How To Make Life Exciting Again (Every Adult Needs This)

1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

   When I try and introduce things to improve my health, I don't tend to enjoy them and therefore I don't stick to them. What can I do? What lies behind this question is the false belief that you can either enjoy your life or be healthy, and the truth is, any change you wanna make in the long term kind of has to be enjoyable to a certain degree, or you're not gonna do it. Now, I've been getting this question more and more over the past few years, and I actually quite like the question because health can absolutely be fun and exciting and something you want to engage with when you find the right thing. Now, I have got an example of this in my own life. Now, I've been, I would say, pretty healthy for a number of years, but something I have brought into my life about eight months ago has completely transformed it, and I'm not exaggerating. What is that thing? It's playing Padel. Now, Padel is a sport that is blowing up all around the world for a variety of different reasons, but I wanna tell you five things that it's done for me. Number one, it's fun, right? The reason I play three, four, sometimes even five times a week is because it's enjoyable. I'm not doing it for my health. Yes, there are health benefits. I'm doing it because I enjoy it, and I don't think we think about that enough when thinking about health behaviors or habits we wanna bring into our life. We know from the research that doing things that you love makes you more resilient to stress, and I can tell you that playing Padel has helped me become more resilient to stress, so it is fun. That's why I do it a lot. Second thing it's done for me is, yeah, it's really good for me. It's movement. I'm getting out. I sometimes play outdoors, sometimes I play indoors, but I am getting fitter. Something I've noticed since I started playing is that my resting heart rate has come down. Now, resting heart rate is a key metric for longevity. It's basically showing us, you know, our cardiac health and efficiency, and there are a few caveats, but basically, if you can get your resting heart rate to come down a little bit, it generally indicates better fitness. Again, I wanna emphasize I've not played Padel in order to bring my resting heart rate down. The resting heart rate coming down was a nice consequence of me doing something that I'm enjoying. Thirdly, I'm learning a new skill, okay? So I'm doing something that I enjoy, but Padel is something I've never played before. Yes, I played a lot of squash when I was a kid, a lot of tennis, so I'm familiar with racket sports, but this is a brand-new game. It's a different racket, a different ball. There's a new set of rules, and I know that as I get older, one of the things that's gonna help me preserve my cognition and reduce the chances of me getting cognitive decline as I get older is learning new things. If you've heard my conversations with Dr. Tommy Wood on my podcast, he talks a lot about this and explains a lot of the science. So I'm learning a new skill, which is really good for my brain. As well as learning a new skill, I'm also learning new strategies. One of the things I love about Padel, and for me is one of the things that makes it a lot of fun, is that it's a game based hugely on tactics. Yeah, technique is important, but tactics are arguably more important once you've got a base level of technique. So I'm spending a lot of time on YouTube watching tactic videos. There's a channel on YouTube called Padel Drive. I love those videos because I'm learning what is the right shot to play. Should I be altering my speed here? When do you come into the net? If you do come into the net, where do you stand in the net? So again, I'm stimulating my brain. Again, I'm really enjoying it, but I know that this is really, really good for me, both physically and mentally. The fourth thing I wanna talk about, and perhaps this is one of the most important things and one of the reasons why Padel is blowing up so much in many countries around the world, is because sociality is built into the game, right? You don't really play singles. 99% of the games are played as doubles, okay? So you play with someone else. Now, you might go with a partner. I've been playing a lot with my son, right? So I've taken it up with my son, and I've gotta say, playing with my boy as a doubles team and playing other people is one of my favorite parts of my week. It's something I really enjoy. It's really good for us to bond. But I don't always play with him, and I book my game on an app. Now, I think this is one of the reasons it's doing so well these days is because you could find that you have an hour spare in your day, and you could look online and see, is there a game near me? And so this is what happened a few days ago. I jumped on a game with three people I didn't know. Yes, we had a great game. Now, I didn't win that game, but we had a great game, and we had a lot of fun. We were laughing. Afterwards, we had a coffee together, and I tell you, the three people I was playing with are unlikely to have been three people I would naturally socialize with. We are from different cultures, different ethnicities, and we all had very, very different jobs, and that's one of the things that made it so much fun. I think in a world now where we think there's so much division, and certainly it seems that way online, I think a sport like Padel, because it has community and sociality built into its very nature, it's almost the antidote to that. You don't really care what political party your opponent votes for. You don't even ask. You don't really care what their job is. All you care about is, is my partner a good partner? Are the people you're playing against fun people to play against? It's all about fun. I mean, we know that in many countries, here in the UK, we know in North America, loneliness is on the rise. People are feeling more and more isolated. They're spending more and more time on screens. But when I go and play padel, I'm not on my screen. Okay? I'm interacting with other human beings. I'm moving my body. We're laughing. It's just so much fun. And I tell you, one thing that it's done for me is it really has helped me manage the stress in my life. If you're tired of feeling tired, I've put together a free guide to help you reset your energy. Three things I see most often that quietly drain people's energy and what you can actually do about it. You can get the guide free when you join the early access for my upcoming 21-day energy reset, which kicks off on July the 1st. It's a simple challenge built around my four pillars of health, 21 days, one small action a day, and a community doing it alongside you. There's absolutely no obligation to sign up when the doors open. The guide is yours either way. Just scan the QR code on screen or tap the first link in the description box below. Small changes that will make a huge difference to your energy. When I'm playing padel for those 60 minutes or even 90 minutes sometimes, I'm not thinking about anything else. I'm not thinking about my emails, my work, what I've got to do at home. Nothing. I'm fully present and engaged in the game. The fifth and final thing I'll say, 'cause I could probably do you a one-hour, uh, video on what I enjoy about padel, the fifth thing I'll say is that it wakes up a younger part of me. So I'm 48 years old, and I tell you, when I play padel, I feel like a kid. In fact, I'm often playing with guys in their early 20s or their early 30s. And, you know, I'm pleased I can still, I can still kick it around with them. I can still sprint. I can still compete. But I really enjoy playing with that age group, and I would say that, yes, playing with them, but also for me, it, it is such a fun game. Someone said to me, "It almost feels like you're playing a beach game." Right? So for me, padel is an enjoyable new hobby that has transformed my life for many of these reasons. And so the question I'd have for you is, what's your equivalent? You know, you don't have to play padel like me. You may not have access to padel. There may not be courts near you. You may not enjoy it. Maybe there's a cost issue. I get that. But I think all of us could do with having a think about, what is that activity that I can bring into my life? A friend of mine, uh, gets it with skateboarding. Another mate of mine gets it from rock climbing, indoor rock climbing. One of my other buddies gets it from cycling. You know, I, I could give you so many examples. The point is, you've got to find what that thing is for you, and if you haven't found it yet, keep experimenting until you find it. If you enjoyed that video, I think you're really going to enjoy this one where I outline five powerful ideas that will improve your life immediately. I figured out over two decades of medical practice that these are the tips and techniques that really move the needle

Episode duration: 9:34