10% Happier Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Video available

Brief Summary

10% Happier is a book by Dan Harris, a co-anchor of ABC's Nightline, where he shares his personal journey of discovering meditation and mindfulness. After experiencing a panic attack on live TV, Harris explores how meditation can help reduce stress, improve mental well-being, and lead to a more fulfilling life. The book offers a practical, approachable guide to meditation, emphasizing that even a small improvement in mental health—like being "10% happier"—can make a significant difference in everyday life.

About the Author

Dan Harris was born on July 26th 1971 in Massachusetts to Nancy Lee Harris and Jay R . Harris. Harris graduated from Colby College in 1993 and embarked on a long and checkered career in journalism. Staring as an anchor for WLBZ, Harris joined ABC in 2000 and has worked there since then. He appears on ABC’S Nightline as a co-anchor and Good Morning America on weekends. Harris is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, 10% Happier. In 2014, he won the Living Now Book Award for Inspirational Memoir. Having worked in a highly competitive industry, Dan Harris realized that meditation is an effective way to do almost everything from lowering blood pressure to rewiring the brain. Harris identifies himself as Buddhist even though he has Jewish heritage. 10% Happier is a do-it-yourself manual with instructions on meditation that are practical for everyone.

Topics

10% Happier Book Summary Preview

Key Insights

Have you ever wondered if meditation works or if it is just hype and mysticism? 10% Happier is just the book to answer your questions. It introduces meditation in an easy-to-understand manner. Harris does an excellent job showing the benefits of meditation for skeptics who may want to dismiss it as bad science. If you want to live a stress free life and better understand yourself, this book is a goldmine full of information. Using lessons from personal experiences, Harris shows that the root cause of most problems stems from the ego, and he goes on to show how meditation can help mediate the ego.

Chapter One: Meditative Pervasiveness

The same way that computers require software upgrades is the same way our brains need meditation as a software upgrade. Meditation is pervasive in society with numerous studies showing its usefulness in improving test scores, the immune system, and stress.

The mind can change according to the science that supports meditation. Meditation helps to deactivate certain sections of the brain where negative thoughts originate and replaces them with positive thought patterns.

The way a software upgrade changes how computer hardware operates is the same way meditation changes the brain and allows people to create new modes of thinking. This allows you to become a new person with practice.

Chapter Two: Mindfulness

The human brain is wired to be mindful of feelings such as anger and pain without getting overwhelmed. People typically accept, reject, or ignore their emotions. Buddha offers a fourth option of being mindful in which one can view the contents of the mind in an impartial way. This means acting more like a neutral outsider looking at your own brain without making judgment.

Why is mindfulness important? Mindfulness frees the mind from being a victim of impulses that are habitual. For example, when Harris panicked and broke his voice in front of a live TV audience, his reaction was to over-react to try to control his voice. Harris reacted like most people by rejecting his feelings of anger and reinforcing negative thinking.

Mindfulness takes practice and reduces negative thinking while promoting positive thinking. It helps to rewire the brain and creates responses that are more deliberate-no more knee-jerk reactions based on emotions!

Chapter Three: Skepticism

The ego is the root cause of skepticism. It’s that nagging voice in your head in which most of its conversation is repetitive and negative. The ego is never satisfied and is literally the “trouble-maker” that incites us with thoughts that are compulsive and obsessive.

The ego is skeptical and disillusioned and keeps alive grievances from the past. What about the future and the present? The ego is an enemy of the present and would prefer to live in a future made up of fantasy.

The ego is more of the moral compass and is responsible for bursts of thoughts that are overwhelming. It is the source of misconceptions and preconceptions formed in our mind. So where does this lead us? The answer is simple--meditation helps to calm the ego which appears ever agitated. Slowing...