Is your nervous system frayed, frazzled, fried?
3 simple resets from a maestro
Many of you have asked for more ways to take the great ideas shared by our podcast guests, meditation teachers, and one another here in the 10% community, and apply them to the messiness of real life. We’re excited to announce today’s launch of the Practice Lab in the 10% with Dan Harris app to help you do just that.
Each week in the app we’ll post a new mini-experiment to try at home. There’s no doing it right and no way to fail. The point is just to give it a shot and (if you’re up for it) share your experience with the community. Scroll down for a sneak preview of our first Practice Lab mini-experiment.
The Goal: Small tests. Lasting breakthroughs. No pressure.
If you’re not a paid subscriber to the app, now is the time to sign up. Get a 14-day free trial.
We all feel it. Our nervous systems are under assault, both externally and internally. From the blistering, Trump-era news cycle, from all the uncertainty around AI, from the distraction, despair, and FOMO produced by invasive, addictive technology. Add that to our innate tendencies toward rushing and over-committing. I shudder to think how often I still find myself living in my head, plotting and planning, trundling mindlessly through this evanescent life. My teacher Joseph Goldstein calls this the “toppling forward” state.
Which is why I’m always on the lookout for smart strategies to help reset my nervous system. To, and I know this is a little cliché, but… get out of my head and into my body. The author and therapist Prentis Hemphill is a human goldmine in this regard. At a time when the world is demanding we move at a pace completely disconnected from our physical reality, here are three simple countermeasures:
Sing and dance to reset your system. Most of us, especially the desk-bound, spend too much time being still, but Prentis notes our bodies are designed for motion. Forced stillness is often how we physically bottle up our feelings; when we’re stressed, we instinctively tighten our jaws and throats to hold everything in. To break that cycle, try singing (even if you’re a terrible singer) to let the vibration of your voice settle your nerves. Just a few minutes of dancing can also help. (Nobody has to see you do this.)
Identify your “Lighthouse Commitment.” Think of this as a steady point of orientation to return to when the world inevitably knocks you off center. Unlike a standard achievement-based goal, this is about articulating what you really care about, and letting that guide how you organize your entire life. Prentis recommends naming a specific commitment every year. Mine, as many of you know, is captured by the tattoo on my left wrist: FTBOAB, for the benefit of all beings. The classic Buddhist rallying cry jolts me out of distraction and self-concern.
Practice “micro-interdependence.” Prentis argues that isolation is actually an illusion; the fundamental reality of life is relationship, meaning we are always in a physical exchange with the world around us, whether we’re breathing in oxygen from trees or reacting to the people in our neighborhood. To counter the habit of shutting down and armoring up, Prentis recommends taking “little risks.” This could be as simple as making brief eye contact with someone you’d normally look past. We think turtling up will make us safer, but connection, even if it’s fleeting, even if it’s awkward, settles the system. We’re wired for it. Go for that contact high.
For more strategies for getting out of your head and thriving in a chaotic world, listen to my episode with Prentis Hemphill.
Also out is my episode with cognitive scientist Maryellen MacDonald on how the way you talk to other people (and yourself) can reduce dysregulation and distraction, and lead to better decisions.
Over on the 10% with Dan Harris app:
Join me tomorrow (Tuesday, April 14 at 4 p.m. ET) for a live meditation and Q&A on Zoom. Drop your questions for me in the event post on the app here.
And, as we mentioned up top, today is the launch of the Practice Lab in the 10% with Dan Harris app. Here’s the first prompt, so you get a taste.
The Practice Lab: Sensory Grounding
The Mini-Experiment: Once a day, when you feel stuck in your head, stop and name three things you can hear and three things you can feel (e.g. the chair under you, the fabric of your shirt, the cool air).
Hypothesis: This practice helps break the cycle of rumination—by pulling your attention out of mental movies and back into your actual surroundings.
Lab Chat: Did this help ground you, or did your brain pull you back into your thoughts? Share your results, ideas, and questions with the 10% community in the app.
Upcoming events in person:
On May 17, join me for a conversation with Allison Gilbert at 92NY in NYC about how self-awareness and self-compassion can transform not only our inner lives but our relationships. Get tickets here.
Tickets for the next Meditation Party are available here! Jeff Warren, Sebene Selassie, and I are doing another version of our annual retreat this Oct. 16-18. It’s at the Omega Institute in upstate NY. Think four big sessions of meditation, conversation, and Q&A—with plenty of free time to hike the 240-acre campus, play some pickleball, shoot hoops, or just relax by the lake. You can also drop into yoga or tai chi classes, and on Saturday night there’s even a dance party (totally optional, I promise).
Paid subscribers to the new 10% with Dan Harris app get:
Guided Meditations: A library of guided sessions to help with stress, anxiety, focus, sleep, annoying people, and more.
Meditation Challenges: Structured programs to deepen your practice with clear goals, daily guidance, and community support.
Live Meditation and Q&A Sessions: Every week, meditate live with me and some of the best meditation teachers on earth. Ask questions. Get actual answers.
The 10% Happier Podcast: Subscribers get access to ad-free versions of my pod. Both the new episodes and the entire archive, stretching back almost 10 years.
Community Connection: Join conversations with thousands of other practitioners who get it. Share your struggles, celebrate wins, get support when you need it.
Join the party.
The nervous system framing is right, but the prescription undersells the problem. And you have talked about the issues beautifully on your podcast.
Singing and dancing are fine, I have no objection to vagal stimulation, but we’ve built an attention economy specifically engineered to override your body’s regulatory systems, and the countermeasure is a few minutes of movement alone in a room.
The Lighthouse Commitment is the more interesting idea, and also the more honest one: it acknowledges that orientation, not optimization, is what most of us actually need. But it contains a hidden assumption worth naming—-that the chaos is primarily internal. Some of what’s assaulting our nervous systems isn’t a failure of centering. It’s a rational response to actual threat. The stress is load-bearing information. Regulating it away before you’ve read it is a category error.
The deeper literature Hemphill draws from others makes a genuinely important argument: unprocessed collective trauma has political consequences. That argument almost never survives translation into wellness content. Which is the real pity here.
Sit with what the body is telling you before you go quiet.
Thank you for this!
Johan
Love this framing. Small experiments, no pressure, just returning to the body and seeing what happens. It’s often those simple steps that build real, sustainable change over time.