Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #187 The Power of Movement and How to Make It Easy

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

This week's episode is a special compilation episode all about movement. As the weather is getting warmer and the days are getting longer (at least here in the UK), many of us feel a strong desire to get outside and move. But the question is, have we made movement and exercise too complicated? Have we lost sight of what it really means to move our bodies?   The need to move our bodies has been gradually eroded from our modern lives and has been replaced with the modern concept of ‘exercise’. But, if we can incorporate regular movement into our daily lives, we will feel the profound benefits. As you will hear in this episode, movement helps to reduce stress, helps to improve our mood and so much more. And to reap the many benefits, movement doesn’t need to be difficult, it can be something you love already such as walking, dancing or even playing.   This episode is full of information that will inspire you to move more and practical tips to help you incorporate movement into your everyday life. I really hope you enjoy this special compilation episode all around the joy of movement. Thanks to our sponsors: http://www.calm.com/livemore http://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/livemore http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore   Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/187 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.

Hi, my name is Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Hello, how are you doing? This week's episode is one of those special compilation episodes that occasionally my team and I put together around the theme of one particular topic. And this week, the topic is movement, which seems rather apt as the weather is getting warmer, the days are getting longer, at least here in the UK, and many of us feel a strong desire to get outside and move. But the question is, have we made movement and exercise too complicated? Have we lost sight of what it really means to move our bodies? Have we been conditioned to punish ourselves at the gym in place of simple acts such as walking, dancing, and playing? You see, the need to move

our bodies has been gradually eroded from many of our modern lives and instead has been replaced with this modern concept of exercise. Now the thing is, we know for sure that if we can incorporate regular movement into our daily lives, we will feel the physical benefits and the mental health benefits. It helps to reduce stress, it helps to improve our mood, and it also benefits our overall health and well-being. So in today's special compilation episode, all about movement, we're going to hear some of the very best clips on this topic from previous guests on the podcast, including Chris Boardman, Daniel Lieberman, Shane O'Mara, Kelly McGonigal, Sanjay Rawal, Nick Pearson and Daryl Edwards. So whether you already love to move or you're someone who just wants to incorporate a little bit more exercise into your daily life, I really hope you enjoy this special compilation episode

all around the joy of movement. all around the joy of movement. We begin this episode with Daryl Edwards, author, movement coach, and founder of Primal Play, who goes by the name of The Fitness Explorer Online. Now, way back on episode seven of the show, he told me about his journey from a sedentary office worker to a health and movement coach and how the results of a health check at work changed his whole outlook on life. I was in a very sedentary job, 16, 18 hours a day, seven days a week, not moving. I was suffering from chronic hypertension. I was pre-diabetic. I had elevated heart disease risk. And when I asked my doctor at the time what I could do to resolve those issues,

they spoke about pharmaceuticals. So statins, beta blockers for my blood pressure, supplementation because I was anemic. It was just a cocktail of meds. And the one question I asked was one, what about the side effects? And secondly, how long would I have to a cocktail of meds. And the one question I asked was, one, what about the side effects? And secondly, how long would I have to be on these meds for? And I was told, pretty much the rest of your life, and there isn't much you can do about it. This is just how it is. It's based on your genes. So I was really concerned about the side effects, about the length of time that I'd have to be on these meds for, And I wanted there was another approach. And I was fortunate enough to encounter a book which spoke about going back to basics. So thinking about our ancestry, thinking about how we used to eat and move and live and how we could take some of that

into the present day. And I was fortunate within a few short months to basically improve my health markers. So I was no longer pre-diabetic, my blood pressure was normalized, I was no longer anemic, I was no longer suffering from some of the kind of musculoskeletal problems, low back pain, knee issues and the like. And that was over 15 years ago. Part of that transformation was improving my attitude to physical activity. So I started off thinking about physical activity pretty much as what I was doing in my day job. So I took a very competitive environment in the office into the gym. And I thought about training like an athlete, ultra competitive, and I was very

successful. The downsides were I got sick. I was getting colds every two or three months. I was getting injured on a regular basis. I started to hate the process. Even though the results were pretty good, I was getting fitter. So the light bulb moment was thinking about what I enjoyed as a kid when it came to movement, when it came to physical activity. And that was play. So I just remember long summers, you know, coming home after school, getting my homework done, going outside and playing. And most of the fond memories were around the enjoyment, the joy of movement. And of course, there may have been some competition, but the main premise of that was how can I and my friends just have a fantastic time? And it wasn't about exercise in quotation marks.

It wasn't about training. It was just having fun with movement. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible to hear that. I think many people listening are probably in a similar boat in the sense that they have an idea around movement, which is, in the modern world, if I want to stay fit, I need to go to a gym. in the modern world, if I want to stay fit, I need to go to a gym.

Do many of us see exercise as a punishment? And could we benefit from changing our mindset and approach? Well, coming up, we'll hear again from Daryl Edwards as he explains why some of the messages that we see on social media around exercise and body image can be so unhelpful. But first, my next guest is Kelly McGonigal, a US research psychologist, a lecturer at Stanford University, and a best-selling author. In episode 109, Kelly described the benefits of changing our mindset to focus on the simple joy we can gain from movement. The way we talk about movement in society has conventionally been around burning off energy, burning off calories. It's good for your physical health. I mean, it's a very one-dimensional narrative. Yeah, it's punishment for enjoying life. That's how a lot of people think about it. Like, oh, I indulged, so now I have to repent. Yeah. You mentioned punishment,

but even the vernacular around movement, I'm going to kill myself in the gym. I don't think we have realized the implications of talking about movement in this way has had, because some people will say, you know, it's just not for me, exercise. It's just not for me, movement. I mean, what would you say to people who say that? And mindset, you know, influences so much of how we experience something. So I describe movement as using your body to engage with life. And I think of whether you call it movement or you call it exercise, it's really about finding an activity that allows you to engage with life the way that you want to. So maybe you love how it feels when you go for a walk in nature, or you love how it feels when you run and you feel fast and free and you can sense

your own persistence, or you love how it feels to move and flow and Tai Chi or yoga or have dance parties in your living room with your kid, and that you use your body to engage with life, to express different aspects of your human nature, to connect with other people. If you're experiencing movement instead as a punishment for something you ate or an investment in your future well-being that is not connected to something you actually enjoy, it just sets people up to, first of all, find an activity that they hate. I mean, if people are obsessed with looking at their watch and seeing like these calorie counters or, you know, counting how many steps they've taken, it's very easy to miss how powerful you feel when you lift something heavy or how much fun it is to high five someone after you do an exercise or, you know,

go for a run. So I think we need a total mindset reset about what movement is and why we do it so that people, first of all, are more likely to choose something that actually connects them to joy and meaning. And also so that we can sort of escape the voices in the head that often come up when you come to exercise from a place of shame or fear that's so common. If there's something I can't shake off at the moment, it's this thought that we've got movement all wrong. We talk about it all wrong. We put people off. We make them think they have to go to a gym at a particular time with a particular outfit on when basically what you're saying is it's a

fundamental part to be a human is to move. Going to the gym is one approach to increase the amount of kind of movement minutes in your week. But many of us join the gym with lots of enthusiasm and a few weeks later, you no longer go into the gym. You no longer have that enthusiasm. We're bombarded with messages about kind of fitness inspiration. You know, get a body such as this, the full week, get your six-pack abs workout plan. Most of the messages I see on social media are no pain, no gain. You know, my warm-up is your workout. It's all about punishing yourself for what you ate the day before, punishing yourself for the lack of physical activity that you may have undertaken,

rather than focusing on how good you're going to feel. What changes would we start to make to our exercise habits if we focus more on how we feel? We're about to hear again from Kelly McGonigal, as she describes how movement can combat stress and how regular exercise has the power to change our mood and brain chemistry. But next up, from episode 84, the neuroscientist Shane O'Mara reveals something as simple as walking has the transformative ability to change our mood.

How important is walking for our mood, for our happiness, and for our overall mental health? If you ask people to rate rate before they go for a walk how they're feeling now on a scale of one to five, they might say, I'm feeling it around about a two. And if you ask them to rate how they'll feel after they've gone for a walk, they'll say, meh, probably about a two. Then you bring them out for a walk for 20 minutes

and you ask them to rate how they feel. They'll now say a four. So we persistently underestimate how good a walk will make us feel. And that's true even for people who dread walking, who dislike walking. We know very well that exercise helps make us more resilient to stress. So how exercise helps us with stress, it is both on that short term. So if you're feeling stressed out, you're feeling anxious or angry, it's going to change your brain chemistry in a way that gives you more hope and more energy. That's the common denominator. That's the feel better effect.

But also we know that people who are regularly active, it actually changes the structure and the function of their brains in ways that basically teaches the brain how to be resilient to stress and also more sensitive to joy. So you're going to have an increased availability of dopamine and endocannabinoid and endorphin receptors. Your brain is basically going to say, oh, I guess we can experience joy and meaning in life and hope and optimism. So let's just be ready for it. So what are the benefits we can gain from regular movements? And should these benefits change our approach? Well, coming up, Shane O'Mara shares some incredible research that shows walking can slow and even reverse functional aging in the brain. We'll also hear again from Kelly McGonigal as she describes the profound effects

that movement can have on the body and brain. But first, Daryl explains why he changed his own mindset and approach to movement. I, for one, didn't recognise that movement or physical activity could be therapeutic. I believed it was just about burning calories. It was just about improving body composition because I was veering much more towards this message of food being medicine. And so, you know, what you eat is not just fuel, but also medicine is also therapeutic. It's, you know, feeds a microbiome. That's what's important. And when I started looking at the research and recognizing, oh my goodness, exercise can be anti-inflammatory. Exercise can improve the gut

microbiome. Absolutely. Exercise can improve, you know, reduce blood pressure and can improve your mood hormones, you know, your serotonin, dopamine. And, you know, once you recognize there's this whole body of research around exercise being medicine, then you realize just how powerful and potent it is. Our bodies and brains need movement and that movement generates all sorts of wonderful molecules that feed back on our sense of well-being, that facilitate good things in terms of our musculature, in terms of our heart rate and in terms of what's going on in the brain. But you're a neuroscientist and I know from doing some research on you that you have studied a lot of things about stress and depression

and its impacts on particular parts of the brain, including the hippocampus. And that's an area that can get affected quite powerfully by walking. And what if you could expand? Yeah, I think one of the great discoveries or rediscoveries of the last couple of decades in neuroscience is the realisation that the or functions like a muscle. It's plastic. If you work it, it changes dynamically in response to what you do to it.

If you leave it, it tends to atrophy. I think one of the amazing discoveries we now know with absolute certainty, as certain as we know anything in science, We now know with absolute certainty, as certain as we know anything in science, that lots of aerobic exercise, getting out and moving, walking lots, materially affects the volume of the hippocampal formation. It gets bigger as the result of exercise and the functions it supports get better as the result of exercise. And you can demonstrate this in all sorts of ways. We've done studies, for example, with sedentary college students, and we've made them do forced exercise regimes on exercise bikes and shown that molecules that are expressed in the brain, which float into the blood, including brain-derived neurotrophic factor, go up,

including brain-derived neurotrophic factor, go up and memory in these students goes up. But even more dramatically, this capacity is retained right throughout life. So it's never too late. So I'll just pick on one very important study. Art Kramer's group in Chicago have taken a group of about 120 people in their early 70s, divided them into two groups, one who were just left to live their life as randomly into two groups. They live their life as they always live it. And the other group are brought out for a walk three times a week, that's all,

for about a mile and a half with a physiotherapist. And they're followed for a year or so. And what you see is in the walking group, improvements in memory, improvements in attention, an increase in the volume of the hippocampal formation, an increase in the amount of this amazing substance BDNF in the blood. And the 72-year-olds start to perform on psychological tests at the same level as 68-year-olds do. So in a very important sense,

you've reversed the functional aging of the brain, whereas the other group who just continue their sedentary, tele-watching lifestyle, they continue on a pathway of decline. Yeah, I mean, that's incredible. And I like the point you're making, but it's never too late. That's the important thing. And I like to suggest that you only get old when you stop walking. You don't stop walking because you're old. Just in the last decade or so, biologists have realized that our muscles are basically an endocrine organ.

just like your pituitary gland, your adrenal glands, they can synthesize and pump out proteins and peptides into your bloodstream that affect every system of your body. They basically release them into your bloodstream when you contract your muscles in a regular and continuous way. So any form of exercise, any form of movement. And some of these proteins and these chemicals, so they're called myokines, which just means set into motion by your muscles. Some of them kill cancer cells. Some of them reduce inflammation. Some of them are good for your immune function. They're good for your cardiovascular health.

Some of them help you regulate blood sugar. So a lot of scientists now think myokines are the reason that exercise is good for your health. But what I'm so fascinated by as a psychologist is some of these myokines are the reason that exercise is good for your health. But what I'm so fascinated by as a psychologist is some of these myokines have their strongest effects on your brain. So let's say you go for a walk or you're lifting weights and your muscles are pumping these chemicals out into your bloodstream that can cross your blood-brain barrier. And in your brain, their primary effect is to act as an antidepressant and to change the structure of your brain in ways

that make you more resilient to stress, whether that's changes to your hippocampus or your prefrontal cortex. Some of the first researchers who wrote about this called them hope molecules. And this to me is like the miracle of the human form. The idea that your muscles can manufacture antidepressants and they will deliver them to your brain when you exercise. And it's all of your muscles. So if you can't use your legs, you can use your arms. If you can't use your arms, maybe you can brace your core. If you can move any muscles, your muscles will release these chemicals that support your health and support your brain resilience. Over time, we have engineered movements out of our lives.

We're going to hear again from Shane O'Mara as he describes how our environment can often work against us. But first, Daryl explains why exercise is a recent concept and how as a society, we are much less active than we think. Exercise is a fairly recent and modern construct, which is a substitute for the lack of physical activity that we would be getting in our day-to-day lives. Millenia ago, we would have to work physically to obtain our food, to build shelter, to live within our communities. That's what we'd have to do day in, day out.

Movement has been engineered out of our environments pretty significantly. It's been replaced with convenience. So locomotion, which used to be mandatory, is now optional. There's interesting research about the number of adults and children undertaking physical activity on a regular basis. So the baseline recommendations are 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity activity and a couple of days of resistance training a week for adults. Do you know how many people actually meet the guidelines? If you ask them the question, it's about 35%. But if they're wearing a device that actually records

how much movement they're undertaking, it's only about 5% to 8%, which is shocking for one, but secondly, makes me realise that we just aren't aware of how little movement we're undertaking on a daily basis. we're undertaking on a daily basis. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients

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Yeah. And I think you see the problem is the default is easy. We can blame the individual. And it's very easy not to see the system around you. In my own building, for example, to get to the stairs, I have to go through three fire doors, whereas to use the lift, the lift is just in front of me. So the default that we provide ourselves

is one of ease when actually we can engineer things so that we get a bit more movement in. And if we can do that during the course of the day, every day, it will pay us benefits in all sorts of ways that we aren't conscious of, but we will be glad of. Dr. Daniel Lieberman is a

paleoanthropologist and a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University. He has studied evolution and research cultures all over the globe to explain the science of how and why we move today. In this next clip from episode 128 of the podcast, he explains why we shouldn't feel guilty for missing a workout and why we need to work with our biology to find solutions to make movement a regular habit. 150 minutes of physical activity each week may have multiple benefits on your well-being and your longevity. Why do so many physicists struggle to do that? Because it's abnormal.

I mean, our instincts are constantly pulling us not to exercise. I mean, our instincts are deep and they're powerful. I mean, for millions of years, our ancestors struggled to get enough energy to eat, right? Every day they had to work. They didn't go crazy hard. They didn't work eight hours a day on their feet, struggling to get enough food. Average hunter-gatherers seem to work moderately hard for about two and a half hours a day, two and a quarter hours a day, and then light tasks for the rest of the day. And they sit as much as we do, around nine to 10 hours a day. But that gave them just enough food to survive. There are no obese hunter-gatherers, right? And if they were to go for, like what I did this morning, go for a long run just for the hell of it in the morning,

they would then waste all that energy which they could use towards reproduction and the things that natural selection cares about. So nobody in the Stone Age ever went for a morning run for the fun of it. And it's a bad idea. And whenever you have a chance to save energy, you should, until recently. And now we live in this really strange, interesting, modern world, wonderful in all kinds of in regards, where we can spend our entire day without ever getting our heart rate up, press buttons to get food and shopping carts. And I don't even have to move my hand when I brush my teeth if I didn't want to. I get an electric toothbrush, right? I mean, everything is mechanical. And the result

is that we no longer have to be physically active and we now have to do something really weird, which is to choose to be physically active. And although we know up here in our brains that it's good for us, all kinds of instincts just kick in to tell us not to. I think the best evidence for that are when you have like stairway next to an escalator. You must see them, tube stops all over the place and airports everywhere. We all an escalator, right? You must see them, you know, there are tube stops all over the place and then, you know, airports everywhere. We all know this phenomenon, right? And it doesn't matter where you are in the world. People have studied this in Japan and in Denmark and in America and in Israel and, you know, various places, wherever there is a stairway next to an escalator, less than 5% of people take the stairway. And if you put a sign up, that just goes up just a wee bit, right? If you put escalators in the Kalahari Desert,

you know, they would take the escalator there too. It's an instant. Yeah. And I think what you just said there about the Kalahari Desert really, I think it brings it to life for people because a lot of people feel bad. They feel guilt. They feel shame that they're not moving as much as either their doctor has told them, the news has asked them to do, or even people they're following on social media who post a photo, hey, just did my 10K run before breakfast. How are you all doing today? That kind of meme, which I think if you find it inspiring and you're like, oh man, I didn't do anything. I want to do that. Great. But for many people, they watch that and day in, day out, they're feeding their brains without thinking, I'm some kind of failure. Like look at all these people who can move their body

every day and are vibrant and full of energy, yet just getting through the day is a real struggle. And I think that's one of the beautiful things in your book is that you help people not to feel bad about it. You're sort of arguing that we've not evolved to exercise. Absolutely. And I think we need to understand that our bodies aren't, we don't just get to decide what we do with our bodies. Our bodies are evolved over millions and millions of generations. And we need to be compassionate and understand that and work with our biology to find better solutions. So how do we incorporate movement back into our lives? In episode 46, my guest was the Olympic gold medalist,

Chris Boardman, who is now Greater Manchester's first transport commissioner. He's been tasked with helping to deliver a high quality integrated transport system, which includes the rollout of the UK's largest cycling and walking network. In this next clip, he outlines some shocking statistics about our car use

and explains how we can all build movement and active travel into our everyday lives. We'll hear again from Daryl Edwards as he explains how we incorporate movement back into our lives. What I am fascinated in is human behavior and why people do the things they do. One of the things that we have to do, it's not encourage people to change, we have to enable them. And certainly in terms of riding bicycles on our roads today, people who currently drive, and in Greater Manchester, there's 250 million car journeys every year of less than a kilometer. You know, that only happens because people don't feel safe doing anything else, running the kids to school or wherever it might be.

I thought you were going to say there was that many car journeys in a year. You're saying there's that many car journeys under one kilometre. Yeah, 250 million car journeys in greater minds. 30% of all journeys in a car are less than a kilometre, which is just an incredible stat. Even just changing that alone would have significant impact, wouldn't it, on health, on pollution, on fuel costs, on the environment? People think of it as, oh, that's terrible. It's an embarrassing stat. It's brilliant. What an

opportunity that we have to change so little to have such a significant impact on all of the the problems that we face that you've just mentioned the whole point of of active travel for to give it some kind of generic term is it should be easy um and when you're using the train system and your walk is 15 minutes why not and often i think people don't exercise more simply because they don't think about it they're just a habit to get in a taxi to go somewhere or to jump in the car they don't think about the length of the journey and often I've just had a meeting this morning actually with somebody and said can we walk and talk and they went okay and we walked across Manchester

for 30 minutes had the conversation that we needed and it just wasn't a consideration for the other person. It just wasn't a habit and I think that's one of the things that we need to change. Disrupt your sedentary lifestyle with more movement, with more enjoyable movement because that is the key. Integrating movement throughout your day-to-day lives. If you're sitting, spend a bit more time standing, a standing desk for example, or make sure every phone call you take, you stand rather than

sitting. There are practical approaches to increasing the amount of non-sedentary time throughout your day. And that's definitely my approach. It's very difficult for me to set up an hour, 45 minutes during my day to say, right, that's going to be my workout time today. I'm going to pop it in my diary. I'm going to get it done because life gets in the way. Absolutely. So it's better for me to actually get up in the morning, get a few minutes done, think about opportunities throughout my day. I will do things like I want to get the remote control.

I'll bear crawl across my living room floor to pick up the remote control. I'll squat during commercial breaks. So by the end of the day, I've actually got far more than my minimum requirements for movement, but I have no idea where that time came from. It's like, oh.

I think that's such a key message to people. And that's, again, the approach I take in my own life, which is particularly these days, I struggle to find that 45 minute, one hour period where I can go to the gym, let's say, and have a workout. I'm always doing little workouts, two minutes here, two minutes there. I squat every day with the quids, bodyweight squats while we're waiting for dinner. It's like two minutes of squats, and I do it and we have fun. I've, I've got a five minute kitchen workout that, you know, you can knock out some press-ups and some lunges and get an olive oil bottle and twist it to the side. All kinds of fun, inventive ways to keep being active. And I think the big

problem is that we have outsourced our idea of movement to the gym. So if we can't get to the gym, we think we can't do it. And even if we do get to the gym, we think we can't do it. And even if we do get to the gym, we don't think we're done. Oh, I've been to the gym. I've got my movement in. I don't need to worry now until my next workout. I can go back to being sedentary. And this is very, very common.

So my goal and your goal is to try and simplify things to people and try and inspire them to say, you can do this. Build movement into your everyday life. So, I mean, going to the gym, I don't mind being in a gym, but I can't be bothered going there, so I don't. But I will walk around Manchester for work and I will get to the train station on a bike and do those things. And then by the time I've got home, I've done an hour and a half of exercise without even thinking about it.

I don't have to now bolt that onto my day. My time is my own. Because that exercise is built in. I haven't had to use the term or even think about it. I think that's a key point, Chris, isn't it? How do you build movement in to your everyday life? Because this whole experiment we've had is trying to fit

exercise around already very busy and full lives is you've got to say on some levels has proven to be a bit of a um a bit of a failure really because it's not really working for the majority of the population because it's hard and so it's hard it's a chore um and so like all chores you put them off until you just stop doing them completely so if it isn't an easy solution it's so so important if it's not the easiest solution we will not maintain it ultimately i guess any behavior change we're trying to engage with ourselves but also with the wider population it's got to be easy it's got to be pleasant it's got to be enjoyable otherwise people won't do it long term. What's quite interesting is if you said that not many people in the UK walk or just simply exercise enough, but they will all do it.

It's just hidden. So the Trafford Centre, I actually got Google Maps out and I actually measured. So going from the car park, getting to the centre, walking around a couple of the floors, going back to the car. People will regularly walk five, six kilometres, but they won't call it walking and they don't even see it because they're doing something that they enjoy. So that industry, which has to sell people things, has packaged exercise in a way that you don't even think about it. And that's a message that we need to take. And that's a message that we need to take. Next up on this week's special compilation episode,

Daniel Lieberman gives us some great tips on how we can work with our biology to incorporate more movement into our lives. Are there any sort of universal principles when it comes to movement that actually do work for all of us? In terms of getting us to move, two basic impetuses that have, you know, over millennia have been the basis for how and why people move. And one is because it's necessary. And the other is because it's fun. And for most people, fun involves social. So sometimes, you know, sometimes going for a run by yourself or a walk by yourself is meditative and it's nice to be by yourself and you can think through a problem. But for most of us, you know, we like to be with other people. And so that's why Park Run is so

successful. It's social. Here in Cambridge, we have the November Project. Every Wednesday, people do these wonderful runs, and they run up the stadium, and they do all kinds of great stuff. We have, you know, all around the world, there are various kinds of social events. There are, you know, dancing is social, playing a game of, you know, soccer or football is social. I mean, the list goes on, right? And there are many ways to do it socially. And I think, so that's

critical. And if you make it fun and part of your life and find ways to make it necessary, I think that's the most important thing that we, you know, that's the most important tip. And there are so many ways to do that. I, for example, leave my exercise clothes out in the morning when I go to bed so that when I wake up, that's what I put on. And that like helps, it's like it removes one less barrier to starting my run because I never want to go for a run in the morning when I start. Never, ever, on no occasion whatsoever. Do I ever really want to start that run? And how many marathons have you done now? I just did my 25th. Well, first of all, congratulations. But that I think is so valuable there at the end what you said daniel that you've had to find ways to remove barriers to that because you don't want to yeah

yeah you've just completed your 25th marathon you don't want to get up and go for a run yet you are a runner right and that's really, really key, isn't it? I know there's never been a time when I left the door of my house thinking, I really want to run. I always like, I'm going to force myself to run. And then I always enjoy it when I come back. Another example is in my building, right? My office is on the fifth floor of this beautiful old Victorian building. And every day when I walk into the building, I want to take the elevator. Bar none. I always look at the elevator longingly. But the reason I don't take the elevator is that if anybody sees me taking the elevator, they'll call me a hypocrite. And so it's not because I'm doing it for my health. I'm doing it because I've socially

coerced myself into taking the stairs. And I never regret having taken the stairs by the time I get to the fifth floor, but I always regret taking the stairs as I head up the stairs, looking longingly at the elevator. And don't beat yourself up for those instincts. Those instincts, even though elevators never existed in the Stone Age, it is a completely normal, natural instinct to want to avoid exertion and don't ever feel bad about it.

Exercise shouldn't be something we dread and finding movement that we truly enjoy can be life-changing. Kelly and Daryl explain why we could be missing out on the joy of movement and how taking a different approach can have long-term benefits and enhance our lives in so many ways. Think about something that you already love, and then think of an activity that allows you to do that. So, you know, if you love animals and maybe you don't have a pet, do you know how many animal shelters will let you volunteer to take a dog for a walk or a run? Maybe there's a person you want to spend time with. Maybe they love an activity.

You could choose to do it with them. Do you know how much that strengthens a relationship when you endorse an activity that someone else loves and they feel like it's their best self and you're like, okay, I'll go to that yoga class with you? There's a lot of ways to think about who and what you already enjoy. a class with you, there's a lot of ways to think about who and what you already enjoy. I think that rather than thinking of durations and intensities, 30 minutes must be moderate, people don't even know what that means. I think that we should view movement as being as essential to human survival as eating and sleeping. You don't say, I'll do it like once on the weekend. sleeping. You don't say, I'll do it like once on the weekend. It's part of how you live your life. If you can find ways to make it part of your life so that it's not a chore, it's an activity you love, so maybe it's part of your recreation, or it's part of how you get about your life. You run

errands by cycling or walking, or it's how you connect with people in your life. If you're going to spend 20 minutes with your partner or with your kid, why not make that a movement since we know that the neurochemistry of movement helps us bond and connect with others. And I really think this idea that it's something that you're like shoving into your life that's divorced from your life is one of the reasons people don't actually do it. The only solution in my opinion to ensure that you can have a long term movement practice is to find something which is fun and engaging and something that you actually receive the benefits immediately, not at the end. You know, like you have the endorphin rush after 60 minute run.

I can't, you know, 60 minutes is a long time if you're not enjoying what you're doing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And it will lead to failure. Ultimately, week on week, day on, you'll be like, oh, I'm not going to do it anymore. Yeah, I'm not going to do it anymore. I haven't got enough songs on my playlist anymore.

Fitness, in order for it to be a long-term practice and something that becomes self-motivating, there has to be self-intrinsic value. So if you're engaging in something that you enjoy, if it's something that you find engaging, if it's something where you notice time just compresses, so it's like, you find engaging, if it's something where you notice time just compresses. So it's like, oh my goodness, you know, half an hour has gone by, but it feels like five minutes. If you can capture that experience with movement, then you're onto a

winner. So that could be dancing. It could be playing a game that you played as a kid where, you know, you throw the rules out of the window. It's like, and let's just have some fun. It's almost like if you play tennis, for example, just having a rally. Forget scoring points. Let's just see how long we can get this ball back and forth over the net for as long as we can, doing funny trick shots, just being crazy with the ball.

That's what you want to feel when you're engaging in this playful approach to movement. I don't think people realise how simple and how easy it can be if you start shifting your mindset on what movement is and what movement looks like. Park Run is a phenomenon here in the UK and increasingly all over the world. It began 16 years ago as a free five kilometre timed run around a park in southwest London and now over 6 million people across 22 countries have registered for the event. Now on episode 42 my guest on the show was the chief executive of Parkrun Nick Pearson and coming up next he explains why the inclusivity and the sense

of community at its heart is the key to Parkrun's success. We'll also hear from Kelly as she explains why it is natural for us to support other people and how exercising in a group builds strong connections. It unquestionably has evolved into an accessible entry point into physical activity rather than the club running, traditional running event that it was perhaps designed as. And as we've seen that impact, as we've seen what it can do for communities, for social cohesion, for social cohesion, for health, for wellbeing, particularly for groups that would find physical activity and exercise difficult or intimidating or challenging,

that has become more of a focus for us. People want to support the people around them. We naturally want it as humans, right? We naturally want to support other people. But somewhere along the line, society teaches us to be competitive and that we can only do well by pushing someone else down. And parkrun is almost the opposite to that. On the Saturday morning 5K run, which I now regularly do.

Well, I do it every week now, actually, if I'm at home. There's someone at the back who runs straight walks it and often is walking it with the tail walker. Yeah. And, you know, everyone's giving her encouragement. She's got a big smile on her face. I always say hi every time you go around and see her. It's like, this is great.

And it's, there's such a warm feeling of community, which is almost addictive. I think that's what keeps bringing people back week after week. You know, if you had to motivate yourself to do that, if you had to self-motivate, you know, if that lady or me even on a Saturday morning had to motivate, I will find an excuse a lot of the time why I can't do that.

But the fact that it's happening and then when you get there, the power of the community will pull you through, I think it's real strength. Changing the internal narrative we use around movement and reframing how we look at it can benefit us in so many ways. We'll hear again from Kelly McGonigal as she explains how going beyond what you think you're capable of, whether that's taking part in an endurance event or lifting heavy weights,

can provide a spiritual experience that changes the brain in positive ways. But first, my guest for episode 79 on the show was Sanjay Rawal, a documentary maker who directed the brilliant film, 3100 Run and Become. In this next clip, Sandhya describes what we can all gain from a mindful approach to movement. Movement often asks us to be the best version of ourselves and also like good, good friends

to other human beings. So, you know, you go for a run and it's just so natural to cheer other people on. Like if you finish first to support other people in finishing, it's so natural to receive that support. It's like an easier place to allow yourself to be congratulated and supported. We get to practice these kinds of rituals

of just like easy human interdependence, things like runs and ninja warrior training and all these other places where people experience in connection. It's because like you're asked to do things that are a little bit hard. And then when you do it, people congratulate you and see your strength and you get to do that for others. And there's this kind of bigger than self effort and bigger than self joy that people experience. That is, some psychologists call it a sense of we agency. Like you get together and you're doing something. And you experience a sense of self that literally transcends like the borders of your skin and your body.

You feel connected to almost like a community is like an organism in itself. I mean, it's such like we could get into the neuroscience of this, but literally if you're running in a pack or you're in a dance class and you're moving in sync with other people, your brain starts to expand its sense of awareness so that you literally can like the people you see running in stride with you or the people you see moving in a dance class with you your brain is like that's happening at the same time that my brain is saying run or stretch your arm and it just starts to assume I'm part of something bigger an organism that's all moving as one and it creates this this amazing sense of self-transcendence.

Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health. And together, we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life. And I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to

do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour, and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve

our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal and as with most things it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me

how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. People who do run long distances, they often talk about it, don't they, as a form of meditation,

as a form of connection. They start to process stuff in their life that actually they're unable to process in other aspects of their life. It's incredible. I would suggest to people who look at running as painful, who look at running as something that causes injury, to approach running in a totally different way. Instead of looking at running for performance, running for miles, running for body shape, running for burning calories, looking at running as a pathway to transformation. When we speak about running, we're also including people who walk. Just the idea of moving with your feet. I mean, running will get you any of those previous examples that I mentioned. It's like, if you want to lose weight, running will do that for you. If you want to look better and feel better, running will do that for you.

But if you want to get closer to God, running will do that for you. The question is, how many of us look at running as that kind of tool, as a way to get into our innermost self, and performance as a way to achieve self-transcendence, the idea of going beyond your personal limitations. So if you happen to win a race, great. But if you happen to become a better person, to learn about yourself, even better. And so the prescription for running as an act of transformation requires being soft between your ears, learning how to connect with your heartbeat, learning how to connect with your heartbeat, learning how to connect with your spiritual heart, and letting those energies drive your run rather

than your GPS watch, rather than thinking about what you're going to eat or what you're going to do afterwards, rather than even listening to music and having some external source pump you up for three, four minutes at a time. If you strip away what's between your ears, you end up having a naturally beautiful experience because running or walking or moving with our feet when done with the right intention is one of the most natural things out there. I'm a scientist. And one of the things that I want to communicate is that for me, science and spirituality are not in opposition. So if you were to look at my early work, I did a lot of work looking at yoga and my research on meditation and sort of what's

happening in your body and brain and what the benefits of that are. And I feel like it's not that we need science to prove things that we can directly experience, but sometimes the science can also help us feel that sense of awe and wonder. Like when I understand that my muscles are sending proteins into my bloodstream that act to give my brain hope when they cross the blood-brain barrier, I experience a sense of awe and wonder that actually feels almost spiritual. So one of the things that you will hear when people are being encouraged to exercise initially is you only have to do a minute. And it's true. There's like no dose that's too small to get physical mental health benefits.

You could do as close to nothing. And as soon as you take a breath, as soon as you take a single squat, everything is good for you. But there does seem to be like a dose response. And for people who are dealing with mental health challenges, people who are dealing with a sense of isolation, sometimes doing things that are really hard seems to kick into gear what's happening in your brain and what happens in your sense of self and your ability to experience transcendence that you can experience while doing a marathon or an ultra marathon that maybe you're not going to experience when you first take that walk around the block. Don't be afraid of going beyond what you think you're capable of. Three minutes of exercise can boost your mood. Yes, that is definitely true. And also, you might want to run a marathon. You might even want to run an ultra marathon to have these transcendent experiences. And that's also an option. Many people in society think that we should become less active as we get older, but this really doesn't seem to be the case. In the next clip,

Professor Daniel Lieberman explains the many benefits of staying active well into our old age. Many people, I think, as they get older, think that they should actually become less active. And you're sort of saying that may not be the case. Yeah, this is something we're working on further right now. We have this idea that as you get older, it's time to kick up your heels and move to Florida or whatever it is, right? And just kind of be less active and take it easy and enjoy your retirement. But humans are unusual species. We evolved. We're one of the few species that evolved to live after we reproduce. We evolved

to be grandparents. But we didn't evolve just to be grandparents to enjoy our grandchildren. We evolved to be grandparents to help our grandchildren. So if you look in the hunter- gatherer societies and in farming societies, grandparents are out there foraging and hunting and gathering and digging and doing all kinds of stuff and helping out their children and their grandchildren, providing food surplus, you know, helping, you know, being active. And in fact, we have data showing that people tend to be often are more active when they're grandparents than when they're parents because they don't have kids in tow, right? And what's important about that, it's kind of like

a chicken and egg question, you know, which came first, living long in order to be active or being active in order to live long. And, you know, they're both there, right? And it turns out that physical activity is really important in slowing processes of aging and decreasing disease because when you're physically active, you turn on all kinds of aging and decreasing disease. Because when you're physically active, you turn on all kinds of repair and maintenance mechanisms, right? So when you're active, you stress your body, you produce reactive oxygen species, you generate heat, you turn up your sympathetic nervous system,

your fight and flight nervous system. But then you spend energy after you're exercising to deal with all that, right? We produce antioxidants. We produce molecules to fix all the proteins that we damaged because they got affected by heat. We lower our blood temperature. We turn on our parasympathetic rest and digest system to lower sympathetic activity. We turn on all these mechanisms that keep our bodies repaired and maintained. And the trick is that because we never evolved not to be physically active, we never evolved to turn on these mechanisms in the absence of physical activity.

We need that stress to mount the anti-stress response. This is why physical activity is so good for us. It turns on all kinds of good processes in our body that keep us from aging and keep us from getting sick. And so as we get older, that becomes even more important, right? You want to keep your muscles healthy. You want to keep your chromosomes healthy. You want to keep your cells from deteriorating. You want to keep the mitochondrial numbers up on your muscles.

The list goes on and on and on. And that's why physical activity is so important. So as we get older, it becomes even more important to stay physically active because that, and of course the data are there, we know the epidemiological data, we know the mechanistic data, but we don't have this sort of cultural idea that as we age,

that's the time to keep up the activity, not turn it down. If this podcast has inspired you to get moving, but you're not really sure where to start, Kelly's up next with some advice. I often will tell people pick a song you love because of the power of music and then do any sort of movement that works for your body in this moment to the duration of a song you love or a song that reminds you of someone that you love. to the duration of a song you love or a song that reminds you of someone that you love. And you do whatever movement feels accessible and positive in this moment. There can be a lot of things going on inside of you, whether it's depression or grief or anxiety or pain, that makes movement feel intimidating. And a lot of this is about self-trust,

that you don't need to listen to somebody else say you have to do a minimum of 20 minutes or a minimum of an hour, or it has to be this hard. That if you set the intention to move your body with gratitude for having connection to life, that often people can innovate their own early workouts. And then you can go find a community that supports you if that's of interest to you. So what lessons can we learn for the future? As Chris Boardman works to improve the walk and cycle ways in Greater Manchester, he explains why he feels cycling is so important. But first, Shane O'Mara believes that building movement back into our lives

needs to be considered in city planning and building design. We must have a charter for mobility that's based around the needs of humans around pedestrians in our towns and cities and that needs to be baked into the public policy process at the start. You don't get those long easy stretches of walking in in a city that we could and should, because engineers typically have worried about engineering car flow and regulating pedestrians for the benefit of cars rather than the other way around. And cars have only been with us 100 years, but we've been walking for tens of millennia. It sounds melodramatic, but I think it's factual to say the bicycle is right up there with the printing press. It is liberation. It is freedom. It is a form of transport, incredibly efficient that pays back

to society if you use it because you improve health and you don't pollute while you're doing all those good things. It can be your sport. It can be your profession. It can be a way to get to shops when you're in the 80s and 90s even. It can be a way to keep people in communities when they're a little bit infirm rather than going into a home. You can do so many different things for different people and for the same people at different points in their life, which is me. We finish now with some great tips from Daryl, Shane, Nick and Kelly on how to incorporate more movement into your day and experience more joy in your life. Find any opportunity you can to get more movement in. Do some exercises whilst you're watching TV

during a commercial break. Engage some of your family members so it feels more like you're in this together. For me, I rolled out of bed this morning, for example. I rolled out of bed, I started doing some crawling, I started jumping around. Fortunately, no one was there to watch me. I went to the kitchen, I had breakfast, I played some music, I started to dance. Again, no one was watching. And so I had 15, 20 minutes of movement, again, without realizing it, without taking up any more time out of my day. Set your computer, if you're working at a computer, to have the alarm go off every 25 minutes, which I do, and get up and go for a walk around. If you're going out to get lunch at lunchtime, try and find somewhere new that's a little bit further away so that you just get in

an extra 1,200 steps here, an extra 800 steps there, so that at the end of the day, somehow you've racked up 10 or 12 or 14,000 steps and you haven't thought about it at all. you've racked up 10 or 12 or 14 000 steps and you haven't thought about it at all 20 minutes of spending time with your family doing something fun in the outdoors has to be of more benefit to you than putting your headphones on and running on a treadmill and sucking up all that goes on in in that that environment and kind of commoditizing physical activity or exercise in the way that we're presenting it in the last 20 years or so. So many people get an immediate benefit from moving outdoors. If you are somebody who thinks you don't like to exercise,

if there's any natural environment where you feel safe in, and it doesn't have to be the wilderness, it could be any green space, to spend time outdoors will often be the most powerful way for people to immediately connect to the psychological benefits of movement. Really hope you enjoyed that special compilation episode. As always, please do have a think about one thing that you can take away from this episode

and apply into your own life. Have you been inspired to move a little bit more on the back of that conversation? I would love to know what you thought. Please do let me and my guests know on social media if any of their advice really resonated with you. Now before we finish, I really want to let you know about Friday Five. It's my weekly newsletter. It contains five short doses of positivity to get you ready for the weekend. Now I try and change it up each week, but there's usually a practical tip for your health. I'll often write about a book that I've

been reading or an article or video that I found inspiring'll often write about a book that I've been reading or an article or video that I found inspiring. I sometimes share a recipe that I'm making. Usually I end off with a quote that's caused me to stop and reflect. Basically, I share anything that I feel would be helpful. And I really do get such wonderful feedback from my Friday Five readers. I really do get such wonderful feedback from my Friday Five readers. Many of you are consistently telling me that it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. If that sounds like something you would like to receive each Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday Five.

And of course, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast and found the content helpful, please do share with your friends and family. You can do this on social media, or you could just send them a link to this episode right now, along with a personal message. Perhaps there's someone you know you could do with a bit of inspiration to get moving a little bit more. What a lovely thing it would be to do for them to send them a link to this episode. Please also do consider leaving a review on whichever podcast platform you listen on. It really does make a difference. And please do support the sponsors. You can see the full list of discount codes at drchatterjee.com forward slash sponsors.

If you are new to my content, you may be interested to know that I have written four books that are available to buy all over the world, covering all kinds of different topics such as mental health, nutrition, sleep, stress, behavior change, weight loss. So please do take a moment to check them out. As always, I really appreciate you taking time out of your week to listen. I hope you have a wonderful week. Please do press follow on whichever podcast platform you listen to my show on so you can get notified when my latest conversation comes out. And remember, you are the architects of your own health, making Lysol changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more.

I'll see you soon.