Begin Again with Davina McCall - The Top Things Doctors Are Missing. Why We Are Sicker Than Ever. Dr Rangan Chatterjee.

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

In this episode of Begin Again, Davina is joined by Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, a globally renowned physician, best-selling author, and leading voice in holistic health. Dr. Chatterjee shares practical insights on improving physical and mental well-being, preventing burnout, and creating a fulfilling, healthy life. Follow me here: www.instagram.com/beginagain https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  (00:00) Intro (01:05) Rangan's Early Career (04:00) The Role of Preventative Medicine (07:23) Connecting With People Who Need Help (10:29) Overcoming Back Pain: Rangan's Journey (13:28) The Power of Doing Things for Yourself (19:00) Understanding Burnout (19:39) Managing Stress Responses (25:22) The Link Between Stress and Sex Drive (28:13) Importance of Alone Time (30:31) Identifying and Managing Micro Stressors (39:53) Fiverr Ad (40:43) Why Everyone's Health Journey Is Unique (49:29) Achieving Inner Peace (58:11) Life-Changing Advice From Rangan (01:00:55) Exploring Spirituality (01:03:03) The Shift Toward an Individualistic Society (01:06:26) Reflections on Death and Dying (01:09:48) Healing Through Community Support (01:12:31) Finding Freedom in Sacrifice (01:16:05) Insights From Rangan's Book (01:18:53) Davina's Final Thoughts Sponsored by: Fiverr - https://fvrr.co/davina SetArtwork provided by Kimi Zoet. Enquiries: [e-mail] https://g2ul0.app.link/oQMAPbdSGNb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amazon presents Laura versus Fruitflies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen. These little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. 80 to 90% of what goes into doctors these days is in some way related to our...

Yes. I felt that we're constantly not getting to the root cause. We're suppressing symptoms. Burnout is coming up. Physical health problems are going up. And I thought it's a doctor. What are we missing here? I have come to realize my constant state of high alert was making me ill.

Our stress responses are being activated by the state of our daily lives. When a society is 88% burning. out, is that a sign of success? No. We're living in an era where there's never been more information. Knowledge is not enough to facilitate change. You need... There does seem to be a much better way of treating people.

When you help people understand what the root cause drivers are for their health problems, you can help them heal. If anyone's listened to this and is trying to examine their own health, you can get to a point of making effortless change. You can begin again right now. I thought if I should say this or not, Davina. You started your professional life as a GP, but became disillusioned with that. Can you tell me why that happened?

Yeah, I qualified for medina medical school in 2001. And initially, I was in hospital medicine. I did my specialist exams. I was going to be a kidney specialist. And I was really getting a little bit frustrated in medicine. And I thought, I don't want to be. spend the rest of my career just looking at the kidneys. I felt that everything is connected and I want to see much more than just kidneys. And so I made the move in around 2008 to move

to general practice. But what happened, Davina, is, and I'd realize this before then, but in NHS general practice, back then, you were often seeing 40 to 50 patients a day, which is an incredible number of people. And I felt that we're constantly not getting to the root cause with suppressing symptoms with pharmaceutical drugs, which may have merits sometimes. But I felt we were overdoing it. People were coming in and we were giving them pills.

And one day, I still remember this. It was the end of the day. I think it was in autumn and a practice where I used to work at. And I looked at the list of patients who I'd seen it, It was almost 50 patients. And I said, Ronan, how many people have you really helped today? Hand-on heart, I thought it was 20% of people.

The other 80%, to be clear, I was compassionate. I took their issues seriously. I may have referred them somewhere, send it for a scan, or put them on a medication. But I honestly thought, I haven't really helped here. They're going to be back

because this is not getting to the root cause of their problem. And I've always found that incredibly frustrating. And so my whole approach these days is, and it has been for many years, frankly, is to help people get to the root cause of their problems. And the uncomfortable reality for us is that 80 to 90% of what goes into doctors these days is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyle. Now, I'm not putting blame on people. Just to be really clear, I get that.

life is tough. But we have to accept that if you go to hunter-gatherer communities around the world, for example, who are living in more traditional ways, they don't have a lot of the things that we have. Autoimmune disease, type to diabetes, depression, anxiety, they don't have them in anywhere near the same numbers. And so I believe, and I've seen it time and time again, that when you help people understand what the root cause drivers are for their health. problems, you can help them heal. I am talking and I'm sure you talk to a lot of people in the medical field or who like you started training as a conventional GP or doctor or even specialist but who become disillusioned

and exactly the same of you. See, there must be a way of preventative medicine becoming more of a thing. Does it drive you nuts that there does. seem to be a much better way of treating people. And what an enormous difference it would make if we could do this on a much larger scale. I mean, I know you've reached 250 million people. That is amazing. But I do feel like the general public are still out there not making the changes that they could make that would really change their lives. Yeah, it used to drive me nuts. Okay. When I first started, particularly when I started talking about this in public, you know, when I look at it, when I look at old videos or someone sent me my TED talk with the other day, which haven't seen in years.

And I watched it. I'm like, wow, and you were young and passionate back then. And I'm a lot calmer these days. So yes, it drove me nuts back then because I thought there is a better way. And I want people to see this. I want to help people. And I still do. But it doesn't drive me nuts anymore. I feel I'm a lot more emotionally grounded these days. And I just feel that there is a lack of understanding. Like, we believe that when we have a set of symptoms, that we have a thing, that we have, let's say, a disease, right? Without understanding that that disease or that set of symptoms is an expression of a variety

of different things. So, yes, your genetics, right? So we're all born with certain genes. But then along with genetics, you have your nutrition, your movement, your sleep, your stress, what I call the four pillars of health. food, movement, sleep and relaxation. You've got your environment, your relationships, how you think about yourself, all those things interact with each other.

And the expression of that is your symptoms. And so whilst diagnoses can be helpful for some people, I'm never a big fan because if you label someone, they feel that, okay, I've got that hat now. Okay, I've got depression. So everything they see then is through the lens of the fact. that I have depression. Whereas if a patient came in with symptoms consistent with depression, I may not use that word. I might say, for example, look, in your life, so there are all these things going on. I think they're contributing to the way that you're feeling. Would you like help?

Would you like me to help you understand what those things are and how we could start changing them? And then often, if they're able to, and if I can connect well enough with them, they change those things. And they don't have as many symptoms. So, but the whole medical model, the modern medical model relies on us labeling people. And I've always had a slight problem with that. I understand why it's helpful for some people, why it can be necessary. But I think it also means it's harder for some people to heal because they think, well, I've got the depression hat now, and I'm stuck with it. for the rest of my life.

In narcotics anonymous, they always say about, you know, trying to kind of help other addicts, that it's about attraction rather than promotion. Because sometimes if you're really passionate, it frightens people off. And actually this much calmer thing is like, I want to be like that. I want to be like you.

People often say to me, like, you know, they say to me at talks or, you know, they might send me a DM, go, gosh, I get all this. I've used your four pillar framework. I'm now feeling like a different person. But I can't get through to my wife. I can't get through to my husband.

I can't help my brother. And they say, you know, have you got any tips? I'm saying, well, listen, honestly, what I've learned throughout my life is that people are ready for change when they're ready to change and not a moment sooner. And it's very hard to change someone else. And I very much believe in that I think it's first attributable to Gandhi, this idea that be the change you want to see in the world, right? I love that. That's how

I live my life. Like, I want to be healthy. I want to be mentally resilient. I want to be emotionally calm. And I genuinely feel I am these days, certainly compared to how I used to be. And then the people around you are going to be like, hey, I want a bit at the heart. I want to be that non-reactive person, that person who seems to have energy. who's clear-minded, who's not maybe snapping at his kids as much as he may have done in the past. For example, I honestly believe that's the way we change the people around us. It's not by actually trying to change them.

It's by putting out of that energy of saying, hey, I'm calm. And going back to you really a question, Davina, I do believe there's a better way for all of us with our health. I really do. I believe knowledge is getting out there these days. I think people are understanding that small changes in our lifestyle can have a huge impact on our health and well-being. But I've also realized with my voice now in public

that I'm not trying to convince anyone anymore. If you disagree with me and you see the world differently, great, no problem. I'm no longer trying to change people's minds. I know what I know. I've been adopted for over 23 years. I've seen tens of thousands of patients. I still think that series on BBC, Doctor in the House, says,

I don't think it's ever been repeated globally, like having all these chronic conditions reversed or 70 to 80% better within six weeks. It hasn't really been done. And so I'm very confident in what I know, not arrogance, but confident in what I know and what I believe. But I don't need other people to believe me. I don't need you to agree with me. if you don't, I'm completely okay with it.

And I believe I'm able to make more change by coming with that kind of calm and mindset. Does that make sense? Totally. There was a story that I read about when you were caring for your father and the physical impact that that had had on you with back pain. Could you just talk me through what happened there? Because was it that the back pain disappeared?

Yeah, so let's rewind. In my early 20s, when I was at university at Edinburgh Medical School, one afternoon, I think it was in fifth year because we were moving into a new flat with my flatmates, Mary and Steve. And Mary just pulled up the car outside with all her boxes. And so I was helping it move up and we're on the fifth floor. So I kept coming up and down the sets. carrying helping her with the boxes and at one point i was lifting something at heavy box sharp pain in my back for the very first time in my life dropped the box had to lie down

that was the start of about 10 or 12 years of horrific back pain you know i was once off as a doctor's as you knew for six weeks when my first child was born and my back went i could barely pick him up for the first six weeks, which makes you feel like a bit of a failure as a parent, certainly as a man. You feel, you know, I'm not able to support my family and pick up my child. And I was a carer for my dad for many years. The reason I moved back to the northwest of England, where I still live in 2003, was because my dad had lupus. He had kidney failure and he was on a dialysis machine for 15 years. And I moved back to help my mum and my brother look after him. Dad died in March 2013. At my dad's funeral in Manchester Crematorium, you know, the service had happened.

And at the end, dad's body in the coffin was going into the oven, right? I don't know what the official term is. But, you know, you could see it open. You could see the orange flames. And I remember just watching the coffin go in. I remember at the same time feeling my back just loosen up and the remaining timeness went. And I was like, did that just happen? You know, you second guess yourself.

I know that happens. And what I've realized since then is that part of the issue with my back was this weight that I was carrying about being responsible. for my family, being the one who they all look to, you know, to look after dad. Don't get wrong, my mum and my brother were amazing. They did loads, but if anyone's listened to this and is trying to examine their own health, I bet for most people it's not just physical stuff you need to look at. There's emotional stuff as well. Sometimes the emotional pain, you're right in the thick of it. My amazing stepmom looks after my dad. he had Alzheimer's during lockdown and on her own in Portsmouth.

Her sister was nearby, they were in a bubble. But still, locked in with somebody, without some, not able to kind of take them out or distract them more. It was really hard and she got polymyalgia. And, you know, obviously we know that that's from stress and fatigue and all of these things, but she was right in it. And there was nothing, she knew that that was probably what was causing. it, but she didn't know how to get out of it.

It's hard, isn't it, when lifestyle choices aren't even available to you because your life is so mad? Yeah. I remember when I, first of all, that sounds like a really difficult time. One of the things I remember when I was full on in the midst of caring for dad, whilst also being a GP four time and being married and having a young baby. Of course, yeah. It's that I learned that, oh, if you get up really early on a Saturday, let's say at 5 a.m.,

and you go and play nine holes in one of your mates who also had a young child, right? And I'm back by 7, 7.15 a.m. Just to have those two hours to myself on a Saturday morning, I could deal with everything else that week that anyone would ask me. I wouldn't be resentful because I'd given myself something. And having seen many carers as patients over the years, that me time, you know, sure, we've all got different pressures. We've all got things that we can do and we can't do.

That was, yes, I did it once a week. But I really believe that if you can have 15 minutes of me time a day, and many people can do that. If we actually look at our lives and look at how much time we spend on, and how much time we spend doing other stuff. Most of us, not all of us, have got 15 minutes to actually do something for ourselves each day. Arguably, that's one of the best things you can do for your health and well-being. I really hope you're enjoying this episode. And if you can, give us a follow. There were a couple of things that came up for me then. Firstly, I think it's

quite interesting that so many women, myself included, when I was asked, like, what's your hobby. Oh, I don't have fun. My hobby is work, family. Like, that's it. And the second thing was how attractive your partner will find you when you go and find something to do on your own that's a bit independent. They're like, oh, hang on a minute, they've gone off and done something on their own and like, oh, did you have a good time? If you're always available, always there, or is it's kind of people just get kind of used to you. You like the furniture. But if you, if you go off and do something for yourself, you've got something to talk about. Yeah, you're nourishing a part of you that has probably been undernourished for a long period of time.

And I think if we just zoom out again, we've got to remember that the way we live these days is so different from how humans have always lived. We used to live in tribes of the communities around us. Let's say we had a partner and kids. There were other people around. You know, it wasn't all on you. With the advent of nuclear families, with people moving away from their communities and their family for work and better opportunity,

it's come at a huge cost, which means we often put everything on our partner. We want our partner to be everything. You know, our lover, our friends, someone we enjoy hobbies with, et cetera, et cetera. it's too much for any one person. And so what reengaging with a passion does is it nourishes that part of you that's really important to nourish. And if anyone who's listening or any woman who's listening, goes, well, I actually don't know what I want to do. What would I do if I did something

unashamedly for me? I would say, just think back to when you were a kid or a teenager. What were the things that you would do? What were the things that you would spend time doing? For a lot of people, that gives them a bit of insight into, yeah, God, I used to love dancing or I used to love netball or gymnastics or drawing or art or whatever it might be. And I've just let it go. Like I got married, let's say, I had kids, and I'm so busy. And we know that when you re-engage with a passion, also, you're very likely to hit something called flow state. Flow state is that sort of incredible state where time stands still, where you are literally in the moment and presence.

And flow state is really good for our happiness. It's really good for our health. It makes us more productive, more creative. People who access flow state regularly are happier and they're less likely to burn out. Burnout's huge, Tavina. You know, there's a study done two years ago which indicated that around 88% of the UK population have experienced some degree of burnout in the past two years.

That is not okay. It's an alarming statistic. And it kind of, you know, we like to think we're quite a civilized and evolved society. But I would question that, you know, are we really, when a society has got 88% burnout, Certainly from that research study, is that a sign of success? I'm not so sure. No. I mean, absolutely not.

I mean, all of these things were talking about in terms of stress. How many people do you think? Because I think this was definitely me due to, I think, my upbringing, was that I was in a constant state of high alert, like all the time. But to the point where I thought it was my superpower. I felt like I'm so on it. I'm so, oh, go, go, go. My leg's always going.

Like, I'm like, what's about to happen? And I used to think I can, like, work harder. I was ambitious. And I love all of those things. And I like, I like being ambitious. I like loving working, all of that. But I have come to realize that my constant state of high alert was making me ill. It was actually having a physical effect on my body.

How many people do you see or do you, do you meet who are in this? I mean, I've worked hard to try and help myself change that with some of the things that you've talked about, thanks to you. But how many people do you meet like that? It's very common. It's more common that I think many of us think we think we can keep pushing and keep working and keep working and keep. checking emails on Saturdays and Sundays and keep doing it week after week, month after month, year after year. But that genuinely for most people there will be a cost, right?

Because I see it. I've seen it time and time again. People thought they could keep pushing and then they come in with depression, with their marriage having broken down, with an autoimmune disease. For many years, DeVina, I have spent a lot of time seeing people with autoimmune illness. And I can tell you more than 95% of the time, because I take a very extensive history, I don't just look at the symptoms, I look at what's been going on in the last 20, 30 years that's led to you having this condition today. Because it doesn't just start the week before or the year before. It's a slow buildup. And almost always, within the six months preceding diagnosis, there is some significant.

stressor. Almost always. So I think for people to really understand this, you've got to understand what the stress response is. And I'd always explain this to my patients, because stress is not good or bad, right? A little bit of stress is actually really good for us. It helps us perform at our best. It's that chronic, unrelenting stress that we don't recover from that causes all the problems, right? So let's think about what the stress response is, because it's one of the most important responses in our body. So let's imagine it's 200,000 years ago and we're just hanging out in our Huntersatherer tribe, doing our thing, right? If I had just seen a predator, a lion approaching the camp, in an instant, I would activate my stress response. Okay, so certain things would happen.

So what would happen? Okay, my blood pressure would go up so more oxygen can get to my brain. my blood sugar would go up to deliver more glucose to my brain. My blood would become more prone to clotting. Why? Well, if that line was to attack me and cut my skin, instead of bleeding to death, my blood would clot. That would save my life. My amygdala, the emotional part of my brain, would go onto high alert,

which means I'm going to be hypervigilant. I'm going to hear every single pin drop, because this is an emergency situation. These things are bloody fantastic in the short term. The problem is, for many of us these days, is our stress responses are not being activated by wild predators. They're being activated by the state of our daily lives, our email inbox, our to-do lists,

the multiple social media channels we're trying to stay up to date with, the lack of boundary between work and home, where we're constantly working now for many of us on Saturdays and Sundays. But if that's your state because of your daily life, well, that's what we call anxiety. Right. So the stress response is about the right amount of stress. And for many people, that chronic stress is what is really, really affecting us. I'd go as far as say it's killing us.

And we know that 80 to 90% of what comes in to see a doctor in any given day is in some way related to stress. And just to finish your stress for a moment, I mentioned the things that, um, that get activated when our stress response is triggered. What about the things that get switched off? There's two big things that get switched off, right? Which I think will really resonate with people. Number one, your gut function, right? How many people around the UK and around the world have problems with their guts?

One study suggested that 80% of UK adults experience some form of gastrointestinal complaints every year. And yes, diet plays a huge role. But in my view and in my experience, the number one role is stress. Because if you're stressed out, your body has switches off digestion. Because the focus is on getting out of the emergency situation. We should be digesting foods in a really relaxed and calm state, right? Which many of us are not. I mean, terrible. The other thing that gets switched off is our libido. Now, this is really, really, really. common, right? More and more people are complaining of low libido. I'm seeing it in younger and younger age groups. Over the last five years, I would say I've seen so many young men and women late teens, early 20s, complaining of low libido, right? Which is remarkable. There's many potential causes, but the number one cause is stress. Because if you think about it, if your body thinks that actually you're in danger, your resources go to running away from the lion, they don't go to thinking about, you know,

chilling out and procreating with your partner. So managing chronic stress is arguably one of the most and of course of things that people can do. And here's the thing. People are struggling with their diets and wondering how they can make changes. And I think, although I'm a huge proponent about to making changes to your diet, actually, if you manage your stress levels first, you'll find the dietary change is much easier.

Because a lot of the time, we manage our stress levels with sugar. Yes. Right? So we keep reading the sugar detox or hearing on podcasts or reading, oh, I need to cut out my sugar. And you can apply us to any behavior, frankly, Davina. And this is kind of really what I've tried to tackle and make change at last. It's basically this idea that you'll never change your behavior unless you understand the role that behavior plays in your life.

life. Yeah. Right? Take alcohol. In January, how many people are trying to quit alcohol? They can do it for two weeks, for three weeks. But if alcohol is your way of managing the stress in your life, you can wind-knuckle it for three weeks and quit.

But you'll end up going back to the levels you were drinking before because the underlying root cause of your alcohol was your stress levels. So a sort of big thing that I talk about in chapter one is that knowledge is not enough, which I think is going to be quite controversial for some people. We think that if we give people enough knowledge about sugar, about alcohol, about stress, then they'll change their behaviors. But I've seen it time and time again. Knowledge by itself is not enough to facilitate change.

You need self-awareness. You need insight. you need to understand, oh, right, that's why I go to sugar. That's why I go to alcohol. Oh, that's why I spent three hours scrolling Instagram in the evening. When I keep trying to stop, I didn't realize what role that was playing in my life. Does that make sense? Totally.

I think the other thing that's quite interesting is that, and I know you like this, is you advocate spending time on your own. doing nothing, like kind of just in calm and peace, because I almost the only time, I'm becoming more and more aware of the amount of time that I spend on my phone and how negative that is for me. And I had a shower the other day and I had a really kind of quite a long shower for me and the thoughts and the ideas and the understanding, because you're talking about self-awareness, you need to sit and be on your own or be quiet or just have a a walk, a 15 minute walk around the pub, but not beyond the phone, where you can kind of go,

you know, I think I feel like this because of this, you know, an awareness where you can question your behaviours. Yeah, I mean, we do not realise across society how much our downtime has been eroded, right? So I'm in London at the moment having this conversation with you. 20 years ago, probably 15 years ago, if you came to London and you went into any coffee shop, right, you would basically be standing around, you'd be, you know, waiting to be served, you'd be daydreaming, you might bump into someone, you know, your thoughts would wonder, but now what happens, and frankly in any city and many villages around the world, what is everyone's glued to their phones.

So those micro moments of downtime have been stolen from us, but those moments of downtime are critically important. Because what happens in that downtime, your brain starts to wonder, when you go for, let's say, a 15-minute walk around the block without looking at your phone, that's a part of your brain called the default mode network,

the DMN, that kicks into gear. Now, the DMN does many things, But, you know, one of the things it does is helps you be more creative. The other thing it does is help you solve problems, right? So when you're not distracted by a task, when you're not actively trying to do something, your brain then tries to solve problems for you. So let's just connect that to what we've been talking about already. I mentioned stress and chronic stress. One of the most powerful concepts I've outlined to my patients over 20 years is that the one of micro-stress doses. Right. So what's a micro-stress dose? A micro-stress dose is a little dose of stress

that in isolation we can handle just fine. But when it accumulates one after the other, that's when things start to go wrong. Right. And we've all got our own personal stress threshold. If we stay under that threshold, we can cope just fine. Once we hit the threshold, that's when we become reactive. That's when colleagues email frustrates us. That's when our back goes or our neck goes, right? It's because we've crossed over our threshold. Now, you can think about stress in two ways. The big stress is in life,

but you can also think about these micro-stresses. So let's imagine a typical morning, Davina, for many people these days. Right. So they're at home. They stayed up late, binge watching Netflix the night before, right? Because work was stressful. They wanted to unwind and they just couldn't resist watching it.

great. No judgment here. I'm just trying to call it as it is. Yeah. Right. So they're still up at midnight. They go to bed thinking, oh man, I need to get up early. You need to get up at six for work. So they put an alarm on. Okay, they go to sleep. They're in a deep sleep. Six a. A.N. Their alarm goes off on their phone and they look at it. That jolts them out of sleep. That's my stress dose number one. Okay. Then they go, oh, God, I'll get a bit more. Put a snooze on. Put it back. They doze off again six minutes later. comes on, micro-stress says number two. Right.

Then they pick it up and go, oh, man, I'm tired. I'll quickly have a look. So they go on the news and see some worrying news headlines from around the world. Microsestressor number three. Then they go to the email inbox. Oh man, there was four work emails I didn't do yesterday. I'm going to have to do them say, micro-stress-sad number four. Then you go on social media.

Someone's left the negative comment on your last post, micro-stress-since number five. I could go on. The point I'm making is often in the first hour of your day. before you've left the house, sometimes before you've even left your bed, people have accumulated 15 to 20 micro-stress doses. What does that mean? That means you're already nearly,

you're much closer to your threshold than you would have been had you not accumulated them, which means it's not going to take much stress today to tip you over. The other concept which I really think is useful for people is our thoughts are actually, are behaviours, often are downstream from the content we consume. So, for example, if you start off your day looking at negative news headlines, right?

Is there any wonder, like, would it really surprise you that that negativity that comes in then means that you're a little bit short with your partner or your children? You feel a bit down. You're less inclined to make positive changes because you think the state of the world is, like, in decline. Whereas if you start the day with some time by yourself and you focus on, I'm not saying deny negative emotions at all, but if you focus on things like gratitude, what are the qualities I want to showcase to the world today? What is the most important thing I have to do today? A much more intentional start to the day. You're reflecting on your life. You're building up

that self-awareness. And then you're likely, you're much more likely to be calm with your partner, with your children, with your work colleagues. So I kind of feel a daily practice, solitude. Without question, I think is the number one practice for your health and your happiness. And I think if you can, first thing in the morning is the best time for that. I mean, I think even just hearing that will radically change a lot of people's behaviours in the morning. I think the other thing that is good is when you've done it a few times, you will notice a difference which will make you want to keep doing it. Not only will you notice the difference, the people around you want to know this is different.

Again, link you back to what we said before about, be the change you want to see in the world. One of the reasons I feel so calm, contented and happy if I'm honest these days, is because practices like that, you develop such a powerful insight to who you are and who you want to be that it actually starts to make change quite easy. The reason I won't make change at last, Davina, is because what I realize is that we're living in an era where there's never been more information about what we can do to be well and live well, yet more people are struggling than ever before. I thought there's a problem here.

There's more knowledge, there's more books, there's more podcasts, there's more information, yet race and mental health problems are going up. Burnout is coming up. Physical health problems are going up. And I thought it's a dot-so. What are we missing here? And as I mentioned before, and this is, you know,

the big idea in Chapter 1, which I think is one of the most powerful chapters in this book, is the idea that knowledge in and off itself is not enough. You need self-knowledge. You need self-awareness. Many people struggle with sugar cravings, right?

So you often find, And I've got so many patients say, yeah, Dr. Chatsy, I was really good in the day. But then it was 9pm, watching telly, and I pulled out a tub of bed and jerrys. Okay. So they have the knowledge. And they have the knowledge, but they're still unable to make that change despite that knowledge. Right. So the practice I would use on those is what I call the three Fs, right?

And I say, this practice will give you freedom, but you've got to just, Practice it a few times, okay? So the first half is feel. Let's say it's 9pm and you're in front of the TV and you have an urge to get some sugar or some ice cream. Before you get it, take a pause and actually, what am I actually feeling here?

Okay. If you pause, you go, ah, I'm actually feeling a bit of stress, actually. Oh, I've had a long day on Zoom calls. I haven't taken a break and this is just a bit of a tree. for me. Oh, I had a fight with my partner. Oh, the children's bedtime went on too long and I just need some time for me. Okay, no problem. Go and have your sugar. Have your ice cream. But you've just start to create a gap and in that gap, you start to learn about yourself. Ah, fine, you then go and

have it. But the next time you're tempted, you will, that will come back. Ah, am I actually hungry? Am I physically hungry or am I emotionally hungry? Right. So the second F is, The first step is, what am I feeling? The second F is how does food feed that feeling? Ah, right? So I'm feeling stressed. Sugar or alcohol for that matter helps me feed the stress. I feel less stressed afterwards.

So now you're starting to draw this connection in your mind. This is self-knowledge. This is not knowledge from experts from me, from you, from anyone else. It's like, no, no, no, you're learning about yourself, which is the most powerful for the learning. I was going to say empowering, right? Totally. And then you're like, ah, right. Okay, then you have it anyway. But you're going to have a bit less because you're starting to realize what's going on. And then the third F, and you can either do

it's all in one go, or at the next time you go through these Fs again. Okay, what am I feeling? How does food or alcohol feed that feeling? And then the final F is find, right? Okay, sugar feeds the stress. Can I now find an alternative behavior to feed the stress? So that could be okay, you know what? Yeah, I'm not on any me time today. Maybe I'll go and run a bath for myself, right? Because it will do the same thing. Maybe I need to spend some time with my partner. And instead of him being on his phone and me being on my phone here, we actually put the phones away and sit and have a chat. Maybe I'm lonely I need to phone of friends. Maybe I need to do one minute of star jumps to burn off distress. It doesn't matter what it is. We've got to find what it is for us. But those tweet Fs, you can apply to food.

alcohol, too much time on your smartphone, because they help you understand the root cause of your behaviour. And if you don't understand the root cause, you'll never change the behaviour. You can buy as many health books in January as you want. You can buy the latest sugar detour, the latest gutt health book, the latest whatever you want. The knowledge will only take you so far. Why do people every January buy these books and by June, or frankly by March, they're back to doing what they were doing before. is because they didn't go to the root cause. And my whole approach with my patients over two decades has been, how do I help you get to the root cause?

And my whole approach with Make Change at last is really a framework to say these are the root causes. Once you know them, it gets so much easier to make permanent change. We're taking a quick break to talk about today's sponsor Fiverr. Have you experienced the immediate panic when you're asked to create something on the computer, but you have absolutely no idea how to do it? it. For me, it's social media. But I have realised that I can rely on Fiverr. It's an online

marketplace. It's got talented freelancers who specialised in different areas from social media and graphic design to marketing, website building and coding. I don't know what that means. But with Fiverr, I can leave it to the experts and focus on the stuff I do best. So if you want to give Fiverr a try and I think you should, search Fiverr.com or click the link in the description and use the code Devena at the checkout for 10% off your first order. That's F-I-V-E-R-R.com. And don't forget, the second are. And I suppose, you know, we can't all just take kind of general knowledge

and expect it's going to work for us because, like you're saying, Roman, is that everybody is different. You know, we all have different childhoods, different things that stress us more than other people, maybe. This is one of the, I think, one of the main problems now with the health advice that's been dispensed online. So I think it's a good thing

that there's more information now that I really do. I think for many years it was the preserve of professors and universities and medical schools. And I don't think that's a good thing. I think it's everyone's default right to have good quality health. I really do. But what I noticed a few years ago,

you know, as you know, I host this weekly podcast. and I talk to incredible people each week. And I would notice sometimes if one expert, let's say, had a different view to, let's say a different expert. I would sort of get a lot of DMs or comments on Instagram and say, oh, Joshy, I love the podcast, but I love that expert you had on six weeks ago, but I love this current one as well, but they're saying different things. Yes.

I don't know who to trust. People are asking the wrong question. the question isn't which expert should I be trusting. The right question in my view is why do I no longer trust myself? This is the most important thing that I want to share with the world over the next few years, genuinely. It's a central tenet in this new book, which I'm so happy within, without question, is the best thing I've ever written. Like, I really do believe that. you know what the right diet for you is.

Get knowledge from experts, right? Listen to what people have to say, but then put it through your own filter. Try it for yourself. The truth is, Damina, some people thrive on a vegan diet. Some people don't. Some people thrive on a low-carb diet.

Some people don't. Some people thrive on a paleo diet. Some people don't. I have seen tens of thousands of patients over the year. And I'm diet agnostic. I think there are some principles, right? For sure, which work? Whole food, unprocessed diet as much as you can. No question. It's easy to manage your appetite. It's easier to manage your hunger signals. You're less likely to crave all these modern, sugary, energy dance, highly processed foods. So yes, if you can, the more whole foods and minimally processed food you can eat,

the better. But once you've got that, you need to experiment. And if you really tune in, you will know when you're eating a diet that you're thriving on because you'll feel great. Your energy will be good. You won't have bloating. You won't have constipation. Like, and this is the self-knowledge that is at the heart of anyone making change that ultimately lasts in the long term. It's becoming less dependent on experts outside ourselves. and tapping back in to the inner expertise that we all actually have. I don't know if I should say this or not, Davina. You can say whatever you like.

It's a safe space. I've been talking in public about health for probably starting in 2013, 2014, when I went beyond my consultation room to talk to the public. And I'm trying to think about what are the most controversial topics. No matter how much I caveat them. Yeah. No matter how nuanced I am. which are the topics where people shoot from the hip?

Yes. And go mad. Yeah. Right? Menopause. Right? Okay. And I want to acknowledge I'm a man saying this, right?

And so I understand, you know, I understand that women have been not heard about these symptoms for many years. I totally get that, right? So I'm not, no part of this is about blame, but menopause, nutrition. Yeah. Fasting. Oh, fasting. And I would say cancer. Yeah.

But let's stick with the first three. Those are those, and I understand why, right? People have got very firm beliefs and opinions. And I guess these things really change people. They really change people. But let's, let's, we mention nutrition. Let's just mention fasting for a minute, okay? Yeah.

Right. Fasting, for some people, it's the most powerful healing tool they've ever come across. For others, it's top. sick. Yeah. Fasting is neither good nor bad. It depends on the person. If you have got an eating disorder, right?

And if you're a parent of a child who's got an eating disorder, you have probably seen how fasting can be a problematic behavior. So therefore, your belief is that fasting is problematic. If, on the other hand, you're significantly overweight or you've got type to diabetes and you have a history of consuming excess calories for whatever reason, you might find that a form of fasting, and there are many different forms, could be a very helpful tool for you. And again, we become black or white.

Fasting is good, fasting is bad. No, it depends on who you are. And I outline all these things in the book, basically, to help people make more nuanced choices. And I think that's where really working on your emotional reactivity really helps. You don't get caught up in what's going on. You can sit back a bit and go, oh, I see. I see what they're saying there. Oh, that might be relevant for that person.

That's not relevant for me. That's another lesson for everyone is not everything you can see online is relevant for you. Yeah. We have this view, I think, many of us, that when I go on my Instagram feed, everything is going to be curated for me just the way I like it. Well, no, it's not. No. The world doesn't work like that.

But I think it's good that it's not curated for everything because I think it's also important that we don't only see our view. You know, we've got to see other ways of doing things or are there interesting other ways of looking, other ways that you can treat a menopausal woman. Like, this is important for all of us. I see you as an amplifier of other people's knowledge, right? this is, well, for your podcast. And then you collate all the knowledge that you learn through being a doctor in your life and all the people that you've met

and all of your thoughts and things, and help us with that. But it's like, I like to try and amplify all different types of people. And I hope that you will watch all of them because it's good, even if you don't necessarily agree with that, listen to it and see what you think is. It's good to know why you don't agree.

Yes. And if you're being emotionally triggered by something, you've been given, the most powerful opportunity for personal growth. This is something I've done in my own life, right? If I'm getting emotionally triggered, if a post has really annoyed me or I'm feeling I can't let go with it,

it's tempting to think that that's because of the post. No, but actually isn't. It's because it's shone a light on something inside of me, right? Because, you know, again, this, you know, chapter five in this book is called Take Less Offense, and it's a very kind and compassionate chatter. but the idea is that nothing is inherently offensive. If it was, we'd all get offended to the same thing, but we don't.

So something is happening in the world. Someone's making a statement. It's only offensive if it triggers something inside of us. So the fuse that's being lit exists within us. And once you understand that, you will literally change your life. because you understand, I'm generating all of these internal reactions. I don't want to live in a state where I'm overly dependent on the world around me being perfect.

So many people are, right? They want the news to be good, the weather to be good, their partners to treat them well, their boss to treat you well. Hey, if you need all those things to feel well, you're going to struggle because those things are not within your control and some days they're not going to happen. And so that's the state of what I call minimal reliance, which I talk about and make change it less, is how do you cultivate that state where you can maintain this kind of neutrality?

You know, genuinely, DeVina, and I've said this, but I honestly feel I'm in such a fantastic place in life these days, right? And it's mostly because of this emotional calm. But it hasn't been easy. I didn't have it 10 years ago. I've worked on it. And can I share what you one of the most powerful conversations I've had in my life, which has really helped supercharge this for me. I don't know if you ever heard this on my podcast or not, but a few years ago I spoke to a lady called Edith Eagher. And when I spoke to her, she was 93 years old. Amazing. I could still remember going into my studio for that conversation.

And I remember two hours later, when I came out of my studio, I just, I thought I'm a different person. I'm not the same person anymore that went in. And I think about her pretty much every day because what does she tell me? Let me try and summarize the key elements of that conversation. When she was 16 years old, she was growing up in Hungary, they got a knock on the door, and she got put in a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. So her mom, her dad, her, and one of her sisters go to Auschwitz. when she gets to Auschwitz concentration camp,

within two hours, both of her parents were murdered. She's a 16-year-old girl. That morning she was thinking about the date she had with a boyfriend that night. She was thinking about what dress am I going to wear? Instead, she's at a concentration camp, and her parents have just been murdered. Later that day, a few hours after her parents had been murdered, the senior prison guard in Auschwitz,

I think it was Dr. Mengele, I think was his name. He asked Edith to dance for him, right? And the first thing she said to me, which I've never forgotten, when she said, when I was dancing for Dr. Mengele, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a peaceful dress on, the orchestra was playing, there was a full house.

She said to me, the last words my mother said to me, where Edith, never forget nobody can take from you the contents that you put inside your minds. So that was the first incredible thing she said to me. The second thing I remember was she said, after a while, I realized that the prison guards in Auschwitz,

they're not free. They're not living their lives. They're controlled. But in my mind, I'm free. I thought, you are living in one of the darkest places on earth. People around you are being murdered every day. yet you have realized a power of your mind in your head, you're free. And the final word she said, Davina, to me, which I kind of feel are tattooed on my soul.

Dr. Chastichy, I have lived in Auschwitz and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind. Those words have changed my life, Davina, because it's this idea that we always, all create these mental prisons by the way we view the world. We spoke about offence before or things annoying us online. We're creating those narratives that, oh, that person shouldn't have said that. That post is offensive. You can learn to not take these things as offensive. You can learn to go, wow, that person's got a different opinion to me. Wow, they see the world differently. This is what I mean by all the amazing things that you've picked up from people, people that you've spoken to.

and some of them have completely changed your life forever. And this idea of the prison being of our own making in our own minds that's worse than any other prison you could create for is so true. But what's wonderful about that statement is that we can change that. We can't change it. And the thing I say to people, if they're looking at, okay, this all sounds great, how do I do that? Okay, this is my challenge to people.

if this is something you want to change, if you recognize yourself and some of the things we've just mentioned, it can be hard to do it in the moment when you're not used to it. So I would say either every evening, if you can, or once a week, ask yourself honestly,

when did you get emotionally triggered? When did you get really bothered by something when it was your partner or your boss or social media? And to spend five or ten minutes asking yourself, why did that bother me? Oh, it bothered me because of this. Oh, it bothered me because of that. Whatever it might be, I promise, if you do this every day for 30 days, at the end of those 30 days, you will have changed. You will understand yourself better than you've ever understood yourself before. But instead of hiding that emotional tension and then just numbing it with sugar and booze and three hours on Instagram, you're actually going to learn about yourself and you're going to go, oh, what happens if I reframe that situation now?

And then you get to a point and it's going to take longer than 30 days where you start to do it automatically in the moment. I genuinely now, Davina, can do that sort of stuff automatically in the moment 95% at the time. The other 5% when I don't, and I'll be honest, because, you know, last month has been a very hectic month for me, so I'm filming a channel for a documentary on smartphones and children. Oh, great. Which I'm very, very passionate about it. So I've been on the road a lot more than I usually am. And a few things bothered me last week.

And I was like, oh, yeah, you're naked, you're sleep deprived. So you're a bit overly emotional. So some of your older kind of patterns are now coming to the fore. And it's interesting because I was like, oh, I thought I'd healed this. I've had that. Oh, I thought I'd done that. Yeah, but it's a good thing. Instead of having that shame or beating yourself up, which again, I used to do,

it's like, oh, that's interesting. Had this pressure not been put on my system, I wouldn't know that I still have a bit of word to do here. So now it's a gift. Now it's like, this is awesome. I didn't know that because it's often those things that we don't know that blow up somewhere. or when we have a fight with our spouse or our boyfriend or whoever, it's always or usually these unresolved things that we haven't dealt with.

And so you can actually do this. And if you, you know, when you're doing that exercise, try and apply that principle. If I was that other person, I'd be doing the same thing as then, right? It's so helpful. And if you're struggling to reframe something, this is what I use. So if I'm thinking, no, no, no, no, I can't reframe this. Yeah.

Then I go, hey, Wongan, you know what? Edith Eager could reframe stuff in Auschwitz. I'm pretty sure you can reframe this in your life. So I take it as inspiration. Yes. I go, okay, Ronga, come on, what mental prison are you being locked in here? This could be one of the most important things people do. Yes.

Because the freedom you feel in your mind, once you do this stuff, and this time I finished the introduction in the book, is I say, you can get to a point of making effortless change. You really can. Like, you can get to a point where change doesn't feel hard. Oh, because most people are like, yeah, change is a struggle. Oh, I don't want to do this. God, I know I should do this. My health. Hey, great, you know what? You'll manage that for a while, but you'll usually revert back. But once your change becomes more aligned with the person who you actually are, the person you've cultivated, but you can cultivate within yourself the person who you wish to be. If you don't want to be this reactive person who's snapping at people, who's always getting annoyed

with the world, you know what? Decide today, you know, the podcast, begin again, right? You can begin again anytime you want, any time you want to go, you know what, I'm not happy with a state of my life. I'm not happy with where I'm at today, with how much I'm working with the state of my relationships, with the state of my health. Okay, be honest with yourself. If that's the case, you can begin again right now.

You really can. And if that's you and you want a simple bit of advice, right, I would say, and I'm really passionate by this idea at the moment, I would say make one small promise to yourself, right? And keep it. Yeah. It's the most powerful thing you can do. When we meet new people for the first time, right, we're asking ourselves two questions.

Can I trust you? Can I rely on you? Right? That's a basic, you know, we're social beings, humans and we're always trying to size up the people around us. But we're also asking ourselves those two questions every single day. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself? Now, here's the problem, Devinan, when we say we're going to do something and we're

we don't do it, it is one of the most toxic things in the world because we show ourselves, I can't trust me and I can't rely on me. And so break it right down. What's one five minute action you can commit to each day? Five minutes of meditation, five minutes of yoga, five minutes of star jumps, five minutes of journaling. I don't care what it is, whatever appeals to you. Remember, no one thing works for everyone. What are you drawn to do? And commit. Say, okay, for five minutes a day, I'm going to do this for the next seven days. I promise you, you do that one thing for seven days. You will feel differently about yourself. Your self-esteem, your self-image will be different because you will have shown yourself that no matter how busy my life is,

no matter what else I've got to do at work or with my kids or whatever, I still found five minutes a day for me. And that's how you build momentum. That's how change really happens in the long term. It very rarely happens with a complete lifestyle level overnight. It can do. But in my experience, the only people who can do that are when they've had a really significant life experience or a stress or like a bereavement or a divorce or they've lost their job.

Yeah, people can change overnight. But if you don't have that driving you, I genuinely have seen time and time again that if you start small and build up, that's when things really start to change. I've got to say that's really made me feel quite emotional because I think that sometimes people will look at other people and they'll think I could never be like that. And it's almost because they've lost their faith in themselves.

I don't trust myself. You know what I mean? And it is something that simple as five minutes, but I think people think it's out of their reach. I'll never be like that. And what I love about you, and you said 95%, because I always say I'm a work in progress, you know, I'm always trying to learn something, small tweaks here and there, never perfect, accepting of my, they call it defects of character in NA, but like accepting of those bits, but always trying to be better. But it's never, like you said, never too late for change. I quickly want to talk to you about something that's been, I've been thinking about why we've been talking.

I feel like you're quite a spiritual person. Can you talk to me about that side of your life? It's probably something that I didn't realize a decade ago. I'm not even sure I would have thought about that. And the truth is is that for me, when dad died in 2013, my life changed significantly. You know, losing a parent. You know, when a parent dies, that is, of course.

a huge moment in anyone's life. What happened for me, Davina, is that it was the first time where I started to ask myself, these big existential questions, you're like, who am I? Who is life, am I really leading? Is this my life? This is someone else's life? Where do my dreams come from?

I know my dreams. I know my dreams. I'm there's someone else's dreams. And once you open the door to that self-inquiry, I kind of feel it really does make you spiritual, because you realize that there's so much more out there. I feel that I am very spiritual. And the truth is 10 years ago, I would have thought,

I can't say that in public. What are people think of me? I'm a doctor. I am spiritual. Many people are spiritual. I think it's really important that we connect with something greater than who we are. We are becoming the U.S. is regarded as one of the most individualistic societies

on the planet. Yes. In the UK, we're not that far behind. And it's no coincidence that these individualistic societies are showing high levels of sickness, right? We can be individually successful. Can you just explain to anybody that's not aware what an individualistic society is? It's more about me.

It's about what can I do? How can I achieve my dreams? How can I make more money? What's good for me? and there's something there's nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that up to a point but you can't get to what where you're doing well and everyone around you is struggling

because there isn't harmony in the world when that happens it's no coincidence that you know the Scandinavian countries where society is a lot more equal where there's not this big difference between the highest earner and the lowest earner they are happy there's many other factors as well but I kind of feel that, you know, we know, for example, that doing things for others makes us healthier and happier.

There's studies done where they show that if you get given a sum of money and you compare it, you compare when you spend it on yourself and you spend on other people, when you spend it on other people, you're healthy, you're happier, you feel better about yourself and your place in the world. So I'm not saying that people should forget their dreams and just do what's right for the collective, but I think the balance has gone to the point where many of us are just thinking about ourselves and our bank balance and our dreams and our careers and not thinking about the world around us. So when I hear the word spiritual,

I take that as meaning a connection to something much bigger than just me. Right? That could be nature. We know that spending time in nature makes you less stressed. We know that experiencing all, you know, this feeling when there's something, you know, it's just awe-inspiring. Yeah. We know that can reduce depression. It can make us happier.

And I feel that these things are really important. Too much about healing, even within my profession, it's been about physical health. Go back to what we were saying about my back pain before. Okay. The medical model, the model I looked at my back pain through when I was 20 was, okay, let's get a scan. what's the physical problem here that's causing that. But when the pain went finally at my dad's funeral, I was like, you know, I knew that emotions were stored in the body,

but I knew it with my cognitive brain. I never really, you know, embodied that, never really experienced that. And what you have, and then I start applying those learnings with patients, the only way to heal is when you, you combine physical, mental and emotional. And I really believe that whether it's tucked to diabetes, menopausal symptoms, chronic pain, autoimmune illness, the medical model is far too much just about physicality, but we are multi-dimensional people. The physical dimension is important, but so is the mental and emotional one as well. And I don't think we need

to think of these things are scary. I think if you ask most people and the privacy of their own homes, is there more to you than just, you know, your existence and how you feel physically? I think people would say, I mean, what do you think so that are you spiritual? I mean, I love listening to your journey because I have had a very similar one, possibly not as early as you, but when my sister died, I was lucky enough to be with her. and it sort of changed everything about dying for me. I don't know. It made me feel a lot less frightened of dying.

I was with my father when he died. And when you have to go and register the death, they say that very, very few people are with the people that they love when they die. Sometimes people wait to die, I think, until their loved ones have gone so they can not upset them, I think, you know, subconsciously. I mean, you don't know what goes on. but I was with them and made me not fear death, but it made me really think about my life,

what I wanted to be, the meaning to go large. I was brought up a Christian, quite strict Christian. And so I love this idea of collective, I'm not necessarily a practicing Christian anymore, but I loved church. I loved being with other people. I loved quiet time in prayer. I still pray.

I don't really know what I'm praying to, but I believe my prayers are heard. And that's enough for me sometimes. But I also try to see nature as part of me, that we're all one. You're part of me, you're part of me. Like everybody, I don't know, I'm like I'm on a massive spiritual journey at the moment. Me too.

It's, yeah, first of all, I'm sorry to hear about you. sister and your dad's. And I was also with my dad when he died with my mum as well. We were, you know, mom's holding his left hand. I was holding dad's right hands. And I'm, you know, again, I don't know what's made me less scared of death, but I'm not anymore, but it was. I'm sure dad's death has contributed. But I think when you really sit and understand that our lives are short and that we will die. That's not something to be afraid of. Right. When you acknowledge that, I think it gives you the license to really start living and embracing life. And I think a lot of our stress comes from this fact that we don't think it's going to apply to us. And interestingly enough,

you know, you mentioned you've been brought up as a Christian. It's interesting that there's really good research showing that people who follow religious practices are healthier and happier. not necessarily people who are religious. Because what do all religions pretty much have at their heart? They've got some really good practices. Like you get together once a week. You know, you're kind to other people. You treat people with respect.

These are good lessons for life, right? So I think being spiritual is within all of us. And I think it's become more important. As religion now has become less and less fashionable and less and less common, I think that also is contributing to this individualist society that we have in the West now. I'm not saying you should all go for religion.

It's not for everyone. But do you think there'll be more interest, perhaps, in the kind of more philosophy-based group, like Buddhism. You know, so, I mean, Quakerism is a really interesting idea where you sit in silence and when you feel the need to talk, you can stand up and express yourself. I think what we're realizing is a lot of these religions or philosophies,

they all had some really amazing wisdom baked in. And as we become more secular and individualistic, I think we're realizing that, oh, well, maybe I don't want to be religious, but there are some practices there that I can take. and use. I don't think we've got these frameworks in society at the moment to actually practice those. And I think that will be the next evolution of us. It's like, okay, for some people, you know, I wouldn't identify someone who's religious, but I would identify someone who's spiritual. Yes. And it's also interesting how we're brought up in different cultures. So in

Indian culture, Davina, at a funeral, so we have cremations. But the day before, or sorry, but just beforehand, you go and see the body. Okay, so you actually, you know, the coffins open and you, you know, you see the body, the dead body. Actually, in India, the cremations are, they're done in public. You know, you put on a funeral pyre and you actually see the body burning. Whereas, of course, here, we wouldn't do that. It's, I sort of feel that it's kind of more hidden away.

Yes. And again, each to their own, but I think one of the problems, one of the costs of having it hidden away, is that we don't think death is real. It doesn't really apply. Whereas if you, you know, it's interesting now as we say this, my back pain went when I saw my dad's, yeah, he was in the coffin, but it was like, I had this realization that, oh my God, dad's body is going to be burnt.

Yes. I know it's obvious, but it wasn't obvious to me. I was like, oh, literally my dad's, the person who taught me how to play table tennis, snooker, who I used to follow around. mowing the lawn when I was three and, you know, so daddy, I want to do stripes like, you know, when I had that realization that, oh, that's going to be ash in just a few minutes, that's when I really got that, oh, dad's gone. That's when my back east off. So we're all spiritual beings, whether we choose to accept that or not, we are. And once we connect to something

much bigger and greater than ourselves, I actually think we start to experience all kinds of positive changes. I think it's quite an interesting. concept with lots of religions and that is the concept of sacrifice. And I know you talk about happiness. We're all kind of sold this thing of, you know, we've got to be happy all the time and it's just not, it's not possible. But really, the happiness feels so great when you've had a tough time and then something lovely happens. You go, oh, God, this feels amazing. That's the hardest thing for me is a part of that, right? I would say as a parent, one of the hardest things, for me to get my head round is this idea that the most powerful realisations and learnings

I've had in my life have come from adversity. Yeah. They really have. And I wouldn't trade any of those adverse events because without them, I wouldn't have learned what I have learned. But as a parent, you want to protect your kids from adversity. And so in my head, I'm like, wow. And look, the reality is, like, the world is going to give my kids adversity, whether I want it to happen or not. But as a parent, you want to protect your kids from adversity, but adversity really is the most powerful tool for change. And I've now come to reflect, you know, what, you know, dad died over 11 years ago now. And I still can't get my head around. It's been that long. It still just feels like a couple of years ago. And I've really now come to the view that dad's death was a gift.

Like, I really feel my dad's death was a gift to me because a dad was. still alive, I wouldn't have learned all the things I've learned from his death. And that viewpoint won't be for everyone, DeVina. But you know what a viewpoint is? It's a viewpoint. It's a choice. I'm choosing to believe that. That helps me. That helps me come to terms with dad's death. That helps me be comfortable with it. And our viewpoints, again, if we think about the prison in our minds that we've been talking about, you can lock yourself up in your mind with a particular fixed viewpoints, but you can also shift your viewpoints if you want. You can change them any time. You can begin again, right? I've now chosen, instead of seeing Dad's death as a bad thing,

would I love my dad to be around today, of course I would. You know, Dad was an Indian immigrant to the UK in 1962. All the things in my career that he would have been most proud of, he never got to see. You know, me having my own BBC show for an Indian immigrant to the UK, for his son to have, his own prime time TV show is about as good as it gets, right? You never got to see that. You know, dad died two years before that. You know, five and hopefully six bestselling books, dad never got to see, right? But the truth is, if my dad was still alive, I wouldn't have written any of these books. I honestly believe that. I wouldn't have had the insight. A, I would have been too busy looking after him to have the time to do it. And so I choose to look at every adverse event in my

life now as a gift. It's an opportunity to learn. But that's a mindset, but I've cultivated. And I needed solitude to cultivate the mindset. You cannot cultivate that mindset. If you're in reaction mode, if you get up each day and you're answering emails, are you looking at your phone and then you're consuming content and you never have any space to think you will never. ever cultivate those insights, right? Yes. Well, I want to go back to this book, which is definitely going to be your sixth. I just want to say, Sunday Times bestseller, make change that last. That's the thing in here. Most of the things in here, you know, that it's free.

They're all free. They're all free. Everything in it. Everything in it is free, DeVina. And just on that, if I could just say one more point, which is I'm really passionate about. Oh, no, good. is another part of my journey of the last years has been really focus on process over outcome, journey over destination, right? Oh, yeah. And it's been a lot.

I grew up thinking that my worth as a human being was based on how I performed and how well I did. There's a long back story there, but that's what I took on that belief, and that belief made me very competitive. as I've gone and made peace with my upbringing and those belief patterns, I've changed them. So I'm no longer competitive because being competitive was never who I was. It was who I became. And once I understand how I became it, I've taken steps to unbecome it, right? And it's all outlined in the book.

But now I've got to the point, and I had this with my last book on happiness, but I really feel it with this book. I've already won by writing this book because the book is the book that was itching to get out of me. These ideas had to come out of me. Whether anyone buys the book or not, it actually doesn't matter. I've already won.

I've already won. Like, maybe winning someone's the wrong way. I've already, the process of writing it for the last two and a half years, yes, it's been hard, yes, it's been difficult. But that is the best thing I'm capable of at this moment in my life. Now, I know from people who've read it early, like Dr. Gabel-Mattie and Dr. Chris Van Soliccan, who are, you know, yes, it's nice to hear from them that wrong with this is incredible. It's the best book you've written.

It's going to help so many people. Of course, it's nice to hear that. But the reality is, if no one buys that book, can I get to the point in my life what I still feel that it was a worthwhile endeavor? Yeah, I think I can. This has been just the most amazing talk. Like, I have absolutely loved every single waking second of it. And I think those two, three thousand people are the luckiest people in the world.

It's going to be amazing. I'm so excited for you. Thank you for advice to me onto your podcast. And thank you for coming. Hosting such a wonderful space with a beautiful backdrop and having my own a show. I really enjoy it. I keep up a great work yourself. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I mean, where do I even begin? But what I loved is, I mean, there were so many takeaways. But for me, the big ones were knowledge isn't the thing. It's self-knowledge. Ask yourself, why am I reacting to this post like this? Why am I reaching for the sugar now? What is it?

The three Fs that he was talking about in terms of addictive. kind of patterns that we get into, ask yourself those things and why am I doing it, especially around something like sugar, which I've had a massive problem with for years. Although I am in a sugar-free moment at the moment, but I haven't looked at why I reach for it. And I think I would probably go back to it if I didn't deal with that. So that really helped. Another massive one was peace and solitude and those kind of micro-stresses. That was fascinating, wasn't it?

In the morning, waking up, alarm, micro-stress, snooze, alarm going again, micro-stress. I was like, oh, my God, by the time I'm eating breakfast, I've had 15 microsdresses. I am already like, oh, it's so true. I mean, I could go on and on for hours. I could just go through the entire podcast and list off 40 things that have changed my life. So I'm not going to do that, but he was great, wasn't he?