The 5-Minute Morning Habit That Transformed My Health, Happiness & Marriage

1. SPSpeaker0:00

   So what is this five-minute strength training thing that you do, Dr. Chatterjee?

2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:05

   This is one of the most important things I do each day, and not only for my health. I would say it's also one of the most important things I do for my happiness and my relationships. Remember at the start, Mel, I said that health, happiness, and relationships are not as separate as people might think. Okay? So what do I do? And I think it's a useful way of helping people understand the key principles of habit formation. So for over five years now, I've been doing several things each morning, but one thing that I rarely miss on is a five-minute strength workout. Okay, so what does this look like? Okay. I, I go to bed early and I wake up early. That's just what works for me, right?

3. SPSpeaker0:50

   Yep.

4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:50

   But I wake up around 5:00. Again, I'm not saying anyone else has to.

5. SPSpeaker0:53

   [laughs]

6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:54

   It's what works for me.

7. SPSpeaker0:55

   Yeah.

8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:55

   My wife doesn't wanna get out of bed till 7:00 or half 7:00, right?

9. SPSpeaker0:58

   Yeah.

10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:59

    So we have found what works for us.

11. SPSpeaker1:00

    Great.

12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:00

    Okay? So I come downstairs, and I, I do happen to meditate. That's the first thing I tend to do, but that's not relevant for this part of our conversation. I go into my kitchen, and one thing I do is I love to make coffee. Okay? So I weigh out my coffee. I, and I pour the water in into the French press, and I put a timer on for five minutes. In those five minutes, Mel, I don't go on email, I don't go on Instagram, I don't go on the news. What I do in those five minutes is I have a strength workout in my kitchen, in my pajamas.

13. SPSpeaker1:34

    What do you do?

14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36

    Well, I do a variety of things. It started off being body weights. I do some press-ups, some calf raises, some squats. I just do a little circuit in my kitchen, and then I get the gorgeous reward of a hot cup of coffee just the way I like it.

15. SPSpeaker1:48

    Wait, so you literally do squats, you do pushups, you do calf raises, so you're going up on your tippy toes.

16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:56

    Yeah. There's a, there's a video on YouTube that I've, I've worked off my five-minute kitchen workouts. These days I do a couple of other things. I have a kettlebell and a dumbbell in my kitchen, so sometimes I'll do some kettlebell swings, sometimes I'll do some bicep curls, whatever I feel like. But the point is, I do that five-minute strength workout every day. I even did it this morning in my hotel room here in Boston, Mel. Okay? And I'll explain why it's so important. It's what I would call my keystone habit.

17. SPSpeaker2:23

    Okay.

18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:24

    It's a habit that when I do it, it makes it infinitely more likely I'm gonna do other healthy choices in my day.

19. SPSpeaker2:33

    Hmm.

20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee2:33

    Right? Every single day, Mel, we're all asking ourselves two questions. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself? What my five-minute kitchen workout does for me every single morning is it shows me that no matter how busy my work is, no matter what my wife needs from me, what my children need from me, what my elderly mother needs from me, I still found five minutes for myself. It shows me I can trust myself, I can rely on myself. Now, people might go, you know, "Strength workout every day? Do you not vary it up?" No, I don't vary it up, right? Especially when I started, no. Do we vary up toothbrushing?

21. SPSpeaker3:17

    [laughs] No.

22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:17

    Right. I, I hope, Mel, every single person listening right now brushes their teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening.

23. SPSpeaker3:25

    Well, you know what's interesting about brushing your teeth, and I'm glad you just brought it up, is I just saw somebody else talking about it, I can't remember who it is, and it's a fabulous example, that if you go and don't brush your teeth today, you'll have bad breath. You'll notice, but most people around you won't notice. But if you go day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year for five years and you never brush your teeth, like, some of them are gonna fall out.

24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:59

    Yeah.

25. SPSpeaker3:59

    You're gonna have, like, snaggletooth mouth. Like, you're gonna be horrible. Like, it's... And it's an illustration of something we know intellectually, that the compounding nature of doing something every day actually builds in the negative or the positive dramatically. And your five-minute workout in the kitchen that I think is just genius, first of all, you already taught us that the brain is an associative machine.

26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:29

    Yeah.

27. SPSpeaker4:29

    Meaning it associates certain places and times of day with certain things, and so you're using that to your advantage. You also have set yourself up for success because you now have a kettlebell right there in the kitchen. You have also set yourself up with a stacking of this so that you start the coffee maker, which is something you're gonna do regardless of how you feel. Doesn't matter how tired you are-

28. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:54

    Exactly

29. SPSpeaker4:54

    ... whether or not you don't want to, you're gonna do it.

30. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:56

    Exactly.

Episode duration: 17:00