Skip to content

By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.

Deep Dive with Ali AbdaalDeep Dive with Ali Abdaal

Dr Alex George Reveals The Secrets To Become 10% Happier Everyday

When investing, your capital is at risk and you may get back less than invested. Past performance doesn’t guarantee future results.

Dr. Alex GeorgeguestAli Abdaalhost
Jul 13, 20231h 35mWatch on YouTube

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

Great conversations run long. Their best ideas don't have to.

uListen is free on iPhone, iPad, Android, Chrome, and Claude.

See how

Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 1:37

    Intro

    1. AG

      When's the last time you sat down and thought, "Is this life that I have the life that I want? And if it isn't, what am I doing each day to work towards the life I do want?"

    2. AA

      Now, from my experience as a doctor, and also probably from your experience watching or listening to this, we probably know that we don't really treat mental health in the same way as we treat physical health. And so with that in mind, today's episode is an interview between me and Dr Alex George. Now, Dr Alex is a TV doctor, bestselling author, and Youth Mental Health Ambassador to the government. Now, as you might be aware, if you're in the UK, uh, Dr Alex was first featured on Love Island about five years ago, and Love Island, this reality TV show, kind of catapulted him to fame. His first book is called Live Well Every Day. That was released in 2021 and became a Sunday Times bestseller, and he has recently released this second book, The Mind Manual: Mental Fitness Tools for Everyone.

    3. AG

      It's an idea I talk about in The Mind Manual. It's called the traffic light theory. We'd go round and we'd say, "Red, amber, or green, how you're feeling today." Now, if I said that I was amber every day, maybe every day the similar stress or pressure was f- I was facing, maybe I just can't get quite on top of my sleep. It allows you and as that person to learn about why they might feel a certain way. It also allows the people around you to learn what's normal for them.

    4. AA

      We talk a lot about mental health, about the stigma around mental health, and we explore some of Alex's own personal experiences and personal history with struggling with mental health issues, including anxiety, and including the fact that his brother died from suicide a couple of years ago.

    5. AG

      I remember sitting there literally, like, sobbing away reading it, being like, "It's gonna get bet- it's gonna get better." And thank God it did. It did get better, and after eight to 10 weeks, it was like a cloud lifted.

    6. AA

      Okay. Dr Alex, thank you very much for coming on the pod.

    7. AG

      Thank you very much for having me.

    8. AA

      Um, you talk a lot about the idea

  2. 1:37 – 3:16

    What is mental fitness?

    1. AA

      of, uh, mental fitness. Uh, what, w- what does mental fitness mean?

    2. AG

      Um, I mean, I chose, uh, the word mental fitness to sit along, uh, The Mind Manual as the title of my book or the subtitle, and the reason I chose that is I think a lot of the time we view mental health as this inherently bad thing. In fact, if you say physical health to someone, they'll conjure ideas of Joe Wicks running in the park, fitness. They might even say things like cardiovascular, weights. Yeah.

    3. AA

      Yeah.

    4. AG

      They might say illness, but I bet you there'd be a lot of positive connotations. If you say mental health, it's always or almost always depression, anxiety, sadness, or, you know, we need... You know, does that person have mental health, or this person in headline papers admits to having mental health. It's like you have a heartbeat, you have both physical health and mental health. You know this. And so I, I feel very passionately we need to change the conversation around it so that when we think of mental health, we don't automatically jump to that negative subsection.

    5. AA

      Mm.

    6. AG

      In a way, I guess it's that spectrum, isn't it? On one end, you've got perfect mental health, which hardly anyone has, and this end you have severe mental illness, which a pers- percentage of people have. Most people sit somewhere along here, and the good news is that you can build upon that. You know, in the same way, you know, I wouldn't go, "Right, I've completed the gym. I've been in the gym for the last year."

    7. AA

      Yeah.

    8. AG

      "Never need to go to the gym, never need to work on my physical fitness again." What happens if I stop going to the gym? I get weaker, my cardiovascular drops off, my life expectancy would change. I'm more vulnerable to disease. I'd be less productive. It's not good, and mental fitness is the same. If you work on it and you build on it, you keep watering that p- plant, it grows to be a strong, you know, tree or shrub, whatever you'd like it to be-

    9. AA

      Fantastic

    10. AG

      ... but it'll be strong, and that's why I believe in mental fitness.

    11. AA

      Okay. Beautiful. Um, so this conversation, we're gonna talk about a bunch of these mental fitness tools.

    12. AG

      Mm.

    13. AA

      Um, before we go there, one thing that you talk about a bit is about

  3. 3:16 – 7:06

    How does someone know what normal is?

    1. AA

      trying to define what normal looks like for you.

    2. AG

      Mm.

    3. AA

      What do you, what, what do you mean by that, and how does one go about defining normal for them?

    4. AG

      I think a lot of the time, um, in society, we, we set a lot of standards or expectations or ideals of what someone should be like. In reality, we're all very different. We have different genetic makeups. Our nurture is very different. Our environments are different. Um, our neurodevelopment might be different. And so learning what the normal is for you is the bit that matters because, you know, there's a huge variation between people, and I think a lot of the time unhappiness can stem from the fact that you're constantly chasing something which for you isn't necessarily achievable or for you might not be your ideal of peace. So an example, an easy example would be, like, if you're an introvert versus you're an extrovert, your ideal of how you live your life and what a good day feels like to you is gonna be very different. Like, my idea of a good day is spending a little bit of quality time with people that I care about, a lot of time in nature, and a decent amount of time alone. That could be hell for some extroverts.

    5. AA

      Yeah.

    6. AG

      And so you need to learn what's your normal environment or what you want your life to be, but also, what am I like? You know, what do I feel like, and how has that changed? And people often ask me, "How do I know if, you know, someone's struggling? How do I know if my son or daughter is in a bad place?" I say, "Well, what's normal for them?" If it's changed and they've gone from this kind of person to someone that they weren't a few weeks or months ago, then that tells you that something has happened.

    7. AA

      Mm.

    8. AG

      And so learning a normal about yourself is very important but also understanding or, you know, looking around you. Look and listen, hear, feel. Gut instinct is a, a powerful, um, idea, and it works. Or we know from, you know, seeing patients in the hospital-

    9. AA

      Yeah

    10. AG

      ... I know you can talk about the clever fancy tests and the CRPs and inflammatory markers and all this stuff, but a lot of the time, the sick-o-meters we call it comes from gut instinct, doesn't it?

    11. AA

      Yeah. Yeah.

    12. AG

      Does this feel right or not?

    13. AA

      Yeah. Yeah. It, like, it, it reminds me of when, when doing a pediatrics placement.

    14. AG

      Mm.

    15. AA

      A lot of the question is, like, how is the kid relative to what's normal for them?

    16. AG

      Exactly.

    17. AA

      And the parents would be like, "Oh, come on, there must be something more objective." And it's like-

    18. AG

      No

    19. AA

      ... hon- honestly, if it's normal for them, it's probably fine. [laughs] If it's not normal for them-

    20. AG

      Yeah

    21. AA

      ... it's probably not fine.

    22. AG

      It's an idea I talk about in The Mind Manual, and I, I talk about it a lot actually when I visit schools and universities, and I've had great feedback from this, and it's a great way to work out what normal is for, for people, you know, around you, and also get you to reflect on your own normal, and it's called the traffic light theory.

    23. AA

      Okay.

    24. AG

      So say we're sat here now. We've got croissants here. We could be having a lovely lunch together. We could have our children around the table, and we'd go round and we'd say, "Red, amber, or green, how you're feeling today," red being bad. You get the idea. Now, if I said that I was amber every day and I wasn't quite feeling great but I wasn't terrible and I was able just to articulate a few reasons why, like maybe every day the similar stress or pressure was f- I was facing, maybe I just can't get quite on top of my sleep. It allows you and as that person to learn about why they might feel a certain way. It also allows the people around you to learn what's normal for them. But then all of a sudden, if this person that was maybe green A lot of the time suddenly becomes red, maybe three or four days in a row. It makes you go, "Well, hang on, what's happened? Something's happened here that's changed." And the great thing is about having, going around in a circle, around the table and using this, is that you all learn from each other as to what things actually make up good mental health versus what might drag your mental health down. And so I think it's a really, it's a really powerful tool to use to learn about your own normal and other people's normals. And that's why, you know, a lot of this stuff, I mean, how long does it take to sit around a dinner table and do that traffic light theory? A few moments?

    25. AA

      Yeah.

    26. AG

      It was actually used, um, in the pandemic by a lot of intensive care nurses. Um, I believe one of the ones I heard was UCL, and they were using it at the start of end, start and end of their handover shifts to basically identify nurses that were struggling, that were burnt out, so that senior management and senior, um, matrons could focus their support on those that were saying, "I'm red. I've been working five days in a row. I'm knackered," and so on. And it allows that early identification. I think that's one of the biggest things when we go back to, like, why is mental health viewed badly? Why do we have such high suicide rates, particularly

  4. 7:06 – 9:08

    Why we have high suicide rates amongst men

    1. AG

      amongst men? It's because I think in certain subsections of society, we're not that great at, like, recognizing our own struggles and acting upon them or the struggles of other, others. And when you talk about men's mental health, I mean, why are men up to 10 times more likely to take their own life than a woman? Well, you know, is that because of their genetics? Is it their testosterone level? Men and women are actually incredibly similar. There are slight variations in our makeup. I mean, when you look at the grand scheme of, scheme of it, we're actually incredibly similar. There are slight differences. Most of the theory around why it's so much higher in men comes from the way that we've brought men up to be. If you've grown up with, "Man up, grow some balls, don't be a girl," and all these kind of harmful things, is it a surprise that when we've been teaching men to be tough and speaking and sharing is emasculating, when they're at their point of their weakness, how are they gonna do what's most unnatural to them and, and for them? So it's, it's so important that we do these things and we embed these kind of techniques into family and into the, into the family dynamic because it teaches us new nor- it teaches us our own normal. It means that we can talk about things wh- when things are abnormal. It's like in the hospital, isn't it?

    2. AA

      Mm.

    3. AG

      You know, um, the most dangerous, uh, scenario is when you've got a team that isn't communicating to each other. When someone is aware of something and there's a patient they're worried about, but they're afraid to talk out. And it's very similar in mental health in a way. Just keep quiet, keep quiet, keep quiet, and eventually this problem becomes so big it spills over. You've got a cardiac arrest in the ward, and everyone goes, "Yeah, but the sodium's been this high for three days. Why didn't you say anything?" 'Cause you were stressed and 'cause

    4. AA

      The feedback, I, I mean, I've done so many, uh, talks, and I've done, I've visited schools from Scotland, all the way up to the north coast of Scotland, uh, down to the south coast of this country, Ireland, Wales, everywhere, universities as well, and it's been one of the most popular things that I've suggested for families, workplaces, small teams. It's, it's great. It works so well. Red, amber, green. Uh, we, we tried that once in a team meeting-

    5. AG

      Mm

    6. AA

      ... and it was really helpful, and we just completely forgot about it since then. So I'm gonna revive [laughs]

    7. AG

      But it's, it's, if that goes back to this point and people go, "Oh, yeah, we're talking about mental health."

    8. AA

      Yeah.

    9. AG

      It requires discipline. One of the

  5. 9:08 – 10:40

    The hardest thing about mental health

    1. AG

      biggest cons in the mental health space and the wellbeing industry is that it's easy. That is an absolute con. It's hard work. There's a very good, uh, saying that, you know, nothing worthwhile in life comes easily.

    2. AA

      Mm.

    3. AG

      And I believe that to be absolutely true. In the same way you gotta go to the gym, if you wanna get really strong, you gotta go and do squats, you lift heavy weights, you're breathless. If you're like me, you're sweating like a pig, and you're walking out nearly collapsing after a hard workout. It's the same with your mental fitness as well. You've got to dedicate time and energy. You know, you talk so much about productivity, but discipline's a huge part of productivity, isn't it? Like that kind of motivation versus dif- discipline. You know, motivation lasts a few weeks. I mean, we can see that by how many people retain going to the gym from the start, first of January to the end of January. It's like 90% of people are no longer in the gym. That's because they relied on motivation.

    4. AA

      Mm.

    5. AG

      Motivation must quickly be replaced by discipline. So you're motivated as a team to start this traffic light system, but the discipline needs to take over.

    6. AA

      Yeah.

    7. AG

      'Cause discipline mitigates for all of that. Dis- discipline doesn't care how you feel-

    8. AA

      Yeah

    9. AG

      ... doesn't care how tired you are. It just knows that it needs to happen. And yeah, I think, I think that's the, the con in the industry bec- and also the problem of selling this story that, oh, it should be fluffy and easy all the time. The problem is, is that when it isn't, people think they're doing it wrong and that they should give up and it's not working. You know, sometimes it's the hard work. Like therapy is a good example. Going to therapy is hard. I have therapy every Wednesday. It's really hard talking about difficult things, talking about past traumas, talking about-

    10. AA

      Yeah

    11. AG

      ... stuff that I maybe don't want to talk about, but I can only get better by going through the hard stuff.

    12. AA

      Mm. How long have you been doing therapy?

    13. AG

      I've been having therapy on and off for,

  6. 10:40 – 23:09

    The power of therapy

    1. AG

      I think it's been about three or four years now, and I've got to the point where I have therapy every week, and it's an... I know it's a privilege. I know that it's, therapy is expensive, but it's the best £70, £80 that I spend in my, in my week by far. In fact, I feel it's absolutely essential for me. You know, I've been through a lot of different things in my life, we all have, and there's many things that I don't think I could deal with without the support of my therapist. And I think that I'm a better friend, family member, I'm more productive. I'm certainly generally more at peace in my life-

    2. AA

      Yeah

    3. AG

      ... because I have therapy every week. It makes a huge difference to me. Have you had therapy?

    4. AA

      I had my very first session, uh, about an hour ago before we started recording this.

    5. AG

      There we go. Good timing for this, uh-

    6. AA

      Great timing, yeah

    7. AG

      ... conversation.

    8. AA

      It was, it was so good. Um, well, no, I, I think I, I dabbled with a couple of sessions in, in the past and had like an online one and, but this was-

    9. AG

      And how'd you find it?

    10. AA

      It's really good. Um, in the past I've sort of tried, had two different therapists, and I sort of felt like we didn't really have anything to talk about-

    11. AG

      Mm

    12. AA

      ... and, and they didn't really get me. But this new guy, um, who I've started working with, James, I feel like he really gets it. And the thing I'm trying to work on or, you know, focus on is feeling my emotions in a sort of more conscious way. 'Cause I think I have drunk the Kool-Aid of like, "I'm a chill guy, stoicism, man up, don't be a girl-

    13. AG

      Hmm

    14. AA

      ... don't be gay." All, all of the stuff-

    15. AG

      Hmm

    16. AA

      ... that you get sort of growing up, uh, in, in a-

    17. AG

      Yeah

    18. AA

      ... boys secondary school in the UK [laughs]

    19. AG

      Hmm

    20. AA

      ... and I'm sure in, you know, other places around the world as well, that, uh, encourage, uh, encourage us to repress and suppress our emotions.

    21. AG

      Don't you find it, it's interesting because, um, even in those and, you know, I mean, I, I've seen your, your work and your content for a long time. Even as someone that is quite reflective as you are, you're quite open, I think, as a person, you're quite transparent about things. Even as that person who actually on the scale of perhaps stoicism or-

    22. AA

      Yeah

    23. AG

      ... um, being worried about being emasculating, you're on the sc- spectrum of being someone quite open.

    24. AA

      I am.

    25. AG

      And you're still affected-

    26. AA

      I'm a pretty open guy. [laughs]

    27. AG

      And you're still affected by it. Isn't that, isn't that a shame? So for, so for those that perhaps are less like that-

    28. AA

      Yeah

    29. AG

      ... it's even, it's even harder and it takes a long time to un- unlearn this stuff. I mean, you know, something like 80 to 90% of our neurodevelopment's done by the age of five years old. And so the things that we hear in our early years are so, so important, and they can be often quite hard... it can be often quite hard to unlearn. The good news is that you, you can unlearn-

    30. AA

      Yeah

  7. 23:09 – 31:00

    Dealing with anxiety and ADHD

    1. AA

      the story behind the anxiety and the sertraline, if you don't mind sharing?

    2. AG

      I, uh, I mean, I was diagnosed with ADHD about six, seven months ago. And I look back now and it's like when you know that you have something, it's like, how did I not kn- know? How did anyone else not know my entire life?

    3. AA

      Mm.

    4. AG

      I mean, even if you follow the trajectory of my life and my life decision-making, you think even if you want to talk about, say, Love Island going on there, what a risk that is. Um, you know, the fact that I chose A&E as my career, running around in A&E as my kind of interest, if you like, the way that I live my life now, it's quite obvious to, probably to many that, that would know me that I, that I have ADHD. When I was younger, I was really trying to conform to a neurotypical life, academia and school. For many, the reason it doesn't fit is because you're basically saying all of you need to fit into the structure of academia and learning, otherwise you're a waste of time, basically.

    5. AA

      Yeah.

    6. AG

      So I forced myself to conform, and that's never going to- And you have to kind of shoe fit yourself into something. It's never gonna come without consequences. So I found myself to be a very anxious child, I was very sensitive. And as I went through university, I just found, like, a lot of things really affected me perhaps more than I saw affected others. I'd develop a lot of anxiety around time. I'd worry about other people a lot. Um, and I think I got a lot of anxiety from scenarios, um, whereby I was kind of stuck in a place for a long time. And it makes sense if I-- if you've got ADHD and you're stuck in a room or in a lecture for several hours, it's not great, is it? And I think since I have learned more about the ADHD, my anxiety's got better, which I think is part the reason that I came off medications. I mean, I add on top of that, of course, um, you know, I lost my brother sev-- um, a couple of years ago, um, three years ago to suicide and, you know, I worked throughout most of the pandemic and, you know, i-if you'll allow me to say that, then I, I think, you know, I was one of a few doctors who really was in the hospital and sharing what was going on from the hospital every day. You know, I was filming for Lorraine Show, BBC News. I was live on BBC News in the evening. I was working every day and the pressure, people going, "What's going on? What's happening? We need you to film this. We need to hear from the frontline."

    7. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    8. AG

      "We need you... You know, can we get a consultant on to talk with you about this?" And I-- all of that took its toll. It really took its toll on me. Um, and yeah, I, I, I'm very fortunate really for that medication, I think.

    9. AA

      What impact did the medication have?

    10. AG

      So at the point where I called my GP, I remember the day actually, um, I was working an A&E shift and I was questioning whether I needed help. I was actually... I got to the point where I was so anxious and I might actually start from this, from this idea.

    11. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    12. AG

      A lot of the time we separate anxiety and depression, and I'm sure, um, your mum, you said is a consultant psychiatrist, would agree with this as well, is that when you've got severe, on the severe end of either scale, the two become so in-in-inter-in-intertwined. So if you're severely anxious, how can your mood not be affected? How many people have severe anxiety and they've not got low mood or, you know, burning out and they're getting complete lethargy and so on, and vice versa. If you're feeling so low in your mood that you can't lift your mood, it can make you pretty anxious, isn't it? It's pretty... A-anyone listening knows that when you, you wake up and you cannot, you feel so low and you can't lift that mood, it's a pretty anxiety-inducing feeling. So the two become really intertwined. And I think I got to the point where I'd realized, I was like, "Is this anxiety anymore? Am I... Is this just severe depression?" And anyway, I was in a shift in A&E and I was like, "This is bad." And I walked outside and I literally rung the GP practice and I was very fortunate actually that I got an emergency appointment and I told the GP where I was at and they said, "Listen, you know, you've obviously done so much stuff to try and improve this." I'd done all the techniques I talk about and it just wasn't working.

    13. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    14. AG

      At that point, I was at the severe end of the s-scale, and I think I was also experiencing a lot of the grief about my brother. So I started on sertraline and the first eight weeks were really hard. You know, in med school we learn like warn people the first two weeks, um, wow, I mean, it, it's literally worse than you'd even explain on that. It's two or three weeks of hell is the only way I can explain it. And you go, "Oh my God, I feel this bad. Now it's making me even feel worse." And I think the only way and the only reason it was kind of tolerable and the reason I got through that is because I sat down, I screenshotted a load of testimonies and, and if you go online you'll see the people sharing kind of their experiences of going on medications like sertraline and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I was like, "Oh my God, this person's saying it'll get better." I remember sitting there literally like sobbing away reading it being like, "It's gonna get bet- it's gonna get better." And thank God it did. It did get better. And after eight to 10 weeks it was like a cloud lifted and all this gray, my whole life had just become gray. There was more color, like there was color in the green and all of a sudden I lifted and it was, it was... I honestly, that's one of the scariest times of my life being in a situation where you feel so bad you can't see a way through. And I'm a very resilient person. I might be very se- sensitive, I might get anxious, but I'm very resilient. I've been through a lot of crap in my life and I am quite resilient and I really was frightened during that period of time.

    15. AA

      Mm.

    16. AG

      And I'm very glad to be out the other side. Am I... You know, you, you always face challenges. My mental health is, goes up and down at times, but I know that even in the bad times I can get through and that perspective in life is very important. You know, knowing that, and this is a challenge for young people, my brother was 19 when he passed away. He didn't have a perspective perhaps that dark days don't last forever, but they do pass. You know, I think one of the challenges for human beings is whatever they're experiencing this current moment feels eternal. You know, anyone will know that when you've had something go wrong, you failed an exam that was really, really important or you, something bad has happened, someone has died in your family that you loved, you think that suffering is eternal.

    17. AA

      Mm.

    18. AG

      Because it feels that way. We only have the present. The odd, the odd I guess dichotomy or the odd thing about life is that we only have the present and yet we spend a lot of time in the future and past. But when we're suffering in the present, we're very bad at remembering that there is a future-

    19. AA

      Yeah

    20. AG

      ... and that there might be a future self that doesn't suffer. And I think that, you know, I wish, you know, for my brother and I, I, I talk about this a lot, you know, for, for, for everyone I hope to, to realize that even the worst suffering doesn't last forever. I got a tattoo here that says, "This too shall pass," and in my worst times I read it. I remind myself like it will pass.

    21. AA

      Mm. Yeah, it's like all the spiritual teachings teach us to live in the present moment, but if that present moment is very dark, that's potentially an unhelpful place to be.

    22. AG

      Well, the odd thing is, is that pain makes us... You know when you get, you sort of go and do a cold show- I have a cold shower every morning. I think I'd really recommend as one of the things that really helps, um, s-center you and to start your day. But just like a cold shower is, you know, it's cold, it shocks you, it brings this present, so does pain in a way. So pain makes us very aware of the moment that we are in.

    23. AA

      Mm.

    24. AG

      And sometimes when that pain is so bad, especially when it's a, it's, it's an emotional but almost physical pain a lot of the time when you're, when you're struggling that much You get so bogged into the present moment. You get so-- And you also feel so isolated. The cruel thing about mental illness is that it's an isolating thing. It makes you feel like you're entirely alone. There's a great word, um, that I learnt recently called sonder, to sonder, and it means to be aware of others' struggles even though you don't know what their struggles are. So it's kind of the idea that you could be sat in the train station, you know, you've got all these people that are walking past you, and you just stop for a moment and go, "All of these people that are walking past me have challenges in their life. They've had things that have happened, things that might happen, things that might be happening right now. Someone might have the worst call of their life." And it's not at all to think, like, "Oh, I hope other people are suffering too," but it's an awareness that your own suffering isn't the only suffering to happen. And there's a sense of, like, unloading that comes with that. And it's a similar feeling to when you share a problem. I mean, when I told my mum that I was really, really struggling at med school, which was the first time I struggled with my mental health, um, it was one of the best feelings of my life, which is really odd, because you think, well, how could that be a best fee- like amazing feeling? But all of a sudden, I wasn't carrying the secret of suffering. I was sharing it, and I was like, "Oh, oh, I've shared this and I feel better-"

    25. AA

      Hmm

    26. AG

      ... and maybe I can get better."

    27. AA

      Yeah.

  8. 31:00 – 34:01

    Loneliness

    1. AA

      What, what kind of struggle was it at, at med school?

    2. AG

      Um, at med school I was just severe- I just, I became severely isolated actually, and I, and I, that isolation made me feel so lonely and anxious. So I was-- I went to Peninsula Medical s- Med- Peninsula Medical School, um, Exeter, Plymouth, and Truro. So I was on placement down in Truro, a long way from family and friends. I was away from my girlfriend at the time, and I got into a really lonely place. People go, like, "Is loneliness that bad?" Well, if you smoke 15 cigarettes a day, it's pretty bad for your health. We all know that. Loneliness actually causes more harm to your health than smoking 15 a day. It kills a lot of people. It affects mental health, physical health, cardiovascular health. Human connection is absolutely vital. It's a reason I, a whole chapter in my book is focused on connection, because without that it can really, really impact us. And I basically lost connection. And because of my lack of connection, and therefore almost lack of purpose in my day, I stopped eating well, I slept terribly, didn't exercise, didn't go outside. I actually became more isolated. 'Cause I felt lonely, I actually became more isolated, and it was like a negative spiral. But it got to the point where I was really in a bad place. And you'd think, well, why didn't you go to the, you know, didn't you go to the med school? Uh, why didn't you go and speak to someone? Well, as you know, I think in the medical profession, I think it's probably one of the last frontiers of really bad stigma, I think, in terms of mental illness. And I thought, do you know, if I go to the university and say, "I'm struggling with my mental health," what are they gonna do? They're gonna hold me back a year.

    3. AA

      Yeah.

    4. AG

      They might pause my studies. I thought, no way. They'll say, "Alex, you can't be a doctor 'cause you can't look after yourself."

    5. AA

      Mm.

    6. AG

      So what did I do? I stayed silent, as a lot of med students do. And the suffering got worse until eventually I realized I couldn't carry on in that way. And thankfully I told my mum, and from that moment of speaking to her, a whole chain of things happened. All of a sudden I didn't feel as alone. She also made a very good point, and she worked in, works-- well, she used to work in a, in a, in a bank, so not medical at all. She said, "Alex, why would you feel good when everything you're doing in your day will make you feel bad?" And I was like-

    7. AA

      [laughs]

    8. AG

      ... that's actually a really good point. I was like, maybe I should get up at 7:00 in the morning, go to bed at 10:00. Maybe I should probably eat food that's a bit better for me in general. Probably exercise is a good idea. I could call my mates and go and make the trip and see them o- on a Saturday. You get my idea. All of a sudden I started making changes.

    9. AA

      Hmm.

    10. AG

      And at first, and this is why the discipline's important, I saw no change. I was like, oh my God, I feel just as bad. But after kind of 10, 12, 16 weeks, the clouds started lifting. I suddenly fi- started feeling less anxious. I felt more assured. I felt better. I felt purpose. And all of a sudden I was, I was better. And I think that's the first time, A, I'd realized, oh my God, mental health can just hit anyone, and that's the first time I'd really kind of understood how I felt that, and I went to the GP to talk about it. You know, and, and I think that's also the first time I really understood that it does matter, this kind of wishy-washy stuff as I'd thought before about kind of self-care. I was like, do you know what? Damn, it's really important.

    11. AA

      Yeah.

    12. AG

      'Cause do you know what? If you don't, you can end up in the state that I was in.

    13. AA

      Yeah, that's one of the things about mental health that it seems

  9. 34:01 – 41:36

    Losing your brother

    1. AA

      just like it's such an invisible thing that can just strike seemingly at any time, and your life could be going along absolutely swimmingly-

    2. AG

      Mm

    3. AA

      ... and then the next thing you know you're like, you know, in this-

    4. AG

      You never know-

    5. AA

      ... dark pit of depression

    6. AG

      ... you never know. I mean, you never know what can happen in life. I often say, um, the things that we worry most about aren't the things that come to pass. You know, often it's a Tuesday afternoon at 4:00 when the sun's shining that you get a phone call that changes your life. That's what happened to me. You know, I was sitting down to eat dinner with my friends. You know, we'd just come out the pandemic. I was supposed to go back to Wales to see my family the week later, and my phone rang. And I have, um, a agreement with my parents that if they are ringing for the ch- for a chat, just ring once. Say my phone started buzzing now, they'd ring once, 'cause often I'm filming stuff or I'm in meetings or doing something like this, and if they phone once, and if they phone once, I would just call them back later. But if they ring twice, I know it's really important. So if they rang twice now, I'd answer. Um, and the phone was buzzing and buzzing, and I thought, oh, okay. So I answered, and I, I immediately from the tone of voice, I just said, "Who's died?" And like that, you know, your life, my life changed, and it has changed forever. So even if you don't bre- believe that mental health can just, or mental illness can just happen to you from a state of, you know, this has creeped up on me as it does for a lot of people, things just can happen that just send you down. And that's why it's so important to learn about yourself, to learn about your coping mechanisms, to learn your emergency toolkit. Like what are you gonna do if something really bad happens in your life, someone passes away? It's likely that everyone's gonna lose loved ones in their life. It's life. What are you going to do if that happens, if a bad day happens? Or say you lose your job or there's a financial crisis or something changes in your life, you have a breakup. You need to have some- you need to have a plan in action-

    7. AA

      Hmm

    8. AG

      ... to look after yourself. And I, luckily by that point I had been working on a lot of the stuff. I was r- in the midst of writing my first book, Live Well Every Day, and, you know, I was u- using a lot of the stuff I'd learnt from med school, um, but also obviously my experiences. And I think without some of that stuff- An awareness that I, you know, things can get better. I don't know where I'd be. Um, so I'd say to anyone, look, just work on this stuff, make it part of your day. Because, you know, if you're-- wherever you are, you know, if you're having your days are 70% and they're quite good-

    9. AA

      Hmm

    10. AG

      ... don't you want them to be 80%? You know, build upon it. If you wanna be more successful in your career and you wanna achieve more or whatever it is, it will help you. It will help you achieve.

    11. AA

      Hmm. Hmm. How, how did it feel in that moment when, when you got the phone call?

    12. AG

      Uh, I mean, you just think, "This can't be real." You just think, "This cannot... How, how can this happen to me?" Like, "How has this happened?" You know, I was supposed to go home a week later. My brother, Clear, uh, was 19. He had a place at Southampton Med School. He was going to be a med student. Um, and he was gone and, you know, we didn't, we didn't think that he was in that place. He was 19 and fed up after the pandemic, was kind of locked away quite a lot. But we didn't think he would felt anywhere near like that, and that's the problem. I mean, he made a binary decision, right? There's a, there's very few decisions in life that are irreversible. Very, very few. There's very few decisions that are truly binary, that you cannot claw back or you can to some extent mitigate. Deciding to take your own life is one of those examples where there is no going back. So he made a decision to leave us rather than talk to us and say how much he was struggling. And when people go like, "Ah, stigma, we haven't really fixed it," well, why would you make that decision to not even try and tell us and let us try to help you? You decided that you'd, you'd rather take this option rather than share. And, you know, in that moment, there was just such a realization of like, wow, like, "Why didn't you call me?" You know? "Why didn't you give me a phone call?" You know, I was, I was very much talking about mental health well before that. Um, before I even went on Love Island, uh, I, I used to spend a lot of time in Lewisham Hospital teaching med students, and I spent a lot of time talking about mental illness.

    13. AA

      Hmm.

    14. AG

      'Cause I said, "Look, you guys come here and you think A&E is all about physical, you know, s- car accidents and heart attacks. Look at the mental illness that we see. You need to learn about this stuff." You know, I'd take them in to speak to patients who are struggling with mental illness to try and get an understanding 'cause I think a lot of the time at med school, we just think, "Oh, psychiatry is just that bit in the corner."

    15. AA

      Hmm.

    16. AG

      You know? Um, a- and, and I actually made a video about what to do if you're struggling with your mental health. I made it on YouTube actually, like couple of weeks before he died. And, you know, you think, "Wow, why didn't you call me?" You know? "Why didn't you pick up the phone?" And that's something I have to live with for the rest of my life, you know? Um, but yeah, I'm here. You... There's ups and downs in life. You have-- Everyone has difficult times. I certainly don't sit here and go like, "Oh, poor me," or pity me or anything like that.

    17. AA

      Yeah.

    18. AG

      Don't pity me. Um, uh, we're all working through stuff. But please, you know, if someone's watching this struggling, just make that phone call, tell someone, and do it early. If you're asking the question, you're watching this and you feel triggered, or you think, or you're listening to this and you feel triggered, and you just think, "Oh gosh, is that me?" Or, "Am I struggling enough to get help?" Just get help. Just talk to someone.

    19. AA

      Hmm.

    20. AG

      Share how you're feeling. You know, I, I w- I wish my brother just shared how he was feeling a year before, six months before, whenever it all started, and we could-- he'd be here today. I'm, I'm s- I'm confident that with the right intervention, anyone can get through almost anything.

    21. AA

      Why do you think he didn't share?

    22. AG

      I think s- I think the stigma of it is just so hard for some people. You know, there's an analogy that, um, you know, as children, um, we all begin with this suitcase, this metaphorical suitcase, and as things happen in our life, knockbacks, things that are said to us, challenges, we add things to the suitcase. And a suitcase, if we don't unpack things and we don't deal with those things, we don't share, we ask someone to help us with it, then, or someone to carry some of the stuff in the suitcase, and it just gets heavier and heavier and heavier until eventually you're dragging this suitcase.

    23. AA

      Yeah.

    24. AG

      And eventually you either have to share, and you get to the point where either you share and ask someone to help you because it's so heavy, or you drop it eventually. It's just too much to bear. But for someone to help you, you often need to ask them. You need to open your mouth and ask for help.

    25. AA

      Hmm.

    26. AG

      And I guess at that point, he, he decided he couldn't carry this, but he also couldn't-- he c- he couldn't carry this any further, but he also couldn't ask for help. That's the reality of it, and it happens. We lose so many people. Every three days in the UK, a student dies by suicide. Every three days. Um, Ben West, who's, um, another activist in this space, um, uh, he's, he's a- he's amazing. He lost his brother at a very, at a close age and close time to when I lost my brother, and he's currently working at the moment to get, uh, the government to create legislation of responsibility around mental health for universities-

    27. AA

      Hmm. Yeah

    28. AG

      ... which you'd think was obvious. I mean, it's a physical responsibility, but there's not currently legislation or framework around the mental health of students, which, I mean, there should be, shouldn't there?

    29. AA

      Yeah.

    30. AG

      So it's one of the most obvious things that there should be. But every three days we lose a, a student in this country. I know we have a lot of students that are listening to, to, to this, uh, uh, podcast, and it doesn't have to be that way. I think that's the point. It doesn't need to be that way. We don't need to rely on people waiting till they're at the very sharp end to get help. Get help early. I mean, if I was limp- if, you know, if I was limping on my ankle, you know, it was... I was clearly limping on my ankle every day, I'd be, be like, "What's going on? Are you all right? Let's go and take you to the doctors." You don't wait 10 years, do you? But I think with mental, with our mental health-

  10. 41:36 – 48:59

    The stigma of mental health

    1. AA

      and especially if I look at like, you know, the YouTube comments and our podcast community and things, where, you know, while we would like the stigma to be a lot less, there's still that sense of, well, if I get physically injured, then no one's gonna question my self-worth. But if I am mentally injured or if I'm saying that I can't cope or whatever the thing might be, "Oh, I'm just being a softie. Oh, I just can't handle the pressure of... Oh, I, I signed up to medical school knowing it was gonna be hard, and now I'm here and I'm buckling under the pressure, and therefore I am deficient," rather than I have- I have an illness, I have a-

    2. AG

      Mm

    3. AA

      ... I have a disease.

    4. AG

      Well, you know, I think if you've been through something, you really are something. You are somebody because you've survived, you've endured. I've got a tat in the back of my [chuckles] wrist that says, "I endured." And, um, people might think, "Oh, that's, you know, seems silly," but I remind myself, you know, I am here. I've been through and survived all of my most challenging days.

    5. AA

      Mm.

    6. AG

      And in many ways, you might look at it and go, "Well, actually, do you know what? I've been through some very difficult things, and yet I am here." But also I ex- experience difficult days that nothing really caused them, and yet I'm still here. So at med school, I felt lonely, but I-- nothing overtly had happened to cause how I was feeling at that time. Although, of course, as I said, loneliness is a very, is a huge thing and, you know, the opposite of, of loneliness is, is connection. Um, it is very, very important that we all work towards meaningful connection. But nothing had happened to me, but I ended up in a difficult place, and I got through that. And the things I learnt from that experience make me stronger and more resilient. You know, I, you know, you know, if you break a bone, then when the bone rebuilds, it builds back stronger and, and, and it, and it, and, and there is like an overcompensation of that bone to, to make it more resilient. And I think if you've been through difficult times, you've got support, and you've got back-- got yourself back to a better place, that makes you pretty tough, you know? And the opposite of that is what? Trying to pretend that you're absolutely fine?

    7. AA

      Mm.

    8. AG

      I'd much rather if I, you know, in my team, I'd much rather people tell me early that they're struggling so we can work with them and help them get into a better place than struggle on and get to an even worse place. Even if you weren't thinking of this from a ethical perspective and a morals perspective, which you should. We're humans, we should care for, about each other. If you think about a team, you don't want someone to get to the point of breaking point where it's gonna take them two years to fix themselves and be back functional.

    9. AA

      Mm.

    10. AG

      Surely admit to it early on and let's get you there. Uh, everyone goes through stuff. I mean, I hate the stat one in four people have mental illness. I'm like, well, okay, one in four people get diagnosed that are doctors. How many people go through bad stuff in their life? Everyone goes through bad stuff. Something will happen to every one of us in our life that is difficult, that is challenging. You might f- you might get, you might get-- fail your exams to get into university. You might go through a really bad breakup. You might lose your job that you loved, your dream job. You might not even g- you might get to a point where you've nearly achieved your dream job and then you, it all goes wrong and you can't do it. Maybe you do get a physical injury that makes you incapable of doing your or carrying on doing the passion that you love. Difficult things happen to everybody. So I think the sooner we kind of drop this idea that only, you know, that, you know, it's weak to admit that you've had a difficult time. Just be, it's being honest, actually.

    11. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    12. AG

      Be honest. And also what it requires is leaders, I think within sports, within politics, leaders within the world to actually be a bit more honest as well. You know, uh, people often talk about their success. They don't often talk about their failures.

    13. AA

      Mm.

    14. AG

      You know, to-- you talk about it, um, uh, a lot in, in, in the work that you do, that to get to any end result, you have to go through multiple processes and learn what processes work, learn what are the weak points of what you're doing, the strengths. You have to learn about yourself. You've got to adapt, you've got to discipline, all these different things you have to apply. All of those learnings require failure. All of them require you to mess up.

    15. AA

      Yeah.

    16. AG

      I mean, how many people are so lucky to have a business idea that goes straight to the top and they make a billion-dollar company off a business idea and they, they've not failed at all along the way? Absolute rubbish. Look at Elon Musk. He's, uh, he's failed all the time, apparently. He's still doing rather well. Isn't he the richest man on Earth again?

    17. AA

      Yeah, something like that. [chuckles]

    18. AG

      Hundred and ninety billion or whatever he's worth.

    19. AA

      That's the one. Has quite a lot of haters. I don't know how he deals with it.

    20. AG

      Yeah, yeah.

    21. AA

      Yeah.

    22. AG

      He has a lot of haters and, uh, and I think there's a really good point around that as well is like, at what lengths do you wanna be successful, whatever that means. I think it's better to take th- people along with you to care about each other, care about people's mental and physical health, care about the team, and build something that's meaningful, and an environment where people can genuinely talk and get support and-

    23. AA

      Mm

    24. AG

      ... you know, share.

    25. AA

      Yeah. That's so true. Yeah, we've had this issue a bunch of times within, within our team as well, where someone's been feeling overwhelmed and has been trying to plaster over the cracks for like six months-

    26. AG

      Mm

    27. AA

      ... before things like come to breaking point, and then turns out that they hadn't taken a day off for the last like eight months. And it's like, wait, wait, what?

    28. AG

      Yeah.

    29. AA

      [chuckles] And that comes as a complete shock to me-

    30. AG

      And then again, again-

  11. 48:59 – 58:21

    The wheel of life exercise

    1. AA

      sort of w- wheel of life to give yourself-

    2. AG

      Mm

    3. AA

      ... a mental health audit. I wonder if you can elaborate on that.

    4. AG

      Yeah. So, um, one of the, one of the biggest things that I, I believe is that you have to, you have to understand-- To fix any problem, you need to understand what the problem is, first of all. You can't find a solution without knowing the problem is... Again, going back to medicine, it's very hard to-

    5. AA

      Yeah

    6. AG

      ... treat a, a patient if you don't know what's going on. And the, the, the wheel of life is just a useful way to break down the sections of your life broadly. You know, I set about certain examples, but break it down and then be able to give a score to that section about how happy you are that you're in the right place. So it could be like, I'm just gonna say like, you know, uh, physical fitness-

    7. AA

      Yeah

    8. AG

      ... is just a random one, right? And you can give your scoring from, you can go zero to 10, whatever you'd like to use. But give yourself a number or an understanding on this scale about where you are. Have several factors in your life. You could break it down into finances, you can put it into fitness-

    9. AA

      Yeah

    10. AG

      ... you can put it into mental health, you can put it into your hobbies, you can put in whatever you like. Are you achieving what you want to achieve in that area? Or are you where you want to be?

    11. AA

      Mm.

    12. AG

      And it allows you to have a general look back and go, "Well, actually, do you know what? My physical fitness is pretty good, but actually I, I don't feel that I'm doing the things that I enjoy in my life. I'm not achieving or doing my hobbies at all." And so it just really helps to zoom out and then zoom back into the areas that you want to, want to work on. And, you know, I, I would say like with, um, like with a track-- traffic light system, it's just knowing what's normal for you and knowing where you want to be and then putting in place-

    13. AA

      Yeah

    14. AG

      ... those changes. And, you know, I use the idea of a toolkit all the time. At the end of the day, like my toolkit will be different to yours. Like, I will have a different routine. I probably get up at varying different times. There's certain things I'll do in my day that might be similar to you or different to you. And just understanding how you are, what you use to have your maintenance stuff-

    15. AA

      Yeah

    16. AG

      ... what things build your ment- mental fitness, and what things are in your emergency toolkit. And I know it sounds silly, but have an emergency toolkit. So on a day where everything goes wrong, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do to look after yourself? You know, 'cause often, let's be honest, the default is drinking for most people. Let's be frank. I mean, in the hospital, bad day on the ward, what should we do? Let's go to the pub.

    17. AA

      Mm.

    18. AG

      We'll end up drinking. The irony, of course, is that we use drinking and it makes most things worse. You know, people say, "Oh, but alcohol relieves stress." Actually, a recent study showed that, uh, even drinking three glasses of wine a week raises your baseline cortisol levels, which is obviously a hormone we associate with stress and inflammation in the body. So alcohol isn't that great for stress. It's not actually that great for anything-

    19. AA

      Mm

    20. AG

      ... really. So learning what your good coping mechanisms are gonna be on bad days is as important as your maintenance day-to-day.

    21. AA

      Yeah. Yeah, like, um, the w- the w- the wheel of life is one of my favorite things to, to do personally, but also to do as part of a group.

    22. AG

      Mm.

    23. AA

      Um, we were in Austin, Texas last week, and we did a, a meetup for like 100 of our, uh, YouTube academy stu- students. And at the end of my keynote, I was like, "All right, guys, we're gonna do a little exercise. Bear with me on this one." And we just split life up into 10 different things, and I just gave them-

    24. AG

      Mm

    25. AA

      ... the, the 10 categories. And everyone just on their phone-

    26. AG

      Mm

    27. AA

      ... wrote just a number on how-

    28. AG

      Yeah

    29. AA

      ... how aligned they're feeling with each one.

    30. AG

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  12. 58:21 – 1:15:37

    How to set boundaries

    1. AA

      of the, one of the truths that you speak about, um, in, uh, the book is about boundaries.

    2. AG

      Mm.

    3. AA

      You write, uh, "Having boundaries is key to mental fitness, and lots of us need to reclaim our lives from the ex- uh, from the expectations of s- of a society that never says no." Um, yeah. What are your, what are your thoughts on boundaries? I feel like this is something I struggle with that I've realized in the last couple of weeks.

    4. AG

      Well, that's funny you say that, 'cause I think-

    5. AA

      Yeah

    6. AG

      ... um, you know, you're, you are, you're, you're, you're a very articulate expert in productivity, and what I mean by that is that I think you articulate theory fantastically well, and you also-- I think you're also, um, you're very skilled at making sometimes quite complex ideas, um, I think, uh, uh, achievable and almost like engageable, I don't know what the word is, for, for, for most people. I, and I, and I know that one of the things that you've talked about in the past is like working like, working... Prioritizing, but also working out where you put your energy, right, and time.

    7. AA

      Mm.

    8. AG

      This concept of like you have a, a resource which is your time. You know, you talk about all this, all this stuff. And I, and I think that, you know, we innately, all of us, feel as human beings that we need to say yes to everything and that we need to share this resource with everyone. And I think one of the things that I, again, is a bit of a, a bit of a con or I don't know what the word is. It's a bit of a misleading thing to say is like we need to be yes people, be a yes man.

    9. AA

      Mm-hmm.

    10. AG

      You know? That felt like when I was growing up, that was like the buzzword, be a yes person.

    11. AA

      Okay.

    12. AG

      And true, I did have my friend Freya saying, "You need to try and do things more." And I think in a way her advice was great, but it also led that-- me to do and say yes to almost everything. And you know, when I, when I, um, I campa- basically I, I... The reason I became Mental Health Ambassador is because I went around and spoke to all of the experts and leaders in this space, as well as young people, as well as teachers and everyone, and I came up with a quite agreeable res- list of all the things that we thought needed addressing. And this was kind of like, you know, broadly, these are the big areas you need to work on. And I basically used social media to bang on Number 10's door, and they opened the door and said-- and I said, "This is the things that we found." I wasn't trying to really do other, anything other than Make them realize what, what we were-

    13. AA

      Mm

    14. AG

      ... what needed to be sorted. I didn't have an idea that I was going to be an ambassador in, in this kind of space. They said, "Look, you know, you, you, you're working with a lot of these charities and in areas and whatever, why don't you represent them? And, you know, w- work alongside us in the sense that share with us what, where people think, you know-

    15. AA

      Yeah

    16. AG

      ... work needs to be done." The problem was is that when I took on the role, everyone came knocking on my door saying this, this, this idea, have you seen this research? Can you fund this? Can you find out about this? Can you make this happen? Can you... Everyone wanted a piece of me.

    17. AA

      Mm.

    18. AG

      And at first I said yes to everything. But what I quickly learned is that if you say yes to everything, you make a tiny bit of almost, almost undetectable impact across a load of different things, and nothing is r- even almost measurable in terms of impact. Whereas if you go, do you know what? Rather than doing 300 things actually quite badly and, and also doing actually a negligible difference, if you take together all that time from all those things and you add them up and stack them up on top of each other in two or three aspects, or even ideally one aspect, you make a massively measurable amount of change. And that's why all of a sudden, after about a year, I said, "Do you know what? This thing I really care about is Early Support Hubs. I want to have an Early Support Hub for under 25-year-olds in every community in the country where they don't wait two years. You have walk-in support-

    19. AA

      Mm

    20. AG

      ... access to therapy, wraparound support, so they're looking at your life as a whole." You talked about the life wheel, but that kind of idea of working out where does this young person need support? What can we do? Is it actually financial struggles? Is it education? Is it, is it the fact that this person might have ADHD and they've not been diagnosed? Like, a- are they lonely? How do we get this person back into sport or whatever it might be? All of a sudden, all of my energy challenged into this, and I've made, I think, quite a huge amount of progress in this area. Well, there's two areas. That, there's two things I want to achieve this year, and I hope I'll get there. Firstly is Early Support Hub funding. I need £200 million to fund, um, 190 hubs. That would cover each health district in England. My plan would then, or our plan as a coalition would be to then roll that out. So you'd have that as a starting point-

    21. AA

      Mm

    22. AG

      ... and then use that as a model to roll it out. The other thing that I want to do is to create a legislative framework in the workplace. So at the moment, there is virtually no legislat- legislation around mental health in the workplace. You have to have a certain number of physical first aiders, um, per workforce number.

    23. AA

      Yeah.

    24. AG

      So for every 50 people, you need one physical first aider. I want there to at least be parity with mental health, which seems pretty obvious given that the main killer of under 35-year-olds is suicide. So those are the two things I want to achieve, and by identifying those two things, it means you can focus all of your energy into achieving that.

    25. AA

      Yeah.

    26. AG

      And we have a saying amongst the team, um, "Is it essential?" And it's a very simple way that I approach most things, and I'm here sat with you because I think this is essential. I think this is a great way for me to speak to a lot of, uh, young people as well as, uh, those within businesses and so on. I can speak to a lot of people on this podcast, A, about mental health and why I think it's important to everyone, and also I can talk about the things that I'm trying to achieve.

    27. AA

      Mm.

    28. AG

      I'm trying to, uh, uh, you know, people are hearing hopefully about this, these two targets, and they might go away and think, "Oh, do you know what? If I see a petition around that or if I, you know, I'm, if I've got any way I can support him, maybe I'll try and help towards those two goals." So it's essential for me. But if it's not essential, I now say no.

    29. AA

      Mm.

    30. AG

      And that can be really hard at first, and that's where the boundary chapter started. It's like I realized that I say yes to everything and achieve-

  13. 1:15:37 – 1:23:30

    How to deal with imposter syndrome

    1. AA

      One of the truths in the book is, "You are enough," and in that section you talk a lot about imposter syndrome.

    2. AG

      Mm.

    3. AA

      Which is something that, like whenever I do any kind of poll on the internet, loads of people struggle with imposter syndrome. I wonder, can you riff, riff on imposter syndrome? [chuckles]

    4. AG

      Yeah. So, you know, the human mind is negatively biased, and the reason it's negatively biased is 'cause it's a protective mechanism. You know, when you look at, um, human neurodevelopment, in fact human development at all, we haven't really changed much in thousands of years. We, we really haven't [chuckles] changed.

    5. AA

      Yeah.

    6. AG

      Think of how different the world was in 300 years ago, let alone thousands of years. Our brain, and the reason it's negatively biased, is because it's a protective mechanism. Like if, if for example, um, we walk out into the, we walk into the forest and it's full of wolves, and those wolves could kill us, uh, we get away from that situation and survive. The next time we walk into the forest, we're gonna be very wary and think negatively there's probably wolves in there because it protects us, you know? That's, that is an important protective me- mechanism, as is anxiety, you know, adrenaline and all these f- things. You know, it's a fight or flight. It's a deal with a problem that's in front of us. And, you know, we retain memories because memories allow us to learn from the past and make decisions in the present that make our future more certain. You know, our self-preservation is like the number one goal for hu- humans as individuals and the race. We need to survive. And so we survive by learning, sticking together broadly, acting in the present, but worrying about the future. The problem is in the modern day society, not for everyone, I'm talking broadly for a lot of people, we perhaps don't have that kind of fight or survive or life or death in every moment of our lives. Most moments, like we're sat here now quite safely, you know, we're not under immediate threat sat here. But our minds, as we said, have not changed in thousands of years.

    7. AA

      Mm.

    8. AG

      And so they will fixate on things. The negatively biased mindset will always fixate on worries, and it will spend time ruminating on the past, where people talk about depression is because of rumination on the past and anxiety being our obsession of the outcomes of the future. But we're living these experiences in the present moment, and the problem is with imposter syndrome and why everyone experiences it, because that negatively biased mind is trying to protect us from outcomes, negative outcomes. The problem is, is that sometimes it is overbearing and to our detriment. So, um, we might think, "Oh, I, I can't give this, uh, talk on, um, alcohol's effect on the, on the liver in front of all these people. I'm an imposter." Actually, that person, you might be a, a registrar in, in liver studies. You've spent the last six months reading the papers. You've just published an article around, you know, you are an expert is what my point is.

    9. AA

      Mm.

    10. AG

      But yet we feel, still feel the inner child. Often in times of vulnerability when negativity takes over, we actually go back to our inner child and we forget everything that we've experienced. We go back to that vulnerable state of like, "Oh my gosh," like, "What am I doing here?" I mean, I remember my first day in King's on the wards, and I went to prescribe paracetamol. I had a sudden moment of panic, of genuinely like, "What am I doing here?"

    11. AA

      Mm.

    12. AG

      "Get me out of here. I can't remember-

    13. AA

      Yeah

    14. AG

      ... the dose of paracetamol." I literally turned to the nurse, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm feeling really bad," like I'm, like I feel just like... And she knew almost. She was like, "It's fine. It's just the first few days you're just feeling, you know, you feel imposter a little bit."

    15. AA

      Yeah.

    16. AG

      "Like that's, it happens." And it's the negative mindset. Now I, I, I think- People wonder, "Oh, wow, it'd be great to get rid of imposter syndrome." I don't think it would entirely because you become an egomaniac-

    17. AA

      Mm

    18. AG

      ... and think you're amazing at everything. It's great to have a perspective of like, "I'm good, but not perfect."

    19. AA

      Yeah.

    20. AG

      Or, "I'm valid or worthy of this, but maybe I'm not perfect and I can still learn." That's really important. But if you let it, imposter syndrome can take over your life. It can prevent you doing anything.

    21. AA

      Mm.

    22. AG

      And I always think it's worth remembering, I have a saying, and I always say to myself, "What is the worst that can happen?" And I know that sounds like I'm going to bring, you know, lightning to be struck on me. It's not what I mean. And it's not even a throwaway of like, "Oh, what's the worst that can happen? I don't care." That's not what I mean. I literally mean, what is the worst case here? So if I'm getting up to do a talk, um, about mental health, you know, you talked about when you, um, you know, you've done many keynotes, but say you're doing keynotes, uh, on YouTube or productivity or business in front of a lot of people, you might think, "Oh gosh, I'm doing this." There might be, like, quite good entrepreneurs in the room-

    23. AA

      Yeah

    24. AG

      ... I'm speaking about this. What's the worst that can happen genuinely?

    25. AA

      Mm.

    26. AG

      You make an absolute fool of yourself. That's the worst that can happen. And like really the worst case is you make an absolute fool of yourself. Partly you probably haven't, but you might feel that you have. You're still alive.

    27. AA

      Mm.

    28. AG

      You're still recoverable. You can still be a successful business person. You can still have a valid, enjoyable life. You can still laugh with your friends.

    29. AA

      Yeah.

    30. AG

      You can eat dinner afterwards. We often think that the outcomes are so much worse than they are. In most scenarios, they're not truly the case. And so I think it's sometimes pers- applying a bit of perspective to impo- imposter syndrome gets you, gets you-

  14. 1:23:30 – 1:35:27

    The mind manual

    1. AG

      a sudden you feel bolstered and you feel better.

    2. AA

      I, I suspect if you asked 99.9% of doctors, "Would you write a book called 'The Mind Manual?'" They would say, "Hell no. I'm not allowed to write a book like that until I'm at least a psychiatry trainee." If you ask 99% of psychiatry trainees-

    3. AG

      [laughs]

    4. AA

      ... they'd probably be like, "No, I've got to wait until I'm a consultant." If you ask the consultant, they'd go, "Well, no, no, I've, I've, I've got to wait until I'm like-

    5. AG

      Yeah

    6. AA

      ... the Regis Professor of Psychiatry in-

    7. AG

      Yeah

    8. AA

      ... adolescent medicine, and even then I'm not qualified to write a book called 'The Mind Manual.'"

    9. AG

      Exactly.

    10. AA

      Th- There are so many doctors I've spoken to-

    11. AG

      Of course, of course, and when-

    12. AA

      ... who have to have this issue, but it seems-

    13. AG

      But when, when do you-

    14. AA

      ... you've gotten over it. [laughs]

    15. AG

      Well, when do you... And, and al- and also, you know, when do you, when do you stop?

    16. AA

      Yeah.

    17. AG

      And I guess the point is, is like if I didn't write this book, and already it's been out a few weeks and I've had the messages from people that it's helped. If I didn't write this book because I was almost restricted almost by ego, then I'm preventing something that will help other people-

    18. AA

      Mm

    19. AG

      ... because of ego, regardless if it's mine or other people. You know, I wrote the book "A Better Day," and I had a number of messages now, you know, I've won Children's Book of the Year for that book. I, I've, I've got thousands of messages from parents whose children it's helped. What if I didn't write that book? Think how many thousands of kids have, we've not helped.

    20. AA

      Mm.

    21. AG

      And I think sometimes the greatest shame is that people have so much to give, people have so much to share, and they don't do it because they're worried about what other people will think.

    22. AA

      Mm.

    23. AG

      So think about how many psychiatrists out there could share knowledge they think to them is like not that big, but to other people, if you don't know it, you don't know it.

    24. AA

      Yeah.

    25. AG

      You know, it's that old concept, you don't, you don't know what you don't know. Think how much they could help other people if they didn't feel so restricted by it.

    26. AA

      Mm.

    27. AG

      You know, all of a sudden we're seeing doctors like, you know, y- you, myself, Dr. Karen, we've seen Dr. Julie. Um-

    28. AA

      Mm

    29. AG

      ... you know, we've seen so many people starting to go, "Hang on, why are we not sharing this?" No one owns health. There's no one that's like, "I own health." You don't own it. Uh, you know, you d- also don't get to decide whether other people help other people. Do you know what I mean? And don't be afraid of that. Of course, act within, uh, boundaries. You know, I basically, for this book, it's a sha- it's a split between my own experiences in life-

    30. AA

      Mm

Episode duration: 1:35:28

In the uListen app, the transcript lights up word by word as you listen. Get uListen

Transcript of episode lQvON019PUA

Get more out of YouTube videos.

Read along on your phone, search it beside the video, or ask your favorite AI app what was said.

iOSAndroidClaudeChatGPTChrome