10% Happier with Dan Harris

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...

Today's episode is the culmination of a long search to find a countervailing force: a Buddhist Trump supporter. This search was born out of the Buddhist impulse to find the other side. What is talked about as cultivating non-attachment to views and also called "beginner's mind." As you will hear, after a lot of searching, we finally found our person. Christopher Ford is a longtime Republican who w...

The unavoidable truth is that our skills change as we get older. We invest so much in our professional success, and then at some point, things change. But there's good news. While certain abilities and mental capacities erode with age, others get stronger. With some foresight, planning, and good habits, you can make the second half of your life way better than the first. Arthur Brooks is the autho...

If you care about your long term health and happiness, the quality of your relationships is an area you should focus on. And the good news here is that love – as it applies to friends, family, and romantic partners – is not a factory setting, but instead a skill. Drs. John and Julie Gottman are the perfect guests to talk about how to cultivate good relationships in your life.  World-renowned for h...

This episode features Evan Thompson, author of the book Why I Am Not a Buddhist . Evan Thompson is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. His work and research focuses on the nature of the mind, the self, and human experience combining cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, particularly Asian philosophi...