Shift Your Mindset and Open Yourself To New Possibilities | Mel Robbins

today we've got a crazy cool topic we are talking about mindset and before we jump into the science and the cool tactics that you're going to be able to apply to your life to change your mindset I want to just remind you that this episode is part of a month-long series that we are doing here on the Mel Robbins podcast about the building blocks and the research that you need to know in order to create a better life here's the simple truth about your mindset your mind is either working for you or against you that's

what it's doing and so by the end of today's episode there's going to be a couple things that go down first of all you are going to understand that you have the power to reprogram your mind that's right you can take simple steps and you can practice them every day to train your mind to work for you and I'm also going to prove to you today using very simple science that your mind is trying to help you it doesn't know any better if it's working against you and when you can identify the way that you

want to feel or what you want to do with your life you can change your mindset to help you and when you do that here's what's super cool it improves the day-to-day experience of your life and it changes what it's like to be in your head so whether you're listening to this episode because you struggle right now with overthinking or feeling unworthy or maybe you have a really positive outlook but you just want to level up you want to play a bigger game that's where I am right now I am so ready to take a

bigger swing to knock it out of the park this year and the mindset and creating a more powerful mindset that is a tool in Your Arsenal to help you achieve anything that you want so today you and I are going to get serious about making your mind work for you and I want to start us off with a question question from a listener named Brandy hi there Mel my name is Brandy how do I stop the spiral of negative thoughts and feelings I really want to reset and start embracing a happier life I just don't

know where to start I hope you can help Brandy I am so happy that you asked this question because we have received thousands of versions of this question and I'm also kind of thrilled I picked your question in particular because you use the word reset and today I am going to teach you how to give yourself a mindset reset and I'm going to explain what a mindset reset is the simple step the simple steps to doing it it's all going to make sense in a couple minutes but I want to give you a preview so

that as we step into the process of giving yourself a reset mentally that you have a baseline understanding so here's a preview of what we're going to talk about okay you have a filter in your brain and I'm going to teach you using science and Neuroscience how to use this filter that's already in your brain to your advantage and everything that I'm going to teach you you can put to practice immediately and what I love so much about this conversation that we're about to have is that you may even experience an immediate change the first

time you try this little thing I'm going to teach you this is so cool because the moment you experience this small change in your mindset it will create momentum it creates excitement it creat possibility there's this opening of a whole new way of thinking but before we can get there I want to just start with the basics so that you feel really empowered around the topic of mindset and around reprogramming this filter in your brain so let's just start with a definition so we're all using the same terminology and let's define you and I what

is a mindset well your mindset is your beliefs and your opinions about the way that the world works that's the definition when you look it up however you know that I prefer metaphors Mel Robbins is dyslexic so she likes to be able to visualize something especially when we're talking about this intellectual stuff okay so the metaphor that I love when it comes to mindset and the sciencey psychological neurological aspect of mindset and brain programming is I use the metaphor sunglasses I think about your mindset like a pair of sunglasses so stop and think right now

about your favorite pair of sunglasses I have these sunglasses that I have had for almost 15 years I bought them because we were going on this rafting trip and I had forgot to pack my sunglasses and so I bought the only cool pair of sunglasses that they had on that Turn Style thing on the counter they were like 15 bucks and they are these huge black buge eyed glasses I feel like Jackie O when I wear them so think about your favorite pair of sunglasses for just a minute now I want you to think about

the lens color and think about how when you put on that pair of sunglasses that lens on your favorite sunglasses it colors and filters what you see and it gives it a tin right I mean if you put on rose-colored sunglasses the world has a Rosy bright tint to it if you put on Amber sunglasses same thing gray same thing my big black buge eyed glasses that I just love I Feel So Glamorous in these $15 plastic things every everything looks crazy dark just really blocks everything out your mindset works the same way as a

pair of sunglasses let's go back to the written definition of your mindset your mindset is made up of your beliefs and your opinions and just like the lens on a pair of sunglasses those beliefs and opinions that you have they create a mindset through which you filter the world and I'm going to give you a couple examples let's say you're a pessimistic person if that's your mindset if that's your outlook you will filter the world through pessimism just like a dark pair of sunglasses skews the outside world with this black and darker shade and if

you're not pessimistic let's just think about the most pessimistic person you know someone who is always negative they could be sitting on the beach in the Bahamas with a beautiful fabulous tropical drink in their hand sun is shining Crystal Clear ocean and they're annoyed because lunch hasn't come out yet you know that kind of person you've sat next to them at a wedding where the band is awesome the couple is so cute and happy family's together and what is this person doing they're bitching about something some relative that's sitting all the way on the other

side of the room all they notice is the one thing that's wrong or irritating them they don't even notice all of the amazing things that are going on around them isn't it interesting when I describe this negative pessimistic person you know exactly who I'm talking about and you're probably thinking dear God do not sit them next to me at the next family wedding I do not want to hear this okay I do not like that kind of mindset or that mood I do not want dark colored glasses skewing the way that I enjoy this situation

right now and here's the craziest thing about mindset you know that pessimistic person person you and I were just thinking about they have no idea that they have dirt classes on this is just the way they see the world I'm going to give you another example of mindset and how important this is I want you to think about someone you work with or maybe you go to school with this person who has a can do attitude no matter how tight the deadline or how rude the customer is that you guys are waiting on or how

much other team members are slacking off this one person with a can do attitude they always see the bright side or they have this unbelievable ability to just shrug off the rudeness of other people or the laziness of the students that are on your group project and they literally can just flip it and turn to you and go H well you know they probably have something going on in their personal life it's as if they always see any situation or any relationship from the positive they see possibility they give people the benefit of the doubt

they assume good intent this too is a mindset it's just like putting on a Rosy pair of sunglasses everything is sharper clearer brighter when you have this kind of mindset even a cloudy crappy day looks like a beautiful sunrise in fact there's a really cool study from the University of Toronto about rose-colored glasses this isn't just a saying when you wear rose-colored glasses your attitude is better and there's even more based on This research when you wear rose-colored glasses you even see more your visual Horizon is expanded because these rose-colored glasses put you in a

good mood your mindset determines the way you view the world and that determines how you think so I want to do a gut check right now with you if you had to tell the truth or actually let's make this really accurate if your best friend had to describe the color of the sunglasses that you wear would they say that you're more on the lane of the Dark bugee Eyed plastic glasses that just skewed everything like it was midnight or are you more on the range of everything's Rosy you're always positive you are always upbeat you

see beauty where most people see nothing do a quick gut check with yourself because your mindset is critical it shapes the way you view the world and that determines how and what you think about it also determines how you feel about the present moment about your past and about the future and most importantly this is where it gets really important your mindset determines what actions you take and what actions you don't take and it also impacts how you see other people so for example if I asked you so what's your mom like before you even

answer the question you subconsciously drop on sunglasses and it filters your opinion about her and by having a filter about another person it also limits what's possible for her you think she just is that way which means there's no room for her to change so why is mindset and getting intentional about changing in your mindset why is this so important why do you need to know what color the lens is that you view the world through and more importantly why it's time to pop those lenses out if they don't serve you and put in different

lenses so that you can see things differently I'll tell you why your mindset is so important because so much of your potential is either limited or expanded by your mindset I proved you almost every single episode on the M Robbins podcast that with the right attitude and consistent action you can absolutely change anything about your life or your health or your relationships for the better and if you're walking around right now with a really negative mindset you've got those dark bug eyed glasses on and you're sitting there every single day telling yourself day in and

day out that there is nothing that you can do about this situation this job this relationship this health condition that you've tried that You' failed that you don't deserve it that you don't know how I want you to consider that your own mindset is keeping you stuck in that broken situation because your mindset is not inspiring you to do anything about it being able to spot those dark lenses pop them out put in something brighter Rosier more luminous it's going to change everything and here's why when you feel more hopeful or when you see options

and you start to tell yourself well why not why don't I just try it what if it works out why don't I just see what happens I do deserve to be happier I don't deserve to be treated like this I should start speaking up that Rosier mindset it inspires you to take the actions that change your life and it's the actions that matter this is why I love this topic about mindset and what you're about to learn about the filter in your brain so much because right now now there are areas in your life where

your own mindset is blocking you from taking action and before we jump into the filter in your brain and changing your mindset I want to be very clear about something this conversation today it's not about positive thinking you and I are talking about training your mind to work for you that's very different this is not toxic positivity I'm not asking you to put a positive spin on a shitty situation I'm also very clear that thinking nice thoughts it's not going to get your bills paid however if you can get serious and intentional and strategic about

training your mind to have a Rosier and more optimistic and empowered attitude you my friend will be able to say to yourself I can do this you will be able to say you know what I know my student debt is piled from the floor to the ceiling and I have not opened those bills in approximately 10 months but I believe in my ability to figure out how to pay this off if you can that is an example of how you go from I'm [ __ ] to I can figure this out when you take off

the dark glasses you know what you'll see you'll see you're not stuck in the job you're not stuck in the relationship you're not stuck with the unhealthy habits that you have if you're the kind of person that constantly shrugs your shoulders and is like well it is what it is got this college debt it is what it is I always date these losers it is what it is my grandfather was Heavy my mother was Heavy I guess I'll just be heavy and feel really bad no no you can look at something differently and when you

look at it differently you see different options and I also want to say one more thing before we jump into the filter in your brain and its connection to your mindset there are things in life that you are not going to change or at least you're not going to change them overnight for example you and I cannot change that there is discrimination in this world there is bias and there is violence that a lot of people experience we cannot change the fact that poverty and mental health issues impact people for real but here's what you

can do you can train yourself to look at the future and decide how you're going to react to and respond to this the things that you're facing in your life you can decide how you're going to heal and what you're going to do about those things for yourself and your community and one final thing we have a huge Global audience here in the Mel Robins podcast and I want you to know if you're listening in another country that I am reading all of the questions that you're submitting through the DMS and through the fors at

melrobbins.com and I see so many of you writing about your desire to create a better life and the fact that it's hard because you're living in Iran or your country is under siege like Ukraine and I'm going to tell you something a positive mindset is not going to change the reality of what is going on around you here's what it does and this is why it's important it empowers you to face it to deal with it and to survive it that's what a mindset does and that's why it's important to get serious about training your

mind to work for you and this connection between mindset and action this is so important that I want to give you one more example about how your mindset either inspires action or it discourages it so let's just say that you are in a job and you hate it you feel stuck you feel like you're kind of dead inside you're not excited about anything it's day in day out the same thing or if you're not working right now and let's say you've taken time off to raise your kids and you're sitting there going I want to

get back in the workforce but I don't have any skills and I've got a 20-year hold in my resume if your mindset is like those Dark buge Eyed sunglasses that just muddy everything that you see this is what you're telling yourself nobody's going to hire me I don't have any experience I I don't even know how to write a resume how the hell am I going to get into interior design when I went to college for accounting and I work in a big accounting firm and I don't even know how to begin doing this I

can't make this happen if that is the way that you look at the future if that's your mindset if you color what's possible through that dark lens if you keep telling yourself those things you will see a world where you can't change so are you going to feel inspired to work on your resume of course not are you going to feel empowered to start googling and and researching and figuring out how to go from an accounting job into interior design no because your mindset has stopped you before you even started and that's why it's critical

for you to realize this is not just a conversation about your thoughts at the end of the day if you don't have a positive mindset you and I can talk about actions and habits all day long till we're blue in the face but you won't do [ __ ] about it I got to get you to have the kind of mindset that also says hey it's worth it hey I can do something about this because if I can get you to be more optimistic if I can get you to take the dark lens off and

put on a lighter one if I can get you to start believing it is worth it for you to apply it is worth it for you to put your dating app back up yeah it is worth it for you to pick up the pen and start working on that book you've always wanted to write hell yes it's worth it for you to take 10 minutes today and lay down on the floor and do those stretching exercises that the doctor told you you should do because you threw your back out instead of sitting on the couch

and bitching about it of course it's worth it if I can get you to start to flip from H easy for you to say Mel works out for you doesn't work out for me it's not going to help I've had anxiety for years if I can get you into hey maybe it will work hey maybe I'm ready maybe I should try this maybe I do deserve this that singular switch in your mindset motivates you encourages you to take action and that's critical because without action your problems are not going away without action those dreams are

not coming true without action you are not healing the crap that's giving you pain when you change your mindset it doesn't make those challenges disappear it changes your ability to face them and so I'm going to teach you and I'm going to teach Brandy remember that question she wants how do I reset this Mel how do I stop doubting myself well I'm going to teach you how to do a mindset reset because the fact is you can change your mindset you are not stuck with the thoughts that you think you are not stuck with the

way that you feel you can make your mind a place that supports you yes you can start to see possibility where you never saw any possibility or hope before you're going to teach us the five resets and how to manage stress and how to make it uh our friend let's talk about the first reset what is it the first reset is get clear on what matters most when you are living in a chronic state of stress you are being led and driven by the amygdala it is fight ORF flight mode self-preservation and it is all

about survival when you are living in that immediate sense of stress it is hard to get out of your own way and think about the future which is why when you are feeling stressed don't berate yourself when some when someone says how come you don't have a plan because often when you're thinking about what is a plan a plan is Forward Thinking motion it is strategic thinking it is being organized it is having some sort of structure all of these qualities and all of these roles are your prefrontal cortex and because you're stressed the amydala

and the fight flight or freeze is what is running the show that's right it makes so much sense because you're right when you are in a state of stress you spin in circles you feel totally overwhelmed you completely overthink everything for me I get very scatterbrained I also um I I I I literally feel kind of hopeless too when I'm stressed out like the sense that there's nothing I can do about this but try to get through this thing and it's and and when you said earlier that the tendency when you're chronically stressed or burnt

out is to keep working that's right and so that makes a lot of sense to me and so why though do you need to figure out like what actually matters to you when you're running around in circles when you feel like you can't escape the problems that you have why does this important as the first reset the reason it's important is because it helps create a road map for the future okay when you are in that present moment of stress and burnout and overwhelm you are at a point where you cannot even see the next

step let alone the destination the distance between where you are and where you'd like to be seems so vast like a Chasm so you don't even take that first step why bother it's not going to help correct I'm not going to feel better forget it it's the All or Nothing fallacy and this first reset get clear on what matters most helps you create that destination a road map a North star call it what you want could you do me a favor and talk to the person listening to you and walk them through how you find

a reason for why you want to get less stressed like how do you do this can you just walk us through it as if we're sitting there in front of you when you're feeling a sense of stress you may say to yourself because your inner critic has a megaphone you may say to yourself what is the matter with me instead ask yourself what means most to me this is not a big easential ask about what is the meaning of life and where do I belong this is very practical and so when you're thinking about your

destination why are you doing this work for less stress and less burnout it's because you want to create a goal that means most to you and most stands for something so m is motivating o is objective s is small and te is timely it takes 8 weeks to build a habit understand that part of that 8 weeks is falling off the wagon and getting back on the wagon to continue so give yourself a solid 3 months to reach your most School understanding that you're going to fall off and get back on and fall off and

get back on it's all part of the process and Trust the process and then once you have your most goal of why do you want to do this work for less stress and burnout it's not that much work by the way I'm thinking about uh a moment recently where I absolutely hit like a medical state of burnout and it was several months ago and my why if I were thinking about why I finally hit the wall were things like I want to sleep through the night I don't want to dread the work that I have

coming up this week I don't want to feel like I am constantly behind the ball I don't want to wake up in in the middle of the night and be thinking about work I want like I need a freaking break like it was all so much in the negative so when you're doing this first reset is it important that when you think about that small timely little goal of yours that it be framed as something positive not necessarily it doesn't have to be something external it can be something internal but I would say that framing

it as a positive and say to yourself I want My Future Self to be X Y and Z fill in the blank I Want My Future Self to have better sleep or you can be fed up and say I'm sick of not being able to sleep through the night I want to sleep through the night motivation comes in many different forms it can be positive and energetic but it can also be that you're just fed up of your own [ __ ] what's reset number two once you have this why in mind like I am

thinking about why it matters to me to turn off the amydala hit the reset get control of it you say it's find quiet in a noisy world what does that mean this is perhaps one of the most important resets you may think that when you have stress and burnout you need to check out and spend six months in Bali at least for me anytime I feel overwhelmed with stress you say that you have that sense of overwhelm when I have a lot of stress in my life I am irritable I am so short and I

am just like constantly frowning yes or quick to anger yes and I even knowing all of the science it takes me a little bit I cannot tell you how much over the past like six months I've had my husband say to me I think you need to start the resets again well and then I'll say oh yeah oh my cuz I have doubled down on every single reset during this whole fast I I I walk the talk but particularly over the past few months well just to put it in context do doing a book tour

for a book this important is probably like being a resident in medical school absolutely what is popcorn brain popcorn brain is a biological phenomenon coined by a man named Adam Levy and it is when any any time that you're waiting you're in a grocery store in line waiting to buy food you're on your phone you are at the bank at waiting to see the teller you're on your phone there have been more near Miss pedestrian accidents because of corn brain you are just always on your screen always engaging all day every day during all waking

hours and it creates a sense of hyper stimulation in your brain which makes it difficult to live offline because offline life moves at a decidedly slow pace the pace of life is very different offline think about when you've said hey you know what I'm not going to check my phone for a few hours and you're just hanging out it's very eerie it's slow you can see if you have popcorn brain by doing a quick test keep your phone in another room and if you can for a couple of hours even try for 30 minutes sit

down with a piece of paper and a pen and every time you feel that compulsion to check your phone just put a little Mark and you will be shocked and appalled even me knowing all of the science I had to keep my phone far away so I could write the five resets because it is has such a pull popcorn brain also is triggered by the amydala because you are having that sense of hypervigilance like oh let me check my phone let me check my phone that sense of wanting to check there's another phenomenon that's very

tied to popcorn brain which is even more concerning which is called brain drain so it's not just when you use your phone which is what popcorn brain is but scientists have found that brain drain occurs meaning your phone like this phone it's right next to me during this whole conversation and so your brain there's a phenomenon where just that sheer potential for distraction having a phone close by can be incredibly distracting for your brain and increase your sense of stress and burnout so the antidote to popcorn brain or brain drain is to create digital boundaries

we have in every relationship in our life with our partners our colleagues our friends we have boundaries but we have porous boundaries or often No Boundaries when it comes to your relationship with your digital devices this is not about becoming a digital Monk and abstinence we need to engage in news it's important to be an informed citizen what are your favorite boundaries one of the most important things is to keep your phone off your nightstand and invest in a lowcost alarm clock instead what I love is your 5c rule when you get up out of

bed over 50% of people check the news or check their phones and check their emails think about what that's doing to your brain what that's doing to your amydala if you are stressed and burned out chances are you didn't sleep very well that at night or if you had a good night's sleep great but then immediately it's triggering it's triggering all of these chemicals and the Cascade in your brain instead keep your phone away from your nightstand when you open your eyes take in the morning light and then do the 5c Rule and get up

out of bed then you know maybe go to the bathroom brush your teeth do some stretches and then check your phone okay so that is a key geographical boundary what's another boundary during the day at work keep your phone out of sight so you decre that Primal urch to scroll keep it in a cubicle drawer keep it out of Arms Reach 10 ft away from you in a cubicle drawer just so it is not in your reach the reason is because when you have that Primal urge to scroll what you want to do is you

want to override it and you want to create more intentionality around your media consumption you know I'll share personally that our executive producer Tracy will not allow me to have my phone when we are in a meeting she will reach over if I grab it and literally like a mom guide it out of my hand put it away and I'll tell you she's right like you're just distracted so even if it's near me and I have made it a habit there's a uh kind of a task table here at work where I set up when

I'm you know in Boston and my phone is always right over there I don't have it on my person I try not to carry it around I try to put it back over there because I know how I just grab it and just grab it Dr Dei what's one hack you can do for better focus one thing you can do Mel is to put your phone in grayscale when I really felt like my phone you know who's in control me or my phone and there were many mo moments in my life where I would say

ah it was my phone now it's very much me but I would switch my phone to grayscale and just doing that with my screen made all the difference because all of the lights and the I mean sorry all of the colors and the brightness and everything is just very enticing so when it's gray skill it makes it less enticing it actively changes your brain and how does it change your brain well because it's you know uh big Tech is they know exactly what they're doing so when you have colors and patterns and beautiful images and

this user interface it makes it more enticing to continue using think about when something is black and white and like if you if you switched your phone to grayscale today try it today switch your phone to grayscale and it just becomes less enticing because it's less you know the the chemicals aren't going off in brain the neurotransmitters and because it's just it's kind of boring well what I love about the way you're teaching this is that I've certainly heard a ton of people talk about the connection between stress and social media and stress and your

phone and the need to get off your phone and these topics but when you explain it in terms of your amydala turning on and that your amydala putting you in fight flight or or freeze somehow knowing that makes this way more tangible it also makes it way more important to me that I follow this advice and I pay attention to when the amydala is running the show versus when I'm running the show and these boundaries and this second reset is a way for you to run your life rather than letting the amydala just kick into

high gear and keep you Hostage to all of this stuff that's right and I think my Approach comes from Decades of being a medical doctor and seeing patients so every single thing that I offer to my patients during my talks in this book the five resets every single thing is free that was really important to me because I have had patients from all walks of life with different resources and that was critical to me the second thing that I really aimed to do with every single strategy I offer of course it's science-based but that it

is time efficient if we all could spend an hour getting a massage and then getting an acupuncture treatment and then going for a walk and all of the wonderful things that we are that are available to anyone who has the means to do the time as well then great but for most people in everyday life you have an overscheduled life a million competing priorities and often you put yourself last on that list and so stress and burnout your own stress stress and burnout on your own mental health is like oh I'll get to it when

but if not now then when and so really making sure that these strategies are easy and practical and can be something that you do today many of these things you can start today and it is all when it comes to your brain and rewiring your brain and body for less stress and more resilience or less stress and less burnout these incremental changes a little bit every day can actually rewire your brain it is not some big Grand gesture that does it like a massage once a month great a nice Band-Aid it'll help you when you

get a massage or when I get a massage it feels great for a day and then the next morning I wake up and it's the same old stuff well now I know why because the amydala is the issue it's it's that is a th% what you're teaching us it's always the amydala it's literally the amydala so what would you like if the if the person listening wants to get a better night's sleep as a Harvard educated medical doctor and Professor what what would you tell the person listening to do tonight in order to get a

better night sleep I always lead with self-compassion so first is if you are not sleeping well you are not alone it is not your fault when you have better days you will have better nights take sleep and your difficulty with sleep as a simple sign or a symptom of something that you want to work on you can Target tared head on with a lot of these strategies keep your phone off your nightstand invest in a lowcost alarm clock aim to not you know first thing when you wake up don't scroll try to do something else

and create and the other thing that I would say is 2 hours before bedtime limit your screens again nothing is overnight it doesn't work like magic but if you start these today give yourself eight weeks but you will see a difference within a week by the weekend you should start feeling better these things take shape quickly because your brain and your body are rewiring all the time your brain is a muscle neuroplasticity a very fancy science word but it means your brain is a muscle it's not a grab bag like what you got for birth

is what you got for life it's not what it is your brain is like a muscle just like a bicep so you know in exercise we the the thing with sleep that's fascinating is that like with exercise if you did you know 2 pound dumbbells like 100 curls with your biceps you'd know that it's doing something I mean it's not going to do as much as like a 10 pound you try it anyway you're like you know what I'm going to try it so think of your brain as a muscle try things out experiment understand

that doing a little bit a simple change like keeping your phone off your nightstand could make all the difference and could be a GameChanger it doesn't have to be this big giant lifestyle overhaul also your brain cannot handle big lifestyle overhauls when you are feeling a sense of stress because even positive change like all of these things that we're talking about change is considered a stressor to your brain well that's why you always recommend in your book too that rule of two the rule of what is the rule of two the rule of two is

how our brain responds to change when we are feeling a sense of stress so think about in 2020 you may have had big lofty goals mine was to build a farmhouse table from scratch to learn Italian and to learn to play the guitar and now it's a wonder if you wear clean clothes and eat a few vegetables at 2024 right like we're here now it's because you cannot sustain huge lifestyle overhauls during periods of stress because even positive changes are considered a stressor to your brain and this is this was a landmark study done in

the 1960s by two uh Doctors Two psychiatrist Dr Holmes and rahy they studied 5,000 people and 43 of the most common life conditions positive happy things like we were talking about right like getting a new job falling in love having a child getting married buying a new car and the sad things in life death unemployment divorce lots of these horrible things and what they found in this research was that at the end when they added up the they tallied up every single person all of these life events and found that the more life events that

you have accured your greater chance of having stress and burnout and greater illness down the road which showed it's the basis of the rule of two to focus on two things at a time even positive change can be a stressor for your brain because your brain needs time to adapt and recover from this positive change again the word stress healthy stress being adaptive it's your brain adapting to these changes so just aim to do two things at a time you might read the five resets and say or you might listen to our conversation and we're

offering so many strategies in this conversation you may say I'm going to do everything all at once everything but the kitchen sing approach you'll do it for four weeks and then you'll say there's no way I'm doing this so pick the most important thing to improve and then just if you were to literally just stop the Doom scrolling and put your phone some where other than your bedroom at 7:00 at night and you create that boundary and then you don't sleep next to it and you don't look at it first thing in the morning if

you were to Simply do that your sleep would improve almost immediately your sleep would improve immediately the entire tenor of your day would change and you would feel so much more grounded you would feel you know whatever symptom that you're having of stress there are many it would have an immediate impact on your stress and your burnout and over time if you continue to do that day after day after day you will be a changed person I'm so excited for the third reset um because we're talking about the brain Body Connection and how when this

little amydala starts going bananas what is number three the third reset is sink your brain to your body it is all about the Mind Body Connection what does that mean sink your brain to your body when you hear the term mindbody connection you may think that's total woooo but in fact there is a lot of robust scientific literature to support the mindbody connection which is a fancy term for simply saying that your brain and your body are in constant communication and inextricably linked what's good for your brain is good for your body and vice versa

when you do better you feel better and it's all in the doing you may be hearing about the mindbody connection for the first time today but you have been experiencing the mindbody connection forever butterflies at falling in love your face flushing at an embarrassing moment you're about to give a presentation for work and your heart starts racing this is the Mind Body Connection it's like gravity it's happening in the background all the time the beauty of the mindbody connection is that while it is happening around us in you at all times you can learn to

tap into the mindbody connection understand it and most importantly influence it to better serve you with your stress and your burnout the quickest way to tap into your mindbody connection is with your breath your breath is the only physiological mechanism that is under voluntary control and involuntary control so you and I could do a breathing exercise today right now and you would feel a sense of calm and then we're just talking and your breath is going let's do it your brain can't do that your brain waves your digestion can't do that nothing else in your

body has that same under voluntary control and involuntary control um so that is the first kind of way that you can tap into it so there are very quick and the other thing to mention is that when you are in amydala mode or fight ORF flight mode you're sympathetic nervous system again a fancy scientific word we have two nervous systems in the body one is the sympathetic nervous system that governs fight or flight the other one governs something called rest and digest it's the parasympathetic nervous system the two can't be on at the same time

they're mutually exclusive and your breath can help modulate be the light switch between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic system so when you are in sympathetic mode driven by your amydala your heart is beating you have quick shallow breathing think about when you're anxious you're breathing you know you're anxious you're breathing quickly very shallow and Rapid that is because it's a physiological mechanism you're trying to get the oxygen in to go to your muscle so you can fight or you can flee parasympathetic mode you are breathing deeply and slowly it is rest and digest sympathetic mode

is that quick shallow breathing is thoracic breathing it's chest breathing parasympathetic mode rest and digest it's belly breathing and knowing this very scientific explanation it's simply to say that when you modulate your breathing and influence your breathing you can switch one system on and off and and you can tap into your Mind Body Connection because of what you know now about the breath gotcha as you're thinking about managing your stress and burnout it's also important to think about your gut brain connection can you explain to the person um listening how physically the gut and the

brain are connected and how they speak to each other and how I found it fascinating when I first learned that they were part of the same tissue yes uh when you are being formed as an embryo and that during your development that they literally are one Clump that then separates and I always imagine that there's like this gooey Ooey sticky stuff between your brain and your gut but could you explain it as a medical doctor what the brain gut connection is the brain gut connection is that your brain and your gut are literally speaking to

to each other and there is cross talk at all times it happens through a ecosystem of trillions of bacteria healthy bacteria in your gut called the microbiome I want to say that the gut is considered the second brain because they're three to five times more serotonin receptors in your gut than your brain when you hear the word serotonin you know the popular class of drugs ssris these are medications that we use for depression and anxiety and a whole host of other things and these are brain chemicals ser Onin when you hear the word you think

oh brain brain chemical but in fact there are three to five times more serotonin receptors in your gut than your brain one of my mentors used to say my early Mentor he would say I wonder why people are walking around with like hearts around their neck they should be using their brain like as a little pendant and then another Mentor said forget the brain we should be having like our guts around our necks cuz that is truly the second brain it's like that's how much the science supports this idea of the gut being the second

brain and every weak Mel there is new comp comping fascinating research about the gut brain connection and so this microbiome this ecosystem of trillions and trillions of healthy bacteria in your gut govern so many things besides digestion it is a bidirectional Highway of information your brain is sending signals to your gut and your gut is sign sending signals right back to your brain as a doctor at Harvard what do you do for exercise and movement 25 years ago I was a stressed patient paent looking for answers and that is why that was that's my villain

origin story of how I became a doctor with an expertise and stress is because I was a stress patient looking for answers I found my way out of the stress struggle put on my scientist's hat I had gone to see a doctor and my doctor had said you know go get a massage and just relax just try to relax more so I was like okay I'll get a massage I'll have dinner with friends I'll go retail therapy all the things that didn't work and so when I put on my scientist hat and I started looking

and doing the research is when I really found out okay this is how stress impacts the brain and the body and this is how I'm going to find my way out of stress movement was one and then when I came out of that I said I wanted to be the doctor that I needed during that difficult time so that's my origin story I mentioned that because movement was not something I did every single day I was working 80 hours a week and I don't know I was running from one patient room to the other I

thought that was movement enough and so what I did during that time I was acutely stressed I was so depleted and running on fum smell I was erratic in my food intake my sleep seeing death and dying on a daily basis self-care and burnout or even stress was not in my lexicon it was not in my vocabulary when I was training in my medical training my motto how I was trained was pressure makes diamonds someone sat a whole group of medical students down in our first year or second year of Medical Training and said I

just want you guys to know what you're about to go through pressure makes diamonds so I was like Hey diamond in the making bring it on and then my diamond cracked so when I discovered all of the science around why movement is important and exercise is like e the dreaded e word no one likes to talk about it so I we can talk about Movement we can talk about exercise that to answer your question it has changed when I was a stressed patient or a medical resident working 80 hours a week and I had was

running on fumes and so depleted I focused on gentle therapeutic movement so I went to yoga class several times a week that was my Gateway just to say that doctors are socialized to place small we don't share our own personal stories because we focus on the patient so writing the five resets and sharing my personal story I have to tell you Mel I might start crying but you were an inspiration for sharing that story because you share so much of your own personal stuff to help people and I knew that the only way that people

would relate to me is if I told them the truth and not I'm just doing this for my patients it's because no I was a patient I struggled with my stress and burnout and that's when I became the doctor I needed during that difficult time and so your story and your example was like a leading sort of like a a light that really a lighthouse that guided me well I'm thrilled that you shared your story because you clearly are the doctor we all need thank you and so during that really difficult time I focused on

a couple of days a week of yoga gentle stretching nothing much and a few walks so I used to walk every single day which is why in the five resets when I talk about movement walk even if it's 5 or 10 minutes again you might say what's a walk going to do it's going to do nothing because it's not about the promise of physical fitness this is the promise of mental Fitness and so a little bit of a daily walk and the reason I walked every single day when I was a stressed patient and why

I suggest when people are feeling that acute sense of stress to walk is every single day is because it avoids decision fatigue if you say to yourself when you're deeply stressed I'm going to go to the gym three times a week for an hourong class okay then Monday rolls around a deadline comes up at work you don't go Tuesday there's a family obligation or a conflict you don't go Wednesday same thing and by Friday you might have gone zero or one time your sense of self your sense of self-efficacy goes down you're like H I

can't get anything right why bother at all and then your amydala starts firing right because your the forward future planning prefrontal cortex isn't working as great instead aim to do something a little bit every day it avoids decision fatigue now to answer your question it's changed so initially I started my I was a sedentary person I didn't really exercise much I was into dancing as a child but not Sports now I understand the value of sports for so many reasons gentle yoga and walks every day 10-minute walk that was like yes I walk check this

is not about like walking five miles a day I love that cuz everybody because the person listening is like okay how long what do I do and it's just 10 minutes just 10 minutes 5 minutes is fine too if you can do 20 minutes of a walk every single day great it's the equivalent of a Facebook scroll seriously we all scroll that's true or Instagram or choose your choose your poison it's the it's the equivalent of a scroll opt out of a scroll and go for a walk instead do it in between your meetings if

you can 5 10 minutes every single day it's that inertia that you're you know sometimes it feels like you're waiting through molasses when you're feeling stressed of like lacing up your sneakers and going outside and if you say oh I'm going to do this for 45 minutes forget it you're never doing it but if you say oh 5 minutes I can do that it's about closing that gap between where you are and where you'd like to be and so 5 minutes so then now what I do because I am of a certain age I focus

on resistance training I probably I I aim to exercise 30 minutes every single day does that happen every single day no but I probably get in four to five days of exercise and that includes walking or if I do a 40-minute walk one day I won't do resistance training but I do some form of M every day it is about making things small and tangible and decreasing the barriers to making the taking that step so fine you don't want to put on your sneakers take a walk up and down your hallway in your house walk

up and down a set of stairs research has showed that it in fact to decrease there was a study that was done that Ultra short bursts of Activity one to two minutes so walking up a set of stairs or going to you know parking far away when you're going to the grocery store we all look for parking really close to the entrance Park far away take a walk up to the grocery store run for the bus or walk quickly to go get the bus or the subway these short they're called Ultra short bursts of activity

can decrease your risk of dying from cancer by 40% wow you heard the doctor get your walk on every day 10 minutes it's all she's saying and it's going to lower your stress how does sitting all day impact your stress as you may have heard in pop culture sitting is the new smoking I hadn't heard that the science shows that sitting it's not just that that exercise is good for you and moving is good for you for your stress anxiety burnout it's that sitting is actually bad for you and it can increase your sense of

anxiety stress and burnout wow maybe we should have ordered standing desks around here and of course you want to sit and you know for me when I can never use a standing desk I can't think right I need to sit down and do my work and have my deep thinking I wanted to share a couple of pretty alarming statistics about sitting there was a study of 800 people and the ones who sat the most this is like knock your socks off data the people who sat the most had a 112% higher risk of diabetes 147%

higher risk of heart disease a 90% higher risk of death from heart disease and a 50% higher risk from Death overall all to say that sitting is actually bad for our health our well-being and as it turns out your stressing burnout how does sitting trigger stress the mechanisms of action aren't entirely clear but the data suggests that when you are sitting for prolonged prolonged length of time you know you're stewing in your own emotions so to speak and so it's that getting up and moving moving creates a whole Cascade of positive biological changes to your

brain and your body and when you're sitting for a long periods of time it that doesn't happen it also has a cardiovascular benefit or rather it's detrimental to your cardiovascular health to just sit because a body is meant to move your body is a the greatest machine you know we say that that this little guy this Smartphone is like the greatest machine that man has invented I would argue that your brain and your body is truly the greatest machine and so use that machine to do what it's meant to do it doesn't have to be

you know you don't have to become an Olympian but certainly getting up and moving a little bit every day even if it means 5 minutes between your Zoom meetings get up take a walk stretch sitting for prolonged periods of time because think about it we sit all day at work that you sit all day at work and then you sit in a car going back home and then you sit on your sofa all day so our the human body hasn't been designed to just sit all day we are meant to move and move our bodies

as a doctor what do you recommend my watch has that standup thing I love it and I don't realize how how much time will go by and it's like oh I haven't stood in two hours holy cow I love that I would say there isn't necessarily a prescription like a dose relationship for sitting and when to stand up and what's the dose of standing and sitting just do it when you can you have a two-hour meeting can't stand up right after that 2-hour meeting instead of sitting on your slack Channel and responding to email are

doing all of those things get up and walk around there is something to be said right like Plato Aristotle all of these greats talked about the benefit of a walk that mental health benefit of taking a walk and so it doesn't have to be this long profound walk just get up and stretch your body do some gentle stretching some exercising connect your breath to your movement to your posture this is really important because that's like a way to tap into your Mind Body Connection as well so your next reset addresses one of the biggest lies

around productivity let's talk about it so reset number four is come up for air one of the biggest myths is that you are meant to be functioning at a high capacity without any need for rest or recovery that productivity is linear the more you do the more you can accomplish and then the more you do the more you can accomplish it's just supposed to be this like thing that this feedback loop that's supposed to continue on and on and on that's a myth a break is not just a nice to have love luxury your brain

and your body need a break it is a biological necessity for your brain and body to rest and recover human productivity is not linear it functions on a curve think of a bell-shaped curve the left of the curve when you don't have a lot of stress you're not very motivated you're not very productive think about the right side of the curve so much stress you are keyed up many of us are living on this right side of the curve right there is a sweet spot L of human productivity right in the middle it's just right

stress I call it the Goldilocks principle and it's this idea of we all are to that right of that bell-shaped curve we are anxious we have so much stress we're not productive we can't focus it's hard to get things done so the science suggests that moving back how do you get to that Center Spot The Sweet Spot of human productivity is to scale back but you can't scale back that's not realistic because we have real constraints we have constraints on our time we have obligations with work and parenting instead you have to honor your breaks

how do you scale back how do you apply this science to your everyday life you honor your breaks how do you do that when you are taking a break during the day what do most of us do we mindlessly scroll we've already talked about what happens with scrolling this isn't a benign thing that you are doing you are actively influencing your brain and your body for more stress right more stress more burnout all of the things that we talked about let me just highlight that because you're right when I step out of a meeting the

first thing I do is check my phone and so I'm not actually taking a break I'm re-engaging my mind and activating the amydala and juicing up my stress never even thought about it I I always viewed like oh okay you know I've got a couple minutes before my next sing I'll just look at my phone and instead if I were to leave my phone where it is and walk into to the kitchen here at work or at home make myself a cup of coffee or step outside for a minute I'd feel different try some heart-

centered breathing take a little walk outside do some stretches touch your toes stand up twist do something where you're connecting your breath to your movement tap into your Mind Body Connection practice stop breathe B it's a 3second exercise and it can help what is that the stop breathe be method it's the instructions are in the name it's a 3se second exercise so you stop you breathe and you be so you ground your feet on the floor I learned the stop breathe B method it was the first technique I learned to reset my mindbody connection when

I was in the throws of stress as a stressed medical resident I was working 80 hours a week I was seeing 30 to 40 patients a day and I brought the stop breathe B method into my life when I would knock on the door of the patient room before I would enter it was my door knob moment so as I turned the door knob I would say to myself often under my breath in a crowded place stop breathe be and then I would enter and I would do that incrementally over and over and over again

30 40 times a day over time I could just do it anywhere in fact before we started speaking I was so excited because I was having a total fan girl moment still am it's been a long time with my amydala going off but no just kidding I was having a fan girl moment I'm not kidding about that and I did stop breathe be in fact the entire time that we've been speaking I've been very aware of my feet on the floor my posture in the chair and how I am breathing because that is important to

manage and modulate your stress response you can practice stop breathe be during mundane everyday moments of your life so I did it with the doorknob you can do it you know between Zoom meetings stop breathe B it's a little mini reset um small micro reset 3 seconds you can practice it when you're brushing your teeth oh I have practiced it in the morning when getting lunches ready for school getting everything ready I do it always at the doorknob before I'm about to go into the garage to do School Bus drop drop off stop breathe be

and I think oh my God we forgot the project did you bring your hat oh we need to get this we need to get that it's just the reset that you need and it the reason the stop breathe B method works so well is because anxiety and anxious thoughts are a future focused emotion it is about what if what if this happens what if that happens what if I fail what if I can't do well what if what if what if and stop breathe be gets you out of what if thinking and gets you back

into what is in the Here and Now Dr adidi what is the fifth reset the fifth reset is to bring your best self forward and this is all about the inner critic we talked about it a little bit at the start of our conversation that inner critic is that voice in your head that berates you you may not even know that it is there you might think hey that's my natural voice that's who I am in fact in fact I would argue that that is not who you are capital yoou it is your amydala speaking

the reason is when you're feeling a sense of stress that inner critic that voice gets a megaphone because your amydala is doing the driving of your brain and your migdala wants to keep you safe and small that is why getting out of your comfort zone when you're feeling a sense of stress doesn't feel good you want you know you have that what if thinking all of these sorts of things it's a self-sabotage sort of situation and so you stay small you stay in your comfort zone you don't try new things you don't try to get

out of your stress because that inner voice so how do you silence the inner voice how do you take that megaphone out of your inner Voice's hand and say no you're not going to be speaking I'm the one who's going to be speaking there's a couple of ways to do that the first is gratitude now you may hear the word gratitude and roll your eyes like oh my God gratitude look I'm not going to do this like Teenage Journal [ __ ] right in fact there is a lot of science for gratitude a written gratitude

practice is vital to help silence your inner critic and to reset your stress and burnout because again very simple practice keep a p piece of paper and a pen next to your bedside you know how you got rid of your phone on your nightstand keep a little gratitude Journal there instead now every night or in the morning whenever you want doesn't matter five things you're grateful for and why put the date 1 2 3 4 5 write down five things you're grateful for and why some days you'll have like 15 things that you want to

write down you can only write down five other days you'll say I have nothing that I'm grateful for you have two arms and two legs you can breathe the air you have a roof over your head you have food in your pantry that these are all wins because many people particularly now cannot say that so write those down the reason gratitude is so important from a scientific perspective is because when you are doing a gratitude daily gratitude practice it takes 60 seconds you are rewiring your brain because what you are doing it's a scientific again

a fancy scientific name called cognitive reframing what you focus on Gross so Rick Hansen talks about this idea of when you're going through stress he's a psychologist in California and it's like moving gratitude helps you move away from velcro to Teflon when because you're amydala is driving that train negative experiences become sticky in the brain like velcro you hold on to them because you're it's a feeling of survival and self-preservation and so when you start practicing gratitude on an everyday basis it's cognitive reframing what you focus on grows so you shift your perspective so even

if negative and positive are happening at the same rate good and bad things are happening in your life at the same rate when you are feeling a sense of stress you are focused primarily on the negative because you are thinking danger danger danger right red alert and so how do you decrease that stickiness of negative experiences in your brain when you're feeling a sense of stress by practicing gratitude so it shifts away from velcro your brain circuitry shifts away from Velcro to Teflon so the negative experiences may happen but it slides off how does it

happen through gratitude so you write down those things every single day and Studies have demonstrated that 30 60 and 90 days there's improved mood decreased stress and burnout better sleep there are so many benefits to what everyday gratitude practice it also silences your inner critic because it dials down the volume of the amydala in the background if you say I'm a bad person how many of you say that to yourself I'm such a bad person I always screw up nothing works out for me if you say I'm a bad person isn't it true that you

see things every single day that make you think it's true and then our daughter said yeah actually yesterday I missed my dentist appointment I just completely forgot about it and as soon as I realized I blew off the dentist appointment totally forgot the first thing I said to myself was there I go again screwing everything up and I said look that's an excellent ad example imagine if instead of missing the dentist appointment imagine if when you missed the dentist appointment how many of you have missed the dentist appointment I know I have how amazing would

it be if you miss the dentist appointment and you could just shrug your shoulders and go oops forgot the dentist appointment without going see I screw everything up and pounding yourself into the ground and beating yourself up imagine if you could teach your own mind everybody to not see all the stuff that's happening in life as evidence that you're a bad person because you can forget a dentist appointment and just let it pass through your mind without attaching I'm a bad person to what happened you have to be deliberate you have to tell your mind

exactly what you want to think about yourself when things mess up so my daughter looks at me this is a true story and he's like really how the hell do I do that Mom I've been telling myself I'm a bad person and I screw everything up for as long as I can remember how the hell am I going to get my mind to S think something else and this is when I hit her with the heart rock game that I'm telling you you got to steal this hack from me I said well let's train your

mind by playing a simple game that's going to change the way that your mind works in real time and I said every single day I want you to look for a naturally occurring heart shape in the world whether it's a heart-shaped Rock a heart-shaped leaf a heart-shaped oil stain on the floor of your garage a harp-shaped swirl of milk on the top of your latte anything counts and then my daughter said you mean the way you're always looking for heart-shaped rocks when we walk on the beach mom and I said yep and you know what

she said to me she said mom that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard I said my other daughter then said I agree how the hell uh does looking for hearts stop me from feeling like the ugliest one of all my friends I want you to teach me how to be happy and how to be successful and how to make a lot of money in my new career mom I mean you're a self-help person how the hell do rocks on the ground help me change my opinion of myself fair question right don't worry I had

a great answer I said look the point of the exercise of every day I want you to look for a heart shaped like a heart-shaped rock in the world the point of this everybody is to train your mind to spot the things that you're blocking out so you can prove to yourself that you can make your brain work for you by simply telling you what's important to you and if you want to make a lot of money you better train your brain to see opportunities and deals that other people walk right by just like you

walk by that stupid rock on the ground that's laying there right now and you miss it because you're not looking for it and if you want to stop thinking you're bad or hating the way you look you better train your mind to stop attaching that thought to everything you see pretty smart right if you'd like to like make more money you got to spot opportunities to make more money if you want to feel better about yourself everybody you got to stop pounding yourself into the ground with negative thoughts any time life doesn't go 100% your

way or you screw up which is totally normal I could tell they were considering my argument so I went even further besides oh there goes the clock hold on a second and feel free to ask questions in the comments I'm gonna this is a short short short chapter okay um besides if I told you everybody to just repeat a positive mantra I'm beautiful I'm a good person you're thinking You' think this is stupid because you don't believe that so first I got to show you the power that you have to change what your mind sees

then you're going to trust what I'm saying you see good people mess up all the time it doesn't make you a bad person and even if you are a bad person at times why does that make you unlovable see it's all about the way you flip the thing things you look at so that you can see a world that makes you feel empowered and supported imagine how much easier and fulfilling it would be if you could stop the Beatdown and just love yourself while you work on your health goals now let me tell you how

to do the heart-shaped exercise you guys ready okay good starting tomorrow super easy or today starting today I want you to find one naturally occurring heart shape in the world around you then stop and take a look at it here's mine every day when I go for a walk if you follow me on my stories you will see that I take photos all day long of heart shapes this is the kind of uh thing that trains your mind I'm getting asked for a meditation on manifesting yeah looking for a heart shape every single day in

the world around you is a way to manifest because because you are practicing a skill you're practicing a skill of waking up and intentionally saying I am going to find a heart shape today you are putting that intention into your mind and by putting it into your mind you are training your mind to work for you now we're going to take it a level up you ready when you find something I want you to stop I want you to take a moment I want you to take a photo of it oops my phone my my

computer just died so we're going to stay on Instagram I want you to take a photo of it and I want you to really feel that that was placed there for you I want you to close your eyes and I want you to have an experience whereby you feel that literally the universe had put something there for you and your mind helped you find it and if you take that moment and you feel a moment of gratitude what's going to happen is that that energetic positive experience of acknowledging that you told yourself you were going

to find a heart shape and then your mind scanned and you found it and now you're taking a moment to feel grateful that this happened to to be present to the larger forces that are out there and then take a photo put it on your story tag me Mel Robbins tag high five habit and you will be shocked because what will happen is because you took a moment to positively encode it in your brain your brain will start showing you Hearts all over the place you're not going to believe the amount of hearts that you

walk past I'm dead serious about this these are just a few examples on page 91 I repost these all day long from you guys there's a heart in a coffee cup there's a heart right here that's a leaf we've got a heart one of my favorite ones was inside of an onion we see rocks all the time I'm looking for this stuff that's on page 91 I just realized that we lost our friends on Facebook because uh your imperfect friend Mel Robbins uh forgot to plug her computer in uh so we lost power oh well

um done is better than perfect and simply showing up here today and making a little bit of progress instead of waiting for it to get perfect is better than not doing it at all I asked our online audience and our listeners of this podcast you know what are you struggling with 95% of people said distraction memory loss o information overload the anxiety about all the things I need to do my inability to remember things and so what do we need to do can you walk us through simple things that we need to do that you

teach people in your Institute to tap into the capacity of our brains yeah so for for me it's it's three things okay uh framework and then we could go into the tactics and tools let's do it it's 3M okay it's your mindset I Define mindset as a set of assumptions or attitudes you have about something okay your attitude assumptions about money your attitudes assumptions about relationships Maybe about yourself even right okay so the mindset for me at events where I do these demonstrations people like oh I'm so glad you're here I have a horrible memory

I I I'm not smart enough and I always say stop because all behavior is belief-driven you say stop when somebody says I have a horrible memory because when somebody says I have a horrible memory that is a mindset and that mindset I have a horrible memory or I'm not smart or I've never been able to learn a language or I'm a slow reader all of those statements is the mindset that is limiting the capacity of your brain so step one is to identify what your mindset is when it comes to your brain so the first

one is your mindset if people say they have they feel like they're not smart enough or they're too old I say stop because if you fight for those limitations you get to keep them meaning your brain is like this incredible supercomputer and your selft talk is a program it will run so if you tell yourself I'm not good at remembering names you won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to that makes sense your mind is always Eve dropping on yourself talk audit yourself I don't have a

great memory yet it just opens up the possibility and it just feels different I like to just stop and put a highlighter on what Jim is telling you and I have a story that I'm dyslexic and I took six years of French in high school and I went to college and took an exam to place into you know the French requirement dude I placed into French 101 for people who have never taken it so uh and yet and yet I have this calling and this desire to be able to speak conversational Spanish Jim's Point here

is that if I if I'm not willing to stop telling myself that foreign languages are hard for me I will never ever ever utilize the methods effectively because I will always be arguing against them and so that's step one and and then let's move on to the second one motivation when we talk about motivation I ask myself this question like 10 times a day Verbatim what is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where I can't fail that's a big question now see here's part of my

problem Jim I can't remember the question like okay here we go write we can write this down what is the tiniest action I could take right now operative word now okay little things add up to big things yeah cuz cons consisten consistency compounds little by little a little becomes a lot yeah so talk to us about the methods I'm going to teach everyone a memory technique that I train Hollywood actors and Ted speakers to be able to memorize a speech okay if you have to give a toast at a wedding right and so what we're

going to memorize are 10 keys for a limitless brain okay there are 10 levers for a better brain that will make a marked difference in your focus your memory your overall brain energy and health so I'm going to share them and then I'll teach you how to memorize these 10 things forwards and backward oh my God I love this okay let's go yeah okay so the first one is a good brain diet what you eat matters especially for your gray matter a whole area of science we research and talk about in the book called neuronutrition

that your brain is part of your body but it requires different nutrients some different nutrients on the rest of your body okay well actually well let's give you some of my favorite foods avocados the mon unset fat it's good blueberries I like to call them brain berries broccoli is good for the brain uh V vitamin E uh olive oil a Mediterranean diet uh it's good for your brain if your diet allows eggs the choline in eggs is a precursor to acetylcholine a neurotransmitter it's really important for cognitive Health green leafy vegetables if you could stomach

that is a a spinach fatty fishes because your brain is mostly fat it's the Omega-3s specifically the DHA so salmon sardines it's good for your brain turmeric it helps it has the curcumin which helps to lower inflammation stemach walnuts and almonds even walnuts look like a brain high in vitamin E which is neuroprotective probably my favorite is dark chocolate so everyone can remember that very well so these are some of my favorite brain foods number two the second key for a limitless brain killing ants ants stands for automatic negative thoughts let's talk about number three

is exercise and as your body moves your brain grooves as your body moves your brain grooves okay number four brain nutrients you know if you're not getting the fish then Omega fatty acids supplementing with dhas but then there's all kinds of nrop like alanine bopa uh Rola creatin which is often associated with exercise huge benefit for mitochondria energy for your brain number five positive peer group that who you spend time with is who you become if you spend time with nine broke people you're going to be number 10 we have these Marin neurons and Marin

neurons help to drive our empathy and imitate people around us we imitate their words whether somebody smokes has less to do with their biological networks or their neurological networks has more to do with their social networks because if your friends smoke you're more likely they take that action we start modeling the Integrity the moral fabric of the people we spend time with Y of what's acceptable right imitating the habits of the people around us so you spend time with people are working out all the time you're probably more likely to work out and if you

haven't found that person yet be that person we could love our family and friends but they don't have our they be our peer group right that's five six clean environment cleaning your desk or making your bed but then you feel just kind of a Clarity of thought you know why cuz you're not using mental energy to keep track of everything your external world is often a reflection of your internal world and then number seven big one sleep hello number eight protect your brain brain protection you know wear a helmet protect your brain it's very resilient

but it's very fragile okay number nine new learnings new learnings meaning there's a study done with nuns on longevity they lived 80 90 above and because it's a set community similar diet and and and and dayplay they found that half of it was because of their faith and their emotional gratitude the other half key factor for the longevity they were lifelong Learners they're reading every day they're having spirited debates conversations and because of it added years to their life and Life to their years my favorite learning reading reading is to your mind what exercise your

body and then finally number 10 Stress Management chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain it also puts you in fight or flight you're held hostage in your survival brain and I'm going to walk you through a 2500 year old memory technique that will blow your mind and I want everyone to do this and able to remember all 10 all right I want you to imagine you're coming to my office it's in in the suburbs and you can actually just breathe and if you can close your eyes just to help you to focus

if it's safe to do so as you're listening and there are trees everywhere around our it's a glass building let's say you're coming to take a a speed reading class with us I'm going to name 10 places along this journey to get to that classroom and what we're going to do is take the 10 keys for Limitless brain and we're going to imagine those each of those keys in in each of those places in order I'm going to ask everyone to say out loud as you're listening this the first place that you get out of

is the parking lot so what's what's the first place say it out loud parking lot parking lot and that's their verbal memory I want you to see it and then we're going to feel it and and uh get it in our body so the parking lot when you get out of the parking lot it's you're going to be reminded you need a good brain diet and how you do that pretend you're 8 years old and use your imagination if you can't imagine it imagine you can imagine it and imagine there's a big Buffet of your

favorite brain foods and so you see the blueberries the avocados the dark chocolate okay and even if you can't imagine again imagine you can imagine it see it feel it taste it all right so from there there's a waterfall it creates like a mod around the uh the building and you have to cross a bridge so the second place is the bridge so what's the second place bridge bridge that's your verbal memory you step you go across the bridge and you're killing ants to remind you the second tip quick tip for a limitless brain you

need to kill automatic negative thoughts so you're stepping on those ants it takes more time to say it than actually do to see it and as you're stepping on the ant you would never do that but it's just you can't forget it you go into the building the third place you get into the elevator what's the third place elevator elevator great and then third brain tip exercise so your personal trainer is there and whatever your personal exercise is Pilates CrossFit whatever yoga you're doing it in the elevator so see and feel yourself doing that you

get out of the elevator and the fourth place is the hallway so what's the fourth place hallway hallway and these are brain nutrients all the neut tropics right so AR you imagine you're tripping and falling on bottles of gko of creatine of circumin of lion's Man Mushroom okay right and you're just tripping out you're like Donkey Kong or Laura cof you're jumping over these maybe make the bottles really big right and there are vitamins everywhere you open the door to my office immediately to the left is the fifth place which is the closet closet so

what's the fifth place closet closet and inside you want to remember your positive peer group so all of your happy friends are in the closet they're celebrating they're cheering big surprise party Happy friends positive peer grouping maybe we're doing a mastermind okay right you get out and it's the sixth place is the receptionist receptionist what's the six Place receptionist and behind so what the receptionist is doing is the six brain tip which is clean environment the receptionist is cleaning the environment okay waxing vacuuming dusting everything is clean behind the receptionist is the seventh place which

is the fish tank what's the Seventh Place fish tank fish tank everyone say fish tank and then the seventh tip sleep so imagine Nemo Dory in their pajamas and they're in their bunk beds one of them is snoring right and you're sleeping with the fishes so that's what's going on in the fish and you just see it you won't ever forget it you don't have to repeat it a hundred times like old school you see it once you can't forget it all right we're almost there you go to the classroom but the door is locked

for the for the speed reading class and the door the classroom door is the eighth place what's the eth place classroom door perfect and there's a helmet on a hook there so you put the helmet on and you headbutt the door open it splinters everywhere right but the helmet reminds you of the brain tip brain protection protect your brain great and we're almost done the front of the room is a ninth place and it's a whiteboard okay with markers right whiteboard so what's the Ninth Place whiteboard great and I'm there as your instructor and I'm

writing two words on the whiteboard in your favorite color Mel what's your favorite color red red in red I'm writing new learnings new learning so see those two words new learnings to remind you about you know always be learning and then finally on the side of this particular classroom are these Japanese plants these bonsai trees what's the 10th Place bonsai trees and you want to remember Stress Management so whatever relaxes you do it on the bonsai Ries take a moment you're doing meditation there you're getting a a massage there you're having your relaxing drink but

you're doing it on the bonsai trees got it perfect now you are on stage okay uh and you need to be able to share these 10 things and what's you go to the with the first place at the parking lot and that reminds you of what everybody blueberries and brain food yes your brain foods perfect and then you cross the bridge and what are you stepping on ants yes kill those automatic negative thoughts you get into the building you get into the elevator exercise exercise and then once you get out of the elevator you see

the the hallway and it's covered in oh bottles bottles likeo and stuff that I'm Lion's man and uh the Lions all the all the the the brain nutrients you open up the door to the classroom and immediately to the left is a closet our friends are in there yeah all the happy friends your positive peer group then you go to the receptionist and what's the activity they're doing uh the receptionist is cleaning cleaning clean your environment and behind the receptionist is a fish tank and sleeping what are the fish doing they're sleeping Jim they are

sleeping oh my God I could tell you what they are we're going to put on a helmet and bust through the door and on the Whiteboard is going to be the words new learning and then there's a bonsai tree where I'm relaxing perfect and you got it 10 out of 10 and so and you can even probably do it backwards Mel like if if if you could probably go from from the bonsai tree relaxing to the new learning to the helmet to the cleaning to the closet where my friends are to the bottles that I

tripped over to the um elevator where there was some exercise to do to the ants that we stepped on to the blue that is amazing and so my my message to everybody is when you understand how your brain works you could work your brain when you understand how your memory works you could work your memory it starts to change your mindset about what's possible cuz when you do something you never thought you could do do then you say like what you get curious right what else do I maybe I could read I really can read

two or three times faster and enjoy it you know and get more out of it or I can learn Spanish well I absolutely love love love everything that you just taught us hey it's Mel thank you so much for being here if you enjoyed that video by God please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing thank you so much for being here we've got so much amazing stuff coming thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family I love you we create these videos for you so make

sure you subscribe mAh