Dan Harris

So much human suffering is caused by the fact that we are stuck in our heads, captured by our thoughts, suckered by our habitual rumination and ancient storylines.

So today we're going to talk about the science of getting out of your head, of escaping the brain's default mode network, which my guests today refer to as the house of habit.

We of course need our default mode network, our capacity to behave habitually.

We need it in order to survive and in order to brush our teeth and tie our shoes without undue cognitive demands.

But if you are stuck in the default mode, you're missing out on quite a bit.

And you're also susceptible to many, many flavors of unhappiness.

My guests today are Dr. Zindel Siegel and Professor Norman Farb.

Together, they wrote a book called Better in Every Sense.

In it, they describe something they call sense foraging, which is a simple but powerful practice where you use your senses to turn down the more noxious aspects of the aforementioned default mode network.

In this conversation, we talk about what sense foraging is exactly and how it can help you go from languishing to flourishing, how shutting down your senses makes you more vulnerable to depression, the difference between sense foraging and mindfulness, why, and this is counterintuitive, but why most of us could use a little bit more chaos in our lives.

how radical acceptance can be a great starting point for sense foraging, and the nine simple rules for sense foraging.

A little bit more about our guests before we dive in here.

Dr. Zindel Siegel is a distinguished professor of psychology in mood disorders at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and he's also a co-founder of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

Professor Norman Farb, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, where he directs the Regulatory and Effective Dynamics Laboratory.

Two things to say before we jump in.

First, this episode first aired back in June 2024, but we pulled it out of the archives because it's awesome.

Second, if you are interested in meditation, I would love for you to check out my new meditation app.

It's called 10% with Dan Harris.

As you know, I had a meditation app for many years, and then I went through a painful separation from that app.

So I've now got this new thing, which I'm really excited about.