How To Stop Spinning Out With Bill Hader | Staff Picks

We're bringing you some of our favorite gems from the archives, as chosen by our staff. This week, we're hearing from comedian and actor Bill Hader, as chosen by our digital media manager, Hayden Broom. Hader was part of our "Non-Negotiables" series, and he told Dan, with some disappointment, that "the hippies were right." Full Episode: Bill Hader on Anxiety, Imposter Syndrome, and Leaning Into Discomfort https://www.danharris.com/p/bill-hader-on-anxiety-imposter-syndrome-e1e?utm_source=publication-search Join Dan's online community here http://www.danharris.com Follow Dan on social: Instagram https://bit.ly/3tGigG5, TikTok https://bit.ly/3FOA84J Subscribe to our YouTube Channel https://bit.ly/3FybRzD To advertise on the show, contact [email protected] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Dan Harris?

  It's the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris.

• 0:20Dan Harris?

  Have you ever had that experience where your brain just gets fixated on something and just starts spiraling out? You start imagining all the horrible things that are gonna happen to you. This happens to me all the time. I suspect it happens to you all the time. So what do you do in those moments? Today, we're gonna get advice from an unlikely source, one of our greatest living comedians, Bill Hader, who's hilarious and also quite self-aware and quite willing to talk about his own stuff. So before we hear from Bill, just a little context. Last month, during our Get Fit Sanely series, we asked listeners to tell us about some of their favorite episodes from past iterations of Get Fit Sanely series that we've run over the years. We heard from lots of listeners, including Abby and Shannon.

• 1:00Dan Harris?

  It was really cool. So this month, we actually wanted to ask members of the team at 10% Happier to share a few of their favorite past episodes, and you will be hearing said episodes on Fridays throughout the month of July. So the way this is gonna work is that after the break, we're gonna hear from Hayden, who's a member of our team, about why he loved the Bill Hader episode that we ran a couple of years ago, specifically his favorite moment. So we'll hear from Hayden, and then we'll hear the moment where Bill talks about what he does when his brain is spinning out. Before we go to break, though, I just want to remind you that for this month, as well as during the month of August, we will be continuing to feature bespoke meditations for every Monday and Wednesday episode, featuring a

• 1:43Dan Harris?

  teacher of the month. This month, all of the meditations will be coming from the wonderful meditation teacher, Dan Mauricio. To access those meditations, you can become a paid subscriber over at danharris.com. One other thing before the break. We're in the midst of a big summer merch sale, which ends on Monday. It's your last chance to grab up to 40% off at the merch store while supplies last. The sale ends on July 14th, so don't sleep on it. Head on over to shop.danharris.com. Coming up, Hayden, the youngest member of the 10% Happier team.

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• 2:35Speaker 02

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• 2:46Speaker 03

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• 3:21Speaker 04

  My name is Hayden Broome, and I am the Digital Content Manager here at 10% Media. For my staff pick, I went with Bill Hader's episode from the Non-Negotiables series. Now, I'll be honest, I'm a huge Bill Hader fan. I'm a filmmaker myself, and Barry's one of my favorite shows of all time, so I'm a little bit biased here, but also, I think this is a truly fun episode where Dan and Bill are having a great time and they're laughing, and it's full of really, really great advice. The anecdote that really sticks with me is when Bill talks about spinning out about some event later on in the week, and his therapist has to go, "Bill, it's Tuesday." I have these moments constantly. It's honestly a rather frequent occurrence that I'm sitting around and my brain is like, "I think you said a weird thing at that party last night, and I think everyone could tell

• 4:06Speaker 04

  you're losing your hair, and I gotta go to the store and buy eggs." And it's like, "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, it's 9:30 a.m. Let's dial it back. Relax, dude." And just doing that, acknowledging this, as Dan names it in the episode, this "propontia," it fixes it really fast.

• 4:22Speaker 05

  Ironically, I'm now anxious that I'm going too long with this, but I'll just end by saying that it's great that towards the end of the episode, Bill acknowledges that these non-negotiables are exactly what they are. They are non-negotiables. These are things we have to do for ourselves because we know for a fact that they work. And in that vein, I'll tell you that I am loathe to meditate. I find it very boring, but I do it anyway because I know that it immediately makes me feel better. And also, I work for a meditation company. But anyway, I digress. Go listen to that episode. It's fantastic.

• 4:59Dan Harris?

  Thank you so much to Hayden. All right, let's hear the part of the interview where comedian and actor Bill Hader talks about what he does when his brain is in overdrive. Bill was on the show in January of 2024, and I asked him about what he considers his non-negotiables.

• 5:15Speaker 05

  It's funny. So I found on my laptop an old document that I made in 2010, and it was essentially this, like, here's everything. If you do this, you always feel better. And it is simple things like meditating, exercise, drink more water than coffee, easy on the sweets, you know, those things, but also writing every day and watching something or reading something every day for me, or some sort of creative work, and then seeing, hearing some piece of art, whether it's a movie or a book, or going to a museum, or

• 5:56Speaker 05

  something to see that that is very inspiring. But I always know I feel better when I meditate and when I'm working out and I'm watching what I'm eating. And then I would say, so that was done now 14 years ago, and...

• 6:14Speaker 05

  Every day I try to negotiate myself out of the negotiables.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  And it's like, I don't really need this, you know, every time I talk to a doctor, I'm like, but I can live on candy, right? People live on candy.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  You know, it's like, what's wrong with eating two pints of ice cream every day? That's not an issue, right? And he's like, that's a huge issue. You'll be very, that will not, that's not good at all. You know, during the pandemic, I got so anxious and went into such a hole that I didn't meditate, you know, I was so freaked out and I didn't really exercise. And then mentally, yeah, it made me, sent me into like a stupor, you know? And so that took a long time to kind of get out of. But I've noticed that when I do those things, when I take the time in the morning, especially to do those things, I just become

• 7:11Speaker 05

  much more open. I listen, I'm present. I had a therapist say, you, you write really negative narratives for the future. If I see, we're in traffic and I see cop cars and an ambulance and a fire truck, I immediately think, oh, my kids and their mom are just in a car accident. And he's like, that's a pretty dark narrative. And I'm like, have you seen my show? He's like, I think you need to work on those better narratives, you know, more positive narratives. And I think meditation, sleep, it's easier to take it easy on myself when those things are present. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm

• 7:55Speaker 05

  not apologizing for it. I'm from Oklahoma, you know, so it's like, I'm gonna go in a room and sit and close my eyes. Like, you don't call it meditation. You're like, I'm thinking, you know, because you don't want to be judged or something, you know what I mean? I need to stretch. If I just said that to some of my friends back home, they'd be like, I just, it's one of those things that you've learned that the hippies were right, and that sucks. You know, I'm 45, and you're like, all those hippie dudes were right, and that blows.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  It's like, I should eat well, I should stretch, I should get out, play ultimate frisbee, meditate, be a vegetarian, and like, listen to jazz, or whatever. I still can't get into the Grateful Dead, but jazz now, I'm like, this is good music. I'm getting old.

• 8:52Speaker 05

  So, I don't know, man.

• 8:54Dan Harris?

  But that sounds like the challenge for you is remembering or agreeing to actually do these no brainers that we can all agree on.

• 9:03Speaker 05

  Yes. I have to really make myself do it. And then the minute I'm doing it, it is an anticipatory anxiety thing. It is that negative, what do you call it, you know, narrative thing. Oh, if I do this, I'll be late to this, or, oh, no, no, I gotta do this right now, because if I don't take out the trashcans right now and clean my entire house right now, you know? And you're just, it's like, relax. Like you, I know you had a panic attack on air. I had a panic attack on air on Saturday Night Live. I was doing a sketch as Julian Assange. I was playing Julian Assange. And I was exhausted. And Jeff Bridges was hosting. And I showed up

• 9:44Speaker 05

  to work that day. And Seth Meyers was like, hey, Julian Assange just, they hacked, I forgot what it was. And he's like, so we're right in a cold open and you're Julian Assange. And I just went into a complete panic. Because I did it twice already, and it took years off my life. Because you, you know, to me, it's just the live television aspect of it, and the countdown, and five, four, three, two, one. Now, the whole nation is there. The red light goes on. And I'm doing an impression I'm not comfortable with.

• 10:19Speaker 05

  And I don't feel like I have it yet. And I'm like a perfectionist. So I'm like freaking out that the depression's not good. So yeah, I started to do it was the third week in a row where I had to do it and I was exhausted. I was just drinking coffee all day and eating sugar and I went on air and suddenly it was like, I started shaking. I had a wine glass and I just put the wine glass in front of my face because I was like, abort, abort, abort. And my brain, that word was just going abort, get out, get out, get out. And the red light came on and I was going abort. Jenna, our stage manager was motioning for me. She was like, you to put the wine glass down like we can't see your face. Put the

• 11:01Speaker 05

  wine glass down. And I just kept it there. And then I kind of brought it down and then it would kind of creep back up and then I'd bring it down. And then I went off stage and I just went to my knees and just in a hallway and just like trying to breathe and the whole thing. And that's when I was like, there's something wrong. Because before that, it was just, oh, I worry a lot, you know? And that was like, oh, there's something very wrong here. And so that was when I started to look into like, doing meditation and taking care of myself. But because I live at a TV aspect, it was just too, it was too much. But now I look back at it and I'm like, oh, yeah, before every show, I would get tired.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  And I would drink a huge, I would drink like three cups of coffee because I was exhausted. And then I go out there and I'm like, just, and then I don't know how you are, but people go, God, I can never tell you seem so fine. And I'm like, I was dying inside. It was hard. I have so much empathy for that. I mean, as you know, I've had the exact same experience, although I was only imitating a news anchor version of myself. But I watched yours and I felt that that thing, I could tell you like trying to catch your breath. And that's how I felt. It was like, I can't catch my breath. I'm shaking. And then the terrifying thing is, everybody's noticing. Yes, yes.

• 12:31Speaker 05

  And then it's like, I can see Jenna when she was like, motioning like, take the cup down from your face. Then that made the panic 10 times worse. Like, great, she notices. This isn't just in my head. She notices. Oh, shit. Now everybody knows. And that was awful. Yeah. So yeah, I watched yours and you, I thought you handled that really well, like how you just threw to the other people and got out of there. I thought that was really commendable because yeah, you're, you feel very much out of control and I, I still have panic attacks. They're way less.

• 13:04Dan Harris?

  Did you ever try beta blockers?

• 13:06Speaker 05

  No, I never tried beta blockers. And you talked about this, I think in your book, but I had a similar thing that you had, which was, I thought I had like the flu at one point. We were moving and my wife at the time was pregnant with her second child and I just finished my seventh season of SNL. It was a lot was happening and I was like, I have the flu, like my arms and legs are really tired. They're super weighted down. I can't see straight. And I, I thought something was really horribly wrong with me and I went to a doctor and they're like, I think you might be depressed or I think you might just be really anxious. And I was like, no, no, no, there's something definitely wrong with

• 13:46Speaker 05

  me. I'm like walking through water all day, you know? I went on a Lexapro and then like a small dose of Lexapro and then like the next day it was gone.

• 13:58Dan Harris?

  Well, then that was the placebo effect because it would take weeks.

• 14:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. I was like, oh, the next day it's gone. And they're like, well, it can't work that fast. Right? And I was like, oh, so it's in my, okay. So it's in my head. And I had a therapist say, I go, yeah, I get really dizzy and I can't see straight and I'll like, I'll stay home for weeks being like, there's something wrong with me. And she said, here, try this. Just go, this is anxiety. Just say it aloud. Go, this is anxiety. She goes, every time you hit the wave, just go, this is anxiety. And I did that and it would go away within 30 minutes. And it was crazy. And I was like, wow, I had no idea the power that this can have over you. You know what I mean? And, and

• 14:44Speaker 05

  you realize, I'm realizing this in my 40s and I've been living with it your whole life. Yeah, it's wild.

• 14:52Dan Harris?

  What are your earliest memories of being anxious or depressed or having just mental health challenges?

• 14:58Speaker 05

  I would say like missing the bus was a big one. I like getting on the school bus and I would have like this fear that the school bus was gonna not take me to school. You know what I mean? It was stuff like that, or I'm gonna miss the bus, or the bus driver isn't gonna know where to go. And I would really freak out. And then in class, I would never raise my hand if I had a question or whatever. I would always kind of go up to the teacher afterwards and be like, hey, so I don't understand this. Just the shame of being wrong or looking like a fool and being ostracized or something like that. And then everybody just was always like, you just worry a lot. And it's funny, the meditation I learned was TM was helpful for a while. And then I didn't

• 15:40Speaker 05

  really learn mindfulness until like a couple of months ago. It's been really helpful in terms of pinpointing how I'm feeling and, you know, it's just different. It's been really great. So I'm like now on a whole mindfulness. I'm reading Mark Epstein and all your friends. All those books and stuff has been really helpful. And I think a lot of people go through it. As you get older, it just becomes more and more apparent. You're like, God, I hate feeling like this. I want to try to like work on it. So it's been great.

• 16:13Dan Harris?

  I think a lot of the people listening to this show know the difference between TM and mindfulness. But I suspect we're probably gonna have some new listeners because people want to hear from you have never heard of me before. What, what in your mind is the difference between TM and mindfulness?

• 16:26Speaker 05

  Well, TM, they give you a mantra and you just kind of repeat a mantra. And the whole point of TM is trying to like not think. You go back to the mantra and you kind of, it kind of lulls you into this state of transcendence or a very deep relaxation. It's almost the opposite, in my mind at least, of mindfulness. In that way, you're just focusing on the mantra and nothing else. Mindfulness is you're very much focusing on your breath. So what the mantra was in TM and mindfulness, as you know, is like the breath and you focus on that. And then when sensations are coming up, you are very aware of them, you go to them and you're open to them.

• 17:09Speaker 05

  And it's very much kind of, I'm sitting, you're very much mindful of your body in the chair, the sensations you're having. And then issues that, you know, you might be having in that moment, I'm angry, you know, or as Joseph Goldstein said, you know, a quiet note, I'm angry, you know, or I'm upset or this. And so you're kind of pinpointing a specific thing that's very helpful for me. So at this stage, not that TM is a bad practice, but for me personally, at this stage where I'm at, the mindfulness has been very helpful in terms of going and being mindful of like, oh yeah, I get really riled up about this and now I'm aware of it.

• 17:53Speaker 05

  I'm not lost in it. Where the TM would just kind of put me into like, I would just relax and it's like, for me, it was like getting to have a warm bath or something. You're like, what's up? What just happened? What was I mad about? You know? Yeah, everybody was like Rick Moranis in Spaceballs after he like hits his head and he gets up, you know, and he's like, hey, guys, you guys smoke them if you got them, you know? It's kind of like that thing. It was like, that's how I was after, after lunch, I would do TM and everybody would be like, oh, man, Bill's, he just did his meditation because he's like, hey, what's going on, everybody? He's not like a weird, quiet guy.

• 18:32Speaker 05

  But the mindfulness is helpful just in like I was saying earlier where it's like, okay, this is what's happening in my body right now and you're just aware of it. Like right now, I feel like I'm talking too much. So there's like a mindful thing going, you're talking too much.

• 18:54Dan Harris?

  Dan might want to talk about something else and you're talking about this other stuff.

• 19:01Speaker 05

  Cause I can do that. When I get nervous, I talk a lot. So it's like, hey, when you get nervous, you talk a lot. But it's not beating yourself up over it. It's like you have a sense of humor about it.

• 19:10Dan Harris?

  Yes. Yes. There was a great line from this guy Ram Dass, who was, he was a Buddhist per se. He was, came more out of the Hindu tradition, but he was this like Jewish guy from the Boston area who was a teacher at Harvard and got kicked out of Harvard because he was giving the students acid or something like that. I'm probably mangling this somewhat, but.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  Oh, did he, he know Timothy Leary?

• 19:30Dan Harris?

  Yeah, he was, he and Timothy Leary were doing the acid or stuff together with the, with, with the kids. And so they got both kicked out and Richard Alpert, who went on to become Ram Dass and was in many ways very influential for the people that you referred to as my friends, like Joseph Goldstein and Mark Epstein and Sharon Salzberg.

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:51Dan Harris?

  Influential figure for them. But he has this thing that, the reason why I'm bringing him up, because it really relates to everything you just said, which is that you can do meditation for a long time and it doesn't mean you don't worry anymore. It's more like you become a connoisseur of your neuroses. You, you just kind of appreciate them and see them with a sense of humor.

• 20:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. You kind of shrug at it and go, there's that fucking asshole. Well, it's like, yeah, they just kind of come in and it's like, yeah, course, something like that. Instead of me being like caught up in it, like, oh my God, I'm so, you know, you're, you're in the whirlpool and it's, you know, a raging river and you're being swallowed down by it. You're kind of off to the side with your arms crossed being like, oh Jesus, there's that asshole again. That's kind of how I am. Or like, I'm worrying about this, but you know, I did it the other day with my therapist where I was like, oh, I'm

• 20:51Speaker 05

  feeling sick and I'm supposed to go to this event and the event's this weekend. And if I, if I'm sick, then I'm going to have to do this and I might have to wear a mask and then, I don't know, it feels impersonal and blah, blah. And he went, Bill, it's Tuesday.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  What's wrong with you?

• 21:13Speaker 05

  No, right. I see what you're saying. Anyway, yeah, like, stop. And I used to think that was invalidating your feelings or whatever. And it's kind of nice to have the mindfulness. And I think you've talked about this. I think it's important to be doing mindfulness and therapy and whatever else you can be doing. Cause I used to think, hey, I'm meditating. That's great. I mean, I'm drinking a ton of coffee and staying up all night and not working out. And I eat Jack in the Box every night, but hey, I'm meditating. And it's like, why am I freaking out all the time? You know, I'm meditating. But it's all kind of part of the thing.

• 21:57Speaker 05

  So, yeah, it was funny to have him kind of say like, yeah, man, I'm not invalidating your feelings. I'm just saying you're driving yourself crazy. Like, stop. You don't have to drive yourself crazy. Try it. Just give it a shot.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  And it's true. It's really nice.

• 22:18Dan Harris?

  You know, there's a name, there's a technical term for the spinning out you were doing on Tuesday with the shrink about the, about the party on the weekend. It's propuncha.

• 22:30Speaker 05

  Propuncha?

• 22:32Dan Harris?

  It's an ancient.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 22:33Dan Harris?

  Ancient word. And it means the imperialistic tendency of mind. The fact that we have a data point in the present moment, which is, okay, I feel like shit. And then we make this phantasmagoric mental movie projecting into the future. And we're imperializing the future with this negative movie making. And just the fact that there's a name for this thing.

• 23:00Speaker 05

  That's ancient.

• 23:02Dan Harris?

  That's ancient, yes. Really, it really, it takes some of the air out of this. Like, oh, it's a, this is a thing.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Pressure off you.

• 23:09Dan Harris?

  Yes, yes.

• 23:15Dan Harris?

  Thank you to Bill Hader and thanks again to Hayden for suggesting that excerpt. We'll put a link to the full episode in the show notes. Don't forget that you can get brand new custom meditations with every Monday, Wednesday episode. This month, our Teacher of the Month is Dan Mauricio. Those guided meditations are available only to paid subscribers over at danharris.com. So get on over there and sign up if you haven't done that already. Also, you can take advantage of our merch sale. It ends on Monday, July 14th with up to 40% off selected items over at shop.danharris.com. Finally, thank you to everybody who works so hard to make this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keenan, and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.

• 24:00Dan Harris?

  Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the Van Islands wrote our theme.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  We work with veterans every day. Caring about people isn't the same as knowing how to help. Safeguard Veterans gave our team free online on-demand training to better understand military culture, recognize when someone may be struggling, and connect veterans to support and resources. It's practical, flexible, and our staff actually use what they learned.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Get started at safeguardveterans.net. Click on Community Organizations. Safeguard Veterans is a 2026 pilot research program funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.