“I was very worried about admitting the panic attack,” says Dan Harris about his 2004 on-air meltdown while reporting the day’s headlines on “Good Morning America.” Harris talked about it with his wife and his parents—as well as ABC President Ben Sherwood and evening news anchor Diane Sawyer—but broader transparency concerned him because he wouldn’t just be admitting he’d come undone on national television but also that drugs had contributed to and provoked the incident.
With the robust support of his bosses, Harris reluctantly admitted what had happened because he saw the upside—that telling the truth is empowering. “You can admit things that you’re embarrassed about,” he says. “And if you do it in the right spirit—in other words, if you’re not just sloppily oversharing, and you’re divulging for a purpose, which in this case was to help other people—you won’t get booed, and you might even be applauded.”
In Harris’s case, the upside was huge. Sharing publicly about his panic attack and the contributing factors helped get people interested in a subject—meditation—that at that time wasn’t getting much attention. Harris was introduced to meditation when his wife gave him a book by Mark Epstein, M.D., a psychiatrist who writes about the overlap between Buddhism and modern psychology. Harris learned that Buddha was more than a lawn ornament and actually a fascinating person who understood the root of suffering. Buddha had developed a whole set of brain exercises (meditation) and principles for living that can, in Harris’ words, help us “be less yanked around by your inner narrator—the voice in your head—that constantly feeds us terrible ideas.”
Most of us are so gripped by the negative ideas we are generating that we don’t even know it’s happening. “Meditation is designed to wake you up to how wild your mind is so that all of your base instincts and random thoughts and urges don’t own you,” Harris says, adding that the Buddha’s prescription has been extensively validated by modern science, which shows that meditation has psychological, physiological, and even behavioral benefits.
Before his panic attack, he wasn’t interested in meditation at all. “It wasn’t until I saw how unreliable my mind is—and how treacherous it could be—and that’s what convinced me,” Harris says. He started with five minutes per day for about a year, and his meditation practice grew from there. Some people worry that quieting their minds might reduce the competitive edge that makes them successful, but Harris points to a fine line between healthy motivation and stress that tips the scales. Harris refers to this as the difference between “constructive anguish and useless rumination.” He acknowledges that a certain amount of plotting and planning helps us to be effective, but problems arise when we cross the line between healthy and unhealthy stress.
Most of us don’t need experts to tell us that unhealthy stress degrades your cognitive capacities, interrupts your sleep, spoils your relationships, and can have all sorts of health consequences. Meditation doesn’t remove stress, but it helps you handle stress better. Harris says he’s not a “meditation supremacist,” and he acknowledges that there are other modalities that can help, such as psychotherapy, positive relationships, exercise, sufficient sleep, and regular access to nature. “We’re not going to live stress-free lives,” Harris says, “But you don’t want to overdo it in ways contrary to your aims.”
Since his 2004 panic attack, Harris has built a brand called Ten Percent Happier that includes a New York Times #1 bestselling book, a podcast, and an app that puts a meditation coach in your pocket.
On Sunday, November 19, Harris will be at Troutbeck, the 250-acre estate hotel in Amenia, for a workshop. He’ll tell his story and teach people some of the basics of meditation for a couple of minutes before he guides them through a short practice. “It won’t be some huge, silent death march,” Harris assures potential attendees. Afterward, he’ll take questions. If there’s time, there will be a second meditation so people can practice what they’ve learned, and he promises the evening will be a relaxing, hospitable place for beginners. “I absolutely welcome people to the event at Troutbeck who have never meditated before or who are hostile to it—skeptics are my favorite,” Harris says.
The event is open to all ages 14 and up, whether you are an experienced meditator or have never meditated but are curious about it. Tickets are $30-$45 and available through Eventbrite.
