S4 E4: Examining Melancholy

Did You Ask a Good Question Today? — Reviving Curiosity

Mary Turos examines why questioning drops from early childhood into adolescence, showing how classrooms, social risk, and rewarded answers suppress curiosity rather than brain changes. She shares brief, practical strategies—pause before answering, respond before correcting, model uncertainty, and prioritize psychological safety—to help families and educators restore a culture of asking questions.

Train Your Uncertainty Muscle: Act Without All the Answers

Host Mary Turos explains what uncertainty tolerance is and why it matters for executive function, anxiety, and everyday decisions. She breaks the concept into three parts—cognitive flexibility, distress tolerance, and willingness to act—and gives examples of how low tolerance shows up at school, work, and in personal life. The episode finishes with six practical strategies you can start using: graded behavioral exposure, cognitive reframing, implementation intentions, pre-defining “good enough,” somatic regulation, and metacognitive tracking.

Graduated, Not Done: A Guide for New College Grads

Mary Turos offers concise, practical guidance for recent college graduates: reset timeline expectations, use early jobs to build "identity capital," focus on proactive first-90-day behaviors at work, and prioritize financial basics like emergency savings and retirement contributions. She also covers career strategy (deliberate practice, mentorship, networking), mental health, and finding meaning outside of work — encouraging grads to tolerate uncertainty, take deliberate action, and treat early adulthood as exploration.

Summer Advice for Parents of Recent Grads

Now it's time for parents to learn how to let go of being their child's prefrontal cortex! It's not always easy, but it is SO necessary!!!

Summer Advice for Grads

Congratulations on your graduation! Now the work begins! It's time to start or continue working on your Executive Function skills so that you can live on your own, even if you still live at home!