Episode 123: Neuropsychologist and PEAK MIND Author, Dr. Amish Jha

Dec 22, 2021

I’m so glad you’ve joined me for a truly fascinating conversation with Dr. Amishi Jha. Dr. Jha is a professor of psychology at the University of Miami where she serves as the Director of Contemplative Neuroscience for the Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative, which she co-founded in 2010. Dr. Jha received her Ph.D. from the University of California–Davis and postdoctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University. 

 

Dr. Jha’s work has been featured at NATO, the World Economic Forum, and The Pentagon. She has received coverage in The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Forbes, and more.

Her book, PEAK MiND: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day, covers the crisis of attention, how to tap into the brain’s attention system for peak performance, how to combat our addiction to thinking, and how to develop “mental armor” against anxiety, distraction, and bias.

 

I loved my conversation with Dr. Jha and while there is so much to take away from what she shared, here are some of my favorite highlights:

• Want to improve the way you are or how you do something? Learn to focus on the granular components of the outcome you want and with time, you’ll will yourself to achieve it;
• Vulnerabilities such as stress, threat, and negative mood hijack attention and degrade attention, so paying attention to your attention is one of the most beneficial practices you can do in order to befriend your own mind;
• Remember that thoughts are not facts, so if you find yourself overwhelmed with feelings of stress or anxiety, be mindful and pay attention to what is happening in your body and mind;
• Though our society has come to associate multitasking with something desirable, it truly isn't';
• Just as we’ve come to think of exercise as an important component of self-care, mindfulness training should also fall into a daily practice;

 

• Healthy living is holistic living, paying attention to all of the aspects that being human entails: psychological well-being, social connections, physical well-being, and connection to something bigger.

 

 

Want to learn more about Dr. Jha and her work? You can connect with her via her website (http://amishi.com), Twitter (https://twitter.com/amishijha?lang=en), Instagram (​​https://www.instagram.com/amishipjha/?hl=en), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/amishi.jha), and her book PEAK MiND: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day (https://amishi.com/#preorder).