10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story Hardcover – March 11, 2014

If you’re an ABC News person, you probably know who Dan Harris is. He’s been everywhere throughout the news division. Good Morning America, Nightline, World News Tonight, and anywhere else he could be. His reporting is smart and sassy, and he covers topics ranging from the religious to the political, from hard-hitting interviews to personal interest stories.And then he broke down on the air. While reading the news, he suffered a panic attack on live television, and then he went looking for answers. To help deal with his anxiety, he tried therapy, talked to religious leaders, and eventually stumbled into meditation.In 10% Happier, Harris tells the whole story, from the drugs he took to deal with the stress of being an international journalist to the panic attacks to the long road to mindfulness. And he doesn’t hold back. He says what he really thinks, and in beautifully constructed sentences filled with the kind of words you usually only see in SAT study guides. He shares about his relationship with Peter Jennings. He confronts cheating pastors about their very public sins. He reads Eckhart Tolle so that you don’t have to. He tells of his entire 10-day no-talking meditation retreat, from keeping an illegal apple in his room to crying uncontrollably while trying metta (a compassion meditation) to having a moving one-on-one moment with a hummingbird.He wasn’t won over into the meditation world in a day. It took him years to come around, and his skepticism feels so genuine, I feel like he’s now a friend. I’m not entirely on board yet, but I see the benefits. As someone who also suffers from anxiety, I see how it can help. I may never want to try the 10-day retreat, but I may try to meditate more consistently. And this is an excellent introduction.10% Happier is also a fascinating look at news journalism. The stories of his early days read like an alternative script to Broadcast News, and the insider peek behind the cameras made this more than worth my time, even when some of the meditation talk got a little thick for my taste. And for this, especially, the audio version that Harris reads himself is pure gold.The whole title of this is 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in my Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help that Actually Works—A True Story. And that’s what it is. But with fascinating stories, humor, intelligence, honesty, and more than a few Jewish Buddhists. And it’s completely worth your time.

Near the middle of this well-written, engaging, useful book, the author is describing persons at a meditation retreat as looking like they are from "the loony bin". It is a funny book, and I know he was going for humor, but.....please. (My mother, who was born in 1923, used this expression. No one should be using it in 2014.) Dan Harris is an intelligent reporter, knowledgeable about so many subjects, and I'm sure he must have an awareness of brain disorders and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, for which people often need to be hospitalized. If not, he can get info from NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) about their excellent "Stigma Busters" program. (Maybe he could do a story about this for ABC.) As someone who has worked and volunteered in psychiatric hospitals for many years, it saddened me to see this carelessness and implied disrespect for people who, through no fault of their own, are ill. He wouldn't say cancer patients are from "a malignancy bin"!!! Language is powerful; there are many ways to be funny without harm.OK, off my soapbox. It really is a wonderfully informative book and it held my interest from page 1. I loved his personal story, and the honesty with which he moves it forward. He is great at description and anecdotes, and he writes about other people in the news business, and about meditation experts, with candor and just enough restraint. Highly recommended. Mary Lee MoserPS A week or so later--my husband is reading it now, and we have both started to meditate in the mornings, inspired by this book.

About this time last year I decided I wanted to learn how to meditate. I came to the conclusion that my stressful work days and busy personal life filled with relentless obligations had started to make me lose my cool. Seemingly small things would cause me to erupt like a volcano and I would find myself wondering just what the hell happened a few minutes later. In short, I was becoming my dad who would yell obscenities for a few minutes in our kitchen just because he dropped his spoon. The thought of one day becoming that made me grimace. Plus I didn't want my wife being one of those women who complained about her husbands' temper during a girls’ night out. I knew I had to do something.My searches around the net for meditation information was more confusing than enlightening. Vague words like mindfulness, heart chakras, and loving-kindness were thrown around like crazy and then I tried to read one of the most critically acclaimed and loved books on being present and what I thought was about meditation but turned out it wasn’t, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, only to be disappointed again by vague concepts, made up woo woo terminology that truly did not make any sense at all, and no concrete advice given to gain Tolle’s “enlightenment.” I lost count of the times I had to go back and re-read a sentence or even a paragraph just to understand what the heck Tolle was saying. Don’t get me wrong there were certainly strong points to the text but it just felt like I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get to something of practical substance. And then I found Victor Davich’s 8 Minute Meditation and Dan Harris’ 10% Happier and cut through all the crap and started meditating every day and have never looked back.I’m much more focused, creative, and relaxed than before. Don’t get me wrong it definitely took a while to get where I’m at. The first couple of weeks were a pain in the butt. Trying to get over the fact that yes my mind wanders and that it’s really not that big of a deal takes time. You learn to forgive yourself and you try to gain focus again, even if for only a short while. That’s really what meditation is all about and that’s why I couldn’t wait to read this book by Mr. Harris. I’m pretty sure his story of becoming a meditator is very similar to a lot of people’s out there, just on a much grander (and funnier) scale. I can relate to his panic attack that he suffered on air. I suffered one not that long ago in a hotel bedroom in Boise, Id. His search for help with his anxiety is also something I’m sure everyone has experienced only to be let down by traditional western medicine’s answer of a pill that will solve all your problems. And lastly I’m sure you’ll find, just as he did, that if you stick with it long enough this meditation thing really isn’t that complicated but that it really does have a lot to offer.So maybe you haven’t gone through all this stuff yet like Harris, myself, and a bunch of other people already have. First, count yourself lucky and second, save yourself the confusion and anxiety and just read this book in advance before you really need it. Like me, I’m sure you’ll be glad you did. Lastly take his instructions and tips at the end of the book seriously and practice them religiously. He’s giving you pearls here and these techniques and mindsets are a godsend. Thank you Dan for writing your hysterical, honest, and most importantly insightful story.