The Science of Stress
Stress is part of evolution’s brilliance. It motivated us to run away from lions in the jungle. It’s your body’s way of trying to keep you safe.
The problem is, in today’s concrete jungle, we’re stressed out not by lions but by traffic jams, overflowing inboxes, and an insufficient number of Instagram likes. All of which our bodies treat as emergencies.
What can we do about that? As part of the new Ten Percent Happier seven-day stress reduction course, which launches on the app this week, I spoke with Professor Modupe Akinola, a stress researcher at Columbia University, and Sebene Selassie, one of Ten Percent’s star meditation teachers. Here are two excerpts from those conversations.
Dan Harris is the author of 10% Happier and host of a podcast by the same name. He wrote the #1 New York Times best-seller about how a panic attack, live on Good Morning America, led him to something he always assumed was ridiculous - meditation.
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