Episode 247: Harnessing the Power of the Unfocused Mind w/ Dr. Srini Pillay
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
Release Date: 12/16/2025
Episode 255: The First Week of Recovery
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
Episode Description Before surgery, one of the questions I kept coming back to was pretty simple: What is that first week actually going to feel like? In this episode of Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording, I’m sharing what my first week looked like after my preventive double mastectomy with reconstruction, including some of the things that surprised me, challenged me, and helped recovery start to feel more manageable. What stood out most was how quickly the unfamiliar started becoming a little less intimidating. Recovery came with discomfort, limitations, and plenty of adjustments,...
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EPISODE 254: What I Did Before Surgery to Make Recovery Easier
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
Episode Description Preparing for surgery can bring a lot of questions about what you’ll need and how much you can realistically plan for. I found myself thinking through just about every detail. In this episode of Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording, I’m sharing some of the things I did before my preventive mastectomy that helped make recovery feel more manageable, along with a few things I realized I probably didn’t need to worry about quite so much. A big part of preparing was thinking about how everyday life would work while I recovered, what I could take off my plate ahead of...
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EPISODE 253: What to Do If You’re at High Risk for Breast Cancer
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
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EPISODE 252: Choosing Surgery When You’re Not Sick
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
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Episode 250: Introducing Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording | Women’s Health & Wellness Podcast
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
Episode Description: Welcome to Episode 250—and a new chapter of the podcast. Drama-Free Healthy Living is now Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording. In this episode, I’m sharing what inspired the evolution of the show and why this new name feels like the right fit for where I am now. As a registered dietitian, health coach, author, and speaker, I’ve spent years talking about nutrition, fitness, sleep, stress management, and healthy habits. But over time, I’ve come to see health in a much broader way—one that also includes the experiences, challenges, and changes that shape how...
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Episode 251: Why I Chose a Preventive Mastectomy | Breast Cancer Risk, Breast Health & My Personal Decision
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
Episode Description: Choosing to have a preventive mastectomy was never something I imagined I would do. And it definitely wasn’t a decision I made overnight. In this episode of Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording, I’m sharing the personal story behind that decision—what led me there, what years of breast screening and uncertainty were really like, and why something that once felt incredibly drastic eventually started to feel very different. I also talk about something I think gets missed in a lot of wellness conversations: you can take great care of yourself and still face health...
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Episode 249: Hitting Pause
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
Episode Description: If you’ve been feeling a little… maxed out lately—and you can tell you’re still doing things out of momentum, not meaning—this episode is for you. In this solo episode, I’m sharing why I’m hitting pause on the podcast for now. Not because I don’t love it, and not because it didn’t matter. But because my life has changed so much since I started this show in 2019, and I’m realizing I need space. The kind of space where you can actually hear yourself again—without forcing the next step just to keep things moving. I talk about the fear of being seen as a...
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Episode 248: What to Let Go of in 2026
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
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Episode 247: Harnessing the Power of the Unfocused Mind w/ Dr. Srini Pillay
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
📌Try the ReuLay app for mindset shifts (); email for a free 3-month subscription 👉In this episode of the Drama Free Healthy Living Podcast, host Jess Cording interviews Dr. Srini Pillay, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and executive coach, about harnessing brain science for better focus, overcoming fear, managing stress, and integrating creativity into daily life. They explore strategies like strategic unfocus (napping, doodling, daydreaming) to boost productivity, the CIRCA method (Chunking, Ignore mental chatter, Reality check, Control check, Attention shift) for...
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Episode 246: Empowering Women’s Sleep w/ Jackie Hutson from Piper & Mint PJS
Healthier & Happier with Jess Cording
📌Make sure to check out Piper & Mint PJs on 👉 Jackie Hutson is a wife, mom to two energetic, sports-loving boys, and a founder who seems to live life in motion—in all the best ways. She plays in a competitive tennis league, loves diving into business and entrepreneurship, and brings an easy, grounded optimism into everything she does. Her entrepreneurial spark lit up early: at age 11, she made $5,000 selling Beanie Babies. Since then, she’s launched several product-based businesses, including an accessory line created while studying abroad in Italy. After college, Jackie built...
info_outlineđź“ŚTry the ReuLay app for mindset shifts (www.reulay.com); email [email protected] for a free 3-month subscription
👉In this episode of the Drama Free Healthy Living Podcast, host Jess Cording interviews Dr. Srini Pillay, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and executive coach, about harnessing brain science for better focus, overcoming fear, managing stress, and integrating creativity into daily life. They explore strategies like strategic unfocus (napping, doodling, daydreaming) to boost productivity, the CIRCA method (Chunking, Ignore mental chatter, Reality check, Control check, Attention shift) for fear reduction, and the ReuLay app for mindset shifts. Dr. Pillay emphasizes neuroplasticity, the mind-body connection, and personalized approaches to nutrition and wellness
🖋️ Some key points
(00:00) Introduction to the Podcast
(01:59) Guest Introduction
(02:53) Journey into Psychiatry and Neuroscience
(05:08) Transformational Neuro-Coaching Explained
(09:47) The Power of Belief and Hypnotherapy
(12:33) Strategies for Managing Attention and Focus
(21:22) Understanding and Overcoming Fear
(24:42) The Importance of Chunking and Delegation
(25:26) Mindfulness and Cyclic Sighing
(26:46) Reality Check and Control Check
(28:57) Introducing the App
(31:31) Personalized Nutrition and Complex Thinking
(36:35) Balancing Creativity and Professional Life
(41:52) Connecting with Dr. Srini Pillay
(42:47) What Healthy Living Means
🌎 Connect with Dr. Srini Pillay
Try the ReuLay app for mindset shifts (www.reulay.com); email [email protected] for a free 3-month subscription.
Visit Dr. Pillay's website (drsrinipillay.com) and corporate site (nbgcorporate.com).
Follow on Instagram (@drsrinipillay) and LinkedIn (Dr. Srini Pillay).
Buy books like Tinker Dabble Doodle Try and Life Unlocked on Amazon
👉 Guest Bio
Dr. Srini Pillay is chief medical officer and co-founder of Reulay, a digital therapeutics company that is developing strategies to delay the onset of cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, and stroke by targeting on-demand anxiety and stress reduction based on the well-established link between stress, epigenetics, inflammation, abnormal metabolism, and disease. Reulay’s technology is built on a machine learning platform designed to personalize video, VR, AR, and XR to reduce anxiety and prolong human longevity and can also be deployed in their metaverse programming for web3.
Srini graduated as the top overall medical student in South Africa and the top award-winning resident in Psychiatry at Harvard. He is a former Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Outpatient Anxiety Disorders Program at Harvard Medical School’s Mclean Hospital. He is also a former brain-imaging researcher at Harvard (17 years), a certified master executive coach and CEO of NeuroBusiness Group®, voted one of the top 20 movers and shakers in leadership development in the world by Training Industry.
His books include “Life Unlocked: 7 Revolutionary Lessons to Overcome Fear” (Rodale, 2010), “Your Brain and Business: The Neuroscience of Great Leaders” (FT Press, 20110, and “Tinker Dabble Doodle Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind” (Ballantine Books, 2017.) His books have been translated into eight languages. Dr. Pillay has lectured throughout the world including the US, Canada, UK, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Greece, India, Singapore, and Brazil.
🌎 Connect with Jessica Cording, MS, RD, CDN, IFNCP
Author of The Farewell Tour: A Caregiver's Guide To Stress Management, Sane Nutrition, and Better Sleep, and
The Little Book of Game-Changers: 50 Healthy Habits For Managing Stress & Anxiety and (Viva Editions)
and
The Farewell Tour: A Caregiver's Guide To Stress Management, Sane Nutrition, and Better Sleep
🎤 Podcast post-production by Seamless Multimedia
If you like what you hear, leave a 5-star review on apple podcasts HERE.
Stay connected with me on Instagram @jesscording and over on Substack at jessicacording.substack.com
YouTube 👉https://youtu.be/pB_yLqMucPQ