"Don't Learn It Too Late!" - 5 Steps To Have The Best Summer Of Your Life | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

1. 0:00 – 0:31

   Making the Most of Summer: Why the Season Matters

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      I absolutely love summer, and I want to help you make the most of your summer. So I think there's something different about the energy, about our motivation, about the light in the summer months, and if we can harness them, I think it can have a huge impact on our health, happiness, and the way we feel about ourselves. So in this video, I wanna share five ideas with you that if you implement them, I think they're gonna have a massive impact on the quality of your summer.

2. 0:31 – 3:27

   Tip 1: Change Up Your Morning Routine With an Early Outdoor Walk

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:31

      So first tip, change up your morning routine. Okay. Look, you may or may not think you have a morning routine, but all of us do. We all have a routine that we do. Now we're not always intentional about it, but we absolutely have a routine. So your routine could be that you are lying in, you're scrolling in bed, you're looking at the news headlines, you're getting up late, and then you're rushing around until you get to work. Or your routine could be more intentional, where you get up and are doing some proactive things for your health, like meditation or journaling or, or exercise or whatever it might be. Whatever your current routine is, I want you to think about changing it up in the summer. And in particular, what I've seen work really, really well is to get up a bit earlier than usual and get outside. Now, of course, this will depend where you live. Here in the UK, at the moment, it's getting light at about 4:30 in the morning, okay? I'm not saying you have to get up at 4:30, but if you're living somewhere where it gets light earlier, this is the perfect time of year to take advantage of that. Okay. Set an alarm, get up, maybe even before coffee or tea or whatever drink you like to have in the morning, get outside, embrace the morning light, and maybe go for a 15 or 20-minute walk. More if you can, but even 10 or 15 minutes can make a really big difference. Now, why does it make such a big difference? The first thing it does is set your body's circadian rhythm, okay? Your circadian rhythm influences so many systems in your body. Getting natural light first thing in the morning sets a timer for certain hormones in your body which will help you sleep in the evening, okay? A lot of people don't think about that when it comes to sleep. They're concentrating on what they do just before bed. But actually, what you do first thing in the morning influences your ability to sleep at night, okay? So you're getting that natural light exposure, which helps your circadian biology. So that's really, really important. Number two, if you're going outside for a walk in natural light at that time, you're getting movement in. We know that simply walking will improve your mood, will improve your insulin sensitivity, will improve your focus. It's also a bit of solitude for you if you do this by yourself. Solitude is a really important daily practice, I think arguably the most important practice for our health and our happiness because it allows us to reflect on our lives. Often we're stuck in our lives and we never step outside with solitude to think about, how is our life going? How could I change things? Am I nourishing my relationships? Am I nourishing my health? Et cetera, et cetera. You need a practice of solitude to be able to do that, and I think a 15-minute walk every morning gives you that natural light, it gives you your movement, and it gives you a daily practice of solitude.

3. 3:27 – 4:58

   A Patient's Story: The Self-Described Night Owl

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:27

      Now I had a patient a few years ago who thought that they were a night owl. They never wanted to get up before 7:00 AM. They said they were always tired in the morning. And I persuaded her in the summer months to get up at 5:00 AM and go for a 30-minute walk every morning. I said, "Try it for at least seven days and see what happens." The change was remarkable. She found it hard at first, definitely. The alarm went off, she didn't wanna get up. But she committed to it, not only to me, she committed to herself that this was a behavior she was gonna do, and she found within days her body clock was starting to align. Within a few days, she was starting to get up just before her alarm. She was getting that natural light in the morning. She was getting that time to herself. And this lady found that when she came back, she was much more present with her children. She felt that she was ahead of the day. She felt it much easier to engage in other helpful behaviors for the rest of the day, and it all started with that 30-minute walk at 5:00 AM. So I want you to think about that. You may already be doing that, but if you are not doing that already, and perhaps you find it hard to do that in the autumn months and the winter, and I get it is hard. Embrace the season. Embrace the fact that it is light at that time. Your body wants to be up in that light. You may have to push through for a few days, but I honestly would recommend you try it for at least seven days, and I'm pretty sure you're gonna feel better.

4. 4:58 – 7:45

   Tip 2: A Summer Social Media Detox

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:58

      The second thing I want you to think about is a social media detox. Okay. We, we hear all the time about social media and how it's controlling our lives, or it certainly is for many of us, but many of us feel that we can't do much about it, or it's difficult. You know, we're tired, we're stressed. In the evenings, we just like to go on Instagram and scroll for a few hours. I get it. What I want you to consider in the summer months, and this is something that I've been doing now four, maybe five years, is take a real break from social media in those summer months. Now, I wanna acknowledge that not everyone is gonna be able to do this, okay? You might have a job where you need to be on it. I get that. You may have a business where you're the only one running it, and you have to be on it. If that applies to you, sure, it may be more challenging. But for many of us, we just keep doing in the summer what we've done in every other season, and I want you to really embrace the change in the season. I think we respond as human beings to these changes in rhythm. Okay? I do think in the winter months when it gets, certainly here in the UK, it can be dark at 8:00 AM and dark at 4:00 PM again. You know, you wanna hibernate. You don't wanna be as active. That's natural at that time of year. Think about what animals do at that time of year. But in the summer months it's very, very different, and I think we really need to lean into those differences. The modern world makes it hard for us to do that. We have the same work times, the same schedules. But I want you to think about what can you do differently in the summer months than you do for the rest of the year, and I think a social media detox is one of those things. Okay, what might that look like? First of all, it depends on your relationship with social media. But I think so many of us are simply not aware of how much our thoughts are influenced by the world around us. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that many people don't really know what they think anymore. They're so used to getting up in the morning, picking up their phone, and consuming, okay? So we're having very little time to be present with our own thoughts. That's why tip number one, the morning walk. And I forgot to say, that morning walk without a phone if you can, or even if you have a phone with you, don't look at it. You wanna be with your own thoughts. Allow your innermost thoughts to come up and process them. Once you start consuming material from the outside world, you've kind of lost that opportunity. Your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors are often downstream from the content you're consuming, right?

5. 7:45 – 10:22

   How to Do the Detox: Delete the Apps

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:45

      So what I would recommend, if you can, get on your smartphone if you've got one and delete your social media apps. We know that if you make a behavior difficult, we do it less. If you make a behavior easy, we do it more. I mean, that applies to anything. It applies to Netflix, to exercise and movement. If you have to go to the gym that's 10 minutes away to do your workout, you're less likely to do it than if you can do a five-minute workout every day in your kitchen in your own clothes, okay? All the human behavior research supports this. Make it easy, you'll do it. Make it hard, you won't. So if you delete those social media apps from your phone, yes, for the first few days, 'cause I do this every year, you, you pick up that phone and, and you sort of, you feel that urge. You haven't quite got used to it yet. You're wanting to press and see 'cause you're used to doing it. But within, I would say within three days, that urge is gone, and before you know it, you feel a lot calmer. You feel more relaxed. You feel more in tune with your own feelings and your own thoughts. I really would encourage you to do it. For me, it's been life-changing. Um, many people I've shared this with on Instagram over the past years, and they do it as well, and they say, "Oh my God, I didn't realize how good I could feel when I was off social media." And the key about deleting it off your phone is you make it harder to go on. Now, technically you could go on your laptop and go onto that social media platform, but you're probably not gonna do it as often. And again, if you've got people in your family, let's say a partner, who can do it with you, well, that can be really powerful. It is something that has really changed the way I experience my summers each year. And once it gets to April or May, I'm actually starting to look forward to my social media detox, which typically I start in the middle of July. As I say, I get not everyone can do it. Again, it's just an idea I wanna share with you. I've experienced the benefits. People have reported back to me the benefits, and I just want you to at least give it a try to see if you also experience those benefits. Again, I tend to do it for four, maybe six weeks now, but I started off doing it for just one week. So maybe just start there. One week without any social media. Can you do it? If you do, let me know in the comments what you found, how you experienced life, and what impact it had not only on you, but your relationships with the people around you.

6. 10:22 – 13:04

   Tip 3: Do All Your Movement Outdoors

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:22

      Tip number three. Can you do all of your movement and exercise outdoors? Okay, remember, everything here is about embracing the change in the season. Again, this is something I do. It's something I've been recommending to patients for years. It's how can you make things feel a bit different? So for me, I always wanna be outside at this time of year, even if it's cloudy, as it often is in the UK. So I will leave a skipping rope outside, outside my office, outside my kitchen. And several times in the day, I'll just go there and I'll skip, okay? Now, I get many people love the gym. If you love the gym, I'm not necessarily saying stop doing it. But could you change it up? What kind of movements and exercises that you do in the gym could you do outside? You know, being outside is very, very good for our health. As I mentioned in tip one, it's good for your circadian biology. It's good for your sleep. But we know that the more time we spend outside, the better able we are to deal with stress, the better our sleep quality, the better our moods. We have evolved outside over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, and so many of us spend our days indoors. Now, I get it in the winter. It's tricky. It could be cold. It could be rainy. It could be snowing. You may not be motivated to go outside. But in the summer, depending on where you live in the world, it's very, very different, so I want you to lean into that. Can you do your movements outdoors? Skipping is a great one. I mentioned walking. Instead of walking on a treadmill or running on a treadmill, can you do it outside? Okay? Instead of biking at the gym, can you get on your bike and go out onto a trail? Right? Or a local forest or a local park. Swimming, instead of swimming inside, do you have access to some open water? If it's safe to do so, if you're equipped to do that. Really, it's about embracing the season and getting as much movement in as you can outdoors. It could be a nice challenge, you say to yourself, you know, maybe for, for one month over the summer, can I do all of my movement outdoors? If so, what would you do? You can do weights outdoors. You can do kettlebells outdoors. You know, in my garden, I've got kettlebells and dumbbells that live outside. And again, throughout the day, I'll go out, I'll do 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, and I love it. It makes me feel so much more alive than being indoors in a gym under artificial lighting. So again, embrace the season. See if you can do all of your movement outdoors.

7. 13:04 – 15:15

   Tip 4: Embrace Slowness

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:04

      The fourth tip is to embrace slowness. Okay, what do I mean by that? Like, when it's warmer, certainly on really hot days, I don't know about you, but it feels as though the pace of life starts to slow down. You know, if you're lucky enough to live somewhere hot and sunny or whenever I go on holiday to somewhere hot and sunny in the summer, the pace of life just feels slower. You don't wanna be as busy and rushing around, right? So I know it's gonna depend on your life, your work, what you're able to do. Many people have stressful lives, busy lives. They don't have any autonomy to start to change things. If that's you, I, I understand it may be challenging, but if you do have that autonomy or even a little bit of autonomy, how can you embrace the slowness of summer? Okay, tip one was to go for that walk in the morning without a phone if possible, and just get that natural light in. Could you have some meals outdoors? Okay, if you're lucky enough to have a garden or a bit of patio, could you have your morning coffee outdoors, your morning cup of tea outdoors? Yes, your workouts outdoors, but can you have a, a lazy meal with your family or your partner outdoors without your phone there, so you're not actually clock-watching? You know, these things are possible for many people, but we haven't thought about it, so we often continue throughout the summer as we do for the rest of the year. I want you to just intentionally think about what are these things that you can do. Is your work lighter in the summer? You know, it might be. It might not be. If it is, can you embrace longer meal times? Can you have slow Sundays, for example, if you don't work on Sundays, where you by yourself or with your partner or with your family can go for long walks, maybe a hike around some mountains, some hills, you know, without your phone if you're able to, or even just put your phone in your backpack so you're not constantly tempted to look at it. It's that slowness that we often don't get at other parts of the year that I think we can really lean into in the summer.

8. 15:15 – 18:02

   Lessons From Sweden's Summer Houses

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:15

      And it's kind of interesting. Over the past few years, all of my books have come out in Sweden, and I've gone out each time to do some promotion. I've spent a bit of time there, and one thing I've learnt, A, it's a lot more of an equal society than somewhere like the UK, which I find really interesting. But there's this concept of summer houses where many people in Sweden have summer houses. Now, to be really clear, it's not like here in the UK where you'd have to be of a certain income level before you could even afford something like a summer house. No, from what I can gather in Sweden, it's a lot more attainable and achievable for everyone. Now, I'm sure not every single person in Sweden has a summer house, but many people do. And from what I can tell, many people in Sweden, they switch off for maybe four weeks in the summer. The offices shut down. People aren't expecting responses, and they go off to their summer houses for maybe three or four weeks, and their summer houses are usually in nature or by the sea. I remember talking to a lady in Stockholm last year when I was there, and she works in Stockholm in the year. She lives in a flat. Nice flat. She's got a nice job. But she says she really looks forward to her four weeks at her summer house. And I was asking her about it, and she said, "Yeah, you know, it's interesting. We don't have a dishwasher. We don't have heating. It's very, very simple." And I said, "Oh, would you put these things in?" She goes, "No, not at all. That's the charm." And I kind of feel that Sweden as a culture have this, this idea every summer where they remind themselves where they came from, from nature, simple, minimalist living. So they maybe embrace city living for the o- other 11 months, but of those four weeks, they go back, they switch off, they slow down and remind themselves where they came from. I find it so, so interesting, and I've spoken to many people in Sweden who do the same thing, and they say it's one of their favorite times of the year. And it's interesting, isn't it? No dishwasher, no heating, none of all this modern tech and all these conveniences. They actually embrace the simplicity and the discomfort. So what can we take from them and apply in our lives in the summer? How can we embrace slowness? Maybe it's camping. You know? Maybe you've got used to the material comforts of your home and your apartment. Maybe you'll embrace slowness by actually getting back to nature, maybe with your family. Maybe it's a weekend camping. It reminds us of who we are and where we came from. And then when we get back to our house or our flats, I think we appreciate the modern conveniences even more.

9. 18:02 – 22:17

   Tip 5: Set Yourself a Mini-Challenge

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:02

      The fifth and final tip would be to give yourself a mini-challenge. Okay, I think this is a really great thing to do in the summer. As I've already mentioned, motivation and willpower tends to be higher at this time of year. Why? The weather tends to be better. There's more light. Okay? When light is out there, we are wired to be awake. That's one of the reasons why light in the evening, especially artificial light, can keep us up for longer and disrupt our circadian rhythms and disrupt our sleep, right? So your motivation is high, let's implement changes at this time of year. I've always found this with patients over the last two decades. Honestly, I found January, at New Year, it's not the best time for people to make changes, particularly in a country like the UK. It's cold, it's dark, it's wet, it's rainy. It's not really the kind of environment that's gonna stimulate us to make these big lifestyle changes, and I think it's one of the reasons why so many New Year's resolutions fail, 'cause it's the wrong time of year. But the springtime and the summertime is completely different. Motivation tends to be higher. So why don't you set yourself a mini-challenge? Okay, what could that look like? Well, of course, it's gonna depend on your own preferences, your own passions, the things that you want. Here are some ideas, though, that might get you thinking. It could be that you've never run a 5K before. Okay? In the UK we have something called parkrun, these community 5Ks every Saturday. Depending on where you are in the world, there may be something like that, but even if there isn't, you may go by the end of the summer, by the end of August let's say, I want to have completed 5K. Ideally running, but maybe you have to walk a bit of it as well. It doesn't really matter whether you achieve the challenge or not. The challenge gives you a sense of urgency. It gives you direction in what you do, and I'm a huge fan of mini-challenges. I think far too often we give ourselves these big, huge things to do, like running a marathon. Hey, nothing wrong with that. If you wanna do that, that's great. But I think we forget about mini-challenges, and I think they can be really, really helpful. To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free guide to help you build healthy habits. We can all make short-term change, but can those changes become a fundamental part of our life? Often they don't, and that's why in this free guide, I share with you the six crucial steps you need to take that are really, really effective. If you wanna get hold of that free guide right now, all you have to do is click the link in the description box below. So it could be that you wanna run a 5K. It may be that you wanna bike or cycle 5K. It could be that you're doing some lengths in your local pool. And I know I said to do all your movement outdoors, but maybe you wanna stay in your pool. You don't feel confident doing open water swimming or maybe you don't have that option available to you. Yes, do a lot of your movement outdoors, but maybe a mini-challenge could be to swim 20 lengths by the end of the summer, or 30 lengths. You know? Maybe all you can do now is five lengths. Okay, no problem. Set out a program. Go, okay, five lengths this week every day or four times a week. Next week I'll move it up to seven, and bit by bit it won't take long before you get to 20. It could be that you wanna camp. You've never done camping, right? [laughs] That could be your challenge. Go, "Okay, I'm a bit scared. I don't know what to do, but I think it'll be really good for me. I think I'll enjoy it." Go on YouTube, have a look. Look at some videos. Ask your friends. Put a date in your diary. Get some friends together. Go for one night. Okay? That's a mini-challenge. It could be that you think about, I don't know, doing something in your garden, putting out a vegetable patch. You know, carving out some space, clearing out the weeds. Give yourself a mini-challenge, and here's the important point. Whether you do it or not, I don't think it matters. Sure, it's great to complete a challenge. We feel good about ourselves. We said we were gonna do and we do it. But

10. 22:17 – 24:52

    Why Falling Short of a Challenge Still Counts, and His Skipping Goal

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:17

       here's the thing. If you set yourself that challenge for 20 lengths, and you currently can only do five, and you get to 18 lengths, that's not failure. That's huge progress, right? And you only made that progress because you gave yourself that challenge, right? So use these as ideas. Maybe they resonate with you, maybe they don't. But use them as a jumping off point to set your own mini-challenge. What I'm currently doing, I'm gonna go away with my family for a few weeks this summer, and so my, my usual patterns and routines around working out are not gonna be there. Maybe where I, I go, it's not gonna be necessarily safe for me to go on long runs by myself. I don't know yet. I don't know what the environment will be like. So what I do is I travel with a skipping rope. I do this every summer, and I think this summer I'll set myself a goal of getting up to maybe 1,000 skips a day. Okay? But that sounds a lot. Maybe it'll be 500 skips a day. But the point is, when I start, if I've not been doing it, after about 50 or 60, I feel it. You can feel tired and breathless. So what I'll do is I'll do 50. A few hours later I'll do another 50. A few hours later I'll do another 50, and I'll slowly build up. I did this two summers ago in Greece when we were there for a few weeks. We had a wonderful holiday, and by the end of it I was doing 1,000 skips a day, and I felt great. I felt strong. I felt my physique was improving. I had more energy, more focus. Now, that wouldn't have happened unless I set the mini-challenge. It gave me a sense of urgency. It gave me something to try and do each day, and it didn't take away from my holiday at all. Now, the reason why it doesn't matter if you get there or not, as I mentioned with those 18 lengths versus 20 lengths, A, you've done something, but B, even if you fail, right, it's not really failure, it's learning. You've learnt- So much about yourself. You've learnt what you're good at, what you're not so good at. You've learnt about your motivation. You've learnt about, did I manage to do it every day? Did I not? You know, all these learnings happen when we push ourselves outside our comfort zone, and whether we get there or not, we still learn something. So I hope that's inspired you to choose a mini-challenge of your own. And whatever you do choose, please put it in the comments below, 'cause it- it's great for me to read, but it also inspires other people who might be thinking of their own.

11. 24:52 – 26:50

    Bonus Tip: Read Fiction in Summer

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee24:52

       Now, I know I said there were only gonna be five tips, but I've just thought of a really quick sixth one. And again, this is something I do myself. So what do you spend most of your year reading? Right. I read mostly nonfiction books all throughout the year. A, I'm a doctor. B, I'm interested in nonfiction. And most importantly, as you may know, I have a weekly podcast called Feel Better, Live More, so I'm having to read around two books a week just to prepare for each of my guests. So what I try and do in the summer is I try and nourish a different part of myself by reading fiction books. So what I've started doing is in my summer break, I don't take nonfiction books. I try and lean into fictional books, which stimulates a different part of me. So again, going back to what I said at the start, it's just about trying to embrace the season and do something different. So that's what I do. I embrace fiction in the summer and nonfiction the rest of the year. What's it gonna be for you? A, do you read? If not, I'd encourage you to get into reading over the summer. It's a fantastic habit. It's good for us on so many levels. And I honestly think that reading is one of the highest returns on your investment of time, because it's hard writing books, okay? I've just completed my sixth book, and the amount of work that goes into books is profound, because you have to condense, compress all of your ideas into a coherent narrative. When you're actually reading a well-written book, you are acquiring a lot of knowledge, wisdom, and information. Okay, so reading's a great habit to do, and what I want to encourage you to do this summer is change up your reading habits. Read a different type of book. So I hope you enjoyed hearing about those ideas. Don't worry about doing

12. 26:50 – 27:45

    Wrap-Up and Sharing Your Choices

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:50

       them all, unless of course you want to. But hopefully, you know, one or two of them appeal to you. If you know what you've chosen to do, please leave it in the comments below. I wanna read it, but I think more importantly, it shares it with this community. Other people can see it, and it gives them ideas. If you do manage to stick to them over the summer, please jump back in the comments. Let me know which ones you're gonna pick. Let me know throughout the summer which ones you did and how they made you feel. And whatever you're doing, uh, you have a fantastic summer. If you found that content useful, I think you are really going to enjoy this video, where I outline a simple framework for a morning routine that can immediately improve your health and your happiness. You've actually made yourself more resilient. You've actually lengthened the distance between where you currently are and your stress threshold and where you're gonna be after that morning routine

Episode duration: 27:45