Give Your Brain a Superpower: Dan Harris on Purposeful Pauses | Big Think

Give Your Brain a Superpower: Dan Harris on Purposeful Pauses

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The ABC correspondent explains that you can integrate short bursts of meditation into your life by way of purposeful pauses. Harris is author of the book "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."

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DAN HARRIS:

Dan Harris was named co-anchor of ABC News' weekend edition of "Good Morning America" in October 2010. He is also a correspondent for ABC News' broadcasts and platforms including "World News with Diane Sawyer," "Good Morning America," "Nightline," ABC News Digital and ABC News Radio, and for four years anchored "World News Sunday."

Harris joined ABC News in March 2000 and has covered many of the biggest stories in recent years. He has reported on the mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, Aurora, Colorado and Tucson, Arizona, and has covered natural disasters from Haiti to Myanmar to New Orleans. He has also reported on combat in Afghanistan, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, and has made six visits to Iraq.

Harris has made it a priority to report on the world's most vulnerable populations, producing stories about child slaves in Haiti, youths accused of witchcraft in the Congo and predatory pedophiles who travel from the U.S. to Cambodia. He has also covered endangered animals from such diverse datelines as Namibia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Nepal.

Domestically, Harris has led ABC News' coverage of faith, with a particular focus on the evangelical movement. He scored one of the first interviews with former pastor Ted Haggard after his sex and drugs scandal.

In 2012 Harris anchored ABC News Digital's Election Night debate and Inauguration coverage.

Prior to joining ABC News, Harris was an anchor at New England Cable News (NECN), the largest regional cable news network in the country, from 1997 to 2000. Before that he was an anchor and political reporter at WCSH, an NBC affiliate in Portland, Maine, for two years. He began his broadcasting career as a reporter for WLBZ, the NBC affiliate in Bangor, Maine.

Harris has been honored several times for his journalistic contributions. He received an Edward R. Murrow Award for his reporting on a young Iraqi man who received the help he needed in order to move to America, and in 2009 won an Emmy Award for his "Nightline" report, "How to Buy a Child in Ten Hours."

A graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, Harris also holds honorary doctorate degrees from Colby and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He was raised in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, and currently lives in New York City.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Dan Harris: Here’s another thing my friend Janice Marturano taught me which is that there’s a way that you can integrate meditation into your daily life in short bursts. So she calls them purposeful pauses. I’m not a huge fan of that – it’s a little jargony – sorry Janice, I do love you. But let’s go with that phrase. Essentially her argument is there are times during the day that we often use to let our ego, our inner narrator run wild like when your computer’s booting up in the morning or when you’re driving to work or when you’re waiting for the elevator. You can actually co-opt those in between moments to just focus on what’s happening or focus on your breath which is a great way to boost the muscle of focus. It’s also a great way to reduce that frazzled feeling that is kind of the background static of our lives.

Bringing yourself to a point of focus repeatedly through the day can just make you feel a lot less hectic than you need to feel. That’s not to say that you’re gonna stop feeling crazed. We all feel crazed, especially if we’re doing something we love in a high pressure environment. But there’s a way to minimize it. Meditation isn’t about erasing all of your problems or clearing the mind which is a huge, huge PR problem for meditation. It’s about creating a different relationship to the chaos of the mind. In 1984 during a presidential debate Ronald Reagan looked over at Walter Mondale and uttered the famous words, “There you go again.” For me at least 10 percent of the time I’m able to look at the chaos in my mind and say, “There you go again.” I’m standing in line at Starbucks, somebody cuts me off and I can see that my mind saying you’re angry. This is bad. You know, I can feel my chest buzzing and my ears getting hot and I can catch what’s going on and not take the bait.

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