Welcome to the Rx Chill Pill Podcast

Hey everyone, welcome to RxChill Pill. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a physician specializing in resilience and stress management, and I'm a mom of two awesome kids. The reason I always mention my kids is because they really are the inspiration behind my career switch from being a clinician treating patients to an educator teaching wellness, now for almost 10 years. When I became a mom, I realized that my husband and I were literally shaping our kids' brains. This concept of neuroplasticity, or the idea that the brain changes with learning and action, has been around for almost a century, but the supporting research exploded in the last few decades due to the advancements in scientific data, mainly from neuroimaging with the fMRI studies— magnetic resonance imaging studies— and this has revolutionized cognitive neuroscience. MIT Brain and Cognitive Research Labs describe cognitive science as, quote, "The scientific study of the human mind that combines ideas and methods from psychology, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience," end quote. So how does that translate into our everyday lives? Well, Our brain controls how we live our lives. The late, great neuroendocrinologist, Dr. Bruce McEwen, transformed how we understand the relationships between the brain, stress, and biology. He coined the term allostatic load to describe the wear and tear that everyday stressful events can have on our lives. The allostatic load, or wear and tear. This includes not only genetic components of our health, what we inherited, but it also includes our behavior over a lifetime, including how we exercise, what we eat, the quality of our relationships, substance abuse, and other habits, good or bad, that over a lifetime leads ultimately to disease or wellness. The decades of research by Harvard cardiologist Dr. Herbert Benson and his team at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine support the practice of eliciting our relaxation response, the opposite of our stress response, to offset this allostatic load. A 3-step simple meditation that Dr. Benson mapped out is a powerful mental training tool that can even, over short periods of time, literally change the structure of our brain. It even decreases the wear and tear on our bodies from the chronic stress hormones that contribute to disease, affecting our immune system, our overall health, and our brain. Almost a decade ago, I created the Science of Resilience course based on my training as a certified clinical provider by the Benson Henry Institute and my extensive training in the many disciplines of mind-body medicine. I've taught this program at prestigious schools and organizations, including the Juilliard School Pre-College Division in New York City, where I continue to teach a 30-week, year-long course to boost resilience in musically gifted students of all ages. By the way, this podcast is completely separate from my role there. Most recently, this program has evolved to address one of the most painful stressors for students today: procrastination. Over the years, my students consistently identified the "too much to do and too little time" syndrome as a factor in feeling overwhelmed. The perpetual distractions of smartphones, Netflix, social media, gaming, and the 24/7 news cycle of social unrest, the pandemic, and climate change eat away at their attention, while at the same time the pressure to compete is higher than ever before. In fact, a Washington Post article by Jennifer Wallace reported that, quote, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine added youths and high-achieving schools to their list of at-risk groups. End quote. She also added that a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation listed the top conditions harming adolescent wellness. Among them were poverty, trauma, discrimination, and quote, excessive pressure to excel, often but not exclusively occurring in affluent communities. End quote. In addition, I've personally witnessed the tremendous amount of pressure students face these days. And I've personally experienced the lure of endless distractions that lead to overwhelm and procrastination. Based on my experiences from teaching and the feedback that students have given me over the years, I've created a unique planner with neuroscience and the science of resilience built right into it. It's called the Brain Boss Planner, and it has a supporting digital course for those who want to go deeper. The paper planner and supporting digital course is in beta production and currently it's being rolled out at select organizations and schools. I'm so excited to say that once initial feedback is received and adjustments are made to the beta version, it's going to be available to the general public. All research overwhelmingly points to resilience and its components like adaptability, emotional intelligence, curiosity, creativity, and innovation as the most valuable skills for human work in the decades to come. Why a paper planner, you ask? Understanding how we use our time is key for executive functioning skills. Something as humble as planning can also connect us to our greater purpose in life by guiding us to take action on our dreams and goals. The Brain Boss Planner has even helped me create a more coherent vision for this podcast. The format of RxChill Pill is evolving, and it's going to be a little different from last year in that the episodes are are going to be shorter because why? I am listening to you. Many of you wanted shorter episodes. So if I have longer interviews or topic discussions, my goal is to organize them into smaller segments. There's still going to be interviews with amazing experts and people who are extraordinarily resilient, and I'm going to continue to post mini meditations. Think of them as kind of on-the-go meditations. I'll be adding some solo episodes where the intent will be to dive a little deeper into a specific topic each month. My mission is to empower you by making neuroscience an everyday household word. You can have a say in the topics on this podcast. If there's something you'd like to know or you have a question, please email podcast@mindbodyspace.com. If you find the contents helpful at all, I would be so grateful to you if you would share, with friends, families, anyone who is curious and interested in science-backed strategies to lower their stress and live their best lives, so that we can together make the world a better place.