How To Meditate If You Have ADHD (Or Are Simply Fidgety And Distractible) | Bonus Meditation with Jeff Warren

An acclaimed science writer on how to upgrade your mind by using more than your head.

When you think about thinking, most of us think of it as a supremely solo pursuit. You’re in your head, concentrating and cogitating, all by yourself. But the science shows that if you want to improve your thinking, you need to get out of your head. Today we’re going to talk about a concept called “the extended mind.” Your mind isn’t just in your skull: it’s in your body, it’s in the people around you, it’s in your surroundings. The best thinking requires that you break out of what the writer David Foster Wallace called “the skull sized kingdom” and access these other resources.

This may sound abstract, but our guest today makes it very practical. Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time, and The Best American Science Writing, among many other publications. She is the author of Origins and The Cult of Personality, hailed by Malcolm Gladwell as a “fascinating new book.” Currently a fellow at New America, Paul has spoken to audiences around the world about learning and cognition; her TED talk has been viewed by more than 2.6 million people. A graduate of Yale University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has served as a lecturer at Yale University and as a senior advisor at their Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. Her latest book is The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

In this episode, we also talk about:

• How to use your surroundings to think better 
• My favorite of the three areas of this book – thinking with our relationships
• Why “groupthink” isn’t always a bad thing (OR you can say, the benefits of thinking in groups)
• What she called “extension inequality” – that this benefit of the extended mind isn’t available to all people

Related Episodes: Ancient Secrets to Modern Happiness | Tamar Gendler

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/anniemurphypaul

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Connecting to self-compassion can be really tough. Ease the struggle by imagining your loved ones sending care & support your way.

About Jess Morey:

Jess Morey is a lead teacher, cofounder and former executive director of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education which runs in-depth mindfulness programming for youth, and the parents and professionals who support them across the US, and internationally. She began practicing meditation at age 14 on teen retreats offered by the Insight Meditation Society (IMS), and has maintained a consistent commitment to meditation since. Diving head first into meditation at such a key developmental stage makes the revelatory perspective of mindfulness & compassion her natural home turf, and gives her an easy, conversational teaching style anyone can relate to.

For more information on Inward Bound: https://inwardboundmind.org/

For more information on the Contemplative Semester: https://www.contemplativesemester.org/

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Compassion For Yourself.”

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Practical advice from a straight-talking, formerly incarcerated, occasionally profane dharma teacher.

Vinny Ferraro is the Guiding Teacher of the Big Heart City Sangha in San Francisco and has led a weekly sitting group for almost two decades. As a fully empowered Dharma Teacher thru Spirit Rock/IMS, he has taught residential retreats at Spirit Rock, Insight Meditation Society, and the Esalen Institute. Currently, he leads Spirit Rock's Year to Live course and teaches retreats and daylongs through Big Heart City and meditation centers across the country. He is a respected leader in developing and implementing interventions for at-risk populations. leading groups in schools, juvenile halls and prisons since 1987. He has led emotional intelligence workshops for over 100,000 youth on four continents.

In this episode we talk about:

• Alignment
• Vinny‘s concept of “flashing your basic goodness”
• Noting practice
• The deep satisfaction in not seeking satisfaction
• Redirecting awareness
• Being an “empathetic witness” for yourself
• When to opt for distraction
• Not taking what’s not yours 
• Vinny’s ancestor practice
• What is the connection between seeing our family patterns and not taking what is not ours?  
• How loyal have we been to our suffering?

Related Episodes:

• Get Happier Without Losing Your Edge | Kamala Masters
• Vitamin E: How To Cultivate Equanimity Amidst Political Chaos | Election Sanity Series | Roshi Joan Halifax
• Non-Preachy Ethics | Jozen Tamori Gibson

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/vinny-ferraro

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Actionable advice on working with one of the few socially acceptable vices.

Whilst striving for perfection might seem logical on some level, it’s not actually attainable. And the research shows it can lead to burnout, stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, reduced productivity, and reduced resilience.

Thomas Curran is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioral Science at the London School of Economics and is the author of The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The definition of perfectionism – it’s more than just high standards
• The 3 flavors of perfectionism
• The surprising findings on perfectionism and gender 
• Perfectionism VS imposter syndrome 
• The root of perfectionism 
• The variables that lead to perfectionism 
• Thomas’ critiques on capitalism and growth mindset
• How to actually implement mantras like “progress not perfection” and “embracing good enough”
• 4 elements to combat imperfectionism 
• The recipe for achieving inner abundance
• How to make good work without caring what other people think of you?
• And parenting and perfectionism 

Related Episodes:

• Do You Feel Like an Imposter? | Dr. Valerie Young (Co-Interviewed by Dan's Wife, Bianca!) 
• How To End The War With Your Body | Sonya Renee Taylor.
• The Science of Failing Well | Amy Edmondson
• Dr. Mark Epstein On: How To Transform Your Neuroses Into “Little Shmoos”
• The Zen of Therapy | Mark Epstein 
• Weird Dreams, Family Relationships, and Collective Trauma I Dr. Mark Epstein

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/thomas-curran

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• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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What is happiness? Investigate how happiness is created, what it’s really like, and learn to access the simple happiness of right now.

About Jay Michaelson:

Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson is the author of ten books, including his newest, The Secret That Is Not A Secret: Ten Heretical Tales. In his “other career,” Jay is a columnist for The Daily Beast, and was a professional LGBTQ activist for ten years. Jay is an ordained rabbi and has taught meditation in secular, Buddhist, and Jewish context for eighteen years.

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “What Is Happiness.”

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Talking creativity and sanity with one of the world’s biggest pop stars.

British-Albanian singer-songwriter Dua Lipa emerged as a global pop sensation with her captivating blend of sultry vocals, empowering lyrics, and infectious beats. Born in London in 1995 to Albanian parents, Lipa's musical journey began at a young age, inspired by her father's own musical career. She hosts the podcast Dua Lipa: At Her Service, and her latest album is Radical Optimism. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What she means by radical optimism – and how it applied when she literally fell on stage
• How she resists the temptation to fully armor herself
• Her famous work ethic and packed schedule  
• Her non-negotiable daily practices, including meditation
• Her social media hygiene (specially, how to stay sane when nearly 80 million people follow you on Instagram alone)
• And we have a great conversation about creativity, including how she builds psychological safety with her team in studio and on tour
• Why she had to write 97 songs to make this one album
• And her concept of “writing herself into a good idea” – as she says, “You have to be shit to be good.” 

Related Episodes:

• Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning into Discomfort
• Pema Chödrön, Renowned Buddhist Nun, On Her One Non-Negotiable Happiness Strategy
• The Science of Hope | Jacqueline Mattis
• Hope Is a Skill | George Mumford
• Discomfort: A Counterintuitive Source of Hope | Sebene Selassie

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/dua-lipa

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A research-backed plan for getting your sh*t together in every possible sphere.

We’re going to talk about some smart strategies today with Emma Seppälä, Ph.D. She is a psychologist and research scientist, with an expertise in the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. She is the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education and she also teaches executives at the Yale School of Management. She’s been on this show before, to discuss her best-selling book The Happiness Track. And today she’s back to discuss her new book, Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos. 

In this episode we talk about:

• What she means by that term, sovereign
• The neuroscience of emotion regulation
• The science of intuition – and how to work with it when you’re a critical thinker
• How our past can unconsciously bind us 
• The impact of trauma
• The latest evidence for the benefits of meditation
• And how to cultivate what scientists call Positive Relational Energy

Related Episodes:

• Three Lessons from a Happiness Researcher | Emma Seppälä
• The Scientific Case for Self-Compassion | Chris Germer
• Can You Really Trust Your Gut? | Amber Tamblyn

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/emma-seppala-764

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The creator of somatic experiencing shows Dan how to heal trauma through the body.

Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., has spent the past 50 years developing Somatic Experiencing. He holds a doctorate in Biophysics from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in Psychology from International University. His work has been taught to over 30,000 therapists in over 42 countries. He is the author of the new book, An Autobiography of Trauma.

Content warning: This episode includes discussions of rape and violence.

In this episode we talk about:

• How to do somatic experiencing. You’ll see Dan play the role of guinea pig + make weird sounds
• The difference between somatic experiencing and talk therapy
• Somatic experiencing practices we can implement into our lives
• Why some people feel horror/terror at the thought of re-occupying the body and how to overcome those fears
• What the research says – and how these practices around body awareness have gone from the fringes to entering the scientific mainstream
• And how to move through ancient wounds – and enrich our lives (whether we have trauma or not)
• Practices to fortify us in times of difficulty
• Facing mortality 

Related Episodes:

Become An Active Operator Of Your Nervous System | Deb Dana

What Science and Buddhism Say About How to Regulate Your Own Nervous System | Deb Dana & Kaira Jewel Lingo

How to Live with the Worst Things That Ever Happened to You | Stephanie Foo

An Ace Therapist Gives Dan A Run For His Money | Dr. Jacob Ham

How to Get Out of Your Head | Willa Blythe Baker

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/peter-levine

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Tap into your ADHD superpowers with a meditation that celebrates your unique wiring. Embrace exploration and self-acceptance.

About Jeff Warren:

Jeff is an incredibly gifted meditation teacher. He's trained in multiple traditions, including with renowned teacher Shinzen Young. Jeff is the co-author of NY Times Bestseller "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics," and the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club, a meditation adventure group in Toronto. He has a knack for surfacing the exact meditation that will help everyone he meets. "I have a meditation for that" is regularly heard from Jeff, so we've dubbed him the "Meditation MacGyver."

More information on the group retreat (AKA Meditation Party) at the Omega Institute is here. 

To find this meditation in the Ten Percent Happier app, you can search for “Meditating with ADHD.” 

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Buddhist strategies for taming that nagging voice in your head.

Ofosu Jones-Quartey, a meditation teacher, author, and musician hailing from the Washington DC area brings over 17 years of experience in sharing mindfulness, meditation and self-compassion practices with the world. Holding a bachelor’s degree from American University and certified by the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, Ofosu is a graduate of the Teleos Coaching Institute and is the male voice on the Balance meditation app, reaching over 10 million subscribers. 

Ofosu leads meditation classes and retreats nationwide, having taught and led retreats at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, The Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, Brooklyn Zen Center, Cleveland Insight, Inward Bound Mindfulness and more.

As an accomplished hip hop artist under the name “Born I,” Ofosu released the mindfulness-themed album “In This Moment” in 2021. His most recent album is “AMIDA”, a spiritual, Lo-Fi Hip Hop album exploring life, death and his Buddhist faith.

Beyond music, Ofosu is an author, releasing his self-published children’s book “You Are Enough” in 2020 and “Love Your Amazing Self” via Storey Publishing in 2022. He lives in Rockville, Maryland, with his wife and four children.

In this episode we talk about:

• The relationship between self-compassion and a successful meditation practice
• All the reasons people resist self-compassion, and his rebuttals
• Whether self-compassion is selfish
• How to do self-compassion off the cushion, including practices like journaling, written reminders, establishing accountability partners, and simple questions you can drop into your mind when all else fails
• How to do self-compassion on the cushion, including practices like body scans, metta, and a check-in practice you can use at the very start of your sits
• And how to teach self-compassion to children

Related Episodes:

The Voice in Your Head | Ethan Kross

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ofosu-jones-quartey

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• Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

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Dan flies to Dharamsala, India to spend two weeks in the orbit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This is the first installment of a five-part audio documentary series, something we’ve never done before now. Over the course of the episodes, we talk to His Holiness about practical strategies for thorny dilemmas, including: how to get along with difficult people; whether compassion can cut it in an often brutal world; why there is a self-interested case for not being a jerk; and how to create social connection in an era of disconnection. We also get rare insights from the Dalai Lama into everything from the mechanics of reincarnation to His Holiness’s own personal mediation practice. 

In this first installment, Dan watches as a young activist directly challenges His Holiness: In a world plagued by climate change, terrorism, and other existential threats, is the Dalia Lama’s message of compassion practical — or even relevant? 

Full Show Notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dalai-lama-guide-538

Other Resources Mentioned:

• Healthy Minds Innovations
• Compassionate Leadership Summit

Additional Resources:

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It’s likely uncontroversial to assert that Jennifer Senior is one of our finest living journalists. She’s currently a staff writer at The Atlantic and before that she spent many years at the New York Times and New York magazine. Jennifer’s written on a vast array of topics, but she has a special knack for writing articles about the human condition that go massively, massively, viral. One such hit was a lengthy and extremely moving piece for The Atlantic that won a Pulitzer Prize. It was about a young man who died on 9/11, and the wildly varying ways in which his loved ones experienced grief. That article, called “What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind,” has now been turned into a book called, On Grief: Love, Loss, Memory.

In this interview, we spend a lot of time talking about this truly fascinating yarn, but we also talk about her other articles: one about an eminent happiness researcher who died by suicide, another about why friendships often break up, and a truly delightful recent piece about the puzzling gap between how old we are and how old we think we are. Jennifer has also written a book about parenting, called All Joy and No Fun which we also reference a few times throughout.

In this episode we talk about:

• Jennifer’s perspective on the Bobby McIlvaine story 
• Lesser known theories of grieving from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• The work involved in finding meaning in loss
• Why – from an evolutionary standpoint – we hurt so badly when we lose someone we love
• Commitment and sacrifice
• The puzzling gap between how old you are and how old you think you are
• The power and perils of friendship
• Why Jennifer has chosen to focus so much of her writing on relationships

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jennifer-senior-583

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Our relationships are the most important variable in our health and happiness, but they may also be the most difficult. This is especially true when those closest to us turn out to be emotionally immature people.

Lindsay C. Gibson is a clinical psychologist and bestselling author who specializes in helping people identify and deal with emotionally immature people, or EIP’s. Her first appearance on our show was one of our most popular episodes of 2022. Now she’s back to offer concrete strategies for handling the EIP’s in your life, wherever you may find them. Her new book is called Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People.

In this episode we talk about:

• A primer on the cardinal characteristics of emotionally immature people (EIP’s), how to spot them, and why you might want to
• What Lindsay means by “disentangling” from EIP’s, and how to do it
• What often happens to your own sense of self when you’re in relationship (or even just in conversation) with an EIP 
• How to interact with an EIP 
• How to prevent brain scramble when you’re talking with someone who isn’t making any attempt to understand what you’re saying  
• How she reacts when she comes across EIP’s in her everyday life
• Whether it’s possible to have some immature characteristics without being an EIP
• Handling your own emotionally immature tendencies  
• Whether or not EIP’s can change
• The limits of estrangement
• Why she encourages “alternatives to forgiveness”

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

Full Shownotes:

https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/lindsay-c-gibson-617

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This is the third installment in our Work Life series. In other episodes, we cover topics like imposter syndrome, whether mindfulness really works at work, and whether you should actually bring your whole self to the office.

Today's episode is one that many of us struggle with: interpersonal conflict at work. Our guest is a true ninja on this topic. Amy Gallo is a workplace expert who writes and speaks about interpersonal dynamics, difficult conversations, feedback, gender, and effective communication.

Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review and the author of a new book, Getting Along, How to Work with Anyone, Even Difficult People. She's also written the The Harvard Business Review Guide to Dealing With Conflict, and she cohosts the Women at Work podcast.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why quality interactions at work are so important for our professional success and personal mental health
• Why Gallo believes one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to dealing with difficult people in the workplace 
• Why avoidance isn’t usually an option 
• What the research tells us about work friendships
• Why we have a tendency to dehumanize people who have more power than us
• Why passive aggressive people can be the most difficult to deal with
• The provocative question of whether we are part of the problem when work conflict crops up
• And, a taxonomy of the eight different flavors of difficult coworkers, including the pessimist, the victim, the know-it-all, and the insecure boss — with tactics for managing each. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/amy-gallo-576

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Gladwell On: the importance of flow states, why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice, and how he personally relaxes.

Malcolm Gladwell is the president and co-founder of the podcasting network Pushkin Industries, and the author of six New York Times bestselling books including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He’s also the host of the Pushkin podcast Revisionist History. 

For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7:

https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/

For tickets to TPH's live and live streamed event in Colorado on November 3:

https://www.milehichurch.org/calendar/10-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/

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In this episode we talk about: 

• The backlash Malcolm faced from his work from home comments 
• Pushing the noise aside when it comes to social media 
• Lessons in kindness from a recent Revisionist History episode
• The importance of flow states
• How he personally relaxes 
• Why people should have a lifelong pursuit or practice
• What he thinks now about his famous 10,000 hours argument
• Why we need to engage and investigate the views of others to be morally alert as human beings
• And his biggest journalistic mistake

Content Warning: Brief mention of eating disorders. 

Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode//malcolm-gladwell-rerun

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