Jeff Warren

Jeffrey Warren (born March 11, 1971) is a Canadian meditation teacher, author, and former journalist who has popularized mindfulness and consciousness studies through accessible teaching and writing aimed at skeptics and diverse audiences.

Born in Toronto and educated in literature at McGill University , Warren began his career as a producer for CBC Radio programs including The Current and Ideas , where he created documentaries on the workings of the mind.

His transition to meditation teaching was influenced by personal experiences with attention challenges following a brain injury during university, leading him to study under mindfulness expert Shinzen Young since 2008.

In 2007, Warren published his debut book, The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness , a guide exploring twelve states of consciousness from waking to dreaming, which was named one of the top 10 books on the subject by The Guardian .

He gained wider recognition as co-author, alongside Dan Harris and Carlye Adler, of the 2017 New York Times bestseller Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics , which addresses common barriers to meditation through practical techniques and real-world stories from their cross-country tour.

In 2011, Warren founded the Consciousness Explorers Club (CEC) in Toronto , a nonprofit organization that functions as a meditation community and " think tank " offering classes, retreats, and resources to make contemplative practices inclusive and experiential, with the motto "being human takes practice."

Warren's teaching style, often described as dynamic and anti-guru, has reached varied groups including U.S. Army cadets, police officers, and teenagers, and he has received two National Magazine Awards for his journalism.

Through initiatives like the free Do Nothing Project and the Community Practice Activation Kit, he continues to advocate for democratizing mental health tools, emphasizing short, daily practices over perfection.

Jeff Warren was born in Toronto , Canada .

His family relocated to Montreal to facilitate his early education, where he enrolled in French immersion schooling, before returning to Toronto amid the political instability following the 1970 Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) crisis.

As a youth , Warren characterized himself as an impulsive, over-thinking worrier who identified as a long-time atheist, shaped by a secular family environment.

His father was an engineer from an agnostic-secular background, his mother from a vaguely lapsed United Church family, and he has a younger brother and sister. His urban Canadian upbringing in Toronto and Montreal emphasized practical, non-religious values that sparked an early imaginative interest in consciousness and the natural world.

During his post-secondary education at McGill University in Montreal , where he earned a B.A. in literature , Jeff Warren developed a keen interest in how the mind works, influenced by his upbringing split between Toronto and Montreal that fostered an inquisitive nature. This period in his late teens and early twenties marked the beginning of his intellectual curiosity about psychology and consciousness , predating his entry into professional journalism . A pivotal moment came in his second year at university when he suffered a serious injury, breaking his neck and sustaining a concussion after falling from a tree , which shifted his perspective and deepened his fascination with mental states and awareness.

Initially identifying as an angry atheist in his youth—questioning the existence of God amid observations of human suffering—Warren's worldview began to evolve during his university years into a broader curiosity about consciousness. This transition was significantly shaped by his reading of William James , particularly The Varieties of Religious Experience , which introduced him to the distinction between "once-born" and "twice-born" temperaments and resonated with his own emerging spiritual inquiries.