Welcome to Mental GPS with Dr. Jana a self-development podcast dedicated to helping you unstick your mind, regain momentum, and build a better life. Hosted by Dr. Jana Price-Sharps, this show is built on a central philosophy: life shouldn’t just be endured it should be enjoyed. You have an absolute right to be happy, live a good life, and experience fulfilling relationships.
Think of your brain as having its own internal navigation system. Where is your GPS driving you?. If your coordinates are set to failure, depression, bitterness, or hopelessness, your mindset will drive you straight off a cliff. This podcast is designed to help you actively reprogram your navigation system, take control of your mental focus, and successfully steer your way through life's adversity.
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Mental GPS with Dr. Jana EP 9
Are you constantly pushing yourself to the absolute limit without taking a moment to breathe? Dr. Jana explains that symptoms like anxiety, irritability, and depression are actually your brain trying to tell you that your system is crashing. In this episode, you will learn why choosing joy over endless endurance can radically transform your life. It is time to pull out your calendar, plan that next adventure, and start living a life that you actually look forward to every day.
Key Takeaways
Your brain communicates distress through anxiety, irritability, or depression rather than physical pain, signaling that it is time to slow down.
Scheduling fun into your calendar acts as a crucial mental break that lowers cortisol and adrenaline while improving sleep quality.
True mental wellness involves changing your environment and routines to give your mind an opportunity to recalibrate.
SPEAKER_00
Welcome to Dr. Jana. I'm glad you took a minute to join us today. I am a psychologist and also a high performance coach. And one of the things that people obviously come in to see me about is that they're depressed. And I want you to think about a couple things when you have depression. Now, I'm not talking about in your bed, wanting to die, not being able to move, crying all day, or, you know, drinking yourself into oblivion necessarily, but there are several things that you can do to help your mood. And it's gonna sound a little odd to many of you, probably. You know, one of the first things that a lot of people want to do is they want a pill. Give me a pill to make this go away. Well, the problem is when you quit taking the pill, then a lot of times it resurfaces. So if you can, you might want to change your habit patterns. And that it's not going to cure all depression. I realize that. I've been doing this for a very long time. But one of the things that really seems to help people a lot is go have some fun. And I know sometimes people look at me like, what? What are you talking about? But really, our mind needs breaks. And so if you have an injured knee, then it's probably not the time to run a marathon. If you have an injured knee, maybe you should not play golf today. Maybe you should sit and elevate it and let your knee rest, see if you can get some swelling down and see if it can mend itself without surgery or physical therapy. Well, the brain is very similar. Sometimes we get overwhelmed, sometimes there's a lot of things going on, and we just go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and then we're kind of baffled that our system starts crashing. Now, the way our brain communicates with us is different than the way our knee communicates with us. If your knee is injured, you know darn good and well it's injured because it hurts. Not so much with the brain. The brain communicates with us differently. It'll communicate with us through anxiety or through panic attacks or through depression, irritability, anger. It's telling you something's wrong. And a lot of times what's wrong is people have been doing too much for too long, and the brain is just like, we're done. You need to stop. And so if you're having those moments where you just feel like I don't want to get out of bed, I don't care about anything, the heck with everything, maybe it's a day that you take off and you, I don't know, go hike in the mountains. Maybe you go fishing if you like fishing, maybe you take the day off and bake. I don't know what you like to do. But take the day off and change the scenery or change the tasks and listen to your favorite music if you're gonna stay home and do a project you've been wanting to do. But change it up and let your mind recalibrate. Because so often when we keep pushing, pushing, pushing, at some point our brain starts pushing back and saying, Nope, enough. We need to stop. And again, it's gonna communicate that differently than your knee. So go have some fun, schedule fun into your life. Take your calendar out. If you have a partner in life, a husband, a wife, a long-term relationship, take out the calendar with that person and say, okay, we're gonna schedule some day trips, we're gonna schedule, we're gonna go to the mountains and have a picnic. It doesn't have to be expensive stuff. Or if you want to spend a little bit money, more money, we're gonna take that cruise, or we're gonna go see that city we've wanted to see, or that country we've wanted to see. Make the plans. Always have something fun scheduled. So when today is hard, your brain can go, yes, I know. Today's hard, but in one month we're gonna be on a cruise. One month we're going camping, one month we're going to go visit that city or that zoo or that museum or whatever it is you like to do. Plan for fun. One of the most important things you can do for your mental health, it's very much de-emphasized in our country for whatever reason, but it needs to be emphasized because those breaks allow our brain to recalibrate and it allows us to do a better job tomorrow. It gives us clarity of thought, it cools down our system, which I'm talking about. It's gonna help you sleep better. Go play, go have some fun, not the kind of fun that's gonna get you into trouble. Okay. Happy fun, fun with family, fun with friends, fun by yourself. I don't care. Go have some fun. Enjoy your life. Life isn't to be endured, it's to be enjoyed. You get to be happy. Thank you so much for joining me. This is Dr. Jana. Have a wonderful day.
