Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. Today we're talking about mental agility or psychological flexibility.

Essentially, this means being able to respond to circumstances in the most helpful way possible,

as opposed to using the same method to solve every single obstacle that we encounter. We all have certain go-to coping strategies

and problem-solving skills that we turn to. Those strategies work in some cases, but sometimes

we get stuck in these patterns where we keep reaching for the same things,

even though they aren't a good fit for the situation. And then we get frustrated when our lives just don't get any better. Just like you might have a toolbox in your house and you might reach

for a hammer in one situation, but you need a wrench in another situation. We all need a variety

of psychological tools we can reach for in different

circumstances. Being psychologically flexible not only means we have the tools that we need,

but it also means we understand when we should use the different tools that we have.

Learning to become more psychologically flexible can help us solve problems better.

It's also associated with lower rates of depression and anxiety and lower levels of stress.

The good news is all of us can learn how to increase our mental agility.

And here to talk about how to do that is Dr. Elaine Fox.

She's a psychologist and a performance coach, as well as the author of a new book called Switchcraft. Her research has found that an agile mind helps you thrive in any situation.

Some of the things she talks about today are how to develop a more agile mind, the benefits of doing so,

and the exact steps you can take to increase your

psychological flexibility. Make sure to stick around until the end of the episode for the

therapist take. It's the part of the show where I'll break down Dr. Fox's strategies and share

how you can apply them to your own life. So here's Dr. Elaine Fox on how increasing your mental agility will help you grow mentally stronger.

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