2 sessions inside Boa
Dr Lillian Nejad
Clinical Psychologist and Business Owner, Contain Your Brain
Dr Lillian Nejad is a clinical psychologist with more than 25 years of practice, specialising in helping people manage their thoughts. She has developed Contain Your Brain, a free, private app that schedules worry time and walks users through strategies for solvable, unsolvable and solved worries. She also publishes mindfulness of thoughts recordings on Insight Timer and Spotify.
The sessions
What Dr teaches
Stop trying to eliminate stress and aim for the Goldilocks level
Dr Lillian uses the Yerkes-Dodson Law from a 1908 mouse study, where weak shocks produced slow learning, strong shocks produced distress and poor performance, and moderate arousal produced the best learning. Anything meaningful (a business, a relationship, children) carries stress. So the target is a moderate level of physiological activation, not zero, and every strategy should be chosen to move you toward that point rather than flatten you out.
From Master Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →Run the two minute short form of progressive muscle relaxation
Tense and release muscle groups in sequence: squeeze the thighs and release, extend the fingers as far as they go and release, lift the shoulders to the ears and release, then cross the arms and hunch forward before opening the chest and sitting up straight. Notice the feeling after each release. Finish by scanning the body for any last remaining tension. Relaxation is incompatible with tension, and PMR has the strongest evidence base of any relaxation technique, dating to the 1930s.
From Master Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →Dose PMR twice a day for a week, then once a day for four weeks
The long form takes 15 to 30 minutes, sitting or lying comfortably somewhere relaxing. Dr Lillian's protocol is twice daily for the first week, then once daily for four weeks, then grade it down. The point is that you learn the difference between tense and relaxed, so eventually you can just tell yourself to relax and the body follows without the full 20 minute exercise.
From Master Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →Use extended fingers, not a clenched fist, when you tense in public
Dr Lillian deliberately swapped the standard fist for extended fingers in this session. A fist looks aggressive if someone sees you do it mid-conversation, and it hurts if you have long nails. Extending the hand gets you the same tension and release without drawing attention, which means you can actually run PMR during a meeting or a difficult conversation, not just before or after.
From Master Your Mental Game: regulate the body first →Book a daily 15 to 30 minute worry time and hold it like a meeting
Dr Lillian's core strategy is to set aside a specific slot every day, ideally at the same time, for 15 to 30 minutes. Treat it exactly like a work meeting: a set time, a set place, and your worries as the agenda items. After a couple of weeks of doing it habitually you can adjust the timing to suit your schedule.
From Worry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →Choose an evening slot before dinner so worry does not follow you to bed
Many people pick something like 5:30pm to 6:00pm, after work and before dinner. It catches the worries that accumulated during the day while you still have free time to do something about them. Dr Lillian says this also helps sleep, because you have already dealt with the things on your mind before you lie down.
From Worry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →Pick a worry place that is not your bedroom and not too comfortable
Choose somewhere you can access every day, such as a particular table and chair, a corner of a room, or a spot at work. Deliberately avoid the bedroom so you do not train your brain to associate bed with worry. Avoid anywhere too comfortable, because worry time is meant to be short and focused, not a place you settle into.
From Worry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →Write the worry down the moment it arrives, then let it go until 5 o'clock
Worries will still show up outside your booked time. The move is to capture them rather than argue with them: say to yourself, I have heard you, I am going to worry about you at 5 o'clock today. Dr Lillian says delaying the worry lets your brain release it so you can return to work, sleep or fun.
From Worry time: the clinical method for founders who overthink →
Watch the full sessioninside Boa.
Session notes are free. The recordings, the live advisories and the founders in the room are for members.