Libsyn Directory

#372: The Science of Making and Keeping Friends | Robin Dunbar

Release Date: 08/23/2021

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

You may have heard about stoicism, in the common parlance, as having a stiff upper lip, sucking it up, grinning and bearing it, suppressing your emotions, etcetera. Or you may have heard of Stoicism, the ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, that has become the de rigeur set of life hacks among millennial self-optimizers.

How to Meditate with No Agenda | Bonus Meditation with Jeff Warren

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Free your creativity with this light meditation and see where the momentum takes you.

#381: What Does it Actually Mean to Be a "Whole Person"? | Scott Barry Kaufman

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

In this episode, we’re going to demystify concepts such as: self actualization, personal growth, authenticity, and bringing your “whole self” to the table.

#380: Psychedelics and Meditation | Michael Pollan

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Michael Pollan has done more than perhaps anybody else in recent history to change the conversation on the use of psychedelic drugs, or plant medicine. He is author of the best selling book called How to Change Your Mind and he recently followed up with another book called This is Your Mind on Plants. Pollan is also the co-founder of the University of California Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, along with another recent podcast guest, Dacher Keltner.

Accepting the Unpleasant | Bonus Meditation with Joseph Goldstein

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Accepting the unpleasant: easier said than done. Joseph demonstrates how to overcome reactivity and build the skill of acceptance.

#379: How to Get the Wisdom of Old Age Now | Dilip Jeste

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Happiness levels are really high when we’re young. They then steadily dip through our 20s, 30s, and 40s, and bottom out in our early 50s–at which point, they make a sharp and sudden rise. Then, through our 60s, 70s, and 80s, they are way above where we were in our youth.

#378: Life, Interrupted | Suleika Jaouad

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Here’s a thought experiment: how would you handle it if you got a terrible diagnosis?

High-Fiving the Inner Critic | Bonus Meditation with La Sarmiento

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

Today’s meditation is animated by two profound insights. The first is that we don’t just tend to listen to our inner critic–we tend to believe it. And the second is that the path forward requires us to treat our inner critic with compassion and kindness.

#377: A More Relaxed Way to Meditate | Alexis Santos

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

A common problem among type-A people is trying to win at meditation. But the practice doesn’t work like that. If you over-effort, if you try to make something happen, it’s pretty much guaranteed not to happen. What is guaranteed is that you will suffer. Meditation is like a video game where you can’t move forward if you want to move forward too badly.

#376: Letting Go of Perfectionism | La Sarmiento

Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris

In this episode, we’re talking about the difference between kindness and what our guest, La Sarmiento, calls “radical kindness,” how to muster the strength to be kind to annoying people while setting appropriate boundaries, the difference between radical compassion and what the Tibetans call “idiot compassion,” and their experience of learning to accept themselves in a culture that is not always so welcoming.

More Episodes

Friendship might not necessarily be something you’ve considered to be an urgent psychological and physiological issue. On this show, we spend a lot of time exploring how the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives and our health. Sadly, in many ways, it’s harder than ever to make and keep friends.

With loneliness and disconnection on the rise, it’s clear that our society just wasn’t constructed for social connection. And recent data suggests we’re in a friendship crisis, with many of us reporting that we have fewer close friendships than ever.

Our guest today is Robin Dunbar, an Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University and the author of numerous books on the development of Homo sapiens. Dunbar is perhaps best known for formulating “Dunbar's number,” which is a measurement of the number of relationships our brain is capable of maintaining at any one time. He is a world-renowned expert on human relationships, and has a ton of fascinating research findings and practical tips for upping your friendship game.

In this conversation, we dive into the science behind human relationships, the upsides and downsides of maintaining friendships on social media, the viability of friendships across gender lines, and what science says you can do to compensate if you feel you are currently lacking in close friendships.

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Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/robin-dunbar-372

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