The OptimalWork Podcast

Discover the art of mastering your sleep skills and learn why sleep isn't just a natural occurrence but a skill to be honed. Explore the connection between exercise intensity and sleep patterns while debunking myths around sleep as an obligation. Delve into techniques like mindfulness and image streaming to enhance creativity and relaxation. Uncover the benefits of practices like yoga nidra and how nurturing a positive mindset can transform your relationship with sleep. Sleep better and wake up more energized!

Explore the concept of breaking free from automated urges and building virtuous cycles. Learn about the three types of pain and how emotions are categorized as predictive pain. Discover strategies for managing overwhelm and breaking vicious cycles. Understand the role of prediction and error correction in personal growth.

Exploring how the brain's predictions influence our sensations, treating predicted pain with mindfulness, connecting distorted information to the original, harnessing predictions for growth and dopamine release, and adopting a growth mindset for personal growth and success.

This rebroadcast discusses the concept of aiming for silver instead of gold. It explores the power of acceptance in overcoming fears and challenges, the three steps to accepting pain, and the challenges individuals face in challenging situations. It emphasizes the benefits of aiming for silver in overcoming anxiety and difficulty focusing, and how it leads to faster self-improvement.

#151: More and more people report experiencing “imposter syndrome,” often in new and challenging social or professional situations. They are unable to internalize their own success, attributing it instead to external factors like chance or luck; as a result, they often see themselves as “frauds.” In this rebroadcast, we introduce a solution to imposter syndrome that gives us independence from the validation and judgements of others. Find more at ⁠https://www.OptimalWork.com⁠.

#150: If you think you waste too much time—for example, on social media, internet, and entertainment—there is likely some part of you that is urging you to do better. In this rebroadcast, we show how to redirect the energy of these different “parts” of you—the one seeking entertainment, and the one criticizing your time wasting—in order to integrate them and achieve inner harmony. Find more at ⁠https://www.OptimalWork.com⁠.

#149: Are you hypnotized right now? It might surprise you to learn that, in a technical sense, you very well may be. Understanding how trances work, the topic of today’s rebroadcast, will allow you to free your attention from the things that capture it. Find more at https://www.OptimalWork.com. 

#148: We work in order to produce something of value for others. In order to work better, rest is important to restore ourselves and maintain energy. But activities of leisure carry us beyond rest to contemplation, and are done for their own sake. In this episode, Dr. Majeres and Sharif discuss the relationship between rest, work, and leisure. Find more at https://www.OptimalWork.com.

#147: Sometimes it may seem like the outcome is the most important thing you need to obtain: the perfect grade, the well-deserved promotion, or the necessary money. In this episode, Dr. Majeres and Sharif discuss the superiority of growth goals and why you should never aim for outcomes as ends in themselves. Find more at https://www.OptimalWork.com. 

#146: Toxic positivity means invalidating the negative emotions of others. In this episode, Dr. Majeres and Sharif discuss how to engage negative emotions — in ourselves and others — in a constructive way, by being understanding and encouraging, rather than positively toxic. Find more at https://www.OptimalWork.com.