Self-identified “fidgety and skeptical news anchor” Dan Harris notices something big about meditation: unlikely people are trying it—from U.S. Marines to scientists, doctors, and lawyers. “They know it can help you be more focused on what you’re doing and stop you from being yanked around by the voices in your head,” says Harris.
He predicts meditation will be the next public health revolution.
“In the 1940s if you told people that you went running they would say, who’s chasing you. Right now if you tell people you meditate—and I have a lot of experience with telling people this, they’re going to look at you like you’re a little weird most of the time. That’s going to change.”
Harris notes that the benefits of mindfulness are so widespread that what seems to be holding mindfulness back is its ambassadors—often people who brand themselves as “self-help gurus” and make meditation seem like something reserved for yurt-dwelling individuals.