Mark Epstein, Combining Buddhism and Western Psychotherapy

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Did you know that just 20 minutes of art a day is as beneficial as exercise and mindfulness? Or that participating in one art experience per month can extend your life by ten years?  Our guests Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen talk about their new book, Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. Together they explore the new science of neuroaesthetics, which explains how the arts can measurably change the body, brain, and our behaviors.  This is the first installment in a three part series we’re running called, Mundane Glory about learning not to overlook the little things in your daily life that can be powerful and evidence-based levers for increased happiness.  In this episode we talk about: Their definition of the arts and aesthetic experiences How they see nature as, “the highest form of art” How simple actions like humming in the shower & gardening can be categorized as art experiences How you don’t have to be good at making art to benefit from it The difference between “makers” and “beholders” of art What they mean by art being a part of our evolutionary DNA How engaging in the arts can help strengthen our relationships and connectivity How arts and aesthetic experiences create neuroplasticity in the brain How society’s emphasis on optimizing for productivity has pushed the arts aside The four key attributes that make up a concept called an “aesthetic mindset” The benefits of partaking in a wide array of art experiences The importance of infusing play and non judgment into the art you make How art can be a form of meditation and mindfulness How artistic experiences can extend your life, help treat disease and relieve stress How the arts affect the way we learn The emerging field of neuroarts and neuroaesthetics How food fits into the arts category Simple ways to integrate the arts into our daily lives Technology’s relationship to the arts And the importance of architecture and your physical space as a form of art For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7: https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/ Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/ivy-ross-susan-magsamen

31 Juli 20231h 4min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Our guests today trained an AI on the world’s most beloved texts, from the Bible to the Koran to the words of Marcus Aurelius, Maya Angelou, and Leonard Cohen. Then, they asked the AI life’s hardest questions. The AI’s answers ranged from strange to surprising to transcendent. Jasmine Wang, a technologist, and Iain S. Thomas, a poet, join us to talk about not only the answers they received from the robot, but also why they are deeply concerned about where AI might be headed. In this episode we talk about: The origins of the book The definitions of some basic AI terminology The biggest takeaways of their conversation with AI—some of the answers they got back were fascinating and beautiful The perils and promise of AI (we spend a lot of time here) The ways in which AI may force us to rethink fundamental aspects of our own nature   And what we all can do to increase the odds that our AI future is more positive than not For tickets to TPH's live event in Boston on September 7: https://thewilbur.com/armory/artist/dan-harris/ Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jasmine-wang-and-iain-s-thomas

26 Juli 202359min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Jennifer Egan is not only a novelist, she's also written short stories and award-winning magazine journalism. She's one of those writers who can both spin a fascinating yarn and load it up with insights into everything from human nature to the future of technology, all while pulling off bewitching turns of phrase; what the writer Jonathan Franzen has called “micro felicities.”  Egan is as funny, fascinating, and open IRL as she is on the page although it’s not clear she feels that way given she talks about how much smarter she feels in writing than in speaking! In this episode we talk about: Egan’s writing process  The power of writing by hand  The shocking, relentless, ruthless discipline that she imposes on herself to never do the same thing twice as she’s writing Curiosity, awe, and panic attacks How she handles feedback Her feelings of insubstantiality  Our cultures fetishization of authenticity The impact of success on her work AI and our possible technological futures Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/jennifer-egan

24 Juli 20231h 16min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Today’s episode is a wide-ranging Interview with Zach Braff, one of those rare famous people who’s really willing to go there.  You may know Braff from the TV show Scrubs or the movie Garden State but Braff is actually a genuine multi-hyphenate; a true triple threat. He acts, writes and directs his own movies and other people’s TV shows including Ted Lasso on Apple TV. Relatively recently he put out a new movie that he both wrote and directed called A Good Person starring Florence Pugh and Morgan Freeman.   In this episode we talked about anxiety, depression, insomnia, addiction, grief, social media usage, and what he means by “learning to love your fate”—a notion that is literally tattooed on his wrist.  This Interview was conducted in person at the TED conference in Vancouver this past April.  Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/zach-braff

21 Juli 202346min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- In today’s episode, Dr. Donn Posner proposes a whole new way of thinking about sleep. First, he normalizes the sleep problems many of us experience. If you’re sleeping poorly right now, he says, don’t freak out; it’s natural and normal. Second, he has a bunch of tips for how to deal with insomnia, some of which you may have never heard before.  Dr. Donn Posner is one of the leaders in the field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for insomnia. Dr. Posner is the Founder and President of Sleepwell Consultants, and Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.  In this episode we talk about: The difference between chronic and acute insomnia How we can adapt to things that can mess up our sleep, like remote work Sub-chronic sleep conditions  What to do if we're experiencing acute insomnia so that it doesn't become chronic insomnia  The importance of structure when it comes to good sleep What social jet lag is  Dr. Posner’s take on napping Why wake time is so important when it comes to good sleep  Why we shouldn’t try to compensate for a bad night's sleep Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/donn-posner-268-rerun

19 Juli 20231h 18min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- If you're not sleeping well, it's harder to do anything you care about. It's harder to get healthier, to be more focused and productive, to be happier, to be more successful, to have good relationships—all of it.  Sleep may be the apex predator of healthy habits, and yet so many of us are getting terrible sleep because we don't prioritize it or because we've told ourselves a whole story about how we're just not people who sleep well, and so we just live with it. In this episode, you’re going to meet somebody who decided she was not going to live with it any longer, and she launched an extremely detailed personal investigation in order to fix it. And luckily for us, she is a journalist, so she documented the whole thing and gathered extremely useful, heavily vetted information and insights we can all use. Diane Macedo the author of the book, The Sleep Fix: Practical, Proven and Surprising Solutions for Insomnia, Snoring, Shift Work, and More. She is an ABC News anchor and correspondent and she appears on Good Morning America World News Tonight with David Muir and Nightline. Diane is also the daytime anchor for ABC News Live, the streaming service. In this episode we talk about:  Key signs that you’re not getting enough sleep Do sleeping pills really work? When and how to find a sleep specialist How to deal with performance anxiety around sleep  The difference between sleep deprivation and insomnia Mindfulness and sleep The biggest sleep myths Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/diane-macedo-444-rerun

17 Juli 20231h 2min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Every year, Joseph Goldstein does a three month silent meditation retreat by himself at his home in Massachusetts. In this conversation you're about to hear, Joseph had just emerged from one such retreat with a bunch of thoughts on what are called the three proliferating tendencies or three papañca to use the ancient Pali term.  These are three ways in which we perpetuate an unhealthy sense of self. Joseph has explained that you can think about the process of going deeper in meditation as a process of lightening up or getting less self-centered. You're about to get a masterclass in doing just that.  For the uninitiated, Joseph is one of the co-founders of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. His co-founders are two other meditation titans, Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. Joseph has been a teacher at IMS since it was founded in the seventies and he continues to be the resident guiding teacher there.  In this episode we talk about: The framework for understanding the three proliferating tendencies; the basic building blocks of our experience in the world Six things that make up what the Buddha called “the all”  What non-self means and why it's essential to the Buddhist teaching of liberation The two levels of truth: conventional and ultimate Why language is so important in conditioning how we experience things  How the three proliferating tendencies provide a very practical guide to understanding how we manufacture our own suffering Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-364-rerun

12 Juli 20231h 14min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- These days, the word mindfulness has become a buzz phrase but very often people don’t know what the word actually means, much less how to practice it. One simple definition of mindfulness is the ability to see what’s happening in your mind without getting carried away by it. The benefits of doing so are vast and profound— from decreased emotional reactivity to being more awake to what’s actually happening in your life.   Today's guest Joseph Goldstein talks about a classic Buddhist list called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, which lays out various techniques for developing mindfulness within your practice.   Goldstein is one of the premier western proponents of Mindfulness. He co-founded the legendary Insight Meditation Society alongside Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. He also wrote a book called Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening.   In this episode we talk about:   The historical context for the four foundations of mindfulness  Why he thinks the Buddha loved lists Why the Buddha placed mindfulness of the body first on the list The steps to mastering mindfulness of the body The meaning of the word embodied and how that’s different from our usual mode of being in the world How and why to do walking meditations What are feeling tones and why are they important Practices for cultivating mindfulness of mind The mantras that Joseph uses when teaching    Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/joseph-goldstein-483-rerun

10 Juli 20231h 7min