THE 7 SIGNS YOU'RE BURNT OUT, NOT LAZY (Change Everything In 2025)| Rangan Chatterjee

1. 0:00 – 5:20

   Why Low Energy Isn't Laziness: Burnout and the Elastic Band

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      One of the worst things in life is when you've got no energy, right? Sometimes you don't want to get out of bed. You're struggling to get through that to-do list. You feel trapped. Every day feels like you're on a treadmill. You don't have the time or really the energy to connect with your friends, with your partner, with your kids. And I've got to say, I've been a medical doctor now for over 21 years, and this is one of the commonest complaints I see. People feel knackered. They feel tired. They're really, really struggling with their day-to-day lives, and one of the big problems is that they feel the problem is them. They feel that they're being lazy, that they don't have any motivation or willpower. Have you ever felt like that? Maybe you feel like that at the moment. Maybe someone close to you feels like that. You know, the truth is, for pretty much everyone, the problem is not them. They do not have a laziness problem or a willpower problem or a motivation problem when they're complaining of this kind of low-grade fatigue. No, this is a sign that you are on the road to burnout. Burnout is very, very common these days, and I've got to be honest, it's getting more and more common as the pressures from work, from society start to mount up. And I've seen this. I've experienced it myself. I've seen it in so many patients. But what I do know is that if I can help you identify the signs of burnout early, you can take some very simple steps that will make a big difference. So what I want to do in this video is walk you through the seven common signs of burnout. And do stick around for these signs, because I think a couple of them are gonna really surprise you. Then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk you through my own 10-step action plan that you can put into practice over the next 30 days. And if you do it, I know it's gonna make a big difference, because these are the steps I've taken in my own life before, and these are the steps I've helped my patients take in their lives. And all of the things I'm gonna recommend are simple to do, and they're completely free. Now, before we get to the first sign that I think it's really important for you to look out for in yourself and in the people around you, I just want to make the point that burnout is not something that happens overnight. Burnout is chronic, unmanaged stress that goes on for days, weeks, months, and often it goes on for years. It's insidious. It creeps up over time, and the problem is with burnout is a lot of people don't realize they're going through it until it gets really, really bad, and I want to stop that from happening to you. You know, you may well be on the road to burnout now. I want to help you identify it, stop it in its tracks so that you can actually make some changes. Now, I think it's really important to understand how stress and your body's stress response system fits with burnout, right? Stress is not all bad. You need a little bit of stress to perform well, right? Let's say you're at work and you've got a presentation to give, right? You want a little bit of stress. It's gonna help you perform better. Your brain's gonna be sharper. Your memory's gonna be better. Your focus is gonna be improved. These things are fantastic. They're gonna help you in that meeting, and if you have time afterwards to chill, rest, recuperate, you become more resilient over the time. The stress starts to tune up your nervous system. That's a good thing. That's how you build resilience, right? But that's not what happens in burnout. In burnout, you're getting stressed. You're getting these doses of stress regularly, but the problem is you're not getting time to recover and reset, so your nervous system starts to change. Think of it like an elastic band, right? You have an elastic band, you pull it a little bit, and then you let it go and it comes back to its normal shape. That's great. That's what you want with your stress response system. But if you keep pulling it several times a day, day after day, week after week, what happens? The shape of that rubber band starts to change. It doesn't go back. That's kind of what's happening with burnout, and a lot of the signs that I'm about to go through, if you think about that elastic band, I think you'll really understand why they're happening. So now I want to walk you through those seven key signs that I found time and time again indicate that someone is either burnt out or on the road to burnout, and then once I've gone through these seven signs, I'm going to give you my own 10-step action plan that you can start to put into practice over the next 30 days, which is going to start to make a difference immediately. So do stick around for the action plan at the end. The first sign is one that I don't hear enough people talking about, and it's

2. 5:20 – 9:01

   Signs 1 and 2: Disconnection and Emotional Exhaustion

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:20

      disconnection, disconnection from the people around you, right? So when you're on that road to burnout, when that elastic band is starting to change shape, you go inward. You don't want to be with other people. You don't want to be with your partner. You don't want to be with your kids, your work colleagues. You just want to stay by yourself and often engage in some quite unhelpful behaviors, and this is really, really toxic for a variety of reasons. I mean, number one, we now know from the scientific research that the feeling of being lonely is as harmful for your health as smoking 15, that's one-five, cigarettes per day. Why would that be? Right? Let's think about it. Let's say you were around 100,000 years ago. If you didn't have a supportive tribe around you, you were vulnerable to attack. That is a threat, and your body knows it. So your body's very clever. If you're feeling isolated, your body reacts as if that's a threat, because it is. If something was to happen, you don't have your tribe around you, so it's gonna activate your stress response, and that's gonna lead to all kinds of problems, high blood sugar, fatigue, low mood, anxiety, weight gain, all kinds of things simply from feeling lonely. Right? So there are some real biological changes that happen in your body when you disconnect from the world around you, and of course, it has a detrimental effect on your relationships. And of course, it's those relationships that are gonna play a key role in getting you out of burnout. The second sign I want you to look out for, again, is one that I don't think people are talking about enough, and that's emotional exhaustion. Right? We're gonna get to physical exhaustion shortly. That is something people talk about all the time, and it's important, but emotional exhaustion is something slightly different, and often this is a really good telltale sign that you're on the road to burnout. So what does this look like? Well, this could be the small things start to bother you. Little requests from your partner start to really, really agitate you. You know, your partner asks you to make her or him a cup of tea, and, you know, it bothers you. You don't wanna do it. Let's just think about that. If you're feeling good in yourself and life is good, why would the small act of making a cup of tea for your partner bother you? It wouldn't. So when it does start to bother you, when you start to get agitated at these small things, it's a very, very good sign that, wait a minute, something's wrong here. I may need to address something. This also shows up with cynicism. We become cynical. We become cynical about the world, about the people around us, about our colleagues. You know, we see something online, we start to become really judgmental. We think the worst of people. This, again, comes under that umbrella of emotional exhaustion, and often this also shows up as little outbursts of anger. We can keep it together at work. We can keep a lid on it because we wanna come across as professional. But when we come home, and maybe it's our partner there or our children, that's who bears the brunt of it, which of course is not how we want to be. So do pay attention to this emotional exhaustion, because I think it's one of the most important signs to look out for.

3. 9:01 – 11:09

   Signs 3, 4 and 5: Lost Creativity, Lost Pleasure, Procrastination

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:01

      The third sign is a lack of creativity. Right? And for some people, this is the telltale sign, and it often goes under the radar. Right? So let's say you're at work, and if you are on the road to burnout, almost certainly your work performance will be starting to go down. And one of the ways this shows up is with a lack of creativity. You can't think of new ideas. You can't solve problems. Everything starts to mount up and get on top of you. But a lack of creativity can also show up in your home life, where there are simple, everyday problems to fix and solve, and you haven't got a clue how to do it. This lack of creativity may well be a sign that you are on the road to burnout. The fourth sign to look out for is an inability to gain pleasure from simple, everyday things. Again, this is really, really common. The things that you used to enjoy, you used to get loads of pleasure from, now you find them mundane. You don't wanna do them. You wanna stay in bed. You don't wanna do anything. I mean, have you felt like that before? Do you feel like that right now? Do you know someone in your life who does feel like that? You know, in medicine we have a term called anhedonia. That basically describes this, and we see anhedonia in all kinds of conditions, including depression, but I actually see it really, really commonly on the way to burnout, so do pay attention to this. The fifth sign of burnout is procrastination, when you go over the same thing over and over again. You know what you wanna do, you know what you should be doing, but you don't take action, and often this shows up as an inability to make decisions. You're weighing up five, six, seven, maybe ten different options, and you can't decide. This is procrastination, and this, again, is a really important sign to watch out for in yourself or someone close to you, because it could indicate burnout.

4. 11:09 – 15:04

   Stuart's Story: A Deficiency of Friendship

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee11:09

      Before I get to the final two signs that I want you to start looking out for, I want to tell you about one of my patients who I saw a few years ago. It was a 37-year-old chap called Stuart. Now, what's interesting about Stuart is if you look at him from the outside, he was crushing life. Okay? So he works for himself. He was running his own business. He'd work from home. He would work in the evenings. He would work at weekends. He was driving a sports car. He made good money. Honestly, from the outside, people thought he was crushing it. But one day he came in to see me in my clinic, and he said to me, "Dr. Chatterjee, I'm concerned that I've got depression. I struggle to get out of bed sometimes. I feel exhausted. Little things are starting to bother me. I don't have that creative spark that I used to have. I don't want to spend time with anyone, and I'm also struggling to experience any joy in my life." Right. So I had a chat with Stuart. We ran some tests. They all came back normal, and as I started to get to know him and inquire about his life, it was really clear to me that he spent all of his time alone Well, he never saw anyone. I actually said to him, "Hey, Stuart, have you got any friends? You know, do you ever see your friends?" And he said, "Hey, Doc, um, yeah, I've got friends, but I don't have time. You know, I'm running a business, and I kinda see what they're up to on social media." I think that's one of the rather unusual things about life these days. Often we don't have to see our friends in person, but we can see what they're eating from their Instagram page. We can see where they're being on holiday, who they spent time with at the weekends. We can see photos of this. We don't actually have to see them. And so what I said to Stuart is, "Listen, I think you need to spend some time with your friends." And so the prescription I gave him was, "For the next four to six weeks, I want you to make sure that once a week you see at least one of your friends in person. And when you're with them, what I want you to do is put your phone away so you're really present for that interaction." Now, I'll be honest, it wasn't the prescription Stuart was expecting from me, but it was the prescription I felt would have the most impact in his life. Stuart goes away. He's desperate, right? So he's willing to try this. Six weeks later, he comes in to see me, and he feels like a different person. He bounces into the room. I say, "Stuart, how are things? You know, what's going on?" He says, "Doc, I feel like a completely different person. I've got energy. My mood's better. I've got my mojo back. Things are really, really good." And I said, "Stuart, what happened? What's going on?" And he said, "Doc, what I did was every Sunday morning I went to my local cafe, right? I'd meet up with one of my friends or a group of friends, and we'd catch up over coffee for about an hour or so. It was fantastic. And then over the next few weeks, actually I realized I was never doing any sports, right? And so with my mates, we decided to play five-a-side football after work every Wednesday night." That was all Stuart did, right? He didn't have depression. He didn't have a deficiency of a medication. And what Stuart actually had was a deficiency of friendship in his life. Now, Stuart actually had his friends around him. He was lucky. His friends lived nearby to him, but he was so busy he never saw them. And this is a really, really common thing that I've seen over and over again, and I'll be honest, I've experienced this myself before. I've worked so hard that I've actually neglected to spend time with my friends, and it's always come at a huge cost. Now, the reason I share that story is because I want you to know just how quickly you can start to make a change, and I'm coming very shortly to that 10-step action plan that's gonna help you do just that.

5. 15:04 – 18:47

   Signs 6 and 7: Disappearing Self-Care and Physical Exhaustion

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:04

      The sixth sign of burnout that I really want you to pay attention to is when our self-care starts to disappear, right? Our food choices become progressively worse. We eat more takeaways. We often don't eat. We comfort eat more. We're often up late in front of the television. We're so stressed and wound up, we, we don't wanna go to bed, so we watch another episode of that box set with a packet of crisps or some ice cream or some biscuits. And I understand why you might wanna do that. In the moment it feels good, but the problem is it reinforces the problem that you have. It keeps you locked in that cycle, and it makes it even harder to turn that ship around and get you away from burnout, right? So your food choices start to go. Your movement, often we stop moving. We literally go to work, come back, and then slump at home in front of our computer or on the sofa. We don't do anything that gets blood pumping around our body, and again, that keeps you locked in a vicious cycle. Also, we think about self-care. What I've seen when patients are on this path is that they stop showering, they stop shaving, brushing their teeth. These little things that actually are important for our self-worth and our self-esteem, those things start to slip as well. And this is really ironic, isn't it? Because actually it's those things, whether it's self-care, whether it's food, whether it's exercise, these are the things that we actually need the most in that moment. They're the things that start to go by the waysides. And what's really interesting, that case study of Stuart I just mentioned, over the subsequent months after he got together with his friends, he started to bring back self-care. Like, he realized when he was playing five-a-side football in his 30s that, "Wow, I have no fitness," right? [laughs] "I need to go to bed earlier. I need to eat better so I can perform better." It all started with just seeing his friends more. Now, we're gonna get to that action plan shortly. I just wanna finish off by giving you the seventh sign that I want you to look out for. The seventh sign is, I think, the one we most commonly associate with burnout, physical exhaustion. You have no get up and go to do anything, whether at work or at home. You've got no energy for your hobbies, no energy to see your friends, no energy to spend time with your children or your partner, and it's really, really debilitating. Now, this kind of fatigue often shows up as feeling tired and wired, right? So you're tired, but you're all go in your mind, so you can't switch off at night, which starts to affect your sleep. So this is a very good sign that you are on the road to burnout, that you need to do something different if you wanna turn that ship around. The other thing you often see here is brain fog. You have that haziness in your mind. You don't have that clarity of thinking, and you start to lose self-awareness. This is huge. Often when people are in those final stages of burnout- They've lost self-awareness. They actually start to double down on all the things that they were doing that got them there in the first place. They work even harder. They stay up even later. They try and push through even more. So that lack of self-awareness is something we really need to pay attention to, and that's exactly the main reason I wanted to make this, so that you can start to identify these signs in your own life.

6. 18:47 – 23:53

   Introducing the 10-Step Plan and Step 1: Awareness

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:47

      So now I wanna walk you through this 10-step action plan that you can start to implement over the next 30 days, and remember, you don't have to do everything at once, right? In fact, if you try and do them all at once, it's probably gonna feel overwhelming, which is the last thing you need at this moment, right? So just listen as I'm going through these 10 steps and think, "Hey, you know what? This is one I can introduce straightaway," or, "That one I might wanna leave for a few weeks." That's completely okay. What's the right thing for you is gonna be unique to you and what's going on in your life. But what I can tell you is I know this is going to work. How do I know that? I've been a doctor now for over two decades. I've seen tens of thousands of patients, and these are the exact steps that I've used successfully with my patients to get them better. But I'm also a human being with the same pressures as you. You know, I'm a busy guy. I'm married. I've got two kids. I've got a busy job. For, you know, many years in my adult life, I was a carer for my dad, and in those years, I put my dad's needs first at the expense of my needs, at the expense of my relationship with my wife, at the expense of time with my kids, and I got to that place where life felt like a struggle and I was struggling with motivation. I'd let self-care start to drop. All these kinds of things that I've already been talking about, I've been there, right? So I know how hard it is, but I also know how quickly you can change things. Now, before we get to step number one, I want to just remind you about those seven signs. What was underlying all of them? Right? What was underlying all of them is a kind of learnt helplessness. That's what happens in burnout. Burnout steals your autonomy, right? Autonomy is a core human need. To make sure you're taking action after watching this video, I've created a free breathing guide that's gonna help you reduce stress, calm your mind, and boost your energy. In this guide, I share with you six really simple breathing practices that work immediately. Even just one minute a day will start to make a big difference. To receive your free guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box below. It's so important that you feel you can make decisions in your life that make a difference, and burnout takes that away from you. So this action plan is gonna put you back in control, right? It's gonna get you off the treadmill and get you back into engaging intentionally with life. So the first step I wanna talk about is awareness. Now, let me just pause on this for a minute. Everything I've been saying so far is about giving you an awareness of the problem. And people will often say, "Okay, great, Dr. Chatterjee, I've got awareness. Now what should I do?" And I say, "Wait a minute. Just hold your horses." Do not underestimate the power of awareness, because the problem with burnout is that people often do not realize it until it's too late. I once spoke to this wonderful chap, Greg McKeown, on my podcast, and he's written these great books, Essentialism and Effortless. And he once put a tweet out. He said, "There's two kinds of people in the world, those who are burnt out and those who don't know they're burnt out." Now, I think that's a very powerful quote. Now, do I agree with all of that? You know, can we say that everyone in the world is burnt out? No. But are more people burnt out than currently think they are? Absolutely yes. A little while ago, this is exactly what happened to one of my friends. She didn't pick up on the signs until it was too late, and finally, when her husband took her in to see her doctor, he had to sign her off work for three months. She couldn't go to work because it was that bad. She had to slowly rebuild her life from scratch. But actually, looking back, all of those signs were there; emotional exhaustion, physical exhaustion, little things were starting to get too much, self-care was starting to go down. She was starting to stay up too late. She wouldn't want to go to bed. Netflix, binge-watching, snacking, right? Little outbursts of anger. All the things that we mentioned were there, but she wasn't able to pick them up, and the people around her weren't either. So I wanna help you get to the point where you don't need to wait until that happens. Now, I'm pleased to say she's now thriving, right? All the things I'm about to walk you through were the things that she did. She didn't do them all together. She didn't do them all at once. She did them over a period of days, weeks, and months, and now I actually think she's learnt some very powerful lessons that will stop her going down that path again in the future. The second thing

7. 23:53 – 28:11

   Step 2: Intentionally Engage with Another Human Being

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:53

      I want you to focus on is to intentionally engage with another human being. Now, remember the first sign I asked you to pay attention to, the first sign that may indicate you're on the road to burnout, is disconnecting from the people around you, and I've already explained how toxic that can be for our health and our happiness. You are simply very unlikely to get out of this rut by yourself. You have to share this with someone. You have to tell someone. But you may be surprised when you share this with someone and tell them, you may be surprised how many people in your life have actually been through this before or who are currently going through it. Right? It doesn't need to be for long. It could be that you arrange to meet a friend on a Sunday morning at the local cafe, like Stuart, who I mentioned already. Right? That's all he needed to do. That one change led to all kinds of other positive ripple effect changes. Right? So maybe that's something that's gonna work for you. Maybe it's you diary in some time with your partner. Maybe it's a date night. If that term doesn't resonate with you, that's completely fine. But diary in something regularly with another human being. It's so, so important. Another tip you may wanna think about that relates to intentionally engaging with another human being is to put some default things in your diary. One of my best mates in America, he realized that him and a lot of his friends were never seeing each other, so they put something in every Thursday called Man Thursday. Basically, there was a group of eight of them where they decided every Thursday morning for two hours early we're gonna get together. We're gonna meet at a coffee shop, grab a quick coffee, then maybe go for a walk or a hike or go to the gym, whatever it might be. And the beautiful thing about it being in the diary is, is that you don't have to go every week. Some days you might be too busy. That's okay, right? But you know it's happening. It's a routine. Interestingly enough, I spoke to the incredible marathon runner, Eliud Kipchoge, on my podcast recently. He is the fastest marathon runner in history, and he never trains by himself, never. He said, "We all run together as a group, so if I'm not showing up, people are gonna text me, say, 'Hey, Eliud, what's going on? Are you okay?'" Right? So there's something very powerful about putting something in the diary. This works if you're a woman, this works if you're a man. But I will say this kind of thing is something that we're seeing a lot of in men. Men are often not prioritizing those close, nourishing friendships that can really make a big, big difference. Another thing, certainly in the UK that's helpful for people, is something called Parkrun. Parkrun is a community initiative in hundreds, if not thousands, of towns and villages. Every Saturday morning, people get together to go for a five-kilometer run or walk, and actually it's not about running. It's about the community. And lots of my patients who are really struggling with their moods and their mental health, often they don't wanna run. They go and volunteer, and it gives them a sense of purpose in their life. It gives them a sense that they matter, and it's important that they show up to do their bit, right? So please do think about it. How can you start to intentionally engage with another human being? What's gonna work for you? And if you think there's someone in your life who's struggling at the moment, who's stopped calling, who's not replying to your messages, who you can't get a hold of, maybe that's what they're going through. So maybe you can reach your hand out and say, "Hey, look, I've not seen you for a while. You know, you're probably really busy with work like all of us, but what about next Wednesday? Do you fancy going for a walk at lunchtime or grabbing a coffee after work?" Whatever it might be. But this is really, really important. Intentionally engage with another human being. In fact, if that does sound like someone you know, why not take a pause right now and share this with them?

8. 28:11 – 35:17

   Step 3: Prioritize Your Sleep

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:11

      The third thing I want you to focus on is your sleep. I want you to start prioritizing your sleep. And we've heard already, haven't we, that when we're on the road to burnout, we often stay up later. We don't wanna go to bed. Often we feel tired and wired, but that actually makes the problem worse the following day. So if you can actually get a little bit more sleep, I'm not talking about eight hours of unbroken sleep every night. That may not be achievable just yet for you. Even if you can get 15 more minutes a day, 20 more minutes a day, that will literally start to make a difference immediately. Because when you sleep better, everything in your life is better, your physical health, your mental health, and your emotional health. And one thing I just wanna say, if you are that person who, I don't know, let's say at 10:00 PM you are thinking, "Yeah, you know what? One more episode of this box set," and you've got some of the signs I've already mentioned, you are making a trade in that moment that you may not know you're making. You're basically saying, "I'm gonna stay up for an extra hour to watch this episode, but because of the impact that's gonna have on my sleep, I'm basically saying tomorrow I'm gonna be less creative. I'm gonna be less able to solve problems. I'm gonna have lower energy. I'm gonna crave more sugar and more caffeine." We know that sleep deprivation means that you're gonna have less empathy the following day, right? So you're literally making a trade in that moment that you are prepared to sacrifice all of those things for that one-hour box set. And I get it. I've been there before, but I'm just trying to make you more aware of just how important that sleep is. There's all kinds of things I could say about sleep, but let me just walk you through some of the commonest things that I see and the commonest things that you can do that will start to make a difference. And remember, you don't have to do them all, but the more of them that you can do, the better. Number one, right, when you wake up in the morning, try and expose yourself to natural light Right, if it's a cloudy day, you really want 20 to 30 minutes of natural light outside if you can. On a sunny day, you might get away with five to 10 minutes, because that helps to set your body's circadian rhythm, and that's gonna help you sleep better that night. It's a really important point. People are thinking about their evening routine when they're thinking about sleep, but a good night's sleep starts in the morning. Second thing, caffeine. I get it. Many of us enjoy a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. I love my coffee, right? I'm not saying give it up, but the problem is in burnout is that you get stuck in a vicious cycle where because you feel tired all the time, you're using more caffeine to keep you going, which in turn is making it harder for you to sleep at night. So I always say enjoy your caffeine in the morning. Now look, the truth is we all have different sensitivities to caffeine. It depends on our genetics. It also depends on how much stress is going on in our lives, and if you're on the road to burnout, [laughs] by definition you've already got a lot of stress in your life. Your stress load is very, very high, and I have found time and time again that with people like this, with patients like this, you've got to be really careful with your caffeine intake. So I would say enjoy your caffeine, but keep it to the morning. The third thing I want to say about sleep is if you're gonna form into a deep, relaxing, restorative slumber, you have to start winding down about one hour before bed. One of the big problems these days is that our devices are our work devices and our pleasure devices. You know, you may have a laptop or a tablet, and you may do all your work on it, but you also do all your chilling out on it in the evening. And what a lot of us don't realize is that our brain is an associative organ, right? It associates certain things and certain places with certain activities. So if, for example, you are used to doing emails on your bed on your laptop, your brain starts to associate your bedroom with work and emails, and that's one of the big reasons why people really struggle to switch off and fall asleep, because their brain has been conditioned for a certain activity in a certain environment. So that's one thing to pay attention to. You know, can you change your environment? I appreciate not everyone has space, but if you are working from home, are you able to work outside your bedroom? This is something that not enough people do, not enough people think about, but it makes a really big difference. The other thing to focus on in that one hour before bed is sending your brain a signal that you're no longer working. This is basically campfire time, right? If we think about us, you know, tens of thousands of years ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago, the evening is campfire time. It's for storytelling. It's for fun, laughter, dancing, connecting. So if you are not giving your brain that signal, if you're still on your emails after dinner, right, you've just got to be really careful what signal are you sending your brain. So one thing that I find helpful and many of my patients find helpful is you have a cutoff time in the evening, right? Maybe you want to set an alarm. You know, we're used to the idea that we set an alarm in the morning, but maybe you should set an alarm in the evening. Like let's say you want to go to your bedroom to fall asleep at 10:00. Maybe you set an alarm at 9:00 PM or even 8:30 PM, and that's a signal to shut the laptop. Don't look at emails anymore. And then you can do some more relaxing activities like, I don't know, have a bath, read a book, you know, talk to your partner. If you do want to watch television, and I understand the temptation, find something relaxing to watch. You know, if you're watching the news just before you go to bed, whether on TV or online, and you can't sleep, is it really that much of a surprise? The news is by its very definition these days negative, right? All news channels are competing with other news channels, so you're gonna see negative stories. If that's what you are infusing into your brain and mind in the minutes or hour before bed, it's no surprise really that your mind's gonna be racing and you're gonna be thinking about the worst possible outcomes, right? So pay attention to what are you consuming. If you want to watch something, watch something uplifting, relaxing, that makes you feel good.

9. 35:17 – 39:39

   Step 4: Do Something You Love Every Day

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:17

      The fourth thing I want you to focus on as part of this 10-step action plan is to do something that you love every day. Now, what a lot of people don't realize is that regularly doing things that you love makes you more resilient to stress, but at the same time, being chronically stressed, particularly work-related stress, means that you find it harder to gain pleasure in everyday things. And remember, that's one of those key seven signs of burnout, an inability to get pleasure from those simple things. So one way around this is for five minutes a day, right? If you could do more, great, but even five minutes a day will make a difference. Five minutes a day you're doing something for you, not for your boss, not for your work colleagues, not for your partner, not for your children. This is for you. This could be reading a book, okay? Could be listening to some tunes or some music that you really like. It could even be going onto YouTube and watching your favorite comedian for a few minutes. Right? It's so, so powerful. If you give yourself a daily dose of pleasure, you will find that little by little, day after day, you are gonna start to feel more resilient, more engaged with life. It's gonna have such a powerful impact, and all I'm asking for is just five minutes a day. For me, what do I do? There's all kinds of things I love doing. I love reading, I love listening to music, but I love playing my guitar. And so often in the evenings, especially if it's been a stressful day, I'll just sit with my guitar for a few minutes and sing, and it makes all the difference. If I go for a week or two without doing this, I can absolutely feel it. So what's it gonna be for you? What is that thing that you can do each day for only five minutes, but something that you're really, really going to enjoy? It's really easy to underestimate just how important doing something each day that you love is. But let me just tell you briefly about a patient I saw a few years ago. Right? He was in his 50s, CEO of a company. He was married, had kids. He was doing well at work. He used to love his job, right, but he got to the point where he didn't really enjoy his work, he didn't really enjoy spending time with his wife, he didn't really enjoy doing that much with his kids. He felt flat. He came to see me, and he was worried. And there's all kinds of things I could share with you here, but the essence of the story is, is that I asked him if he ever did anything he enjoyed, and he said, "No, Doc, I don't have time. I really don't have time." I said, "What about weekends?" "Weekends I'm just taking my kids from event to event. I just don't have any time for myself." I said, "Well, do you have any hobbies?" He goes, "Doc, I don't have time for hobbies." I said, "Okay, did you used to have any hobbies, maybe when you were a child?" And he said, "Yeah, I used to love playing with train sets." I said, "Okay, great. Do you have a train set?" And he said, "Hey, Doc, you know, I, I do, but it's in my loft, it's in my attic. I haven't looked at it for years." So I said, "Listen, what I think would be really helpful for you is to go into your loft, get it out, and start playing with it." And again, I didn't see him for a few months. And three months later, I remember I bumped into his wife in my clinic car park. And I said, "How's he getting on?" And she said to me, "Dr. Chachi, he's like a different person. He's got his mojo back. He comes home from work each night and he's tinkering around on his toy train set for hours." And then a few months later, when he came in for a well man check, I actually spoke to him. I said, "How are you getting on?" And he said, "Everything feels different. I'm happier. I feel I'm closer with my wife. I feel I'm more engaged with my children. Again, I feel like I've got my vibe back." And again, for him, it all started with his train set. So what's your equivalent of that train set? What hobby or passion have you let fall by the wayside, and which one do you think you can bring into your life right now? The fifth step to start introducing into your life

10. 39:39 – 46:23

    Step 5: Learning to Say No

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:39

       is about learning how to say no. Now, this is easy to say, a lot harder to do in practice. It's something many of us struggle with. I've struggled with this for much of my life. Right? We have to be able to say no. And often we're doing things that are helping other people, but it's coming at the cost of ourselves. Now, listen, I get it. It's nice to be there for other people. It's good to do things for other people. But if it's happening all the time and it's coming at the cost of your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, I think it's time to ask yourself some questions. What's going on? 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 want to get hold of that free guide right now, all you have to do is click the link in the description box below. Now, the truth is that for many of us, the reason we struggle to say no is because we're people pleasers. Often we don't feel good enough in who we are. Often this started in childhood. We feel that in order to be liked and loved, we have to do things for other people's approval. And if we're not careful, that continues into adulthood. We put our own needs last and everyone else's needs first. And as I say, this often comes from insecurity. We don't feel good enough in ourselves. We feel that we need that other person's validation in order to feel good, but this is toxic and it is very, very problematic. So you're not gonna change this overnight. Again, simply being aware that you may have some people-pleasing tendencies which is getting in the way of your ability to say no is really, really powerful. Another thing you may find helpful when thinking about saying no is weighing up the consequences of your decision on both sides. Now, a lot of the time we just look at things from one side. Okay, I've been asked to give a meeting or let's say give a presentation at a weekend, and we might think this is a great opportunity for us. Okay? This is wonderful. But when you say yes to something, you're also saying no to something else, and what you're saying no to you often don't think about. You just think about the pros of what you're saying yes to. "Oh, if I do this, it will help me with my job. My boss will like me." Look, how does that play out in my own life? I get asked to speak at events a lot these days, and I used to say yes to a lot of them. I wanted to help. I wanted to go there. I wanted to speak to people, help empower them with information. But I realized a lot of the time this is happening at weekends. And, you know, I'm married, I've got two young children. They're at school in the week. Over the past years, I've realized if I say yes to a weekend speaking invitation, I'm saying no to time with my children. I'm saying no to time with my wife. And again, look, we're all different. We've all got different pressures and different requirements with our work. Sometimes taking that weekend invitation is gonna be the right choice, right? But for me, at this stage in my life now, at this stage in my career, I've decided that I will not do weekend speaking engagements or I won't regularly do them, at least. It would take something really, really special for me to decide, yes, I'm gonna do that. And so for me, I now have a rule: I don't speak at weekends, and that has simplified my life. If a weekend invitation comes in, it's almost certainly no. See, another thing you can think about here is make your default decision, at least in your brain, no. When you get asked to do things that are outwith what you are required to do, make no the default, and then say to yourself, "Can I make a case for this to be a yes?" It's just slightly tweaking things, and perhaps that's a strategy you may find useful. The other thing to say about setting boundaries and saying no is that if you've never been able to do it before, it's gonna feel hard at first, right? You're not gonna feel comfortable doing it. But what I really ask you to do is think clearly about why you're saying no, and then try and be honest. Don't try and overexplain, just be really clear, to the point, explain your reasons, and you may be surprised at how well-received they are. Maybe two years ago now, I got an invitation in July by a friend of mine to speak in August, and at that time, I had decided that I'd been working too much. I'd been neglecting some of the important things in my life, and I decided in August I'm not gonna work. In August, I'm taking time off. I'm gonna spend time with my family. Again, I appreciate not everyone has the luxury of being able to do that. At that time, I did. And the speaking invitation came in. Now, the only reason I even considered it, because this lady who invited me was a friend of mine. But I thought about it, and then I very clearly said to her, "Hey, listen, thank you so much for the invitation. It sounds wonderful, but I'm not taking on any work in August. I'm spending it with my family. I'm really sorry. If you'd like me to promote your event for you, I'm happy to do that, but I can't take part." And do you know what? At that time, I was a bit nervous about telling her. I was wondering, what is she gonna think of me? And she didn't think anything bad of me. In fact, she really respected that I was honest and told her the truth, and it also felt good for me. I feel I didn't lie. I didn't tell a white lie. I didn't make up some excuse. No, I just told her the truth. And actually, I find more and more being able to say no in a truthful, authentic way is a really, really good skill to acquire, and it's something you can work on and get better at with practice.

11. 46:23 – 55:38

    Steps 6 and 7: Schedule Rest and Move Your Body

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee46:23

       The sixth thing for you to focus on is to schedule rest. Now, this relates a little bit to the last one, right? If you get better at saying no, putting up boundaries, you're gonna have more time for yourself. But what are you gonna do with that time, right? You need rest to fully recuperate. Remember what I said about that elastic band and burnout, right? You get these little doses of stress. They're gonna come. They're not gonna stop, right? The stress helps us. It helps us perform better. But then if we intentionally have enough time to rest and recover, we grow back stronger, right? We become more resilient. With burnout, what happens is because we don't have that time to rest and recuperate, the elastic band starts to change shape. You know, we start to change shape internally, which is what causes all those symptoms and signs that I've already been through. So if you can put in the right amount of rest, you're gonna find that you can deal with stress because you're recovering from stress. Now, one of the best things to think about doing is put it in the diary. You know, in step number two, when I spoke about intentionally engaging with another human being, I shared that story about my friend in America who has Man Thursdays. It's in the diary, so it's gonna happen more often than not. What can you put in your diary? Maybe it's a, a yoga class midweek on a Wednesday night after work. Maybe it's a relaxing Epsom salt bath every Tuesday and Friday evening. Put it in your diary. See, that's the interesting thing, isn't it? We put our work commitments in our diary because we're prioritizing them, and we know we have to do them, but you also have to do rest. And let's just think about it for a minute. What does it really say about our priorities in life when all our work commitments are in our diary, all the commitments we have for other people are in our diary... But most of us don't think to put a walk in our diary or a bath in our diary, or maybe our yoga class in our diary. It's a very simple move that can be really, really effective. Now, I just wanna quickly mention something about walking, because I go to a lot of companies these days, I speak to a lot of people about burnout and stress, and one of the most useful and effective things I recommend is a 15-minute walk at lunchtime with no technology. Why is that so powerful? Well, if you have a walking break at lunchtime, you're gonna come back, be more creative, and better able to solve problems. That's the thing a lot of people don't realize. Burnout affects us at work, right? Our work performance goes down, and when we're feeling like that, we've got a problem to solve, we, we get stuck. We wanna work through lunch. We think if we plow through, it's gonna solve the problem. We don't realize that there's something in our brain called the DMN, the default mode network, and what does that do? Well, it does many things, but two things it does is it helps us solve problems, and it helps us be more creative. Now, the DMN only gets activated when you switch off, when you stop focusing on a task. This is why some of us have our very best ideas when we're out for a walk or when we're in the shower. I know for me, some of my best ideas come when I'm in the shower each morning, because you've switched off. You don't have your emails. You're not focused on anything, so your brain tries to solve those problems for you. So again, diary in that 10 or 15-minute walking break every lunchtime. In the moment, it will feel like nothing, but if you do that five days a week, even seven days a week, you will very quickly start to notice a big, big difference. The other thing I wanna mention on rest, let's say you like to watch documentaries, for example, as part of your relaxation. I'm okay with that. I'm not saying don't do that. But start to pay attention to how you feel after particular genres, right? If you watch quite an agitating one with a lot of anger and judgment and cynicism in it, how do you feel afterwards? Do you feel as though you've rested, or do you feel kind of agitated in your body? And then contrast that to when you're watching something relaxing, maybe something with nature in it, maybe a feel-good story. How do you feel in your body then? Because then you'll start to educate yourself on what the right kind of rest is for you. Now, I just wanna mention something here that's relevant to some of the things I've just been talking about. I recently spoke to a chap called Steven Kotler. He's a human performance expert, and he co-founded the Flow Research Collective in Canada. And him and his team have done some research, and they have shown that it is almost impossible to burn out if you do three things. Number one, if you get seven to eight hours sleep a night. Number two, if you access flow one to two times a week. So what's flow? Well, flow is an altered state of consciousness. It's a state you get in when you're fully concentrating. You'll feel as though your perception of time is changing. Some people will say, "Time just stood still." And it's usually those activities that you enjoy and that you're fully immersed in, right? Usually, it's when the focus that's required to do it is a little bit more than your ability level, so you have to stay focused, but it's not so hard that you think this is unachievable and you switch off. And if you're struggling to know what your flow activities are, think about the sorts of things you used to enjoy as a child or as a teenager. You know, common examples are playing musical instruments, skiing, rock climbing, could be reading, all kinds of things. But again, Steven says if you can access flow once to twice a week, it really helps prevent burnout. The third thing he says that really helps you avoid burnout is regular active recovery. But what does that mean? Well, passive recovery, as Steven puts it, is a glass of wine and a TV show. That's very different for your body than active recovery, which is more like yoga or a walk in nature or an Epsom salt bath. So just remember that. Those are three things that if you do regularly, make it very unlikely that you're going to burn out, and I think that helps to bring some of the ideas I've already mentioned together in one place. The seventh thing I want you to think about is movement. One of the problems when people are on the road to burnout, or even when they've got all-out burnout, is that they don't move. You know, I've already mentioned that one of the signs of burnout is when we start to neglect our self-care, and because people feel lacking in motivation, low in energy, you know, they're procrastinating, they can't make decisions, they end up not moving their bodies. They often think, "Oh, I don't have energy to move." And the interesting thing about movement is that it will change your state, guaranteed, right? Sometimes if we're feeling stressed and agitated and anxious, getting out there and moving our body, let's say with a walk or even two minutes of skipping or jumping jacks, will calm everything down. You'll burn off that stress. But it also works the other way. If you're feeling low energy, if you're struggling with motivation, sometimes movement will give you energy. Just think, think about the last time you couldn't be bothered going to the gym, or perhaps you procrastinated for an hour, "Shall I go for a walk? Shall I not go for a walk? Oh, it's raining. Not sure I've got time." But then you actually went. How did you feel afterwards? Did you regret it? Or did you afterwards feel, "Wow. Man, I'm so glad I went"? I don't think anybody has ever regretted going for a walk. We always feel better afterwards. So this is all about making sure you're moving your body every day. Even a 10 or 15-minute walk will make a big difference.

12. 55:38 – 1:04:46

    Steps 8 to 10: Food, Ending the Workday, and Living Your Values

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee55:38

       Step number eight, pay attention to your food intake. Again, this fits the theme of the last step, which is about movement. When people are feeling close to burnout or on the road to burnout, they stop looking after themselves, and food, your nutrition, is absolutely key here. If you're feeling bad and you start to have more sugar, more ice cream, more highly processed foods, you start snacking more, you're eating late at night, it's simply not gonna help you. It's gonna make matters worse. And I know in that moment where you can't be bothered to cook, the easiest thing in the world is to phone for a takeaway or go on an app on your phone, depending on where you live in the world, and actually get something delivered to you. But please try and make healthier choices as much as possible, and make sure you've got healthy food at home. Make sure you've got things that you enjoy that are gonna support your health and wellbeing at home. If you've run out of food, it's gonna be easy to go and order that takeaway. You know? Try not to snack late at night in front of the television, because we know that late-night snacking for some people can really impact the quality of their sleep and, you know, getting better sleep is on this 10-step action plan. We want you to get better sleep, and eating late will often get in the way of that. Also, do pay attention to comfort eating. I get it. In those moments where you've got no energy and you feel low, you just think, "Ah, I'm gonna eat something to make myself feel better," and I get it. In the moment, it does make you feel better, but it comes with a long-term cost, and if you're doing this all the time, it's gonna keep you locked in a vicious cycle. So the next time you have that urge to open that packet of crisps or those biscuits, why don't you just try this? Just take a quick pause and ask yourself, "What am I really feeling here? Is this physical hunger or emotional hunger?" You know, a lot of the time that we turn to food is 'cause there's something emotional going on. Maybe you feel lonely. Maybe you wanna say hi to your partner or give a friend a call instead. Maybe you feel like you've had no time to yourself all day, right, and you've just been working, so this is your treat for you. Okay, but maybe you can treat yourself in another way. Maybe you can run yourself a bath and kind of enjoy being there for 20 minutes looking after yourself. Right? So pay attention to the foods that you're putting into your body. It's gonna make a big difference to your recovery. Step number nine is to define the end of your workday. Now, this is a really, really important step that I actually think you can start to implement immediately. Our to-do lists are never done these days because of modern technology, because of the way that we work. There's always something else to do, always. Let's say you miraculously clear all the new emails in your inbox, right? I don't know if that's possible, but let's say you manage to do that. The minute you've finished, and let's say you go off somewhere for a walk or, you know, make yourself a cup of tea, there's a very good chance that other emails have started to arrive. You can't control that. Emails are always gonna come in. This is just one example, right? So you can constantly be working, and I've seen this in so many patients that don't put up boundaries, so therefore they're still working after dinner, right? You couldn't do this 20, 30 years ago. You'd have had to have stopped and switched off, spent time, if you've got a family, with your family, if you don't, spent time doing something enjoyable for yourself. But now you don't have to do that. You can keep plugging away, and of course, you keep doing this month after month, year after year, this is gonna put you on the road to burnout. So a really helpful tip here is to say, "What does done look like today?" And this is actually something that I discuss in a wonderful conversation I had on my podcast with Greg McKeown, who I've already mentioned, right? Greg's got another phrase that I really, really like, "If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will." In fact, I like that phrase so much I've got it up on the wall in my house, and that's what this tip really is about. You've got to define what done means for you. Maybe it's, "At 5:00 PM, I'm gonna stop working," or maybe it's, "I've got these 10 tasks to do today, but once I've done these six important ones, if that's the end of the day, that's the end of the day." If you don't do it, nobody is gonna do it for you. It's about setting boundaries. It's about taking a moment to go, "No, this is important today." Everything's not important. You may think it is, but it isn't. So why not at the start of each day define- If I get these things done today, that's good enough. And this is something that's really simple, but really, really effective. And the final step, step 10 on this action plan, is a bit more about the bigger picture. A lot of the time we end up on the road to burnout and getting burnt out is because we're not living a life that's in alignment with who we really are. Our daily actions are not aligned with our values. We're often in jobs that we don't really enjoy, and there's elements of those jobs that don't really sit right with us. And I think it's really important for me to say here that I get it. Sometimes you have to do a job that you don't particularly like because that's how you feed yourself, that's how you feed your family and put a roof over your heads. I understand that. So this advice is gonna be different for different people at different stages of their lives. But even if that is you, it's still worth having a think about, "What are my values? Is this still the job I wanna be doing in two years, in three years, in five years?" And I'd encourage you maybe once a week just sit down and write down what are some of the core values that encompass who I am and who I want to be. It doesn't need to take long. Even just one value will start to help you. You know, I've done this many times over the years. What I would say right now is that my three core values are integrity, compassion, and curiosity, and those are the three values that I like to bring to every aspect of my life, my personal life, yes, but also my work life. And if I look back on my career at times when I was getting frustrated and overworking and getting quite resentful about work, often one of those values was being violated. I think this is one of the most important things that you can spend time with, yes, for how you're feeling right now, but also for your long-term health and happiness. You may not be able to change everything straightaway, but if you've never spent a moment to think about what it is you truly want out of life, you're gonna find yourself falling into the same traps over and over again. And if you're struggling with this, why not do this exercise of writing down some of your core values with a friend or maybe your partner? Some examples of values or things that you value, right? This is not an exhaustive list, but just to get you thinking. Things like solitude, nature, the environment, creativity, curiosity, compassion, honesty, integrity. You know, maybe you're hearing all of those and go, "Yeah, I like all of them." That's fine. Just pick one, two, or three just to get you started. And maybe every Sunday you sit down with them and go, "How much of my life this week did I live in accordance with those values, and how much of my life was in conflict with them?" And I think you'll be surprised at how much you learn about yourself, because these are the really, really important lessons that will help you get out of the jam that you're currently in, but will also help you with your long-term health and happiness. I know that if you start to implement that action plan into your own life, you are going to start seeing results immediately. Remember, you do not have to do all of them at once. Pick one thing, start small, and build up with time.

13. 1:04:46 – 1:25:54

    Drew's Story: Start Small and the Science of Behavior Change

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:04:46

       This is maybe seven or eight years ago, okay? I was, I was in a, I was in a busy, uh, medical clinic and a 42-year-old gentleman came in to see me, and he was suffering with the kind of problem that many people these days are complaining of. There'll be people listening to this podcast right now who are suffering with these complaints. He was a little bit overweight, he was struggling a bit with his mood, and he felt exhausted all the time, okay? So three very common things. Now, we were chatting, and as I was, you know, unpacking his story, it was very clear to me that his lifestyle was contributing to a lot of his symptoms, right? So I discussed a number of options with him and we, you know, we went through all kinds of things, but the one that he really liked was strength training. He says, "Doc, yeah, what if strength training's gonna do that for me? Right, I'm in. You know, I've not done strength training since I was a teenager. It used to make me feel really good, but you're saying it's gonna help me with my energy, it might help me with my mood and with my weight. Well, I'd love to do that." I said, "Okay, great. Let's just start there, then." And he said to me, "Shall I do 40 minutes three times a week in the gym, as I've read?" And I said, "Hey, look, if you can do that, that would be amazing." So he said, "Yeah, I'm in." Right? So I give him a follow-up appointment for four weeks' time. He walks out, big smile on his face, um, you know, standing tall, uh, feeling motivated that he's got his plan of action. Four weeks later, he comes in to see me and I said, "Hey, how are you getting on?" And he looked a bit different. His shoulders were rolled over a little bit and he, and he, he spoke a bit softly. He said, "Hey, Doc, um, you know what? I've not really managed to go yet. You know, work's been really busy. It's been quite stressful. The gym's actually quite far from my work, so it's quite hard to get to, and it's quite expensive. I've not done it yet, okay?" And he looked and felt like a complete failure, that he couldn't do what I'd asked him to do or what he thought he was gonna do. And I remember, too, in that moment I did not think, "Why has he not done what I've asked him to do?" I thought, "Rangan, why, why have you given him advice? The advice you've given him clearly doesn't feel relevant to him in the context of his life." So I thought, "Okay, I'm, I've got to change it." I took my jacket off and I said, "Right, I'm gonna teach you a five-minute workout right now that you can just do without any equipment." He goes, "Okay." So I taught him these five exercises. I modified them for his ability level. I said, "What do you think? Can you do that?" He goes, "Yeah, no problem. Easy." I said, "Okay, can you do it, uh, five minutes twice a week in your kitchen?" And he said, "What, 10 minutes a week? Is that all you're asking me to do?" I said, "Yeah, can you do that?" He goes, "Yeah, easy. Course I can do that." I said, "Okay, I'll see you in four weeks." So he goes out, I think a little bit confused with what I'd asked him to do. It wasn't what he was used to. Four weeks later, he comes back in, Drew, and I remember when he came through the door, his, his chest is puffed out. He's standing up tall, big smile on his face. I said, "How are you getting on?" He goes, "Doc, man, you told me to do 10 minutes a, a week, right? I love it so much. It makes me feel so good. I do it now for 10 minutes every evening before I have my evening meal." Now Drew, he has done that for over five years. When he tried to do 40 minutes three times a week at the gym, he couldn't manage anything. But when I made it easy for him, he now does 70 minutes of strength training a week, 10 minutes, seven days a week, right? It becomes a part of his life. And what did that lead to? That led to what I talk about in the book. I call it the ripple effect. He started with that. That led to him changing his eating habits, sleeping better. Now, 'cause I saw him recently, he does 10 minutes of breathwork every morning when he wakes up, right? This was a million miles away from where he was seven, eight years ago. But by starting small, by making him feel good about himself, he does more. Not because I've told him to, not because I've asked him to, but because he wants to. And that's the secret to behavior change. And you can literally unpack the entire book in that story because the various elements of behavior change are all there. Um, and so, you know, I, I'd love to share to people, what, what were the, what, what were the secrets in what I asked him to do that actually worked? Because at the time, Drew, I did not know the science of behavior change. I was going on intuition and gut feeling as a clinician. It was only when I actually met BJ Fogg, uh, last year. You know, um, as I always do when I leave, I was staying with you and I, I flew off, uh, to I think Santa Rosa, and I, I did sort of boot camp with BJ, and we just hit it off like a house on fire. And h- we, what we loved was the idea... He said, "Rangan, what's really interesting, you're telling me things that you've figured out from 20 years' clinical experience that my 20 years' clinical research has shown me." It was this beautiful intersection of me as a clinician. What have I seen work with real patients, with real busy lives and families? It matched up, it married up beautifully with his research, which has shown if you wanna make long-term behavior change for most people, you've gotta start small.

    2. SPSpeaker1:10:18

       That's so true. And I remember, uh, you telling me that you were gonna go see BJ, and I was like, I went and did one of his early workshops almost, like, five, seven years ago, and he had us, like, training goats and other things. And really, you know, there was experts from all around the world that were at this workshop, uh, that I remember from different companies. And as you've mentioned, you know, he's been influential in inspiring, you know, some of the behavior changes that are being used in apps like Instagram and kinda like, you know, a l- a lot of other technologies that are out there. And I can remember one central idea that was there is that sometimes when you're an expert in a field, you forget that it took you years to develop the habits that you have right now. But think about a category or think about something in your life that you wanna do that you're not good at yet. Let somebody- Let's say somebody has mastered their diet and they're working out, but they have not mastered their finances, right? So think about something that you care about but you haven't gotten good at yet. Now, wouldn't you want somebody to tell you how to break it down in a simple way that could lead to those results? Of course you would. So why wouldn't you wanna take the material you have now to set it up in a practical way? Because the truth is, is that podcasts and all these books, they're great information, and you and I know many of the health authors that put out this stuff. And they're not doing it on purpose, but there's a lot of information that's out there that has not gone through the lens of behavior change, so the audience listens to it, and they get overwhelmed, and they never end up doing anything.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:55

       Yeah. Y- y- you just nailed it, Drew, for me. And that was the real motivation behind writing this book, is there's a lot of what you should be doing out there in health. There's many brilliant health books out there saying what you should be doing, but there's not many how-to books on health, and my book is a how-to. How do you put into practice all the great information that you may have heard on my show, on your show, on other amazing podcasts out there, but they stay as ideas, and they stay as inspiration? How do you actually go and take action? Because there is a system. Human behavior change is not as hard as we think it is, but we don't follow the system. We don't follow the, the, the kind of rules. And I sort of outline six rules in the book, but I, I wonder if you'd mind if I shared two rules, what I consider to be two of the most important rules.

    4. SPSpeaker1:12:52

       Please, let's do it.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:53

       Um, so rule one is you gotta start easy. You gotta make it easy. You gotta start small, okay? That's, that's rule number one. That is exactly what I did with that patient, right? Um, now let's, let's, let's take it out of health for a minute because I think people really get it. So- Many people, I'm sure, listen to this shop on Amazon, right? If they didn't before the pandemic, they certainly were during the pandemic. It was one of the only shops open, [laughs] I think, throughout the world. So a lot of people shop on Amazon. Now, when Amazon moved to one-click ordering maybe five years ago or so, estimates say that their profits went up by $300 million a year. Now, let's think about that. Why would that make profits go up that much that quickly? Well, Amazon understand the rules of behavior change. They understand that if you make something easy, people will do it. Five, six years ago, what did you have to do? You'd go on Amazon, you'd click what you wanted, then there's another screen, confirm it, another screen, put in your card details. Again, one more just to check everything. Okay, that's four or five steps you have to take to make a purchase. Every step you have to take is a reason to back out and not do the behavior. Now they make it one-click ordering. Boom, before you've even blinked, you have an email saying a parcel is arriving the following morning. It's that easy to do it so that you do it, right? Netflix, YouTube do the same thing. Why does Netflix roll one episode into the next episode, right? So it's... So you realize, uh, before you, you know, instead of looking at your watch thinking, "Oh, it's midnight. I've got work tomorrow, I need to go to bed and get up early," you're into the next episode and you're hooked, right? They make it easy for you to do the behavior they want you to do. Now, I'm not criticizing those guys, right? They're using behavior change to help you, to help, you know, to help them have you use their services more, right? And as a business, I get it. But I'm saying somehow when we talk about human behavior change, particularly health, we, we think it's gotta be hard. It's gotta be about deprivation. It's gotta be about punishment. It can't be easy, right? How could it be easy? So we make it hard. So we say on January the 1st, "Right, I'm going spinning four times a week this year in the gym." And you know what? You do it for a week. You do it for two weeks. But when motivation falls, as it always does, suddenly you'll no longer do it. And I know you've had BJ on the show, and w- I think it's always worth a recap. Um, why starting, why making something easy is so important is because we overly rely on motivation. We think motivation will last forever. We make our health plans. We, we sort of... What we do, Drew, is that we don't understand that motivation, and BJ calls it a motivation wave. So motivation comes up, motivation comes down. We make our health plans at the peak of the motivation wave. But I would say you should make them at the trough of the wave, because then on those days when you're busy, when you're stressed out, when you don't have time, when your motivation is right down, you will still do a behavior if it is easy to do. You know, when your motivation's up, Drew, you'll do anything. If you're super motivated to make a change, yeah, you'll go running 45 minutes a day. Fine. The problem is when motivation runs out, you'll stop doing it. So I think rule number one is you gotta start small, okay? And I've seen that over and over again. Rule number two is, where do you put that habit in the day? And a lot of people don't think about the placement of that habit. They think, "Oh, I'll do it. Oh, I heard a podcast. I, I heard a Broken Brain show about meditation." Right? So they get inspired. They go, "Right, I'm gonna meditate." But they don't have a system. They think, A, they make it too hard sometimes. They say, "I'm gonna meditate for half an hour a day," which, again, is unrealistic for most beginners. But, uh, but then they don't spend any time thinking about, "Where is this gonna go in my day?" And where you put that habit in your day is very important. So every single human behavior needs a trigger to actually take... to, to do the behavior. You know, we're having a conversation right now. To do that, we needed a trigger. Now, the trigger might have been our memory. "Oh, I must remember to call Drew at the time that we've agreed. I must remember to meditate." Okay? Now, that works. It just happens to be a very unreliable trigger. So if you are relying on that to do your health behavior, it's probably not gonna work for a lot of the time. The next form of trigger is a notification or a reminder, like a Post-It note on the fridge or a pop-up on your phone. You know, very much like, oh, on my Google Calendar, it came up saying, "Hey, in 20 minutes you've got a conversation with Drew." Okay, that also works as a reminder. But the very best form of trigger is when you stick on your new behavior onto an existing behavior that you are already doing without thinking about it. So you stick on the new behavior onto a habit that you already have. So for me, for example, Drew, I work out for five minutes every morning, and I don't think I missed a day in about three years, okay? Why? Because every morning I make myself a coffee. I, I don't need a reminder on my phone to say, "Make a coffee." Right? I don't need my PA to phone me and say, "Rangan, you must remember to make your coffee today." No, no, I'm gonna do that. That's a habit. That's imprinted in. So when I weigh out my coffee beans and I put them in the French press and I put a timer on for four or five minutes whilst it's brewing, I don't go on Instagram. I don't go on email. I do a five-minute body weight workout in my kitchen, in my pajamas. Right? Now, that's so important. That's why I haven't missed a workout for three years, because I don't have to rely on motivat- motivation. It's a part of my routine. I make coffee, I work out. I make coffee, I work out. I don't have to get changed. I don't have to decide what workout I'm doing. I don't need to drive to a gym. So all these potential decisions that- That become procrastination and become a reason to back out of the behavior, I don't have. I just get it done. And, you know, most people would consider to me, me to be in pretty reasonable shape, and I don't go to gyms. But I do a five-minute workout every day. And so I've really incorporated that. I've made it easy, and I've stuck it on to an existing behavior. Uh, and you'll remember that case study I told you at the start, I shared with you about this 42-year-old chap. I said, "Do it in your kitchen." And I think kitchens are one of the most powerful places to work out because people are in them at least once a day. Most people are in their kitchen at least once a day. So I was just imprinting, I was just putting it out there for him, do it when you're in your kitchen. Now, he's figured out himself, oh, while my peas are boiling or steaming or my broccoli is, I'll kind of do my workout in the meantime, and then I get to reward myself with dinner. And I'm not saying you have to follow that strategy. But what I'm saying is you need a strategy. You cannot leave it up to just, right, I've read this great book, I've heard this amazing podcast, I'm gonna do it. That may work for some people, but many people ... And this is one of the biggest problems, Drew, today I would say, is that we're surrounded by so much brilliant health information, whether it's on podcasts, on books, on Instagram. You know, we can often feel as though we're doing something, but we've done nothing. We listen to a podcast and we agree with the content, but we haven't done anything with that. We just got inspired. We see a great-

    6. SPSpeaker1:20:53

       Call that category like edutainment. You know? Educational entertainment. It's more-

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:20:57

       Yeah

    8. SPSpeaker1:20:58

       ... watching like a Netflix show, uh, about something and then feeling like you've done it. But it doesn't mean that you necessarily have.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:21:06

       And, and I'm guilty of that, right? I like, I'm ... What I'm saying is that's, that's a, I think that is natural for I consume health pod- You know, it's not a, a failing. I'm not sort of making people feel bad about that. I'm just saying that's the reality. And so what my book is about is about I'm helping you take action. And what I figured out, Drew, in, in this social media introspection time, I actually realized why this book has struck a chord with so many people and why it's helping literally everyone who picks it up. Because actually, that book is applicable to everyone, no matter what you want in life. If you wanna improve your life in any way, whether it's performance at work, whether it's more focus, more concentration, longevity, it's gonna help you. If you want it to help a symptom like anxiety, depression, type 2 diabetes, the book will also help you 'cause they're universal principles of health. But what I've realized why I think it's been so profound and why so many companies have me go and talk to them about implementing this as their sort of wellbeing program is because I'm helping people change their identity through action. And I really think it's that, it's really that important. It's often we have an identity. Like that patient. Let's go back to that 42-year-old chap, right? So what happened with him? He comes in after four weeks, feels like a failure. He's like, "I, I told the doc I was gonna do 40 minutes three times a week." He comes in, he's talking softly, his shoulders are rolled over. He, he's becoming, he, he's reinforcing the belief that he has in himself that, "I'm someone who can't stick to health plans. You know, I can't stick to programs. I just can't do this stuff." Suddenly by flipping it, by making it easy so he can do it, right, he comes in four weeks' time with different body language, with a smile on his face, speaking in a different way. So, so not only is he doing something that's gonna help his health. I've helped him change his identity. Now, Drew, his identity is of someone who can stick to health plans. I can do what the doctors ask me to do. I'm showing myself on a daily basis that I, no matter how bad my day is, I've still prioritized myself and given me five minutes of time to be proactive for my health. And actually, I don't think I quite got it when I was writing the book. It's only on that reflection and seeing the feedback in the UK. I, I am, I'm changing ... I, I'm helping people to change who they are through what they do. And-

    10. SPSpeaker1:23:49

        Because momentum creates momentum, right? Both positively, we can spiral upwards, and also in the opposite way, too.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:59

        100%, and that's the key. And look, some people will say, "Look, I get this, Doc. I understand what you're saying. But for me, I just decided I was gonna get healthy, and I changed overnight." I will say there are some people who can do that. There's no question. In my experience, it tends to be people who have had some kind of painful life experience. It could be, you know, a bereavement. It could be, you know, they lost ... You know, they've, they've had a, a relationship breakup. It could be, you know, like it could be that they've suddenly had a health complaint so suddenly they've got angina in their 40s and think, "Right. I've gotta stop smoking. I can't do this anymore. You know, I'm gonna die soon if I don't make it, make some sort of change." Sure. I get it. For some people, things can get so bad that they can use motivation to get them going. But I say for the vast majority of people, Drew, it's not enough. If you are planning to make a change on motivation alone, I unfortunately think that it's not gonna be as long-lasting as you would like. So yeah. I, I, I actually think take action. You know? If all someone does ... You know, although the program is five minutes from mind, five minutes from body, five minutes from heart, so really to fully do it is 15 minutes a day. Even if all you do Is take one of the actions and cement it in for five minutes a day so it becomes a habit. You know what? That will still get you on the road to recovery. That will still get you on the road. And as you say, momentum builds, but you gotta start somewhere.

    12. SPSpeaker1:25:35

        It's so true. Give us an idea of why and how you came up with mind, body, and heart, and some sample exercises. You already talked about the body and the kitchen and doing that, but, you know, heart is an interesting one. I think a lot of people are wondering, like, okay, why, why is that included into the mix?

14. 1:25:54 – 1:46:18

    Identity, Mind-Body-Heart Snacks, and Self-Compassion

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:25:54

       Yeah. So I remember, Drew, sitting down trying to write this a little... I can't remember when it was now, a year, year and a half ago. And I thought, I know five minutes works because I've seen it over, over and over again with patients. But I thought, well, I believe in holistic health, so it can't just be about five-minute workouts. And I was really trying to figure out, how do I make a really simple structure? Because I think simplicity is key. Like, I think if you really want people to do things, the simpler you can make it, the more impact things have. And I think it's hard to make things simple. That's why I'm very, very proud of this book because, um, it, it took a long time to try and condense and distill something down to what I hope is the essence of health simplicity. But I thought, what are those components, and how can I still keep it simple? And I thought, okay, well, everyone knows that we should move more, so of course, one component's gonna be physical health, you know, moving your body for at least five minutes a day. And I thought, well, mental health is super important, so let's do a five-minute mind heart snack as well. So when I say mind, that's about your mental health. That's the idea that 21st century living is tormenting our minds. You know, we're overloaded with information. We're overloaded with things to do. Uh, in the UK, one in four people in any given year are gonna be diagnosed with a new mental health diagnosis. You know, I think depression, I think is the, the common one where... Sorry. The statistic is actually one in four people in the UK are gonna be diagnosed with depression, okay, in any given year, which is a staggering amounts of people and really reflective of that there's something going on in society that is not, you know, harmonious to our mental health. That's just one example of that. But then I thought, there's still something missing. There's mental health. There's physical health. And, you know, we've spoken about this before, how important human connection is, and that's when I got it. I thought, it's heart. It's, it's heart. And I tell you why I call it heart, 'cause heart's a little bit confusing, 'cause when people hear about a doctor talking about heart health, they're thinking about cardiovascular health, right? So the way I describe it is this. When I went to medical school, I was taught about the heart, and what I was taught is that it is a physical organ, it's a muscle in your chest that pumps blood around your body. And that is true. That is what the heart does. But Drew, heart's got another meaning as well. It's the meaning that poets and artists and songwriters have been waxing lyrical about for years, and that is the essence of what it means to be a human being. It's about connection. It's when we connect with other people with our hearts, and we know full well how important heart health or human connection is for our health. We, we knew it. The, the research has been there for many years now anyway. You know, last time I was on your show, I was sharing some of the research, which I know you shared as well, about some statistics are suggesting that, you know, the feeling of being lonely can be as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. People who feel lonely are 50% more likely to die earlier, 30% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke. You know, this may be a psychological component of feeling lonely, but it causes real physical biological changes in our body. And I thought, you know, I have to tackle that because this is one of the most important components of health. And, like, I don't differentiate in the book between what's more important than others, but if you pushed me, I'd say heart health is the most important. Because what I have found, Drew, is if you pay attention to heart health, if you pay attention to daily human connection, often your mental health and your physical health take care of themselves. Often the, our lifestyle choices or the, or the decisions around lifestyle we make are as a consequence of feeling isolated and of feeling alone, therefore we binge on sugar because we feel alone. We sit there. We don't wanna get up and actually move our bodies because we feel alone. We feel stressed out. It impacts our mental health because we feel alone. And, you know, I put this, this is the final section of the book, and I actually say at the start, I think in the introduction, I say, "You may be skeptical about this part." And that's kinda why I put it at the end. I thought, let me give people what they're sort of used to getting and they, they're sort of okay with, and then let me build the case for them as to why heart health is so important. And that is the one that I think has connected most with people. Um, they, they... You know, actually, someone, uh, one of the early readers of the book, uh, said, "You know, Dr. Chatterjee, it's interesting. I actually thought I was pretty healthy. You know, I do Pilates regularly. I eat pretty well. But I realized I do nothing in heart health. I, I live by myself, and I'm actually really, really lonely." And what she has adopted from the book is she now makes an effort every evening or sometimes in the day if she has time, she will phone a friend or her mother every day, and it, sometimes it's just a few minutes, so could be just a quick five-minute call, but she connects each day with a human being that means something to her. And she, you know, she sent me a few messages, and she said- That the difference has been amazing. The way she feels about herself, the other sort of, you know, the bits of snacking of sugar or drinking a little bit too much alcohol at the weekend, it's all gone. Not because she was trying to reduce them, but because she no longer needed to substitute something in her life for what she was lacking. And, you know, there are actually more... So the structure of the book is in each of the sections, there's a selection of what we call f- what I call five-minute health snacks, right? I quite like that as a concept for people. These are just health snacks. There's, I think, 30 or 40 five-minute health snacks in the book, and I say choose one from mind, one from body, and one from heart, and do them each day. Um, really, really simple. Uh, so you said give some examples. So in body, there's, there's lots of different five-minute workouts in the book, okay? But they all have got this in common. None of them requires to join a gym, none of them requires to buy any equipment, none of them requires to get changed, right? Again, I'm using the science of behavior change to go, look, if I make it easy, if you don't need to buy something, if you don't even need to get changed, you've got less reasons to say no. How many people, Drew, and I include myself in this, have used, "Ah, I've got a- 10 minutes away to the gym. Not today. I'll do it another time." Or, "Ah, you know, I don't have the right equipment. I, I would do that, but I don't have the pieces of equipment that they need me to, so of course I can't do it, so let me put Netflix on instead." Right? I'm removing those excuses from people with compassion, right? I'm not criticizing people for not doing it. I'm saying, "I'm gonna remove them so literally you have no reason why you can't do it." And there are strength workouts, interval workouts, yoga flows, playful workouts, dancing, right? One of the, one of the five-minute health snacks in, in, in body is dancing, right? Easy. Doesn't cost any money. I say dance to your favorite tune. Put on... Find a time in your day. And I was doing this for a while with my daughter before dinner. Uh, we'd, we'd crank on the tunes and we'd dance for five to 10 minutes together. That's movement, right? We're so conditioned, Drew, to thinking that movement has to have a name, right? Oh, you know, I've done body pump or I've done Pilates or I've done yoga. Well, hold on a minute. Why can't dancing count? All we're talking about is moving your body. And so, you know, I think I've made it... I f- I think not only have I tried to make health practical in this book, I'd like to think I've made it fun, right? It's we- we've, we've very much had this mindset that it's got to be about deprivation. It's got to be hard. It's got to be about punishment. I'm like saying, "Well, hold on. Why don't we reframe it? What if we make health fun, like a fun activity?" I, I bet that most people will read those health snacks and go, "They all sound pretty cool, actually. I'd quite like to do them."

    2. SPSpeaker1:34:20

       Right. Because if it's not fun, we're not gonna keep it up. You know-

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:34:23

       [laughs]

    4. SPSpeaker1:34:23

       ... willpower is a finite resource. And-

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:34:27

       Yeah

    6. SPSpeaker1:34:27

       ... every so often we have to tap into it, but we don't wanna tap into it for everything that's there for us because it's not a sustainable way to do it. So if we can't have fun in the process, we're just not going to keep it up. That's why when I look at my friends who I feel not only eat healthy but live healthy and feel great, they're people that keep it up because they enjoy it. You know, nobody's forcing you, nobody's forcing me to be this way. We're gonna do these things because it actually is fun and it pays the dividends from having executed. Um, which leads into the next thing that I wanna talk to you about. You know, an, a big reason why people stop any kind of plan that they do is because they're hard on themselves. They're hard on themselves because they set very high expectations of how something's gonna happen. They're gonna be perfect at it. Naturally, we can't be perfect at things all the time. They fail, and they get so hard on themselves. Is there any exercises or snacks, as you say, in the heart section that really relate to self-forgiveness or self-compassion for the folks who are listening who are like, "I had all these goals this year. I had not only New Year's resolutions, but on top of that, I had all these things that I wanted to do, and then the pandemic hit and I couldn't do them, and now I'm just struggling to just make it through the day." So are there things that people can bring in to start to let go or forgive or step back into self-love to let go of all that unnecessary noise that they might have been holding on to?

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:11

       Yeah. I think it's such a great point you raise, Drew. Uh, yes. The, the answer is yes, there absolutely are. There's a lot of heart health snacks that will help them. Um, and, and I think, I think one of the fundamental issues there is that if someone can't do something that they've set out to do, let's say they fail in achieving the, the, the sort of behavior that they wanted to, they then think they are a failure. So, so the... You, you can fail at bringing in a health snack into your life, but that doesn't mean you're a failure. And I think it's about this whole idea of identity. We often define ourselves by whether we can do this health plan or not, whereas actually we've got to have a bit of distance there. It's like, okay, maybe that was the wrong health plan for me. Maybe I couldn't do it for whatever reason. But irrespective of that, it doesn't define who I am. I'm still, you know, a wonderful human being who has so much to offer the world, who's uh, a, an amazing parent, who's got amazing friends. You know, it's when we, when we conflate it all together that we're either feeling on top of the world because we've been to the gym four times a week, and therefore not only is my health good, but I am good. And if we don't do it- I failed at health, but I've also failed at being myself. And we need to start bringing in a bit of separation. So one of the exercises in the book is about writing down each day five things you love about yourself, okay? Very simple. Very, very simple. Many people find it hard to do. And actually, if you find it hard to do, it's a very good indication that it's probably an exercise you should spend a bit more time with. It can really very quickly build up self-esteem. When you realize your weight, your ability to stick to a health plan does not define you. You are separate from that. You could be an amazing person. You could be an amazing friend. You could be a caregiver. There could be so many other things about you that are wonderful, but if you don't remind yourself on, about them on a daily basis, you can soon suppress it down, and you could feel that you're worthless. And so there are many more exercises like that, but that's one that comes to mind. There's, there's a lot of gratitude exercises in there, uh, Drew, that also help with this because when you feel gratitude, when you feel grateful for things around you, it's, you know, it puts life in a bit of perspective. Um, you d- you know, it's, it's, it's hard to be hard on yourself when you're feeling grateful. And I'm, I know you've talked about gratitude on this podcast before. I'm sure we've spoken about it before, but it's always worth reiterating because, again, we're conditioned to think there's gotta be something cool and new out there that I haven't heard yet, that this is the missing secret I'm waiting for. No. You know what? I'm glad if we're repeating gratitude. I'm glad if we've said it before. I'm glad if you bring it up every other show of yours because you know what? I hope that at some point people listen, go, "You know what? I've heard all these different people talking about gratitude. Maybe it's time I start bringing in a daily gratitude practice." Do you know what I mean? It's like I really think we want something new and fresh, but we know the rules of good health. We, we know what we should be doing. We're just not doing it. So gratitude really helps. Uh, I've got, I think, two or three gratitude exercises. One that I think I've shared before, but I will share again because it is what I do, and I love it, and it's something that I've been doing for years. It's what I do with my wife and my children. We answer three questions. What have I done today to make somebody else happy? What has somebody else done today to make me happy? And what have I learnt today? Um, very simple, very, very effective. And again, let's talk about the rules of behavior change. Why do I manage to do that every day? Well, we have chosen that we do it at the dinner table, right? So why is that? It's, it sounds so simple, but I'm gonna spell it out, Drew, because I really want people to understand this. By having it over dinner, it means I don't need to motivate myself. I don't need to go somewhere to do it. I don't need to find five minutes in my schedule to do it. No, I'm gonna have dinner, right? I, I... That's not negotiable. Most days I have dinner, and particularly in the pandemic, I've been having them at home with my wife, with my children. That's been one of the most wonderful things for me, is the amount of time I've got to spend with my family during this period. And during the meal, we go around the table with a gratitude exercise. In fact, you've done it with us, I think, last, when you were last in my house.

    8. SPSpeaker1:40:55

       Yes, I, I remember doing it with you guys. Yeah, it was fantastic.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:59

       Yeah. But it's super simple, and if people don't like that one, fine, choose another one. You know, there, there are many ways to do gratitude, but the point is someone could get inspired, but they've then gotta figure out when they're gonna do it. So that may work for you. You may wanna do it around one of your mealtimes. But what if you wanna do it before you go to bed? Okay, fine. That's a great time for many people. It can really help put them in a r- in a really good frame of mind to sleep. So I would give you a recommendation. Get a journal, get a pen. Keep it on your bedside table. Now, it sounds like I'm talking to children, but these are just basic rules that work. If you have a pen and a journal on your bedside table, you are being visually prompted every night when you go to bed. You're seeing it there. You don't have to go, "Oh, gratitude, yeah, I wanna write it down, but it's downstairs. It's in the other room. I don't have a pen." No. Make it simple. Make it easy for you to do the behavior, and you will do it. Uh, it reminds me a bit of, um, there's this, there's this sort of 48-year-old lady, um, who had migraines. And she was, you know, her husband was busy. She worked a busy job. She had three children. And I got to know her, Drew, and I thought, "I think stress is playing a big role here. She seems very, very stressy. A lot of stress in her life." And she said, "Yeah, Dr. Chatterjee, I get it, but, you know, it's not that. It's something else. And anyway, I can't do anything about that." And okay, I, I, I was trying various ways to sort of connect with her. I suggested yoga. She goes, "Oh, Dr. Chatterjee, I knew you'd say that. Uh, I'm not, uh, yoga's not for me," right? She goes, "I'll try it if you want, but it's not for me." Anyway, she came back. She couldn't do it. She, it just wasn't for her. And I was trying. I knew that something was likely to help her if I could find the right thing. She said, "I'm too busy for this stuff anyway." And then we got talking, and I don't know if this is a craze in the States like it is in the UK, but there's a big craze now in adult coloring books.

    10. SPSpeaker1:42:58

        Yeah.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:42:59

        Is it? Yeah.

    12. SPSpeaker1:42:59

        It's a big craze here, too, yeah. [laughs]

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:43:01

        Yeah. Because, because when you're coloring something intricate, your mind switches off. You are in the moment. You often access flow states. And she said, "I, I, I love doing that, but I don't get any time." I said, "Okay, okay, tell me about your day." And she said, "Okay, well, my mornings are really busy. I don't have time in the morning. I get up. I've gotta get my three kids ready for school." I said, "Okay, do you do anything?" She goes, "Yeah, I go down and I make myself a cup of tea." I thought, "Okay, cool. Here we go." So I said, "What if when you go to make that cup of tea, you actually do a bit of coloring at the same time?" And she said, "Well, I sort of..." I said, "Look, uh, the kids, you know, the kids are old enough now, they can sort of do a little bit by themselves. What if you made that cup of tea, and whilst you were drinking it, you just shut yourself in the living room for five minutes and did some coloring?" She said, "Well, yeah, I guess so. I don't really feel I've got time, but I guess I probably could." Anyway, to cut a long story short, Drew, she started doing that. Within four or five days, the, the, the sort of frequency of her migraines had gone down by about 50% or so, and literally within about six to eight weeks, she was hardly getting them anymore. Now, that, I'm not saying that happens in every case, but what happened, Drew, is that she would access five minutes of flow state every morning. She would just... It's almost like when I said pull the- what I said at the start when I just pulled the plug on social media for three weeks. It just gave me access to things that I wasn't accessing. It's kinda like what happened for her, just allowing herself five minutes to herself to tap in, to do something that nourished her mind. That led to ripple effects for her in other aspects of her life, and actually led to a complete reduction in how many migraines she got. Um, and again, she had to, she came in a few times, she had to remember, "I gotta keep the coloring book and the coloring pens next to my kettle in the kitchen." Why is that important? Because if you come down and you put the kettle on, and your coloring book is there, but the crayons aren't there, and they're in a different room, it just leads to procrastination. It leads to, "Ah, you know, I don't have them today. I didn't have time anyway today. I'll do it tomorrow." And then you, it becomes a second day and a third day, and before you know it, it was something you used to do. And I, I really, I, I, I feel like I'm going on a bit here, but I really want people to get this. Choose a behavior, and instead of looking for a new miracle cure each week, spend your time and energy implementing that behavior in your life. Experiment. Where should that behavior go? Is it best one in the morning? Is it good for me in my lunch break? Is it, you know, after I put the kids to bed? You know, what is it? Where does that behavior go? And that's where people will find the gold. There's another really powerful exercise that I found transformative, many of my patients have as well, that's called Write Your Happy Ending. I think you're really gonna enjoy it. Check it out right now by watching this video. I understand you feel lost. You don't have the motivation to do the things that you know you want to do, the things that you said you were going to do.

Episode duration: 1:46:18