Don't Chase Success - This One Idea Will CHANGE How You View Your Entire Life | Rangan Chatterjee

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:00 Many people chase success and they neglect happiness. I've ticked all the boxes of societal success, but until a few years ago, I honestly don't think I was happy. But who you are is not how you have to stay. The uncomfortable truth is...

Speaker 0:14 Please welcome to the stage Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. [clapping]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 0:17 Like I've said that eighty to ninety percent of what we see as doctors is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles, right? And that's not putting blame on people. I understand modern life is tough, and it's really hard for people to make the decisions that they actually want to make for their health. But for a few years, there's been an idea that's been niggling away at me. Why do some people make changes for a few weeks, for a few months, and then they flip back to where they were before? And I thought, "What is it? Is it just information?" If you give people the inspiration, the information, they feel better when they make those changes, yet they still can't keep them going. What's going on? And so I was on a quest to find out, well, is there something that's even more upstream than lifestyle? And I think there is. I look back over my twenty-year career with the patients who have truly transformed their lives, not just for a few weeks or a few months, but really turned a corner. I think, "Well, what's going on with them?" I think about the research and what it shows,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19 and it's very, very clear that there is a further cause upstream from our lifestyle, and that's our happiness and our mental well-being. Right. Now, let me explain to you what I mean by that. So, so at the start of the book, I, I've got this up in the introduction, and a lot of you I know will be bought into the idea that your lifestyle influences your health, right? And hopefully, a lot of you have tried to make changes in the past and are continuing to do so. But how you feel about yourself and the world, how you deal with conflict, how you approach your day-to-day life, your thoughts, your well-being, your mental well-being massively influences your day-to-day behaviors, your diet, your sleep, your movements, how you manage stress, and that then influences your physical health. Now, it is true that your approach to food, movement, sleep, and rest can also go up there and affect your thoughts and your well-being for sure. But the point I'm gonna try and make today is that if you focus on what's going on up there, your happiness, you will automatically start to feel healthier. No one's talking about happiness in, in this context. And I think this is the missing link in health, and I think this is the reason why so many people are not getting better and transforming their lives, right? So why is happiness and health linked? Well, there's kind of two broad reasons for this. Number one, and I think this is the more obvious reason to get, people who feel happier and more content with their lives naturally make better lifestyle choices, right? So if you feel pretty good with your life and you're not getting overly stressed, I gu- I guess you like what you do for your job, you know, whatever, whatever happiness means to you, and we'll get to my definition of happiness shortly. You're less likely to dive into a tub of Ben & Jerry's in the evening. You know? You're less likely to be waiting for five PM or six PM to have a few glasses of wine to unwind. But I'm not having a go at any of these behaviors. I'm just trying to understand them and say happier people naturally make better lifestyle choices. I think that's something we can all get our heads around. But it's not just that. If you really go into the research, independent of your lifestyle, happier people are healthier, right? And there's all kinds of studies out there to support this. The two that I chose to try and make this case in the book was one study where they looked at nuns over the course of their life. What was really interesting about this study is that all the nuns had the same lifestyle, same diet, same movements, same sleep and stress. So there was no difference in lifestyle, but they found very, very clearly that the happier nuns were healthier, and they lived significantly longer, even when lifestyles are accounted for. So I think that's really, really interesting. And then a more recent study took two groups of people and exposed them all to what's called rhinovirus. It was in- injected up their nose. What's rhinovirus? It's the virus that causes the common cold. Now, and they did-- they tried to have a look at which group of people would get sick. And they could basically tell who was gonna get sick by their mental well-being and their happiness. Basically, the... How can I put this politely? The not so positive mood category. [laughing] Does that make sense? Everyone following me? The not so positive mood category got sick three times more often, right, than the other group who felt content and happy in their lives. Now, I think that's really, really profound, right? Everyone gets injected with the same bug, but your emotions, your mental well-being, your happiness determined hugely who gets sick. Right, so happiness and health is absolutely linked. So I think we need to be talking about it. I, I guess that begs the question, you know, what is happiness? And I'm gonna get to my

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 5:56 definition of happiness, which I hope you find useful, in just a moment. Before I do that, I wanna tell you a little bit about my dad So this is a picture of me and Dad quite a few years ago now.

Speaker 6:08 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:09 Um, I don't know, I was probably seven or eight, something like that, I think. [audience member coughing] And I think my dad made a mistake that many people are still making today, which is conflating success and happiness. This is one of the biggest things I think out there which is causing people problems with their mental wellbeing, but also their health frankly. Is that we think those two things are the same. Now, they can overlap for sure, but for most people, unless you give it some thought, they are two completely separate things. Right. So let me tell you a little bit about Dad. Dad came to the UK in nineteen sixty-two. Right. So back then, the UK had a shortage of doctors, and the British government would recruit doctors from countries like India to fill the gaps here. So Dad comes over with, you know, like many immigrants, with-without much to make a better life. Now, there's lots I could tell you about my dad's life, but the point I wanna make here is that Dad progressed in his career. He made consultants. He gave me and my brother a fantastic education. On paper, we had a good life. I never saw my dad growing up pretty much. But, you know, on paper things looked good. And Dad killed himself working. Like, literally killed himself working, like I see so many people still doing today, right? So I'll give you a typical week for my dad or a typical day. He was a consultant at Manchester Royal Infirmary, not far from here. He'd come home from work, five thirty, six o'clock-ish, and I, I can still remember, he'd go into the kitchen, Mum would have dinner ready for him, he'd have his dinner, he'd go upstairs, he'd shave, come downstairs, and a car would pick him up at seven PM. Right. He'd go out all night doing GP house calls. He'd come back at seven AM, again, breakfast, shave upstairs, and then drive thirty to forty minutes into Manchester. Right. This went on for thirty years. So my dad only slept three nights a week for thirty years. And I am one hundred percent sure the chronic sleep deprivation, the chronic stress is why at fifty-eight he gets struck down with lupus, kidney failure, and spends the next fifteen years until he dies chained to a kidney dialysis machine. Right. He got success, but he wasn't happy. And in my experience, many of us are kinda doing the same thing. Maybe not to that extreme, but on a similar level. We're chasing success and in the process neglecting the things that truly make us happy. And that's why we get stressed

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 9:11 out. We're not sleeping. We get burnt out. Well, I had a patient a few years ago, I don't know, six or seven years ago now, a chap called Stuart in his late thirties. Again, he fell into this trap. From the outside, it looked as though this guy was crushing life. Ran his own business, drove a sports car. You know, he works on his own terms, at weekends, whenever he wanted. No one's gonna tell him when he has to work or not. And he came in to see me at the surgery I was working in at the time saying, "Dr. Chatterjee, look, I'm, I'm, I'm really struggling. I sometimes wake up feeling really low. I can't motivate myself to get out of bed. Sometimes I feel quite indifferent about things in my life. Is this depression?" And I spent a bit of time trying to understand what was going on, and we did some tests. I would see him and I... You know, I just thought-- You know, I, I, I remember this. I asked him a question. I said, "Hey, you know, how often do you sort of see your friends?" And he said, "Yeah, I'm busy. I, I don't really get time. I kind of, I kind of see what they're up to on Instagram or Facebook." I mean, it was, it was-- It's the bizarre thing of the twenty-first century where you can actually see what your, um, what your friends are eating for dinner or where they've been on holiday-

Speaker 10:22 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:23 ... but you don't actually have to see them. So I said, "Listen, what I want you to do for the next six weeks is I want you to see at least one of your friends a week in person, and when you're with them, I want you to put your phone away so you're really present for that interaction." Now, look, I, I fully appreciate that wasn't the prescription he was expecting from me on that day, but you know, the guy was desperate, and he really, really wanted to make a change. Anyway, he goes away. Six weeks later, he comes in to see me, and you could tell from his body language that things were different. He almost bounced into my room. And before-- almost before I'd asked him, he said, "Yeah, life's great. I've got my mojo back. Things are really, really good." And I said, "Well, what's happened?" He said, "Well, I started off every Sunday, I'd go to the local cafe, meet up with one of my friends in person. And then after two or three weeks, we decided to set up a, a five-a-side every Wednesday night after work." That was it. Right? Six weeks later, he's like a different person. I saw him a few months after that. Nothing reverted back. That one change made everything in his life start to fit and work better. Now, incidentally, you may have heard me talk about something called the ripple effect before. So it wasn't just that. That led to this ripple effect where actually he realized he was so unfit playing five-a-sides [chuckles] that he decided to start looking after himself a little bit better, going to sleep a bit earlier, not binging on box sets till so late. So that guy did not have an antidepressant deficiency, but he had a deficiency of friendship. And when he addressed that- Everything in his life came back online. Now, I'm not saying that happens in every situation, but for this person, and I've seen this over and over again, this is a particular problem you see in men. I, I'm not saying you never see it in women, but it's typical. You see this a lot in young men, and we know that, you know, there's a real mental health problem in men between the age of thirty-five and fifty, very high suicide rates. And not making time for those deep, meaningful connections i- is a big part of that. Right? So there's a chapter in the book called Have Maskless Conversations, and essentially what I make the case in that chapter is that these-- What is a maskless conversation? It's a conversation where you can take all these figurative masks off and truly be yourself and kind of be honest, you know, and reveal your insecurities and the things you're struggling with without fear of judgment or criticism. Now, many of us are lucky to have those people in our lives. Not everyone, but many of us. But we're so busy chasing success or things that we actually don't have time to nourish those relationships. I've been guilty of this before for sure. And it's really not that difficult, and it comes back to this whole idea of happiness v. success. Many people chase success,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:27 and they neglect happiness whilst they're doing it, and they find that they get that success, and there's still that hole inside. I mean, I could give you countless examples, but, I mean, this comes to mind because I had a conversation with this chap a few weeks ago on my podcast, Jonny Wilkinson. I'm sure pretty much everyone in, in, in this room knows who Jonny Wilkinson is. If you do not, he's one of England's, and probably the world's, most famous rugby players. In two thousand and three, in the final minute of the World Cup final, he kicks the winning goal that gives England the World Cup. And what's incredible about this story for me is-- And there, there's a section in the book which is pretty provocative, I think, where I say, "Your dreams won't make you happy." And Jonny wrote down when he was a little boy, "I wanna play for England. I wanna win the World Cup." Problem is, at twenty-four, he's achieved both of those dreams, and the problem is, is that he says the... He, he still says this. As the ball left his foot, he was starting to go down, and the next morning, he woke up, couldn't get out of bed. He felt empty, depressed. He felt nothing. He's had years of struggle on the back of this. On the outside, like with my dad, like with Stuart, things look great. He plays for England. He's won the World Cup. He's a hero. But inside, he's in inner turmoil. Many of us are doing the same thing. We're confusing the two things. And there, there's a few exercises in the book to help you start to be a bit more intentional about this. One that I, I don't know if you've heard me talk about this in the media or not or-- but, but I think it's really powerful. Imagine you are on your deathbed right now, right? And look back on your life. What are, what are three things you will want to have done? Just have a think about it. What are three things? And then ask yourself, what are three happiness habits you would have to do on a weekly basis to ensure that you get that happy ending that you've just defined that you want? It's a very, very powerful exercise because what it does, it makes you realize that, oh, at the end of my life, for example, I want to have spent a lot of time with my friends and family. If that's, if that's something you're gonna say, then if you look at your week-to-week life and go, "Man, I say I want that at the end of my life, but I'm too busy,"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:59 like Stuart, to actually make that happen, you're gonna really struggle. And, and here's the truth, right? The uncomfortable truth is, yes, we're all different. We've all got different preferences and, and things that we wanna do in life. But we pretty much know what every single one of us is going to say at the end of our life. How do we know that? Because palliative care nurses tell us over and over again. People say the same thing. "I wish I'd worked less. I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family." Right? "I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy." And the big one for me that gets me every time that I think about it, "I wish I'd lived the life that I wanted to live, not the life that other people expected of me." How many of you are living the life that you want to live? Right? I know it's a deep question, and it's not something you can answer necessarily overnight and change things the following morning. But just asking yourself these questions, developing the awareness that, actually, you know what? Something's a bit off track here. That's the first step in change. For me, that first step happened when my dad died. Huge hole in my life, like for many people, when one of your parents dies. Wasn't just a, you know, um, an emotional hole. It was a physical hole. I used to care for my dad, so I'd see my dad three times a day, pretty much seven days a week. So I suddenly had all this time. So that forced me to ask a lot of these questions, and I've realized how much in my life I was living someone else's life, and I wasn't truly happy. So success v. happiness is very, very important. So I still have to mention what I consider happiness to be, because you can say happiness to ten different people, and they'll come up with ten different interpretations of what that happiness is. And I think,

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:02 I think happiness is quite a confusing term. I think the interpretations of, you know, that, that kind of billboard image of a smiling couple with their kids behind them and the, the, the beach and the, and the sea Right? That's what a lot of us think happiness is, that we're gonna one day stumble across it when life is perfect and we don't have any struggles or stresses. Well, that ain't ever gonna happen. Right? For me, that's not what happiness is. That, that billboard image is a pleasurable experience. It can form part of a happy life, but I don't think it's happiness. And what I try to do with this, I was thinking, well, I don't wanna just talk about happiness and say it's really important for health, right? You've gotta, you gotta focus on happiness. But what, what does that mean to people, right? That's hard. Of course, people wanna be happy, but how? And so what I always try and do in my work is make things practical, and I spent months trying to break it down. What are the components of happiness? What are the ingredients that we need in order to be happy? And I've come up with this concept called the Core Happiness Stool that I genuinely think is gonna be useful and practical for every single one of you, and the idea behind it is this; just as if you go to a gym and lift weights every day, do bicep curls every day, you know you are going to get stronger and bigger biceps, right? You, you know that's ingrained in you. You understand that. I'm basically inviting you to consider that if you work on each of these three legs of this core happiness stool, you're going to become happier no matter what your starting point. So think of it as a three-legged stool. Each of these legs is separate but essential, and if any one of these legs starts to weaken, obviously your feelings of happiness are gonna start to collapse. So what are these three legs? Alignment, very important leg. Feeling aligned means that the person you want to be, the person who you really are inside, and the person who you're being out there in the world are one and the same. That's alignment, right? My dad wasn't aligned. Stuart wasn't aligned. The leg over there is contentment. What are the things that you do in life that give you that sense of contentment, calm, peace, right? That's, that's contentment. And the third leg is control, and I thought long and hard about this word because I think the word control can be misinterpreted, but I couldn't find a better one, and I tried it on various people, and they got it straight away, right? When I say control, I'm not talking about controlling the world. The world is inherently uncontrollable. I think we've seen that over the past couple years or even at the moment, right? Whether you want the world to be a certain way or not, the world is gonna do what the world does, right? This is not about controlling the world. This is about a sense of control. What things can you do regularly that give you a sense of control? This could be morning routines, rituals, journaling. It could be all kinds of things 'cause we know that people with a strong sense of control over their lives, they are happier, they're healthier, they have higher motivation, higher academic success, higher social maturity. All kinds of things that we all want you get when you have a sense of control, and we know that people who lack a sense of control over their lives have high levels of psychological stress. And I think that's what happiness is, and the beautiful thing is you can work on all three of these legs separately with very simple things that don't cost any money, and you get more contentment, you get more control, and the side effect is that you feel happier more often. You're not directly working on happiness. You're working on the three legs, and I think that's the key. That's the missing link in happiness, I think. Happiness becomes a side effect when you, when you focus on these things. I also like to think of it as happiness... It's almost like a direction you decide to take in your life. You're choosing. Right now, you know what? I'm gonna start making happiness decisions from this moment forth. And there's all kinds of practical tools in the book, and there's no way I can get through them all tonight, but I'm gonna pick out a few that I think are really, really important that I think will help you, and certainly they've helped me. So that's the stool, right? And everything in the book comes back to this stool, and, you know, if we forget the book for a minute, if you can get this into your head and really understand it, this is a practical tool you can keep with you in your back pocket, and you can take out in the world with you, and you'll start to figure out, oh, that's why I didn't feel so great after that, or that's why that really, really nourished me. You know? It- it's very, very practical. I've seen it with patients. I've seen it with so many readers

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 23:06 over the past few weeks since the book came out. I think it's, I think it's very, very practical. So one part of alignment is defining what happiness really means to you. Like, what is really important? That's one part of alignment. Another way to think of alignment is think about identity. How do you identify? What if... You know, a lot of people, I think, get really into a lot of trouble inside their heads when they become very fixed on a lot of these identities and labels that society has given to us, right? I've seen this so much. I've experienced it myself, right? So an example would be, according to society, you know, what am I? I'm a, I'm a doctor. I'm a father. Well, I am. Sure. I am both those things, but I don't think that's who I am. They're roles that I play. They're very important roles that I play, but they're not who I am. And, and I wanna explain this 'cause I think a lot of us get into a trap here. If I really strongly identify with I'm a doctor and I know what a doctor, that, what, what that means, well, here's the problem If I was to get sick and not be able to work, what happens to my dads? Right? What happens to my sense of who I am then? What happens if I get fired from my job and I can't work anymore? What happens to, like, how I think about myself then? Um, you know, what happens when I retire? This is what happens with people who retire all the time. They lose their sense of who they are. There's many reasons for that, but I think if we s-- if we cling too closely to these identities, they almost entrap us, and we can't break free from them. Right? As a father, well, what's wrong with being-- identifying as a father? Nothing, really, unless you identify too tightly to it. And, and I've seen this because I, I remember I've seen this in, um, quite a few patients. And I will say that in my experience, and this is just my experience, I'm not saying this works across society, these have tended to be female patients. And there's been a strong identity that who I am is a mother. Okay? Now I understand that. I'm not saying there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but here's what can happen. If that's your identity, and I can remember one patient in particular this happened to, when your teenage daughter or son shouts at you and says, "You're a crap mom," which happened to this patient, fell to pieces. Like, literally felt so bad about themselves 'cause everything was around that. So have a think about your own life. What do you strongly cling to that says who you are? Because I submit to you that if you can be a bit more loosely attached to that, it's gonna be much better for your long-term health and your happiness and your inner well-being. Right? Now, and the way I would, I would encourage you to think instead is about your values. Right? What are your values? Do you know what they are? We hear that term a lot. But if I was to pick one of you, I'm not going to, by the way, and ask you, um, to tell me some of your core values, would you know what to say? Great. There's a few people nodding. Most of you are not.

Speaker 26:32 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:33 And, uh, that could be because, you know, you don't want to engage, and that's fine. And there's no problem with that. But a lot of us, we hear it, we hear it on a podcast, we read about it, but we don't then go and actually do the work of writing down what they are. And why values are so important is they make you immune to these identities. And one of the, the reasons I really think-- I thought long and hard about this is when my second book came out, The Stress Solution, I was doing an event in London. I was talking about this concept, ikigai. Um, do-- have any of you heard of the term ikigai?

Speaker 27:08 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:09 Yeah. Japanese term. It's a wonderful term. And basically, I remember the first time I heard about it, it was basically you should be looking for your ikigai in life, something that meets these four criteria, something that you're good at, something you enjoy doing, uh, something that pays you money, something that the world needs. I know this sounds fantastic. I want to get myself some ikigai. This sounds absolutely great. And I was talking about it, and at the end of the event, and I can still remember it, back right of the hall, uh, this eighteen-year-old young lady put her hand up and said, "Dr. Chatterjee, I'm a Japanese student studying in London. I just want to say that I grew up in Japan, and I found the concept of ikigai overbearing. I found it was too high a bar to achieve." And, and I thought about that. I thought, wow, I thought it sounded amazing, but someone who's grown up with that thought it was off-putting. And I see this a lot at the moment where we talk, it's not about happiness, it's about meaning, it's about purpose. And sure, I'm all for meaning and purpose. I don't think they're the same things as happiness. But if you, for example, don't like your job and you hear all this stuff and you see these things on Instagram, find your meaning, find your purpose, it could be pretty hard and pretty off-putting. Well, what, what does that mean? I, I, I'm working in a call center at the moment because that's what pays my bills. And so I thought, well, how do you break this down? I think it comes down to values because what is a life of meaning? It's a life that you're living in accordance with your values, right? If you are working in a call center and you don't like the job, but it's a job that you feel you have to do at this moment in time, well, if you know that one of your values is kindness, for example, then I contend that if on your way to work, you stop off at the coffee shop and you're kind to the barista, right? If on the bus on the way to the call center, you're kind to the bus driver, if whilst you're at work, you're kind to your work colleagues, well, you're living in accordance with your values. That is a meaningful life. And I contend also that the more you live in accordance with those values, the more likely it is for that person in the call center that they're actually gonna start finding the things that they truly do want to do and move on from a job that currently doesn't nourish them. I think it comes down to values. Right? So if you've never done a values exercise, and there's, there's a few in the book, but they're all out there on the internet, if you want to do it for yourself. I'd encourage you, at least pick one value that's who you are. My three values at this moment in my life, and I'm constantly assessing to see if they still fit, are integrity, curiosity, and compassion. I think those are the three things that I think sum up who I am, certainly who I would like to be, how I like to show up in the world. Right? And then whether I'm a doctor or a father or not, it's irrelevant. Like, I bring these three values, I hope, to every component of my life. When I'm with my patients, I try and live in accordance with those three values. When I'm, um, a father, I try and live in accordance with those three values. When I'm at Starbucks, which I'm not really much in Starbucks these days, [laughs] I prefer my home coffee, but I live in accordance with those values, right? And it means if I was to lose my job as a doctor, I still know who I am. These are the three things that encompass who I am. So have a think about what your values are. And again, that's a big part of alignment. So I spent quite a bit of time on alignment because I, I, I think, I think it's-- I think all three legs are important. I think this one is super, super important to, to have a think about. Um, and even if you make a small change towards feeling more aligned, you're gonna feel it in your life. You're gonna make better health choices. You're going to be healthier. If you're enjoying this video, I think you are really going to enjoy my new book, Happy Mind, Happy Life, The New Science of Mental Wellbeing. I've been a practicing doctor for over twenty years now, and I can tell you there's a very strong link between happiness and health. Happier people are healthier, and they live longer. Now, happiness is actually a trainable skill that all of us can get better at once we know what to work on. And that's what my book is about. All the simple free tools that you can use in your life to help you feel calmer, more content, more in control. Yes, happier, but also healthier. You can order the book right now. All you have to do is click the link in the description box below. Perspective. Right? Perspective is such an important thing to think about when, uh, you think about happiness. I'm gonna come to how we can use a change in perspective in our daily

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 32:12 lives to feel much more content and much more in control of the world, or certainly have a sense of control over our lives. Um, but I mentioned my dad's story, right? But there's kind of... I just wanna offer you a different or slightly altered perspective on that. So I grew up, obviously, Dad was working a lot. Uh, Mom and Dad were from India, come to the UK for a better life. And I remember very clearly coming back from school, at primary school, and if I ever came back with nineteen out of twenty, Mom and Dad would say, "Well, why didn't you get twenty? What did you get wrong?" If I got ninety-nine percent in an exam, "Why didn't you get a hundred percent?" You know, "What did you get wrong?" If I became second in the class, "Who came first? Why didn't you come first? What happened?" Now, what's really interesting, as I was writing Happy Mind, Happy Life, I, I went round to Mum's, and I said, "Hey, Mum, can I ask you a question? Why, when I was little, did you and Dad, uh, say that to me?" And my mum said, "We just wanted you to be the best that you could be. We knew how capable you are, so we just wanted to make sure you were reaching those capabilities." Now, perspective's key here because Dad faced a lot of discrimination in his job. He had to change specialties. He couldn't get any progression. There's all kinds of things Mum and Dad had to go through, like, like many immigrant families all over the world. And so in their heads, the way for their children not to have to deal with that is to excel, get straight As, get a good job, go to a good university. You're gonna have no problems. You're not gonna have the problems that we had. And I love that, and I love my parents, right? But here's the problem. Little Rangan, on the other side of that table, well, I took on the view at a young age that I'm only good enough, I'm only worth something, I'm only truly loved, I'm only enough if I've got full marks and I'm top of the class. And, you know, I wasn't really aware of this till the last few years when I've sort of been going inward. Since Dad died, instead of looking out there for answers, I've sort of turned the ship around, and I now go inwards to try and figure out why

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:47 do I get triggered in certain situations? Why do I behave in a certain way, you know? And it all becomes very, very clear when you start taking that journey. And so for much of my life, although on the outside it looked as though Rangan's very successful... In fact, talk about success, be happiness. Well, I've ticked all the boxes of societal success. People will regard me as a successful person. I'm a doctor. Uh, I, I've just published my fifth best-selling book. I have a, um, a huge health podcast that so many people listen to. You know, I've got all these ticks. But until a few years ago, I honestly don't think I was happy. Like, honestly. Like, I stand before you now at, at forty-four, I can honestly tell you I've never felt this good. Like, I feel so happy, so calm, so content. I know I'm responsible for my emotions. I know that actually my inner wellbeing is down to me, and I don't have to let the actions of other people negatively influence it. And I, I detail how I've done all that in the book. And I do believe that's available to every single one of us. But for much of my life, despite the success, I wasn't happy. And many people are in this, in this boat, right? There's so many doctors, right? [laughs] So many of my friends who are doctors are not happy. Why did they go into medicine? 'Cause they were straight A students, and it was a good career thing to go. And then you realize in your mid-thirties it wasn't the job that you should have done. And so how do you compensate? You get drunk on a Friday and Saturday night to sort of rebalance things. And I mentioned core happiness. I also talk in the book about something called junk happiness. That's the opposite. What is junk happiness? Well, we've all got, I would think, uh, a junk happiness habit of choice, right? Or several. You know, maybe some of you have just picked one. But I reckon most of you or a few of you might have more than one.

Speaker 36:53 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:54 You know, what's a junk happiness habit? Things like, I don't know, sugar, um, alcohol, scrolling Instagram for three hours. Um, that seems like a popular one.

Speaker 37:09 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:10 Uh, gambling, right? Whatever you want. Online pornography. You know, it's a big problem. Massive problem these days that no one wants to talk about, but it is real, and it's affecting younger and younger men and women. And there's a case study in the book on one of my patients who exactly was suffering with this problem and couldn't look at me, literally couldn't look at me, they were that ashamed of themselves. Right. But all these things seem quite different, but actually at their core, most of them are the same thing. They're our junk happiness habit of choice that we're using to distract ourselves or numb something that we're feeling. Right? We like to judge a few of them as being bad, some people shouldn't be doing them. You know, the more-- uh, the older I get, the more patients I see, the more I realize that for most of us, they're all the same thing. They're just showing up in different things. So I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a junk happiness habit necessarily. What I'm saying is the problem comes is if we engage in these junk happiness habits too often or if we kid ourselves that they're truly making us happy when they're not, right? Sure, engage in it, but be aware of why you're engaging in it. So, you know-- a-and also a point here I think that's really important to, to raise is you can change, right? Think about some of your personality traits. How would you describe yourself? How would your friends describe you? Right. For much of my life, I would have described myself or my friends, my brother, my parents would all say, "You know, Rangan is super competitive. He will not lose." And it's one of these stories that you think, "Oh, it's just an embarrassing story your mum tells." You know, people come around, your mum's like, "Oh, yeah, when Rangan was seven, if he ever lost at Ludo, he'd chuck the board up and walk outside of the room."

Speaker 39:11 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:11 I don't remember that. I had to-- You know, I mean, I, I don't know. I could debate whether that really happened. Although my brother's in the audience, and he's nodding his head.

Speaker 39:18 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 39:19 So maybe it did happen. But the point is, I have been highly competitive, but I'm not anymore. And this is a point I-- again, a point I'd love you to think about when you're driving home tonight or when you're out for a long walk at the weekends. Right. Who you are right now is not who you have to remain, right? A lot of our personality is not actually who we are, it's who we became. I would have thought I was always gonna be competitive, but I'm not. Think about this for a minute. If you think your self-worth is dependent on success and that you're only loved when you are winning, well, developing the personality trait of competitiveness is a pretty damn good solution, isn't it? Because what's it gonna do? It's gonna make you win a lot, right? It's gonna make you come top 'cause when the pressure-- you're gonna push through, right? But as I've gone inward and healed that hole in my heart, and now I'm at the point where I actually like the person I see in the mirror. I'm not actually that bothered anymore about what other people say about me or think about me as long as I look in the mirror and like the person who I see. I've really got to that place. I'm no longer competitive. I'm not trying to not be competitive. I just have no need for that anymore, right? So that's quite a big idea for some of you to sit with, that who you are is not how you have to stay. And this all plays into happiness. This all plays into alignment, contentment, and control. And I, I sort of touched there a little bit on self-compassion. Chapter three in the book is called Treat Yourself With Respect. It's all about self-compassion. Loving yourself, which is prob-- one of the most uncomfortable things you can say to a British audience.

Speaker 41:15 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:16 Love yourself. It's like, you know, I-- if you had an aversion as I said that-

Speaker 41:20 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:21 -um, I, I invite you to consider this may be an area that you might wanna look at in your life 'cause the truth is the research on self-compassion is overwhelming. Right. How many of you have ever called yourself a loser? You know, in most audiences it's a lot more. You guys are very compassionate to yourselves. I'll try it again.

Speaker 41:44 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:44 Have any of you ever called yourself a loser?

Speaker 41:47 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 41:48 Yeah. You know, I, I certainly have. I used to a lot, um, but I don't anymore generally. I do fall into old patterns sometimes, but generally I don't. Here's the thing, we think that's neutral, like it doesn't matter. Oh, you silly thing. You know, you're such a loser. I can't believe you did that. Well, Professor Kristin Neff, who's one of the world's leading researchers in self-compassion, she's been studying this for over twenty years, has shown that when you talk down to yourself, when you call yourself a loser, right, you activate the stress response in your body. You raise levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It is not neutral Right? Again, going back to what I said right at the start, why did I write this book? I knew there was something more than just these four pillars, food, movement, sleep and relaxation. What is going on? What else fits? What is more upstream? And self-compassion is huge. If you don't like who you are at your core, if you don't feel you are enough in who you are, like me for much of my life, you will engage in junk happiness habits over and over again. You will go into, "Oh, I'm gonna get healthy now for a few weeks," and you're gonna revert back. You know, it is simply not possible to achieve long-term health and happiness if you hate yourself. Right? And there's lots of simple things you can do to start address it. Even just an awareness now from this conversation, that will help you. Even if you start to catch yourself every time it happens, go, "Oh, there, I did that again. Ooh." Right? That will help you start to change. You know, again, one of my junk happiness habits in my twenties was gambling. I used to gamble all the time. I'd gamble on anything, footy, game of pool, game of snooker. But I haven't gambled in over ten years. I'm not trying to stop. This is the point I'm trying to make. I'm not trying to stop the behavior. All behaviors serve a role in our life. Too much of what we do as doctors, too much of public health guidelines, in my view, are far too dry. It's like, you should not drink more than this amount of units per week. Now, I understand there has to be some guidelines, but I think there are many people that just goes in through one ear and out the other. It's logical, it's rational. There's no emotion there, and it also, it doesn't really, it doesn't really get involved with why people are engaging in that behavior. Yet this is why, you know, anyone can give up booze for two weeks in January. Try January, fine, great. Do it for two weeks. Do it for three weeks. For some people, it goes on for longer. For most people, in my experience, within a few weeks, they are back to where they were before. Why? Because the alcohol was serving a role in their life. Maybe it was helping them deal with the difficult relationship they have, or the fact that there's too much stress in their job. You'll never change the behavior long term unless you understand what it's doing there. Right. So self-compassion is huge. As I like the person I see in the mirror, I no longer need to gamble anymore. Right? It, it's just gone. I have no desire to do it, and I haven't even tried to stop. And even, you know, on that note, me standing up in front of four hundred and fifty, nearly five hundred people saying that I used to gamble, right? I wouldn't have done that a few years ago. I would've been too scared of judgment. What will people think of me? You know, being attached to this label of a doc. I'm a respectable doctor, you know, I can't be saying that. Well, you know what? I can say that, and it's the truth, and I am saying that, and we've all got stuff inside that we hide away from people, and we hide away from the world. And the more we can embrace that stuff and share it, the more we realize we're all imperfect humans doing the best that we can, all of us. And I'm not ashamed of it anymore because actually, I'm not scared of what other people think of me. That's why I feel I live

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:51 a much more aligned life these days. As I say, I feel this happiness and contentment that I've never felt before. Because my feelings now are not dependent on external validation and what other people are saying like they were for much of my life. So I just wanna talk about my favorite chapter in the book, which is chapter five, which is called Seek Out Friction. And I think this... Not I think. I know this is the thing that I think has had the biggest impact on my inner contentment, on my happiness, but also my physical health, right? And it's this idea that we can use social friction that we encounter in our day-to-day lives to learn and to grow. So have any of you come across any social friction today? Someone sent you an email that you didn't like, perhaps. Uh, maybe did anyone nick your parking spot outside? You know, did like, you know, did you have your eye on one? You know, whatever it is. We don't have to look far for social friction. Did someone get into the queue before you? You go, "Ah, did they not see me? You know, I can't believe they did that." Right? These are all opportunities, opportunities to reframe situations. And I promise you, if you get into this, this will have such a transformative effect on your life. And the whole idea is whenever you come across any social friction, it's like, can you choose the happiness story? Right? And it, it can be hard at first, but with practice it becomes easier, and it becomes automatic. So, for example, a few people nodded about getting an email they didn't like today, right? So if that's you, think about that email. What was your response? Like, let's say it was an email from your boss, right? Was it like, "Man, I can't believe they sent me that email." Um, you know, "Can't believe they told me to do that. Do they not know I know how to do my job? I've been doing it for the last few years." You know? "Do they not know I worked..." You know, a few people nodding. I haven't read any of your emails. [laughing] But this is really common, and this goes down to this big piece where many people I saw had nailed their lifestyle, food, uh, movement, sleep, absolutely fantastic, but they would overly allow the actions of other people to affect their inner well-being. Right? And as I said with negative self-talk, it is not neutral. Emotional stress is real. You get annoyed at that email, right? And take what I call a, a disempowering story that I can't believe they acted in this way. You create emotional stress in your body. That emotional stress will have to be dissipated and neutralized in some way. How do we do that? Usually with junk happiness habits of some sort. Right? And if you go deeper into the research and in, uh, Dr. Gabor Maté's last book, he really looked very hard at this research, and I say this with real sensitivity and compassion. People who are unable to forgive, who hold on to anger, who hold on to resentment, right? This trait is strongly associated with all kinds of chronic health problems like autoimmune disease, uh, uh, and heart disease, right? This is a-- You look at the literature, it's a very, very strong link, okay? I'm not putting blame on anyone. I'm just putting it out there that there is research supporting a very strong link here. And this is why I think this is very, very important, right? So how could you reframe that email? What happiness story could you create? Like, oh, well, maybe my boss is under pressure from his or her boss, and they take it out on me. Maybe my boss's child was up with earache last night. They haven't slept. They take it out on me. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what story you come up with. Just find a story that makes you feel calm. A-and there's a wider point here, right? And again, this could sound controversial. Probably does sound controversial, but I stand by it. For your happiness, the truth actually doesn't matter. Because there's a wider point here, which is then, well, what is truth? Right? So let's just imagine for a minute. A couple, a romantic couple having a fight. Anyone got any experience of that?

Speaker 50:20 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:21 Okay, just a few of you. Okay, right. So for the rest of you, you can imagine what that might be like.

Speaker 50:26 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:27 So two people having a disagreement. What happens? Well, I think it kind of depends who you ask. So if you ask one party what happens, they will give you a certain story and a narrative. Walk around to the other side of the table, ask the other person, you've got a completely different story over the same situation. Right? So what does that tell us? That there are at least two perspectives that one could take in any situation, right? There was this study by these psychologists who took, um, these football fans from two-- support two different teams, and they showed them an incident that happened in a game, and they asked them what happened. Both sets of fans reported two completely different things.

Speaker 51:19 [laughing]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:21 Right? Same s- same situation, different stories. Right? So there's always a way. There's always multiple perspectives. So I contend that you can choose a happiness story in every situation. And a phrase that I write about in this book is, you know, try and make that person a hero. Find a story that makes them a hero. Right? Another way of thinking about this is a phrase that I've been thinking about for many years, and it really, really was brought home to me in a conversation I had with Peter Crone on my podcast. If I was that other person, I'd be doing exactly the same as them. This phrase has changed my life, I promise. Right. Whenever I struggle or someone's doing something that maybe I don't like, I think if I was that person, I'd be doing the same as them. What does that mean? It means if I was that person with their upbringing, with their bullying experiences as a child, with their parents, right, with their life experiences, with the toxic first boss they had when they were eighteen, you know what? If I had their life, I would almost certainly be acting in exactly the same way as them. Right. Because when you start thinking like this, you lead with compassion, right? Doesn't mean you have to like the behavior, doesn't mean you have to tolerate and put up with that behavior. But when you lead with compassion, you take the emotional sting out of it, and I promise you are able to make much better decisions afterwards. Right, so that email from that boss, if you get all triggered, can't believe they did that, and you-- whatever, uh, disempowering narrative you wanna take in your head, well, you trying to solve that situation is gonna be a lot harder because you think of your brain in two parts, the rational brain and the emotional brain. The rational brain, the logical brain at the front is how you make considered decisions. But when you're getting triggered and you feel reactive, that just switches off, and you're then run by your emotional brain. This is very then hard. You'll probably say something to your boss that you'll regret later. Whereas if you don't get triggered, you choose a happiness story, right? Then you're much better able later on that day or the following morning to phone your boss and say, "Hey, look, by the way, just wondering, could we have a ten-minute meeting since I've got a few things I wanna discuss with you?" Right? It's such a skill in life to be able to do that emotional regulation, and I think there's-- I-- honestly, this is my favorite chapter in the book because it's the-- it's a thing I practice every day. Anytime

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:54 I get triggered. It doesn't cost any money. You just-- you can't always do it in the moment, but often that evening go, "Oh, yeah, I got a little bit triggered there. Okay, why was that? How can I reframe that next time?" And look, I've learned that we can always choose a new story. Two podcast guests come to mind for me. I know many of you listen to my podcast. Have any of you heard of John McAvoy?

Speaker 54:15 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:15 John McAvoy, if you don't know his story, essentially ten years ago, he was in jail with two life sentences in Belmarsh with the seven-seven bombers. He grew up in, uh, one of Britain's most notorious criminal families. And he was an armed robber, and he was, uh, you know, put in jail. He came to my house a few years ago. I had a two-hour forty-minute conversation with him where I went through his entire life story. I remember I finished that conversation, and I said to my wife, "You know what? If I was John and I had his upbringing, I'd be in jail right now." No doubt in my mind. He had no male role model in his life. Uh, his dad had died before he was born. Um, and all the males who would come around to his house were criminals, and they drove flash cars and wore nice shoes, and that was how he got his sense of who he was, uh, with these male role models. And then when his story changed, he was locked up in a cell. He told himself a story his entire life. Overnight, when he saw his, one of his mates basically die in a car chase in Holland, he saw it on the news. He literally woke up the next day and chose a different story. Said, "Actually, the story I've been telling myself is nonsense. I'm waking up tomorrow with a new story." Now he's a free man. He, uh, inspires people around the world, uh, to live healthier lives. You know, I would leave him at home looking after my two children. That's the truth, right? He's one of the nicest guys I've met. He just decided to choose a different story, right? And every single one of us can do that with other people. We can do it for ourselves as well. Now, if you struggle, you think, okay, the email from the boss, I get that. Right? I can reframe that. I, I see that. Someone cuts me up on the road, yeah, I can think maybe the driver's wife's pregnant or he didn't sleep last night, whatever. Right? But there are some situations in life where I just can't do that. Okay, fine. I, I, I, I accept it can be tricky sometimes, but the second conversation I want to bring to your attention is the one I had with Dr. Edith Eger. Right. If you've not heard the first conversation, in fact, the only conversation I've had with her on my podcast, I really encourage you to listen to it. I-- This conversation changed who I was as a person. I was not the same person after that conversation as I was before it. Dr. Edith Eger, when I spoke to her, was ninety-three years old. Right. When she was sixteen years old, growing up in Eastern Europe, her family got a knock on the door. Edith, her sister, and her two parents were put on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. Within two hours of getting there, both her parents were murdered. Right. Later that afternoon, she got asked to dance for the senior prison guards. And there's lots of things that I remember from that conversation, but three things always stick in my mind. Number one is she said to me, "When I was dancing, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. In my head, I was dancing in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful dress on. There was a full house. There was an orchestra playing. That's where I was dancing." I thought, "Okay, that's pretty incredible." Then she said while she was in Auschwitz, she started to see the prison guards as the prisoners. She said, "And they weren't free. They weren't living the life they wanted to. In my mind, I was completely free." And she always would take me back to the last thing her mom said to her. Said, "The last thing my mom said to me was, 'Edie, never forget, nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your mind.'" And then the final thing she said, which I think really speaks to why this chapter means so much to me, chapter five of the book. She said, "Rangan, I have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you this. The greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your mind." And that's what many of us, most of us do every day. We create disempowering narratives around the world around us. Right? We create mental turmoil. If only that person acted differently. If they treated me better, I would feel better. If this would change, I would feel better. Now, sure, you can keep doing that, and it's comfortable to do that if that's what we're used to. But ultimately, what you're saying then is this. You're saying, "My internal happiness and my well-being is down to other people. When the world around me changes, when people around me change, I'm gonna be happy." You don't have to take that approach. If you learn to reframe every bit of social friction, just as if you go and work out in the gym with physical friction, you push up, you lift weights. I'm saying you can work out in the social gym every day. And if you work out in the social gym every day and you lead with, "How can I make this person a hero?" Right? The next time you encounter social friction, which may well be as you're leaving the lavvy tonight or as you get to the car park, just start to practice. And I guarantee if you do this once a week, in four weeks you'll be like a different person. If you do it once a day, right, like I do, you will be transformed in no time at all. Because actually, once you start learning how to be compassionate to other people and training yourself to choose a happiness story, I'd say it's a lot easier to show compassion towards yourself. Right? So give it a go. Right? If you're skeptical and think, "Yeah, I'm not sure," okay, fine. I hear you. Give it a go. It's free. You don't have to buy anything. Right? You don't have to sign up anywhere. Give it a try for seven days. If you don't feel any different, fine. But I'm pretty sure you're gonna feel very, very different. And then it gets addictive, and you wanna do it all the time. And then you start to catch yourself when you haven't done it. Right? It's not... Again, when you haven't done it, don't beat yourself up. Go, "I can't believe I didn't choose the happiness story." [laughing] No. You're like, "Oh, there it is again. Oh, I fell into that old trap." In fact, I haven't been-- I haven't felt triggered in ages, but I actually fell into the trap on Saturday. I'm all for being vulnerable. I probably won't share what happened on Saturday. [laughing] Um, I could, but it's, it's no biggie. But the point is, is that It's not as if now I know this stuff, it never happens. It happens very rarely, but when it does, I'm aware of it. I can be like, "Oh, cool. Why was that? Oh, there's something to work on here. That really got you, didn't it?" And so this is very empowering, right? It puts you in control. You feel in control of your life, your happiness, your wellbeing. The kind of final words I just wanna, uh, leave you with are every

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:01:24 single person can be happier than they currently are. You know, I, I, I'm absolutely convinced, whether you're close to burnout, whether you feel completely stressed out with your life or whether you think, you know, life's okay, it's pretty good, but could I be getting something more out of this, right? I'm absolutely certain that the tools in this book will help you. They will help you feel happier than you currently do. I think they're tools for life. You can practice, you can put the book away, you can pick it back up again. But please remember this, right? Happiness is not an impossible kind of distant aim. It's not a mirage. It's not a destination someday you're gonna stumble across. Happiness is a skill. It's a skill that you can develop. It's a skill that you can practice, you can work on, and the more you practice, the better you're gonna get. And, you know, the better you get, the happier you're gonna get. And as I said right at the start, when you feel happier, you feel healthier. Thank you. [audience clapping] And these are two people that make me very, very happy. We can now go to Q&A. There are microphones, uh, around, um, if anyone has a question.

Speaker 1:02:42 Rangan, next to here.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:44 Hold on, hold on, hold on. The-- If I look up, uh, all I can see are lights. So let me just, uh... C-can you just... Where, where... I'd love to see where I'm looking at.

Speaker 1:02:53 Up the top.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:54 Oh, up at the top. Hold on. I'm getting blinded there. Let me try from here. Okay, brilliant. I can see you now. Hello.

Speaker 1:03:00 I would love to know what do you do, especially on the days when you have so much to do when you wake up and maybe have a low day, or you can't be arsed either?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:11 [audience laughing] Okay. So what I love about these live Q&As is you never know what you're gonna get. [audience laughing] Um, so I think this is a great question actually, because it really goes down... You know, the thing that comes to mind, first of all is, number one, self-compassion. So what do you do in that moment, right? It's okay to have days where you can't be bothered, right? It, it really is. I, I had a day like this last Thursday, actually. Really, I was pretty... You know, I just wasn't feeling myself that day, and I know why that was. It's because I, I'd had my first event on the Wednesday night in Basingstoke. It was a great event and, but it was an hour and a half, uh, cab ride to the hotel. I didn't get to sleep till one AM, and I normally go to bed at nine PM, right? [audience laughing] So this is, this is a late night for me. This is like a night out in Salford, right? [audience laughing] And, and I, I just didn't have it. I just couldn't, I just couldn't be bothered last Thursday with anything. I was... And I, I was-- I had an event that evening. So I did mope a little bit, if I'm honest. Um, but what I didn't do is beat myself up-

Speaker 1:04:12 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:04:13 ... in my head, which is the big change. And I think a lot of people, when they feel like that or they feel a lack of motivation, motivation is gonna go down some days. Some days you're not going to want to do all those things no matter who you are, right? Everyone has days like this. But I would say the key thing there is to, to go with it and not talk down to yourself, not call yourself a loser, not say, "I can't believe, you know, I know I should do this." And I think that's a real problem sometimes with even the work I do. I have to be conscious of that you're trying to inspire people, um, with practical things that you know are gonna help them, but also with the knowledge that you can't always do them, right? You're not gonna. So I think the big thing there is self-compassion, right? And then I would say then that the second thing I'd, I'd like to just say there is at some point, maybe not that day when you're not feeling like it, at some day reflect, maybe a few days later, why did that happen, right? What was going... Can you identify? And you may not be able to, and if you can't, that's okay. But I know I keep talking about awareness, right? A lot of what I'm talking about tonight is about living a more intentional life. Something where you have more awareness of when you're getting triggered, of what you're chasing. You know, are you chasing success? Is it happiness? Are those things combined? Awareness is key. Awareness doesn't mean you can always change something, but without awareness, there's no chance of making long-term change. So it could be, for example, oh, you know, I couldn't be bothered on Wednesday, but actually, yeah, I know what, I know then why that was because, you know, Monday and Tuesday was full on at work. I stayed after for some after-work drinks, stayed up late for dinner. I didn't sleep enough, and so bit by bit I was starting to get lower. There is actually always a reason in my experience, and the more you train yourself to compassionately look for that, you start to become like a, a black belt on your own emotions and your own life and why you're feeling a certain way. I know why I felt that way on Thursday. I was just knackered, and I, I slept for four hours. I wake up at five every day. Even though I went to sleep at one, I woke up at five, and I was like, you know. My wife and my kids weren't around. I was in this hotel room in London. I had a few... I was just, I just like, you know what? I just wanna be at home. Just wanna be at home around. But you get through it, and I know why that happens. So two things for me there are what do you say to yourself when that happens? And if it is negative, start to change it if you can.

Speaker 1:06:43 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:43 And then also reflect when you feel able to and when you're feeling better as to why that happens. Um, is that useful at all, Sally, for you?

Speaker 1:06:50 Yeah, no, it's really useful. Thank you. So, um, but yes, much appreciated, and my whole tribe think you're marvelous. You're the most listened to podcast in there, so.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:59 Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. And I think it's a great question, so thank you.

Speaker 1:07:02 Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:03 Any more questions?

Speaker 1:07:04 So I know a lot of people, especially people my age, who experience a lot of overthinking and anxiety about especially things in the future-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:13 Yeah

Speaker 1:07:13 ... and outcomes of certain situations. What would you say is the sort of the first step to combating these kind of thoughts and anxiety, um, to become more content and feel more in control and more aligned?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:26 Yeah, it's a great question. Um-

Speaker 1:07:28 Thank you

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:28 ... what was your name, sorry?

Speaker 1:07:29 Megan.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:30 Megan. So, Megan, thank you for asking that.

Speaker 1:07:32 No problem.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:07:33 Um, so, you know, anxiety, negative thoughts, these things are, you know, just so common these days, and I- in my experience, it's getting, getting worse, and a lot more people are struggling with this. And I think first of all understanding where this comes from is, is I found to be really useful for people, right? So, um, what is going on there? What is going on with anxiety? Well, there, there's many things that can cause it, of course, but let's just think about fear for a minute, okay? So fear is a natural response. So when we get scared about something, it helps us change our behavior. So let's say you cross the road, and you don't look, and suddenly there's a car coming down, they slam on the horn, and you realize, "Oh, I could have been run over," right? You get really, really scared, and then you learn, "Okay, next time I cross the road, I better look both ways carefully." Right? So the fear has a purpose to help you change your behavior. Um, the problem often happens, and this is why I think it's really got worse over the last couple of years, is your brain is always trying to predict what happens in the future based upon its past experience, right? All of our brains are always trying to do that. It's a, it's a predictive organ, basically. So because of the way our lives have changed over the last two years, um, like, let's say the lockdowns and the restrictions that people had to live through, your brain, like everyone's brains, was trying to predict what is going to happen based upon a previous experience. The problem is there was no previous experience. This is why that fear for many people turned into anxiety, and that anxiety in other people got supercharged and turned into outright panic. Right? But I found with many people that even just that understanding that you're not broken, right? There's nothing wrong with you. Your brain is trying to protect you, but that's one of the ways it does that I think is really helpful for people because otherwise they think, "Well, what, what's going on? Is there something wrong with me?" No, there's nothing wrong. Your brain's trying to do what it should be trying to do. So that's some of the explanation of what's, uh, or one of the explanations for why I think anxiety has gone up so much recently. Then in terms of what you can do, well, it kind of depends on the cause, right, of anxiety. Um, s- things that we know help massively are movement, right? It, it is, um... So many people with anxiety or with negative thoughts, they feel completely different even after something like a fifteen-minute walk or two minutes of skipping. Moving our body, because you got to remember, if you get f- if you're feeling fear or you're feeling anxiety, that is, um, part of your body's stress response, right? So let's just think, what is the stress response there to do? It's there to keep you safe. So the stress response ultimately effectively thinks there's a danger, there's a threat, and it used to be a physical threat from, let's say, uh, a wild predator at, you know, approaching our tribe hundred, two hundred thousand years ago. So your body me-- your, your body, um, activates its stress response, which helps keep you safe. So all kinds of things happen in your body, like your blood sugar goes up, so you can, uh, run faster. Your blood pressure goes up, so more oxygen goes to your brain. Your amygdala, right, which is your emotional brain, that goes on to high alert, right? Because at that point, you want to be hypervigilant to all the threats around you. So that's a good thing if it happens for thirty minutes and an acute response. Problem is, all those things that I just mentioned, if they're happening day in, day out to the state of our lives, which is unfortunately what is happening, our stress responses are being activated day in, day out. And one of those things is your emotional brain goes into high alerts, and so you are hyperresponsive, hypervigilant. "I wonder what's gonna happen. What if this starts to happen?" Right. So what usually would happen, how we've wired is that we would then have physical activity to run away from that threat. So your body is expecting physical activity, but unfortunately, a lot of the stress these days is not physical. It's emotional. It's psychological. It's all going on up here. And but your body's still expecting to move. So I know it can be hard to motivate ourselves to move when we feel like this, but time and time again, moving your body at that time in whatever way you want, whe-- And for some people, I've got some patients who I said, "Okay, you don't want to walk. You don't want to run. You don't want to s-skip." Okay. D-dancing. Dancing is phenomenal. They just put on one of their favorite tunes, an upbeat tune, and dance. Just the movement of their body can change their state and how they feel. So that's one thing I would say. The other thing, um, I mean, I could talk for an hour on this, right? I'm so passionate about this.

Speaker 1:12:31 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:32 But two things to quickly mention are breathing and journaling, okay? Uh, journaling is so, so powerful because journaling allows you to have a conversation with yourself. And journaling, uh, basically allows you to, um, process what's going on in here. Now, you know, there, there are two ways you could do this. One way is you just write down anything. Like, let's say you're feeling anxiety at a particular moment in time. Get a piece of paper, literally write down all your anxieties, what you're feeling. Even that is deceptively powerful because- You are literally and metaphorically, you're taking the, the kind of mental noise, you're taking it out of your brain and putting it down onto paper. For some people, very, very effective. For some people who want something more structured, I, I created an exercise called the five-step release, which I wrote about in my third book, Feel Better in 5, where you just answer five simple questions. Um, what's one thing I'm anxious about today? What's one thing I can do to prepare for it? What's one reason why n- I know I can probably handle it? What's one reason why it probably won't be as bad as I think it's going to be? And then the final question is, what's one upside of the situation? That is so, so effective. So many of my patients with anxiety and the struggle, they do this every morning about something they're anxious about, and just the process of answering those things helps them, uh, de-stress very, very quickly and feel less anxious. So again, those things you and your, and, and you know, many people, uh, who are struggling may find useful. Um, the third thing I would just say is your breath. The way you breathe tells your brain a lot. So when you get anxious or stressed, your breathing absolutely changes, whether you are aware of it or not. Your breathing starts to be more from your chest than your diaphragm. It starts to be more shallow, and it starts to be quicker, right? This is something to most people every day. There was a study showed that eighty percent of office workers, when they look at their email, they change the way that they breathe. Right, now here's the thing about breathing. If you're feeling stressed because of the three things I've just mentioned, uh, shallow breaths, faster breaths, more from your chest, that sends a signal up to your brain that the, uh, external world is not safe at the moment. There could be danger, and your brain then sends a message back to your body to breathe even faster. Now, the great thing about that is you can hack that very quickly. If you start to change the way you breathe, you make it slower, you make it more from your abdomen than your, uh, chest, um, it's a bit deeper. You then immediately take control of that, and you start to-- instead of sending stress signals up to your brain, you start to send calm signals up to your brain. And with some of my patients with anxiety, this is game-changing. There are so many breaths out there. Uh, the one that I really like is something I call the three, four, five breath, where you breathe in for three, you hold for four, and you breathe out for five. Very, very effective. Like, it literally takes twelve seconds to do one. Five, um, five rounds of that takes you one minute. And next time you or one of your friends or people you know who are struggling, just try that and see what happens. Because anytime your exhale is longer than your inhale, you help to switch off that stress and anxiety response, and you help to promote the kind of relaxation response where everything is good. So, um, there's all kind of other breathing techniques out there as well, but, um... Oh, God, there's so much more I could say on that, but hopefully that's given you some sort of practical advice.

Speaker 1:16:14 Yeah, that's really helpful. Thank you so much.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:16 Brilliant. Okay, guys, I, I really probably better, um, get off the stage. Uh, just thank you so, so much for coming out. I really, really appreciate it. I've had a fantastic night.

Speaker 1:16:28 [applauding]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:16:28 Hope you found it useful. Thank you. All right, guys. Thank you very much. See you outside. If you found that helpful, I think you are really going to enjoy this video where I outline the common signs that you may be on the road to burnout and what you can do today to change it. One of the worst things in life is when you've got no energy. Every day feels like you're on a treadmill. I've been a medical doctor now for over twenty-one years, and this is one of the commonest complaints I see.