Dr. Aditi Nerurkar: 5 Mental Health Resets That Will Save Your Life & Business | Mental Wealth Series | E1

For many entrepreneurs, mental health takes a back seat to ambition, productivity, and the pressure to keep going no matter what. Dr. Aditi Nerurkar once lived by that belief, until chronic burnout during her 80-hour-a-week residency broke her body down so severely she feared a heart condition. That crisis sparked her healing journey and became the foundation for her 5 Resets for when life and business get hard. In this first episode of the Mental Wealth Series, Dr. Aditi shares science-backed tools to help entrepreneurs reduce stress, prevent burnout, and protect their mental health. In this episode, Hala and Dr. Aditi will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:52) The Global Stress and Burnout Crisis (03:37) Good Stress vs. Bad Stress (05:36) Your Brain's Fight-or-Flight Response (10:19) True Resilience vs. Toxic Resilience (13:05) Dr. Aditi's Personal Burnout Breaking Point (37:00) The Five Resets Framework (44:45) The “Buried Treasure” Wellness Exercise (52:11) Digital Boundaries for Mental Health (1:00:40) Monotasking for Focus and Productivity Dr. Aditi Nerurkar is a physician, public health expert, and Harvard Medical School faculty member specializing in stress, burnout, resilience, and mental health. She is also a nationally sought-after speaker, television correspondent, and the bestselling author of The 5 Resets, a science-backed guide to managing stress and improving mental well-being. Sponsored By: Huel - Get over $50 in savings with the Discovery Bundle from Huel. Use my exclusive code YAP15 for 15% off at huel.com/yap15. Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/profiting Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Quo - Run your business communications the smart way. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/profiting Fabric - Protect your family with term life insurance from Fabric by Gerber Life. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/profiting ZocDoc - Stop putting off those doctors’ appointments. Find and instantly book a doctor you love today at Zocdoc.com/PROFITING Blinkist - Turn the world’s best nonfiction books into quick 15-minute reads or listens. Grab your free trial plus an exclusive 30% discount at blinkist.com/profiting Remitly - Transfer money internationally with Remitly, with no hidden fees. Use code BUSINESS to get a $100 bonus after you send $300 or more. New customers only. Prolon - Reset and rejuvenate your body with Prolon’s five-day plant-based fasting mimicking program. Go to ProlonLife.com/PROFITING for 15% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program. Resources Mentioned: Dr. Aditi's Book, The 5 Resets: bit.ly/AN-T5R Dr. Aditi's Website: draditi.com Dr. Aditi's Instagram: instagram.com/draditinerurkar Mental Wealth Playbook: yapmedia.com/mentalwealth Mental Wealth Series E2: youngandprofiting.co/MWS-E2 Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Biohacking, Motivation, Manifestation, Brain Health, Life Balance, Self-Healing, Positivity, Happiness, Sleep, Diet

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Hala Taha?

  Today's episode is sponsored in part by Northwest Registered Agent, Whatnot, Mod, and AG1. Northwest Registered Agent gives you the tools and guidance to build a complete business identity. Start using free resources at northwestregisteredagent.com/yanpfree. Whatnot helps sellers grow through live shopping, community, and real-time connections with buyers. Search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T, in the App Store, download, and you can start selling right away. Mod connects qualifying patients with licensed medical providers for modafinil to support sustained energy, focus, and alertness throughout the day. Visit mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order plus free shipping

• 0:43Hala Taha?

  with promo code PROFITING. See their website for important safety information. AG1 Next Gen supports your nutritional foundation with vitamins, minerals, pre- and probiotics, and superfoods. Go to drinkag1.com/profitting and get a free immune support bundle with your first subscription order. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at youngandprofiting.com/deals.

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Stress is the great equalizer, but the goal of life is really about making sure that this stress can serve you rather than harm you. Resilience and stress go hand in hand. Every single society has some concept of toxic resilience because it's a manifestation of hustle culture. Multitasking is a myth. It's a scientific misnomer. There's actually no such thing. Life is noisy. How are we going to quiet down the noise? It's just about...

• 1:37Hala Taha?

  Hey, Yap fam! Welcome to Week 1 of our brand-new May event, The Mental Wealth Series. All month long, we're focusing on mental health for entrepreneurs and how to grow your business without burning yourself out in the process. Today, we're kicking things off with the incredible Dr. Aditi Nurekar to talk about the entrepreneurial burnout, stress, and how to break free from toxic resilience. But remember, this month is not just about listening. It's about taking real action. So head to yapmedia.com/mentalwealth, that's yapmedia.com/mentalwealth, to download your free 30-day Mental Wealth Playbook. Your Week 1 challenge is to complete the Fake Commute Worksheet to help your brain compartmentalize work and life and start creating healthier rhythms right away. Go

• 2:20Hala Taha?

  download your workbook at yapmedia.com/mentalwealth, and let's get right into the episode.

• 2:27Hala Taha?

  Hi DT, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  It's such a pleasure to be here, Hala.

• 2:32Hala Taha?

  I'm so excited for this conversation. So I actually have been studying mental health and business for the past few weeks. I can't wait to just learn from you today. And so my first question to you is just to really understand, like, how stressed are we all? Like, how stressed are we as a society? Can you help shed some light on this?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  We are seeing unprecedented rates of stress and burnout right now, Hala. I mean, as a doctor, I've known that stress and burnout has always been something that people, you know, certainly come to me and other doctors about. But the statistics are staggering right now, based on lots of different sources and data from different touchpoints here in the US and abroad. We're seeing rates of 70% to 74% of stress and burnout, and that number is slightly higher in those who are entrepreneurs. That's like saying in a room of 30 people, 21 people are struggling with stress and burnout. So if you feel this way and you're an entrepreneur, you are not alone. It is not your fault, and there is a way out, based on what we're going to talk about today.

• 3:35Hala Taha?

  Amazing. And to your point, entrepreneurs feel so stressed out. And I personally believe one of the reasons why, it's like, one of our strengths is that we're so passionate, right? But being passionate is actually a double-edged sword, because we then really tie ourselves with our work, like, we are our business. So then anytime there's any sort of setback or failure, we feel like it's a personal failure, rather than a failure in our business. And so it makes us more and more stressed out. So I can't wait to hear so many of your strategies. I read your book, it was so good. But first, I want to talk about how stress is actually not necessarily a bad thing. You say there's good stress, there's bad stress, and you call it a biological phenomenon that has actually helped us evolve

• 4:20Hala Taha?

  as humans. So can you explain that to us?

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you know, when you and I and everyone else, when we say I'm so stressed or it's been a stressful week, what we're describing is the bad kind of stress. But in fact, there are two kinds of stress, like you say, there's good, healthy, productive stress, and then there's unhealthy, bad, dysfunctional and unproductive stress. The good kind of stress scientifically, we call that adaptive stress, and the bad kind is maladaptive stress. So examples of good, healthy stress, what are they? It's, you know, when you start your own company or when you're a new founder, that excitement that you have, or rooting for your favorite sports team, buying a car, graduating, expanding your team.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  There are so many examples of healthy stress in your life that help drive your life forward, help you get excited, get up and take on the day. But when that good, healthy stress gets high, out of balance, off kilter, and it really starts going haywire, that's when problems can arise. And that's when it transforms to unhealthy stress. Like you said, you know, because we have those two kinds of stress, the goal of life is not to live a life with zero stress. It's actually biologically impossible. You need a little bit of healthy stress to get up in the morning and take on the day, whatever your day may be, whether you're an entrepreneur or not.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  But it's about, the goal of life is really about making sure that this stress can serve you rather than harm you. So it's not about zero stress. It's absolutely impossible to have zero stress in your life. You need a little bit of stress, but it just needs to be in balance, and that's the goal.

• 6:01Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I want to get really nerdy and talk about like, what actually happens to us biologically? And I think I want to start this off by understanding, like, what is the purpose of our nervous system?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Well, there's two kinds of nervous systems. First, you have the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. These are just big scientific words, but we'll break it down. So your sympathetic nervous system is fight or flight. That's like, your stress response lives in your sympathetic nervous system. It's governed by a part of your brain called the amygdala, which is a small almond-shaped structure deep in your brain. And in scientific terms, we call this your reptilian brain or lizard brain, because it's that part of the brain that hasn't evolved the way the other parts of the brain have. And your amygdala is what powers and drives your stress response. And so that's what the fight or flight or sympathetic nervous system does. The goal is survival and self-preservation.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  It's about keeping you safe. And so when that amygdala is on, that is the sense that you feel, that feeling of survival. And so, you know, what's happened now, the purpose of the amygdala and the sympathetic nervous system, your fight or flight system, evolutionarily, it was to keep you safe. So when you face a tiger in the forest, you know, when we were all cave dwellers back in the day, evolutionarily, you would face a tiger in the forest and you would fight the tiger or you would flee. That's what the fight or flight response is. But now, all of these tigers, these metaphorical tigers, aren't this one moment in time and then you have a moment of rest. It's these things that just never go away.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  So for entrepreneurs, funding issues, growing, you know, challenges with growth, challenges with meeting the demands of consumers, all of these business issues that people are facing, they're happening at a low hum in the background at all times. So that amygdala is just on at all times. And your amygdala needs a break. Your brain and your body both need a break biologically to be able to thrive. And so we can talk a little bit more about that entrepreneurial mindset. You know, I had a clinical practice in Boston, which is like the entrepreneurial capital of the US. So I had lots of patients who were entrepreneurs. And just, you know, what do you do and how do you manage to be able to be a successful

• 8:18Speaker 01

  entrepreneur, but protect and preserve your mental health in the meantime?

• 8:23Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Yeah, I can't wait to talk about some of your strategies to reverse stress, reverse burnout. But I want to understand more about like the feelings that we get when we're in fight or flight mode, because it's not like we know, like, hey, my parasympathetic nervous system has turned on. Like, you don't know that, right? So our parasympathetic is actually the good stress, is that right?

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Well, the parasympathetic system, whereas the sympathetic, what we talked about, fight or flight. The parasympathetic is rest and digest. And the good news is that both systems can't be on at the same time. It's like a light switch. So when one is on, the other is off. It's mutually exclusive and the other is on, the other is off. What you're aiming to do with time is to get out of that sympathetic amygdala mode and back into that parasympathetic rest and digest mode where you are, you know, other parts of your brain are taking over again. That part of the brain that takes over is called the prefrontal cortex. Again, long scientific word. If you put your hand on your forehead, it's the area right behind your forehead. And that prefrontal cortex

• 9:27Speaker 01

  is like what adulting is all about. It's, you know, it governs memory, planning, organization, strategic thinking. It's ideally what entrepreneurs like they want a really, a really strong prefrontal cortex. You want, you know, when you're an entrepreneur or a worker in any capacity, whether you work for a large corporation, whether you're at home and work from home. So there are so many reasons why you need that prefrontal cortex. And what happens with stress and burnout is that the amygdala kind of hijacks the functions of the prefrontal cortex and drives the train. And what you want to do is you want to slowly, through various things that you can do to reset your stress during the day, you can get that

• 10:09Speaker 01

  prefrontal cortex back into the driver's seat. So you're making good decisions. So you're having that forward thinking and strategic thinking. You know, one of the biggest things that happens when you are feeling stressed is that you often get in your own way. And you are so stuck in the here and now, in that immediate sense of survival. It's not you. It's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with you. It's actually how your biology is built. Because like we said, the amygdala is all about immediate needs, survival, self-preservation. It cannot think about a future. It's all about what's happening in the here and now. And that's why we want to dial down the volume of the amygdala.

• 10:48Hala Taha?

  Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So I know one of the big concepts in your book was about resilience. And you say that resilience is really dependent on stress. So I'd love to understand your definition of resilience and how stress plays a part.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yes, resilience and stress go hand in hand. When you think about what is resilience, the scientific definition is that it's in your innate biological ability. So we all have it. And it's that ability that you have to adapt, recover and grow when life throws you a curve ball or you have a challenge. Now resilience doesn't function in a vacuum. You need a little bit of stress, that healthy, positive stress for resilience to show itself. What happens though, is that that word resilience, you and I hear it and others who are listening to this conversation may hear the word and have a visceral response because it's gotten a really bad rap over the past several years.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  The word resilience is a positive connotation, but it feels very negative when you hear it. And the reason it feels negative now, you're like, oh, don't tell me to be resilient. It's because that definition has changed and morphed societally. We've moved away from true resilience towards toxic resilience. And so what is true resilience? True resilience, it's like, like I said, it's your innate biology. We all have that ability to be resilient. It honors boundaries. It honors your human limitations for rest and recovery. And it really focuses on self compassion and leaning into that versus toxic resilience. Toxic resilience is when you and I hear the word resilience, immediately you cringe. That's toxic resilience. It's a mind over matter mindset.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  It's productivity at all costs. It's like all systems go all the time. It's the Energizer Bunny here in the US, you know? Just keep going. In the UK, keep calm and carry on. Every single society has some concept of toxic resilience because it's a manifestation of hustle culture. And so I hope that the entrepreneurs listening, what they take away from our conversation is that you can be resilient and you can still get burnt out. That's called the resilience myth that people think, oh, I can't be burned out. I'm so resilient. Those two things, because what you're likely living through is this idea of toxic resilience. Because we've been taught from a really young age that resilience is about tolerating

• 13:11Speaker 01

  a lot of discomfort, but that's not actually true resilience. And so I want to dismantle that idea of resilience as being toxic and rather lean into your true resilience, which really honors your need for rest and recovery. Because then that is how your brain, you know, newsflash that your brain really needs rest and recovery, to be productive and to really be functioning at its optimal level.

• 13:35Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Well, I found out from reading your book that a lot of your passion for stress and burnout actually came from a personal experience where you were in a very toxic place in your life. You were in residency, you're working 80 hours a week, and you were so stressed that at one point you thought you had a heart condition.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 13:55Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Talk to us about that time in your life. What were you going through? And how did that bring about your passion to start figuring out how to recover from stress and burnout?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was a medical resident. It's kind of like similar to entrepreneurship. You are just on and working 24/7. I worked 80 hours a week, like you said, and saw death and dying on an everyday basis. Things that no mere mortal should see, we in medical residency, you see it. And back then, you know, like 25 years ago, when I was in training, no one talked about words like self-care, or self-love, or boundaries. Like, there was none of that. And so I was taught, in my medical training, early, early on, I mean, we're talking like the second year of medical school, I was taught that pressure makes diamonds. That was the mantra we were taught. And so anytime I was in a situation that

• 14:49Speaker 01

  was difficult, or, you know, like I had worked long, long, I'd done a 30-hour shift, and I was really tired. Anytime I said, "Oh, I want to rest," I would say, "No, no, pressure makes diamonds." And I was a diamond in the making. And then my diamond cracked. And it cracked one fine day, out of the blue. I was rounding, I was in the cardiac ICU, I was the senior resident. I had just finished a really brutal call where we had a lot of patients that we admitted to the hospital. And I was finishing up in the morning, just, you know, checking in on every patient before I headed home. And I suddenly felt like a stampede of wild horses across my chest. Never happened before. Felt like, you know, knocked the wind out of me. I sat down immediately, profusely sweating. The nurse and I, she

• 15:34Speaker 01

  and I had worked together a lot. She gave me some orange juice, and I drank it quickly. And then feeling passed within seconds. And we both kind of laughed it off. And then I got up and I kept working. Which just goes to show you, you know, like how much you are indoctrinated with this idea of pressure makes diamonds. That's that feeling of the stampede of wild horses never happened again at work, but it happened almost every night as I was going to bed for weeks and weeks until I finally hit that point of thinking, okay, I need to go see someone, a doctor. So I went to go see a doctor and they did the medical tests and checked my heart and, you know, echocardiogram, like a heart ultrasound, EKG, all of the

• 16:15Speaker 01

  blood tests, anemia, thyroid electrolytes, all of that. And everything checked out fine. And so my doctor was lovely and she said, oh, everything's great. Big reassuring smile. It's probably just stress. Just try to relax. I know it's hard. I've been there medical residency and just like, you know, ushered me out of her office. So my, what I got was relax more. I'm like, okay, relax more. I went to movies, hung out with friends. I was single at the time. Now I'm married and a mom. You know, I, I, I went out. I spent time with, I was still working 80 hours a week. I didn't have a ton of time, but I did what I could. I had dinners with family and friends, retail therapy, went to a spa,

• 16:56Speaker 01

  took a vacation. I did all of these things to try to relax more, but nothing really worked. And the only thing that worked was when I put my scientist hat on and I was like, okay, I need to figure this out. Stress, brain, body, like what is happening to me? And why am I feeling like this? And then once I read all of those studies, because I had access to all of the literature and the science, right? So I started reading all of the science and the studies of what happens to your brain and your body when you're feeling stressed. Why am I feeling this way? Because my first reaction, to be honest, when she said, you're probably just stressed. My first reaction, I scoffed. I was like, oh, come on. Stress doesn't happen to people like me. I'm resilient. Again,

• 17:38Speaker 01

  because I was living that resilience myth, right? And so then I slowly, over three months, started following, you know, through the science, I started putting into practice all of the things I was learning. And then I found my way out of stress. And when I found my way out of stress, that's when I said to my Like I want to be the doctor that I needed during that time. So my response to a stressed patient wouldn't be, oh, just try to relax more. You know, very well meaning, but not helpful at all.

• 18:06Hala Taha?

  Yeah, I want to, I want to dig into that a bit. What was the problem with your doctor saying like, oh, you know, hey, just relax.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  There are so, I mean, that's like a million dollar question. Again, not her fault. It is not a personal failing of physicians. I am a physician. It's simply that stress is seen in society as this like magical mythical creature. Like with vague, no boundaries and just like, oh, try to relax. Cause no one really understands stress and understands like, oh, you can actually do things to help you change your brain and your body for less stress. You can work with your brain and your body. The medical system, our conventional medical system, doesn't address stress head on. Simply because doctors do not have the time to talk about stress with their patients.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  One study that I did early in my medical, you know, my research career. There was a study early on that showed 60 to 80% of all doctor's visits have a stress related component. So people like me who go to their doctor saying, I think something's wrong with my heart. And then they do the full workup and say, no, no, it's just stress. Right? So 60 to 80% of doctor's visits have some form of stress related component to it. And yet only 3% of doctors actually counsel their patients for stress. And so when I did that research and discovered that huge gap, I wanted my work to close that gap. And so the reason that doctors don't necessarily counsel patients for stress, again, not a personal failing.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Doctors would love to, but to be a good doctor in terms of primary care, doctors have to work 27 hours a day to fulfill the basic requirements of their job. And no one has 27 hours a day to do their work. Right? You have to sleep, you have to eat, you need to spend time with your family. And so there are impossible, impossible demands placed on doctors to do all of these things that are well outside the bounds of what a regular human can do. And then in addition to that, so that's why stress often just falls on the wayside. Cause if you're thinking about, you know, a patient's cholesterol and cancer screening and heart disease and which meds they need and what referrals they need. It's kind of like, I call it the doorknob question.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  You know, like when someone's hand is on the doorknob, like, anything else? It's like, oh, actually, I am kind of stressed. And then you say, I'll just try to relax. Again, no one's fault. It's just the way the system is designed. And then the other, you know, the other thing is just that stress as an entity isn't really well understood. I think one of the biggest kind of ideas that I want to share is that stress can be quantified, just like blood pressure, and we should start treating it like that. So that we can do certain things and then measure it. You know, your audience, entrepreneurs, are all about data and metrics and measuring things. And so there's a way that you can measure stress. There's a quiz that I have in The Five Resets, my book, that you can measure stress and then try a couple of things.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  And then every four weeks, check your stress score again and see if it decreases. Because we should start thinking about stress like blood pressure. In the same way that you do certain things to lower your blood pressure and then you keep monitoring.

• 21:23Hala Taha?

  It's so true, because stress is also the root cause of so many other, like, worse conditions that the doctors are prioritizing, like you're saying. But if we just kind of address some of these root causes, we'd all be a lot better off. Okay, so I want to understand from you some of the big aha moments that you had when you first started looking at your own stress and trying to reverse your own stress and burnout. What were some of the big things that you were like, oh, my gosh, like, this is such a big finding. I can't wait to share it with the world?

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I think one of the first things that would, like, the aha moment that crystallized my future, my forward path in career, was just that, wait a second, I'm stressed? Like, all of these things are happening to my body because of stress? And then, oh, my goodness, I can do certain things in my day to day to reset my stress? Like, that felt something that, you know, that was like out of the bounds of anything I had even considered first, that I could get stressed, because I was resilient. I was living the resilient Smith, which is like... Brazilian people don't get stressed. We're superheroes. But in fact, that is not true. We are all just simply mere mortals. And your brain and your body need rest. And so if you're working 80 hours a week and

• 22:35Speaker 01

  not having any time to decompress, you know, that medical resident journey is very similar to an early-stage entrepreneur, even a middle-career entrepreneur who's just working constantly, thinking like, oh, this is just how things, this is how it has to be. I'm resilient and I'm gonna just keep going and going, until you hit your breaking point, you know? And so that was my aha moment, that you could come out of stress by doing really simple things consistently. So, five or 10 minutes every day, I would do, you know, a few things. So I started prioritizing a 10 o'clock bedtime. Studies show that 10:00 PM is, the hour between 10 to 11 is considered the golden

• 23:18Speaker 01

  hour for sleep, for lots of things: cardiac, mental health, well-being. And so I prioritized sleep, and really focused on a 10:00 PM bedtime. I started setting a bedtime alarm. 9:30 was my bedtime alarm. It went off and it told me, like, okay, I need to wind down. Back then, I didn't, we didn't have smartphones. I'm like, you know, kind of a dinosaur. We had flip phones. And so I would have to shut down everything and say, okay, it's time for bed. And that was sort of like one of the first things I did. And then, once I started prioritizing my sleep, everything changed. And then I started learning breathing techniques. So I talk about some of these breathing techniques in the Five Resets, but understanding that your breath, that was a big aha moment for me. Understanding that

• 24:00Speaker 01

  your breath can be connected to your stress, and that when you modulate your breath and do different sorts of exercises to help with your breathing, you can decrease stress. So, and the reason for that is that your breath is the only biological process in the body that is under voluntary control. So you and I can do a breathing exercise, and we can do it together, and, you know, breathe in for a certain count and breathe out for a certain count. And then, when we stop focusing on our breathing, it just happens naturally, involuntary. So it's the only process in our body that's under voluntary, involuntary, voluntary control.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Different from your brainwaves or your digestion or any other bodily process. And that is why your breath can often be that light switch between on and off, between the sympathetic system, fight or flight, and getting you back into rest and digest. Because when you're in that sympathetic mode, when you're anxious, your breath is like short, shallow, and you're doing this thoracic breathing. So you're doing, you know, it's up here in your chest. Yeah. And when you are feeling rested and relaxed and not stressed, your breathing is coming from your belly, deep belly breathing. It's slow, deep and relaxed. And so that was like a big aha moment because I started focusing on my breath throughout the day when I was, you know, a lot, what was, what was interesting for me

• 25:18Speaker 01

  for my personal journey is that like I didn't jet off for six months to Bali and do like this amazing holiday, even though I would have loved to. To this day, I'm like, oh, sign me up for that plan. I continued working 80 hours a week, continued my residency and just kept going, but brought in a lot of these things. And over time, it still worked because I was able to reset my biology and the brain and the body, just like your entrepreneurial, you know, audience. It's not like you have to abandon all these plans that you have. It's just about taking, paying a little bit closer attention, changing some routines you may have. And so that was like another big aha moment. And then I've continued to have a lot of aha moments.

• 26:02Speaker 01

  I think another really big aha moment was, you know, I always, as a doctor, I would see patients. So I would understand like one-on-one what was happening with patients. And even in my crowded waiting room, I would notice that there's this stress paradox, which is this idea that people are all suffering with stress. I mean, we talked about the statistics, right? Like 70 to 74% of people in the UK, one study showed 90% of people. So you can kind of say that, like everyone, you and I together today. Are struggling with stress and burnout in some capacity. Of course we are. We're just regular people living in this world and you know, at this time in life. But when I would

• 26:47Speaker 01

  notice that in my waiting room, no one was talking to each other. So it's like, we're all facing stress and burnout, but the paradox is that it's like a universal thing that's happening and yet we are completely isolated in the experience, which is wild. And I started noticing that like another aha moment was on a much bigger scale when I started giving talks. So when I started speaking to audiences of like a thousand, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, then I noticed like, oh my God, this stress paradox and the stress and burnout that people are feeling that I would see one on one in the waiting room when you see patients, it was happening on like this huge scale. Really, I kind of understood like, wow, this is a universal problem that

• 27:31Speaker 01

  people are facing across ages and genders and types of jobs people have and where they live. Stress is the great equalizer.

• 27:40Hala Taha?

  Hmm. So good. And I want to take a moment and kind of just like move away from the signs for a second and talk about your career because the best business ideas come about when you're solving your own problems. And you talked about how you wanted to be the doctor that you didn't have when you were a resident, right? So talk to us about how finding this passion of wanting to help people with their stress has actually changed the trajectory of your career.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I never really thought about this as a career path. I know that early, early on, people would, you know, read my long emails and say, you're a great writer. And I thought, okay, cool. Like, what am I going to do with that? It just, I'm a doctor, you know? And what was interesting is that my journey now, so I was a regular doctor. I never wanted to go into stress and burnout. I just was a internal medicine resident, you know, taking care of patients in the hospital, diabetes, strokes, heart disease, that sort of stuff. And my personal experience changed the trajectory of my life. So I started then focusing, you know, when I finished, when I got out of that stress struggle myself and I wanted to become

• 28:50Speaker 01

  the doctor I needed. So I went to a fellowship that focused specifically, and it was in Boston at Harvard, focused specifically on stress and burnout and how to bring those in, the mind body connection, how to bring those into regular conventional medical care based on the research I did. And then I think what's happened to me is just, it's been very organic. And then I started doing more talks and speaking. I think what really, you know, when doctors often, and you might notice this with any entrepreneurial group, what often happens is you are in your own silo, like it's an echo chamber and you're in your own place. So I never really thought, you know, during the pandemic is when it really kind of like hit me because I would share things with my friends and most of my friends are not doctors. And I'd say, you know,

• 29:35Speaker 01

  because with stress, ba ba ba ba ba. And they, and I'd say, you know, because everyone knows that. And they would say like, what? What did you just say? No one knows that. You need to write about that. I thought, come on, of course, everyone knows that. So it's almost like, you know, that I had to like almost give myself permission to say, oh, really? Not everyone knows that study because you forget, you know, you've been doing this for decades. You're like, oh, everyone knows this stuff that I know. And then I started writing more about it. And then, believe it or not, I mean, I never really wanted to write a book. I, my patients used to ask me when I would like counsel them and write out my things for them. They would say, you know, Dr. Dr. Rukar, you really need to write a book about this stuff. Like, really? Who's

• 30:19Speaker 01

  gonna read a book about stress and burnout? Like, I just didn't think it, you know, you don't, you, you kind of don't really realize what you're sitting on in terms of your own information or guidance. And then it's almost like my audiences asked for it. So when I would give talks, then everyone was like, You know, have you ever thought about a book? And then it just kind of, you know, now the book is available in 15 languages in 35 countries. And it's like a best seller and people are reading it. And of course, there's that connection to the material and the book. Because like I said, stress is this great equalizer and we're all facing stress. And so my own journey really was just, you know, it just sort of very naturally unfolded.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  It was very organic. It's funny because a lot of people reach out to me to ask me like, how did you become a Harvard doctor? How are you doing your TV stuff now? How did you write a book? And it wasn't like I had this grand plan at all. And I just continue to evolve based on what the need is. To me, in fact, Hala, it feels very similar. Like when I'm saying, when I'm speaking to a patient, I don't see patients currently. When I'm speaking to a patient and you know, that aha moment that the patient has that light bulb moment of like, oh my God, I feel so good. I understand what you're explaining now. That is why I do what I do for people, for that sense of mental health to be accessible to everyone.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Irrespective, that's why everything in the five resets is free. Like nothing costs money because I've had patients who've had lots of, you know, varying resources. And so that light bulb moment is like what I live for. And it's kind of the same thing when you're talking to a large audience, when you're explaining the science in a way that's simple. That someone can say, oh my God, I'm going to try that today. Yes. And it just so happens that it's not in a waiting room. It's like, you know, a group of thousands of people. And so when I do my TV work, same thing, same concept. To me, it doesn't feel all that different, though I think to others, it feels like vastly different.

• 32:22Hala Taha?

  Yeah. I love your story. I feel like it's very inspiring because I know a lot of people who are in jobs where they're a doctor and a lawyer, and they want to be entrepreneurs, but they feel like they're kind of just like stuck because they went to school for so long. But entrepreneurship really allows you to use like all your skills, all your passions, allow you to become your full self. Because here you are doing things that you're good at, being a doctor, you know, curing stress, speaking, writing. And now you get to do all those things that are like uniquely your skills and put it out to the world. And I'm sure, do you feel like you are living a much more fulfilled life because? You've sort of taken the leap to become an entrepreneur and not just hold yourself to becoming a doctor.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:08Hala Taha?

  To just being a doctor.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  What a great question. I really do feel like there are so, so many doctors or lawyers, like, you know, it's a career track because you go to school for so, so long.

• 33:18Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 01

  And it's this idea of like, okay, I'm stuck. I have, I'm often like the informal career counselor for so, so many of my doctor friends and colleagues, because so many people are feeling stuck and feeling like there's no way out. I would actually say to people who might, where, you know, that resonates, and you might be at a job for like 20 years in a company and you're, you know, trying to make partner or whatever it may be, and you're like, oh, I just feel so stuck. It's not really a departure. So, you know, when, when I did, when I made this pivot, it wasn't a real departure for me because I was still using all of those skills. So, nothing is really ever wasted.

• 34:01Hala Taha?

  Yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  So, the connection, you know, the skills of building rapport and the therapeutic connection that I made with patients, I just translated that into the written word. So, then I wrote about that, you know, I connected with my reader. I connected, or when I do my TV segments, I connect with the audience because it's a skill that is so transferable. And especially if you are in a profession like medicine or law, or if you've done something that you've studied for many, many years, you know, chances are, every skill that you have learned, you can use it in another way. And so, yes, to answer your question, I feel deeply fulfilled now in a way that I didn't before.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  I loved, you know, I think for me, my early, early years, I was, when I was 18 years old and I was at Barnard, which is the Women's School of Columbia for college, I really wanted to be a journalist. I was like so hardcore wanting to be a journalist. And my parents were immigrants and Indian doctors, and they were like, oh, you're going to be a doctor too. You're going to follow in the lineage of the family, because my grandparents were doctors, my uncles and aunts were doctors. And at the time, I was like, okay, they know best, I'll be a doctor. And I ended up falling in love with the human body and the workings of the body. But really, I went into medicine because I loved the human story. And I love that connection with people, which is what I wanted to do with journalism anyway. And then I found my way to journalism, right? Like I found my way to health communication.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  So if you are feeling stuck, I get that it is real, but it's more of a message to you and a signal rather than like a life, you know, it's not like you have to say, okay, it's my life sentence to feel stuck. You can get out of it, but it really just takes like small glimmers. You don't have to just shift your whole life. You can make small changes, like, you know, do a little bit, a little bit every day.

• 35:53Hala Taha?

  The other like just couple of things that I'm hearing you say, well, somebody feels stuck is like, what are all the things that are people are telling you you're good at? Like your patients were saying, you're such a good writer. And you started doing some speeches and you were getting like really good feedback. It's like, those are clues of like what you should kind of start dabbling in, or even thinking back to what you used to enjoy when you were a kid or be good at when you were a kid. Right? So a lot of people don't even know where to start. And like, those are the places to start. What is everybody complimenting you on? That's not even like your day job?

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's one of my first resets. In fact, in the book, I write about this one patient in particular, but it's uncover your buried treasure and uncover your childhood treasure. So Carl Jung, who is a philosopher, talked about this idea of like, what do you do that makes the hours pass like minutes? And what did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? For me, communicating, so whether it would be like talking to a patient and explaining something, educating, that was always something that felt really easy to counsel someone, to educate someone, to show them the information and explain it in a way that, you know, simplifies complex scientific information. And so there are

• 37:06Speaker 01

  so many skills like that. Write it all down, because I think for me, I wish, like in hindsight, I'm like, huh, maybe if I had written down all of those things, like you say, it's like a great idea to, you know, gather all of those things that people are saying and just write it down. Like, good writer, good communicator, good. And then you're like, okay, what do I do with this? You know?

• 37:25Hala Taha?

  Yeah, love it. Okay, so this is a great transition. I want to spend the rest of the interview talking about your new book. It's called The Five resets, rewire your brain and body for less stress and more resilience.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  So can you first talk through us at a high level, your five resets? What are they? The five resets are essentially it's a roadmap and it helps you get out of like we talked about, like get you out of that here and now and amygdala, high stress and into a better mental state. So we can go through each of those resets. There are five of them and in those five resets are about 15 science-backed strategies. Everything is based on the science. So the first reset is get clear on what matters most. Again, it helps you get out of that immediate survival mode and towards a thriving mode. And there's, you know, I don't talk, I mean, of course I talk about the amygdala and prefrontal cortex,

• 38:20Speaker 01

  but in it, but really it's that idea of switching your brain and resetting it away from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex. The second is find quiet in a noisy world. We talk a lot in that chapter and that reset about figuring out a way to protect your mental health while still remaining an informed citizen and a productive member of society. But how, how can you carve some quiet in this hyper-connected world, particularly if you're an entrepreneur? The third reset is to sync your brain to your body. It's about the mind-body connection. We spoke a little bit about that, about the breath and how the breath can help get you

• 39:01Speaker 01

  centered in the here and now, but there are several other strategies. The next is about bringing your best self forward. And so how can you bring your best self forward? What are some of the things that you can do to help bring your best self forward? Come Up For Air is another one. That really focuses on creating pause and breath throughout the day, simply because we are moving at a frenetic pace right now. All of us are in every industry. And again, based on what we talked about earlier, Hala, you know, it's a myth to think that you are going to be able to continue on and on. An example that I give in the book with a patient is an entrepreneur.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Because I've had many patients who've been entrepreneurs. And one question I often ask my entrepreneurial patients is, what is your end game? And you know, people are going on all cylinders and they're not really thinking about like the end game, or they are kind of thinking about the end game, but not about how what they are doing now is going to serve the end game. And so if your end game is longevity, or you know, you are hoping to just physiologically, if you just want to live to, you know, a ripe old age of like 90 or 100, or your company, if you want to have longevity with your career or in your company, or if you want to sell it and then start another company, whatever it is that you want to do, thinking about the end game and beginning with the end in mind is important,

• 40:31Speaker 01

  particularly when it comes to your mental and physical health and stress and burnout. Because you can't, if you want that end game and if you want that longevity, there's certain things that you're doing now that are not actually serving that end game. So all five resets are a roadmap to get you to that endpoint. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to follow each reset in that order. You can kind of read the book and decide which one really speaks to you at this moment. But I would say like, start with the first reset because it's really important to have a roadmap. You know, when you know where you are headed and you have a map to get there, it just makes it easier for you to get out of your own way, which is a lot of what stress is.

• 41:11Hala Taha?

  So let's stick on the first reset for a minute. It's called get clear on what matters most. And you say that you need to know your end game. I love this. And I actually realized that like, when I was thinking about like, what stresses people out? And I was like, I think a big stressor is that people don't know what they want, right? And so I'd had everybody do this activity to think about their future you, right? Imagine yourself in five years and then think about the things that you need to do now to get you to that place. And then how are you going to schedule that in your life and make sure that it actually happens? I read your chapter and I was like, wow, this reminds me a lot about the exercise and the thought process that I was trying to get people to do. So talk to us about the end game. Why is it important to know what you actually want to be less stressed?

• 41:56Speaker 01

  I love that framing of the question. And when it comes to my question of what matters most to you. You know, we often have these things like, like the work that you're doing, thinking like, okay, from the business point, where do you want to be in five years? Or where do you want to be in 10 years? The five-year plan, the 10-year plan, we all have that. But what I would suggest is before even getting to that five or 10-year plan, because you're feeling so stressed and you can't even think because of your amygdala, you can't even think about next week or next month, let alone five years from now, right? Because when you're feeling that sense of stress and burnout, your amygdala is on high alert. It's all about immediate needs and survival.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  So think about where you want to be in three months or, you know, two months. And instead of thinking to yourself, what's the matter with me? Like, why do I feel like this? What's the matter with me? Think about what matters most to you and create a most goal. So most is an acronym, M-O-S-T. M is what's a goal that you can achieve in three months that's motivating? O, is it objective? S, is it small? And T, is it timely and something that you can actually achieve? And I have had patients, I give lots of examples in the book, The Five resets, but there are so many examples of, you know, most goals. Some patients have said, I want to have enough energy to start to organize a church social.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Another one said, I want to sleep better so that I can finally have the wherewithal to get a new job because I'm not sleeping well, I feel depleted, and I then can't look for a new job. Others have said, I want to write a children's book once I finish getting out of my cancer therapy. The range of those answers of what matters most to you is huge and vast. This is not an existential question. It's not like, what's the meaning of life? And what's your purpose in life? Because that feels so, so big. It's simply, what do you want to achieve in the next three months? When it comes to your mental health and stress and burnout? Do you want less? Do you want more energy? Do you want to feel less fatigued? Do you want to focus better, like better concentration? Do you want to be more productive?

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Do you want to feel a greater sense of well-being or joy or less burnout? You know, burnout, that word we use and we throw around, but actually there's like a million flavors of burnout. So some people feel hypervigilance with burnout. Others feel very lethargic. And there's like, so is, name something that is really, that you feel is getting in the way of your day-to-day life? And focus on that. And then understand that it takes eight weeks to create a new habit for your brain and that your brain falling off the wagon and getting back up and falling off and getting back up is part of the habit formation process. That's how your neural wiring, your brain connections and circuits form. And give yourself eight weeks to start.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  And then take the stress score that, you know, get your, give yourself a stress score. Take the quiz every four weeks and over time you'll start decreasing your stress. But when you have that most goal, then you know what you're working towards, rather than this like vague ambiguous thing of like, I want to feel better. I want to have less stress. I want to be less burned out. But what does that actually mean in your everyday life? How does it show up for you in your everyday?

• 45:11Hala Taha?

  So another activity, since we're talking about exercises and you brought it up earlier, it's, it's find your buried treasure. And I just love this because I feel like, especially as entrepreneurs, a lot of us just like self-identify with our work and like we are our work. Like I was saying before, and we've got to be more than just our work or else we're just not going to be balanced. So talk to us about this exercise and how we do it, why it matters.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  I love this exercise. And the genesis of this exercise actually came from several of my patients, but also one of my colleagues, my doctor colleague. I remember once it was like a Tuesday afternoon. We were swamped with patients and we were finishing up our charts. And he says to me, oh my God, it's only Tuesday. I can't wait for Saturday. Can't wait to play the guitar on Saturday. And I said, oh, you are having a concert? Like, are you, are you, you know, are you going to be performing like with your band? And he said, no, I just can't wait. That I usually play my guitar on Saturdays. And I said, oh, but what do you mean? Like, I was so confused because he was clearly stressed and burned out finishing his charts.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  I said, oh, do you have to go get the guitar from someplace? Like, asking all of these follow up questions. Like, why Saturday? What's the deal with Saturday and playing your guitar? It was Tuesday. And he was like, really spent. And he said, no, like, that's just my day to play guitar. And I was like, oh, do you rent a studio? Like, many follow up questions. And he's like, no, I just, what do you mean? Like, he looked at me like, Saturday's my guitar day. And then I offered, you know, I was like, well, why don't you just play tonight when you get home? And he looked at me like I was nuts. And I was like, why are you waiting for the weekend to do something that you love? I mean, just play for five minutes when you get home today. And he was like, wow, I never thought about that. And so he did. He played the guitar that day and felt immeasurably better the next day.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  And he came in on Wednesday morning and he was like, Aditi, that was amazing. I can't believe you suggested this. I played my guitar for five minutes. It totally felt so great. It like, made me feel like I was playing for an hour. And it was so interesting because I thought, wow, like, he's been, you know, withholding a sense of joy and pleasure that he could get every single day. Again, not a lot of time, five minutes. He's been playing the guitar since he was very young, loves it, feels such a sense of purpose and meaning and joy from guitar playing just a couple of songs. But he saves it for Saturday so that he can work all week and not have that joy. It felt, it was, you know, it was baffling to me. And I've had so many similar stories with patients where they're like,

• 47:48Speaker 01

  oh, I love, I don't know, whatever it is, yoga, or I, you know, I love painting. Oh, but I can only do that on, you know, Sunday. Like, but what do you mean? Why can't you just have a little thing that you just doodle? Or just paint when you come home from work for? Five minutes or when your kids are asleep or, you know, I don't understand. And then it was that idea of like, oh, wait a second, hang on again. It's the resilience myth. It's this idea that we have to tolerate lots of discomfort rather than leaning into our joy. And so I've had so many, again, you know, doctors are all about pattern recognition. That's how we diagnose things. So for me, recognizing patterns and stress and burnout, I do the, it's the same as like recognizing pancreatitis or heart disease or whatever it may be, because I've been doing this for so long.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  So it was like, oh, this is a pattern. I see what's happening here. It's the resilience myth, like you're rearing its ugly head. And so find your buried treasure, simply that, that's the genesis of it. But simply think about one or two activities that you did as a child that brought you lots of joy. Like Carl Jung says, that made the hours pass like minutes and figure out how to bring them into your day. So I give an example in the five resets of one of my patients with end stage cancer, who loved making clay figurines. And so she would hang out outside on her stoop, growing up with her sister, and they, they would make little clay figurines. So I, when I saw her in a consult, I was like, can you go to the art store and pick up some clay figurines?

• 49:16Speaker 01

  So of course, you know, same reaction, what do you mean? Why, why would I do that? You know, she's a high powered lawyer. And again, it's this idea of doing something simply for joy's sake, not to get ahead, not for an award, not because someone's going to see it, but simply because it brings you joy. For me, it's art. For me, it's also yoga or being in nature. I mean, there's so many, it's got to, you know, it has to be easy and accessible. It doesn't have to be this like huge thing, just something small that you can do every single day at the end of the day or at the start of the day or during your lunch break or whatever it may be. So it's a way to find your buried treasure and then it connects you to that part of yourself.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  So what happens scientifically, not to get all scientific, but it gets you into the state of flow. And when you do something like that, like whether it be guitar playing or painting or anything that you enjoy, writing, it, the reason that's that expression of like making something like that you're spending hours on pass like minutes, it's because it gets you into a state of flow. And the state of flow for your brain is very therapeutic and healing. Signals lots cascade of neural, you know, lots of neurotransmitters and hormones and other things in your brain to help decrease stress and burnout. So that's the scientific reason for it. But you know, science is sometimes boring and people will not want to hear the science. And instead, it's like, find your buried treasure, find something that you loved doing as a child

• 50:43Speaker 01

  that you can do just for five minutes again.

• 50:46Hala Taha?

  Well, you just inspired me to make sure I start singing every single day.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Every day.

• 50:51Hala Taha?

  I sing my whole life. And sometimes I'll just burst down to song, but I feel like I'll make a point that I need to just start singing every day.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, schedule it in. So you know, like at during lunch hour, or you have a break, we all have natural breaks in our day. So whether you are a working parent, or whether you are, you know, you might not have kids and you might be caregiving in some capacity. I understand that we all have our work. We have our caregiving responsibilities. Life is very, very full and busy. But there are natural moments in the day when you can sing. Sing in your car, when you're, if you're drive to a place, like actively, you know, schedule it in. Just sing. It has to feel, that's the other kind of tip is that like when you're trying to find your buried treasure, it's not like suddenly an hour of time is going to free up for you in the day. And then you're going to suddenly during that

• 51:39Speaker 01

  time say, oh, I should play my guitar. I should sing. Of course not. That's not how life works. You have to schedule it in. So, you know, schedule it in every single day. The reason you want to do something new every day, and like, that's why I said to my colleague about the guitar playing, or to my patient with clay building, for you with singing, it's because when you are learning something new, it's easier to do it every day rather than once in a while, because you avoid decision fatigue. So that's how your brain works. So if you're like, oh, I'm going to start a fitness regimen, or I'm going to sing, I'm going to sing Tuesdays and Thursdays at this time. Chances are something's going to come up on Tuesday and you're not going to do it. And then Thursday, same thing. And so instead, if you just say to yourself, you know, low hanging fruit,

• 52:24Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, I have to practice my singing for five solid minutes. Dr. Hooker told me, it's like doctor's orders for five minutes every day, then you will, then you'll fit it in. And then that's how you create a habit by doing a little bit every day.

• 52:36Hala Taha?

  You've got a second reset called Quiet in a Noisy World. Now, we are full of distractions.

• 52:44Hala Taha?

  Tech, social media, everything is distracting us. Life is noisy. How are we going to quiet down the noise?

• 52:51Speaker 01

  The key with this reset is digital boundaries. And particularly when you are an entrepreneur, when you're hyperconnected, of course, you want to be an informed citizen of what's happening in the world. You want to look at trends and market reports and all of the things that's happening in your industry, but not at the expense of your mental health. And so often what happens is you are always on the go. You are so stressed with your work. And in addition, during your downtime, you are scrolling headlines and news and social media to see what's going on. These are not benign things. They have a direct impact on your stress response in your amygdala and how your brain functions, and it worsens your stress. So instead, digital boundaries. What can you do? At night, when you're going to bed, keep your phone off your nightstand.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  I know it's radical, but it works. Keep it away. So first thing in the morning, when you wake up, you are not checking your phone, because that has an influence on your brain cascade and all of the hormones and neurotransmitters. Keep it in another part of the bedroom. I'm not saying, again, this is not about becoming a digital monk. It is simply about decreasing your reliance on your devices. In fact, studies show that it's not abstinence that works for mental health and well-being when it comes to technology, but rather decreasing your reliance. So that's the first boundary. The digital boundary is geographic. Keep your phone off your nightstand. And when you're working during the day, to decrease that sense, I call it the primal urge to scroll, because it's your amygdala.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  When you're scrolling, what you're doing is the same thing that cave dwellers did when you would have that night watchman scanning for danger while the tribes slept. Now we are all our own night watchmen. So when we feel that sense of stress and hyper vigilance and feeling unsafe, which is what the amygdala's job is, you scroll. You scroll your headlines, you scroll the news, you scroll, because it's like, am I safe? Is everything okay? You scan for danger. And so how do you quiet that amygdala? And how do you decrease? It's your primal urge to scroll. It's a form of self-preservation. You keep your phone out of arm's reach, or you keep it in, if you work in a cubicle, in a drawer, so you're not looking at it, so that you get that prefrontal cortex to take over again, so you're more intentional. So that's another boundary. And then another digital boundary that you could do is try grayscale.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  I use the grayscale all the time. In fact, I can show you right now. I have it automatically on my phone. And oh no, I did, I did something here. But what, what it does is it switches my phone

• 55:19Speaker 01

  to black and white. And there's a way that you can program that. You know, your audience is very tech savvy, of course. Grayscale is essentially moving your phone away from color to black and white. And since our phone is our primary news consumption device, and it's especially helpful at night when you are sitting on your couch after a long day's work and you want to go to bed early because we talked about 10 o'clock bedtime. But like, who actually goes to bed at 10? You're usually going to bed at midnight or later. Why? Because you scroll and then you end up, you know, you finish your two hours of mindless scrolling and you're like, what was that? What was the point of that anyway? Because it's not actually helping your brain. And so instead, what you could do is set grayscale. And what you do with grayscale, there's, you know, a couple of different steps to get into grayscale.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  It decreases your screen time because it makes scrolling less interesting and less enticing for your brain. And so you're like, oh, I don't really want to scroll here. It's kind of boring and I'm just going to go to bed instead. And so that's another way to create some quiet. And when you create some quiet in this noisy world, again, I'm, you know, I work in journalism, so I would never, it's not, this is not about censorship. You want to be an informed citizen. These are troubling times in the world. You want to know what's going on, but not at the expense of your mental health because you want to make sure that your cup is full, that you are rested, that your brain and body are rested so that you can continue to serve in the way that you're serving through your work.

• 56:40Hala Taha?

  Yeah. Yeah, I've had an especially hard time this year because I'm Palestinian, 100%. And so for me, like, social media is extremely triggering right now. My whole feed is just gruesome and I was just seeing like dismembered bodies and, and little kids dying every day, every day for nine months.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  One of the things that I would say about that, Hala, sorry to interrupt.

• 57:07Hala Taha?

  No, you're good.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  It's that, um, studies have found that it's been a really difficult time for so, so many people, just like you said. Studies have found that it's in fact, it increases your risk of PTSD. So it's not just that you are, you know, something happening thousands of miles away. It's not about like secondary PTSD, but in fact, consuming, just like you're describing, Hala, graphic videos and content and images has a direct influence on your amygdala in your brain. So it can influence, just consuming these graphic videos and images can increase your risk, your personal risk of PTSD now, firsthand PTSD. And studies have also shown

• 57:54Speaker 01

  that it can worsen your risk of health conditions later, years later. So all the more reason to, of course, you want to be an informed citizen during these difficult times, but you also want to protect your mental health. You know, the past few years, the past four or five years, the reason we are all feeling this way is because there is no respite. It's just been like, we finished the pandemic and then, and then we've had a racial reckoning. Then we have several, then we had several climate disasters. Then we've had humanitarian crises. Now there's an election coming up. So this news cycle and things happening in the world, because we are so hyperconnected to everything at all times, there is no respite.

• 58:37Speaker 01

  It's just one onslaught after the other. And so what's often happening, I describe it in the five resets, I talk about how your brain is like a dam. And so right now, many people are feeling worse than they ever were. And it's years after the pandemic because we were promised after pandemic, oh, you're, everything's gonna be normal, everything's gonna be great. But that's not how the brain works. Every headline showed that. And I would actually like look at those headlines and either roll my eyes or laugh because I was like, that is so not how the brain works. Your brain is built like a dam. And so what happens is when you are going through an acute crisis, you shore up your internal reserves. Once that crisis passes is when the dam breaks. You feel psychologically

• 59:20Speaker 01

  safe, your defenses come down and you're, the dam breaks. I've seen this over and over with my patients with cancer, for example. They get the diagnosis of cancer, they get, they're seeing their oncologist, radiation therapist, they're getting chemotherapy, et cetera. They're seeing me in my office. They do not shed a tear. They get, they finally finish their treatments, get a clean bill of health. And their oncologist says, great, congratulations, your cancer free, come back in six months for your checkup. They're in my office the next day weeping and they're confused because they're thinking, wait a second, I should be celebrating. How come I feel, how come I'm crying? I didn't shed a tear during the treatment. It is because when you feel psychologically safe and that acute crisis

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  is over, is when the dam breaks and your true emotions emerge. Similarly, what many of us are feeling now, if you ask people like, how are you feeling with your mental health? People are actually feeling worse now than they did back in 2020 or 2021, when we were like in lockdown and feel, you know, during the pandemic, of course, there was struggle and people were struggling then too. But the reason is because a lot of those pent up emotions are coming up to the surface now, coupled with all of the things that are happening in the world. So if you are feeling a sense of stress and burnout, I mean, it's a, it's a very human reaction to what's happening first biologically with the dam breaking and also what's happening all around us.

• 1:00:46Hala Taha?

  So eye opening, everything that you're saying, it's things I never, the whole like concept of like the fact that your, your mind is a dam and like you don't even realize this stress you're in in the moment and it really just happens and hits you later. So thank you for helping me through that. We talked a bit about the, the mind and the body. The last question I want to ask you on is really about productivity because we're all working really hard as entrepreneurs and I really loved a phrase that you had in the book called monotasking. I'm actually going to steal this from you because I love it so much. And I know multitasking is the worst thing we can do, like multitasking is a myth. You make errors when you multitask. You really can't multitask effectively.

• 1:01:29Hala Taha?

  So talk to us about monotasking and how that actually helps us with it. How's it related to stress?

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Multitasking is a myth. It's a scientific misnomer. There's actually no such thing. When you multitask, you are doing two things at once. It's called task switching. You're not in fact doing two things at once. You're doing one thing and then the other thing in rapid succession, back to back. And your brain is really wired to do one thing at a time. And so what happens with multitasking or task switching weakens your prefrontal cortex. Remember that part of the brain that we talked about at the start of our conversation, which is about strategic thinking and planning and memory and organization and all these important things. Multitasking or task switching. It decreases your productivity ironically, decreases your cognition, your memory, your

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  attention, all of these things that you would think multitasking is not doing. So the antidote to multitasking is actually monotasking, doing one thing at a time. And the way you monotask, I laid out in the five resets because that's like a very common question I get. It's like, how can I do one thing at a time? I live in a world where things, you know, I, 10 things are expected of me all at once. And so you can focus on time blocking as a technique. And that is simply, let's say you have four tasks to complete in an hour. Spend 10 minutes on task one, take a two minute break. Spend 10 minutes on task two, take a two minute break, and on and on. So as you move through, you're not doing all four tasks at the same time. Again, biologically impossible, you can't actually do that.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  That's not what your brain is doing anyway. And when you do monotasking or time blocking, it preserves your mental health. It preserves your prefrontal cortex and increases your productivity, believe it or not.

• 1:03:13Hala Taha?

  And tell us about the fake commute because I feel like so many entrepreneurs work from home especially. So I'd love to, I definitely wanted you to share this one.

• 1:03:22Speaker 01

  Fake commute is what I do. So, you know, I really suggest it. So when you think back to your days of being quarantined, or even when you're working from home, your brain needs compartmentalization. So think back pre pandemic when very few people were working from home. You would go to your office and then you would come home and the commute serves two roles. So first, just getting you from point A to point B. But it also serves a psychological role. It gets you out of home mode into work mode. So now that 80 plus percent of people, they prefer hybrid work. That's the new model. The future of work is hybrid. And that's a wonderful thing. It helps with stress and burnout.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  It increases your autonomy and productivity and lots of things. But you are losing your commute, your everyday commute. So how can you keep that brain compartmentalization with the commute? But also have all of the benefits of hybrid work. You can fake your commute. So on the days that you're working from home, for five or 10 minutes, set up your workstation, head outside, take a walk, check your schedule. Go through what you need to accomplish for the day. Let your brain transition out of home mode to work mode. At the end of the day, repeat the process. It's a way to preserve that sense of brain compartmentalization because we are all different. Right? Our home mode is so different from our work mode. And especially when you're working from home, it's really important to create some boundaries. And even with your brain to create some compartmentalization.

• 1:04:50Speaker 01

  So the fake commute is just a way to do that, but still have all of the benefits of working from home. But you just need, your brain just needs a time, like a buffer time to transition.

• 1:04:59Hala Taha?

  Well, Aditi, this is such an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for all your time. I learned so much. Where can our listeners learn more about you and everything that you do?

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  You can follow me on social at Dr. Aditi Narukar.com, at D R A D I T I N E R U R K A R. You can also check out my website, fiveresets.com, number five resets.com.

• 1:05:24Hala Taha?

  Amazing. Thank you so much for your time.

• 1:05:26Speaker 01

  Thanks, Hala. Such a pleasure to join you.

• 1:05:30Hala Taha?

  Yap gang, what an amazing way to kick off our mental wealth series. If there's one big takeaway from this episode, it's that burnout is not a badge of honor. And pushing through stress at all costs is not resilience. For entrepreneurs, real mental strength comes from recognizing when your brain and body need a reset and building habits that help you perform at a high level without running yourself into the ground. So here's your week one challenge. First, download your mental wealth playbook at yapmedia.com/mentalwealth. Then complete the fake commute worksheet and choose one ritual that you'll start using every workday this week to help your brain separate work from life. That could be a 10 minute walk before you start working, a quick stretch,

• 1:06:11Hala Taha?

  a short breathing exercise, or five minutes of journaling after your workday to clear your head. Pick one, put it on the calendar, and then do it for the next work week. And don't stop there. Choose one small thing that brings you joy, something that you used to love or something that helps you feel like yourself outside of work. And make time for it this week because building mental wealth is not just about reducing burnout. It's also about creating a life that actually feels good to live. And make sure you come back for week two because in our next episode, we're bringing back Dr. John Delony to talk about anxiety and why it may actually be your body's alarm system. I'll see you next time.