(NECN) - NECN alum, Good Morning America and Nightline co-anchor, and best-selling author Dan Harris joined Jim Braude on Broadside to discuss his new book, "10 Percent Happier."
The book is Harris’ account of his on-air panic attack in front of 5 million viewers that inspired a life-changing discovery.
"I think the route of it is something that a lot of people can relate to which was a desire to be really good at my job," said Harris while explaining what triggered him. "I left NECN and went to ABC when I was 28-years-old. I looked like I was barely post-pubescent and I was working with Peter Jennings and Diane Sawyer and Ted Koppel and I was insecure about it and my way of dealing with that was to become a workaholic."
Harris volunteered to work from overseas after 9/11. When he came back to the U.S., he was overwhelmed and self-medicating with recreational drugs while out of the office. A physician later explained to him that the rise in adrenaline that drugs cause most likely triggered the attack.
"We walk around in a fog of anticipation for the future and memory of the past as opposed to focusing on what’s happening right now. And this inner narrator - this inner jumble of urges and desires can rule us if we’re not aware of it and meditation, which is something that I always thought was really dumb, can actually defang it," explained Harris.
Harris continued by discussing the benefits of meditation, crediting science as the sole reason that he got into it.
"There’s this sort of elite culture of Type A people who are doing meditation. There’s a reason because it makes you better at your job and better at everything in your life," he said. "I have the same stresses that I used to have, I just relate to them differently."
