself to a benefactor, somebody who's protected you and benefited you through your life. A dear friend can even be a pet, a neutral person, somebody who you see every day, but maybe ignore a difficult person, and then everyone, all beings. And so like I said, this is sort of the systematic cultivation of SAP. It can, it sounds annoying and it is annoying, but the science seems to suggest that it works,

that it can have all sorts of health benefits and change people's behavior. And again, as I said before, the more compassion you have, the more friendliness you have, the you are more likely to be popular and healthy and successful. And so why not leave with this? Well, I've thought a lot about that.

And I, in fact, I have, this podcast is all about promoting meditation for Fijida Skeptics, which is the new book, but the book that I'm going to write after that is a tentatively entitled 10% nicer. And I feel strongly that we need to do for compassion what has been done for mindfulness, which is to make it attractive to all sorts of skeptics, to make it an aspirational thing. And the way to do that, in my view, what has helped me adopt compassion,

which can seem really trickly and annoying is to make it appeal to my selfish interests, which seem never to go away. And if you can make the case that there is all sorts of science that suggests that a compassionate kind people are more successful and happier and healthier, then I think more people are likely to do it. I don't know though at the end of the day which one to lead with. And that's a really good question because I think mindfulness is incredibly important too and the

skills that you develop in mindfulness meditation are really useful when doing compassion meditation, and the reverse is also true. So, I don't know, for me, I've just done them both for years, so I think they're complimentary practices. They historically have been taught together and been to be done in conjunction, so maybe that's the answer.

Just lead with both of them instead of just putting all the emphasis on mindfulness. I have a Google alert for mindfulness and meditation and I get all sorts of headlines. I see all sorts of crazy headlines about how mindfulness can help you sell more furniture. There was a article of a furniture industry website about how mindfulness can help you sell more furniture. There was a article of a furniture industry website about how my folks can help you sell more furniture. I was thinking the big win would be when that headline is how compassion can help you sell more furniture. I think you can. I think it can help you do almost everything in your life better. Great question. It's still a subject that I'm learning more about. Hopefully I'll have

a whole stick about it in 12 to 18 months when or if I finished the book. All right. I'm looking at jussian Lauren You guys really spare me. I assume there were some really weird ones in there that yes Okay, they're saying yes that that you did not share with me That doesn't mean if we didn't use yours that yours was weird by the way Just meant that we only had a limited amount of time So we'll do this undoubtedly again because I think it was really cool And but let us know hit hit me up on Twitter and let me know if you like this format because what if you do limited amount of time. So we'll do this undoubtedly again, because I think it was really cool. But let us know.

Hit me up on Twitter and let me know if you like this format, because if you do, then we'll try to sneak it in every once in a while. I've been making fun of Josh and Lauren, but I do want to say, as we end the year here, that this show would not be possible without the two of you. This show would not be, you guys work incredibly hard

to make this show possible. Josh edits all the audio and posts it on all the places where you listen to it, Lauren books the guests and is incredibly detail-oriented in chasing down these people who I want to get on the show and she comes up with ideas for getting people on the show. And again, they came up with the idea for this show. So I am incredibly grateful to both of you for all of your hard work. And incredibly grateful to everybody who listens to this show. We wouldn't be able to do this without you.

So please keep listening, please keep rating us and reviewing us and putting us in social media or giving us ideas in social media because we do take those and happy new year, everybody. Hey, prime members, you can listen to 10% happier early and ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.