Host: Ben Bernstein, PhD

Each of us are magnificent beings. Humans are able to accomplish amazing feats from scientific theories to sculptures to decathlons. There is a perfect balance that each of must find to achieve peak performance. Stress is one of the major factors that is in our control, not just to be managed but to be harnessed. On Be Your Best, you’ll find how to gauge your stress level and how to ratchet down when it’s building so that you can get into your zone and stay there. Tune in each week for eye-opening techniques to stay on track, and naturally balanced to Be Your Best!

Be Your Best! Reduce Your Stress with Ben Bernstein, PhD

Ben Bernstein, PhD, is a veteran clinical psychologist who specializes in stress and how it affects performance. Known as a “Master Performance Coach,” he works with a wide range of people in high stress-high performing occupations: athletes, business executives, lawyers, surgeons, opera singers, and many students of all ages taking tests. Known as “Dr. B,” he has created an original training model for reducing stress and improving performance and is the author of three books on stress (Test Success! How to Be Calm, Confident and Focused on Any Test; Stressed Out! for Teens; and Stressed Out! for Parents (with Michelle H. Packard). Dr. B is a national speaker on stress. He offers lively, informative and useful talks and workshops to diverse audiences ranging from parents, to dentists, to middle managers, to teachers.

Dr. Charles Bertolami, Dean of the NYU School of Dentistry, has publicly recognized Dr. Bernstein’s work as “highly innovative.” Dubbed by American Theater Magazine as “the imagination masseur,” Dr. B has received numerous awards and grants from the American and Canadian governments and has been invited to work at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute in Utah, The Juilliard School in New York and the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia. He is a Master Coach at the San Francisco Opera.

A native of New York City, Dr. B received his Bachelor’s degree with honors, from Bowdoin College, his M.Ed and Ph.D in Applied Psychology from the University of Toronto, and an M.A. in Music Composition from Mills College. In addition to his work as a psychologist, Dr. B is an accomplished composer, with three well-received one-act operas to his credit as well as an award-winning song cycle based on a new translation of The Song of Songs from the Bible. In 1995 he founded a non-profit,The Singer’s Gym, in the San Francisco Bay Area, to give opera singers the tools be to be more spontaneous, vital and connected in their singing. Dr. Bernstein coaches his three younger siblings in their successful artistic careers: sister Didi Conn (Frenchy in Grease); brother Andrew (head photographer for the NBA); and youngest brother Richard (leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera). His wife, Suk Wah, is a novelist. The couple live in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.