351: The Hidden Cost of Multitasking + How to Reclaim Your Attention | Dr. Zelana
Be Well by Kelly Leveque
Kelly Leveque
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2025
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Zelana Montminy, a psychologist, author, and mental fitness expert who has spent her career helping people strengthen resilience, sharpen focus, and find calm in a noisy world. We talk about her new book Finding Focus, why our brains are so easily hijacked by burnout and dopamine hits, and how to reclaim presence in everyday life.
Dr. Zelana shares practical tools for saying no, setting tech boundaries, time blocking, and creating healthy habits that actually stick. We also dive into motherhood and multitasking and why reconnecting to simple practices can transform emotional wellbeing.
Topics Discussed:
→ How can I improve focus and avoid burnout?
→ What are the best tools to reduce digital distractions?
→ Why does multitasking hurt productivity and mental health?
→ How can saying no improve resilience and wellbeing?
→ What daily habits help build emotional strength?
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Timestamps:
→ 00:00:00 - Introduction
→ 00:02:30 - Dr. Zelana’s journey in psychology
→ 00:06:07 - Brain switching & burn out
→ 00:08:31 - Cell phones & dopamine
→ 00:12:01 - Focus thieves
→ 00:15:59 - Overscheduling and stress overload
→ 00:21:21 - The power of saying NO
→ 00:23:31 - The Palisades fire & community
→ 00:27:43 - How to stay present daily
→ 00:34:18 - Motherhood, multitasking, balance
→ 00:36:25 - Journaling and brain dumping
→ 00:38:55 - Urgent vs important tasks
→ 00:39:45 - Time blocking for productivity
→ 00:43:29 - Generational trauma, healing lessons
→ 00:48:50 - Reactivity and emotional control
→ 00:50:40 - Knowing when to unplug
→ 00:54:13 - Return to landlines, tech boundaries
→ 00:55:31 - Regaining connection
→ 00:58:38 - Habits and lifestyle change
→ 01:01:09 - Health nonnegotiables
→ 01:03:56 - Incentivizing with sugar
→ 01:09:06 - The task isn’t owning you
Check Out Dr. Zelana
→ Instagram: @dr.zelana
→ Website: https://drzelana.com/
→ Book: https://drzelana.com/findingfocus
Check Out Kelly:
→ Youtube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The goal really with this book is to help us understand how to own our attention again |
| 0:06.8 | and take it back from everything else that's hijacking the foundation of what I think is being |
| 0:12.4 | human. |
| 0:13.6 | You're listening to Be Well by Kelly Leveck. |
| 0:19.0 | Dr. Zilana Momini is a psychologist, author, and mental fitness expert and known for translating |
| 0:24.4 | science into actionable tools for resilience, focus, and emotional well-being. She spent her career |
| 0:30.0 | helping people reclaim their attention in an increasingly distracted world, while also raising |
| 0:35.5 | three kids and leading in her community. |
| 0:38.1 | From advocating for safer tech and stronger families to championing women's health and |
| 0:42.7 | sustainability, Dr. Momini brings both lived experience and deep expertise to the table. |
| 0:48.3 | Her mission is simple to make mental strength a daily practice, grounded, clear, and |
| 0:53.3 | actually doable. |
| 0:57.0 | I cannot believe you're sitting across from me as an author. |
| 1:01.2 | You have, I mean, we've known each other for at least, like, I mean, 2014. |
| 1:07.8 | I know. |
| 1:08.4 | Such a long time. |
| 1:09.6 | So crazy. |
| 1:10.7 | And you've been through so much. You've obviously |
| 1:13.2 | had a big professional career and you had a family and you unfortunately went through the |
| 1:19.1 | devastation of the Palisades fires this year. And so much of your like cathartic poetry |
| 1:26.1 | ended up like being shared by some of like the biggest |
| 1:30.0 | media outlets in the world and we saw firsthand like that trauma and your resilience and then |
... |
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