10% Happier with Dan Harris

How do you find hope in a lifetime that has experienced more trauma than most?  Guest Jonathan Van Ness says that the key is to stay curious and focus on happiness and joy, even if it's just in a tiny corner. Jonathan Van Ness is a hairstylist by trade and best known as one of the hosts of the Netflix series Queer Eye . He is also the author of Love That Story and the New York Times bestselling me...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- How does hope work?  In this episode from the archives, Rutgers University clinical psychologist Dr. Jacqueline Mattis discusses hope from a scientific perspective and how we can cultivate it.  Dr. Mattis, who is also a Dean of faculty at Rutgers, did not start her career want...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- If you're trying to improve your sleep, thinking about doing so right before you get into bed might not be the best approach.  Dr. Sara Mednick, is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of the new book The Power of the Downstate . T...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Sleep may be the apex predator of healthy habits, so why are so many of us getting terrible sleep?  Guest Diane Macedo launched a very detailed personal investigation in order to fix her sleeping habits and joins us for the first episode of a month-long "Mental Health Reboot"...

Can you become happier, more balanced, and practice equanimity without losing your edge?  Guest Kamala Masters was one of the teachers at Dan's first ever meditation retreat. In this episode she dives into how to develop equanimity and shares her story of learning how to practice meditation during her everyday life while raising three children on her own.  Kamala Masters has been meditating since...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Why is it that many men seem unenthusiastic about discussing body image issues?  We take a deep dive into this topic with Aaron Flores, a Los Angeles-based registered dietician and nutritionist, and one of the few men very active in the space of intuitive eating. Aaron talks a...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Many of us find our minds flitting all over the place, in meditation and elsewhere. In today's episode we're going to learn practical techniques for boosting concentration on and off the cushion. This is the second episode in a two-part series on focus we are airing this week....

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- What is it about modern life that is completely disrupting our ability to focus, and how much of it is our fault?    Turns out, not a lot. A number of factors from technology to our sleep habits, and even air pollution, play a role in what causes us to have about the same atte...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- What if one of the keys to happiness is how intentional you are with your time? Ashley Whillans is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book Time Smart. Her groundbreaking research has led her to radically reevaluate how she spends her own time....

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Often, we are our own worst critic. In this episode, Buddhist monk Ajahn Sucitto explores ways to unseat the inner tyrant and make peace with the nagging voice inside of you that seems to always demand perfection, but never offer praise.  Ajahn Sucitto was raised in the United...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Brené Brown has found that most people are only able to identify three emotions: happy, sad and pissed off.  In this episode we explore how better understanding the full spectrum of your emotions, rather than drowning in them, can become an upward spiral.  Brené Brown is the a...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- This episode dives into our archives to revisit the notion of communication as a learnable skill. Often some of the most painful situations you encounter are the result of poor communication. The good news is that communication is a skill that can be learned.  Author and medit...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. -- What role does mindfulness and meditation play when it comes to sex? It may be the key to alleviating sexual distress in your relationships, and in this episode Dr. Lori Brotto talks about scientific evidence that shows how mindfulness can improve your sex life. Dr. Lori Brotto...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. This episode explores a Buddhist tool for resolving conflict and keeping your relationships on the rails. This tool, known as the Beginning Anew practice, was designed by the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who died back in January, and who we are celebrating this week on the show. On...

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. -- In January 2022, Thich Nhat Hanh , the Vietnamese Zen master, peace activist, poet, and author passed away. He was the founder of the International Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism . Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called him "an Apostle of peace and nonviolence" when nomi...

Many, if not all, of us have a nonstop, ambient thought-track running through our minds of: how am I doing? How do I look? Why did I say that? Am I running behind? What do other people think of me? How did we get this way? And what do we do about it? Ron Siegel has thought a lot about this, and has plenty of practical answers, including the notion that we should lean into our insignificance. Many...

Venerable Pannavati is a former evangelical pastor who has been ordained in three separate Buddhist traditions: Theravada, Chan, and Mahayana. She's the co-founder and co-Abbot of Embracing-Simplicity Hermitage and Meditation Center ; Co-Director of Heartwood Refuge and President of the Treasure Human Life Foundation . She teaches around the world, was a 2008 recipient of the Outstanding Buddhist...

How can we meditate when it seems like the world is falling apart? How do we titrate our news consumption? What do we do with our fears about World War III? How can we do anything constructive to help given how far away many of us are from the action? Why are so many people so upset about Ukraine when they weren't paying much attention to the wars raging in places like Syria, Yemen, or Ethiopia? ...

We're now entering year three of the pandemic, and even though we're in a very different stage of the game, there are still so many questions: Is it safe or ethical to return to "normal"? How do you deal with people who have different views on safety and vaccines? What do you do if you're just bone tired of this whole mess? Today's guest is Lama Rod Owens, who was trained in the Kagyu School of Ti...

As we enter year three of the pandemic, the psychology of COVID is no less complex or consequential. This episode features one of the most prominent chroniclers of the pandemic, David Leonhardt from the New York Times, who argues that there is irrationality on all sides when it comes to the pandemic. He would also urge you to consider whether you might be over or underestimating the risks of COVID...

Dr. Paul Gilbert OBE is a professor of psychology at the University of Derby, Founder and President of The Compassionate Mind Foundation, the founder of Compassion Focused Therapy, and in 2011 was awarded the Officer of the British Empire, or OBE, from Queen Elizabeth II for his continued contribution to mental healthcare. He's also the author of several books including The Compassionate Mind , Li...

A common denominator among all of the great meditation teachers is a sense of humor. They take the teaching seriously, but they don't take themselves seriously. So perhaps there's a link between human flourishing and humor. That's not to say you have to be hilarious in order to be happy, but it clearly helps a great deal not to take yourself so seriously. And it turns out that humor is a skill.  ...

We don't think about it this way, but as we move through the day, the various moods we inhabit — excitement, engagement, aggression, fear, dejection — they're all dictated by, or correlated with, our nervous system, or to be specific, our autonomic nervous system. The guest for this episode explains how you can become an active operator of your own nervous system. Deb Dana is a licensed clinical s...

Today's guest makes an extremely convincing case that there are many self-interested reasons to look squarely at the reality of climate change. Bhikkhu Anālayo, who is originally from Germany, is a renowned scholar-monk, a faculty member at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and the author of numerous books on meditation and early Buddhism, including Satipatthāna: The Direct Path to Realization...

It is very easy to think about your meditation practice as being quarantined to those minutes when you're dutifully sitting down with your eyes closed. But actually the point is to turn your whole life into a practice. Our guest Jeff Warren has a very broad, capacious understanding of the concept of practice. There's formal meditation practice, but also: movement practice, work practice, relations...