Olga Khazan

[laughs] And that's really the most important takeaway.

[sighs] Um, the author's name is Olga Khazan.

[smacks lips] She's a staff writer for The Atlantic, and she's also written for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she's published a book as well titled Me But Better [laughs]

[laughs]

I imagine nowadays [clears throat] some people are more inclined to turn to an AI chatbot.

[clears throat] [swallows] And with that, uh, let's look at the article.

Uh, the author, uh, Olga Khazan, starts off telling a story about a woman named Willoughby Britton, who at the time was a doctoral student in clinical psychology and also a teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction.

And this story about her takes up the bulk of the article, and it describes in detail how Britton had become a really enthusiastic proponent of meditation, so much so that she even considered quitting academia and taking up a mo- monastic life.

But a growing number of researchers, journalists, and meditators themselves are speaking out about how sometimes that is absolutely true, and sometimes there can be really adverse effects of meditation.

So how can something that seems harmless to wonderfully positively impactful actually cause harm? Well, I'm really excited to talk about all of this and more with Olga Khazan, whose recent piece in The Atlantic, The Dark Side of Mindfulness, stopped me in my tracks.

She's also the author of Me, But Better, in which she explored whether or not she could, maybe anyone could, change their personality.

Olga, hello.

I think that happened in, like, the 19th century.

This is staff writer Olga Khazan.

But kind of this modern moment of meditation that we're living in started in kind of like Silicon Valley tech companies.

Mm.