On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 4 Exercises To Lose Mental Weight & The ULTIMATE MENTAL HEALTH WORKOUT PLAN

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

Are you ready to get in the best shape of your life? In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty shares four simple steps to exercise your mental health and gain the stamina needed to endure these uncertain times. Controlling what 2020 will bring next is out of the question, but following this plan for mental weight loss guarantees you will be ready for the next challenge no matter what! Listen in to learn how leaders use these techniques & change your life forever. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you get your podcasts. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw, real-life stories behind their journeys, and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on-purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. All our pain comes from not wanting to be where we are. We're like, I don't want to be here right now. I don't want to be here right now. And we don't even know where we want to be, but we don't want to be there. Or it comes from wanting to be somewhere where we're not where we're like, I should be there. I should be on the cover of that magazine. I should have a million followers. I should be the next best tick tock or I should be the parent who's getting it right, whatever it is, right? Like we want to be somewhere that we're not.

Now how do we become present? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to on purpose. Now whether you're walking your dog, whether you're cooking, whether you're exercising, whether you are running, whatever you're up to right now, I just want to say thank you so much for being a part of the on-purpose community. It has been an incredible 18 months, I think, since we launched the podcast. And your feedback, your dedication, your focus has been amazing.

If you haven't yet left a review, it would mean the world to me. If you just take out 30 seconds of your time to leave a review, they are so powerful. They make such a big difference to the podcast. It'll be amazing. We have over 12,000 five star reviews and I would love to add yours to it as well. Please take a moment to do that. Today's episode is a topic that I've been wanting to cover with you all for a couple of weeks now because I feel like 2020 has been such a heavy year. How many of you agree that 2020 has been a heavy year? How many of you feel that you're carrying weight because of 2020 and what's been happening this year. And this is happening because I've been having so many conversations with people whether it's me speaking at

virtual events or listening to people's thoughts and in meetings or reading your comments or ideas, I feel like everyone's feeling that they're carrying this weight on their shoulders. They're carrying this weight in their minds and it's heavy. It's hard to carry. And I'm sure you can agree with them. Sure, you've experienced some of that. And it's really interesting to me because I see so many people as quarantine starts to not come to an end, but is going in that direction or as the lockdown is easing. I see so many people are talking about like losing

their lockdown weight or losing their quarantine weight, right, the weight they put on their bodies. But I really believe that we have to focus on the weight that's on our minds because we forget that our mental health and our physical health are so connected. And I really believe that a lot of us are feeling way down. A lot of us are feeling this mental stress and pressure that we feel we're carrying because of the events

that have happened this year, because of the changes that have occurred this year, because of the pain that has happened. How many of you feel that way right now? So what I want to share with you today is the four exercises to lose mental weight and the ultimate mental health workout plan, which I'm excited to share with you. And basically approaching the conversation today, looking at it like a workout for your body, almost like an exercise routine, like a personal trainer of sorts,

but we're going to apply all of those same principles to your mind. So if you're ready, I want you to get your pencil out, when you get your pen out, I want you to get your notebook out. If you're walking, running, driving, doing any of those things, do not worry. You can consume this in your mind. And I will repeat the points clearly and you can come back to it. Take a picture right now of the podcast. Share it so you remember the time and you can come back to this because this is when we're about to dive in and go ready.

So here are the four exercises to lose mental weight and the ultimate mental health workout plan for feeling weighed down. Now let's first take a look at what makes us put on mental weight, right? What is it? Because just as we would in our health, we have to think about like, well, what am I eating that's making me put on weight? Or what am I consuming? That's not as good for me.

Right? How many calories am I taking in? So if we look at what makes us put on mental weight or mental stress and pressure, you've got past mistakes. Our past mistakes weigh us down. How many of us spend so much time thinking, if only I did this in 2019, if only I did this in February 2020, if only I did this just before lockdown before the pandemic started. So you've got that. The second thing is failures. I will pass failures

waste down. Maybe you're sitting there going, oh, I can't believe I achieved nothing throughout this time. You know, I saw so and so they did that. And I saw that post that says that William Shakespeare was writing plays and, you know, so many people achieve so much during the plague. And, you know, I'm so behind. So our failures act as weight in our minds, mental weight. We've got emotional baggage. Maybe you've lost someone.

Maybe you've lost something. We're've got emotional baggage. Maybe you've lost someone, maybe you've lost something. We're carrying some emotional baggage. And then of course we have the long term mental weight that we carry as well. And that mental weight includes, you know, childhood issues, childhood trauma, childhood challenges, parenting, upbringing, schools that we went to. So you've got both this long term and short term mental weight that we're constantly working with. And it's something that we need to work through. And that's why I'm so grateful and happy that today you've made this commitment to break through and work through this because it's so easy to put it off. And the problem is that you keep piling on that mental weight that one day it just feels impossible to break down.

So just remember this, that if you're starting today, it's not too late. The experiences you've had, doesn't mean you should have started this a year ago. You're doing it exactly the right time. So let's dive into the four exercises to lose mental weight. The first one, this is something that I want every single one of you to commit to for the next seven days. I'm only asking you to do it for seven

days and I promise you, it will blow your mind when you do this effectively. Now, when I did this as a monk, it was truly the first time that I'd done an exercise like this and I gained so much insight so much depth so much So many realizations and reflections through this one exercise that I cannot wait for you to do it So for the next seven days This is what I want you to do. I want you to keep a mental diary now How many of you have ever been asked by a doctor, a trainer, or someone in your life, a nutritionist, a dietitian to keep a food diary? So a food diary, if you don't know, is when you literally track, what did you eat for breakfast? What

did you eat for lunch? What did you eat for dinner? What did you snack on in between? How much water did you drink? I want you to do one for your mental diary. So you've probably seen that quote that goes around, which talks about, you know, our mind is constantly consuming things. And most of us are unaware of what goes into our minds and what is being processed by our minds. I'll give an example. Imagine I said to you, well, what did you eat yesterday? How many of you remember what you ate

for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday? Okay, good if you know the answer. I'm asking you to do it, actually. How many of you remember what you had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner last week? And how many of you know what you had for breakfast lunch in dinner last month? Now, the chances of us knowing what happened last week or last month are very thin. And if you knew what happened yesterday or this week, that's pretty impressive. But the point being that often our health challenges or our stress and our pressure is rarely about just one thing that happened. It's usually about a ever growing additional change that's happening, right?

It's never just the tipping point is the part that we notice. But to get to that tipping point, there are so many other triggers that get us to that stage. So when we keep a mental diary, we start noticing patterns, rhythms, the mornings we didn't feel so well. So I want you to keep a mental diary, not a food diary, but a mental diary. And this is how I want you to do your mental diary.

I want you to write down every activity that you did, whatever it was, listening to a podcast, going for a run, cooking, right? Going on a Zoom call, having a work meeting, whatever it may be. And after each activity, I want you to write down why you felt good about that activity and what about that activity you would like to do differently next time. Think about those two questions very, very carefully. The first is, what did you enjoy about that activity? And the second question is, how would you do it differently next time to improve it? And if you keep a mental diary in that way of what you did and how it made you feel,

you start to see patterns. So you may start to notice that every time you go on a jog, you feel great, right? After it. You feel really good. But guess what? just before it, you never feel like going. And that's why you've been missing so many days. But you see in your diary, every time after I went for a jog, I felt happier, I felt more confident, I felt more focused.

Now you've got ammunition to help you make that decision again in the future. So I wanted to keep a mental diary of every activity that you do. You may even want to keep a diary of the number of thoughts or ideas that come in your mind as well. Now you can't keep a diary of all your thoughts, right? I think studies or research shows that we have about 60,000 thoughts per day and sometimes 80% of them can be negative. So I don't want you to keep a diary of 60,000 thoughts. I mean, that would be impossible.

But you may start to write down what are the major thoughts that come into your mind? And where do they stem from? For example, are you starting to see yourself be more jealous or negative when you're browsing on Instagram? Or are you seeing yourself being more confident and competent when you're listening to a podcast? Or are you seeing yourself feeling like you're doing better at work because you're connecting

more with your manager or your team or colleagues? Finding these patterns out through a mental diary can absolutely change the way you function and live. So don't underestimate this. Do not underestimate this. I want you to keep a mental diary for the next seven days, just seven days. And I want you to see what an incredible change it makes in your life. So after every activity or a meeting, what did you enjoy about it? What was good about it? And how could you improve it in the future?

Doing this one activity is gonna give you so much self awareness. You keep hearing about self awareness. Self awareness is being aware of yourself. How do you get aware of yourself? You reflect, you observe, you give attention to yourself, right? So we have to be attentive to how we feel. We have to be attentive to how we work best.

When we observe ourselves in this way, we can improve rapidly. So that is the first exercise that I want you to do. The second exercise is I want you to create a mental diet plan. So there's that famous quote that's going around that says, you know, your diet isn't just what you put in your body, it's what you put in your mind. Right? So I want you to come up with an ideal diet plan of when you feel it your best. What do you need to do every day to feel at your best?

Now, there have been days in your life that you've been at your best. There have been days in your life that you felt the most productive. They may not have happened for a while, but they are there. And there is ingredients, right? Just like you know that when you're making a pie

or when you're making a sandwich, or when you're making a pizza, or whatever your favorite food is, think of your favorite food right now. You know what are the ingredients to making it the tastiest. You know the toppings, you know the sauce, you know the ingredients, the herbs, the,

you know, whatever the garnish, whatever it may be, the vegetables, you know my wife definitely knows. Right? You know, my wife is aware of what are the ingredients to make the perfect dish? And my question to you is, what are the ingredients to make your perfect day? Right? What are the ingredients that are needed?

Because guess what? It's the same thought process. Just like a pizza won't taste the same. If you don't put the same herbs in it as you did on the good pizza, every day won't taste the same. Every day won't feel the same, or be experienced the same

if you don't do that activity. I see a drastic difference between the days I meditate and I don't meditate. I see a drastic difference in the days that I do eat on time and I don't eat on time. I see a drastic difference in the days I meditate and I don't meditate. I see a drastic difference in the days that I do eat on time and I don't eat on time. I see a drastic difference on the days I sleep early and the days I sleep late. You start to see those when you come up with an ideal diet plan. Now, if you're like, Jay, I've never had an ideal day.

I don't even know what it feels like to be motivated and inspired and productive. Then right down where you think it's going to be, So your mental diet is made up of these four things. What you listen to every day, what you watch every day, what you read every day, and who you talk to every day. So what you listen to, what you watch, what you read and who you talk to, these are the four aspects of your mental diet and your mental diet plan. So let's say you listen to a 30 minute or one hour podcast every single week and some of you going, Jay, I listen to you every single 10, you're amazing by the way and you're

going to feel that right? If you're doing something daily, you're amazing by the way. And you're gonna feel that, right? If you're doing something daily, you're gonna feel that boost daily. If you're doing something weekly, you'll feel the boost weekly. So what is your listening habit? And I want you to have a positive listening habit. Are you listening to a podcast?

Are you doing an online course? Are you doing an online program? What are you doing for 13 minutes a day? While you're commuting, and I know right now people aren't commuting, but some people are driving again, while you're day? While you're commuting, and I know right now people aren't commuting, but some people are driving again, while you're cooking, while you're working out, while you're with your kids,

and you just wanna have something on in the background, what are you listening to daily or weekly that is giving you the mental strength that you want to have? What is it that makes you feel a way, even could be music? And what commitment are you gonna make to it? You may say, I'm going to do 10 minutes a day. And we're listening to a whole podcast in a week by listening to 10 minutes a day. Sometimes it's like, yeah, I'm going to do an hour a week. It's going to be a one hour on a Sunday. I want

you to make a commitment to yourself. I want you to make it clear to yourself. Do not leave it as an idea. This is a real workout plan, right? This is a real focused, strategic attempt at giving yourself the best mental focus. So what are you going to do listening ways? Now let's talk about watching. One of the things to remember is that you don't want to watch anything that makes you anxious, stressed or nervous at night. Yes, that includes Ozark, right? I love Ozark. No, no, fans to Ozark at the end like I think it's a brilliant show. But what we don't realize is when we watch shows that keep us on edge just before we sleep, the

quality of our sleep is ruined. When the quality of our sleep is ruined, the quality of our digestion is ruined. When the quality of digestion is ruined, our quality of energy is ruined. When the quality of energy is ruined, the quality of our day is ruined. That's a mental diet. I ate well, I slept on time, but I still didn't feel right, what was it? Oh, I was watching that TV show

that scares the hell out of me and makes me really fearful before I go to bed. Of course I can't sleep. That's why that mental diary helps so much. But with your mental diet, I want you to be really aware, just like we shouldn't be eating too late, because your body tries to digest it while you're sleeping.

You don't want to watch anything too late, and you don't want to watch anything that keeps you on edge, because guess what, your mind is trying to process that. That's why you might have scary dreams. It might be why you sleep in a shallow state. It's really important to recognize not to watch something in that way. You want to watch things that are empowering, positive, inspiring, make you laugh, comedy is fantastic, watching some comedy that makes you laugh, that allows you to unwind, but

also makes you think, watching movies that have powerful messages. You know, that's the way you want to be ending your days, especially if you end your days watching something. Now, the third one is read. Now, in reading, I want to share something really important. Try and practice one inspirational and motivational teaching a week. So I'll give you an example.

I'll give you a really good example to help. So there's this quote that I put up the other day on my Instagram from Sonja to Clay and she says, there are people that love you. Stop focusing on the ones that don't. So for a week, how do I act that quote? Every time I start thinking about the people that don't love me, I would think about the people that do love me. Every time I start fixating on people who are treating me badly, I would say, okay, let me do that, but let me also be grateful for the people that are treating me well, right? So there are so many ways of practicing that quote,

and it's practicing the quote, it's practicing and putting into reality the quote that you wanna do. Now there's this other one from Steve Maraboli. He says, when the right person hugs you, it's like medicine, right? So that one, get hugs from the right people, of course, right now it's challenging,

but you get the point, like, how can you shift a quote or a thought for a week into reality? And imagine you practiced it for a week. Imagine you dedicated your time to it for a week. What changes would you see in your a week. What changes would you see in your life? What huge changes would you start to see in your life if for a week read one quote but try to apply it every single day in different ways. And you're trying to apply it every day. So one day you may talk about it with a friend. Another day you

may think about it and you may read it in between your emails. Another one you'll read it in the morning and read it in the evening. There's so many ways of trying to practice a quote, a thought, an idea that really moves you, that you really believe in. It's such a powerful way of building a really strong mental diet of what you put into your mind. Because what your mind repeats is what your mind. Because what your mind repeats is what your mind believes. What your mind repeats is what your mind believes. So when you keep repeating the thought, I'm not good enough, I messed up,

I'm not doing so great today, I'm not happy, then guess what, you start believing it. But if your mind starts to repeat a quote or a thought or an idea that's powerful, then you start to believe it and you start to create it and you start to put it into reality. Right? You start to make it in reality. So I don't want you to just read one quote for the week, I want you trying to apply one lesson or principle that resonates with you deeply in your life. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with

some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Opro, everything that has happened to you can also be a strength builder for you if you allow it. Kobe Bryant. The results don't really matter. It's the figuring out that matters. Kevin Haw. It's not about us as a generation at this point. It's about us trying our best to create change. Luminous Hamilton. That's for me been taking that moment for yourself each day, being kind to yourself. Because I think for a long time I wasn't kind to myself. And many, many more. If you're attached to knowing, you don't have a capacity to learn.

On this podcast, you get to hear the raw, real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. I'm Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism. Narcissists are everywhere and their toxic behavior and words can cause serious harm to your mental health. In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved by the Tinder Swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me,

but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money he took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissists in your life. Each week you will hear stories from survivors who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to navigating narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Debbie Brown and my podcast deeply well is a soft place to land on your wellness journey. I hold conscious conversations with leaders and radical healers and wellness and mental health around topics that are meant to expand and support you on your journey. From guided meditations to deep conversations with some of the world's most gifted experts in self-care, trauma, psychology, spirituality, astrology, and even intimacy. Here is where you'll pick up the tools to live as your highest self. Make better choices. Heal and have more joy. My work is rooted in

advanced meditation, metaphysics, spiritual psychology, energy healing, and trauma-informed practices. I believe that the more we heal and grow within ourselves, the more we are able to bring our creativity to life, and live our purpose, which leads to community impact and higher consciousness for all beings. Deeply well with Debbie Brown is your soft place to land, to work on yourself without judgment, to heal, to learn, to grow, to become who you deserve to be. Deeply well is available now on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Big love. Namaste. And now who you talk to? This one's a really, really important one because we all know how we feel when we get off the phone with someone. Sometimes you feel drained and sometimes you feel driven. I want you to know, who do you speak to that after you speak to them?

Unfortunately, you feel drained versus when you speak to some people and you feel drive, you feel like doing something, you feel determined, and there are other people that you feel calm, that you feel still, that you feel peaceful and relaxed. It's so important to know what energy you are giving and what energy you are getting. Think about that for a moment. What energy, when is it, do you think you drain people? And when is it that you think people get drive from you?

And when is it that people you think get calm from you? Think about it that way. Think about it that way round. And here's what I want you to do as part of your mental dire. And you can make this fun, by the way. We did this as monks as well, and I absolutely loved this one.

And it was almost like, you know, like people count calories. And it's like because you know sugar as well, and you count sugar and you count calories, we used to count complaining, comparing and criticizing. So I literally used to have a scoreboard, which would put every time I complained, compared or criticized, I would write the number one under it like a tally chart. And every time I didn't do any of them, and I had the opportunity to do,

but I stopped myself or I found a better way to process it. I would give myself a point. So it'd be like J versus complaining, comparing and criticizing. And you can make it fun because when you play with your emotions, you don't take them as seriously. What I mean by play with emotions, sorry, let me clarify that. What I mean by that is when you are playful in pursuing the profound, you stop taking it too seriously and stop getting stressed out and thinking that you are that.

So a lot of people start thinking like, oh, I'm just a complainer. I'm just a criticizer. I'm just a criticiser. I'm just a Comparer. When in reality, you are you, you're just you. You're an incredibly amazing spark of humanity. And we think we're all these things. And that's why when we are playful about the profound, as I said, in our pursuance of the profound, then in that way, we start to have fun. We start to get playful. We start to stop taking ourselves too seriously. So I literally, the J versus complaining, comparing and criticizing schedule. And you may put money into him and be like, every time I compare

a complain, I'm going to put a dollar away. I'm going to put a pound away. I'm going to put a rupee away. I'm going to put a whatever it is away. Right? Like, I'm gonna put a dollar away. I'm gonna put a pound away. I'm gonna put a rupee away. I'm gonna put a whatever it is away. Right? Like, I'm gonna put this away. And then, oh, you probably want to see it go down. The thing about that, I remember doing this. And it was like the first day I saw myself complain or compare with criticism like total of 20 times. The second time I got to 15, the third time I got to 10, by the end of the week, I was at five. And then I binge-complained all weekend and took it back to 20. But you get the point, like, you can literally, the more aware you become of comparing, criticizing, and complaining in your mental diet, the less you're going to have it.

And there's the same thing we do with sugar or whatever it is. Like, every time you want a doughnut or you want a cake or whatever it is, the more aware you become of when you did it, why you did it, you can stop yourself from doing it again and move towards a healthier balance of it. So I'm not saying not to complain, compared with what is as complete, completely, you'll find ways to do it in a healthier way

when you are hyper aware of it. As opposed to right now, where we just carried away in these indulgences, right, almost like mental indulgences, just like we have food indulgences, we have mental indulgences. And comparing complaining and criticizing can often distract us from what is truly, truly important. So I want you to become aware of that and I want you to keep it tallie as well. And I want you to turn it into a competition with yourself, but a healthy competition with yourself. So I hope you're going to try that out as well. As you can see, by the way, this

is a serious mental diet. So I hope you're following. We're halfway through. We've done two of the exercises to lose mental weight. I'm now going to go to exercise three and then four. So three is a mental workout. So we've talked about keeping a mental diary. We've talked about what is your mental diet of what are you putting in to your mind? You're listening, you're watching, you're reading and who you're talking to. And the third is a mental workout. These are exercises that you can do that allow you to lose mental weight. These are actual exercises, mental exercises, just like we lift weights, just like we do hit workouts, just like we do ad exercises. This is an exercise. I'm going to give you three exercises that I want you to do mentally. The first one is presence. Presence helps you lose mental weight because a lot of our mental weight comes from being

in the future or comes from living in the past. There is no mental weight in the presence. There is only action. So I want you to repeat after me. I am exactly where I need to be. Repeat again. I am exactly where I need to be. Repeat again. I am not ahead. I am not behind. I am exactly where I need to be. Place your hand on your heart right now. I want you to believe in your body. I want you to mean it in your mind

and I want you to feel it in your heart. I am exactly where I need to be. All of our pain comes from not wanting to be where we are or wanting to be somewhere we are not. Right? All of our pain comes from not wanting to be where we are. We're like, I don't want to be here right now. I don't want to be here right now. And we don't even know where we want to be where we don't want to be there. Or it comes from wanting to be somewhere

where we're not where we're like, I should be there. I should be on the cover of that magazine. I should have a million followers. I should be the next best tick talker. I should be the parent who's getting it right. Whatever it is, right? Like, we want to be somewhere that we're not. And so presence. Now, how do we become present? We become present through being physically present. I've shared this before, this grounding tool of 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, which is given in psychology and therapy. If you want to be grounded in your physical space, what are five things you can see?

Four things you can touch. Three things that you can hear. Two things that you can smell and one thing that you can taste. Let's do it right now. Five things you can touch, three things that you can hear, two things that you can smell, and one thing that you can taste. Let's do it right now. Five things you can see in your space. So I'll tell you what I can see. I can see my frames, I can see my chair,

I can see some books, I can see a globe, and I can see my coffee table. Four things I can touch. You can touch the chair, you can touch the microphone, I can touch my leg and my legs are touching the floor. Great, I feel grounded, especially that floor one. When you feel your souls on the floor or the bed, it's very grounding into the present. Three things I can hear, let me be careful now. Birds, white noise, and I can hear some leaves. Great.

Two things that I can smell. I've got my diffuser on, so I can smell that. Always good to have a scent. And if you can't smell anything, like a scent, like a candle, what are you doing? Maybe fresh air or the outdoors or wherever you are. And then one thing you can taste, I can taste green juice,

because I had some green juice before this. But notice that, right? Just notice that for a second, how we feel sort of present in the moment already. I'm sure none of you thought of anything at that time. So our mind needs to be engaged in the present. The other way of being present, and this is our second exercise is your breath. Being present through your breath. As soon as you start breathing intentionally, you'll be present. So what I want you to do right now is place your left palm on your stomach

and I want you to breathe in and feel your stomach come out and breathe out and feel your stomach go in. Breathe in and feel your stomach go out. Breathe out and feel your stomach go in. Breathe in and feel your stomach go out, breathe out and feel your stomach go in. Breathe in and feel your stomach go out. Breathe out and feel your stomach go in. When you bring your awareness to your breath, it helps you lose mental weight because everything calms down. Usually when we feel mental weight, when you're carrying a lot of weight, your heart starts beating faster, you start panicking.

When we slow down our breathing, when we calm our breathing, we start to lose mental weight. And the third and final exercise I want to share with you to lose mental weight and to add to your mental workout on a daily basis. So presence, you should practice every time you change the room you're in. Every time you change your room, practice presence. Breathing, practice breathing every time before and after you send an email,

before and after a Zoom call, just do it there for 30 seconds. And the third part of the mental workout I want you to do with yourself is checking with yourself daily. Checking with yourself. It's an exercise to just checking with yourself is check in with yourself daily. Check in with yourself. It's an exercise to just check in with yourself and say, how do I feel? Has my mind? What do I need to do to make myself feel better? There's three questions you have to ask yourself at the end of every day.

How am I feeling? How can I feel better? What do I need to stop doing? It's like, what do I need to start doing? What do I need to stop doing? How do I feel? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to stop doing? How do I feel? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing? More of.

So that is step three, exercise three. And the final thing is how to stay mentally active. Sometimes we don't know how to stay mentally active. We know how to stay physically active. Go on a walk, 10,000 steps, right? Don's movement. How do you stay mentally active? The first one is you learn something new daily.

Learn something new daily. Literally this morning, my wife was speaking to our adorable nephew, he's in London, and she said to me, she goes, he wants to know cool facts about nature and animals and the outdoors, right? He's four and a half years old, he's adorable, but he's really smart, really mature.

And so I Googled them because I didn't know any. And I said, really, of all these interesting facts, and all of a sudden, my mind was expanding. Like literally, my mind was expanding just by reading facts. And I was reading them to a four and a half years old, four and a half year old, and that's why sometimes we think,

you know, what's going on here? Like, why is this even gonna help? But I promise you, when you learn something new every day, your mind expands. You may learn a new word. I love that one. For a long time, that was my favorite one. Learning a new word every day.

I love learning about a new city. Love learning a new fact. If you feel you're learning every day, your mind will grow. And this is what we see in adults, who end up with Alzheimer's or dementia. A lot of it is because they stop learning. Obviously, as you get older, we retire. People stop being mentally active. They're not learning something. They're not

processing anything. They've no, they're not doing any more problem solving or critical thinking anymore. And I'll get on to that. But learning something new daily. So ask just what is one new thing you can learn? Is it a word in a different language? Is it a new word in English? Is it about a new city? Is it about a new leaf, a new coin? What is it that you get fascinated about just learning about something new every day? The second way to stay mentally active is challenge a thought, debate or discussion. This is that critical thinking, you know, problem solving mind of ours that needs to be mentally active. Can you set up a debate with your friends? There are these great cards

that I've talked about before called no more small talk. And I got some others the other day. I believe red table talk has their own. And with these cards, they just ask challenging questions. And it's great to sit over dinner and just take one question every day. Just one question every day, right?

The question could be, what am I grateful for today? But the question could be like, if you found a suitcase with a million dollars, what would you do with it? And it's just having a discussion, you're challenging yourself mentally, you're stretching yourself mentally, and that keeps you mentally active. And the third and final way to stay mentally active is calming music, calming sense that are really powerful for your mind. I'm a big fan of this cent called, uh, and oil called peppermint halo, and you put it around your head like a halo.

And having that and calming music is so great to stay mentally active because that's the mental rejuvenation and replenishing. So that is the four exercises to lose mental weight and the ultimate mental health workout plan. I want you to test it. I want you to try it. I want you to experiment with it. I want you to experience it.

And I want you to tag me on Instagram and tell me the best one that you've found. Which one are you using? Which practice are you taking forward? Which one are you sharing with everyone? Please find someone to work with. Do this together. Get accountable. Get them to listen to the episode as well, and together commit to doing this together.

I promise you, just doing one of these exercises will make such a difference to your mental health, and I can't wait for you to get started. Thank you so much for listening today. Thank you so much. Please, please, please leave a review. It makes a huge difference to the podcast. I'll see you again next week. Thanks for listening. Our 20s are often seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s,

from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind our experiences. The psychology of your 20s hosted by me, Gemma Speg. Listen now on the iHart Radio Amp Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. The therapy for Black Girls podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Take good care. When my daughter ran off to hop trains, I was terrified I'd never see her again,

so I followed her into the train yard. This is what it sounds like inside the box cart. And into the city of the rails. There I found a surprising world, so brutal and beautiful that it changed me. But the rails do that to everyone. There is another world out there, and if you want to play with the devil, you're going to find them there in the rail yard.

I'm Denelle Morton, come with me to find out what waits for us in the city of the rails. Listen to City of the Rails on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Or, cityoftherails.com. or cityoftherails.com.