Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #105 Coronavirus Special. Johann Hari: How To Stay Calm and Connected when Physically Apart

Episode Date: April 1, 2020

CAUTION ADVISED: this podcast contains swearing and themes of an adult nature. Having written a book about the importance of connections, Johann Hari was the obvious choice to help me shed light on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting this key human need. In this podcast, his work on how loneliness affects depression and anxiety provides insight, understanding and practical solutions to help us through. We start by talking about what Johann says is the biggest cause of emotional difficulties – financial insecurity. Of course, things are moving fast and since this podcast was recorded, the UK government has announced support for the self-employed, too. But people are understandably worried how they’ll cope until help filters through. A YouGov survey suggests many are already borrowing money only one week into the current UK lockdown. Johann believes that asking our political representatives to address this is a vital way to feel connected, value our key workers and safeguard our mental health. We also discuss how shared experience and meaning can be a way out of loneliness. Johann gives some extraordinary examples of people who’ve managed to find meaning and affect positive change in the face of huge adversity. We’re all familiar with post-traumatic stress, but there’s emerging evidence that more people actually experience growth as a result of trauma. They re-evaluate, reset their values, life in many ways gets better for them. Could this be the way we all move through – and beyond – this global crisis? It’s a lot to get your head around, but it’s a powerful message to hear. Take care, stay safe and be kind.  Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/105 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So even though we are physically separated at the moment, there are still ways we can build meaning and purpose together, whether it's through art or music or political projects that we can still fight for. I've been thinking a lot about, okay, one thing that'd be meaningful would be how can we honour the people who now are keeping our country going, who have been so disrespected for so long. Hi, my name is Rangan Chastji, GP, television presenter and author of the best-selling books The Stress Solution and The Four Pillar Plan. I believe that all of us have the ability to feel better than we currently do, but getting healthy has become far too complicated. With this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having

conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people both within as well as outside the health space to hopefully inspire you as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately to transform the way that you feel. I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. Hello and welcome back to episode 105 of my Feel Better Live More podcast. My name is Rangan Chastity and I am your host. So how are you all doing? Are you hanging in there? How is the social distancing going and the self-isolation? If you are struggling, please don't beat yourself up. It is completely okay to not feel okay at the moment. Do go easy on yourself and take time to adapt to what is a new

reality. But do remember that doing small things for your health each day will make a huge difference to the way that you feel. These are things that I've discussed on many occasions on the podcast before and in my first three books. There really has never been a more important time to put all of those tips into practice than right now. So for me, it's been really hard to figure out what I should do about the podcast at the moment. Should I continue with regular programming every Wednesday as if this pandemic is not taking place? Or should I alter the content to reflect it? I did a poll on Instagram a few days ago, and the majority of people who replied said they wanted me to continue as usual,

without particularly focusing on the current pandemic. without particularly focusing on the current pandemic. However, I've also had a lot of different views on other channels saying that they want more coronavirus-specific content. I do think it's going to be hard for me to completely ignore the pandemic, and so I'm going to try and do a little bit of a mix, continue with mostly usual podcasts, but also throw in a few that are related to the current societal situation that will also have value beyond it. And I think today's conversation really fits that category. Today's guest is a previous Feel Better Live More favourite. It is Johan Hari, who most recently was on episode 94, talking about the real causes of depression and what an episode that was. If you've not yet heard it,

do go and take a listen. It really is super illuminating and insightful. Having already written a book about the importance of connection, Johan was an obvious choice to invite back, especially given that many of us are currently feeling really quite disconnected. In this conversation, Johan talks about how loneliness affects our mental health and provides insight, understanding and practical solutions to help us through. We start by talking about what Johan says is the biggest cause of emotional difficulty, and that is financial insecurity. Of course, things are moving very fast, and since this

podcast was recorded, the UK government has announced support for the self-employed as well as the employed. But people are understandably worried about how they will cope until that help filters through. A YouGov survey suggests that many are already borrowing money only one week into the current UK lockdown. And Johan believes that asking our political representatives to address this is a vital way to feel connected and to value our key workers and safeguard our mental health. We also discussed how shared experiences and meaning can be a way out of loneliness. And Johan gives some extraordinary examples of people who've managed to find meaning and affect positive change in the face of huge adversity. We're all familiar

with post-traumatic stress, but there's emerging evidence that more people actually experience growth as a result of trauma. They re-evaluate, reset their values, and life in many ways gets better for them. Could this be the way we all move through and beyond this global crisis? It's a lot to get your head around, but it's a powerful message to hear. Take care, stay safe, and be kind. Now before we get started, I do need to give a quick shout out to some of the sponsors of today's show who are essential in order for me to put out regular episodes like this one. Athletic Greens continue their support of my podcast and Athletic Greens is one of the most nutrient-dense whole

food supplements that I've ever come across and contains vitamins, minerals, prebiotics and digestive enzymes. As you know, I do prefer that people get all of their nutrition from food, but I recognise that for some of us, this is not always possible. So if you're looking to take something each morning as an insurance policy to make sure that you are meeting your nutritional needs, I can highly recommend it. For listeners of this podcast, if you go to athleticgreens.com forward slash live more, you will be able to access a special offer where you get a free travel pack box containing 20 servings of Athletic Greens, which is worth around £70 with your first order.

You can check it out at athleticgreens.com forward slash live more. Now, on to today's conversation. So Johan, welcome back to the podcast. Good to be with you. I wish I was back on in slightly happier circumstances, but I'm really chuffed to see you. Yeah, me too. So for people who are listening to this and not watching this on YouTube, we are currently speaking over Skype, which is quite unusual for my podcast. I've always tried my best to make sure they're always face-to-face meetings because I think that that connection being, you know, being able to see you in the eyes, which you can actually do

over Skype having said that, is really, really important for how we are as humans. And I guess that's probably a really good way to start off this conversation, Johan, that we're living in some quite crazy times at the moment, aren't we? And something that's core to being a human being is connecting with others and being around other people. Yet that's what's been limited from us at the moment, isn't it? Yeah, you know, I've been thinking about this a lot. I've been thinking about, you know, obviously I spent three years researching why we're having such a big increase in depression and anxiety for my book lost connections and then it's been really

disorientating to see this crisis unfold in the last two weeks and to realize that the the factors that i was taught by the leading scientists in the world cause a lot of our depression and anxiety epidemic, the kind of nine factors that I write about in the book, a lot of them are going to really increase now and in fact are increasing all around us. But one of the things I take hope from in this is I think this is a real opportunity for us to understand what has been causing depression and anxiety to rise for a long time now. A lot of those things are about to intensify and are intensifying. But actually, once I'd learned what really causes these problems, it opened up a whole different set of solutions that we can pursue, some of which I think are

really, really relevant now. So I think a lot of terrible things are happening in this crisis catastrophes but the one good thing is that i think it can give us a deeper understanding of what causes these problems that we can take forward partly to deal with the problems now and to deal with those problems going forward uh when the world gets back to um you know a post when we get to a post-corona world yeah absolutely so you know it's a bit of context there for people who are new to the show is that the podcasts i did with you last year johan which we re-released actually on episode 94 is one big long conversation it's probably one of the most listened to podcasts that i've ever released people really resonated with the

sort of things you were talking about, which is really what are the real causes of depression. And we can extend that beyond depression to actually anxiety and actually mental health problems per se. And one of the central messages from that was that we're living in a society where our basic needs are not being met. Now, in a pre-corona world, we were living in that world where a lot of our basic needs were not being met. For me, it feels as though that's in some ways been amped up. We've turned up the volume on that. Currently, as we're feeling scared, many people are feeling anxious in the face of this pandemic. So, you know, what are your thoughts on that? What are those needs that are currently not being met? And I guess we want to sort of help over the course of this conversation,

provide insight, provide understanding, but also give people some practical solutions that they may be able to apply at the moment. Yeah, so I think it's really important just to unpack the idea that people have needs to help people to understand it. So everyone knows that they have natural physical needs, right? Obviously, you need food, you need water, you need shelter, you need clean air. If I took those things away from you, you'd be obviously in trouble very quickly. But there's equally strong evidence that all human beings have natural psychological needs. You need to feel you belong. You need to feel your life makes sense. You need to feel you've got a stability and security around you. You need to feel you've

got a future that you understand. And our culture is good at lots of things. And I'm glad to be alive today. A lot of things are much better than in the past. But there's good evidence that we've been getting less and less good at meeting these deep psychological needs and obviously for a lot of people right now their psychological needs have fallen off the cliff so let's give a very obvious one because i'm a little bit uncomfortable that a lot of the you know for example i saw a really admirable person who i like who works for a mental health charity on television three or four days ago, who was being asked, you know, what should people do? And she talked about meditation and watching the news, all of which I'm in favour of and I'm sure we'll get to.

But actually, the primary reason why a lot of people are anxious right now, not the only one, but I'd say number one, along with the risk of actually catching the virus itself, is financial insecurity. So we've known for a long time that financial insecurity causes depression. If you have a private income from property, you are 10 times less likely to develop severe anxiety than if you don't, right? And in a way, that's a kind of no shit Sherlock insight, right? If you ask my grandmother or your grandmother, you know, when we were kids, well, do you think being really worried about money makes you more anxious and depressed? My grandmother would have said, well, why are you wasting my time asking such an obvious question?

So that's been happening for a long time, right? There's been an increase in financial insecurity and a decrease, although unemployment was low up to this crisis. We had a big increase in unstable employment, gig economy, people having fewer and fewer stable contracts, things like that. That has a big rise in financial insecurity. We had a decline in the middle class. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck, as we're seeing now in this crisis. So we had a big increase in financial insecurity that caused a lot of depression and anxiety. And then what happened is very often people would seek help and they would be told an overly simplistic story about why they

were depressed and anxious. So when I was a teenager, as we've talked about before, I went to my doctor and explained that I had this feeling like pain was leaking out of me. I didn't understand it. I was ashamed of it. And my doctor said, all that was going on in my life is that I had a chemical imbalance in my brain. And all I needed to do was drug myself. And there are real biological contributions to depression and anxiety that I'm sure we'll get to. And the drugs did give me some relief for a while. But precisely because that story was too simplistic, it diverted me for a long time from understanding the deeper causes of my depression.

In my case, it wasn't financial insecurity. It was other things, again, that we might get to. So I think it's really important to understand financial insecurity is going to be the biggest driver of people's anxiety. And financial insecurity can be dealt with, right? El Salvador is one of the poorest countries in the Americas. The president of El Salvador has cancelled everyone's rent, everyone's electricity and utility bills for the next three months, right? If El Salvador can afford to do that, we can afford to do that. Now, the British government has done some good things. There's been a, you know, the guarantee of 80%

of paying, the government is going to pay 80% of people's wages if they're on waged employment. But that's left a huge gap of around 5 million people who are self-employed and so on. So the single biggest thing we can do to reduce anxiety at the moment is for all of us together to pressure the government to give guarantees that will give people financial security to get through this crisis. That's not pie in the sky. France has done it. Anyone can go on YouTube and watch President Macron's speech or Angela Merkel's speech. Governments across Europe are guaranteeing people's economic stability. It's good for the economy. It's obviously very good for people's emotional and mental health. So I would say there's loads and

loads of things, and I'm sure we're going to cover lots of them, but dealing with that financial insecurity is something that will really reduce people's anxiety. And that gives us lessons going forward from this, right? We already knew this to some degree. So there's a really interesting experiment that happened in the 1970s, very relevant to now, I think, that I've been thinking about a lot. So in the 70s, in Canada, the government, the national government, chose seemingly at random, a town to do an experiment. It's a town called Dauphin in Manitoba. And they said to a whole load of people in this town, you're a citizen of our country. We want you to have a good life. We're doing an

experiment. From now on, we're going to give you a guaranteed basic income. It wasn't a huge amount of money. It was about £10,000 in contemporary British money. So, you know, you could live on £10,000. you're not going to be homeless, but you're not going to have a great life, right? They wanted to say to people, they wanted to figure out what happens if you've just got a baseline of stability in your life. And they wanted to figure out what happened. An amazing social scientist named Dr. Evelyn Forger did loads of research on this. And they discovered loads of things. Interestingly, almost nobody stopped working. Some people did study longer, and some

people who had babies spent longer out of work with their babies, but almost nobody gave up their jobs. But what did happen was lots of positive things. And the single most important thing that was really positive that happened was a really big fall in all mental health problems. In fact, mental health problems that were so severe that people had to be shut away in mental hospitals fell by 9% in a very short period of time. You won't find a drug that causes that big a fall, right? So that tells us, and there's other evidence we can talk about if you want, that tells us giving people a baseline of financial security reduces depression and anxiety. One of the reasons we've had so much rising depression and anxiety over the last few years, in fact, really all throughout my lifetime, it's not the only one, it's one of the nine that I talk about in my book Lost Connections,

is rising financial insecurity. Okay, now that huge numbers of us are going to very unfortunately and horribly experience that, it can tell us A, what we can do now, and B, when we get out of this crisis, what we can do to further reduce depression and anxiety. Well, to sort of give a 30,000-foot view, I know people listen to this all over the world. Currently in the UK, the government have asked people to, you know, practice social distancing, self-isolating if they've got symptoms. Last night, that got ramped up. Our Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to the

nation and was really quite strict on what he was expecting people to do which is basically all of us to stay at home where we can apart from you know unless we've got essential work like healthcare for example or food deliveries and this is really quite different in terms of how we're going to live our day-to-day lives than, frankly, ever in my lifetime and probably in most people who are alive currently. It's probably something they've never had to experience at all. So, the big worry, and even when I post about this on my social media channels, it's easier to follow that advice if your financial needs are being taken care of, isn't it? Let's say you're a plumber and you know

that if you go and do the job that you meant to go and do, or that you've got booked to do, you're going to get paid and that's potentially going to put food on your plate. It's very, very hard for people to say no. And again, as a doctor, I'm going to say I am. I do think social distancing and keeping ourselves at home is very, important at the moment but it's easier for some of us to do it than others isn't it totally and i think that's a really important point i've seen that in my own family and it's really important whatever the circumstances that people social distance but what we've got to do is have clear rules that people social distance and then make it possible for people to survive while they are socially distancing and those both

halves of those things are absolutely essential. If you're putting people in a situation where the choice is either follow the best public health advice and not be able to feed your kids, potentially lose your home, no one should be put in that choice, right? And that's, again, why France, Germany, El Salvador, other countries are doing the right thing, guaranteeing that people don't have to make that terrible choice. Yeah, I think it's a great point. So, Jan, at the moment, we've, well, in the past, we've spoken and you've written a lot about loneliness in the past. And, you know, I think society was, if we, you know, if we go back a couple of

months before this global pandemic was really upon us, loneliness was a big problem then, right? So, again, it feels as though that problem is going to potentially be exacerbated a lot at the moment because of what we're being asked to do. So So I really want to get your take on that and what sort of things that we can do. And the other thing I wanted to talk about with you is that something I mentioned on BBC Breakfast News the other day, when I was talking about the importance of social distancing and self-isolating, but I said, on one hand, we're going to help prevent the spread of the virus by, you know, by taking these precautions. But on the other hand, we're going to help prevent the spread of the virus by, you know, by taking these precautions. But on the other hand, we're going to increase potentially isolation and loneliness and actually start to exacerbate and create a whole load of new mental health problems. And I'm really

interested in what happens three, four months down the line, or six, seven months down the line. of what happens three, four months down the line, or six, seven months down the line, what are the implications? Yes, reduce the spread of the virus. But on the other hand, are we going to make a lot of other things far, far worse? I think that's so important. And so right. And I think you're right that this was obviously going to get up, you know, there's a real risk of this getting a lot worse. But a lot of people were already living in a kind of psychological quarantine. If you look at the figures on loneliness, they're kind of incredible. You know, we're just behind the United States. 40% of Americans say they feel that nobody knows them well. I spent a lot of time interviewing a completely

amazing man named Professor John Cassioppo, who sadly just died, just an unbearable loss, professor john cassioppo who sadly just died just an unbearable loss actually um so professor cassioppo uh was the kind of leading expert on loneliness in the world and he taught me a huge number of things um but but one key thing he discovered i think is really interesting and really important and helpful for what we do now is he discovered a fascinating thing so obviously to study loneliness first you have to figure out a kind of working definition of it, right? Figure out what is loneliness. Everyone, if you say to them, do you feel lonely, understands what you mean. But actually he discovered, I mean, some of this had been known before, but he made a real breakthrough in it. He discovered a very surprising fact, which is first, logically you think, well, loneliness is being alone, right?

So a good way of measuring loneliness would be well how many people did you speak to today okay if you only spoke to one person you're going to be more lonely than someone who spoke to 10 people that turns out it's not true there isn't that big an overlap between how many people you spoke to and how lonely you feel and at first he thought well that's really weird what's how can that be What's going on here? And then you discovered something really important. Loneliness isn't about the quantity of people you interact with. It's about feeling that you have a shared sense of meaning with someone. So a lot of people will have had the experience when you're, a couple of experiences to help us to get your head around it, help me to get my head around it. So say you go to a new city for the first time and you go to new york and you've never been there and you go to times square

and you're on your own you're surrounded by other people but you feel lonely because you don't share anything meaningful with these people you don't have shared memories you don't know them you don't even know their names or another example would be think about when a relationship breaks down so you when a relationship is breaking down often often you feel quite lonely, even though the other person is still physically there. That's because you've lost your shared sense of meaning with them, right? So loneliness isn't about the quantity of people you interact with. It's about how much meaning you have with other people. If you feel you're part of something meaningful.

And very often, meaning comes from building up what are called reciprocal relationships. So I remember Professor Cassiopo explaining to me, if you're in hospital and you feel lonely, you can push a button and the nurse will come and get you something, but you still feel lonely. Why is that? And he said, because it's not a reciprocal relationship. The nurse will help you, but you can't help the nurse. If you started trying to help the nurse, they would stop you, right? That's not what you're there for. So meaning and reciprocity are the ways out of loneliness, right? So even though we are physically separated at the moment, there are still ways we can build meaning and purpose together, whether it's through art or music or political

projects that we can still fight for. I've been thinking a lot about, okay, one thing that'd be meaningful would be how can we honour the people who now are keeping our country going, who have been so disrespected for so long, you know, people who are stacking the supermarket shelves every day, what can we do to honor them we could be fighting for a big increase in the minimum wage for example when all this is over they've earned that they they deserved it before they certainly deserve it now there's all sorts of collective things we can be fighting for yeah i mean super super interesting listening to this johan i mean you're articulating a lot of the things that I've been thinking about over the last few days and even weeks, really. A few things to pick up on. I really like what you said about loneliness, about that it's not necessarily being with someone physically or the amount of interactions, it's about that sort of shared experience with people. And I think at the moment, that could be really powerful, right?

Because we are as a society, as a country here in the UK, but as a world, we are sharing a similar experience. I mean, I can't remember the last time when we all shared something together. Now, look, what are those times when people share stuff? You know, sometimes it's in a, you know, the World Cup, let's say England are doing well in the World Cup. And certainly within England, you know, there's a bit of a, people have got to skip in their step on the streets because everyone's sharing something together. Or it might be the Olympics or, you know, often it's sporting events, isn't it? If I think about this on a global level, and of course, I appreciate not everyone has that feeling with global events, but sporting events often, those big, big sporting events often bring people together. So you feel connected to people who also live in your surroundings and your country through that common shared experience. In some ways, if we can harness it correctly, this could almost be the antidote to loneliness.

In some ways, if what you're saying has validity in this particular situation, it's like, well, we're all sharing the same experience. So I guess the next step is then how can we do something with that shared experience? You know, have you got any tips for people? You know, how can we use this? Is it to get online? Is it to have these virtual coffee club meetings that people are, you know, they're having coffee with their friends over Zoom or over some sort of online platform, which

is just a wonderful way that we're adapting. And also, I wonder if you could comment, Johan, on, can you imagine if this was happening before we had an online world? Can you imagine this sort of isolation before the internet, before the ability, you know, we're connecting now. As you know, the last time we did a podcast together, we were in my hotel room in London. We sat there chewing the fat for an hour and 40 minutes,

just having, you know, a really deep, meaningful conversation. We're trying our best to do that now over the internet. So there's quite a few themes there to maybe unpick. I think there's loads of things in what you just said that are so important wrong and you know as you were speaking i kept thinking about one thing in particular so i've known lots of people in my life who i think managed to take a tragedy and make extraordinary meaning out of it i try to tell you about some of them if that's okay please yeah yeah yeah question so a friend of mine is the journalist deca aikenhead

a lot of people will know her work she was the chief interviewer for the guardian she's now the chief interviewer for the sunday times and as a lot of people will will know um five years ago uh deca went through a terrible tragedy in her life so um deca, she went on holiday to Jamaica to a place called Treasure Beach, where she spent a lot of time in her life. She was on holiday with her partner, Tony Wilkinson, and had two kids who were three and five, and they were on the beach in Treasure Beach. And they were playing with a three-year-old and they didn't realise that their oldest son had kind of bolted into the ocean and he was just playing around and it was just happened very quickly and he started to yell to them and in fact what happened

is he'd been caught in a riptide and it was carrying him out and Tony of course ran and ran to his son and tried to get him but Tony didn't know I wouldn't know that if you're in a riptide you mustn't try and swim through it, it pulls you down. You have to lie back and it'll carry you. So he was trying to get to his son, Jake. Decker then ran into the ocean and she managed to get to Jake. She'd actually been, she had a memory of when she was 14, being taught a swimming lesson and being taught about what you're meant to do in this situation. She managed to get to Jake and lift him up and keep him from drowning. But her partner, Tony, drowned in front of them both.

And then a few months later, Decker was diagnosed with breast cancer, quite advanced breast cancer. And I knew Decker all along, but i actually became very close friends with her after she interviewed me later about um difficult time in my nothing as hard as that but a difficult time in my own life and you know this is an unbearable tragedy right obviously anyone listening to this can imagine this is a terrible tragedy but deca and her children and some other people did a really amazing thing as a result of this. So in Jamaica, very few people can swim. None of the children, almost none of the children in Treasure Beach could swim.

There's a theory that it's this horrific legacy of slavery that under slavery, and everyone in Jamaica is descended from people who were enslaved. Under slavery, people weren't allowed to swim because it would have been a way you might potentially escape so for whatever reason people can't swim very few people can swim so deca sat with some other wonderful people set up a charity it's called lickle swimmers l-i-k-k-l-e swimmers which has now taught every child in treasure beach how to swim and is now teaching more and more kids in Jamaica how to swim. And I've been thinking a lot about that because, you know,

Tony died trying to save one person from drowning. But as a result of what they were able to build out of this heroic thing that he did, he saved an untold number of people from drowning right regularly every year a kid would drown in treasure beach that's not happening now and those kids will teach their kids how to swim and they'll teach their kids how to swim and they'll teach their kids how to swim there's a ripple effect from this moment of courage and bravery that we'll never know there'll be 150 years from now because that chain of passing on learning how to swim, someone will be saved from drowning.

And we'll never know that person's name and we'll never see their face. But that doesn't take away for Decker and her children the catastrophe of what happened, of course. They still miss Tony every day. And Decker, by the way, wrote a wonderful book about this that I really recommend everyone read at this time called All at Sea. But we can build meaning out of pain in ways that transforms that pain and make something positive out of it. Just taking a quick break in the conversation to give a shout out to the sponsors of today's show.

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Someone I got to know well for a different book i wrote a book about addiction which is called chasing the scream so um in the early 2000s in the year 2000 in fact there was a homeless guy with an addiction problem named bud osborne who was living in a place called the downtown east side of vancouver and the downtown east side a lot of people will know it who've spent time in vancouver it's um a very poor neighborhood with a lot of chaotic street addiction you know a lot of homeless people with very bad addiction problems and bud was watching his friends just die all around him of overdoses right there was a very harsh police crackdown. At the time, there was just epidemic addiction and people were just dying everywhere. And one day he bumped into someone and he discovered that his friend Margaret had just

died. And Bud thought, look, I can't just sit here and watch all my friends die. But at the same time as he would have put it there and he said well look i'm just a homeless junkie what can i do right um but but one day bud bud had an idea and he gathered together a load of the homeless people with addiction problems and he said um you know uh made a suggestion so at that time because there was such a bad police crackdown when people wanted to shoot up they would go and hide in like dumpsters or in abandoned houses or whatever but obviously if you're hiding and you start to overdose no one finds you they just find you when you're dead hours or days later so bud had this idea he was like okay look we're the users we know

where people shoot up why don't we draw up a timetable and when we're not using which is most of the time even for quite hardcore um addicts um we'll go and we'll look in the places we shoot up and if we see someone overdosing we'll call an ambulance right no officials nothing we'll just do this ourselves and And people were a bit sceptical, but they really liked Bud. So they were like, okay, we'll do it. And they started to do it. And over the next few months, the death toll on the downtown east side really massively fell, right? Which was amazing in itself because it meant people who would have died had lived. But it also meant that people with addiction problems started to think about

themselves differently, right? They were like, maybe we're not the pieces of shit everyone thinks we are. Maybe we can do something. So what could we do next? So Bud went to the library in the downtown Eastside and he spent a lot of time reading. And he learned that in Frankfurt in Germany, years before in the 80s, they had opened what are called safe injection sites. So it's very simple. It's just a place where if you've got an addiction problem, you can go in, you're given a years before in the 80s they had opened what are called safe injection sites so it's very simple it's just a place where if you've got an addiction problem you can go in you're given a clean needle and you shoot up there and a nurse watches you to make sure that you're being as protected as you can and to get you help if you overdose and Bud had discovered this had massively reduced deaths

in in Germany I think the in Frankfurt, overdose deaths fell by something like 80%. So he was like, okay, we'll do that here. Let's argue for them to do that here. But nothing like that had happened in Canada or the United States for 70 years. But he was like, okay, we'll persuade the authorities to do it. At that time, the mayor of Vancouver was a man named Philip Owen, who'd run as a kind of right-wing guy. He was from a very privileged family. He'd never known anyone with an addiction problem. And he'd actually run for office saying all the people with addiction problems should be taken and detained at the local military base in Chilliwack, right? He was a very unlikely person for them to persuade.

But Bud was like, okay, we're going to persuade Philip Owen. We're going to persuade the authorities. So they decided, they set up a group called VANDU, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. And everywhere Philip Owen went in public, they followed him around carrying a coffin. And the coffin had written on it, who will die next, Philip Owen, before you open a safe injection site.

Every time Philip Owen did a town hall meeting, someone from this group, Van Du, would stand up and say, who will die next, Philip Owen, before you open a safe injection site? One day, Dean Wilson, one of the members, stood up and said, do you remember the woman who said to you a few weeks ago, who will die next before you open a safe injection site? It turned out to be her because you haven't done it yet. And this went on for years. They filled the biggest park in Vancouver with crosses to represent every person who died of an overdose. It went on for years and people started to lose heart. And then one day, entirely to his credit, Philip Owens said, who are these people? What is this? It was just like, what's going on?

You know, he'd never known anyone with an addiction problem. And he decided to just sit with a load of the people who had addiction problems and hear their stories. And it blew his mind because he thought they were just self-indulgent people who party too hard, who were too selfish. And what he discovered is they were people who were in deep pain, who were trying to anaesthetise their pain as best they could. And what he discovered is they were people who were in deep pain, who were trying to anaesthetise their pain as best they could. And Philip Owen called a press conference. And he had the chief of police, the coroner, and a representative of Vandu, the addicts organisation. And he said, we're going to open the first safe injection site in North America. We're going to

have the most compassionate drug policies in North America. We're going to have the most compassionate drug policies in North America. Things are going to change around here, just you wait and see. And his own right-wing party was so horrified, they deselected him as their candidate and his political career ended. But the candidate they selected, the kind of right-wing candidate, was beaten by a more liberal candidate who was in favour of opening the drug room, and it opened and it transformed life on the downtown east side. And overdose deaths fell by 80 percent. And average life expectancy on the downtown east side increased by 10 years, which you almost never see anywhere except when a war ends.

Right. And, you know, I got to know Bud really well, who'd started this movement. And the reason I've been thinking about him a lot, you know, Bud died a few years ago. He was only in his early 60s, but he'd been a homeless person with an addiction problem at the height of a drug war. It had taken a real toll on him. And when Bud died, they sealed off Hastings and Main, the area where he had lived as a homeless person. And they had this incredible memorial ceremony for him. And, you know, a lot of the people there knew that they were alive because he'd started this fight and so many other people had joined it. And it led to an extraordinary transformation in Canada. So the right-wing government of Stephen

Harper tried to shut down the injection site. It went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled that people with addiction problems have a right to life, and that means that can never be taken away again, right? That injection room can't be taken away. And I've been thinking about that a lot because a lot of us are feeling powerless right now, right? What can we do? We're in this terrible crisis, what can we do? You know, it's hard to imagine a more powerless person in our culture than a homeless person with an addiction problem. Bard didn't sit there thinking, will I give up? He didn't sit there thinking someone else will deal with this. What he did is he started where he stood and he persuaded the people who would listen to him. And they persuaded other people and they persuaded other people and people opened their hearts and it led to a profound transformation in how people with

addiction problems are treated in Canada and when you've got nothing else you've got a voice you've got a human voice that you can use to show love and compassion and to persuade other people and there's lots of changes we're going to have to make in response to the coronavirus and there's lots of things we're going to have to make in response to the coronavirus. And there's lots of things we're going to have to pressure our governments to do, both now to minimise people's financial insecurity, to make people safe, and things we're going to have to pressure to do that we should have been doing all along, and the changes afterwards from the lessons we're going to learn from this crisis. And I think it's worth thinking about, Barden, it's worth thinking about, you know, you are so much more powerful than you think, right?

I remember I was talking about this before. People have power. They have agency. Small groups of people can change the world when they unite and they engage with people in a spirit of love and compassion. I saw that with Deca. I saw that with Bud. You know, we can build meaning from these moments of terrible pain. bud you know we can build meaning from these moments of terrible pain yeah and i and you know you know and thank you for sharing all that because there's some really inspiring stories

and i guess what we can take from it is that you know what from adversity comes a lot of growth comes a lot of um you know the new birth of new ideas and new ways of doing things. And neither one of us, I'm sure, want to, you know, we don't want to minimise the dangers and the problems that people are facing at the moment and the potential for healthcare systems to get swamped. But I think what you are trying to say, what I'm trying to say is that for all the negatives, there may well be some positives that come on the back of this. And one thing I've started to do every morning is I'm just starting to write a few of those positives down, you know. So, you know, communities are coming together. People are showing kindness

to other people in a way that maybe they hadn't done before. They're checking in on their neighbours. You know, a lot of us don't even know our neighbors anymore um but we're starting to check in and and you know this common shared experience is bringing some of the best out in humanity of course it's bringing out some of the worst in humanity as well but then i think about that and go well that's just humanity i think we're just stress testing the system and actually so the worst is getting worse and the better is getting even better because we're just putting more pressure on the system and so we're exposing more things but in terms of some of the things I've experienced so far you know yes it's communities coming together I mean even I'll tell you what in our household we're being so much more careful around foods and not wasting it and

reusing things and you know in a way that we weren't a few weeks ago because we've suddenly, we've been reminded of the value of food. Can you imagine the first time that Parkrun reopens after this and people will all be in their local communities and running together thinking, oh my God, aren't we lucky to be able to do this with the people around us? Or the next time, now that Boris Johnson shut all the cafes and restaurants, and certainly I'm aware we've got an international audience here in the UK, can you imagine the next time you meet a friend in a coffee shop? How is that going to feel? Isn't that going to feel like the most wonderful experience to go, oh my God, we can actually sit together and share a cup of coffee or for me the next time I could

do a podcast face to face with someone you know looking at their eyes not through a computer screen like I'm doing now with a slight delay because of the Skype but actually there in real time the other thing I'll be thinking a lot about and this really touches on what you started off this conversation with Johan about this whole idea of financial security, you know, aren't we now seeing who are some of the most valued people in our society? Healthcare professionals, farmers, food delivery drivers, you know, nurses, you know, bin men, you know, and bin women, you know, people who collect the rubbish and take it out, you know, all men, you know, and bin women, you know, people who collect the rubbish and take it out, you know, all these kind of roles who, if I'm honest, I don't think society has valued enough,

certainly in terms of financial worth, but also beyond financial worth in terms of what do we think of these people? How do we value them? It's really staring us stark in the face when everything gets shut down. Who do we need for society to keep running? We need the bin collections. We need food to be delivered because if that suddenly stops, we've all got a problem and social unrest will break out. So, I also share for all the negativity, I think there is positivity and I think there will be some incredible lessons that we all learn. And I think if everyone listening to this right now asks themselves, you know, what are some of those lessons that you've already learned? Because I would encourage people to write them down so we

don't forget a few months down the line, that we remember, do you know what? These are the little things that we need to be grateful for. I love that. I think that's so beautifully put. And I think there's lots of things in it. I think one of them is, it's very interesting, if you think about the story we tell about trauma in our culture, everyone knows the concept of post-traumatic stress, right? And that's a very real thing. And it's terrible. But actually, there's this really interesting, I think it's one of the fascinating growing areas of psychological research. There's a huge amount of evidence for something called post-traumatic growth. And actually, more people who go through trauma experience post-traumatic growth than post-traumatic stress.

So a lot of people, say you track down people who survive a plane crash, right? No one is glad they were in a plane crash. Obviously, it's an absolutely terrible thing. And some people develop classic, what we would call PTSD, you know, flash's an absolutely terrible thing. And some people develop classic, what we would call PTSD, flashbacks, the whole thing. And it's devastating for them. A lot of people experience what's called post-traumatic growth, which is, obviously, they don't say, I'm glad the plane crashed. What they say is, actually, it made me completely re-evaluate my life. I quit the job I didn't like. I left the husband who was treating me like shit, whatever it would be. And my life. I quit the job I didn't like. I left the husband who was treating me like shit, whatever it would be. And my life got much better as a result. I think we all need to be thinking

about post-traumatic growth right now, which again is not to in any way diminish the actual trauma, which is very, very real. And I think one of the things you're talking about is just so important. It relates to one of the things that was causing depression. I remember you and I talking about this before, causing depression before, and that we can take forward now, which is about meaning and purpose. So everyone knows that junk food has taken over our diets and made us physically sick. But there's equally strong evidence that a kind of junk values have taken over our minds and made us mentally sick. For thousands of years, philosophers said, if you think life is about money and status and showing off, you're going to feel like shit. But actually, no one had scientifically

investigated this until this incredible man I got to know named Professor Tim Kasser, who's at Knox College in Illinois, just retired actually. And Professor Kasser discovered two really important things. Firstly, the more you think life is about money and status and showing off the kind of values you get from advertising and Instagram, the more likely you are to become depressed and anxious. Because it doesn't meet your deeper needs as a human being, right? It trains you to look for happiness in all the wrong places. And secondly, he discovered that all through my lifetime, I'm 41, we have become more driven by these values. I think of them as like junk values, analogous to junk food. Just like we all need nutrition and junk food appeals to the part of us that needs nutrition, but actually screws with it. We all need a system of values to guide us through life. And these junk values have actually taught us have hijacked that

and i think you're totally right this is a moment to reset that meaning who are we looking to now are we looking to kim kardashian no disrespect to her are we looking to the people with the swankist cars no you're totally right that list of key workers that you know has been released by a lot of governments the people who can still move about, you're exactly right. Garbage collectors. My mother was a nurse for a long time. I'm thinking a lot about nurses right now. My mother then worked in shelters for victims of domestic violence. I'm thinking a lot about them right now. My dad was a bus driver. I'm thinking about people who did my dad's old job. My grandmother's job was to be a cleaner. She cleaned toilets. I'm thinking about the people who were keeping the society going, doing the things my grandmother did.

We've disrespected people by choosing a sick and worthless set of values, right? That said that someone like Philip Green, the billionaire scumbag owner of Topshop, was a more valuable person than my grandmother cleaning toilets. The opposite was always true. And I don't hold myself above that in some sanctimonious way. You know, one of the mistakes I made for many of the years that I was depressed is when I got depressed, very often I would turn to those junk values. I would think this, literally junk food in a lot of cases like McDonald's, but also junk values where I would turn to those junk values. I would think this, literally junk food in a lot of cases, like McDonald's, but also junk values where I would think the way out of my depression was to, you know, have some fancy external achievement to show off.

You know, for me, it wasn't so much buying things. That was never my, it was never that kind of thing. But, you know, some external show-offy achievement. And now I see that was that was never the answer right the answer was always in love and connection connecting with other people i mean alistair campbell he's done great work on depression tony blair's former press secretary put out a list of 20 things that people can do at the moment um uh which i recommend people read to avoid anxiety and depression.

One of the things I love that Alistair said was, and at point 13 was, contact people you haven't heard from in a really long time. See how they are. I started making, I've literally got in front of me a list of old friends I haven't spoken to in many years who I'm going to phone. But someone I hadn't seen since I was 18 contacted me online.

It was partly to say, it's a funny thing. She said, I don't know if you remember, but when we were 17, we watched some horror film and we were trying to figure out the point in the collapse of civilization where we would just die. And you said, she said to me,

you said it's when they stopped filming Coronation Street and all the McDonald's clothes. And she's like, it's happened. It was a kind of funny, funny moment to be reminded of. Yeah. And she's like, it's happened. It was a kind of funny moment to be reminded of. Yeah. So this thing about don't try and make yourself feel better just by helping yourself. And we're seeing that now with all the altruism and courage and bravery. Think about these nurses and doctors who are going in. They're like, someone said online, they're like

Spitfire pilots. It's completely true. When I think about the courage and altruism and bravery of those people going in, knowing they are risking their lives to save other people. And you know, that is a much more common response to disaster than suffrage. There's a really good book about this called Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit. Wonderful book about, she happened to be in an earthquake, I think in California or it might've been in Mexico City, I forget. She was in an earthquake and she noticed that in the earthquake,

and this is true, in natural disasters, everyone reacts solidaristically. Everyone helps everyone else, right? And she was like, oh, that's interesting. And she was then, and it's a book about solidarity in times of disaster.

I remember thinking a lot about that at the time of the, do you remember the, this must be, I guess, two years ago now, there was this flood, a terrible flooding in Houston in Texas. And I remember seeing, there was a woman who was a Latino woman, I think this is relevant for reason I'll get to, was a Latino woman who was about to drown, she was about to be swept away. for reason I'll get to, is a Latina woman who was about to drown. She was about to be swept away. And a whole group of people formed a human chain to get to her, to pull her back.

And I remember seeing the guy who was interviewed, who was one of the people on the human chain. And, you know, he was a, you know, white guy living in Texas. There's a significant chance he voted for Donald Trump and might have voted to deport this woman, right? In effect. And he risked his life to save her when he could see her, right? And we're thinking about that, that we all contain complexities and contradictory impulses, but when we can see suffering, almost everyone reacts solidaristically

and tries to help people who they can see are suffering and i think that human chain is a beautiful metaphor now we can't form physical human chains at the moment but we can form um psychological human chains we can form human chains of meaning and solidarity and love at the moment and And that is so important. Yeah. You were sick, weren't you, yourself a few weeks ago, and you think you may well have had this novel coronavirus. Yeah, I mean, it feels a bit pointless to kind of moan about it when everyone's having the same experience. What I'm sort of interested about is,

A, what that experience was like for you, but I guess, I wouldn't say more importantly but really what what i'd love to understand yeah because you've you've written a brilliant book uh well you've written many brilliant books actually but if we talk about lost connections it's it's such a great read very very well researched but i'm interested what have you learned yourself over the past few weeks you know you know all the research but what have you learned what what are these values that you have been reminded of either for yourself or for society i think that's super interesting you know it's so funny because i the way i caught i'm pretty

sure i caught it i could be wrong i could be wrong but i caught it and i could be wrong about the way i caught it but i'm fairly sure the context which i caught i think is kind of of relevant. So I was in Moscow to interview some people for a future book I'm working on. And one of the people I went to interview was this man, an incredible Russian psychologist called Dmitry Leontiev, who said such interesting, I probably shouldn't talk about this because I've not written about it yet. My publisher will tell me off, but I'll share it with you. So my, about it yet my publisher will tell me off but i'll share it with you um so my um dimitri um professor leontiev said to me you know he always thinks it's funny that in uh there's this big division between russian philosophy and psychology and british american philosophy and psychology so british america i mean this is really, but just to put the core of it,

British and American psychology has very often been built around the idea of maximising happiness, right? So it's even the American constitution, the right to the pursuit of happiness, right? And he said, when Russians hear that, we just laugh. We say, pursuing happiness is a child's game. Happiness will come and go. You won't have much control over that. He said, our philosophy isn't about pursuing happiness. Our philosophy is about pursuing meaning. And when you have meaning, meaning will carry you through painful moments. If you are doing something for a reason, if you have a sense of a purpose, there's something good that will come at the end of it. We think about something as simple as, if I went up to you now and started

jabbing things into your teeth, you would rightly regard me as a psychopath. If you go to the dentist and you have a meaning to that pain, so you know, oh, right, I'm doing this because at the end of it, my teeth will be better and I'll be in less pain, you can tolerate it, right? You've got a story and a sense of meaning about it. Now, that's true across a whole range of experiences in human existence. You think about something as simple as having a child, right? Having kids is physically painful, extremely physically painful for women, you know, and yet, because that has meaning, we tolerate the pain of it, right? So we, I don't have children, but, you know, humans, we tolerate the pain of it because it has deep

meaning for us, right? So I was learning all this about meaning i get on the plane back from moscow and i sat in the middle of a group of italians i only clocked they were italians i asked them where they were from because my dad's from a village in switzerland that's not far from the italian border and they were from lombardy and i thought oh well they've been they must have been in moscow for a while i didn't talk to them for long they must have been in moscow for a while i'm not i wasn't particularly worried and then a week later I got you know the standard symptoms I've got an absolutely came on really suddenly a raging fever extremely high temperature a few days later I got a cough uh you know for me I've stressed for me not for everyone a lot

people are going to be in a lot more danger for me it was like a very uncomfortable bad flu for like six days and then now i feel completely normal again i mean slightly crazy because i've been shut inside but and slightly kind of pent up but not i don't feel physically bad anymore in terms of meaning you know what i started doing it was a really weird experience i've been spending a lot of of time in Las Vegas for a different book I'm writing. And I started looking at webcams of loads of different places where I grew up, my dad's village in Switzerland, a province town, which I was talking about, Byron Bay in Australia, just different places I've been in my life, Buenos Aires. And it was so, there was something very strange about watching all these very different places emptying out and becoming still. It was a very disorientating experience and it's frightening and i do feel frightened um i feel frightened particularly for the older people in my life um and people with um problems uh suppressed immune systems or weaker immune systems

um i also thought i don't be careful how i say this I also thought I don't want to be careful how I say this you know to me it feels significant this has come so soon after the Australian fires I mean obviously it's purely a coincidence in one sense but I was really disturbed, I've been really disturbed about like a lot of people about global warming

the climate crisis and I've seen the catastrophe and I've contributed to it with my own travel and I've seen the catastrophe of the climate crisis in so many contributed to it with my own travel, and I've seen the catastrophe of the climate crisis in so many places. I've been to the Arctic and seen how it's a very small detail, but it really threw me. So during the wildfires in Australia, obviously Sydney was shrouded with smoke for a long time. And there was, I don't know if it was a specific day or it happened over a few days,

but I was talking to my friend Andy and his smoke alarm started to go off and he switched it off and it turned out all over Sydney, smoke alarms were going off in people's offices and homes because of course the smoke density had reached such a level that people it was like the building was on fire so what happened is everyone in sydney or a lot of people just had to switch off their smoke alarms and that seemed to me such a powerful metaphor that this system that's designed to protect us had to be switched off because the

bigger wider system that should protect us our sense of collective self-preservation and sanity did wasn't functioning properly and and the reason i mentioned that um and there's a really good book about that by naomi klein called on fire for people who want to think more about it um the reason i thought about that in relation to coronaviruses there's something hopeful if in the face of a massive existential threat we really can act we really can turn things around we really can come together and we knew that already we know you know you and i are both British people. We're raised on the story of the Blitz, which is a true story, right? I mean, not every aspect of it is true, but you know, the story of how London, the people of London came together in the face of the Nazis and survived the

most unbelievable violence in those nine months when Britain was alone in the war. It is a story everyone who was alive then is really proud of. There's a sense that if we can come together to deal with this, and it looks like we can, maybe the political system in the United States is so irrational and broken, they can't. If it is, that would be a devastating end of Rome style moment. I really hope that's not the case, because I spend a lot of my time in the United States and I love the people of the United States and have a lot of older people across the United States who I love in particular. But if we can come together to deal with this, that might, I've been thinking a lot about, well, could that mean that we could come together to deal with more than this?

together to deal with more than this? Is this a moment we've had this ramping up of extreme individualism for so long, you know, not just for your lifetime and my lifetime, but before that, ramping up and ramping up this poisoning of our values. Could this be a moment in which we are forced to, you know, my book is called Lost Connections because it's about saying to everyone, we are all connected whether we like it or not. You might imagine you are John Wayne alone on the horizon, but you are not, right? Even John Wayne wasn't that. And even the cowboys weren't that. You are not an isolated individual battling against the world. You are part of a social species. We are all connected. you can have a wet market in wuhan um and and it can shut down the las vegas strip because of what we do we are all united we are one species we we we we live or die together and if we can see that for the coronavirus maybe we

can see it for the climate crisis and maybe we can we can begin to listen if we can listen to the world scientists on coronavirus we can listen to the world scientists on the climate crisis and that again is a moment i think you can see that i'm trying to build feelings of hope to fend off the natural feelings that i have and everyone has of fear anxiety and despair and it's important to say we shouldn't stigmatize those feelings in themselves either. Those unnatural feelings, don't just try to bat them away, but let's try to think them through and weigh them

and act on the signals that we're feeling inside ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, man, I think you put it beautifully. It's a very optimistic note to bring this conversation to a close. You know, I see what's going on in my head. I'm thinking, God thinking gotta really enjoy this conversation i hope the recordings come well because i know this skype connection has been

a little bit ropey at times um but i really think what you had to say about this the optimism that actually i get the sense that you're using the optimism also to help yourself help yourself bat off those natural feelings of anxiety and, you know, woe and whatever else people are feeling at the moment. You're using this positivity as a way of actually coping with the situation. And I think that's an incredibly helpful tip for people. If you focus on the things, you know, that you're grateful for, you focus on the things that you're learning each day, you know, even five minutes every morning. So, what I'm doing when I'm having a hot drink every morning, I'm just writing down what my reflections on the last day, what have I learned, what have I learned about society, what have I

learned about myself. It's just quite an interesting and very gratifying exercise because most of it is really positive actually. So, yeah, I thank you very much for sharing that. Yeah, man, you may remember from last time, I always do like to leave the listeners with some really practical tips at the end if I can. You know, that's why it's called feel better, live more. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of lives. You've mentioned so many different things today in our conversation. I'm sure there's many things you've not had time to go into today. But I wonder if you could just summarise at the end of this chat, for people who are scared now, for people who are anxious, for people who think their world

is about to end, you know, people who are feeling isolated, they're struggling, their mental health is taking a downturn at the moment. Are there some practical tips that people can think about applying in their everyday lives immediately after this conversation that's going to help improve the way that they feel? Yes, I would say two very practical things that I would urge everyone to do. Firstly, wherever you are in the world, if your country hasn't already done this, pressure your political, we remain democracies, pressure your political we are we remain democracies pressure your political representatives to deal with the financial insecurities that people are facing right that is the single best thing we can do for people's mental health and we you know political systems are still responsive

to public pressure to some degree you can do that pressure them via social media, email them, bear in mind they're going to be facing a lot of problems at the moment, so we want to be kind and respectful, and they're going to be facing their own fears for their own health, but pressure governments to deal with that. Already there are measures like that. Every single rough sleeper in London last night was given a hotel room. We could have done that at any point in the history of London. It's great we've started now. I hope we remember after the crisis that was in our power all along, right? We could always have done that and we can do that going forward.

So I'd say one, be part of the fight. A, to deal with people's financial insecurity now. And B, let's figure out what we want to fight for to honour the people who are keeping us alive, right? What can we do for the people who are stacking the shelves that are keeping us with food? What can we do for the people who are still collecting our rubbish at a real risk to themselves, right?

We could, I think this is a great time to start a massive organised fight for a significantly higher minimum wage. I would also say on a more personal level, make a list of all the people in your life who've made a difference to you, who've helped you and phone them. I was thinking last night about my politics teacher when I was at Sitcom College, who I haven't spoken to in many years. Jackie Grice is her name. She's a completely incredible human being. She changed my life in all sorts of ways. When I was really down as a teenager, she was the first person to tell me that I was intelligent, that I had this capacity to do things. She was the person who got me to apply to Cambridge, which I would never have done.

I'm going to phone her tonight and just thank her, right? I've got a list of, I mean, she's a particularly amazing person, but I've got a list of, I mean, she's a particularly amazing person, but I've got a list of loads of people in my life. Just reach out to people, show love, show compassion. Can I just say one last thing, which is, if that's okay, which is two very quick last things. One is right now for the coronavirus, everyone is looking to the World Health Organization, which is the leading medical body in the world, for the best guidance about what we should do.

When this is over, we should start listening to the World Health Organization on mental health. Because for years and years, the World Health Organization has been explaining to us that we are doing this wrong, right? You can look up their statements i quote them in the book as well world health organization has been explaining that telling people depression anxiety and other mental health problems are purely biological problems um is really depriving them of an understanding of what's going on there are real biological components but as they say these are World Health Organization said, these are primarily social problems, and they primarily need social solutions. I think that's clearer to people

now that they can see the social solutions we all need. Or we could listen to the United Nations leading doctors who we're also looking to now. As the UN said in its official statement for World Health Day in 2017, when it comes to depression, we need to talk less about chemical imbalances and more about power imbalances. So the smartest people in the world are telling us what we should do about coronavirus. Let's start listening to them on mental health as well. And the very last thing I would say

is anyone who wants, anyone's looking for things to do at this difficult time, loads of the people that I've talked about, the experts, there's audio of them on my book's websites that you can listen to for free. If you go to www.thelostconnections.com, you can listen to the leading expert on loneliness. You can listen to almost everyone that I mentioned, the leading expert on junk values, loads of different people. Or if you want to listen to uh the almost everyone that i mentioned leading expert on junk values loads of

different people or if you want to listen to stuff on addiction you go to www.chasingthescream scream as in aha.com and i'm really grateful to you ronan for the work that you're doing and you know i think you do you're just such an admirable person and you do such important work and you communicate these things so thoughtfully and compassionately and I'm really grateful to you as well. Yeah thanks mate and look I really really appreciate you coming on I know we would much rather have done this face to face I'm glad you're feeling better now and look let's see what people think when this comes out I think they're going to get a lot of value from this a lot of value from the research you shared, your wisdom, your tips there at the end. What I love about that first tip is

it really goes along with your whole idea that for far too long, we've been looking for individual solutions to collective problems and you just went straight in with it. Let's pressure to sort out this financial mess. And I agree, you know, that will have so much more impact than the sort of things we can all individually do. But of course, the things we can do individually are going to make a difference as well. Johan, stay well over the next few weeks. I hope you manage fine. Anytime you want to chat, you just give me a call

and we'll touch base again soon, I'm sure. Brilliant. Cheers, Rangan. Thanks so much. Take it easy, mate. Take it easy. Bye. Bye. Thanks so much. Take it easy, mate. Take it easy.

Bye. Bye. That concludes today's episode of the podcast. I really hope you enjoyed the conversation and the insights that Johan shared. Please do have a think about what you heard in the conversation that you may be able to apply into your own life. For me, I love Johan's suggestion there at the end

to make a list of all the people in your life who've made a difference to you, who've helped you and found them. I think it's a really lovely thing to do at the moment that will have value for them, but also value for yourself. Now, a big part of the conversation today was about connection and community.

Obviously, it is really hard for people at the moment as they are unable to get together in person. So if you are looking for an online community to get involved with and support you, I can highly recommend my own private Facebook community. It's called Dr. Chatterjee Fort Pillar Community Tribe. It really is a supportive place to get inspiration, motivation, new ideas, and tips from other members. It's also a supportive place to get inspiration, motivation, new ideas and tips from other members.

It's also a great place to go and share what you are struggling with and get support from the community. There are almost 10,000 engaged members in there. You can just head over to Facebook if you want to get involved. Now, as I did mention in the intro, it is so, so important that you look after yourself at this current time. It's always been important, but never more so than right now. There are so many actionable tips in previous podcast episodes, but if you do want a lot of them in one place, it might be worth checking out or revisiting some of my previous books. And in particular, I would probably recommend The Stress Solution or Feel Better in 5 at the moment.

They are full of tips that will help you manage your physical and mental health. They'll also help you build resilience, which I think is going to be needed for all of us for the coming weeks and coming months. They're available in all formats, including audiobooks, if that is your preferred medium. If you want to learn more about Johan,

do check out the show notes page for this episode, which is drchastity.com forward slash 105. And if you do enjoy my weekly shows, I know I ask every week, but please do consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or whichever platform you listen to podcasts on. Many people are searching for podcasts at the moment.

And if you review the podcast today or straight after listening, it will really help amplify the reach of these conversations. So if the last time you gave a review was over a year ago or six months ago, please do consider sparing 20 seconds or so to jump back on to give the podcast another review. Of course, you can always simply share it with your friends and family as well.

And I really do appreciate your support. A big thank you to Vinata Chatterjee for producing this week's podcast and to Richard Hughes for audio engineering. That is it for today. I hope you have a fabulous week. Make sure that you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back very shortly with my latest conversation. Remember, you are the architects of your own health, making lifestyle changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time.