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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

The Uncomfortable Truth Of Life Nobody Talks About | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

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Dr. Rangan Chatterjeeguest
Nov 1, 202452mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 2:04

    Killing Ourselves with Comfort

    1. RC

      We are quite literally killing ourselves with comfort. Many of the conditions and diseases I see, both physical health and mental health, are caused by an excess of comfort. So today, if you want to thrive, if you wanna be resilient, you have to intentionally introduce discomfort into your life. So in this video, I wanna share with you the uncomfortable truth about life and show you how you can live longer, healthier, and happier. Now, you've gotta understand that we're wired for comfort as humans. Life used to be uncomfortable, so we try to make things easier. But the problem is, I would say in the last 50 years, something has changed in society. Before that, our desire for comfort was helping us. Now we've got to a point where comfort is killing us. Just think about what you can do today that you couldn't do in the past. You could be sitting at home on your sofa watching television, and at the same time, you could go to an app on your phone and order some fast food delivery. You could do your shopping. We can even socialize with friends, all from the comfort of our chair. And for all of that, you don't actually have to leave your house. That's a life of comfort that actually ends up being a life of discomfort, but the wrong kind of discomfort. The discomfort that comes when you're ill, when you're in pain, when your health is deteriorating, when you can't do the things that you want to do. That's a different form of discomfort. Let's just think about what we had to do in the past to get by. In order to simply survive and be, you had to do things that today we would consider uncomfortable. We literally had to go out, acquire food, bring the food back, cook it, and then consume it. You couldn't be sedentary and sit on that sofa for the entire day. Just couldn't do it. You had to move your body.

  2. 2:04 – 4:42

    Discomfort Rules and the Always-Take-the-Stairs Rule

    1. RC

      So today, you have to intentionally introduce discomfort into your life. The most helpful method I've found about introducing discomfort regularly is to create some rules around discomfort. Now, the incredible thing about rules is that they help to automate our behavior. So if you make a rule and say, "I'm always gonna do this in this situation," you don't have to think about it every time. So I'll give you an example from my own life. I introduced this rule, I would guess, about five years ago, and the rule is this: always take the stairs. It's a really powerful rule because it means that my default becomes I take the stairs. In my local supermarket, if I drive there, which I often do, right? I have a rule that I always take the stairs. I don't take the elevator. I don't take the lift. It's a rule that I apply in my life. When I'm at an airport, I will never take the escalator. I will always take the stairs, even if I've got bags with me. When I check into a hotel, I'll always look for the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Now, I say always. Let me be clear what I mean by that. I don't always take the stairs 100% of the time, but by making that a rule, I would guess that 90 to 95% of the time I do. My default becomes taking the stairs, and I can bet you if I didn't have a rule in place that I'd internalized, the percentages would be way different. If I had to ask myself every time there's stairs and a lift, which one am I gonna take? What do I feel like taking today? The stairs is not gonna win it, right? Most of the time the lift is gonna win it. "Oh, I'll just take the lift. Oh, I'll just take the lift today." But before you know it, you've taken the lift 10 or 20 times in a row, right? One thing I didn't mention at the start, but I think it's really important, is that, look, not everyone is physically able to go upstairs, right? If that's you, I get it. This may not be the most applicable rule for you. But if we just zoom out for a minute, instead of getting bogged down with the actual rule itself, just use the ideas, use the principles. Go, "Okay, what is the state of my life? How comfortable am I, and where can I introduce discomfort in a way that appeals to me and in a way that I think I can stick to?" And that's the uncomfortable thing to do, right? Throughout our whole evolution, we wanted to make things easier.

  3. 4:42 – 10:07

    Our Brains Want Us Lazy: Diseases of Comfort

    1. RC

      In fact, I had this wonderful conversation with a Swedish psychiatrist, Dr. Anders Hansen, on my podcast, and he shared with me that our brain wants us to be lazy, anxious, and fat, right? It wants us to be anxious so that we can look out for danger, because that was really, really important. It also wants us to be lazy and fat. When food was there, when food was around, we'd eat it. In fact, we as humans have mechanisms to put on fat. That was a very helpful mechanism in the past. There's lots of food around. There's lots of fruit in the summer. Let's gorge on it. Let's eat it. Let's store those excess calories as fat so that we've got reserves of energy for the winter. But unfortunately, these days, that winter never comes. It wants us to conserve energy wherever we can. I mean, let's think about this modern invention, exercise. Now, there's very good reasons why we've invented it, but just imagine going to one of your ancestors 50,000 years ago and make the case to them why you would just go for a run for 10 kilometers and then come home without anything in your hands. I mean, you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't expend energy in that kind of way. You would conserve energy. You would go out running when you had to go on a hunt, right? You had to go and get something. That's how we're wired. So what we really need to do is put things into our life that help us navigate and counterbalance that natural instinct. That's why it's so important that we have our own personal rules for discomfort, right? So I've shared one of mine, always take the stairs. It's such a powerful rule. I've shared that in companies, in schools, in all kinds of places, and it's very, very powerful because it changes your default. Now, physical inactivity is one of the leading causes of death across the entire planet. And if you think about that through the lens of comfort, life is more comfortable these days for most of us. I appreciate not everyone in the world, but for many of us, life has never been this materially comfortable. And therefore, if you don't have a practice, a regular system for bringing in discomfort, you're really gonna struggle. If I mention these diseases of discomfort, let's take one of them, Type 2 diabetes, right? Type 2 diabetes is a condition where our blood sugar starts to rise over a period of years, and we can no longer keep it down in its normal range. And because the blood sugar is high, it goes round the body, it gets deposited in different places, in our eyes, in our nerves, in our kidneys. It causes damage and also causes early death. Now, you could not really get Type 2 diabetes in a world of discomfort. If you had to move your body each day to get food and then bring the food back and cook it, it's very unlikely you would develop a condition like Type 2 diabetes, especially if the food that was available was natural, unprocessed whole foods, which is of course what it used to be. But in this world today, where we have highly processed food available 24 hours a day in many different places, right? Remember, we're wired to want to consume, and that's why I think so many people are struggling because what we have to do today is work against our brain's natural instincts. So always take the stairs. Yes, it helps you physically, right? It helps you get physically stronger. You're moving your body weight against gravity. You work your quads, your glutes, your heart muscle, right? You're getting stronger physically. But I think these discomfort rules also do something very powerful psychologically because you're choosing to take the uncomfortable option when a comfortable one is there for you, and I think that's something really, really powerful. It's showing your body and your brain who's boss. No, you're in charge. You're not going to be a victim to your brain's natural desires. You're gonna take charge and go, "No, I'm not gonna do that 'cause that will not lead to me being healthy and happy. That will cause me problems." Another statistic which I find really alarming is when we think about our children today. There's a major study done, I think they looked at over 25 million children in different countries, and they basically looked at how quickly they can run a mile. Now remarkably, today on average, it takes children 90 seconds longer to run a mile than it did in the 1980s. That is a staggering statistic. 90 seconds is a long time. So in just 40 or 50 years, our physical strength and fitness has dramatically gone down because life is much more comfortable, right? So you've gotta think about where can you bring this in? So I mentioned one, always take the stairs. I think it's a powerful rule. It's changed my life.

  4. 10:07 – 15:00

    Cold Showers and the Psychological Benefits of Discomfort

    1. RC

      It's changed the lives of many of my patients. I know it can change your life if you introduce it. But there's other rules we can think about, right? Think about discomfort. You can think about the cold. Many of us live in temperature-controlled houses, temperature-controlled cars on the way to work, and we don't have to face the cold anymore. And of course, there's a big trend these days about exposing yourself to cold water. Now, I don't think everyone has to do that. I don't think you have to do all of these rules. What I'm trying to do is give you options, right? One option could be at the end of your daily warm shower, you do 30 seconds of cold, okay? This may appeal to you, it may not appeal to you. There are some benefits reported in the literature for sure. Some studies have shown that people who take a 30-second cold shower each day at the end of their hot shower report less sick days over a three-month period than those who don't. That's quite interesting. Are there effects there on our immune system? But again, I think the powerful benefits really are psychological. They're you choosing intentionally to do something uncomfortable when you don't have to, and I think that's where the gold is. I really do. You show yourself who's boss. You show yourself that you're resilient. You show yourself that you don't have to be at the whim of your brain's internal desires. You can override them. I think this is one of the main reasons why things like Tough Mudders, ultramarathons, wild swimming, wild camping, why these things are becoming more and more popular because I think we as humans instinctively know that this comfort, these comfortable lives are not good for us, right? I'm not saying get rid of your comfort. We all like a warm house, a comfortable sofa. No, I'm saying enjoy that. Enjoy that. Indulge in it, but also make sure there's a bit of discomfort in your life. Yes, there are physical benefits. There are massive psychological benefits as well. It's really interesting. There were some studies done in Harvard a few years ago, and a group of people were shown- A load of faces, and they were asked to identify the threatening faces, and they could do it, no problem. But as the researchers gradually reduced the amount of threatening faces the people were shown, something incredible happened. They started to identify non-threatening faces as threatening. Now just think about that for a minute. The researchers called this prevalence-induced concept change. It's a really, really interesting idea that, in essence, we will start to create problems [laughs] when problems don't exist. And I think that is kind of what happens to a lot of us these days with these comfortable lives. I'm not saying that people don't have tough lives and struggles. I'm not saying that. But a lot of the struggles are in our head these days. They're what we see online, what we perceive about the way other people think about us, the comparison we have when we look at other people on social media. We create all this internal stress. And what I've found and what I've experienced myself is when I'm regularly doing hard things, the other things in my life that seem to be quite big, they go away. They don't take as much mental space up as they did. You'll hear this a lot from people, like people who didn't run and then they start running. They say, "I'm less anxious," right? "I'm not worrying about all the things in my life like I used to." Because they're actually doing things that really are difficult, and you're taking up a lot of that mental bandwidth by doing that difficult thing. And I think this is something a lot of people don't realize. I've certainly seen this in patients where if they're feeling low and sitting at home and not out there connecting with people and not out there moving their body and challenging themselves, their world starts to contract, right? They start to worry, overly worry. They start to ruminate. And yes, there are other factors that play a role, for sure. But once you can encourage these patients to get out there, start challenging themselves, joining a club when they might initially feel a bit nervous, they overcome that. They feel good about themselves, right? They feel more resilient and then they get all the benefits of doing that thing with other people. Their mental health starts to improve. So I think this desire for comfort, while I understand it and while I accept it's who we are as humans, I think we all need to take a long, hard look at ourselves and go, "How much discomfort is there in my life? How much intentional discomfort, and can I change it?"

  5. 15:00 – 17:41

    Parkrun and Rules That Remove Decisions

    1. RC

      So what are some of these other discomfort rules can we think about applying into our lives? Well, honestly, there are infinite things we can think about introducing, right? So it's about you figuring out what's gonna work for you. All I'm trying to do is share some examples that might inspire you to either take them on or tweak them to make them more suitable for you. But here in the UK, for example, there's something called Parkrun. Parkrun is a community event. Most towns and villages in the UK now, and many places around the world also have Parkrun, where it's a Saturday morning event where people come together and they do five kilometers. I said do. I didn't say run, right? You complete five kilometers either walking or running or a combination of both, and you can get timed. And Parkrun have a motto saying that no one ever comes last. They have a tail walker who's there at the back, so even the slowest person didn't come last. It's a wonderful, wonderful event. I started doing it with my kids a few years ago, and it has literally been life-changing. So how does that apply to discomfort rules? Well, it's very simple. If you live somewhere where there is a Parkrun every Saturday, you can make it a rule that you never miss it. Rain or shine, hot or cold, you're gonna turn up there. Because here's the reality. Once you get there, because of the community energy, you will complete those five kilometers. You just will. It's the way it works, the support, the volunteers. You just need to get yourself to the start line. Again, why is that a discomfort rule? Well, because the comfortable thing to do is to stay at home, right? The comfortable thing to do is to stay in bed or make another coffee or have a nice long, lazy brunch. And again, now and again, of course, there's nothing wrong with doing those things. But for me and my kids, we have a rule that we go to Parkrun. If we're here and we're not away, we go to Parkrun on a Saturday morning, and it's powerful because it removes decision-making. I've realized this being a dad myself, right? If I leave it up to my kids to decide on a Saturday morning, "Do I feel like going?" Well, you know what? [laughs] A lot of the time we don't feel like going. It's cold. It's raining. It's a bit gray. But what I wanna teach my kids is that you don't be a victim to your brain's desires, because if we are, we're gonna get sick. You have to tell your brain who's in charge, right? So for some people, this is a very, very effective rule that helps them complete a 5K every Saturday.

  6. 17:41 – 20:54

    Evening Screens and Learning to Practice Discomfort

    1. RC

      These discomfort rules are not only about the things that society conventionally think of as being hard, like taking the stairs, doing a Parkrun, having a cold shower. There's other things that count as discomfort rules as well. What do many of us do in the evening? We might be watching Netflix and relaxing, and again, nothing wrong with these things. But think about this. At 10:00 PM, you're on your sofa, you're yawning, you're tired. You know you have to be up tomorrow, but you keep watching. Why? A, the content's probably really good and stimulating you. But B It's comfortable. The easiest thing in the world is just to stay there. The harder thing is to put the phone off, get up off the sofa, and get yourself to your bedroom. It's easier to stay where you are, right? So you could have a discomfort rule around that. An example might be in the week you might wanna have a rule that I'm never going to start a new episode after 9:00 PM. Right? It's just a one-time rule, which means up until then you're enjoying your box set, your series, whatever it might be, but oh, it's 10 past 9. I'm really tempted. I'm not gonna watch this. That's the uncomfortable thing to do, and what are the benefits? The benefits are that you're gonna get to bed on time, you're gonna sleep more, which is gonna make you more resilient. You're gonna crave less sugar and caffeine the following day. You'll have more energy, more focus. Your short-term health will be better. Your long-term health will be better. But it all started with a very simple discomfort rule. Now look, you don't have to follow this advice. These are only suggestions. You may go 9 PM's too early. Fine, make it 10 PM. The point I'm really trying to get across is the modern world has convinced us that comfort is our natural state of being, but it's not. You know, last year I was on the train down to London from the northwest of England where I live, and the person I was with was trying to use the app in the train to order a bottle of water from the cafe in a different carriage. And you know what? The app wasn't working, and my friend got so annoyed. So annoyed it wasn't working. I thought about how mad this is as a situation. We're literally on a high-speed train hurtling to one of the great capital cities of the world, and because that person has to get up, walk for two minutes to a cafe to buy a bottle of water, they were getting annoyed. Right? We've become so reliant on comfort, we start to get agitated when that comfort's not there. The only way around that is to regularly practice discomfort. What you practice, you get good at. If you're practicing being comfortable all the time, you get really good at being comfortable and you get used to and accustomed to being comfortable. That's why I want you to think about where you can bring in discomfort into your life.

  7. 20:54 – 25:32

    Morning Action and No-Eating-After-7 PM Rules

    1. RC

      Another discomfort rule you could think about applying in your life is to wake up and do one five-minute action for your health. And why is that a discomfort rule? 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. They're really, really effective. If you wanna get hold of that free guide right now, all you have to do is click the link in the description box below. Well, it's a discomfort rule because you probably don't want to do it. You'd probably rather do something else. It's much easier to sit in bed, pick up your phone and scroll social media for 20 minutes and then read the news. Okay? But what is that gonna do for you? How's that gonna help you get primed for the day? What if you made a commitment to yourself that every morning when I wake up, I'm gonna do one five-minute action for my health? It could be whatever you want. A workout, journaling, meditation, breathwork, skipping, like anything you like. But again, it shows your brain who's in charge. It shows your brain that you don't have to be a victim to your brain's ancient desires. You can override them, and there's incredible power in doing that. It teaches you that you have autonomy, you are resilient, you can trust yourself. I have a morning routine that I do each morning. I've shared that on multiple occasions on this YouTube channel. But I think the power in doing something each morning is that it's uncomfortable. You get that uncomfortable win first thing in the morning and that's what makes it so powerful. Another discomfort rule I've often used myself and with patients is to do with food. Many people these days are trying to change their diet, okay? They're trying to eat more healthily, snack less on the unhealthy foods, but it can be a challenge. Again, like I've already mentioned, the brain is wired to eat food when it's around, especially sweet, delicious, high-calorie foods. So a rule you could put into your life to try and counteract that is this one. I'm never going to eat after 7 PM. It's a simple rule that can be effective for some people because what kind of food decisions do we tend to make after 7 PM or late into the evening? For many of us, they tend to be the decisions that we wish we hadn't made, right? Maybe we start off the day really well with a healthy breakfast and we're good in the day, but sometimes we've had a stressful day. We're feeling tired. Our ability to resist temptation is down at the end of the day, and people often go to sugar, to biscuits, to ice cream. Okay? Now I get that. I don't want you to beat yourself up if that's you. All I'm saying is that you could apply a one-time rule, I'm not going to eat after 7 PM or 8 PM or whatever it is that's gonna work for you to try and reduce that. It's a rule for discomfort that's gonna make you healthier. Of course, that doesn't mean on occasion you might be out with your friends and have a dessert late. When I say a rule, like I said about the stairs, I don't take the stairs 100% of the time. But it's about 90 to 95% of the time. All of the rules I've suggested, I don't want you to necessarily take them verbatim and actually use them unless you want to. Just use the ideas, use the principles. Go, "Okay, where can I introduce discomfort in a way that appeals to me and in a way that I think I can stick to?" So have a think about what I've said, right? Have a think about what I said about all these diseases of comfort. It's a different way to look at ill health, isn't it? But I think it's a very helpful way, and I've made some suggestions, right? You don't have to do them all. Pick one or pick two. Pick the ones that appeal to you or tweak them to make them more suitable to you and your life. Let me know in the comments which ones you're planning on doing and what you think of them. I genuinely would love to know. And whatever you plan on introducing into your life, always remember, pay attention. How is it making you feel? What improvements are you noticing? Because when you start to really get in tune with that, it gives you the motivation to keep going.

  8. 25:32 – 28:41

    Is Feel Better in 5 Realistic for a Busy Person?

    1. SP

      When you wrote, uh, Feel Better in 5, is that, is that realistic? Like, you're a busy man, right? You ha- you have your business. You have your family. We're all... We talked about juggling [laughs] and we're all juggling. You know, what are you doing, and is it really possible to, to isolate five minutes and, and ha- and for happiness and health?

    2. RC

      Yeah, i- it 100%. Look, it sounds a bit like a gimmick, doesn't it, five minutes? But if I think about my own life and how I've managed to look after my brain, my body, my heart whilst being, you know, married, two young children, busy job, as well as my job as a medical doctor. You know, I write a book a year. I, I host a podcast. I also for many years have cared for my elderly parents.

    3. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    4. RC

      Right? So I get what it feels like to be busy, but I've always found a way to look after myself through that busyness, and one of the things I always found with patients is they will always say to me, "Rangan, I d- I d- I don't have time. You know, I, I want to be healthy, but I don't have time."

    5. SP

      Hmm.

    6. RC

      I thought this was really interesting because let's take toothbrushing as an example. We kinda know that if we brush our teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening, which hopefully everyone listening to the show right now does-

    7. SP

      Yes, please do that

    8. RC

      ... we know that four minutes a day of toothbrushing, generally speaking, is gonna look after our dental hygiene for life. Sure, you're gonna have a checkup, and you may need some polishing and cleaning, whatever. But by and large, what we don't do is go, "Oh, I'm, I'm too busy on Monday. You know, I don't have time for my brushing. Work's busy. I've gotta take, pick the kids up," right? Tuesday, Wednesday, we don't do that and then go, "Oh, the weekend on Sunday, I'm gonna do a one-hour deep clean on my teeth."

    9. SP

      Hmm.

    10. RC

      We don't do that. We... You know, anyone listening now knows that that sounds ridiculous. Yet when it comes to behavior change for our health, for our brains, right, we make it too difficult. We make it really hard. People think that five minutes is not enough, so they stop doing anything that's gonna help them, and this is why they try and go for, like, a one-hour walk at the weekend or a one-hour yoga session. Nothing wrong with that, but in my view, not a substitute for daily practices that can help you, and these practices don't need to take long. Just like toothbrushing can take four minutes a day, I do a workout, a strength workout every single day. I haven't missed a day for maybe three or four years now.

    11. SP

      Wow.

    12. RC

      And I would say, I would argue it has nothing to do with motivation. It's because I've applied the principles of behavior change into my life, right? And, and a lot of the time we don't follow those principles, those rules when it comes to ourselves, right? So I'll explain the behavior first, right?

    13. SP

      Yeah.

    14. RC

      How do I do this? Well, I have a morning routine, which we can maybe get into if you want to, but one component of that morning routine is a five-minute strength workout, right? So how do I do that?

  9. 28:41 – 32:43

    Rule One: Make It Easy

    1. RC

      Well, there's two rules of behavior change. I mean, in the book there's my six rules, right? But the two rules I think I, I'd love to share with people are, number one, you've gotta make it easy.

    2. SP

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Right? So why do you have to make it easy? Uh, you know, you and me are both good friends with Professor BJ Fogg, you know, world-leading expert in behavior change from Stanford. Uh, we had a great chat a few years ago because what was really great about our conversation was that the things I had figured out through seeing patients, he figured out through research. So our, our conversations together was a beautiful kind of meeting of clinical experience from me and scientific research from BJ, and we basically came to the same conclusion, that these small habits done consistently are how most people make changes, right? So the reason I do my workout every day is because it's not a one-hour workout. It's not a 30-minute workout. It's five minutes.

    4. SP

      Hmm.

    5. RC

      Even on my busiest days, I can't say I don't have time, right? I do have five minutes. So what do I do? One of the things I do in my morning routine is I come into my kitchen, and I make coffee. Now, I'm very particular with how I make coffee. I, I, I like the ritual around it. I, I like a specific type of coffee, right? So I get out my French press. I weigh out my coffee. I pour in the water, and I put a timer on my phone for five minutes because that's how long I like it to brew for. Now, in those five minutes, Jim, I don't go on email. I don't go on Instagram.

    6. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      I don't scroll the news, right? In the five minutes whilst I'm waiting for the coffee, I do a strength workout in my pajamas. Right, now this is really important. Why do I do it in my pajamas? Well, I've made it about as easy as possible, right? I'm in my kitchen. I've just... I've come down. I'm in my pajamas. I've got a dumbbell and a kettlebell sitting in my kitchen.

    8. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      Now, sometimes it's body weight. Sometimes I just do some- A few exercises with a kettlebell, but before you know it, five minutes is up, then I put them down, and I'm rewarded with my beautiful hot cup of coffee.

    10. SP

      Hmm.

    11. RC

      Right? So why does that work? Well, number one, I've made it easy. Now, you've gotta make it easy because, you know, o- one of the problems, and I've seen this with patients over and over again, we overly rely on motivation, right? Now, motivation's important, and I know in your book Limitless you talk about motivation. It's one of your Ms, right? So I get that. But I think we overly rely on motivation, and the scientific research shows us that motivation never stays up forever, right? That, you know, BJ calls it the motivation wave, right? Motivation comes up, motivation goes down. So here's h- the reality that most people I don't think are applying in their life. If you make something difficult to do, you will do it when your motivation is high, okay? What's the example of this? New Year, right? People wake up on New Year's Day, and they decide, "This year's gonna be different. This year I'm gonna go spinning four times a week."

    12. SP

      Hmm.

    13. RC

      Right? And they do it for two weeks or three weeks. They, they actually get it done. But then three weeks in something happens. Work's busy. You know, in the UK it's raining, or it's cold, it's dark, and you just can't be bothered 'cause it's an hour spinning class. So before you know it, the start of February, it's something you used to do. So the problem is, is that you do the behavior when motivation's high, but when motivation's low, if the behavior is difficult, you don't end up doing it. But if you make the behavior easy to do, you'll do it when your motivation's high. You'll also do it when your motivation's low. So the reason I do a five-minute workout is because I can never say to myself, "Rangan, you don't have time. You don't have time for five minutes." So that's why, that's one of the reasons that habit has stuck now for almost four years. I've made it easy.

  10. 32:43 – 37:08

    Rule Two: Stack the Habit onto an Existing Habit

    1. RC

      So that's rule number one. Rule number two is where do you put that behavior that you want into your life? A lot of people don't give this m- much thought. They just say, "I wa- wanna work out. I wanna meditate." Okay, great. That's a great intention. There's all kinds of benefits for our brains when we do that. But they don't think specifically about where am I going to put this in my life? Now, any behavior we do needs a trigger, right? Any behavior needs a trigger. So a trigger could be our memory, right? I could remember, hey, you know, I, I had a message with Jim a few weeks ago. We said on this day we were gonna get together and record, right? Memory works. It just happens to be the most unreliable trigger that there is. So I don't rely on my memory for important things like meeting you in my podcast studio. Most people listening don't. They have their Google Calendar or, or it will be written down, scheduled, the important things in their life, right? So memory is a trigger, just very unreliable. So what's a better trigger than memory? A better trigger would be some sort of Post-It Note, like a Post-It Note on your fridge or a notification on your phone saying, "Hey, in an hour's time you gotta meet Jim," right? That also works. But the very best trigger for a behavior, as evidenced by the scientific research on behavior change, is when you stick that new behavior on to an existing habit, right? So your audience may have heard you talk about this before because it works.

    2. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RC

      Right? An existing habit is something you are automatically doing without much conscious thoughts.

    4. SP

      Like making coffee.

    5. RC

      Like making coffee, right? So in the morning I don't need a notification to remind me to make coffee. I don't need my assistant to phone me at 5:30 or 6:00 AM, say, "Hey, Rangan, don't forget to make your coffee." I don't need my wife to remind me. No, it's a habit. I'm gonna do that. So therefore, not only am I gonna do it, I'm gonna enjoy it, right? So therefore, by sticking my workout onto my coffee habit, it happens. That's why it happens Monday to Sunday, because I don't miss a day on drinking my coffee. It's part of my morning routine. I love the ritual around it. It's quiet time for me. So I've made it easy. Again, I don't have to wear any special sports gear.

    6. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    7. RC

      I don't need to put on my running shorts. I do it in my pajamas. What else have I done to make it easy? I've, I've set my environment up to help me. So I used to do just body weight, but then a few years ago I put a kettlebell and a dumbbell in the kitchen. And I remember my wife and I had a conversation. She said, "Are you gonna leave this stuff out in the kitchen? Can't we just put it in the cupboard or put it in the garage?"

    8. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      And we actually had a conversation. I said, "Hey, babe, listen, if I put that in the cupboard or put it in the garage, I'm not gonna use it. But if it's in the kitchen, I'm gonna use it all the time." And again, it's one of those things, out of sight is out of mind. Even if I pick up the weight just to move it out the way so I can get to my coffee-

    10. SP

      Mm-hmm

    11. RC

      ... by having it there, I'm also visually triggering myself each morning to not forget to do it. So it's very simple, but let's be really clear about this. How many people listening to your show, Jim, know that moving their bodies, doing some sort of strength training is gonna help their brain? It's gonna improve blood flow. It's gonna improve circulation. It's gonna enhance the release of BDNF-

    12. SP

      Hmm

    13. RC

      ... brain-derived neurotrophic factors. I know you've spoken about that many times in the past, right?

    14. SP

      Yes. I hope all of our listeners know all of that already.

    15. RC

      Right. So they know that.

    16. SP

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      But some of them, despite knowing that, won't be moving as much as they want. They'll think, "Oh, man, I, I didn't get my movement in today," right?

    18. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      "I, I want to. Oh, I, I hear... Yeah, I've just heard the latest research." We start losing muscle mass. As soon as we hit 30, our muscle mass starts to go down each year. We know that the amount of lean muscle mass we have is one of the main predictors of our longevity-

    20. SP

      Mm-hmm

    21. RC

      ... right, and our health as we get older. Yet despite knowing that, they still Think about strength training as something they're going to do in the future when the time is right, when they've got time. You know, when, when somehow miraculously things change, when the kids are always in bed on time, the email inbox is not gonna overflow.

    22. SP

      [laughs]

    23. RC

      You know, it ain't gonna happen, right?

    24. SP

      Right.

  11. 37:08 – 42:23

    Small Changes Work: Amazon, Netflix and Behavior Design

    1. RC

      So going back to your original question, is it realistic to change your life in five minutes? Well, I would say yes, because I've done this thousands of times with my patients. What I've seen what works and what doesn't work. You know, it's over two decades now that I've been in practice, so I've seen tens of thousands of patients, and I've seen very few people, in my experience, manage to turn their lives around completely overnight. Like very few completely do an overhaul where I'm gonna go an hour's jogging every day, 20 minutes of meditation every day. I, I've rarely seen it happen. The only time I've seen it happen, Jim, is when there's been a significant life experience. You know, something like a job loss or there's been a death.

    2. SP

      Yeah.

    3. RC

      Or someone's girlfriend or boyfriend has split up with them. You know, something really big and emotional that has caused them to change everything. Sure, you can change your life overnight when that happens, but apart from that, I just haven't seen it that much. I've seen that these small changes-

    4. SP

      Yeah

    5. RC

      ... actually are the ones that add up. So in my life as a busy doctor, as a busy father, as a busy son, right, as a busy husband, I haven't missed a five-minute strength workout a day. So that means, what does that mean? That means in a week I'm doing minimum 35 minutes of strength training, right? And multiply that over four years, that's a lot of strength training, right? But I don't need motivation. I've set up a system-

    6. SP

      Yeah

    7. RC

      ... whereby it happens. Now, the beautiful thing about five minutes is that, you know, sure, some days it'll be four minutes, right? But on some days I'll have time, I'll be feeling good, it'll be 10 minutes.

    8. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      Right? But the requirement to myself is that I at least do something whilst my coffee is brewing. And then, you know, BJ talks about rewarding yourself for these behaviors. Well, I get the beautiful reward-

    10. SP

      [laughs]

    11. RC

      ... of a hot cup of coffee the way I want it, and then I continue my morning routine. But just one more thing, Jim, on that, which I really want people to understand, is business, big business understand the rules of behavior change, right? They understand it and they apply it. So when Amazon went to one-click ordering, right, and I think that was about 10 years ago now, estimates say their profits went up by $300 million a year, right? Now, why is that? Well, think back to before one-click ordering. What did you have to do? You, you scanned, you, you chose what you wanted. Then you have to go to a next screen, and in the next screen you have to, you know, confirm a few more things. Then the next one, you type in your card details. And the next one, you finally place order, right? Three or four steps that you have to take before-

    12. SP

      Yeah

    13. RC

      ... you can place the order. Each step is an opportunity to pull out-

    14. SP

      Mm

    15. RC

      ... or to procrastinate and not make that order, make that purchase. They make it easy. Before you've blinked now, before you can click, you've got something arriving that evening.

    16. SP

      Yes.

    17. RC

      Right? So Amazon use it. I'm not having a go at them, right? They're a business. They're doing what they need to do to maximize profits, right? Netflix and YouTube, why does one video or one episode go into the next episode? They understand behavior change. They understand that if at the end of that episode, if before you've decided, "It's midnight, I need to go to bed now, you know, I've got work tomorrow morning, I need to get my sleep, it's good for my brain," if whilst you're trying to make that decision, they have sucked you into the next one-

    18. SP

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... they know you're gonna stay watching. So the point I'm trying to make is business knows how to use these rules to get you to buy more or consume more. But humans, when it comes to making positive lifestyle behavior choices for ourselves, we don't apply those rules. We think it's got to be a 30-minute meditation session.

    20. SP

      Mm.

    21. RC

      It's got to be one hour of yoga. We think five minutes can't make a difference, but it absolutely can. And, hopefully, that's just one of many examples.

    22. SP

      I love it. And that's a mindset shift as well. You know, that belief, it's a lie that change can't happen or consistency can't happen in just a handful of minutes. You know, I, I do believe that if they, they're using willpower and they're persistent, maybe they could achieve it, but if they're consistent, then they get to, to keep it.

    23. RC

      Yeah. And the, and the thing is, it's not that that's the only thing I do.

    24. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    25. RC

      Sometimes I will have a, a longer workout later on in the day or go for a run, but for me, those are optional extras.

    26. SP

      Yeah.

    27. RC

      These five-minute habits, just like brushing my teeth, it's not optional. It happens seven days a week. That strength workout happens seven days a week, and I know whoever's listening to this and they feel they're too busy to work out, right? I have adopted this approach with hundreds if not thousands of my patients, and I've seen over and over again for the busiest people, this works really, really well. So it's not like ... I'm not saying don't do anything else. Anything else is, you know, it's, it's an optional extra. But just like I brush my teeth every day, I do a strength workout every day.

  12. 42:23 – 49:10

    The Three Ms Morning Routine Framework

    1. RC

      Now, there's two other things I do as part of my morning routine. Now, why do I do it in the morning? I share the philosophy that you share, I think, which is the start of the day and the end of the day are really, really important.

    2. SP

      Mm.

    3. RC

      If we start the day allowing the world to dictate what we think, what we do, then I think it's no wonder that we end up in a reactive state. It's no wonder we end up doing things that we never wanted to do.

    4. SP

      Yeah.

    5. RC

      We, we don't reali- I think many of us don't realize how important those opening minutes of the day are. Again, for people who say they're busy- Right? I'll maybe share a story in a minute about one of my patients who was a single mother. I think she had two kids from recollection. She would always be rushing around, but I helped her create a five-minute morning routine that worked for her, that really helped lower her stress levels and then reduced how many skin outbreaks she was getting, because I strongly felt that stress was driving a lot of her skin problems. And so I have this sort of framework for a morning routine that maybe I'll share with your audience.

    6. SP

      Yeah, let's do it.

    7. RC

      And again, you know, maybe it sounds ironic as a doctor, I don't like giving set prescriptions to people because I understand we're all different.

    8. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      We all have different preferences. We all have had different experiences with different lifestyle behaviors. We all have different cultural backgrounds. So I like to create frameworks that people can then personalize for themselves. So the framework I use to create my morning routine, that I use with my patients to help them create theirs, is what I call the three Ms. Okay? The first M is mindfulness.

    10. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RC

      The second M is movement, and the third M is mindset. Right. So let's start with the first M, mindfulness. Some form of activity that you enjoy that's gonna help you be more mindful. Okay? So it could be meditation, it could be breathwork, it could be journaling if you want. Like something, some form of mindful practice. Now, for me at the moment, it's breathwork. Right? So I'll get up. Now, I'm early to bed and early to rise. That's a choice I've made, particularly since I've had children, because I realized, uh, very early on into my career as a father that I'm a better human being, I'm a better dad, I'm a better husband, I'm a better doctor when I've had time to myself each morning before the family are up and about. You know, I think there's some self-awareness there that I've learned that I function better when I get up early and have time to myself, so I always get up early. These days it's about 4:30 or 5:00. Again, I'm not saying people have to do this. I don't use an alarm clock. I naturally wake up then. And so I'll come downstairs and I'll do some breathwork. Now, I am at a point in my life where I do have a bit more time, so it is more than five minutes now for me, but it wasn't for many years. It was just five minutes, and I, I wanna make sure people understand that, because you can get benefit in probably less than five minutes even. So let's say it was five minutes of breathwork, okay? And there's many practices out there. The breathing practice I love is something that I call the 3-4-5 breath, where you breathe in for three, you hold for four, and you breathe out for five. Okay? The 3-4-5 breath. Any time that your out breath is longer than your in breath, you help to switch off the sympathetic part of the nervous system, the, the kind of stress state, and you help to promote the parasympathetic state, the relaxation states. Right? There's a million breath practices out there. You don't have to do this one. But for many years this is what I did, okay? People should find the ones that they enjoy, that work for them. So the first M is mindfulness, right? So you choose a practice. The second M is movement, right? So I just shared already my five-minute movement practice whilst my coffee's brewing, right? So I've done my breathwork in the living room. I come into the kitchen, make my coffee, do my workout whilst the coffee's brewing, and then that leads me nicely onto the third M, which is mindset. All mindset means for me, you could do affirmations if you want, but what I like doing, I like, you know, I'm a big fan of reading.

    12. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      I like to read a positive or an uplifting or a thought-provoking book first thing in the morning. So I've, I've got the reward of my nice cup of black coffee that I've made the way I like it.

    14. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    15. RC

      I've always got three or four books kicking around my kitchen and my living room because I don't want procrastination. I don't want to come down in the morning and go, "Oh, where are the books?" or, "Which one shall I read today?"

    16. SP

      Mm.

    17. RC

      You know, like I said with Amazon and the order, every decision you have to make, right, it's a reason to procrastinate. It's a reason to pull out. So I've made the choice, um, to read something, and this happens every day. This happens seven days a week, right? Again, I've automated it. I've automated it so I don't need to think, and that's why it happens every day. So again, I, I'd encourage people to, if they find it useful, and of course some people it's not gonna resonate with them, but for people who do, give it a try. Try that 3M practice in the morning. See if you can personalize it for yourself. And just to close the loop on that 42, I think she was 42-year-old single mother who said she didn't have time, I taught her the three Ms, and do you know what she did? She did one minute of 3-4-5 breathing.

    18. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RC

      So that was for her, for her mind.

    20. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    21. RC

      She did two minutes of yoga. She just chose some of her favorite moves. Two minutes of yoga, and then for the final M, mindset, she did two minutes of affirmations. That was it.

    22. SP

      Five minutes total.

    23. RC

      Five minutes total.

    24. SP

      Yeah.

    25. RC

      Right? And what that did is it showed her how she could feel. She d- she never knew. She didn't experience that feeling of calm and control, and she did that first thing in the morning. Five minutes, skin got better, stress started going down, and a few months later she then expanded that into, I think, 20 minutes, 25 minutes. So the reason five minutes is so powerful, A, it works in and of itself, but once you realize how good you can feel with five-minute practices, very quickly you want more, right? So you naturally start to do more. So yeah, I, I, you know, coming back to your first question, can you change your life in five minutes? Absolutely.

    26. SP

      Yeah. You're, that's positive proof of it. Well, let's, you wanna challenge people who are listening or watching this right now, what, what can they do? What, what do you wanna challenge them? And they'll maybe make a post. They could, uh, tag you, they could tag me in it, and share-

  13. 49:10 – 52:19

    The Challenge: Pick One Habit and Share the Principles

    1. RC

      What they do... Yeah, like, you know, like-

    2. SP

      Yeah, like the first-

    3. RC

      ... the first thing I want them to reflect on is, 'cause so people who listen to your show, Jim, are going to be very motivated in general-

    4. SP

      Mm-hmm

    5. RC

      ... I would say. They're, they're wanting to make changes, positive changes-

    6. SP

      Yeah

    7. RC

      ... in their life, right? So I want everyone listening to think back now and go, "What was the behavior I tried to bring into my life that I wasn't able to make stick?"

    8. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    9. RC

      And then think about those two rules that I've just outlined. Number one, you gotta make it easy. Number two, you gotta stick it onto an existing habit.

    10. SP

      Mm-hmm.

    11. RC

      I bet that the majority of people who weren't able to make that behavior stick-

    12. SP

      Mm-hmm

    13. RC

      ... were not following at least one of those rules. Of course, not in every case, but in most cases I've found they made the behavior too hard, or they hadn't been intentional about where to put it. So first of all, reflect on that. And then I guess the challenge would be, you know, what's one thing, right? Let's not make it difficult.

    14. SP

      Yeah.

    15. RC

      Right? There's all kinds of lifestyle behaviors you're gonna hear about on this podcast, on Instagram, w- on social media. The problem is is we've got too much information these days. It's like, "Oh, I sh- I need to do yoga and Pilates and martial arts and this." You can't do it all, right? Pick one thing and apply those two rules. Break it down to something really, really simple, and intentionally stick it onto an existing habit. Maybe borrow my Five Minute Kitchen Workout if you want.

    16. SP

      Yeah.

    17. RC

      Right? If you want to, it's, there's a, you wanna see what I do, there's a video on YouTube called Five Minute Kitchen Workout, right? But it doesn't matter what you do. Do your favorite moves. Whatever it is-

    18. SP

      Yeah

    19. RC

      ... it doesn't matter. And then, you know, maybe tag you and me on-

    20. SP

      Yeah

    21. RC

      ... social media. Let us know what you're doing.

    22. SP

      I love it.

    23. RC

      That's all you have to do. And s- just one more thing, Jim, I just wanna say. For people who are skeptical about five minutes, I spoke to a, an amazing psychotherapist on my show called Julia Samuel once, and she said to me, "Rangan, your book, Feel Better in 5, actually saved one of my patients' lives." I said, "What do you mean, Julia?" She said, "I had a patient who was really bad, suicidal, in a really, really dark place. Everything felt too much for that individual, and I gave them your book, and I said, 'Just pick one thing.'"

    24. SP

      Hmm.

    25. RC

      And she said it was unbelievable because actually by making it so simple, he actually started to do them, right? He started off with five minutes-

    26. SP

      Yeah

    27. RC

      ... and, you know, bit by bit he made other changes, and now, now is doing very well.

    28. SP

      Yeah.

    29. RC

      Right? But that was really profound for me, 'cause I knew five minutes worked, 'cause I've seen it over and over again-

    30. SP

      Yeah

Episode duration: 52:19

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