How to do your best work, reframe life's bullshit, and stop making your happiness hostage to outcomes.

Maria Semple is the bestselling author of Today Will Be Different, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and This One Is Mine. Before writing fiction, Maria wrote for TV. Her newest book is called Go Gentle.

In this episode we talk about:

• Cognitive reframing tools to shift your mindset
• Maria's daily Stoic routine
• The limits of Stoicism
• What to do when mediating gives you anxiety
• The danger of "baited bounties"
• How to "get shit done" with non-attachment
• Using fantasy as a coping mechanism

Related Episodes:

• Stoic Practices for Getting Rid of Mental Junk, Your Morning Routine, and Talking to the Dead | Ryan Holiday
• Stoic Advice for Handling Setbacks, Insults, and Death | William Irvine

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Additional Resources:

• William Irvine's "A Guide to the Good Life"

Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here.

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

This episode is sponsored by: Rosetta Stone — Language learning that's immersive and intuitive. Start your journey at https://www.rosettastone.com/happier

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Plus: maximizing the benefits of sleep, exercise, and meditation.

To celebrate the show's 10th anniversary, we're producing episodes that share top 10 lists of practices, strategies and more from our favorite experts. A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has listened and supported the show over the years. None of this would be possible without you.

Amishi Jha, PhD is the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami. She is also the author of the bestselling book Peak Mind and the creator of the app Pushups for the Mind.

Wendy Suzuki, PhD is the Dean of New York University College of Arts & Science and a Professor of Neural Science and Psychology at New York University. She is the author of the books Healthy Brain, Happy Life and Good Anxiety. In this episode:

• What neuroplasticity is, and why your brain is not fixed
• How exercise changes your brain, including mood, memory, and attention
• Reframing the burden of optimization
• The minimum effective dose for meditation to improve attention
• Why sleep is essential for memory, brain cleanup, and long-term brain health
• The myth of multitasking
• How anxiety can be used as a tool instead of just something to avoid
• How your daily habits are shaping the brain you'll have tomorrow

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Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here.

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

This episode is sponsored by: Gainbridge — Guaranteed-rate financial products with no hidden fees. Learn more at https://www.gainbridge.com Warby Parker — Prescription glasses, contacts, and sunglasses with virtual try-on. Buy one prescription pair and get 20% off additional pairs at https://www.warbyparker.com/happier BetterHelp — Online therapy, matched to your needs. Get 10% off your first month at https://www.betterhelp.com/happier

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The way you talk to other people (and yourself) can reduce dysregulation and distraction--and lead to better decisions.

Maryellen MacDonald is the Donald P. Hayes Professor (emerit) of Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Wisconsin−Madison. She is a cognitive scientist with a focus on psycholinguistics, the study of how we comprehend, produce, and learn languages. Her latest book is More Than Words: How Talking Sharpens the Mind and Shapes Our World.

In this episode we talk about:

• The hidden benefits of talking, including self-talk and writing
• How talking helps focus attention and clarify your thinking
• Why talking can help regulate emotions and improve decision-making
• Why talking is actually harder than listening
• Why we shouldn't rush to finish other people's sentences
• How deliberate talking can help protect against dementia
• Why understanding something doesn't necessarily mean you've learned it
• How talking about new information helps your brain remember it
• Why explaining things to other people deepens your own learning
• Why kids need chances to talk and not just watch screens
• Why you shouldn't judge people by how they talk

Related Episodes:

• The Science Of Journaling: How Writing Reduces Overthinking, Rumination, And Anxiety | Dr. James Pennebaker (Co-Interviewed By Dr. Bianca Harris)

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Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here.

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

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What does it actually mean to "trust life" — especially when life is handing you something genuinely hard? In this Meditation Party episode (originally aired in 2024), Dan, Sebene Selassie, and Jeff Warren dig into that question from multiple angles: as a personal mantra, a philosophical stance, and a daily practice. Plus: listener questions on rumination, work-life balance, and the eternal napping-vs.-meditating debate.

• "Trust Life" vs. "This Is the Curriculum" — Sebene shares the origin of her tattoo and what the mantra has meant through years of health challenges.

• The three timescales of practice — Jeff breaks down how meditation works in the moment, over months and years, and across the arc of a whole life. The third one is where things get interesting.

• Obsessive thinking / rumination — Practical tools from all three, including one from Sebene involving a trampoline, and one from a clinical psychologist that will make you feel ridiculous in the best way.

Sebene Selassie describes herself as a "writer, teacher, and immigrant-weirdo." She teaches meditation on the ten percent happier app and is the author of a great book called You Belong. She's based in Brooklyn.

Jeff Warren is also a writer and a meditation teacher. He and Dan co-wrote the book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He also hosts the Consciousness Explorers podcast. He's based in Toronto.

Related episodes: How to Stay Calm No Matter What's Happening | Sebene Selassie and Jeff WarrenScience-Based Tools for When You're Stressed, Obsessed, or Overthinking | Dr. Jenny Taitz

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Strategies for getting out of your head and thriving in a chaotic world.

Prentis Hemphill is a writer, political organizer, therapist and somatic facilitator. They are the author of the national bestseller What It Takes to Heal: How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World, and host of the acclaimed podcasts Finding Our Way and Becoming the People. Prentis is also the Co-founder of The Embodiment Institute (TEI), a training and research organization that applies somatic practices to individual, organizational and collective care through a healing justice framework.

In this episode we talk about:

• What embodiment really means
• How our bodies may be communicating more information to our brains than we realize
• Practices to feel more at home in your body and regulate your nervous system
• The "head, heart, gut" way of listening to different kinds of intelligence
• Why so many of us are pulled out of our center in modern life
• Micro-interdependence
• Simple, everyday ways to humanize one another in an era of mass vilification
• How cultural pressures contribute to anxiety and burnout
• How to set boundaries
• Identifying what you truly care about

Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

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This episode is sponsored by:

Rosetta Stone — Language learning that's immersive and intuitive. Start your journey at https://www.rosettastone.com/happier

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Practical tools to break "automatic habits" and take back your agency.

Gabor Maté is a retired physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver's Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of five books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness.

In this episode we talk about:

• Practical strategies for dealing with both our addictive tendencies and scattered minds
• The real question to ask yourself when it comes to addiction
• Maté's relationship with ADHD
• The relationship between ADHD and addiction
• Tools for conscious harm reduction
• The practice of "Compassionate Curiosity"
• "Re-parenting" practices for your nervous system
• And more

Related Episodes:

• Modern Life Is Making You Sick, but It Doesn't Have To

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Additional Resources:

• Rethinking ADHD
• The Myth of Normal
• Scattered Minds

Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here.

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Buddhist tools for forgiveness, boredom, worry, and getting out of your head.

Meditation teacher Bart van Melik leads a live community Q&A — and the questions that come in are ones most meditators have quietly wrestled with for years.

Bart is the guiding teacher at Community Meditation Center in New York, where he leads weekly sessions grounded in Buddhist tradition. In this episode, he takes on four of the most common sticking points in practice: forgiveness, boredom, disconnection from the body, and the spiral of anxious "what if" thinking.

His approach throughout is warm, precise, and grounded — less about achieving a particular state and more about learning to hold whatever arises with curiosity and kindness.

Topics covered:

• Forgiveness — why forcing it can backfire, what it means to "bypass" difficult emotions, and the reframe that changes everything: forgiveness as giving up all hope for a better past

• Boredom — how to get genuinely curious about it instead of fighting it, and what it can teach you about why you reach for your phone

• Getting into your body — why embodiment looks different for everyone, and how to find the activities (yes, even mindful salsa dancing or vacuuming) that make it easier

• Worry and "what if" thoughts — the Buddhist framing of worry as an obstacle to clear seeing, and a simple breathwork technique from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche — exhale heavy, exhale calm — that works even in the hardest moments

• Community as practice — the Buddha's teaching that friendship and community isn't half the path. It's the whole thing.

About Bart van Melik: Bart van Melik is a meditation teacher and guiding teacher at Community Meditation Center, a global and local community that meets weekly via Zoom. Monthly sessions are donation-based and open to all. Learn more at https://www.cmc-ny.org/.

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Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Six steps to reclaim your brain, find purpose, and escape the doom loop.

Arthur Brooks is a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership and happiness. Brooks is the author of 15 books, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers, Build the Life You Want, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, and From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. His latest book is The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness.

In this episode we talk about:

• The three essential components of a meaningful life
• Getting comfortable with boredom
• Why we need to be asking questions that google can't answer
• The neuroscience behind "authentic love"
• Strategies for finding meaning in your work
• What Arthur means when he says "don't waste your suffering"

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Additional Resources:

• Office Hours with Arthur Brooks

Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here.

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

This episode is sponsored by:

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Hyperfocus with Rae Jacobson — A podcast exploring ADHD, neurodivergence, and mental health through conversations with scientists, doctors, and researchers. Search for Hyperfocus with Rae Jacobson wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Dalai Lama's longtime collaborator on achieving fundamental okayness, transforming daily annoyances, and rewiring your brain.

Richard J. Davidson, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the Founder & Director of the Center for Healthy Minds and Founder of the non-profit Humin.

Cortland Dahl, PhD, is a scientist, author, translator, and meditation teacher for the Tergar community.

Davidson and Dahl's latest book is Born to Flourish. They also author the Substack newsletter, Dharma Lab.

In this episode we talk about:

• What it really means to flourish
• How difficult emotions like anxiety, fear, or grief can coexist with well-being
• Why flourishing is a trainable skill set, not a personality trait or a self-improvement project
• An introduction to the Healthy Minds Framework and its four pillars: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose
• Why short, informal "micro-practices" can be just as effective as formal meditation
• How to cultivate purpose

Related Episodes:

• How a Buddhist Monk Deals With Anxiety | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
• The View of American Turmoil from the Other Side of the World | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

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Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

This episode is sponsored by:

Fast Growing Trees — America's largest online nursery, with plants guaranteed to arrive healthy. Get 20% off your first purchase with code HAPPIER at https://www.fastgrowingtrees.com

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What if the most meaningful thing you did for your mental health wasn't something new — but a return to what already brings you joy?

Dan recently sat down with journalist and broadcaster Sam Sanders on the Sam Sanders Show to explore exactly that idea. Sam has a concept he calls "modern scriptures": the movies, albums, and TV shows you return to again and again because they ground you, center you, and remind you what matters. Dan shares the pop culture that never fails to lift his spirits — and along the way, the two get into why beauty and art are actually central to human flourishing, why Ferris Bueller is more Buddhist than you might think, and what the research says about making resolutions stick — including the one upstream habit that makes everything else easier.

The Sam Sanders Show is a co-production of KCRW and Sam Sanders Productions. Sign up for Sam's newsletter for behind-the-scenes extras from every episode.

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Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here. Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Plus, how the bestselling author writes his way out of despair.

John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, and The Anthropocene Reviewed. With his brother, Hank, John has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers and the educational channel Crash Course. His most recent book is Everything Is Tuberculosis.

In this episode we talk about:

• John's toolkit for managing thought spirals and dispair
• Why he wrote a whole book about the thing that terrifies him
• How he maintains hope in a chaotic and unfair world
• Finding the "self"
• Shame reduction through naming
• What John learned from his time as a chaplain in a pediatric hospital
• His current view of God
• And the question of how much––or how little––we should be sharing about ourselves with other people

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Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Join Dan and Emmy Award-winning journalist Allison Gilbert at 92NY on May 17th for a live conversation about how mindfulness can deepen connection and combat loneliness, available in person and via streaming. Register here.

Join Dan, Sebene Selassie and Jeff Warren for Meditation Party, a 3-day immersive retreat at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, October 16–18, 2026. Register here.

This episode is sponsored by:

Paleo Valley — 100% grass-fed beef sticks made without preservatives or additives. Get 15% off at https://www.paleovalley.com/happier or use code HAPPIER at checkout

Square — Business tools with AI, smart reporting, and payments all in one place. Get up to $200 off Square hardware at https://www.square.com/go/happier

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