Think Act Be Podcast

If you're like most people, your thoughts probably tend to drift in negative directions a lot of the time. In this episode Joel and I explore different ways of responding to negative thoughts. Is it better to argue with them? Ignore them? Try to fix them? By practicing new ways of responding, these thoughts don't have to dominate your mind or control your feelings and actions.

Why is anxiety so common as you look to the future? Why do we tend to worry about things even though we know that worry is useless? And how can we stop dreading the future and start living more in the present? Joel and I explore these questions and more in this episode.

How do you tend to speak to yourself—more like a friend or your worst critic? In this episode Joel and I explore why self-talk tends to be so negative, techniques for speaking to yourself more kindly, why it’s often hard to change negative views of yourself, and some of the many benefits of changing your internal speech.

It's often easier to start taking a psychiatric medication than to get off of it, or even to know when it's OK to stop. The Make America Healthy Again movement has highlighted this issue, which has long been neglected by the field of psychiatry. In this episode Joel and I discuss the widespread use of antidepressant medication, the risks and benefits of taking medication for psychiatric issue (especially depression), and a recent consensus statement on deprescribing psychiatric meds by the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

Learning techniques for managing your mental health can sometimes be a double-edged sword. As helpful as they might be, they can also become a kind of burden, especially when they get wrapped in “shoulds” and “have-to’s.” For example, maybe you tell yourself, “I should meditate more often,” or, “I have to get eight hours of sleep every night.” While those practices can be good for you, thinking you must adhere to them at all times can add unnecessary stress to your life. In this episode Joel and I discuss some of the common pitfalls in mental health self-care, why it’s easy to fall into them, and how to find greater balance.

Social media is great, except when it isn’t. Most of us enjoy what these platforms offer for entertainment and connection, and also find them hard to use in moderation. In this episode Joel and I explore what makes social media so addictive, some of the costs of excessive use, and the society-wide experiment that we’re unwittingly a part of.

If you’re tired of spending much of your life stuck on a screen, try the behavioral strategies we discuss that can help you recapture more of your time and mental bandwidth.

Guilt is a normal human emotion that everyone deals with at times, and it’s not a problem by itself—it can actually be quite helpful. But excessive guilt can take on an oversized role in your life. Maybe you feel guilty even when you did nothing wrong, or you can’t forgive yourself for an honest mistake, or for something that happened a long time ago.

In this episode Joel and I explore where guilt comes from, when it’s useful, how to question it, and the best, most powerful ways to respond.

Anxiety can be hard to manage, and many of our best attempts to reduce anxiety end up having the opposite effect. In this episode Joel and I explore surprisingly effective ways to deal with anxiety, from agreeing with your worries to stopping the things that seem like they're keeping you safe. With consistent practice, these techniques can make anxiety much more manageable.

Disturbing recent events have left many of us reeling, especially the violence and killings in Minneapolis. In this episode Joel and I explore the coarsening of our public discourse, the distorting effects of elevating political allegiance above all else, and how to find solace in these troubling times.

New Year's resolutions are famously hard to keep. In this episode Joel and I explore why our resolutions don't tend to stick and what they might leave out for effective behavior change. Find out how you can set more useful resolutions that you're more likely to follow through on.