10% Happier

Why Skipping Joy Leads Straight to Burnout | Sharon Salzberg

2.1K views · 11h ago · 41:52

Guest: Sharon Salzberg

We’re four days out from the midterms, and whatever side of the aisle you’re on, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve been feeling the anxiety. Today’s conversation — recorded live with the Ten Percent Happier app community — is a deeply practical guide to staying engaged with the news (and reality) without letting it wreck you. If you’ve been losing sleep, doom-scrolling, feeling guilty for not doing more, or just quietly seething, this one is for you.

Topics: Four days from the midterms — how to stay engaged without going crazy · Sharon’s own news consumption (and the baby-bananas defense) · The IMS bulletin board tradition the day after a presidential election · The Hiroshima grass-and-flowers rumor · “Look for the helpers” — plus the awe research on moral beauty · Amy’s question: feeling anger without being consumed

The Buddhist Nun Who Says Self-Help Has It Backwards | Ayya Santacitta

6.5K views · 2d ago · 1:06:21

Guest: Ayya Santacitta

Most of the self-improvement conversation is organized around a specific question: how do I become a better, calmer, more effective version of me? Today’s guest, a very wise and surprisingly funny Western Buddhist nun, argues that’s actually the wrong question. The path is not about adding more. It’s about letting go of what’s already distorting your experience.

Topics: Why Ayya became a nun — the chain that started with her mother’s death · “Instability” as the real motivation beneath spiritual seeking · Projecting unacknowledged patterns onto experience · Ayya’s childhood as a caretaker — and the pattern that persisted · Why self-improvement is the wrong frame · Heartbreak as spiritual opportunity

Why Waking Up at 3AM Might Be Perfectly Normal | Katherine May

7.8K views · 4d ago · 1:17:51

Guest: Katherine May

Winter is coming — both literally (as this posts) and figuratively, in the sense that rough patches are a feature of being alive, not a bug. Today’s guest coined the term “wintering” for those down periods, wrote a bestselling book of the same name, and has thought as carefully as anyone about how to move through hard times without making them worse.

Topics: What “wintering” actually is · Why life as an “upward graph” is a fallacy · Social media and the brutality to anyone bringing the mood down · Nature’s models — the trees, the hibernating dormouse at 4°C · Katherine’s “multifactorial debacle” year · Alan Watts: “running from fear is fear, running from pain is pain”

Why a Four-Time Super Bowl Champ Didn’t Get Help for His Depression | Terry Bradshaw

3.3K views · 1w ago · 53:09

Guest: Terry Bradshaw

Most of us are performing versions of ourselves, which creates a quiet, chronic stress — the gap between how we act and how we actually feel. Today’s guest has lived more of that gap than most. He’s about as famous as it gets, has the kind of persona you can hear across a stadium, and has quietly been battling clinical depression for most of his adult life. The book he just wrote is one of the most honest things we’ve read in a while.

Topics: Why we all perform versions of ourselves · Why Terry wrote this book after 21 years · Childhood, ADD, and a mother who said he’d never amount to anything · The Steelers field moment nobody saw · Why men don’t seek help — and why Terry finally did · Family doctor to psychologist to psychiatrist

The Doctor Turned Zen Nun Who’d Be at Peace Dying Tonight | Sister Dang Nghiem

12K views · 1w ago · 52:42

Guest: Sister Dang Nghiem

Buddhism, famously, has a lot to say about aging, sickness, and death. The practices are explicitly designed to help you look at these hard truths head-on, with the premise that facing them is less stressful than spending your life ducking them. Dan buys that premise and still finds the actual facing of it pretty hard. Today’s returning guest, who has already lived through more loss than most of us, has written a whole book that’s genuinely helpful on this.

Topics: Why Buddhism makes you face hard truths · The Five Daily Remembrances · “We live as if we’ll live forever, and we die as if we’ve never lived” · Apoptosis — your cells are already programmed to die · The sudden loss that reshaped Sister D’s understanding · Lovingly massaging your own hands

Why Willpower Won't Change Your Habits | Jonathan Haidt

8K views · 1w ago · 55:37

Guest: Jonathan Haidt

Twenty years ago, a social psychologist did something kind of audacious: he collected the most durable pillars of ancient wisdom and systematically pressure-tested them against modern research. The result is a book that has quietly influenced an enormous number of people in the practice-and-flourishing world. For the 20th anniversary, our guest has released a revised edition and reached out to come on and talk about it.

Topics: Why Haidt wrote the book (and the tenure case he almost lost) · Two foundational truths — divided self and appraisal · The Stoic Challenge trick — the student who finally finished a novel · The rider-on-the-elephant metaphor · Why willpower alone doesn’t work · “Not I, not mine, not myself” and the East-West divide on self

The Simple Habit That Stops Worst-Case Rumination | Dr. Raj Panjabi

3.3K views · 2w ago · 1:03:19

Guest: Dr. Raj Panjabi

The modern world often feels like a dumpster fire — political upheaval, economic volatility, pandemics, AI dread, personal crises that come out of nowhere. Our natural moves in response are either compulsive control or curled-up denial. Today’s guest, who has operated at the very top of the national security apparatus and also sat with a child in a pediatric ICU as a terrified parent, has a much better framework.

Topics: Why denial is hardwired — the “normalcy bias” · The eight themes of crisis · Raj’s daughter and the heart condition he missed in his own living room · Play 1: The pre-mortem (and the Stoic version Dan knows it by) · Liminality — the acute tipping point · Play 2: Don’t go it alone — Raj’s family fleeing Liberia

You're Doing Relationships Wrong | Adam Grant

5.4K views · 2w ago · 1:04:12

Guests: Adam Grant, You're Doing Relationships Wrong

Welcome back to Sanely Ambitious. Today’s returning guest — his sixth appearance — is one of the most prolific social scientists of our time, and he’s out with his most personal book yet. It’s a direct, practical, myth-busting guide to how human connection actually works, how to make and keep it, and how to tell the difference between an awkward moment and a damaged relationship.

Topics: The myths this episode is going to debunk · Why Vibe is Adam’s most personal book · Awkwardness doesn’t ruin relationships · How to recover from a cringe interaction (name the mistake) · Why male friendship is uniquely hard · Allies, pals, and companions — Adam’s 4-part framework

Why You Can Be Great at Work That Completely Drains You | Molly Graham

4.7K views · 2w ago · 1:02:42

Guest: Molly Graham

Work takes up most of your waking adult life, which is a dark fact if you don’t actually like what you do (and even if you mostly do). Today’s guest — part of our recurring Sanely Ambitious series — spent 15 years inside brutally fast-growing tech companies, hit a wall, and then spent five “very dark” years reinventing what she wanted work to look like. The result is a practical set of principles for building a career you actually like, without having to be born lucky.

Topics: Welcome to Sanely Ambitious — this episode’s focus · Career Emergence — Mark Rober’s starlings metaphor · Sheryl Sandberg’s 2-year / 20-year advice (and why Molly rejected the 20) · What career emergence actually feels like day-to-day · Joy as a compass — Molly’s word for the last five years · The energy audit — a 1-to-10 scale that may change your life

The Tiny Daily Moments That Calm a Hair-Trigger Brain | Nadia Narain & Katia Narain Phillips

6.6K views · 3w ago · 57:35

If you walk around with a hair-trigger nervous system — anxious since sentience, scanning for threats, exhausted by the ambient dread of modern life — today's episode is a toolkit. Two sisters based in London have put together a book of specific, tiny, doable practices that regulate your nervous system in the small cracks of your day. No gurus required.

Topics: Why Dan was so excited to talk to the Narain sisters · Nervous System 101 — in plain English · Sympathetic vs. parasympathetic (and why "shutdown" isn't rest) · Glimmers vs. triggers — the Deb Dana concept · Practice 1: The glimmer check-in · Practice 2: Facial tension release

A Sentence Thich Nhat Hanh Said Sums Up All His Teachings | Brother Phap Dung and Kaira Jewel Lingo

9.1K views · 3w ago · 1:05:42

One of Dan's favorite ways to practice Buddhism is through pithy little catchphrases — Buddhist earworms that burrow into your mind and surface at the exact moments you need them. Few teachers in the modern era wrote more memorable ones than the late Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (known to his students as Thay). Today, two of Thay's senior students join Dan to unpack their favorites.

Topics: Buddhist earworms — Thich Nhat Hanh's pithy calligraphies · Why Thay would change out calligraphies to keep them fresh · Phrase 1: "Breathe, you are alive" · Kaira Jewel on time acceleration and the preciousness of life · Being awake isn't all rainbows · Thay's 99% oxygen reading at the end of his life

Why You'll Never Get Your Sh*t Together — And Why That's Good News | Oliver Burkeman

10K views · 3w ago · 1:15:04

Guest: Oliver Burkeman

We're bringing back a conversation that has stayed on Dan's mind more than almost any other episode from the archives. Today's guest argues, essentially, that the deep-wired belief that you will finally relax once you get to the end of your to-do list is a lie. His antidote is a concept he calls "imperfectionism" — and it turns out to be much more liberating and much more empowering than it sounds.

Topics: Imperfectionism — Oliver's umbrella term · The lie of "when I finally get my sht together" · What opened up when Oliver stopped waiting · Day 1: "It's worse than you think" · Day 2: Kayaks vs. superyachts · You can't care about everything

Why Your Response Is the Only Thing You Actually Control | Pascal Auclair

5.1K views · 4w ago · 36:40

Guest: Pascal Auclair

We're about a month out from the midterms, and if you're one of the many people who's been finding it hard to sleep, hard to focus, hard to not doom-scroll, this episode is for you. Dan and a beloved Buddhist teacher take questions live from the Ten Percent Happier app community about how to stay engaged with the world without becoming totally undone by it.

Topics: One month from the midterms — how to stay engaged without losing your mind · Karen's question: outrage, action, depression, and how to dance among them · The Buddha lived in an equally chaotic era · The war on attention · Beauty as skill, not denial · Pamela's karma question — will the bad guys ever get theirs?

The Buddhist Fix for People Who Are Too Nice to Set Boundaries | devon and nico hase

9K views · 1mo ago · 1:12:40

The ability to handle conflict may be the single most underrated life skill. Every relationship you value — spouse, kids, coworkers, aging parents, friends — will have friction, and how you meet that friction largely determines whether the relationship deepens or slowly rots. Today's guests are a pair of Buddhist teachers who wrote a whole book on this, and they're also, conveniently, married to each other.

Topics: The ultimate life skill — handling conflict · Writing a book together as proof of concept · The First Noble Truth — dukkha applied to relationships · Dukkha as feature, not bug ("don't waste your suffering") · The three-way listening — internal, external, and the relationship itself · Loving-kindness meditation (or as Dan calls it, "friendliness")

Your 'Inner Child' Is Running Your Life — Here's How to Take Back the Wheel | Galit Atlas

9.6K views · 1mo ago · 1:02:44

Guest: Galit Atlas

Dan used to gleefully dismiss the "inner child" as therapy nonsense. He's had to walk it back. Today's guest — a working psychoanalyst — argues that the child you once were is not just a metaphor but an active self-state that's grabbing the steering wheel of your adult relationships, often without you noticing. This is a rich, substantive, and (Dan warns) personally exposing conversation.

Topics: Is "the inner child" actually just therapy nonsense? · "If it's hysterical, it's historical" · The six archetypes — frightened, melancholic, ashamed, guilty, invisible, chosen · Dan on his own mix (mostly ashamed, with a side of frightened) · Marco's story — the guilty child grown up · The moral defense — "better to be a sinner in a world ruled by God..."

Can't Shake A Bad Mood? Kids Have A Trick Adults Forgot | Julian Shapiro-Barnum

3.9K views · 1mo ago · 47:47

Guest: Julian Shapiro-Barnum

Dan has a mode he doesn't love — head down, grind through the to-do list, mirthless, militaristic. Today's guest has spent years building his career around the antidote: playfulness, curiosity, and being childish in the best sense of the word. This one is warm, funny, and unexpectedly practical.

Topics: Recess Therapy's COVID-era origin story · Julian's thesis — how can I be a better adult by honoring kids' wisdom? · Why kids strip the nuance — and why that helps · The book — How to Grow Up Without Becoming a Grown-Up · Julian's Brooklyn childhood — three moms, two dads · The "micro-dialect" of childhood

The Wrongfully Convicted Woman Who Chose to Face Her Prosecutor | Amanda Knox

5.5K views · 1mo ago · 1:08:50

Guest: Amanda Knox

Very few people have gone through what our guest today went through — accused, imprisoned, and internationally vilified for a murder she did not commit in a country she was visiting as a college student. She has emerged with an unusually hard-won set of tools for meeting suffering, and this is a masterclass. A note up front: Amanda discusses her experience of suicidal ideation while in prison; she gives her own trigger warning on-air.

Topics: Amanda's story in her own words · Reading Viktor Frankl in prison · The verdict, the crisis, and the decision to make her life worth living · Finding purpose in prison — the unofficial translator gig · The grief after release — the identity that doesn't go away · The prosecutor confrontation — and why she went back to Italy

Why Being Your Best Self Doesn't Mean Being Nice | Marc Brackett

12K views · 1mo ago · 1:16:13

Guest: Marc Brackett

One of the worst feelings in life is losing your sht — especially losing it unnecessarily, and then having to walk it back, apologize, and clean up the mess. Today's returning fan-favorite guest — the self-described "Feelings Master" — has a specific, practical, five-step protocol for making that happen far less often.

Topics: What emotion regulation actually is (and isn't) · The doorknob habit — Marc's own practice · The "best self" concept — Dan's Teacher Dan, Robert, and Arthur · Best self is NOT a doormat — fierce compassion is on the menu · The 5-step Meta Moment — Step 1: Sense the shift · Step 2: Stop — the breath, the walk away

Sometimes Your Anxiety Is Correct, Not Irrational | Josh Johnson

105K views · 1mo ago · 1:15:17

Guest: Josh Johnson

There's a bit of Josh Johnson's that went viral where he tries to meditate and immediately spirals into thinking about the gold standard, currency-as-economic-enslavement, and the theoretical collapse of the dollar. It's very funny, and it's also a reasonable question — sometimes the anxiety isn't unfounded and can't just be breathed away.

Topics: Josh's viral meditation clip (the gold-standard spiral) · "Sometimes those emotions are just right" · Acceptance vs. resignation — Josh's argument with a friend · Why anxiety may be the American resting state · Josh's actual practice for a hard patch · News anxiety — cycles and the privilege of turning it off

You Keep Doing the Thing You Swore You'd Stop — Here's the Actual Fix | Diana Winston

11K views · 1mo ago · 1:03:08

Guest: Diana Winston

The word "Buddha" literally means the awakened one — which is a beautiful concept and also, for most of us, a somewhat vague one. Today's guest lays out four specific, extremely practical flavors of "awakening" you can start doing this week, without ever having to think about nirvana at all (unless you want to — she's up for that too).

Topics: The four flavors of "awakening" (what Diana means by that word) · Awakening #1: The present moment (and Buddhist disenchantment) · When the present moment is too painful to sit in · The self-criticism blast when you wake up · "Great job, welcome back" — Dan's reframe · The three center check-in