Speaker 1: The Monks, which I learned to train was constantly asking
Speaker 1: myself why. Every time I wanted something, I would trace
Speaker 1: the why. Is it because of a societal expectation, or
Speaker 1: ego pursuit or a deep value? That three letter word
Speaker 1: is a skeleton key for unlocking your self awareness, and
Speaker 1: self awareness is at the root of self mastery. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: and I'm so excited because we're going to be adding
Speaker 1: a really special offering onto the back of my solo
Speaker 1: episodes on Fridays. It's my short daily series on Calm,
Speaker 1: the Daily j And let me tell you, it's unlike
Speaker 1: anything else I'm doing. It's part storytelling, part mindfulness with
Speaker 1: a wide range of unique actionable insights, and it's also
Speaker 1: the only place you can meditate with me each and
Speaker 1: every day. I absolutely love all the wisdom was sharing,
Speaker 1: all the lives were changing, and whether you want to
Speaker 1: improve your mindset, your habits, or your relationships, whether you
Speaker 1: on to work on developing more focus, presence or equanimity,
Speaker 1: building a daily Jay routine just seven minutes every day
Speaker 1: can make a huge impact, So make sure to check
Speaker 1: out the session at the end of the podcast, and
Speaker 1: then subscribe to Calm for your daily dose of The
Speaker 1: Daily J Go tocalm dot com, forward slash J for
Speaker 1: forty percent off your membership today. This week we're tackling
Speaker 1: the topic of mindset and how to approach life with focus, perspective,
Speaker 1: and positivity. Of course, if you want to listen to
Speaker 1: the Daily JA every day, you have to subscribe to
Speaker 1: cam so go tocalm dot com, forward slash J for
Speaker 1: forty percent off your membership today. Hey everyone, I'm so
Speaker 1: excited to be speaking with you today about six ways
Speaker 1: to monk switch your mind for growth and resilience. There
Speaker 1: has been a lot of research involving monks that shows
Speaker 1: how monks are really masters of the mind. I detail
Speaker 1: some of it in my books Think Like a Monk.
Speaker 1: For example, several years ago, a monk named yonge minga pachet,
Speaker 1: traveled from Nepal to a research facility in Wisconsin so
Speaker 1: the scientists there could observe his brain activity while he meditated.
Speaker 1: They put a device that looked like a shower cap
Speaker 1: on him and fixed hundreds of senses to his skull,
Speaker 1: and they had him cycle in and out of meditative
Speaker 1: states on Q. Now, if you've ever tried to meditate,
Speaker 1: you sit down and what happens to second you try
Speaker 1: to clear your head, your mind floods with thoughts. Right.
Speaker 1: It takes most of us at least five to ten
Speaker 1: minutes to settle down mentally and get into that meditative
Speaker 1: space if we're lucky. So knowing this, the researchers in
Speaker 1: Wisconsin were astonished by what they saw, which is that
Speaker 1: whenever they gave them monk the signal to start a
Speaker 1: meditation cycle, his brain immediately went into meditation mode. It
Speaker 1: was like flipping a switch. They had never seen anything
Speaker 1: like it. He was able to switch in an out
Speaker 1: of meditation mode again and again, just like that. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing that's important to understand. This monk wasn't special,
Speaker 1: no offense to him. What I mean by that was
Speaker 1: that he wasn't following some exclusive special training program. All
Speaker 1: he was doing was he was living the regular life
Speaker 1: of a monk. These same scientists, along with others, have
Speaker 1: run many exhaustive detailed studies on long time monks and
Speaker 1: other season meditators, and they all show the same types
Speaker 1: of results. An astonishing degree of mental control, whether in
Speaker 1: the form of focus, compassion, and even the brain indicators
Speaker 1: for happiness. Monks spend so much time training their minds
Speaker 1: that when challenges arise, whether it's dealing with external challenges
Speaker 1: like what we're all experiencing now or internal ones like
Speaker 1: struggling with ego, that's when their training kicks in. Like
Speaker 1: younger Mingo Rimpoche, we can learn and to monks switch
Speaker 1: our minds so that the practices we've trained automatically kick
Speaker 1: in in times of stress and struggle. Today, I'm going
Speaker 1: to share with you six ways to monks switch your
Speaker 1: mind so you can feel more resilient and experience a
Speaker 1: greater sense of meaning and purpose, especially in the face
Speaker 1: of massive challenges. Now, at the monastery, monks have what
Speaker 1: is mostly a controlled, immersive environment for their training. And
Speaker 1: so you're probably thinking, but Jay, I'm not a monk,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to be a monk, So how
Speaker 1: can this apply to me? This time we're in can
Speaker 1: be your monastery or your aushroom, And in a few
Speaker 1: minutes I'll talk about some ways you can actually create
Speaker 1: more peace in your own surroundings. So, if you're ready,
Speaker 1: here we go. Now, some of you know I'm massively
Speaker 1: into movies. I would have referred to one movie. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring in another. I especially love Christopher
Speaker 1: Nolan movies, and his movie Memento is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: If you're not seeing the movie, it's about a man
Speaker 1: who has a very specific type of amnesia, a brain
Speaker 1: condition where he can no longer make new memories, and
Speaker 1: the story is told starting with the ending, then working backwards. Now,
Speaker 1: since that movie has a neuroscience theme and I'm about
Speaker 1: to delve into some neuroscience I thought I'd do it
Speaker 1: Memento style. We're going to start at the end with
Speaker 1: where you want to end up and work backwards to
Speaker 1: how you get there. For most of us, it relates
Speaker 1: to resilience. We want to feel that no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: we can handle it, that we have the tools to
Speaker 1: deal effectively with whatever life throws at us. That's our target. Now.
Speaker 1: That might be individually, and it also might be from
Speaker 1: a relationship perspective or from an organizational perspective. You're an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur or a family person, whatever type of resilience you're
Speaker 1: focused on creating. Here's the thing. In order to change
Speaker 1: your external experiences in life, you have to master your
Speaker 1: internal experiences first. There are indisputable facts about what's going
Speaker 1: on around us right now in the outside world, but
Speaker 1: on the inside, we're all experiencing it differently. Some of
Speaker 1: us are filled with fear and anxiety, while others are
Speaker 1: finding a way to navigate it with more equantimity and
Speaker 1: even make progress in their lives or their organizations or relationships.
Speaker 1: Some couples are leaning in and becoming more of a team.
Speaker 1: Some individuals are using this as a growth opportunity. Some
Speaker 1: companies are creating new service lines. Take zok Doc, an
Speaker 1: online service for booking in personal medical appointments. The company
Speaker 1: had a massive amount of a momentum coming into twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: but by the end of March, they saw bookings decline
Speaker 1: anywhere from fifty to ninety percent. Co founder Oliver Kara's
Speaker 1: was advised to layoff staff and lay low for the duration,
Speaker 1: as many companies have done, yet zok Dog did the opposite.
Speaker 1: They expanded instead of trying to weather the storm. Karas
Speaker 1: says he saw an opportunity to build windmills instead of
Speaker 1: initiating layoffs. The company tasks their staff with creating and
Speaker 1: implementing a telehealth platform so patients could get remote care
Speaker 1: from their doctors. It was a massive effort, But within
Speaker 1: two months the company had done the impossible. They pulled
Speaker 1: off a successful launch of a brand new telehealth platform that,
Speaker 1: under other circumstances, Karas says, would have taken them two
Speaker 1: years to create an introduce. One of the greatest monks
Speaker 1: which is out there is to train yourself to equate change,
Speaker 1: especially change that seems negative, with opportunity. Monk David stendel
Speaker 1: Ross talks about something he calls grateful living, which is
Speaker 1: a way of cultivating trust in life and in all
Speaker 1: that's happening in the external world, no matter how it feels.
Speaker 1: As stendel Ross says, when you receive every moment as
Speaker 1: a gift, you ask yourself, what's the opportunity in this moment?
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what zogdog dig. And that's what you
Speaker 1: can learn to do to find the opportunities that are
Speaker 1: present in these otherwise challenging moments. But I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know countless other examples of organizations and people who do
Speaker 1: in the opposite. They're struggling, and that's underscertnable. I want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that this really isn't an exceptional time for
Speaker 1: us all and most of us are experiencing some combination
Speaker 1: of personal loss and financial loss or stress that's very real. Yet,
Speaker 1: as doctor Andrew Huberman says, part of what determines whether
Speaker 1: we struggle or find a way to thrive depends largely
Speaker 1: on how we frame stress. Hooberman is a professor in
Speaker 1: the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University who studies, among
Speaker 1: other things, brain plasticity, or our brain's ability to learn
Speaker 1: and progress. He says, perhaps the biggest determined of how
Speaker 1: we will weather storms, from the pandemic down to everyday
Speaker 1: stresses is whether we run from our fears, whether we freeze,
Speaker 1: or whether we move towards what we're afraid of. In fact, neurologically,
Speaker 1: it's only really in conditions of discomfort that we can
Speaker 1: train our brains to learn to thrive from stress and
Speaker 1: become more resilient. So we have our goal now to
Speaker 1: uncover how we get there, along with how ancient wisdom
Speaker 1: figures into the equation. Let's take a step backwards and
Speaker 1: look at some of doctor Huberman's research on neuroplasticity. It
Speaker 1: used to be that we thought that once you hit
Speaker 1: about your mid twenties, your brain couldn't change much. You
Speaker 1: can't teach an old dog or even thirty five year
Speaker 1: old new tricks right. But thankfully, modern research shows that's
Speaker 1: just not true. In fact, in some ways, we can
Speaker 1: actually become better at learning difficult things and performing at
Speaker 1: the leading edge of our ability, especially if we understand
Speaker 1: how our brains work, and fortunately, according to neuro research,
Speaker 1: there's a pretty predictable formula for it. The first part
Speaker 1: of the formula involves three things. These are the three
Speaker 1: elements you need to be able to learn to raise
Speaker 1: your level of performance. First, you need clear intention and direction.
Speaker 1: The second thing you need is intense focus, and the
Speaker 1: third thing you need is a strong motivation. The next
Speaker 1: step in the formula for learning and growth is that
Speaker 1: you need to apply direction, focus, and motivation continuously for
Speaker 1: an extended period of time. Think about it. If you
Speaker 1: lose your direction, you'll go off course. If you lose focus,
Speaker 1: you'll be ineffective, and if you lose motivation, you'll disconnect
Speaker 1: from the emotion that was acting like a propeller pushing
Speaker 1: you forward. Imagine a marathon runner during all those days
Speaker 1: and miles they log when they're training. If they lose
Speaker 1: sight of their direction, they won't train properly. If they
Speaker 1: lose sight of their focus, they can get distracted by
Speaker 1: all the other things they'd rather be doing, like hanging
Speaker 1: out with friends and eating pizza instead of running fifteen
Speaker 1: miles and the pouring rain. And if they lose their
Speaker 1: motivation when they're out on the road or the track,
Speaker 1: they won't have the heart to keep going. So you
Speaker 1: need to be invoking all three over and over again,
Speaker 1: just like that runner training day after day to run
Speaker 1: that marathon. And there's another part of the equation. The
Speaker 1: progress you make doesn't reshape your brain and create actual
Speaker 1: learning or skills. You can repeat until another element is added,
Speaker 1: and that element is periods of deep sleep or rest.
Speaker 1: So the direction, focus, motivation sustained along with deep rest.
Speaker 1: That's the formula for how we can reshape our brains.
Speaker 1: And it explains why Yonge Mingo Rimpoche showed those incredible
Speaker 1: results in Wisconsin, because that formula is essentially how a
Speaker 1: monk lives every day of their life in focused, directed,
Speaker 1: intense effort followed by periods of rest. Fortunately, as Huberman's
Speaker 1: research shows, you don't have to live like a monk
Speaker 1: to change your brain. You do, however, have to understand
Speaker 1: how to overcome some neurochemical hurdles. In that first part
Speaker 1: of the equation direction focus and motivation, your brain is
Speaker 1: releasing two main neurochemicals to assist with the performance and
Speaker 1: learning processes. Those are acetal coolin, which will help to
Speaker 1: make those actual changes to your brain when you rest,
Speaker 1: and nora adrenaline. The noor adrenaline, as you might guess
Speaker 1: from the adrenaline part, gets you amped up. Think about
Speaker 1: how you feel when you're about to compete, or about
Speaker 1: to give a presentation, or about to sit down to
Speaker 1: an intense work session. You might feel anxious, or excited
Speaker 1: or fidgety. Many of us interpret these feelings as negative,
Speaker 1: but as Huberman points out, some amount of agitation or
Speaker 1: even a feeling of frustration is normal to the process
Speaker 1: of getting ready to do something that's at the edge
Speaker 1: of your performance zone. It's what the initial stages of
Speaker 1: growth feel like. But many of us let these feelings
Speaker 1: of agitation sidetrack us. We can't get focused, we say
Speaker 1: in actuality. Part of the nora adrenalis's role is to
Speaker 1: help you get focused. So instead of allowing yourself to
Speaker 1: click over to Twitter or text a friend, you need
Speaker 1: to train yourself to just get started in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: The agitation will pass as you get into the next
Speaker 1: phase of the process, which is the sustained effort portion.
Speaker 1: So that's where that stress response comes in. When you
Speaker 1: feel that stress of agitation, that's a time to monk
Speaker 1: switch your mind. When you feel that anxiety, your hands
Speaker 1: maybe go a bit cold, or you get fidgety. Tell
Speaker 1: yourself again and again, I'm about to learn or I'm
Speaker 1: about to grow. Over time, those body signals will cue
Speaker 1: those thoughts automatically. As Stanford researcher and stress expert Kelly
Speaker 1: McGonagall says, when you choose to view your stress responses helpful,
Speaker 1: you create the biology of courage. How powerful is that? Literally,
Speaker 1: when you choose to see stress as useful. Now, remember,
Speaker 1: once we step over that stress threshold and start learning
Speaker 1: or performing. We're in our presentation or our high stakes meeting,
Speaker 1: we're working on writing our book, or we're running that marathon.
Speaker 1: We have to sustain the effort. And this is where
Speaker 1: another neurochemical you're probably familiar with, kicks in dopamine. Little
Speaker 1: hints of dopamine signal us that, as humanman says, we're
Speaker 1: on the right path, and that's what draws us forward. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: our brains would become too saturated with nora adrenaline, and
Speaker 1: eventually it would make us give up because we'd be
Speaker 1: worn out. Occasional dopamine hits actually balance the no adrenaline
Speaker 1: by giving us a chemical and emotional thumbs up, and
Speaker 1: that keeps us going. That's why marathoners will tell themselves
Speaker 1: just make it to the next water station, or to
Speaker 1: the next intersection, or it's why people tell you, instead
Speaker 1: of focusing on writing an entire business plan, to chunk
Speaker 1: it down into smaller pieces and just focus on completing
Speaker 1: one at a time, then giving yourself a mental high five.
Speaker 1: Those smaller milestones give us a boost of dopamine when
Speaker 1: we achieve them. There are other ways to get dopamine
Speaker 1: hits as well. Research from Huberman's lab shows that things
Speaker 1: like laughter, a sense of group cohesiveness, a feeling of
Speaker 1: being supported, or a sense of playfulness among others, gives
Speaker 1: us that dopaman that sustains our effort. So now let's
Speaker 1: backstep again and I'll show you how a monk would
Speaker 1: approach that formula for growth, learning and resilience. The first
Speaker 1: element was a clear intentional goal. For monks, our GPS
Speaker 1: that points us in the right direction is our value system.
Speaker 1: We looked to our values to direct us. So our
Speaker 1: intention or our goal would link to our values. For example,
Speaker 1: I tell a story in my book of a time
Speaker 1: when I was walking with my teacher and we came
Speaker 1: across a monk who was an incredibly accomplished scholar. I
Speaker 1: was so impressed with how many verses and passages from
Speaker 1: the ancient texts he had memorized. I turned to my
Speaker 1: teacher and said, I want to do that too, And
Speaker 1: he asked me do you want to do that because
Speaker 1: you want to be known as someone who did that
Speaker 1: or because you want to actually put in the hard
Speaker 1: work of doing it. So for monks, what we might
Speaker 1: have a goal in mind, say memorizing books or verses,
Speaker 1: we would link our goal to a deep values such
Speaker 1: as learning, rather than a surface pursuit such as ego,
Speaker 1: did you catch the monks? Suits there? It was a
Speaker 1: bit hidden the monks, which I learned to train. It
Speaker 1: was constantly asking myself why. Every time I wanted something,
Speaker 1: I would trace the why Is it because of a
Speaker 1: societal expectation or ego pursuit? Or a deep value. That
Speaker 1: three letter word is a skeleton key for unlocking your
Speaker 1: self awareness, and self awareness is at the root of
Speaker 1: self mastery. So train yourself to ask why. For a week.
Speaker 1: Every time you want something, ask yourself why, even if
Speaker 1: it's just a type of food, Where does that want
Speaker 1: come from? If you do this with regularity, you'll start
Speaker 1: to do it automatically, and the practice will help you
Speaker 1: connect with value directed goals. The second component in the
Speaker 1: learning formula is focused. How many of us have sat
Speaker 1: down at our computer with the intention of doing something
Speaker 1: We're finally going to start that course, and then five
Speaker 1: minutes later when on Instagram or texting a friend to
Speaker 1: see what they're up to. Without the ability to bring
Speaker 1: your focus fully to a task and sustain it, you
Speaker 1: will not make progress. There are several ways a monk
Speaker 1: cultivates focus, one of which is through mindfulness. You can
Speaker 1: think of mindfulness simply as noticing what is in the
Speaker 1: present moment without judgment. Here's a practice you can use
Speaker 1: to train that. Simply sit in a comfortable position, breathing
Speaker 1: in deeply and then out and in again and now,
Speaker 1: instead of trying to totally clear your mind, just notice
Speaker 1: what comes up, acknowledge it, release it, like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: notice some anxiety around work. Okay, I acknowledge you anxiety. Now,
Speaker 1: I realize you, and I bring my mind back to
Speaker 1: the present moment. If it comes back, acknowledge and release
Speaker 1: it again. There's no need to get upset at anything
Speaker 1: that arises. The goal is to not have an empty mind.
Speaker 1: It's to be where you are practicing, noticing and releasing
Speaker 1: the monks which you're training. Here is that when you
Speaker 1: sit down to start that course, when the inevitable distractions arise,
Speaker 1: you can simply notice them and release them, coming back
Speaker 1: to focus on your project. Essayist and novelist Pico Aya
Speaker 1: said in an Age of Distraction, nothing can feel more
Speaker 1: luxurious than paying attention. And I love that quote because
Speaker 1: that's the way we can hack our focus, but reframing
Speaker 1: it not as something that's hard, but as a treat,
Speaker 1: as a luxury, as he says it. Now. The third
Speaker 1: component is motivation. As I write in my book, According
Speaker 1: to a Hindu philosopher named Tucker, there are four fundamental motivations. Fear, desire, duty,
Speaker 1: and love. Everything we do sits in one of these
Speaker 1: four motivations. However, a monk would say as Tucker that
Speaker 1: fear is not sustainable over the long term. Your anxiety
Speaker 1: may motivate you now, but it's going to exhaust your
Speaker 1: body in your mind. Also, fear limits your access to
Speaker 1: creative thinking and decisive creative solutions. And when we are
Speaker 1: motivated by desire for personal gratification, we may be happy
Speaker 1: when we first get that new car or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: but we all know that feeling quickly wears off and
Speaker 1: will need more to achieve the same pleasure. However, when
Speaker 1: we're motivated by duty and love, these motivations create meaning.
Speaker 1: Love is the ultimate motivation and the ultimate why. And
Speaker 1: as American football coach Bill Walsh once said, if your
Speaker 1: why is strong enough, you will figure out how. So
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about what you want to do, you
Speaker 1: want to align your motivation with duty such as getting
Speaker 1: a better job so you can support your family, or
Speaker 1: love such as helping others, or the simple love of
Speaker 1: learning and improving. When they opted to create a telehealth platform,
Speaker 1: zoc Doc had the strongest why. Of course, the company
Speaker 1: wanted to remain profitable, but more than that, they wanted
Speaker 1: to protect their staff and their jobs. They wanted to
Speaker 1: support the medical providers who suddenly couldn't see patients in person,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to support people who are abruptly cut
Speaker 1: off from medical support during an international health crisis. When
Speaker 1: dot created their new platform, they even offered it for
Speaker 1: free to doctors who are not ZOC doc providers. See
Speaker 1: here's the single most important thing I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you today. Service is the ultimate hack. When you tie
Speaker 1: your work or your goals to love and service of others.
Speaker 1: It's the most powerful way to game your brain to
Speaker 1: strive and grow because service not only feels good, it
Speaker 1: also boosts our self esteem and creates connection with others.
Speaker 1: And service is a self reinforcing motivation. We want to
Speaker 1: keep working and to keep serving because we get so
Speaker 1: much satisfaction from it, and so we want to keep
Speaker 1: expending that effort. Service has its own built in reward system.
Speaker 1: For monks, our lives revolved around two distinct and intense
Speaker 1: areas of focus, the self and the not self. We'd
Speaker 1: spend the first half of our days meditating, learning classes,
Speaker 1: otherwise training and mastering ourselves. The rest of the day
Speaker 1: we would spend in service of others. Service was our
Speaker 1: highest purpose for me. It still is, it motivates me deeply,
Speaker 1: So that's another monk switch. Whenever possible, figure out how
Speaker 1: to switch your work from total focus on self to service.
Speaker 1: Whether it's service or your family, your community, or your company.
Speaker 1: It will help you feel motivated, directed, energized, and like
Speaker 1: you can make a real impact even when it feels
Speaker 1: as if everything is around you is crushing down. Remember
Speaker 1: this emotion will follow action, even if at first you're
Speaker 1: feeling down and defeated, if you're not sure how you're
Speaker 1: going to move forward. If you can use these steps
Speaker 1: to just get going, just start learning, just start growing,
Speaker 1: just start serving the positive emotions, the sense of motivation,
Speaker 1: of accomplishment, of connects of satisfaction will follow. Now here's
Speaker 1: the last back step. I promise that I'd give you
Speaker 1: a monk tip on bringing some of the ushroom like
Speaker 1: peace to your everyday training grounds. You want to make
Speaker 1: your environment supportive of your development, so you want to
Speaker 1: remove or limit as much as possible the things that
Speaker 1: are putting you in an anxious, reactive straight rather than
Speaker 1: a calm, proactive state. One of the easiest ways to
Speaker 1: do this is to pay attention to the three essays.
Speaker 1: The sights sounds and smells in your environment. Let's look
Speaker 1: at what we see. How do most of us start
Speaker 1: and end our day. Not with the kiss or a
Speaker 1: kind word for a partner, or even brushing our teeth,
Speaker 1: it's checking our phones. Data from Assurian says that the
Speaker 1: average American checks their phone ninety six times a day.
Speaker 1: It's usually to check social media or our email. And
Speaker 1: how do we feel after we do that? Agitated, negative, lonely,
Speaker 1: frustrated monk train would be much more difficult if monks
Speaker 1: had smartphones, trust me. So, one thing you can do
Speaker 1: is to try and control what you see at least
Speaker 1: as much as possible, at least first thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: and that includes minimizing your interaction with your smartphone. So
Speaker 1: you maybe print a beautiful image or motivational quote that
Speaker 1: you put next to your workstation or your bedside table.
Speaker 1: You may scribble it down on a post it note.
Speaker 1: You may look outdoors. That's one of the reasons monks
Speaker 1: are so tidy and ushrooms and monasteries are typically in
Speaker 1: natural settings. We support the cultivation of internal beauty by
Speaker 1: creating and enjoying external beauty. When it comes to smells, sense,
Speaker 1: evoke emotion. In fact, they're the most powerful link to memory.
Speaker 1: That's why you remember someone's cologne or perfume, the smell
Speaker 1: of cut grass or linen hung out to dry. Because
Speaker 1: sense have such strong triggers, you want to try and
Speaker 1: expose yourself to sense you enjoy or that calm you
Speaker 1: or energize you as needed. Lavender, eucalyptus and sandalwood three,
Speaker 1: or my favorite the final s is sounds when I
Speaker 1: was living in bustling New York City are usually end
Speaker 1: of my day's exhausted and maybe even a little cranky.
Speaker 1: Now that I'm in LA which is a little more chill,
Speaker 1: it's a different story. Later I learned about something called
Speaker 1: cognitive load, which you can sort of think of as
Speaker 1: programs running in the background on your computer that you
Speaker 1: don't actually need to be open, but are using up resources.
Speaker 1: Except it's happening in your brain. Right. So now I
Speaker 1: make a point to again, as much as possible, control
Speaker 1: the sounds around me. You can't have the news on
Speaker 1: the background and wonder why you feel negative. You can't
Speaker 1: have people talking all day and wonder why you can't
Speaker 1: find stillness. Now, when I have to set an alarm,
Speaker 1: I set it to soothing sounds instead of a blaring
Speaker 1: sound that will startle me. Try to cut down on
Speaker 1: any extraneous or unpleasant noise so you can have access
Speaker 1: to more of your brain's energy. So, now that we've
Speaker 1: arrived at the beginning, here's your assignment in addition to
Speaker 1: training your monks, which is, I want you to make
Speaker 1: a list of fifteen opportunities that are present for you
Speaker 1: right now. Now. Fifteen might seem like a lot, and
Speaker 1: it is, but that's the point to make you stretch
Speaker 1: and get creative with how you're viewing this current time.
Speaker 1: From those opportunities, start with just one goal you want
Speaker 1: to pursue that will get you closer to that skilled, resilient,
Speaker 1: powerful version of yourself. You now have a science and
Speaker 1: monk tested formula for how to make it happen. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. I hope you have an
Speaker 1: amazing day and I hope to meet you soon. Today's
Speaker 1: mission rewired the brain to focus on the positive. Today's
Speaker 1: tool self talk. The next seven minutes are about you
Speaker 1: and reframing or inner monologue. I'm Ja Shetty. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Daily j It's nearly impossible to reframe if we're
Speaker 1: rushing ahead. So let's take a moment to slow down
Speaker 1: and get centered with three deep breaths, breathing in and out,
Speaker 1: in feeling the stomach expand and out, releasing any tension,
Speaker 1: in focusing on the breath and out, arriving here in
Speaker 1: the present, let's dive in. Half a century ago, the
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom said that the adult brain couldn't change. But
Speaker 1: that was half a century ago when TikTok was just
Speaker 1: the sound of your clock in the hall. Scientists have
Speaker 1: since discovered that our brains are never done growing and reorganizing.
Speaker 1: They're never done rewiring. It's called neuroplasticity, and it's led
Speaker 1: to some major medical breakthroughs, but it also has huge
Speaker 1: implications on our daily lives. Believe it or not, we
Speaker 1: all have significant influence over how our brains continue to develop.
Speaker 1: To quote an eminent neuropsychologist called Rick Hanson, the details
Speaker 1: are complex, but the key point is simple. How you
Speaker 1: use your mind changes your brain for better or worse.
Speaker 1: Whatever we do consistently becomes an unconscious mental habit, like
Speaker 1: leaning into gratitude or dwelling on our fears. The challenges
Speaker 1: the brain is actually biased toward negativity, so it's really
Speaker 1: important to take intentional steps towards changing it for the better. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how do we do that? While there's emerging evidence
Speaker 1: that self talk is an agent of neuroplasticity, when you
Speaker 1: shift your thinking from negative to positive and you do
Speaker 1: it often enough, you'll move your brain in the right direction.
Speaker 1: And self talk is an incredible tool to shift your thinking.
Speaker 1: Self talk both reveals and then affects how you view
Speaker 1: yourself with compassion or criticism. But today I want to
Speaker 1: discuss your self talk in relation to feelings and emotions.
Speaker 1: Let's take the example of being tired. Happens to all
Speaker 1: of us right when you're in the middle of your day,
Speaker 1: but you will ready fel exhausted. In that moment, you
Speaker 1: could say two different things to yourself. You could say,
Speaker 1: I'm so drained, why don't I have any energy? I
Speaker 1: can't believe I still have all this stuff to do
Speaker 1: to so many hours before I can relax. Or I'm
Speaker 1: going to make sure I get to bed early tonight
Speaker 1: and get a good night's sleep only a few more
Speaker 1: hours to go. I could do this Basically, do you
Speaker 1: complain or do you make a plan with a positive outcome. Frustration, hunger, discomfort,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Any feeling or emotion can be met
Speaker 1: with a complaint about the problem, or it can be
Speaker 1: reframed to focus on the solution. Of course, it might
Speaker 1: take some work to fight back on negative impulses and
Speaker 1: approach self talk constructively, but ultimately that process of reframing
Speaker 1: will rewire your brain for positivity and you'll feel better
Speaker 1: in the moment too. Now, how many of you want
Speaker 1: some more good news? Practicing Meditation has also been shown
Speaker 1: to boost the brain, which is yet another reason we
Speaker 1: close with the moment of stillness. So get comfortable wherever
Speaker 1: you are, settling into your body, seeing if you can
Speaker 1: find a position that brings you greater ease. Close your
Speaker 1: eyes if you're able to, no worries. If not, just
Speaker 1: try getting as present as possible. And now, let's tune
Speaker 1: in to the breath, the pure flow of air in
Speaker 1: and out. Today. The breath can be your home base.
Speaker 1: Try holding your attention here, bringing your focus back. If
Speaker 1: you ever wonder if your mind gets caught up in
Speaker 1: any thoughts, return to the breath. If your mind gets
Speaker 1: caught up in any negative thoughts, See if you can
Speaker 1: reframe them in a positive light, and then return to
Speaker 1: the breath. We're not judging those negative thoughts. They're natural
Speaker 1: and we want to accept them. But let's see if
Speaker 1: we can move to a more positive place. And now
Speaker 1: let's open this up by reflecting on feelings or emotions
Speaker 1: that we tend to complain about. For me, it's when
Speaker 1: I feel overworked. Now, you may notice that there's often
Speaker 1: a pattern to your negativity, So how can you reframe
Speaker 1: things to break that pattern? How else could you improve
Speaker 1: yourself talk to rewire your brain. Change might not happen overnight,
Speaker 1: but there's no rush as long as you're heading in
Speaker 1: the right direction. If this session helped you reframe your
Speaker 1: thoughts to day, think about who you could share it
Speaker 1: with to help them with theirs. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me today. I'm so grateful your on this
Speaker 1: journey with me, and I'll see you again tomorrow.