10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head – Dan Harris

After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he needed to make some serious adjustments. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a weird journey, involving a mysterious self-help guru, a disgraced pastor, and a gaggle of brain scientists. Ultimately, Dan realized that the source of his issues was the very thing he always thought was his biggest asset: the incessant, insatiable ‘voice in his head’, which had both propelled him through the ranks of a hyper-competitive enterprise and also led him to make the profoundly silly decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out.

All of us have a voice in our head. It is what has us checking our e-mail compulsively, losing our temper unnecessarily, gorging when we’re not even hungry, and fixating on the future and the past at the expense of the present. Most of us would assume we are stuck with this voice that there is nothing we are able to do to rein it in, however Dan stumbled upon an efficient method to just do that. It is a far cry from the miracle cures peddled by the self-help swamis he met; instead, it is something he at all times assumed to be either inconceivable or useless: meditation. After studying about research that implies meditation can do every thing from decreasing your blood pressure to essentially rewiring your mind, Dan took a deep dive into the under-reported world of CEOs, scientists, and even marines who are actually utilizing it for increased calm, focus, and happiness.