Jerry Seinfeld, Social Anxiety, and Meditation

This week I came across an interview with Jerry Seinfeld, focused on the benefits of meditation in his life.

I see Jerry as a no-nonsense personality, one who’s reached the pinnacle of success in a competitive field. So hearing him emphatically praise meditation perked my ears.

My Story

I started an on-and-off relationship with meditation around ten years ago. I’d heard of many benefits and I was hungry for tools that could help me reduce my suffering and maximize my potential.

I started by using the Headspace app, which resulted in about five minutes of daily meditation. It took about a year of irregular practice to see the benefits, but when they crystallized, I was impressed.

Most impressive was that a solid meditation daily practice would make my anxiety magically disappear. I could guess at how it worked, but even still, it really felt like magic. Whereas before I’d be prone to fall into vicious spirals of self-consciousness and unease, a streak of meditation would allow me to calmly, warmly, and directly engage with people. If an awkward moment arose, I wouldn’t feed my internal fire with negative self-talk, but rather look outwards with an internal smile, wait for the moment to pass, and find a clever prosocial solution. But again, that explanation understates the magic.

With this new tool at hand, my problem became complacency. A streak of meditation would temporarily cure my anxiety, but without its pain I’d feel less need to meditate. And with less meditation, my anxiety would inevitably return. After enough anxious episodes, my motivation would return, a streak would work its magic, and that’s how the cycle would continue for years.

Fast Forward

In early 2022, I realized that it’d been a few months since my last anxious episode, and I haven’t had one since. I didn’t realize it was possible, but I’ve been free of social anxiety for over two years now. I can’t attribute that to a single factor - certainly not to consistent meditation - but to a variety of sustained improvements crystallizing into a healthier default state of being.

Regardless, my motivation to meditate has likewise disappeared. While I saw several benefits from meditation, none were as visceral as my vanishing anxiety. Now that the anxiety is gone, I haven’t sustained a practice which would allow any new magic to appear.

New Motivation

Jerry Seinfeld vocalizing a different set of benefits reignited that motivation for me.

He focuses on how meditation creates sustained energy throughout the day, which is crucial for his productivity and his daily enjoyment of what you’d otherwise call “a grind”. Whereas ten years ago I was just trying to survive, at this stage of life, sustained energy and mental clarity is something I could really use!

He also emphasizes the dosage: twenty minutes, twice a day. Compared to my measly five-to-ten minutes per day, that also perks my ears. Perhaps there are clearer benefits at the twenty-minute level that I hadn’t yet seen. After working my way up, twenty minutes should be feasible, I just wasn’t aware of any benefits that were worth the extra time.

Seinfeld also shares how he used to only do twenty minutes each afternoon, and how twenty minutes in the morning clearly enables him to breeze through the day. Whereas he used to think that meditating right after waking seemed pointless, he now sees that while sleep is important for energy, it’s actually such a struggle. For many, a night of peaceful sleep is hard to come by. For him, sitting down for twenty minutes is a much more consistent tool for maximizing energy - even compared to sleep or coffee.

New Practice

This new framing inspired me to start meditating in two fifteen minute intervals, once after my morning routine and again before my bedtime routine.

Even within my new sessions, I can already feel a difference: after ten minutes, I reach a flow state that just feels great. The last five minutes are way easier than the first ten. Similar to wanting to stay cozy in bed when my alarm rings, when my meditation timer rings, I actually want to keep meditating. I rarely felt like that with my five-to-ten minute practice.

Meditating before bed, my ability to fall asleep has noticeably improved. I can’t speak to the benefits of the morning session yet, but I’m hopeful that the new regimen will lead to the same visceral benefits as I saw with my anxiety.

Here’s the interview for anyone curious. I hope you find it helpful!

If you have any questions, or if you’d also like to share your experience with meditation, I’d be happy to hear from you.