A major catalyst for Harris seeking change in his life? His on-air panic attack in 2004—he was on Good Morning America when it happened. As he states, it was “the single most humiliating moment of my life.”

In the recent ABC News video below, Harris shows a clip of that attack:

Harris embarked on a specific quest. From the official description of 10% Happier:

A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a bizarre adventure, involving a disgraced pastor, a mysterious self-help guru, and a gaggle of brain scientists. Eventually, Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset: the incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had both propelled him through the ranks of a hyper-competitive business and also led him to make the profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out.

What did he eventually find that helped? Meditation. Kirkus Reviews recounts some of his process toward this realization:

Though Harris’ journalistic assignments would bring him face to face with influential self-help spiritualists Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra, neither dispensed the precise amalgam of assurance and credibility necessary to truly diffuse his afflictions. After his wife Bianca’s success with books by sage psychiatrist Mark Epstein, Harris found himself connecting with the good doctor’s Buddhist leanings, befriending him and swiftly embracing the art of meditation, instead of debunking it as the hokey ‘exclusive province of bearded swamis, unwashed hippies, and fans of John Tesh music.’

From Harris’s Preface to 10% Happier, in which the book title is explained:

Meditation suffers from a towering PR problem, largely because its most prominent proponents talk as if they have a perpetual pan flute accompaniment. If you can get past the cultural baggage, though, what you’ll find is that meditation is simply exercise for your brain. It’s a proven technique for preventing the voice in your head from leading you around by the nose. To be clear, it’s not a miracle cure. It won’t make you taller or better-looking, nor will it magically solve all of your problems. You should disregard the fancy books and the famous gurus promising immediate enlightenment. In my experience, meditation makes you 10% happier. That’s an absurdly unscientific estimate, of course. But still, not a bad return on investment.

At first it was only five minutes a day that he meditated. But the three benefits he found immediately, he says, were:

1.  Increased focus
2.  A greater sense of calm
3.  A vastly improved ability to jolt myself out of rumination and fantasies about the past or the future, and back to whatever was happening right in front of my face

Now Harris has been practicing meditation for about four years, 35 minutes per day. Another important benefit he’s been able to find? It has to do with that “voice”:

I created a different relationship to the voice in my head. You know the voice I’m talking about. It’s what has us reaching into the fridge when we’re not hungry, checking our e-mail while we’re in conversation with other people, and losing our temper only to regret it later. The ability to see what’s going on in your head at any given moment without reacting to it blindly—often called ‘mindfulness’—is a superpower. I’m certainly not arguing that meditation is a panacea. I still do tons of stupid stuff – as my wife will attest. But the practice has definitely made me happier, calmer, and nicer.