Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book

by Dan Harris, Jeffrey Warren, Carlye Adler

Overview

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF 10% HAPPIER

Too busy to meditate? Can’t turn off your brain? Curious about mindfulness but more comfortable in the gym? This book is for you.

You’ll also get access to guided audio meditations on the 10% Happier app, to jumpstart your practice from day one.

ABC News anchor Dan Harris used to think that meditation was for people who collect crystals, play Ultimate Frisbee, and use the word “namaste” without irony. After he had a panic attack on live television, he went on a strange and circuitous journey that ultimately led him to become one of meditation’s most vocal public proponents.
 
Harris found that meditation made him more focused and less yanked around by his emotions. According to his wife, it also made him less annoying. Science suggests that the practice can lower your blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain. So what’s holding you back?

In Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, Harris and Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and “Meditation MacGyver,” embark on a gonzo cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that keep people from meditating. It is filled with game-changing and deeply practical meditation instructions—all of which are also available (for free) on the 10% Happier app. This book is a trip worth taking.

Praise for Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

“If you’re intrigued by meditation but don’t know how to begin—or you’ve benefited from meditation in the past but need help to get started again—Dan Harris has written the book for you. Well researched, practical, and crammed with expert advice, it’s also an irreverent, hilarious page-turner.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
 
“The ABC News anchor, a ‘defender of worrying’ who once had an anxiety attack on air, offers a hilarious and stirring account of his two-steps-forward-one-step-back campaign to sort ‘useless rumination’ from ‘constructive anguish’ via mindfulness, along with invaluable suggestions for following in his footsteps.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399588969
Publisher:	Harmony/Rodale
Publication date:	12/31/2018
Edition description:	Reprint Edition
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	31,759
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Dan Harris is the co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline and the weekend editions of Good Morning America. He wrote 10% Happier, a #1 New York Times bestseller, then launched the 10% Happier podcast and an app called 10% Happier: Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. He lives in New York City.
 
Jeff Warren is a writer, a meditation instructor, and the founder of the Consciousness Explorers Club, a meditation adventure group in Toronto.
 
Carlye Adler is a journalist and co-author of many books, including three New York Times bestsellers.

Read an Excerpt

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Excerpted from "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Dan Harris.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

How to Use This Book xi

1 The Case for Meditation 3

2 "I Can't Do This" 28

Concentration 101 38

Catching Thinking in the Act 48

3 "I Don't Have Time for This" 63

Ten Good Breaths 79

Free-Range Meditations 82

Enjoying the Body 95

4 "People Might Think I'm Weird" 102

Investigating Patterns 118

5 "Meditation Is Self-Indulgent" 135

Giving a Shit About Yourself Meditation 142

Taking Back Lazy 150

Smart Compassion 161

6 Pandora's Box 166

Rain 170

Welcome to the Party 184

7 "If I Get Too Happy, I'll Lose My Edge" 188

Surf the Urge 200

Training the Mind 208

8 "_____ Is My Meditation" 213

Walking Meditation 226

9 "I Can't Keep It Going" 230

Do Nothing Meditation 252

Epilogue 255

Appendix: Resources to Help You Keep Meditating 273

Acknowledgments 279

Editorial Reviews

If you’re intrigued by meditation but don’t know how to begin—or you’ve benefited from meditation in the past but need help to get started again, Dan Harris has written the book for you. Well researched, practical, and crammed with expert advice, it’s also an irreverent, hilarious page-turner.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
 
“The ABC News anchor, a ‘defender of worrying’ who once had an anxiety attack on air, offers a hilarious and stirring account of his two-steps-forward-one-step-back campaign to sort ‘useless rumination’ from ‘constructive anguish’ via mindfulness, along with invaluable suggestions for following in his footsteps.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
 
“If your mind has a mind of its own, this is the book for you! With humor, generosity, and devastating candor, Dan Harris makes meditation make sense. This is news we can all use.”—Mark Epstein, MD, author of Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself and Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart
 
“A gold mine of wise guidance for fidgety skeptics and experienced meditators alike . . .With Dan’s humorous, self-revelatory style and incisive questioning and Jeff’s down-to-earth, transforming wisdom, this book addresses the common obstacles people face as they begin and deepen their meditation practice. . . . Highly recommended.”—Joseph Goldstein, author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening
 
“Part romp, part travelogue, part meditation manual, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics takes us along for the journey as Dan Harris and meditation teacher Jeff Warren traverse the country. We discover meditating police officers, moms, media figures, and the meditator on the street (literally, as they open a pop-up meditation booth). Dan discovers some things about himself as well. This book is fun, instructive, timely, and immensely helpful.”—Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Happiness and Real Love

From the Publisher

10/16/2017
Harris (10% Happier), an ABC Nightline coanchor, teams up with Warren, a meditation teacher, in this entertaining and useful guide for the beginning meditator. Following Harris’s on-air panic attack in 2004, he embarked on a quest for an effective antianxiety cure, eventually hitting on meditation due to the studies testifying to its effectiveness and his realization that there is nothing “weird” about mindfulness meditation, a “simple, secular exercise for your brain.” This book offers a number of carefully crafted meditation practices explained in detail by Warren (such as the “Walking Meditation” and the “Giving a Shit About Yourself Meditation”). Harris’s first-person narrative also follows him and Warren on the 11-day cross-country 10% Happier Meditation Tour as they pay calls on folks who might particularly benefit from a crash course in mindfulness (e.g., former prison inmates, cops, military trainees). Throughout, Harris also ponders the nature and value of meditation, sharing with readers, among other things, his fear of losing his edge at his highly competitive job. Meditation newbies will particularly benefit from the topics covered: how to find time, how to sit, how to overcome self-judgment, and other FAQs about the powerful, life-changing practice the authors strive to unpack and promote in this clever guide. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

Fans of Dan Harris, described as a "meditation antihero," will love his turn as narrator of his book on how to meditate. The former broadcast journalist is an energetic speaker, so his natural enthusiasm spills over into the hows and whys of mindfulness. His own somewhat reluctant and dubious acceptance of meditative practices makes this a unique listening experience for this genre. At times the breaks in the audio segments occur at abrupt intervals rather than when you might expect them. But this production quirk hardly detracts from Harris’s unvarnished account of his panic attack on live television, told with his characteristic honesty, and his ensuing long road to embracing mental fitness. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2018 - AudioFile