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You can subscribe today on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast welcome to a special set of episodes on the happiest man they now global spread of corona virus is affecting all us. This disease has brought a host and medical economic and political problems, but it's also given us a ton of uncertainty and anxiety you're beginning to have an enormous negative impact on our collective wellbeing. But whenever I am confused or fearful, I remember that looking for answers in evidence based science is always the best way to go, and that's where I'm hoping this podcast can help, If your brain works, anything like mine, does you? May spend a lot of this challenging covered. Nineteen crisis in your car Can't stay of mental revelation my inner monologue has been constantly racing from stood and family members. I need to check on two. What's left him,

tree for dinner to the latest scary statistics to ono. Did I just touch my face, my higher brain is like zip, zip, zip, zip, zip from one stressful thing to another, continued uncertainty of this awful situation has made it nearly impossible for me to switch my thoughts off, and I know I'm not alone- friend recently mention the even when she has got a chance to relax to sit down with a good novel. She elections of breeding the same sentence over and over again, because her brain keeps from one scary scenario to the next. If we're going, make it through this collective crisis with our mental health intact. We need to and ways to keep all our ruminative thoughts under control. The good news is that modern science and ancient traditions have converged on ineffective and completely free way too quiet hour racing minds, that's the practice of meditation, if you listen to past episodes of the happiness lab, you probably

Eddie heard about the benefits of meditation? but today I want to talk with someone who see these benefits first hand. Some, who started out as a huge sceptic, but has converted to the power of mindfulness, and so I was, were excited to welcome to the happiness LAB, ABC News, correspondent, Dan Harris he's the author of ten percent happier I take the voice in my head reduced, without losing my edge and found self that really works a true story Mostar, episode with how did first came to this practice of meditation, so this was back in two thousand, for I was carrying a news. Dates on good morning America. The main hosts of the show or Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson, Diane and Charlie. Said: okay overdue Dan for the headlines of the morning, and as soon as that happened as soon as the red light went on, my body went into mutiny. I could feel my chest tighten. I could feel my

lungs, seize up. My palms were sweaty. My mouth went dry, but my mind in reaction to what was happening. Physiologically started to freak out into the more I freaked out psychologically, the more my body reacted in a more my body. Reacted more my mind, reacted and it was just a death spiral and I just couldn't breathe, which is a prerequisite for being a news anchor. And I had to do something I never done before, which is quit right in the middle of my stick so yeah that suck. What was the follow up after that I mean. Did you never had one of these episodes before you go to your doctor and talk to him about it? So the first panic tat happened. Everybody asked me what was wrong I lied and said nothing. I went back age, my mom called me, and she said you just had a pack attack. I didn't really do a much about it. She put a hook me up with one doktor. I talked on the phone, and women really do much about it, so I just carried out in my life and I was able to go on the show at the top.

The next hour- and I was fine, so I kind of got away with it there, Many months later I had another one, but that that was like our real wake up. So I then went to go see a doctor and he asked me a bunch of questions. Try to you're out what was going on and one of the questions was: do do drugs. I said yeah I do do drugs and he leaned back in his chair and gave me a very shrinky look which communicated the following sentiment: okay, asshole mystery solved to back but despite the drugs I had spent a lot of time after nine eleven in places like Afghanistan, West Bank, Gaza, Israel, during the second intifada. How isn't it many many times and when I came home from Iraq I at once after one six months stent I got depressed and I didn't know I was depressed and I didn't know what to do about it. So I a friend of mine, offer me some cocaine. I had never done drugs before, and I said yes,

and I really like the cocaine gonna made me feel better, but it wasn't. I was never high on the air was an eye the mornings. I had panic attacks, so I didn't connect the two, but as soon as the doktor asked me about drugs, I the connection, and he be argued that it It was enough to change my brow chemistry, make it more likely for me to have a panic attack, and so that is what really made me changed. My life, and it was. It was partly the drugs, but in some ways the the cocaine you are doing is a symptom of something else right in some ways it is the work a holiday on plus the drugs. Probably right, It was ambition. Yes, I think you put your finger on it. You know I'd aren t go cover these wars after nine eleven, without really taking much about the psychological consequences and. There was a very was intense Timon and I think it's fair added to draw a straight line back My desire to make a mark in the world right which was unique to you, I think, being an anchor in the midst of the post, nine eleven world, but I mean what's up

go through this where we feel like you know. Our work is everything and we have to be on all the time and do whatever is necessary, whether that's drugs or work andred hours a week or two minutes is not in some ways unique. So and so it so I went to fall upon the story from there. So you know your doktor tells you get off the drugs by sounded like, after that, you still started searching for ways to kind of find a better so it s happened after that fateful morning when I sat with the doktor and his kind of shabby little office here think I need to go to rehab, but he definitely said I needed. Doing drugs and I indeed to come, see him once or twice a week indefinitely. So I did do that way. Happen? Next? Was that my boss, very famous NEWS Anchor named Peter Jennings when this guy at his people, thirty million people night and he He was a very smart and interesting guy and he asked me to start covering faith and spirituality, but I didn't

I want to do. I was getting raised in the people's Republic of Massachusetts and my parents are both left of Trotzky academic physicians, atheists as I often joke. I did have a bar mitzvah, but only for money. So I'm not a. I was not spiritually inclined and I told them. That too Peter and he said, didn't care. He wanted me to do it anyway, and it became great informative assignment for me, I'm I realized how ignorant I was about issues related to faith. Spirituality made a bunch of friends I spent at a time- and mosques and mega churches in Mormon Temples and fascinating. It's none of what I encountered spoke to me, Personally, I didn't you know, join a church or go kosher. Anything like that, but eventually one of my producers, eight Felicia, She had been turned into a self help, author by the name of Eckhardt, totally and Eckhardt. He was not somebody IDA had ever heard of, but Felicia said he might make a good story for me, so I did

little googling in turns out his beloved by celebrities. Oprah has put copies of his book in every drew in every house she owned, so it struck me as being a weird enough for a good tv stories. I ordered one of his books at the first. The book to strike me as ridiculous using pseudoscientific terms like vibrational fields and he's making these grandeur. Claims about how he had a spiritual, awakening and lived in a park bench in the city of London for two years in a state of bliss- and then I then he started unfurl thesis about the human situation that I thought was so spot on his arm It is that we all have a voice in our heads that chases you of bed and his yellow, Yet you all day long and has you constantly wanting stuff, not wanting stuff, judging people comparing yourself to other people? Judging yourself thinking about the past or thinking about the future too, for of you know. Whatever is happening right now that that just struck me is spot on true and this thesis explained them embarrassing moment of my life to the panic attack.

The result of me just being act around by this voice in my head and that struck me as a massive and important realization, and so that that was heard of like point number one- we're user realise that there is this interest, then on the human condition that if we could just get control over this crazy voice in our head, we might We have a better life and serve will flourish a little bit more, but the real for it was when I think you got a book from your wife. If I remember the story correctly, that really point of view more towards meditation as a specific path to controlling that voice in your head. Yes, so I was super confused when I read Tories book, because I couldn't see any actionable practical advice was just really frustrating- and I didn't know what to do about this. Ended up spending a bunch of time. Looking into the self help world meant a lot of people who promise that you can solve all of your problems to the power of positive thinking, which is not a possibility actively bad, actually, their research? So Jack? Yes, yes, is reckless hope. I think that their peddling

and then I came in the middle of all this. I came home and that in my then and say, and now, baby Mama Bianca gave me a book by a guy named Doktor Mark Epstein B. I said she'd been hearing me yammer on about totally in whatever, and this might be useful for me. So I the book that night and I a big aha moment, which was that all the stuff that was most compelling from our totally was lifted from somebody called the Buddha and the Buddha actually had practical advice, which was meditate. I was a little hung up on that because I didn't want to date. I had a bad attitude about it, but it was interesting to finally have something real to do, and so one at that like when you first started meditating right, whose now you have to sit there for five minutes kind of being, like adopting practice that you, probably before, with your scientists, tat thought of his leg. Hippy if you are like people in robes, do that sort of thing or me who was? The first was the first few steps like

It was humbling by your absolutely right. I was nine did not want to do it. I super entreat by the notion of this voice in our head and I I had this powerful intuition that managing that voice. We changed my life back. As you indicated, I had a really bad attitude about meditation. I thought I was for people who are really into a Roma therapy in cats. Stevens and you know, use the word Namaste with no irony and that's not entirely untrue by the way, but what what really changed my mind was the science there's. You saw this. As you know this, there's a ton of science has suggested meditation. Can you no religion we require your brain and parts of the brain associated with stress or attention regulation submission to lower blood pressure, booze your immune system that was it treating given that my parents are scientists, my wife, his scientist, I was not good enough at Math- did go,

in that direction. So now I wear make up and talk to the tv cameras, but I respect science. So that's really what changed my mind, and so I was reading a book by John Cabbages in whose the former MIT scientists to pioneered something called mindfulness based stress, reduction. Which is a secularized version of buddhist meditation- and I was reading a book and said I am going to do this and I set an alarm on my blackberry. This is how long ago this was like two thousand Nine I sat online for free minutes and I sat on the floor not cross. Because, like that- and I was like I'm not so Limber- and I was kind of my back- was leaning against a bed and my leg displayed out in front of me and mean of the basic instruction is to sit. Try to feel breath coming and going out, and then we get distracted start again. It was humbling. It was like holding a live fish in your hand. It's just give the minds always squirming away from you. What you see It's going. It's really embarrassing. You know you're just you know, composing tweets

adding revenge thinking about lunch random you know where the durables run wild and they you have to catch it and began again. And again and again and after the first five minutes was. I realized. Ok, this is not some nonsense. Hippy pastime, this isn't happy sack. This is really a powerful exercise and I decided to try to do this every day for the foreseeable future, and here I and so now a decade on doing every day like what's the difference in terms of your inner monologue, well looks acted I told my book and then everything I've done. Subsequently, ten percent happier ups can stuck with math jokes there s my my life better. True enough right? It's not going to solve all of your problems, nothing's going to solve all the problems. That's why that's why I called the book. Ten percent after my publisher didn't get the joke and she was trying to bargain me up to twenty percent you for thirty percent of sounded out, so you can think about it.

Investment. So I think the ten percent compounds annually, this- is a skill, the ability to work with and A different relationship with a voice in your head is a skill and you get better over time. I find that my inner, whether has become significantly bombing. But does that mean that I am perpetually blisters I am super anxious right now in the anxious right now in the middle of pandemic. I am worried about my business I am worried about the state of the world worried about in a wife works in health care to eight ass. Well, very got. My wife is incredibly, she is an intensive care specialist so she works in the icu you. She knows how to work a ventilator. She her skills are very much in demand, highly highly skilled and trained, and I think so, they voted due to go back, work, but I'm worried about you know these people are dying. Amazon word about that from being I I'm worried about her infecting me when she comes home and we have a care

and I would be super frantic if kids were getting sick regularly, which doesn't appear to be the case, still is there a lot of things stressing me out, I dont think meditate, he's gonna solve all that. I just think it makes you more balance. More resilient, more thoughtful in the face of life's ups and downs, So let's dig into some of the specific things that meditation might be helping in this domain again with the caviar that it's not gonna, make this pandemic perfect, but even if it's making each of these things. Ten percent, better! That's pretty big in the current crisis. So let's talk about meditation and anxiety. So what some other evidence suggesting that just a simple the following your breath for five to ten minutes a day will allow you to reduce this or fear that were all feeling right now gonna be clear. I the people in my position, tender hype, the science I worry that some of their reporting around meditation in and science has been a bit irresponsible or overblown, and so I try to be careful and logical

My wife polices what I say about us too, to point out that that the research around meditations very much in its early stages, has been going on for ten fifteen twenty years, really wrapped up in huge ways now, but it still early days, so I usually used the term like the research, strongly suggests the following where the researchers, the strongest, is around anxiety and depression. That's really, whereas the straw, listen and anxiety to pressure to things that I've been dealing with my whole life. I was a little kid My parents had to send me to shrink because I was worried about nuclear war. So These are not new phenomena for me and really heartening to see that meditation is good for for those two conditions. How does it work? Because I think if Europe individual being you may not care so much about The data show you, but you probably care about like, what's his can do for me and how's it going to do it. The active. And trying to watch your breath, inevitably get distracted over it. And over and then noticing. What's distracted, you

starting again and again and again that overtime boost. Your self awareness. Of more visibility into your inner life and work. You see clearly, these anxiety, loops, these thought patterns, these ancient habits, the story, embedded into us by our parents or by the culture one you can see those clearly they have less of a chance of owning you, and that is a gain. Changing skill that you, king, After a few weeks of meditation as a beginner, you start to really see it show up in your life, but over time I it just you just get better at in better added and from me that has been one of, if not the most powerful results of meditate

and so the second domain I wanted to dig into is the domain of sleep right. You don't. We know that one of the things they anxiety doesn't stressed as in general, as it can ajax up our sympathetic, nervous system and away that's hard for us to rest in any form, but particularly in sleep. Have you found personally that this active meditating everyday has helped you're sleeping of any other evidence for it. Yes, there is evidence that meditation is good for sleep, but there no shortage of irony here, because the word Buddha means awake? Meditation was not designed to help you sleep was. It is designed to wake you up to your inner cacophony so that you have a different relationship to it. And so you can see other fundamental truths about the universe like impermanence had affected everything's, changing all the time and there's not much. We can do about it, which is actually scary and liberal, at the same time, that was the original purpose of meditation buddy

in our modern life. Where are ancient sort of racing mind for which we evolved. You know we evolved to be lino for threat, detection and finding food and its we evolved to have a racing mind That's serving us in a modern context in many ways, so you get into bed at night and the mind is racing and we don't know what you about it and so adaptation is really useful for common. You down guessing you on something other than your thoughts, even if just for a nanosecond, Ghana, circuit, breaker, honour, repetitive inner loops and from many people that really helps the poor that's going to sleep, and so I have run very much in the habit of the last thing. I every day is meditate yeah me too. That's that's the main time that I do it in, and I can tell when I'm not doing it when I'm like really busy and get to bed laid and, unlike again, fall prey,

all devices that make us not do this stuff and like I'm just gonna, fall asleep right now. My sleep is just so much worse than if I'd taken even three minutes to just follow my breath, but that gets to the problem, which is- and I think one of the reasons that you wrote your second book- I think Her do interviewed at one point, and you said you know he thought when you wrote the first book and gave all the evidence that everybody who read it would just instilling meditating world would be a better place hurl themselves into the Lotus position. That's what about what they would do, but, alas, we are creatures like horrid neuroses that prevent us from doing really good things would be awesome for us. So when we get back from the break actually want to talk more about the things that power as from doing especially right now during the covert crisis, and what we can do to overcome. Those voices in our had that are telling us not right now won't work. Try it later. Meditation could be a huge help for all of us right now, but doesn't necessarily make it easy to sit down and get our Oman during this tough time, and so Stan Harris for some help.

Let him to walk me through the reasons why we don't necessarily make it onto our meditation cushion only when we most need it. It's probably shoe we're frustrating and deeply annoying to hear people stole the virtues of meditation and then many people. These are thinking. Well, I haven't done So now this thing that was the distress me is just making me more stress. As I you know, I am engaged in self laceration around not doing this thing that every says I should do and blah blah blah. So I get it some here to make this easier, for you and lower the bar. I don't twenty minutes is a reasonable ask for many people at the beginning, which is why one of my little slogans is one minute counts. I get that people are time, starved. Even when we're locked in our homes, we feel time. Starved meditating at night, with my elderly neighbour she's, got some anxiety, but for lots of legitimate reasons and so

go out into the hallways, stay physically distance and meditate together and and and as my son comes out, to see his five. He had like meditation becomes I'd, say hello and I've noticed it. She talks about how she had nothing to do all day and she's beating herself up for not meditating during the day, and I get it. We feel I'm starved, no matter what's going on in our lives, and I'm not here to talk you out of that. What I do think is useful, though, is to lower the bar enough, so that people can actually can and will, We do this thing, and so one minute counts of. I think it sets people's minds at it seems so eminently doable that I like that. I rather she people do five to ten minutes, but I think one minute definitely does and you you are getting real benefit from that, and I think it can lead to a deeper practice overtime,

everything I love, but the women it counts is the one minute doesn't necessarily have to be you and the Lotus position. You know in some vague meditations shrine in your you know tiny apartment with your family around you. It can be when you're watching the dishes it can be when you're unloading, the dishwasher, can be when you're washing your hands. I've heard is another great one like if you just take time to follow your breath and be present during those moments. In some sense that can count to ok, so you ve actually said something very important to things are true, one. It is true that we can co opt our daily activities to turn them into meditation. So I have a bunch. They say about that, but it is, so true that there is a difference between serve free range meditate as I call it beyond the guy daily life. Meditation. Where you are you not to me, for why you're watching the dishes or washing your hands or whatever and formal practice, and I believe,

that, if you're doing on the go practice, mindfulness practices? That's great! You should feel good about that and, if that's all you ever do great, Bravo done, but I all I believe that there is immense value to formal practice, even if it's just for a minute or five minutes, and that that can turn oh charge, the free range practices, so I just want to make that plug, but on on point about this directive of on the go, mindfulness practices, absolutely, you can turn anything you're doing into meditation just by paying attention to it. Lets take washing your hats, because we all have to do this for twenty seconds. A million times a day, and now my hands are just Nunez dry as the Sahara, cracked and painful, which is a good sign. We should We now have in four hands. Radio math is let's, let's I can wash your hands You can sing happy birthday twice fine, or You can use those twenty seconds to just feel the raw data of yours of your senses. What does it feel like when the high

or cold or warm water hits. Your hands was if you like, as your fingers intertwined, was if you like, as you put the soap on and the soap She's off what noises are your hearing What are you saying in front of you and then every time distracted, which you will you'll get distracted a million times you get carried away by your to do list by your phantasmagoric projections into the future about this pandemic and this gently catch yourself and returned to the physical sensations, I think, It's a better way to spend twenty seconds, then just singing happy per day or neurotic Lee worrying about any number of things, and I think that's penthouse. So that's going to one thing, this idea, people don't have enough time think another That's coming up for a lot of people right now, especially given everybody's squashed with their family into small apartments and things and can't get out to leave, is if you like, I don't have any pride seated do this right now that liking MIKE

can I could walk in while I'm sitting there trying to follow my breath? You know there's stuff going on everywhere. It's hard to find silence, as you have for people who just feel like there to kind of trapped in their homes with so many folks around. To do this will. First of all, I feel you, I'm in my arm with my wife and our five year old, and it's a lot. So I think you gotta give yourself a break and recognise that some days many days, perhaps most days you won't get to it. However, there are little tricks fell for bedtime. For example, if you ve got younger during your putting them to bed, there's always space between when they stop talking and when you can actually extricate yourself only if your lying there spoons with your kid or sitting in a chair next to the bed, steal that minute or two right before you go to bed great time. You know I we ever comfy chair in a corner of our bedroom and I use that my policies I just meditate till I feel super tired

that right, along at his on the timing it, but I think it's a while that you will definitely have time for that lock yourself in the bathroom, use noise cancelling headphones first thing in the morning before anybody else is up lots, a little tricks you can use and give yourself a break if you don't to the final thing, and this one comes up a lot for me when I'm sitting to the lake literally sit down and meditate is. Height of more scared. Now than I normally am. I feel like when I first started meditating. I was really worried about the Pandora's box. No, what crap from my childhood is gonna come up. What insecurity are gonna fly by? It can, in some sense, be really scary when you're really listening to this voice closely, and I feel like even more scary now when, in some ways our anxieties are justified and Sir incenses right, like our mortality, is coming closer than in several then for some bus, especially those with pre existing conditions, and so how do you feel this one where it's like it just seems like if I sit down to just follow my brow,

then pay attention to what I'm feeling it's gonna feel really awful, particularly in the current time. Well, images validate the point. I think it's true it's true. If you meditate it's possible that difficult things from your past will surface I think it's also true that humanity right now and you don't have a lot of trauma, your past, the trauma of being live right now it may surface for you, and so I dont want to sugar coat that, but I think the choice is. Do you want to have this stuff because the it's there, the traumas there would you like to have it lurking in the background of your psyche, driving you blindly. In many ways would you like to drag? into the sunlight and investigated journalistic Lee Non Judge mentally fret and a friend Lee kind way, so that you have a choice in this is worth meditation offers to us is in

dead of reacting blindly to everything, because we have no visibility into our inner life. You can respond. Wise and so yeah we we're in a we are. We are in streamlining uncomfortable and difficult situation. Right now, do you want to face that forthrightly city can be calmer insane and that you can be more effective and more helpful to other people. I think meditations are gonna, be very useful in that, I don't think I'm gonna meditation fundamentalist. I think there are other ways that can also be for calling your shrink. If you need medical, taking that medication. Getting enough sleep exercise in eating, while making sure you have social connection tuning do your capacity to help which can elevates you out of here. You know the black hole of self obsession. There are many ways to cope with this moment. I would just submit that meditation should be one of them. These consider and in some sense, if you're doing it right, if you're doing it right, meaning that you're doing a non judge mentally in some ways, yours posted not improve

those yucky emotions, but at least be there with them and be compassionate about the fact that you have them which, in our daily lives, we tend not to do with the UK stuff, go on gold storm in that exactly right, that's the radical move of meditation, which is our habitual response to difficult emotions, is fight it or feed it. This is something completely different. This is just being with it investigating it. So the great meditation teacher, tarp Rock, has a little acronym that I, like called rain, are a. I am your hit by big power from emotion are, is just recognised. What's happening right now, a is allow it. Instead of fighting it or feeding it, giving into the anger- and you know, making the phone call you wish you hadn't behave or giving the fear and you know buying or the surgical mass, that does. The doctors actually need just allow it to be here, and then I investigated feelings that

the feelings for reason they show up in your body, and you can take a look at your chest type, in your head, thrumming, maybe some? nervous. Energy down Arms. Take a look at that, kind of non judge mentally and then an can mean, nurture so little little syrupy for my taste, but have a friendly attitude towards it. Stead of judging yourself for having this emotion or wishing it away or giving into it. Can actually have a warmer relationship to see that the anxiety is just your minds way of protecting you, maybe not super skilfully, but it is this little neurotic voice in your head is trying to help you and you can do no, eight, some warmth towards that then you can, you know blow at a kiss in and go in another direction. Yeah. I've heard it the phrase used. This is what I like to use for. My aunt is like you're, cool, hey, you're, cool yeah. Just take your hope, you're cool! That's right! You know! Yes,

does not reflect, nurture and loving you no credit to encourage but just like it's cool near there, I'm not gonna freak out. Just hang out. You know we talk about meditation. We often talk specifically about leg breath, base meditation, we're we're just gonna following our breath, but had lots of if you there right now, what we need is a different kind of meditation, one that focuses on other people right now. Yes, I'm gonna make a pitch for it. Is this guy can't believe I'm saying this, but to make a pitch for love- and I want me to say something about love here, because I think that love has been pounded pulverized into meaninglessness through wrote, repetition, in Hollywood, cliche and bad bond Jovi songs, I think China needs to knock love off of its pedestal and just defined it down just things super simple that doesn't require string, music or anything like that. It's just the capacity to give a shit. We all have that its. Deeply wired into us. We are a social species.

Human who was a lonely human on the savanna. And the day was probably a dead human because you needed to be part of a tribe of pack, so we can all tat into this innate ability. We have to care about other people and about ourselves is a pretty good argument to be made that if you can have a friendly relationship to yourself, you gonna have a hard time doing it for there's so there's a kind of meditation that, as you might imagine, I had a negative reaction to when I first heard about it. It's called loving kindness met. It is like like using all the cheese and from lake you meditation, like technology to like make us feel really heavy dippy about it. Yes, but I was interviewed somebody recently, they were doing this, loving kindness, meditation. She went to the teacher to complain about it and the teacher said: if you can't do cheesy, you can't be free. I think that is an incorrect. We powerful thing to say? So let me tell you what the meditation ask, as some of you like Yahoo, if you're like me and at those sentimentalists you're gonna, have a reaction, which is you be based

picture, a series of beings- often we start with our. Health and then you move onto like a close friend, a mentor, a neutral person, a difficult person and then every and as your envisioning, these people, you repeat, silently for phrases, may be happy, may be safe, may be healthy. May you live with ease to me at least it sounded like Valentine's day with a knife to my throat, but but There has been an enormous amount of study of this kind of meditation and has been shown have really powerful effects, not only on our physiology, but also psychology and behaviour and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think what is going to save us both individual- and Actively right now is love, as I do find it before it doesn't have to be. Super gooey doesn't have to be

something out of a movie, but it can be as simple as having compassion has been described as empathy, which is feeling other people's feelings. Plus action just having the desire to help so you doing with the earth elderly neighbours. What are you doing with the people with whom you share an apartment? What are you doing if you live alone? Are you supporting local businesses chow? that move of tapping into Europe, you're in a capacity to give a shit about people and yourself can Elvis you out of the morass of kind of self. Centered neuroses and as I said a moment ago, I think it's. What will help us? this thing individually, but also as a culture given all the science of this stuff and what you ve seen in your own life. Are you hopeful that if people use some of these techniques, it's one of many things they can do to feel better during this crazy time? I one hundred percent, I'm violating my ten percent too little stick, but

I am one hundred percent confident that if you add just small doses of daily issue, meditation, it's going to make a difference in Europe. I don't know I'm not labouring under the delusion that emerge we all three hundred and fifty million Americans or seven billion humans are gonna, just start meditating, but I am, but I I think com is contagious. Looked just like panic is contagious talking to a great meditation teacher, the other day who quoted something that the very famous and master tick, not harm said, which is that you can think about our current situation or any stressful situation like a bunch of people in a boat in a storm. Of course. That's a stressful situations, People are to be freaking out. The one com person on that boat can change the atmosphere dramatically and so yeah that we have to expect it everybody's going to meditate, don't try to like browbeat your spouse, doing it or your parents into doing it? If you do it

the way you show up will be different, some percentage of the time and back and make an incalculable difference Hope you ve gotten some helpful tips for how you can reap the benefits of a little mindfulness indestructible time, hope, you'll, also check out. Dan's podcast, ten percent happier we're hoagie Even more tips for becoming present in a stressful time I also wanted to take dance charge seriously. That one minute is all you need to get started selling. Then this episode with a quick one, minish meditation together. If you're walking around listening to this one, are you hit paws on this recording for a second and go find a comfortable seat? tonight, you're sitting down, I want you to go. Close your eyes and become present. Does pay attention to how your body is feeling right now,

Then I want all of you to take a long, deep breath in can then Bree Thou really smoothly Now, let's take another long, deep breath in Rio, filling your belly and then breathing and one more time, just a really deep breath and really feeling that belly breathe it out. Now I just want you to have your breath return to normal now, what you did follow where your breath feels like it's moving in your body. Sometimes this be at the edge of your nose earth edge of your lips, but it could also be in your chest during your belly, where you

your belly, rising and falling, and for the next few seconds, Just pay attention to wear your brothers and try to change it does far away and if your mind wanders from your breath, It will inevitably do This really non judgmental I bring it back then just go back focusing on your back,

Now you ve had a few seconds to take time to focus on your breath will end with one big deep breath. Then. And then give it a big sigh out. So that's it the hardest hit a quick one minute meditation. I invite you to take us, and to see how you feel take us can to notice how that, one minute of taking time to be mine. Feels in your body right now. If you're like me, I feel pretty good and so worth remembering that you can do that at any time, unmindfulness efforts are there for you. You just me

to take a moment to breathe. We'll see you for the next episode of the happy Islam with me. Doctor lorries, interests happiness lab is a Pushkin podcast, its co written in produced by Ryan Daily and mastered by Evan dealer our original music is written by Zachary Solar, special thanks to Ben Davis, Heather Gain colleague, Liore Julia by an deal about Jacob icebergs and the rest of the Pushkin Chris. A strange thing happened to me in the library, while back I needed to pick up a few books this was before the quarantine, a question was nagging me. It had been nagging me for a long time who killed truth. This truth problem. It isn't just bad its deadly.

It's also way older than it might seem. This mystery its historical Jennifer and I'm a historian at Harvard and staff better at the new Yorker has been a lot time trying to solve mysteries like this one So anyway, I was at the library Everything seem normal hum swiped my card the elevator down to the basement. Upon volumes of the shelves and then I saw it. Something I never seen before down here, at the end of the rope hidden in the shadows green door was a sign on the door tarnished breastplate only barely make out the words he read the letter, archive

Everybody, tv and radio, confuse hello? right right, hello. How are you no one's there the voice from the past voices Ray, We waited period prior, woe heralded the discovery which assured and who want to ban time was granted in here. He's lying before Corona virus, a congressional debate about the government's role in developing a vaccine. Is there any other term for them as socialized medicine, old horror, movies therein? Here too,

punch cards from the forgotten history of the National Data Center network, referred to as being that work is now and operate in record's records of bird songs. Considered. America, foremost songbird. Hermits rush All these voices from the past sound, Nobody is heard for decades maybe somewhere in this vast last archive this corridor of the mind. I can find what looking for an answer to that question, who the truth. I decided to start a podcast. It's called the last archive hotel stories from hundred years, a history of America in our arguments about truth and evidence, if you wanted I found Mimi back here. I leave the door unlocked the last archived coming. Brought to you by Pushkin industries