We Were Never Taught How to Be Happy (This Changes Everything)

1. SPSpeaker0:00

   If I'd gone through what my mum had gone through, coming from Africa to the UK at, you know, God knows what age she did, I think maybe 17, having left school, and then having to fight for survival in the way that my mum did. And I wa- you know, my, my mum is the single hardest working person I've ever met in my entire life. I would have behaved in the exact same way.

2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:21

   Yeah.

3. SPSpeaker0:22

   And that really, it does a remarkable thing for your perspective on them, how, you know, how you view their struggle, and how you view their current behavior, which I think is actually a really good pathway to engaging with them and then being able to have conversations. And I, that's, it is such a beautiful sentence, that one of, had I been through what they've been through, I would have behaved in the exact same way. And that is completely true of my mother. I did not, I did not have to struggle in the way she did because of her struggle.

4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:54

   It, it's true for all of us, actually. I think we can all apply that to every single interaction in our life, and in fact, my challenge would be try it. Suck it and see. See what life feels like. See what your experience of life, physically, viscerally, emotionally, see what it feels like when you start to show up like that day to day.

5. SPSpeaker1:18

   Mm.

6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19

   Right? If you're skeptical, okay, I hear your skepticism. My challenge to you if you're skeptical is try it for three days. Just try it, because I'm not here to try and convince people. I'm not here to tell people what to do. I know this has literally transformed the way I show up with the world. And try it with your enemies, right? Yeah, sure, try it with your parents, who hopefully you love. Try it with your enemies. Try it with that person at work who you don't like. Try it with that boss who really pisses you off and riles you up every time. Just try it. Maybe you can't do that straight away. Maybe you have to work up to that. This is a skill, right? Happiness is a skill. You can get better at it. But how would you know how to get better at it? When did you get taught the skill of happiness? I didn't get taught it, right? They don't teach it at school. Uh, they don't teach it at university. I didn't learn it from my parents. I didn't learn it from society. In fact, the lessons I learned from society were that you need to earn more money. You need to get a better job. You need to, uh, get a nicer car, a nicer holiday. Those things are signs of success, and therefore happiness. And it's a myth. I think that's the biggest myth we fall for. We think that's what happiness is. Success is success. Happiness is happiness. They can sometimes coincide, but they don't always. But they can do if you back up, if you take a pause, you start to do some of the things that we're talking about, you start to have a bit of time to reflect. You know, solitude, Stephen, is so important, right? Every bit of our free time now is sucked up. Like, I went to this gorgeous coffee shop next to your studio just before I came in, right? Now, I imagine 15 years ago, you go into any coffee shop in London, you'd be standing in the queue. You'd be waiting. You know, there might be five people in front of you. Fine, you'd be looking around. You'd be... You might bump into someone you know. Um, you might be daydreaming. Now what happens if you go into any coffee shop? Everyone's head down, stuck in their phone, right? You, you're looking. You're trying to catch up with your emails, just have a quick cheeky look on Instagram. I'm not criticizing anyone for doing that. But that comes at a cost. It means these little micro moments of downtime where your brain is trying to solve problems for you and process life, they're being lost. If you're constantly consuming-

7. SPSpeaker3:50

   Mm

8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:50

   ... right? If you're constantly consuming content from outside, whatever it is, even good content, right, even nourishing content, if you're constantly consuming, you're not allowing your own thoughts and emotions to come up. You know, every summer now, I take a social media break. I tried it two years ago for the first, I think three years ago for the first time. It took me a few days to really get into it. Then after two weeks, I didn't want to go back on. Now, I'm not anti-social media, right? I can see the value that it has. I use it to try and spread helpful messaging, as you do. But I felt really good, and what, what I really experienced, Stephen, is I allowed these deep innermost feelings to come out. I started to figure out what I think. What I think, not what the world thinks, 'cause that's half the problem. And going back to what you said, that person who's confused, right, and doesn't know where to start, here's another tip for them. See if you can have 10 minutes a day without your phone, without music on, right, without an app that you're looking at, without distraction. Just sit. Maybe with a journal if you want, but just sit. See what comes up. Because often we're so scared of what's gonna come up, we distract. If it feels like you've forgotten how to feel joy, like you're surviving and not really living, I've created a free guide to help you, because happiness isn't something you chase, it's something you train your brain to feel. I've created a free guide, The Happiness Prescription, 5 Daily Rituals That Rewire Your Brain for Joy. These are the exact rituals I've used with many of my patients to help them feel alive again, even in the middle of stress, fatigue, or loss. To get your free guide now, click the first link in the description box below or scan the QR code on screen. And I would say, you know, for me, a daily practice of solitude, for me, typically it's first thing in the morning, is so needed, right? The way I describe it to people, it's like an early warning systemRight? So when I was a junior doctor in Edinburgh, I remember being taught when you're looking after sick patients, if you do regular, what we call obs, so heart rate, respiratory rates, um, you know, temperature, depending on what parameters they fit into, we could detect several hours beforehand who was gonna end up needing high dependency beds or intensive care. It was like, it was a really simple concept that by doing these regular checks, we can then take aversive action and make sure that person doesn't end up going downhill. And I see my daily practice of solitudes as my early warning system. Like, it allows me to see what's coming up, right? I know for years, Steven, I say I know, I know now, but I didn't know then, when my stress load was going up, work, family pressure, I'd feel this real tightness in my right upper back, but I was so busy I didn't even notice it. Now I notice. I know. If in the morning when I'm doing my pr- solitude practice, I feel it, I'm like, "Oh, okay, there's stuff going on," right? What is it? Is it work? Is it emotional? And it allows me to intentionally say, "Okay, do I need to cut out some commitments I've got? Do I need to have a conversation with my wife about something that's been bothering me and I haven't said anything yet?" Everything I recommend, Steven, is simple. I don't think anything I've suggested so far costs any money at all.

9. SPSpeaker7:31

   Mm.

10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:31

    None of them actually take that much time. I'm really, really passionate about making sure this information is accessible to everyone. I've worked in affluent areas, I've worked in some very, very deprived areas, right? And actually we're all... Of course, there are different pressures, but actually we're all having the same universal human experience. The same ingredients are there in all of us that when we apply them, they make our lives better no matter where we are, right? Someone, when I was working in Oldham, right? Uh, an area of low socioeconomic status, a lot of my patients were on benefits, very poor income levels. You know, you would say a very str- you know, struggling area financially. I can't take away their poverty and their stress from life. But if I can help them have 10 minutes to themselves each morning and do some breathing practices or even write in a journal what they're feeling, that is gonna lower their stress load, and that means they're gonna be better able to show up in their life and deal with their stresses, right? So when people say, "Oh, health, happiness, it's the preserve of the middle classes and the wealthy," I disagree. I absolutely disagree, and I'm so passionate to get that message across. Health and happiness can be accessible to everyone. Yes, it can be challenging for some people, no question. There could be lots that you wanna change. There'll be lots that you ideally would wish it wasn't the way it is. But you can choose your response to every single one of those things. You absolutely can. And when you learn to do that, that's freedom. You know, what's the Viktor Frankl quote? "In between stimulus and response is a space. In that space lies your power to choose your response. And with your response lies your growth and your freedom."

11. SPSpeaker9:30

    One of the things you touched on there, which was really, is really foundational to everything you went on to say, was this idea of a morning routine. And, um, you know, when I do Q&As and stuff like that on social media, people will always ask me, "Steve, what's your morning routine?" My morning routine is pretty shitty, I'm gonna be completely honest. I would never lie to anybody about that. It's really, really shitty, and it's inconsistent, and it's quite... It's unthinking, so it's kind of being dragged into the day. Um, you describe these, the three M's of a really good morning routine. What are those three M's of a good morning routine? What can I do today? How long is it gonna take me? And what do you believe a good morning routine contains?

12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:08

    Yeah. One of the most important pillars for our health is, of course, nutrition. But I think because of our busy, stressed out lives, so many people are struggling despite their best intentions. So many patients over the years have told me that they know what they should be doing, but they're struggling to actually do it. And that's why I'm a fan of AG1. AG1 is a daily health drink that contains over 70 vitamins, minerals, and other ingredients that are designed to make nutrition really easy. It's been in my own life for over six years now. It's simple, it's tasty, it's convenient, and it forms a part of my morning routine. People will routinely tell me that taking AG1 regularly has improved their focus, their cognition, their energy. Some people even tell me that they drink less coffee when they're taking AG1. And there's research out there showing us that taking AG1 regularly can improve specific markers of your gut health, which is really good for your immune health. So if you're looking to upgrade your own nutrition in a simple, tasty, and convenient way, try AG1. To get a free bottle of vitamin D and five free travel packs, go to drinkag1.com/livemore. The big picture view here, I have a bias towards morning routines because I have found in my own life they've really, really helped me. So let me just talk about stress for a moment, because this really plays into why I think morning routines are so important. I've got this concept of micro-stress doses and stress thresholds. So every one of us have got our own unique personal stress threshold, right? That depends on your life, how you deal with things, and what's going on. And when we get to that thresholdThat's when things start to go wrong. That's when we, um, we snap at someone, we have a fight with our partner, our neck goes or our back goes into spasm, right? That's when you're at your threshold. Mm. Right? So I'm saying to people, and I've, I've really found this to be true for pretty much everyone. Let's say you wake up and you are far away from your threshold. You've had a good night's sleep, right? So you're feeling, you're feeling good. What's the average morning for a lot of people these days? Okay, let's say the alarm goes off at 6:30, right? So they're in a deep sleep. Alarm goes off, jolts them out of that sleep. They have to get up. Okay, that's micro stress dose, or MSD number one. Okay, pick up the phone. Like, "Oh, man, I'm just gonna put it on snooze. You know, I need a bit more." Snooze, put it back. Six minutes later, it goes on again. MSD number two. You pick up your phone, you go, "I'm just quickly gonna check email. Oh man, there were these three emails I didn't get back to yesterday. Oh man, I need to do that." MSD number three. Um, have a quick look on Instagram. Someone's left you a snarky comment. MSD number four. Then you realize, "Oh man, I've been in bed for 10 minutes. I have to get up, get ready. I've got a guest coming to shoot a podcast with." I'm not talking about your life, I'm just saying anyone's life. You are. You are talking about my life. [laughs] Right? And so here's the point. At me, Rangan. [laughs] Each one of those things, right, is a micro stress dose, and each one of those is getting you closer and closer to that stress threshold. The mistake we make is that when something happens at 3:00 in the afternoon, right? When that email from your colleague frustrates you, you think it was that email, but it wasn't the email. It was the fact that you've already acquired 20 micro stress doses. You're right at your threshold. You've got no capacity to deal with it, so that email now bothers you. So what I suggest to people is many people leave the house in the morning having already accumulated about 15 micro stress doses, so they're already a lot closer to their threshold than they would've otherwise been, which means they've got less resilience. They, it won't take much for them to get triggered, right? So why I think morning routines can be so valuable is they can reduce how many micro stress doses you're exposed to first thing in the morning, so you are going into your day with much more headroom and much more resilience. But I think they're also useful if you're feeling quite stressed when you wake up, and anxious. I think they help almost undo the damage of micro stresses and bring you back to baseline. Was that clear? Perfectly clear. So that's my kind of overarching view on why they're so important. So for me, I know if I do that morning routine, yes, it gives me perspective on my life. It allows me to reflect, but it also, um, feeds the control leg of the core happiness stool. But it also means that I'm not exposing myself to micro stress doses. In fact, I'm getting back to baseline or I'm going into negative. I'm actually giving myself a lot more resilience and capability to face the day. So I always try and simplify things for people. So I think a complete morning routine for me has got these three Ms; mindfulness, movement, mindset. And that's how I orientate my own morning routine. So I start off with mindfulness. Now, I've been doing this for a few years, right? So, and currently my morning routine is about 30 minutes, but that's because I've created a life where I can do that, and it works for me, and I get up silly early. That's also because my kids have always been early risers, and I know if I don't get that time to myself, I'm just not as good a dad and I'm not as good a husband. So my bedtime has got earlier and earlier so I can get up earlier and earlier before my kids do, right? So I start off with mindfulness, which at the moment is a practice of breathwork and then meditation. Then what I do, I go to my kitchen and I put coffee on. Now, I'm very particular with how I do my coffee. I weigh out 15 grams in a French press. I pour 250 grams of water in, and I put a timer on for five minutes. Why is that important? It's not. It's the way I like my coffee. But the point is, I know for five minutes my coffee's gonna brew. So in those five minutes, I don't go on Instagram. I don't check my email. I do a workout in my kitchen in my pajamas. [laughs] Right? I'm in my pajamas. I'm not to put on any fancy gear. I might do a body weight workout. I might have a kettlebell kicking around. Whatever I feel like, I will do, and then I get the gorgeous reward of a hot, fresh cup of organic coffee that I like, and I sit there and I'll read something, um, positive. Like, I've got a few books kicking around in my living room. I'll just pick one that I'm drawn to, and I'll probably read for about 10 minutes while sipping coffee. Something that's not negative, that's uplifting, right? So that's what it looks like for me. Now, sometimes my daughter, who's currently nine, she's got a sixth sense that Daddy's up, and she creeps in with me. If she gets in with me, right, two things I wanna say about that. [laughs] The old Rangan from a few years ago would've got frustrated. "Man, I, I kind of need... You know, I want my own space, you know? Why? Ah, you know, I should've got up earlier." I don't do that anymore. I'm a lot more compassionate to myself. I use that. I go, "Okay, great. Okay, great. She's here. Okay. Okay, darling, just sit here. Daddy's just finishing off my meditation." And she sits down and I think, "Okay, this is cool." Like, I don't need to look at it as a problem. This is life, right? If we think life is gonna be great when everything goes our way, we're gonna be waiting a long time. So I embrace it and I'll go, "Oh, fantastic." And then I also think as a dad, well, she's also now seeing Daddy prioritizes his health. He thinks it's important to look after his mental wellbeing every day. I'm hoping that she also absorbs some of these ideas as she grows up. But the mindset piece, I don't sit there and read if my daughter's there. We instead do affirmations together. So there's really good research on affirmations in terms of what they do for us.Just short, positive, powerful statements. So the one we do together is we just say, "I'm happy, I'm calm, I'm stress-free." Right? So the two of us sit there, we hold hands, and we say that for a minute. At the end of it, I feel brilliant, she feels amazing. Now, I get it. Some people hear that and go, "That is cheesy as anything." And maybe it is, but you know what? There's good research on it. Undergraduate students who did affirmations before their exam perform better.

13. SPSpeaker18:32

    Mm.

14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:33

    Right? You know, how you program your mind matters. So that's what mine looks like, right? It used to be about 5, 10 minutes. Now, yeah, I can do half an hour.

15. SPSpeaker18:44

    Right.

16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:44

    But I've also become aligned. I've now... I go to bed earlier, right? And let's not forget, Steven, you're at a different stage in life to me, right? I'm in my early 40s. I'm happily married. I've got two young kids, right? You're in your late 20s, right? Was I doing morning routines when I was 29?

17. SPSpeaker19:02

    No.

18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:02

    No, I wasn't.

19. SPSpeaker19:04

    Slight clue that I text you at 2:00 AM last night, isn't it? [laughs]

20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:06

    Yeah. Well, I wake up, it's like, oh, man. Like, I'm getting up to do my routine and Steven's just gone to bed.

21. SPSpeaker19:10

    [laughs]

22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee19:12

    But, but let me tell you about a patient who I saw many years ago. Can't remember how old she was. She was probably around 42. Really bad skin, and I strongly felt that stress was a- exacerbating and really aggravating her skin. And she said, "Dr. Chatterjee, I don't have time for any of this stuff," right? "I'm busy. I've got two kids. I've got to get out to work." And we tried m- various things, but w- I managed to persuade her and inspire her to try a five-minute routine, and this is what she did. She did the three Ms in five minutes, which is one minute of what I call three, four, five breathing, right? So you breathe in for three, you hold for four, and you breathe out for five. Any time your out breath is longer than your in breath, you help to lower your body's stress response and activate its relaxation response. Okay, there's many ways you can do that, but I like this breath that I call the three, four, five breath. So she did one minute of three, four, five breathing. She did two minutes of yoga, right? She had some of her favorite sequences. She did two minutes of yoga, and then she did two minutes of affirmations. That's it, and then she got on with her day. She came to see me a few weeks later, and she said, "Oh, Dr. Chatterjee, I just feel so much better." And her skin complaints had gone down by over 50%, and over the course of the next few months, she was hardly getting any flare-ups at all because it was a ripple effect. It wasn't just that, but by doing that and giving her that sort of little bubble of resilience first thing in the morning, she would then go out for a walk at lunchtime. Instead of just sitting in the canteen on her phone, she'd go, "I'm going to go for a 10-minute walk around the block." You know, it... So for me, it's just you showing yourself right at the start of the day, you know what? I'm worth it. I'm worth spending a bit of time on today. And for me, I'm a... I've got a bias here because if I don't do stuff like that in the morning, I don't do it. Once the day starts, forget it. And something that might have value for your audience, Steven, and I, you know, I guess I'm coming in thinking, Steven Bartlett, successful businessman, loads of entrepreneurs listening-

23. SPSpeaker21:20

    [laughs]

24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:21

    ... um, thinking about, you know, business and stuff. And I'm, I, I, you know, I, I kind of want to help people. And let, let's, let's zoom into the middle M, movement. Why is it that I'm able to do a five-minute workout every day? Like, I've rarely missed a day for three years. That's not because I've got more motivation than anyone else. It's because I understand the science of behavior change, right? It's... I think it's gonna... I hope it's gonna have value for people. There's two big rules that I've learned about human behavior. Number one is, if you make something easy, you will do it. So, what's that got to do with my morning routine? Well, I made it so easy for me to do, right? I don't need to buy any equipment. Everything's there. I don't need to get changed. I don't need to look up a workout. I don't need to do... It's, it literally happens because I don't have to think. I've made it really easy. And to zoom this out to business for a moment, it's reported that when Amazon went to one-click ordering, it's reported their profits went up by $300 million a year, right? So let's rewind 10 years when they didn't have it. What did you have to do? Put in your order, go to the next screen, you know, type in your card details, go to the next screen, confirm order, right? Every single step is a reason to procrastinate, pull out, and not make the purchase. So what do they do? One-click ordering, boom, before you blinked, something's coming that evening, right? So they're doing what I think they should do for their business. Why did Netflix roll one video or one show into the next one? It's not out of the goodness of their own hearts to go, "Oh, you know, let's help people." No. They're using the science of human behavior. Before you realize it's 12:30 at night, I need to go to bed. I've got to get up for work. You are straight into another episode, so you don't stop. That's why YouTube roll into the next video, right? So these guys understand human behavior. When we, as humans, try and apply it to our own health, we throw it out the window. We think, "Oh, it's got to be hard. It's got to be really tough. I've got to go running one hour four times a week." And we, we, again, first two weeks in January, we manage to do it, then we fall off the wagon because we think motivation is gonna last forever, and it doesn't. In the science, it's called the motivation wave. Motivation comes up, motivation goes down. Plan your behaviors for when your motivation is down, not when it's up, then you will still do it. So number one is you make it easy. I've made it easy. Number two, which is just as important, is where are you gonna put this behavior? You can't just think about it. Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna move. No, you need to be very intentional. Now, every single behavior we do needs a trigger, right? So a trigger could be, oh, I remembered to do it.Sure, that works. It's just the most unreliable trigger that exists. The next best trigger is like, um, a notification. Like a, you know, oh, you've got to be here to record a podcast with Steven. Okay, great. I know I've got to do that. Or you put a Post-It note on your fridge. That's great, but the very best trigger, as evidenced by the research, and a lot of this comes from Professor BJ Fogg at Stanford. Instagram was literally invented in his class as an assignment, essentially. He has shown that if you stick on your new behavior onto an existing habit, it's much more likely to happen. Like the coffee. Like the coffee. I don't need my PA to phone me at 5:00 in the morning, say, "Hey, Rangan, listen, uh, you must remember to make your coffee." I don't need my Google Calendar notification to pop up, say, "Hey, Rangan, don't for- don't forget to make your coffee." I'm gonna do that. It's locked in as a habit. I don't have to give it any conscious thought. It's gonna happen. So therefore, if I stick my workout on there, I vastly increase the likelihood that it's gonna happen. Add on to the fact that I keep kettlebells and dumbbells in my kitchen. My wife used to say, "Can we not just put these away in the cupboard?" [laughs] And I said, "Listen, babe, here's the thing," and I've seen this with patients, "If you put this stuff out of the way so that the kitchen looks nice, right? I'm never gonna lift up that weight." Out of sight, out of mind. We need to constantly trigger. So, uh, the kitchen's not a mess. It's just in the corner. There's a kettlebell. So as I'm making the coffee, I can see it. It's looking at me. Even if all I do is pick it up to move it, I've picked it up. And what it does, Steven, is that on a very, on a very base, primal level, it shows me each morning that I have value, that I'm worth treating with respect. You know, chapter three of the book is all about treat yourself with respect. Many of us, um, as I've done for much of my life, don't. We struggle with compassion for ourselves. We struggle to be kind to ourselves, right? But the research is really clear. People who are more compassionate to themselves, they're healthier, they're happier. They're more successful at work. We think, we think we've got to beat ourselves up inside to do stuff, right? It's a myth. It's a short-term win. It's a long-term fail, and there, there are simple things that we can do. [upbeat music] If you enjoyed that short clip, I think you are really going to enjoy the full conversation, which you can check out here. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 26:51