Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 26: Dan Ryckert

Episode Date: July 20, 2016

Dan Ryckert works in an industry where you wouldn't imagine there would be a whole lot of meditation: Video games. Ryckert is a senior editor at the popular video game website, Giant Bomb, and he's the author of "Anxiety as an Ally: How I Turned a Worried Mind into My Best Friend." Ryckert's raw memoir details his struggles with anxiety and panic attacks, from trying to find a diagnosis and then with learning how to deal with the attacks in his personal and professional life, and then how he eventually turned to meditation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey there, I've said this before, but it pairs repeating to the extent that I know what I'm Dan Harris. Hey there, I've said this before, but it pairs repeating to the extent that I know what I'm

doing on the show. My goal has been to give you a real mix of guests. Sometimes we have deep end to the pool of meditation teachers, and then sometimes we have just really interesting people from all walks of life, celebrities, athletes, scientists, et cetera, who have amazing stories and meditation practices of their own. Our next guest is from an industry where you wouldn't imagine there would be a whole lot of meditation video games. I will admit, as my guests tears at me wearily, that the, and I say this at the risk of alienating my guests core constituency, that I know almost nothing about video games. I did love Miss Pac-Man and Frogger when I was a kid in the 80s. What I do know about the

video game industry though is that it's incredibly lucrative and a hugely influential segment of the entertainment industry. For example, when my guest talked about my book on his podcast recently I heard about it on Twitter from an unbelievable number of people. His name is Dan Rickert. He's a senior editor at Giant Bomb, which is an enormously popular video game website. And Dan has written a book called Anxiety as an ally. How I turned a worried mind into my best friend. This is a really raw memoir of Dan struggles with panic attacks and anxiety, all of which I can relate to, this really, of course.

And then he also talks about how meditation really helped. So Dan, thanks for coming in, man. Absolutely. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Um, uh, when did the panic and anxiety start and how bad was it? I think there was probably always an element of social anxiety growing up. I was always kind of just kind of the outsider weird kid who's obsessed with video games

and professional wrestling. And I never really jelled with all the outside or weird kid who's obsessed with video games and professional wrestling And I never really jelled with all the kids in my school. They were really into sports and everything So I was socially anxious, but there was never panic attacks And I never even knew what that term was or what that felt like and my first one was I was 18 It was went to break from my first first semester college and I was seeing gangs of New York So it would have been like New Year's Day 2003, I believe. And, you know, the movie, Super Long Movie, it's like three hours long, Andy Don in the middle of the row.

There's a lot of people here, which anyone with anxiety knows that can be a major trigger for that. And I just started feeling this unexplainable, just this ominous sense of dread wash over me, which again, anyone who has anxiety knows that feeling, but I had no idea what that was. And so all I knew is that like I had to get out of that theater immediately. I was around all these people. I just needed to go decompress and just figure out what the hell was going on with me.

So I just sat in the bathroom and I didn't know if I was dying. I didn't know if I needed to call 911. But I left looked up a bunch of stuff on the internet couldn't really find anything. Did all that dumb self-diagnosis stuff or it's like, Oh, I've got this disease and this and this and this that we're all untrue. And then a week later, I saw some Lord of the Rings movie I think it was the second one and exact same thing and so then I'm super confused because it's only happening in movie theaters for a while and I kept googling and googling and googling and nothing made sense I started going to doctors and you know all the tests the thyroid test blood tests all this stuff and

Everything came up completely normal. There were nights at the emergency room where I thought for sure I was going to have a heart attack. No, everything was fine. Eventually, I learned, like one doctor said, you probably have panic disorder. Then I actually had a term that I could Google, I could look up. While that can, it's not necessarily great to just be looking up on the internet and looking

at message words about conditions and hearing people that aren't professionals talk about it, but it was good to be able to see this thing that other people had. To go to message words and have people describe similar experiences that I had it. It felt like it wasn't just this weird diagnosis that had gone on just me. It felt like it was part of a larger thing. And so that helped, but you know, it's not like you get a diagnosis and it just goes away. So it's just been a long, long path of seeing what works, seeing what doesn't. But it wasn't just panic disorder. You are also then diagnosed with generalized anxiety. Yeah, that diagnosis came a little bit later because it started with just the situational, I'm in a movie theater, I can't get out and airplane type stuff, panic attacks attacks and then I started having things in college where it would just be a normal day

I'd just be sitting around playing video games or or watching a movie, you know very Unstressful situations and I would just have this underlying hum of anxiety all the time and That felt very different to me and I got the diagnosis for GAD So yeah, it's a fun combination So when I'm not having, you know, the full panic attacks back then, I had to worry about like, oh, am I just going to have this overwhelming sense of dread all day? How long is this going to last? And it's a lot of figuring out what works for you and what doesn't.

How bad did it get at its worst? Boy, I remember in college, when I went to class, they would do the roll call. And a lot of times it was, you know, these big classes, three, four hundred people. And, well, that might be an exaggeration. I think it's more like a hundred. These big auditorium classes. And they would be going down. And by the way, this is Kansas State University.

Yeah, University of Kansas. Not in the case of KU. KU. Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, they'd be working down the list. And as it got closer to me, to my name name I would just feel it start to kind of rise I would feel the heartbeat start to raise my breath would get shallow and I would always just envision myself sprinting out of the room Just having to get out of there

So it was around that period where I couldn't even say here. That's all I had to do was they were telling me to say here No one was gonna be looking at me. I didn't have to deliver on anything, but I couldn't handle it No one was gonna be looking at me. I didn't have to deliver on anything, but I couldn't handle it And around the same time I worked at this call center and they would have us do introductions when we hired new people like at the beginning We ever shift would stand up and be like oh, I'm dead. I'm a junior and I'm from here and my favorite whatever is blank And I couldn't do that. I had to talk to my boss and be like hey, I don't know what's going on here I just can't do it. I just start coming in late every day whenever there's a new hire There'd be like a two-week period where I just had to come in 30 minutes late, so I just skip the introduction part Which I found really helpful talking to bosses about stuff like that because as soon as people know that you've got something like this

Then it's if you have to leave a room or something or if you're seeming quiet They'll know like oh, okay, he told me about this. This is an anxiety thing Now just like oh, he's being weird or wide if he run out of this room, you know? Yeah, I mean, one of the things you talk about in the book is that consistently when you present your issues to people to whom you need to report, like bosses or professors or whatever, everybody's incredibly understanding. And that's really cool but I will say having had a number of panic attacks myself, it is virtually impossible to explain what it's like to somebody who has not had a panic attack. Yes and that is part of the reason I wanted to write that book is because while it is

impossible to, you know, if you've never had a panic attack, people tend to say like, oh just chill out, what are you worried about? It's's like, well, no, you don't know what this feels like. The logical part of my brain knows that I'm not in danger right now. I don't need to activate this fight or flight thing. So books like, I think yours, for sure, you describing, when I read yours, you talk about being on the air.

I have to be on the air a lot. I have to do live appearances and things. And those are just major traders for panic attacks for me. So I wanted to describe that feeling. What it was like when I had the first a lot, I have to do live appearances and things, and those are just major traders for PanicTex for me. So I wanted to describe that feeling. What it was like when I had the first PanicTex, what it was like going forward, the book is not a how-to and how to get better necessarily because I'm no expert whatsoever, but I wanted to explain what it was like. So if somebody had anxiety, especially like guys that are my demographic gamers, that

there's not a lot of talk about stuff like this, necessarily. There really isn't. I mean, they're outliers, obviously. Maybe rage is acceptable. Right, right. Yeah, it's not really a community. You know, there's some places online,

some communities where they talk very openly about this stuff, sometimes over share, but by and large, I think people don't talk about something like this. In the video game, exactly. Well, I mean, I was interested to listen to the extent i i i you sent me the podcast where you talked about meditation in my book and everything and like

everything leading up to it was completely indecisive for both of me and then everything uh... that followed was completely indecisive for both of me and then there was like this really forthright discussion uh... about your emotions and panic and meditation and one of your colleagues had been on a silent meditation, and one of your colleagues had been on a silent meditation retreat, and it was really interesting, because I loved hearing it from,

you know, I'm in my whole purpose in life in many ways, is to get meditation accepted in different corners of the culture, and to hear these, like, died in the will of video game guys, talk about this stuff was just, I mean, I can only imagine you did an enormous amount of good because well what people in the meditation in the excuse me in the video game world may not talk about this stuff everybody has emotions oh yeah yeah and it either you're unaware of them and they control you or you're aware of them and can have some magnitude of of control over

them yeah and being able to talk about that on the podcast was huge because, you know, I relish any chance to talk about that. One of the great things about our podcast is we embrace tangents. I mean, we'll spend an hour talking about fast food or whatever. It's not just this hard video game news thing all the time. It's three hours long every week. And a lot of it is just like, what did you do this weekend? And that's why Drew, my colleague, talked about going on that sign of meditation retreat.

And as soon as I saw that, I saw my end because because I don't wanna be that guy that gets on a soapbox and tries to shoehorn meditation into every conversation. But it's like, well, Drew brought it up. It's on the table, let's talk about this. And we talked for so long about it, but I remember afterwards I even told my boss, like, sorry if I just talked so much about that, I just get really excited when I get a chance

to talk about it. But the feedback on that was incredible. I did. I had a tsunami of tweaks after that. Really? Yeah, I couldn't believe it. That was really a wake up call for me and i know i've a friend who's i met a guy recently actually owns a video game company so i have some

sense of of the cheer power i i hesitate discuss this because if any of your friends listen to your name you know i'm knowing anything but but i have a sense of the sheer power of the industry and and a cultural force and as a financial force. But just that was a real powerful illustration. Listen to you guys talk about it and then see it show up in my Twitter feed. There is a ton of passion in that community for video games

that I think is a little more intense than you see a lot of time in movies or other elements of pop culture. People see it as an identity a lot of the times. Like a lot of people are like, that's what I am. I am a gamer. And I don't know if that's necessarily healthy to attach your entire identity to one thing.

Like I am just a guy that plays video games. But there are a lot of people out there like that. And yeah, being able to reach them and maybe introduce them to something like meditation that they wouldn't seek out necessarily. Yeah. That's something that'd be great to do. And that's why I like being able to talk about it

on something like this. Yeah. That's something that'd be great to do. And that's why I like being able to talk about it on something like this. Yeah. Okay. Well, speaking of you, here you are sitting here talking to me, like full sentences, having a good time, laughing and smiling. I've listened to you on the podcast, doing the same thing. And as you're describing your book, and you just mentioned a couple of minutes ago,

you actually do public appearances. How did you get from being unable to say the word here in a university classroom to being a public figure? I think it's because I forced myself to whenever something did scare me, like the idea of doing a public appearance or the idea of going on a podcast. I knew that that road is bad. If you say, hey, I don't wanna be on a podcast, I knew that that road is bad.

If you say, hey, I don't wanna be on this podcast because I'm nervous, because then it's like, okay, I can't do a podcast because I'm nervous about that. And then what happens? Like, oh, if you have a panic attack on the highway, it's like, oh, I can never drive on the highway, and your world gets smaller and smaller, and you box yourself in if you go down that route.

I don't wanna become agorphobic. So the more something scared me, the more I always attacked it. Whether that was a podcast or a video thing. And when I started the giant bomb, see, giant bomb does this thing where we do all these conventions and we, you know, very passionate fan base that comes out, and you know, we'll fill a room with a thousand, two thousand people. And this happened several times a year. And my old job a game informer, we, uh, we didn't do any public appearances.

That's another magazine. So that was more strictly, you know, just writing, you know, I pushed a lot for like video content, more personality stuff that they weren't really having. And so I went to giant bomb. And I knew that they did these live appearances. And nothing terrified me more than the idea of doing this. You know, I couldn't say here, I dropped out of classes when I heard that there was gonna be presentations.

And so I realized I didn't wanna go down that route. So I told my boss where I got hired. I said, anytime we were doing a public thing, anytime we're going to be in front of a crowd, please put me on that panel because that's, I want to get over this. And that is how you get over this stuff as you face it head on. And each time you do it, it becomes less scary. And I still have it. I still have things.

I don't have it right now. But you do it. I don't think I've ever said no to something because the idea of it has made me anxious. Whether that's jumping out of a plane or getting in front of 2,000 people or doing a podcast. Really jumping out of a plane. Seven times. Yeah. By myself, tandem all that stuff. It scares the shit out of me. But you know, that's why I did it. So I think that's incredibly brave. And I think it's really important because there are a lot of people with anxiety and panic disorder in myself among them who

Do make their world smaller, you know, I mean I could have decided it would easier route would have been to Not go on television again after I've freaked out in front of five million people But because it is the natural thing, you know, it's the natural thing and actually I just ask you just for a little bit of advice because I have made my world smaller in a few ways Because of panic disorder for example. I can't get an MRI. Oh really too claustrophobic I can't even get an open MRI because Even that scares me too much and I don't know what to do But I actually have a shoulder injury that is untreated because I can't get in the stupid MRI So what would you say that I should do?

I mean, I had that exact same thing. I got an MRI about a year and a half ago, and I had never had one. I had heard about them. I had heard that people that weren't typically anxious people freaking out in there. I was like, well, this is gonna be bad. I'm gonna hate this, but I just bite the bullet

and you have to do it. No matter how much it scares you. You panic. Oh yeah, totally. You can just sat through the panic. Yeah, you know, and I ask, I always ask an obnoxious amount of questions before anything like this. It's like, okay, so if I need to get out, okay, whatever do I squeeze this little bubble

thing? Okay, so you'll know, so if I squeeze it, like you'll get me out real quick, like, okay, okay, so I'll be all right. Like I asked so many questions, and I know the hell out of people a lot of the time. But I just want to make sure that I know what I'm getting into, but I'll never say no. I might over ask people and bug them about stuff like that, but I got in there and I wouldn't say full-blown panic attack, but it's a long thing and you got to like hold your breath and all that and it was extremely uncomfortable for a while, but you just do it. You just have to. Like I know that's such a cliche

thing to say, oh just do it or whatever, but that's kind of been, however, approach all these things. It's just just walk out there. Like I can't tell you how many times I've been behind a curtain. So I'm also a pro wrestling manager on independent circuits. What? Yeah, so on independent circuits, I'm like, I'm like a bad guy manager for a tag team out in California.

And like, pro wrestling, like the- This isn't in the book. No, I was not a pro wrestling manager by the time I booked it. That was a couple of years ago, yeah. So, yeah, so like, my music will hit and I have to come out of a curtain, fog machine, all this stuff, I have to be this character, I have to be a bad guy and get this, I have to get a whole couple of years ago, yeah. So, yeah, so like my music will hit, and I have to come out of a curtain fog machine, all this stuff, I have to be this character,

I have to be a bad guy, and get this, I have to get a whole crowd of people to hate me. That's my job when I do this stuff. And I don't wanna make it sound like I'm some weather, you know, old vet or whatever I've been doing this for, you know, under a year. But you wanna talk about anxiety, like I'm standing behind a curtain,

waiting for my music to hit, to come out and make everyone boomy. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting back, they're pacing back and forth behind the curtain, just like, oh God, okay, this is gonna suck, this is gonna suck, I don't know if I can do it, I don'ty. I can't tell you how many times I've been sitting back there, pacing back and forth behind the curtain, just like, oh god, okay, this is gonna suck. This is gonna suck, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I can do it, then the music hits,

and then you just have to tell your brain, okay, shut up, your legs are working, you can walk out there, go do it. And then I find it's always just anticipatory anxiety. The second I walk out from that curtain, or the second I sit down and start talking in front of a microphone, you kind of get wrapped up in what you're doing.

You kind of forget about all the mental chatter. Oh, what if I have to run out? Oh, what if I forget my lines? What if I do this? Once you're out there, you just go on instinct. After the break, you just elaborate on like, what do you think it's doing for you? You know, I used to have panic attacks constantly in the dentist.

At one point, I was getting a cavity filled and I had to leave halfway through because I had a panic attack. But now I can go to the dentist with no problem. After this. Hey there listeners, while we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast

that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduka Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Koto Paxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking

water from air and sunlight. Together they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery app. How did you first get introduced to meditation

and when did it take? So I got introduced to it actually about five months before my first panic attack. It was one of the first classes I took in college. It took like a pre freshman year hey, learn the campus type thing. And two of my classes, or one of my two classes, was psychology 101.

Basic entry level thing. I had never given any thought to meditation whatsoever. In fact, kind of the way my dad is, I was kind of raised with very much, like anything that even had a width of new ageiness to it, whether it was yoga or meditation, or the more extreme of crystals and all that stuff. It's just, that's bullf**king crap, that's for hippies, that's idiot stuff.

And so I just kind of was raised with this major, like you said you were skeptical about that type of stuff. I was kind of raised with the full on, like, hey, this stuff is bad. You don't want to be a part of it. Oh, total antagonism, yeah. And so I had never given any serious thought to meditation whatsoever. And I remember my teacher, the sky buddy,

who I've been trying to contact, or figure out where I want to thank him, I just don't know how to look, I don't know his last name. But he said, he's like, I want to tell you guys about meditation. This is something that I can't stress this enough. If you do this for an hour every day, it will change your life.

And I remember thinking like an hour a day, that's insane. Like no one has time to do an hour a day of just sitting there. But then he wanted to give us an example. So he had us do 10 minutes of guided meditation in the class. I'll shut our eyes, he kind of went through it. You know, he was not some pro guided meditation guy, but the basics, follow your breath, you know, body scan type stuff, you know, wind thoughts come, you know,

things have heard a million times. And even after 10 minutes, I opened my eyes and I was kind of taken back by, man, this feels really, really good. And I wasn't thinking of it as an anxiety relief thing because I didn't really have anxiety at that point. But I remembered that, that feeling it gave me after that 10 minutes. What was the feeling? It just a calmness, a stillness, a clarity that I don't think I had ever felt before.

I've always been very much that kind of multitasking a million things at once. You know, like growing up, just always doing a million things on the computer over here. Like I got lettering on the TV over here, playing games, you know, a million things at once. My head just bounced around. I can never sleep. And for once, I felt like I just had a clear mind. I just felt like after 10 minutes, okay, I can just focus on something. And that was a really profound feeling. And then later on, once I started struggling with anxiety

and I saw people recommend meditation, I remembered like, oh yeah, the thing buddy had us do. Like that felt really good. I could see how that could help. And I do remember back then, I was still on campus, I got a hold of the teacher and we started meeting and I started asking questions about it and everything. And I got more into it, but I was still just doing like 10 minutes a day.

But even that helped tremendously. And it wasn't until like the last few years, you know, now I'm pushing close to two hours a day now. And it's a huge, huge difference. Okay, so I have a million questions. What kind of meditation are you doing? What's your practice? It's mindfulness. So just give me the nuts and bolts. When you sit down, what do you do?

Ideally, you know, if I got an hour, I'm at home, you know, I got a meditation cushion or pillow, you know, I sit on that cross leg, you know, I don't do the ohms or the chanting or anything like that. It's mainly following the breath. A lot of times I'll put on white noise, you know, rain sound effects, whatever, beat stuff. Sometimes, you know, like, you stuff. Sometimes I was at a lake house this weekend and there's a big forest and I just did that super cliche thing of going out to the forest and meditating for an hour. But that's not always there. So usually I'm in my bedroom sitting on a pillow following the breath. I thought it's command, you know, and

just let them go. I do it at work every day. We have a quiet room on the fifth floor, which is a very San Francisco thing. It's this room that's kind of a sensibly for meditation. But no one uses it for that. Everyone just goes in there to get on their phones and take an app or whatever. But I actually sit and they have these really high back chairs where you can sit there and no one can really see. I just sit across like it. I get to work an hour early and follow the breath. I'll do body scan stuff. You know, I start at the head or the feet and work through and it's noticensations, itches, things like that. But yeah, it's about as basic as it gets, you know, I don't really attach any spirituality to it or anything. I mean, I view it the way I view, you know, if I go on a 10 mile run, you know, my cardio, I'm gonna feel better, my cardio will be better.

If I do an hour of meditation, I just feel less anxious throughout the day and I can sleep better at night. How did you learn how to do it? Is there a do you go on retreat? Is there a teacher you have relationship with? You know, outside of just talking about teacher way early on, it's mainly just been a lot of reading your book. Yeah, actually, before your book, I did read the power of now and reading your,

yeah, and reading your description of that, it was 100% my experience with that. Where there would be these moments of just like, wow, I think he's really onto something here and then your description of that, it was 100% my experience with that, where there would be these moments of just like, wow, I think he's really onto something here, and then these moments of like, what the hell is this guy talking about? Like this doesn't make any sense, he sounds like a lunatic.

And, but yeah, within all that like lunacy in that book, I think there were some moments of like, okay, yeah, he makes some really good points, and then I read your book afterwards, and through years I started reading books by Sharon Salisberg and Mark Epstein and John Kabatzen. I read wherever you go there you are. You know, a couple of times a year. Yeah, it's great. I'm rereading it right now.

So, okay, so you're, you know, it's funny. You're a bit of a, to use a fancy word, auto-diedact, somebody who taught himself. But you're, you're reading the right books, and by which I do not mean my book. My book is more of a story. Very good book. But thank you. But I mean, it's more of a, it's like PT Barnum as compared to what you could get from Sharon and Mark and all this. I see myself as a gateway drug where that people get that people know what they're talking about. Well, and you mentioned, I think when you were talking with Deli Lama that, you were in

your like, infancy of your meditation even after like 10 years. If you're an infant in this world, you know, I'm a fetus, you know, I'm still learning this stuff. Yeah, if you can introduce people to that world, I think that's powerful. Yeah, well, thank you. So just to back to your practice, like, you're, it's really interesting because it seems like you've been able to really take it pretty far without, you know, joining some group or like signing up with a teacher or anything like that, you're just really reading good books. And I think it's interesting that you keep, because I feel I see this in my own life, going back to the books because you need to be reminded.

Yes, if you go too long without doing it, you lose those, those little reminders of, oh right, that's why I'm doing this, that's why I need to stay diligent about this. And yeah, I think the books are a really good way, especially if you have a commute, you know, I've got a commute to and from work every day and I can read, I'm not driving. So yeah, it's just a great daily reminder of why this is important and why I do it. Because it's easy when you're, I talk about this a lot, it's like it's easy when you're doing your practice for it to feel stupid and pointless. But to read a book by John Cabinzen or Sharon Salisberger, Mark Epstein, and you get reminded of the intellectual infrastructure of the

thing. Like, oh, right. As just as you said, this is why this is important. This is where I'm heading with this. You mentioned a few of the benefits, but can you just elaborate on like, what do you think it's doing for you? This dosage of meditation is pretty high. I am able to just kind of control my thoughts in a way that I think people that don't meditate and haven't done it don't really understand its ramifications. It's not just like, hey, I'm more calm. It's being able to control your mind in situations that are kind of surprising sometimes.

Like good example is a dentist. You know, I used to have panic attacks constantly in the dentist. At one point, I was getting a cavity filled and I had to leave halfway through because I had a panic attack. They gave me a shot of, I could never pronounce it, F and F and F and you know, whatever. I didn't tell me, it makes your heart beat faster. So that was the Novacain or whatever. And my heart was beating. I was like, oh, God, I'm having a panic attack. And I just like, I can't do this.

And so they had to put a very temporary filling in. So I walked around with a hole in my tooth for a long time. But now I can go to the dentist with no problem. You know, I used to dread it. But through meditation and the skills I've learned through that, I've learned that when you hear a sound or something, like you know, if I hear the sound of a drill, you tend to associate it with past experiences. And so if your mind's going like, oh no, that drill reminds me of the time that that happened. I had the panic attack,

like, oh, that's totally gonna happen again here, because that happened before, and all that chatter that goes on, because you associate that sound, or sitting in that chair with a bad experience, and meditation like now that I do it so much, I'm able to dissociate from that. I'm just like, I can recognize it as,

that's a sound. I'm not in pain right now. I'm sitting in a chair. I'm sitting in a chair. I'm sitting in a chair like, I know I'm not fooling myself. I know that drill is about to come into my mouth and drill into my tooth, but I'm not gonna make it worse by bracing myself and thinking about all the bad things that have happened before.

I'm gonna be in the present and deal with it right now. Sounds like textbook application, mindfulness to me. Do you, given what I'm hearing for you, which is a real sort of dedication to this practice and from what I can tell, a real understanding too, do you think about doing more like going off on retreats or giving that your in San Francisco and there's so many amazing teachers there,

maybe having a relationship with the teachers? Yeah, I have. And I've looked at resources and I know living in San Francisco, there are more than most major cities. and i've gone to some have gone to some group classes and things like that you know some with the insight uh... sf insight and uh... i find it i i'm sure it's different with everyone but i do better when i'm just on my own doing my own thing is it because the other people there were

annoying to it's not necessarily the other people know it's not that like i i don't necessarily uh... not bothered by that uh... the particular thing i, there was a lot of, like you can just hear a lot of traffic and a car will be at a red light right outside, you know, blaring music and, you know, through meditation, you should be able to, you know, just kind of separate that. But considering I can just do it at home

and not have to get on two buses to go to a place and I might as well just do it at home. You only, I'm sorry, you're gonna say something. Oh, I was gonna say as far as the retreat stuff. That very much interests me. You only, I'm sorry, you were gonna say something. Oh, I was gonna say as far as the retreat stuff, that very much interests me, like especially reading your experience, you did a week-long one, right, or 10 days. 10 days, yeah.

Not far from you, it's up north, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Spirit, rock. Right, right. So if you can get past the name. Yeah, yeah, like that's incredibly enticing to me. It's just the logistics of that. You know, I live in San Francisco,

it's an expensive city. I would need to take a lot of time off work. The logistics are difficult, but at some point, when it makes sense, I will certainly do a retreat, or even a shorter one like that, that for day retreat that my colleague went on. The thing I was gonna say when I interrupt you was just that, and this is unsolicited advice, which you should feel free to reject,

that it was a couple years into my practice before I actually struck up a relationship with a teacher and I found that that up to my game exponentially. So my teacher's this guy Joseph Goldstein was in my book and it's not that intense like I see him either we get on the phone or I see him every couple of months and I just tell him what's going on in my practice and he gets me out of ruts or pushes me in directions that I wouldn't have thought of and that kind of coaching is really what it is is really very very interesting especially if you have a like I have a lot of respect for Joseph right we don't have some formal

relationship where I'm bowing or anything like that. He's just like a really smart guy. We're friends. And this is a, you know, most teachers, it's not some super expensive thing. You know, if you live in a city where there are teachers, you can do this and it's not some crazy luxury. Is it like an hour or like therapy session? Basically, we're going and just discuss the practice.

It's not a therapy session in that. I'm not bringing my problems to him. We sometimes will talk about what's going on in my life, but I have a shrink where we go talk about, I don't go, this is maybe a sign of complacency on my end, but I don't go that often. He was the one who helped me stop doing drugs and things like that, but all the way to my do-go, he's awesome and he's funny and I really like seeing him. But when I go, him, it's like we talk about the emotional component of things going on in my life with my shrink.

With my meditation teacher, it's really like the nuts and bolts of your practice. What are you literally doing when you sit down? What's the first thing you do? How long can you stay with the breath? What is that moment like when you wake up from distraction? Are there maybe other techniques you could be using like mental noting or things like that? It really just opens your eyes to possibilities you might not have thought of and you may describe

things that are actually like little ruts or cul-de-sex that you've gotten yourself into that you're not even aware of and the teacher can point that out to you and say hey look you're doing this and next time that happens try this. Just through the way you're describing it. It's obviously he can't see what's going inside in your head so you're just telling him by beat what you're doing. It all the so many variables here. One of the big variables is the quality of your reporting. Are you an accurate historian of your own practice and that is a big deal. Their variable is the quality of the teacher and like are you clicking with them and teachers often have their own biases because they know what works for them. Now obviously if you get a lot, if you get a really experienced teacher like Joseph,

he's had thousands of students so he has a pretty good sense of like types of minds. So he doesn't just recommend what's work for him. He knows he can I think he has like a taxonomy in his own mind of he can put you in a bucket and say Well other people like you this has worked or just try this I mean one of Joseph's things is just play around I'll give you a bunch of options. Try him and see what works. Okay. Really the test is is your mind settling? Are you getting focused? And if it's not working, if it's conjuring up doubt, or things like that, then maybe that's not the technique for you. That sounds extremely helpful to get kind of a personalized coaching like that, because I've even taken advice from when I don't remember it was Goldstein or the girl during the retreat,

but I think it was when you were having trouble swallowing too much. Yeah. And you talked to one of the people. That was Joseph. Okay. And he told you just like, hey, you're trying too hard. Am I remembering this correctly? That was when you were just doing all of this? No, no, no, no.

So there are two. I went to Joseph and complained about the swallowing and he said, don't worry about it. Just do it, don't worry about it. But then there was another time later where I was just completely freaking out and wanted to give up and that was this woman's spring washroom. Right. By the way, it's based in San Francisco

and you could totally go work there. And even though I make fun of her in the book, I actually spend time with her recently in San Francisco, she's incredibly cool. Really? Like she is incredibly cool. I really, really have a enormous amount of affection for her. So if you are looking for a teacher, actually spring comes to mind. Okay. There's another guy in San Francisco named Orrin Sofer, SOFER.

He teaches on the 10% happier app, although we would like to get spring on there too at some point. But they're both based in San Francisco. The type of people that, I mean, anybody listening to this, go to their websites and reach out to them. Meditation teaching is not, and historically has not been, and sadly is not right now, a hugely remunerative profession. And so I think all of these people

are looking for students. Okay, I actually will totally look into both of them when I get back in town, because yeah, even that little advice of you're trying too hard I think about that a lot even though that wasn't Personally directed towards me in the way I meditate, but I'll catch myself Getting frustrated like it'll be you know 30 minutes into a session Now we think I'm like man. I've just been elsewhere mentally this entire time like I don't think I'm wasting that 30 minutes

But it's like I could have been doing so much better And I'll kind of beat myself up about it for the next 30 minutes, but then I'll remind myself, okay, I'm thinking about this too much. I'm trying too hard, like just sit here. That's all you gotta do here. So yeah, if I get too wrapped up and like, okay, follow the breath, you gotta follow the breath right now.

Like, it doesn't really work. So I always do think of that advice that Joseph told you. Man, I have the same problem, which is that I do exactly what you just said. And I mean, and I'm not a teacher, so I just want to make sure that anybody listening to this and you're yourself included doesn't take what I say as gospel. But one of the things that I hear from teachers a lot is that, and this is really counterintuitive for people, I guess. But you need to reframe the moment of waking up from a moment, usually I think a lot of us treat it as a moment of self-laceration, self-judgment of like, oh my god, I've been thinking about lunch

for the last ten minutes. You need to reframe that to a win because you are waking up right there. That is the practice. The whole practice is realizing when your thoughts are going astray and bringing it back on track. So yeah, that's a good way to frame it. So reframing that as a win is a radical shift. I can't say I'm good at it. What I've noticed is that what's happening in my practices, I wake up, I have the moment of,

that I can't help, a reflexive moment of judgment or whatever, and then I make the conscious choice to be like, oh, dude, welcome back. Yeah. And even if, where it gets hard is when you have to do it a thousand times very quickly, it can be a little wearing. But I have the sense that the art of the practice, or one of the arts of the practices, really getting to the place where every time you wake up, it's like, cool.

Yeah, I mean, it's not realistic to expect that every time you sit down for an hour or 10 minutes or anything, that like, all right, that was just a straight-through like just followed the breath for an hour like that's not how it works And like I'm no expert, but I can't imagine even like really seasoned long-time meditators I doubt it every time it's just a hundred percent success rate Mark Epstein has a doctor Mark Epstein who's a recent guest in his podcast Has written many many excellent books about meditation He has a great story about sitting in meditation with Joseph Goldstein, who's my teacher

and also Mark's teacher. And they were sitting, doing meditation and at the end of the session, they opened their eyes and Joseph looked at Mark and said, the mind has no pride. It's a great expression. And that is true. And I'm Joseph and Braxiny for decades at that point. Yes, you're always gonna get lost and use the word as a very

Is a key phrase you said expect Yeah, expectations are poison for your meditation practice And I think that's what diswades a lot of people when they first start is they expect like okay I'm gonna sit down do this thing for 10 or 15 minutes and if I follow my breath I'm gonna I'm supposed to feel really good right afterwards and then they do it and they expect like, okay, I'm gonna sit down and do this thing for 10 or 15 minutes, and if I follow my breath, I'm gonna, I'm supposed to feel really good right afterwards, and then they do it, and it's just like, well, nothing, like, they expect some huge thing, and that's not going to happen. It's not even necessarily gonna happen if you do it for 10 years.

It's not a superpower. So yeah, I think it dissuades a lot of people, and I think you don't really see the benefits until you stick with it for a while, and don't let those expectations and lack lack of meeting them just way to you. Amen. Sharon Salzburg, another great teacher who has come up in this conversation, you've read some of her books.

She says, you know, she hears from people all the time that, oh, yeah, I tried meditation, I can't do it. And she's like, that's like picking up a violin for the first time and thinking you should be able to play Bach. This is a skill like, you know, it's going to take a little while. It's not as hard as playing the violin on some levels. But it is a crazy thing to say that, you know, you expect it to feel awesome the first time you do it.

And the other thing is, you're not supposed to feel a certain way anyway. The point, and I keep learning this lesson over and over again, is not to feel a certain way. The point is just to feel whatever you feel, clearly, so that when you feel it in your regular life, you're not yanked around by it. Yeah, you're not changing who you are by your back. If you're sitting, if you have a meditation session in your angry the whole time and you're mindful of the anger, that means that when you're angry off the cushion, when your wife

or boss or colleagues has something that makes you really peeved, that you're less likely to fly off the handle. And that's where the rubber hits the road. That used the word before, super power. It's not a superpower, you said, of meditation, but that ability to be mindful of your own emotions and not being asked around by them, that actually is a superpower. Yeah. And it pops up in kind of unexpected ways.

You know, I talked about the dentist application or whatever, but I actually read a book about mindful eating. And there was a, have you heard of like the cashew trick? Yes. I'll do it the raisins too. Okay, yeah, anything with like a texture, like a small thing or whatever. We just spend a lot of time like before you eat like a single

cashew or raisin, you know, a lot of people have probably heard of this, but you know, you're feeling the texture, you're smelling and all this stuff, and then you put one in your mouth after all this time and you really kind of savor it, and that's, you're just focusing on the flavor, and you eat like one cashew like that, and it's 10 times more pleasurable than like, you know, just doing the mindless, just shoveling cashews in your mouth, which I did all the time before that.

It's, that's one of the most effective, quick things to show people if they're curious about meditation. It's just, hey, try this trick here, because I would imagine that would work for almost anyone. You know, I've been thinking about this conversation where I'm just letting it go down lots of tangents, you know, my- I've been thinking a lot about- Because I have, because I find myself now in the position of being like a businessman, that I have this little startup company that's teaching people out of meditation for an app. I've been thinking a lot about the best ways, like really the best nuts and bolts ways to introduce people to meditation. And something I've been playing with is not fully formed.

I actually have to, I think I'm going to be leading a meditation out of tech crunch and just to get ready. And I've never taught a meditation before, so this is going to be weird for me. But I've been thinking about Framing it right from the beginning So I'm not gonna make everybody cashews or raisins right now like that so that that's not technically feasible But what if I just frame it right from the beginning of okay, so Most people think they can't meditate and I'm gonna show you in three minutes that you can in fact You'll see within the first second that you're winning.

Because if you get distracted and you know you're distracted, that's a win. Yeah. And just framing the whole thing that way. Yeah, simplifying it and making it seem more tangible. Like I think in naming the app in the book, 10% happier, I think you did that with that as well. Like you're not promising superpowers. You're not promising that you're gonna be living

on park benches in a state of bliss for the rest of your life, like, like, or totally. Yeah, yeah, it's, hey, it's 10% happier. Like, it's significant. So yeah, if you frame it that way, it makes it seem less like this just big, crazy, unattainable thing. So yeah, that's smart.

But, you know, when it comes down to it, you can frame it any way you want. And the only real way people are gonna totally get it is if they really do it and really give it a shot. But it's just getting them in the door is the hard part. But it's getting them in the door, but it's also getting, you can get them in the door, you can get them trying it,

but a lot of people on that first time they sit and they see how crazy their mind is and they're like, forget it, I'm done, I can't do this. Because it seems so insurmountable because the mind is running rampant. But I guess what I'm towing with is framing it so that when you close your eyes and you see that the mind is crazy,

that is the victory. Which is the thing that everyone does. And so you know you're gonna get 100% success right there. Because everyone is gonna get that moment of like, I'm thinking too much, but even that realization is a win. Because you can't unsee that. Once you see that the mind is crazy, you realize that you're being yanked around by this thing

Yeah, that is the fundamental or one of the fundamental insights. Yeah So anyway, I'm just thinking out loud with you So it wasn't just meditation that you used in fairness to to really help you Get your panic and anxiety disorders under control. And notice I'm not using your word cure because you were at carefully point out and I have experienced this myself. There is no cure, there's mitigation.

So other techniques you used were medication, exercise, those are the two other big ones, medication and exercise. Yeah, you know, I've flirted with other things, and I try to acupuncture and stuff like that. Like I went into it with kind of this total open mind. Like, okay, I'm gonna put aside all the like, hey, screw-all, new-agey, hippie-crap,

or whatever that my dad told me. And so I gave everything a shot, basically. You know, I did yoga for years, which actually I stand by yoga being really, really great as an exercise, not necessarily as, you know, I don't buy into the spiritual side of things or anything. But yeah, like medication, I think, did help for a bit. I'm currently on nothing.

I have Xanax, I carried around on a key chain. I view it as a fire extinguisher. It's, I never use it, barely ever. Maybe three or four times a year, I'll use it. But just knowing that I've got that fire extinguisher on me all the time is helpful. But yeah, I feel like it's something, maybe I'm just being stubborn, but it's something that I want to control myself. The idea of going to medication and stuff, I always hesitate to say this because for some people it is a huge help and it can be greatly helpful for people.

For me, I kind of want to wrangle this myself and that's why I've always gone towards exercise and meditation. And it's finding a balance because right now, I'm meditating way more than I ever have. But that's also kind of kind of the expensive, really working out hard. Like this time last year, I ran a half marathon. You know, this year, the half marathon is coming up and I put on 30 pounds and stuff.

So it's this constant kind of ebb and flow of just like trying to figure out like, okay, I need to get both of these in because they both help a lot. So that's still something I'm working on. But it seems to me that meditation is the top priority. You're still pretty young, how will you? I just turned 32 a couple weeks ago.

I mean, look, I'm probably 45 soon. I'm still figuring this stuff out. So it is, you're right, it is a balance. And I appreciate we said about medication, because it's a very individual choice but I'm of the view that you know you should ever people should be open-minded about all of the potential arrows and the quiver, meditation, medication, eating well, sleeping right, exercise, all of these things.

You got to make your own mix but they should all be live options. Yeah, as long as it's not harmful and you're doing it the right way, and you're talking to doctors about it and everything, like, I think it's literally the first thing I said in the book is, hey, I am not a doctor, do not. Like, I can tell my story and tell you what worked for me, but everyone's going to be different. It's different with every person, but all I can do is share my story and what's worked for me. You, even by the end of the book, you're describing sort of your life as it,

well, it was when you were finished writing the book, which probably like a year and a half ago. But you said there are some residuals from these disorders that you struggle with. Oh yeah. One of them is that you mentioned, and I was just curious about is that you have actually, you have trouble eating in front of other people,

is that still a, Yeah, that's a, it's just a weird thing, and I still struggle with that. You know, I've been eating with my girlfriend's family since I've been visiting, and you know, I'm always the last person to finish, you know, whenever like it's a work lunch or something like that, I always got a box up something and take it home.

What, why is it? It's incredibly frustrating, because I know that there is no physical or biological reason that I'm not swallowing faster. It's just one of those weird mental hang-ups, and it's been with me for about as long as the anxiety has. And there have been years where I've, just like a totally normal person,

but then there are times where I've got the smallest little bit of beef in my mouth, just the smallest bit, like a little piece-sized thing. And I'm like, okay, Dan, okay, logically, I know that I can swallow this, there's nothing stopping me, okay, one, two, three, I know that I can swallow this. There's nothing stopping me. Okay, one, two, three, do it. And it's just some weird mental block.

And man, I don't know, like I've always been quick to any ailment or any issue I'm going through. I'm anxiety, anxiety. So I don't know, maybe there's a whole other thing that causes this. But it feels like an anxiety thing to make is it feels totally mental. But yeah, I'll have whole meals where I don't have an issue whatsoever. I'll hold several weeks and then I'll have one meal that takes me an hour and a half to finish. That's one of the things I'm trying to work on now. That's one of the most frustrating ones.

It turns out you have to eat every day. What about therapy? I do that. In fact, I just finished with therapist and San Francisco that I saw for the better part of a year. I have found that to be very helpful as far as just kind of unpacking your history and what might have led to certain things. And you can stumble onto some realizations about why you are the way you are that you never thought of. And so we did that. We did almost a year and I

came to a lot of realizations about, you know, some of the more undesirable aspects of my personality that I want to work on that I hadn't thought of before I went in there. And so it did get to a point where we'd kind of like unpacked all the past that we could talk about if we were kind of going over territory again. And so we did stop, you know, I'll probably go back at some point. But yeah, I think I have a pretty good grasp

on why I am the way I am and what I need to work on. So as of right now, I'm not in therapy or on medication. Right, but you keep those doors open. Oh, 100%. And I think it is extremely helpful. Yeah, I can't stress that enough. It's just, we got to a point where we just kind of, I'd come in every week and be like, nah, you know, I'm doing all right, I guess.

And that's like when we sit there for an hour and like, oh, let's talk about my dad for a little bit. Like, okay, we'll talk about this a million times. So, you know, it's, we're going to take a break for now. What is your dad, you talk about in the book that your dad was not super, and you've talked about it a little bit in this interview, your dad was a little bit dismissive of you say very, just it's just, just, just, the defense of your dad that he was a great dad and you have a great relationship.

I want to stress that, yeah. But then he was a great dad and you have a great relationship. I want to stress that. But then he was a little dismissive because of his own cultural conditioning of your panic and anxiety. And how is that now and what you're doing? Much more understanding now. I think it's helped too because my sister, Alyssa, when she reached 18, which is the age that I started having these issues,

she started having the exact same issues. And I think that made him realize, oh, it's not just Dan being weird. And also, he read the book and everything, and he got to hold me and apologize and everything. He's like, hey, I'm sorry, I think I made some mistakes with how I dealt with that. I'm really, I apologize for that.

I see now that you're really going through some stuff. But yeah, he was extremely dismissive. Just in general, he's just one of those guys that if you're not doing things exactly the way he does them, it's not that you're doing things differently. It's that you're wrong. It's like, well, if you like soccer, that's not a real sport, so you're wrong and you're stupid.

If you don't like Led Zeppelin and you're stupid, stuff like that, like, you know. Well, he is right about that. Oh, absolutely, yeah. But I mean, things that on the service I agree with, I don't like soccer. I think soccer is boring. I think that's up on toss him.

But now I'm much more like when people don't like the same stuff I like or they get really passionate about something that I don't care about, I'm not, I don't go into that mindset of just like, oh, you're wrong. No, I'm the right way. This is the right opinion to have, which is very much how he pretty much always has been

Have you run into as you to the extent that you even discuss your meditation habit with People in the video game world are people cool with that? Or do they think it's weird? Are they dismissive? You know I haven't seen any like super negative stuff Which it's kind of surprising in the gaming community. There's a lot of very harsh opinions, either like, you're just the biggest fan in the world of something, or this thing needs to go away, this thing, like, these games never need to be made, and, you know, anyone who plays them, basically my dad's thing, like, if you play these games, you're stupid.

So, yeah, I've seen no negative reactions whatsoever. I've never seen any like, well, I wish, Dean Riker would stop talking about the, uh, meditation stuff on the podcast, which I try not to do it that much. Um, did I pronounce your name correctly at the beginning of the series record the first time? It's right, yeah, that's fine. Oh man. No, don't worry about it.

Everyone does that. Everyone miss spells it too. But no, I've gotten tons and tons of feedback from people thanking me, whether it's a DM on Twitter or something, for writing the book and for being open about this, because there aren't that many people in the industry that are open about it.

And I think it's this thing that is still kind of like whispered about sometimes, like, we'll do these panels at these conventions and a lot of times we do like meet and greet stuff afterwards. People can take pictures of us, autographs, whatever. And it's funny because a lot of people will kind of wait until the crowd is dispersed a bit and they'll kind of pull me aside and like,

hushed tones, but hey, I just really want to thank you for you know, talking about anxiety, like, you know, it's something I've really struggled with. I've never seen anyone I could relate to that and talk to this because these are not guys that are going to, you know, these gurus. They're not going to, like, these big, like, you look at these people like Deepak Chopra or Tony Robbins, like these big, you know, like gurus. I don't even really know if Tony Robbins does meditation. But you know what I mean, those type of guys. And they're not

relatable to just your average 20, 30, something gamer. I saw a space where no one was talking about this, and I wanted to be open about it, and it seems like it's really resonated with a lot of our audience. And so yeah, the feedback has been tremendous. Well, I'm glad you're doing it. And, you know, people ask me a lot when I'm talking about meditation, you know, how do we get this into different communities, specifically often one of the issues is, you know, people ask me a lot when I'm talking about meditation, you know, how do we get this into different communities, specifically often one of the issues is, you know,

low-income communities or communities of color, but I actually take it beyond that. I mean, gaming communities, athletes, executives, LGBT community, everyone, and so one of the reasons why I'm so sick that ABC News is letting me do this podcast is that I can bring on all these different voices and give them, I hope, a little bit more of a platform because that's the way this, what I think is a public health revolution is going to spread is when you get spokespeople who organically speak to the different communities. Yeah, I mean, if you're trying to run the spectrum of communities, you've gone from the Dalai Lama to RuPaul to me.

So I think you're really getting a broad stroke here. I'm doing my job. Well, this is all came because you reached out to me. So thank you very much for doing it. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the book and everything. It's one of the first things I recommend to people when they want to get into it. I appreciate that.

Before we go, any other words of wisdom you want to drop on us? Any other science? I'm not the guy to give science science but I can just say it's the easiest thing in the world to try like there's no excuse to not try everyone has 10 minutes everyone can find a place to sit down everyone can even if it's no easy put in some some headphones or whatever and put on some white noise it doesn't cost any money like there's really no reason to not try. And I'm not gonna get on a soapbox and yell at someone

if they don't want to. But if you're even the slightest bit interested and when they hear people like me and you talk about this, try it, just take 10 minutes, just try it. You're not gonna be great at it the first time. You're probably gonna be elsewhere mentally the whole time, but just try it. And you get better, you know?

Do an experiment, do a month where you you're going to do 10 minutes every day. It helps tremendously, it's helped of ABC News Digital, Dan Silver. And hit me up at Twitter, Dan B. Harris. See you next time. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey

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