Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #200 Dr Andrew Weil on How To Reduce Inflammation and Create Health

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

I’m kicking off this season of the podcast with a very special guest. Dr Andrew Weil is a pioneer in the field of integrative health and is the founder and Director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine – where he’s also Clinical Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health. He’s achieved global recognition as an expert on medicinal plants and alternative medicine and is blazing a trail for medical education reform in the US and around the world. Andrew has been out there for more than 50 years promoting a healing-oriented approach to healthcare, bringing together mind, body and spirit. Andrew describes integrative medicine as the “Intelligent combination of conventional medicine with natural and preventative strategies and selective use of alternative medicine.” It puts an emphasis on lifestyle medicine, mind-body interactions and the patient-practitioner relationship. We discuss this relationship and the lost art of listening. We talk about the shortcomings of modern, Western medicine – how being a doctor today can mean simply giving out drugs to mask symptoms (which can ultimately prolong and even worsen them). It’s this frustration at being unable to truly help that drives most medics to study Andrew’s revolutionary course. We delve into the topic of chronic inflammation – now a widely accepted cause of many serious health conditions, thanks in no small part to Andrew’s instincts and research. He shares some practical suggestion from his own anti-inflammatory eating plan, as well as the importance of mitigating stress. Breathwork, he says, is the game-changer here. Stress is a clear example of the mind-body connection at work, yet it remains a link modern medicine fails to address. We talk about how terms like psychosomatic or ‘all in your head’ have negative connotations, when the placebo effect is in fact proof of our mind’s healing power. When it comes to research and treatments, it’s a result scientists should be ruling in, not out. This is a whistle-stop tour of wellbeing, from the healing potential of psychedelics and the benefits of matcha tea, to the future of national healthcare systems, the value of sacred rituals, and some good news about dark chocolate. So much of my approach to health is aligned with Dr Weil’s and it was a joy to discuss our common ground and goals. This is a positive and practical conversation that I hope will inspire you. Thanks to our sponsors: https://www.zendium.com/livemore https://www.calm.com/livemore http://www.athleticgreens.com/livemore Show notes available at https://drchatterjee.com/200 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/3oAKmxi. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. 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.

When I finished my clinical training, I was very disillusioned because I saw the methods that I'd been taught do too much harm, particularly adverse drug reactions, as well as not teaching people how to avoid illness. And I felt there had to be a better way, but I didn't know what it was. Hi, my name is Rangan Chastji. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. Welcome to Feel Better Live More. Hello, this is the first episode that I'm releasing after the summer break. I know that over the summer, the podcast has picked up thousands of new listeners. So thank you to everybody who has shared the show and previous episodes with your communities. If this is your first time coming to my show, welcome. And to my long-term listeners, welcome back. I hope all of you had a good summer.

Now, on to this week's episode, which is episode 200. Wow, where did all the time go? I have a very special guest, Dr. Andrew Weil. Now, Andrew's credentials really are second to none. He started off his career studying at Harvard Medical School back in the 1960s, and he's regarded as a pioneer in the field of integrative health. He's the founder and director of the University of Arizona's Center for Integrative Medicine, where he's also clinical professor of medicine and professor of public health. Andrew is someone who I've been wanting to speak to for quite some time because I feel he's someone who's always been ahead of the game and in reality, ahead of the mainstream narrative around health for more than 50 years. He, much like myself, believes in a healing-orientated approach to healthcare,

bringing together mind, body, and spirit. In today's conversation, we cover a wide variety of different areas, including inflammation, what it is, where it comes from, how it's responsible for many modern diseases like cancer, heart disease, and depression, and importantly, what we can do to prevent it. Andrew shares his own anti-inflammatory eating plan that he's been promoting with his patients for decades. We also talk about the importance of reducing stress and the many ways in which we can do this, including a really simple ancient yogic breathing practice that he has seen be transformative with so many of his patients. We talk about how the practice of medicine has evolved and how it needs to continue to evolve, the lost art of listening and the many shortcomings of modern western medicine including

how being a doctor today can often mean simply giving out drugs to mask symptoms. We also cover the placebo effects, the power of our minds, the benefits of matcha tea, the value of sacred rituals, and also Andrew shares some good news about dark chocolate. So much of my approach to health is aligned with Dr. Andrew Wiles. I really did enjoy this conversation. It's positive, it's practical, and it's uplifting. I really hope you enjoyed listening. And now, on to my conversation with Dr. Andrew Wiles. My frustration with my education was that I really learned nothing about health and nothing about the nature of healing. So I really was not trained how to keep people well.

When I got to medical school, I was very disappointed to find that the people who taught me pharmacology really knew nothing about the plant sources of the drugs that they were using. knew nothing about the plant sources of the drugs that they were using. I became interested in alternative medical practices at a young age. I was just fascinated by the fact that there was no knowledge of this in the medical world. And when I finished my clinical training, I was very disillusioned because I saw the methods that I'd been taught do too much harm, particularly adverse drug reactions, as well as not teaching people how to avoid illness. And I felt there had to be a better way, but I didn't know what it was. How did you go about that journey to find that better way? Because, you know, you've set up this amazing educational course, I think at Arizona University, I understand. You are teaching clinicians, you have been spreading this message across the globe for many, many years. But I'm interested as to

how did you actually acquire the information that you weren't taught, that you presumably thought you were going to get taught when you went to medical school? Some of it was from observing my own body and being a, you know, paying close attention to how healing happened in my body. Then I really dropped out of medicine in about 1969. I made my living as a writer for a number of years. I found ways to travel around the world and meet with and look at other kinds of healing traditions and healing practices. I did that for about three and a half years. I spent a lot of time in Latin America, South America, some in Africa, some in Asia. And then at the end of that, I settled in Tucson, Arizona.

My car broke down there. And it turned out that the person I had most to learn from had been there all the time. And I didn't know about him. He was an elderly osteopathic physician named Robert Fulford. He became one of my mentors. And he was really the first person to really demonstrate to me the healing power of nature. He used very gentle manipulative treatment and produced remarkable cures. And it was like nothing that I had been prepared to understand from my medical studies. It's interesting as I hear you tell that story.

I mean, first of all, I'm struck by the fact that your car broke down in Tucson and you never really left, which is, I think, speaks to destiny and fate and the kind of, you know, is there a path that's kind of laid out for us that we don't even know, right? That makes me think of that. this is what I hear through a lot of your work is a real open-mindedness. And just as many of us, when we travel the world, we see different cultures, we see different people, we reflect on our own lives and think, ah, well, actually, maybe there's a different way of doing things. It strikes me that your journey to learn about other healing modalities around the world is potentially something that all

medical students should do. Because otherwise, we go straight from school into university, into medical school, straight out of that into practice in a very reductionist kind of system. Whereas you took a slight about turn, you went and saw all these different things which expose you to things that many medical doctors simply never get exposed to. I think that's not just medical doctors. You know, this is one of the problems, I think, with America. It's a very big, isolated country. And many Americans really have no knowledge of things outside of it. But I have learned so much from visiting, living in, studying other cultures

about food, about medicine, about all sorts of ideas. And then, you know, I'm very glad I had a good conventional medical education because I can compare these ideas with what I learned. And some of the ideas that I've come across in practices seem nonsensical to me, and they just don't make sense with what we know scientifically about the human body. So I'm glad I have that standard of comparison. When I settled in Arizona, and it was because I fell in love with the desert, and it was a stroke of fate, I had no intention of practicing medicine because I didn't know what I was good at. And as I said, I'd been very disillusioned. But patients started showing up at my doorstep because they had read things that I'd written

or heard me speak. And they were very interesting patients, you know, interesting, medically interesting as people. And I gradually found I was good at two things. One, I'm very good at diagnosis, which I do mostly by listening to people. And I got very good at what I call being a therapeutic marriage broker. I can arrange happy alliances between patients and practitioners. I know who goes with whom, whether that's within the world of conventional medicine or outside of it. And I found that people wanted that kind of service. I called what I was doing natural and preventive medicine at first, and then I came to call it integrative medicine. And for many years, none of my medical colleagues paid any attention to what I was doing or writing or saying.

I had a larger and larger following in the general public, but zero interest from medical colleagues. And that did not change until the early 1990s. And that was when the economics of health care especially in the US, began to deteriorate. And it was only then that institutions began to open to what patients were asking for and the kinds of things that I was arguing for. You said that you're able to make a lot of your diagnoses by listening. diagnoses by listening. And it seems to me that modern medicine, really the way we've gone, we've sort of forgotten about this lost art of listening, that if you listen carefully to a patient, they'll kind of tell you what's going on. And it's something actually, I think I went to Edinburgh Medical School, you know, another prestigious European medical school. I was taught there that actually take a good history. You take a good history, you will pretty much get all you need to know. But somewhere along the line,

when you start practicing, it becomes about scans and blood results and, you know, optimizing certain parameters. And I wonder what happens happens where did we sort of take that left turn and get away from actually listening to what our patients are telling us well first of all that art is not taught and i don't think it's something that can be taught it's something to be modeled um i i have heard i have had teachers who said i've read that if you ask the right questions patients will make the diagnosis for you in their own words. And I have found that absolutely to be true. But that assumes that you know how to ask questions, you know how to listen, and you have time to do that.

And the great change that's happened, especially in the U.S. in recent years, is that the time allotted for patient visits has shrunk. And this is because our healthcare has been forced into a for-profit system and doctors are no longer their own bosses and they're told how many patients they have to see a day. And the time allotted to spend with patients has shrunk sometimes to as little as five minutes. And it's probably not impossible to form a therapeutic relationship in that time, but it's very, very difficult. And not only is that a great tragedy for patients in the practice of medicine, it is for physicians also, because I think one of the great rewards of practicing medicine in the past has been the formation of that therapeutic relationship with a patient.

Yeah. What is it like for you that now in 2021, there are, I guess, lots of doctors, lots of medical doctors around the world, I guess, like me, but many others like me who are trying to promote a lot of ideas that you have been talking about for, I guess, over 50 years. Has that been, I don't know, is it frustrating it's taken so long? Is it been rewarding for you? What are those emotions that come up for you when you see this? Certainly there was frustration in the early years,, I knew that what I was doing was right. I followed my own path and it has been extremely rewarding. The center that I founded at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, which is a center of excellence, is the world leader in education in integrative medicine. We train health professionals. We've graduated over, I think,

almost 2,500 physicians from intensive two-year fellowships. We also train other health professionals, medical students, residents. Our curriculum, a shorter curriculum is now an accredited required part of residency training in over 80 residencies in the U.S. and some in other countries as well. Very gratifying. And many of the people who've come to us for training have said that they were on the verge of dropping out of medicine because it had become so unsatisfying until they found that there was this field and like-minded

colleagues. And I've always said that one day we'll be able to drop the word integrative. It'll it'll just be good medicine. Yeah. I mean, talking to you is wonderful for me because these are the truths that I've found and I've discovered along my 20-year journey in medicine. I've really this desire to help patients and realize that actually there are many ways to get a patient better and that I need to just expand my toolbox more and more so I can help the patient, you know, identify and help them choose what are the right tools for them at the right time in their life that they can actually implement. And, you know, it's this thing about physician burnout, which is a massive problem. You know, everyone says it's because of the time pressure and the stress. And I think, of course, that is a component. But there's also a dissatisfaction in many doctors where they went to medical school, they thought they were going to learn how to get people better. But somewhere along the line, unless you're in like an acute or an intensive care type speciality, you know, a lot of the time you think, I'm just handing out pills i'm just masking symptoms and i think that is deeply dissatisfying at a really at a really core level i couldn't agree more and it's

also one of the things that most wrong with the health care system we are dealing with epidemics of chronic diseases that are rooted in lifestyle choices and we seem unable as societies to encourage people to make better choices and discourage them from making worse choices. And the methods of conventional medicine are something not appropriate for managing these conditions. And we do that mostly by giving pharmaceutical medications, which often just counteract or suppress symptoms and often in long-term use, prolong or intensify disease processes. So I think you've summed that up very neatly, and there have to be other ways of doing that. I'm always fascinated by the use of language. And you said, we seem to struggle to encourage

people to make better lifestyle choices and I love that word encourage because it's not fear-based it's not trying to tell people off it's trying to encourage them and I guess I'd love to explore is that the approach you have found to be most successful in your many years of practice or have you found sometimes a more sterner fear-based approach can be useful? I think both. And I think that's part of the art of treatment as well as to knowing what works best for an individual patient. The problem, a big problem is that there are very powerful vested interests that work against people making better choices. If you just look at nutrition as an example, in the US, we have made the unhealthiest food cheapest and most available. And people eat

what's cheap and what's available. And some of that is because of federal subsidies for commodity crops that make very unhealthy ingredients like high fructose corn syrup and refined soybean oil, very cheap. So they're ubiquitous in inexpensive processed foods. And if you try to change that, you run up against very powerful vested interests that don't want to see those changes made. I'll give you another very discouraging example. The last I checked, about 46% of US hospitals have fast food restaurants on their premises. I got a letter a few years ago from a first year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania who had started a campaign to get a McDonald's out of the university hospital. He's got a petition that he got a lot of his fellow students to sign.

He got publicity in the Philadelphia papers and he was called in by the dean of students who told him if he persisted in this, he would jeopardize his medical degree. That is the problem. The hospital had signed a deal with the devil. This is money, and they didn't want anything to change. You kind of see this problem everywhere, don't you? Everywhere, yes. Even outside health, there's a, there's a sports here in the UK. Well, it's an international sport snooker, uh, that's, you know, I love my son loves, uh, we love playing together. We like to watch it, but unfortunately all the tournaments are sponsored by gambling companies. Right. Um, so therefore, and I know just how powerful advertising is on adults,

let alone impressionable young minds. And you've got this conflict where he wants to watch, but I know every time he watches, he's getting marketed about gambling. And I'm assuming that Snooker will say, well, these are the only sponsors we can get to support the industry. And then the players will probably say, well, they pay our income. And you just get in this kind of toxic circle where it's very hard to change. And that's kind of exactly the same in health, isn't it? Like, how can it be that nearly half of US hospitals have a fast food restaurant in them? I mean,

we know the research. I mean, it seems remarkable, doesn't it? Which I guess is why it must be so gratifying to see that the things you've been promoting are now starting to gain traction certainly more with the general public i think also with physicians i'm interested because i also started here in the uk me and a couple of colleagues we created a course called Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine that we managed to get fully accredited by the Royal College of GPs. So there's proper, you know, prestigious accreditation by the establishment. I think it's the first course of its kind here in the UK where we create a framework of how people can apply these lifestyle principles in even in short consultation times. And, you know, that's why the feedback has been incredible. 95% of attendees have said it has significantly changed the way

they practice. And it's very gratifying for me to be able to actually share what I've learned with so many healthcare professionals. But, but I find that it's a, it certainly was a self-selected But I find that it certainly was a self-selected population. It tends to be people who are frustrated with medicine or they have faced a health issue themselves or in their family and they didn't want to take the drugs. They didn't want to go on lifelong medication. They started to look for other ways of getting better. And of course, I'd love it to be to the point like you've got it

where actually it's a mandatory form of training. We're not there yet. We're gaining traction. But I'm interested in as to your experience, you've been running this course for a while. How long did it take to gain traction? What kind of people tend to come? What kind of physicians tend to come? Is there a pattern you see? And I guess before you answer that, I wonder if you could just define integrated medicine and what that term means to you. So the short answer is that integrative medicine is the intelligent combination of conventional medicine with natural and preventive strategies with selected use of alternative medicine, with selected use of alternative medicine, a great emphasis on lifestyle medicine,

on mind-body interactions, and the patient-practitioner relationship. We certainly do not reject conventional medicine, and we do not embrace alternative medicine uncritically. And I think at the beginning, the people who came to us were people who were very disillusioned with medicine. And as I said, often on the point of dropping out. But now, increasingly, we get people coming because they see the wisdom of this path and they want to be part of a community of like-minded people. We've trained people of all ages, I think all specialties. I think all specialties. A few years ago, the leading cardiothoracic surgeon in Tucson, it was then in his mid-60s, astounded his colleagues by saying he was going to take our two-year fellowship and become an advocate for integrative medicine. We get a lot of people

right out of residency. And as I said, we're now training people in residency. But really, all specialties, all ages. There's a period when we've had far more women than men. And interestingly, a lot of the men who've come to our fellowship have said that they came because their wives made them do it, that their wives had read one of my books and said, you got to do this. And women have been in the US have certainly been leaders in this movement. And I think they get it more easily than a lot of men do. Yeah, I came over to America, I think in 2013, I was quite drawn to trying to look for the root cause of problems.

And, you know, long story, but I was, I helped to care for my dad for many years. He had lupus, he was on kidney dialysis for 15 years. And it was only when dad died that I really had the time and space to go and actually pursue this. And my wife actually said to me, she said, Rongan, you keep talking about this. Why don't you jump on a plane, go and do a course, see if you like him. And actually I loved it. It was really great to be around other medical doctors and other healthcare professionals who were open-minded and were saying, look, there's a place for pharmaceutical medication, but there's also a place for other therapies, other treatment modalities that were not being taught. You made me think of two things. One is with regard to lifestyle medicine, there's it's worth it even though it takes time

and effort and why the the quick fix of medication is going to fail you in the long term and may even get you into worse problems so I think there are various techniques for doing that but one is that I think the practitioner has to model health for the patient you can't really tell a patient to eat better if you don't have good eating habits yourself. You can't tell them to be more physically active if you're not committed to that yourself. So I think we have to appreciate that practical difficulty. difficulty. The other thing that I thought of when you were talking is that a lot of the people that we've trained have come to us from other countries. And I think the largest single contingent have been from India or Indian Americans. And there seems to be a great resonance in that culture with the philosophy of integrative medicine. It's really interesting to think why that might be. I've got my own views on that, particularly being from that background myself.

But I'd be interested as to your take on why you think that might be. Possibly because of a different attitude toward nature and natural healing and natural products, that's a possibility. But I'm not really sure because among educated Indians, there's a great deal of prejudice toward Ayurvedic medicine, for example, which is seen as something for lower class people and uneducated people um so i i don't i don't i don't know but it's a it's a clear observation yeah i mean i don't know the answer either just speaking from the conversations i've had in my own upbringing i think this idea that food can be medicine is kind of instilled within you as you grow up. Like, you know, I don't recall having conversations with my mom about the anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric, for example, but I do remember

if we were ill, there might be a bit more turmeric going in the curry, or if I had a sore throat, or if I was singing at school or performing and I had a sore throat, mum would make me, you know, I remember this little pot she'd put on the stove. She'd cut ginger in. She'd put a bit of, I think, raw honey in. She'd put a bit of turmeric in and she'd make me drink it. So, you know, of course, that's an N equals one experience. But there's just awareness that, oh, you can change what you put

in your mouth to kind of change the way you feel, to change your symptoms, to change how you perform or operate in the world. So maybe there's that kind of, um, maybe it's sort of, it's just kind of infused within you. And I guess with a lot of, there's been a lot of Indian immigrants to the U S to the UK. There's loads of us within the medical profession. And I guess we don't really learn about that stuff, but somehow we know we've got our family background. Maybe our grandparents speak to us about it, yet we don't learn about it. And actually it reminds me of something my mum said to me once, like, I think after my second or my third book, mum said to me, he said, listen, Rangan, a lot of things you're writing about,

you would have loved talking to my granddad. You know, I never got to meet him. Everything you're talking about, he used to do. And I was like, it's really quite humbling to go, actually, you know what? This ain't new. This is like, and I've never, just to be clear, I've never claimed any of this is new. You know, a lot of this is based on old, ancient practices and humans who've actually known how to look after themselves for thousands of years.

You know, one of the, we don't remember very much of the specifics of what Hippocrates taught, but one of his main teachings was to revere the healing power of nature. And I think that idea has gotten very lost in the era of modern high-tech medicine. And that's the first philosophical principle of integrative medicine is that healing is intrinsic. It comes from within. And that all you can do from outside is to facilitate that process or remove obstacles to it. So I think a reverence for nature and understanding that healing is a natural process that you're working with that, that's very important. And that idea is just lost today in most medical settings. It really isn't. I think it's much more problematic than it initially

seems because there's been this very paternalistic approach within medicine. Doctor knows best. Come in, listen to the doctor. He'll tell you what to do. But if we accept that our bodies are built to thrive, you know, they've got this innate healing potential, it almost, you know, if you've got a fragile ego, it's kind of problematic, isn't it? Because it's kind of like, well, I'm not really getting the patient better. I'm just facilitating that patient's body to do the healing by itself. Now, I find that one of the main things that I can do for patients is to instill in them greater confidence about

their body's own ability and resilience. And I think many people have no confidence at all in that. And the fact is that most of us are mostly healthy most of the time. And that's remarkable, given how many things could go wrong inside the body, how many things out there have the potential to harm us. It is miraculous that most of us are mostly healthy most of the time. And that is a tribute to the intrinsic healing mechanisms of the human body. This was my frustration in my medical education, not learning anything about that. I think, you know, there should be courses all through medical school on health and healing, on the nature of the healing system, the mechanics of, you know,

which make use of the immune system and circulatory system and nervous system. And there certainly is a great input from the mind and non-physical realm. But that's, it seems to me that's where medicine should start. And I have had so many patients over the years who've come back to me and said that the most important thing that you did for me was you were the only physician I saw who told me I could get better. That makes me very sad to hear that in one way. But on the other hand, I recognize that that is something that I can do for people. And I'm not giving false hope. I can tell them that because I know from my own experience and my clinical experience

that it is possible in most cases for people to get better. Often I'll tell them, I don't know exactly how you can do that. I'll give you suggestions. I can refer you to other people. You're going to have to do some experimenting, but I know it is possible for you to get better. it's um it's such an important thing for a patient to to hear but also to to really believe i i definitely feel that that's one of my big learnings in in medicine is you've got to empower the patient the patient has to feel some level of agency over their health. It cannot be, oh, keep doing what you're doing. I'm going to give you this. This is going to help you. There has to be. If I think back to all the patients who've made really, really long-term changes, truly transformed their health, their wellbeing, their vitality. There was always a

point where they owned it for them. You know, they became empowered. There's a lot to pick up on there. Maybe we'll revisit some of that later in the conversation. I want to get onto some sort of, you know, practical things that people can think about doing to improve their health and wellbeing. And, you know, there's a term at the moment that's a buzzword everywhere, which is inflammation, right? A lot of people now are talking about inflammation, chronic inflammation as being the root cause of many of these chronic lifestyle diseases that are afflicting so many of us. And as someone who started studying medicine in the 1960s, I'm interested as to when did you first become aware of, I guess, chronic inflammation as a root cause of disease?

When did you start talking about it? Because it's so fascinating for me to be talking to someone like yourself who was way ahead of the way ahead of it, way ahead of the game. Like what happened there? Did you know about it before it came into the sort of common vernacular? And when did that occur? 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 to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system,

something that is really important, especially at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. All of this goodness comes in one convenient daily serving that makes it really easy to fit into your life, no matter how busy you feel. It's also really, really tasty. The scientific team behind AG1 includes experts from a broad range of fields including longevity, preventive medicine, genetics and biochemistry. I talk to them regularly and I'm really impressed with their commitment to making a top quality product. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually, they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling

the five free travel packs to 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. I think I started writing and talking about that in the early, earlier mid-1980s. And what first caught my attention were articles in the scientific literature that made it look as if there were commonalities in the origin of diseases, disease entities that I had been taught had nothing to do with each other. And that, in fact, that coronary artery disease and cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, that there might be a common root there in chronic inappropriate inflammation. That is a completely new idea

and hypothesis. And I just saw that out there. And I have a good sense of knowing when things are right and that there's going to be evidence to support that. So I got onto that idea very early and it excited me because if these broad categories of disease that we had previously thought had nothing in common, if in fact they have a common root, then there's a common strategy for dealing with them and reducing the risk of them. And that is by doing everything you can to contain inappropriate inflammation. There's a lot of influences on one's inflammatory status, some that you can do things about

and some that you can't. One that you can do something about is some that you can't. One that you can do something about is exposure to environmental toxins. Secondhand tobacco smoke is a major pro-inflammatory agent, for example. But what particularly caught my attention was the possibility that dietary changes could reduce inappropriate inflammation. And I developed an anti-inflammatory diet with that in mind. And long after I began to look at this and begin writing about this, I began to see other evidence that mental-emotional health was linked here as well. And this cytokine hypothesis of depression, which is a much more recent idea, to me looks much more robust than the serotonin hypothesis of depression, which has led to all the use of pharmaceutical antidepressants.

And the idea that chronic inflammation and depression are linked, that's fascinating to me. How do you describe inflammation or chronic inflammation to your patients or your students well i usually say you know we all know inflammation on the surface of the body it's local redness heat swelling and pain at an area that's injured or under attack and that although it can be uncomfortable inflammation is the cornerstone of the body's healing response it's how the body gets more nourishment and more immune activity to an area that needs it. But inflammation is so powerful and it's so potentially destructive that if it persists, if it escapes its limits in time and space, then it becomes destructive.

And in the short term, it can lead to allergy and autoimmunity. But long term, it looks as if it increases the risk of a whole diverse range of very serious chronic diseases. You know, I think that coronary artery disease begins as inflammation in the lining of arteries. Alzheimer's disease clearly begins as inflammation in the brain. And that's why anti-inflammatory agents like ibuprofen and turmeric have a preventive effect. And cancer is linked here too, because anything that increases inflammation also increases cell proliferation. The two are totally linked. And when cells proliferate more, the risk of malignant transformation is increased.

So again, it's just fascinating that this is so different from what I was taught in medical school. In terms of foods and this anti-inflammatory diet that you put together many years ago, I wonder if we could sort of talk about what this kind of dietary pattern looks like. Is it more about the sort of general types of foods you're eating, or can we see within that some specific... Both. And I developed this by using the Mediterranean diet as a template, because we have so much scientific evidence for that way of eating being associated with optimum health and longevity. And it's a way of eating that in no way restricts the

pleasure of food, which I think is extremely important. And I tweaked that by adding Asian influences to it because I've spent a lot of time in Asian countries and there are food, specific foods and beverages that I, particularly in Japan, China, India, that I think are very healthful. So the first rule of the plant flammable, first of all, it's not a diet, because diets are things that we go off of. So it's an eating plan for life. And the first rule is to stop eating or greatly reduce consumption of refined, processed processed and manufactured foods.

I mean, that's simple. It's that kind of food, food being made by somebody else that is really at the root of a lot of these chronic illnesses in our societies of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and so forth. So the first step is simply to try to eliminate refined processed and manufactured food. And then, you know, next is eating a variety of high quality fresh produce, especially vegetables. You know, fruits, yes, but fruits are often concentrated sugar sources. And I think you should be more moderate about that. But an array of vegetables with all different colors because those are all protective compounds.

I think it is good to reduce the amount of animal protein in the diet. I don't tell people to become complete vegetarians or, you know, I myself eat fish and vegetables. But I think restricting animal foods is a good idea. But I think restricting animal foods is a good idea. Increasing the consumption of plant protein in the form of legumes, soy protein, for example. Using olive oil as a major, as a main cooking oil and being very careful about the kinds of sure that you're getting omega-3 fatty acids, which are strongly anti-inflammatory by eating oily fish or supplements derived from algae if you don't want to eat fish. Using spices like turmeric and ginger, which are powerful anti-inflammatory agents. Tea, especially green tea, which has many healthful antioxidant

properties. I've developed eating forms of carbohydrate that don't raise blood sugar quickly. I'm not anti-carb, but I think it's important to distinguish between types of carbohydrates that digest quickly and especially products made from flour and pulverized grains as opposed to truly whole grains that are cracked either entire or cracked in big pieces and i have an anti-inflammatory diet pyramid and at the very top is dark chocolate which i think is a health food and i in moderation, I think is very good for you. The first step when you were describing that was remove or eliminate these highly processed foods. And it just makes me think of something I've been sort of contemplating a lot recently, Andrew, which is this idea that is it more important,

and I guess the question itself is artificial, but it's just, I guess, a thought experiment. Is it more important to exclude these problematic, modern, highly processed, I guess, not even foods, food-like substances? Or is it more important to, I guess, we can keep those in, but add in some of these so-called, you know, superfoods or, you know, your dark chocolate, your berries, those sort of things. How would you look at that sort of conundrum? I think it is more important to reduce or eliminate the process stuff. I think it is really unhealthy and on all sorts of levels. It's the wrong fats, the wrong types of carbohydrates, not enough of the protective elements. So I guess you could make up for the protective elements by

adding some of those other things back, but you're not going to take away the damage being done by the unhealthy fats and the unhealthy forms of carbohydrates and the additives. How do you see these diet wars? And again, I'm really interested because you've been across this field for so many years. Something has changed, hasn't it, in the last 10, 20 years? Diet is prime time now. something has changed, hasn't it? In the last, I don't know, 10, 20 years, like diet is, you know, it's prime time now, you know, everyone's talking about, well, not everyone, not enough people, but a lot of people within the health space are talking about diets.

There are fights going on about, you know, vegan versus carnivore versus keto versus low carb. And you know, I'm interested as to how do you see all that as someone who's been across this for so, so long, has anything happened to modify your view, you know, tweak things over time or, you know, what's been going on there? Well, I've seen a lot of these come and go. And I think a lot of the ones that are fashionable at the moment will go. Some of the ones that are popular, I think are really unhealthy. I think a keto diet is extremely unhealthy unless it's for specific use of kids

with intractable seizures, for example. Well, why do you say that? Because a lot of people, even within the health space, are describing huge benefits from a ketogenic diet. And I appreciate a ketogenic diet can be done many different ways i mean a lot of people can do it with lots and lots of sort of leafy green veg as

well to get these phytonutrients but but you know why is it you think it's i think these diets tend to be unhealthily low in fiber for example i think uh the restriction of carbohydrates is unhealthy. I think it fails to distinguish between better and worse forms of carbohydrate. I think beans are very healthy forms of carbohydrate. Whole grains, I think, are healthy. I think keto diet is also very unhealthy for the planet. And this is something that we all have to be concerned about today is the environmental impact of different ways of eating. And this is, you know, one of the strong arguments for reducing animal protein in a diet, especially beef and keto people tend to be eating a lot of meat. And that I think is one of the great contributors to

climate change. And we can't afford to do this anymore. So for all those reasons, I think that's not a good eating plan. On an individual level, I'm only asking this because I know a lot of people will ask this question. If there's someone listening to this right now or watching this on YouTube or whatever, somehow consuming this information and let's say, I don't know, three months ago And let's say, I don't know, three months ago, they went on a ketogenic type diet and they're now experiencing, they've lost weight, they've got more energy, they've got better skin, they've got more focus, because this is what you hear a lot, right? So if someone is listening to that, is experiencing that, and then they're hearing you, someone who they really respect,

say, actually, you don't think it's that helpful how would you help that individual kind of make sense of that first of all a general belief i have is that in many cases benefits health benefits that people experience when they change how they eat are really not directly due to the dietary change, but rather to the commitment of mental energy to doing something to improve your health. You know, there's no way to do that experiment, but I think it's not easy for people to change how they eat. And so to do so represents a great commitment of mental energy, and that often initiates

a healing response or improves health function of the body. So I think any beneficial changes that you see following a dietary change have to be assumed to be somewhat and maybe in large part due to that. You know, if you want to call that a placebo response, fine. But unless we have controlled experiments to tell how much is due to the actual dietary change, it's very hard to tell. You asked also about any major changes that I've made in my thinking. You know, a big one was that I lived through the anti-fat era in the 1970s when we were told that dietary fat was the ultimate culprit and was causing,

you know, heart disease and all sorts of things. And this was the era in which manufacturers made low-fat and no-fat products. And this was the year in which manufacturers made low-fat and no-fat products. And in that period, people got fatter and there was really no change in disease patterns. And I think that way of thinking has been totally discredited. Although still, if I go to a spa in many countries, the food that I'm served is ultra low-fat food. And people think that's the way you make food healthier is to reduce the fat content and you know that has nothing to do with it I think carbohydrates and the nature of carbohydrates are much more relevant there so yes I have seen big changes in how we're thinking and you know I expect that there'll be more of them but

our center put together over a number of years, I think for 15 years, we had national nutrition conferences in which we brought together the leading nutrition researchers to present their findings to clinicians. These were extremely well-attended conferences. And in putting those together, one of the things I learned is that in the community of nutrition researchers, there's a very high degree of consensus on the big questions. And we know what are good fats and what are bad fats, what are good carbs, what are bad carbs. But somehow that information does not make it through either the education of clinicians or

certainly the general public, because people seem to think that it's all confusion out there. And you know, one day they tell us this thing and then tell us another so you may as well just eat whatever you like and that's not how it is yeah i think that's the big problem with the diet wars that many people who don't feel that strongly get really put off they they see someone they respect say i changed my life on a keto diet they see someone else they respect say, I went vegan and I felt amazing. And I guess there's a wider problem there, I think, which is, you know, I'm interested as to your thoughts on this, Andrew. But I kind of feel we as a society have put a lot of faith, maybe too much faith in experts and other people. And it's kind of like, well,

we need to become our own experts, right? I say to people, listen, listen to what they're sharing, then try it yourself. Yes, exactly. Tune in, trust how you feel, you know, just because your neighbor did this diet and they thought amazing amazing doesn't mean that's the right approach for you i mean how do you see that yeah i feel that way and also i worry that some of these very restrictive ways of eating uh have very unhealthy impact on social interaction on ability to enjoy food or to enjoy food together with other people uh you know, I just see this happening all the time. And, and people saying you have to eat this way. If you don't eat this way, you're going to nutritional hell. I just I have no patience for that. Yeah. So food is clearly one of these things where we can

tackle inflammation. You mentioned avoiding sort of air pollutants, toxins like cigarette smoke is also really important to help reduce inflammation. But what are some of the other things that we can do with our lifestyle that can help reduce inflammation? Well, stress has an effect on inflammatory status. And stress is another significant root of many kinds of health problems. I think I would say that learning and practicing methods of neutralizing the harmful effects of stress is right up there with nutrition and physical activity and adequate rest and sleep is one of the planks of healthy living. and adequate rest and sleep is one of the planks of healthy living. I don't think it's possible to live without stress, but I think you can learn to manage it and not let it damage the body or mind.

What are some of your favorite sort of stress reduction practices that you find people get real benefit from? Well, by far, my favorite are breathing techniques. I think that learning how to regulate the breath is the most time and cost-effective method of reducing anxiety, of promoting calmness. And I've been astonished at how little scientific attention has been paid to breath. And by the way, this is something that comes from Indian culture. If you look around the world at places, whether it's martial arts or natural

childbirth or athletic performance where breathing is stressed and you try to find where this knowledge came from, all roads lead to ancient India. You know, this is a science that developed thousands of years ago in India and has diffused all over the world. And as I say, just astonishing how little scientific research has been done on breath and its ability to change physiology, although that finally is changing. Yeah, it really is. I mean, you have widely popularized the 478 breath. Can you tell us what the four, seven, eight breath is? And you know, when did this start coming into your awareness and when did you start talking about it? It's a yoga technique. So again, thousands of years old.

And, uh, I learned it from Dr. Fulford, uh, and I have been practicing it since probably the, uh, early 1980s. and I have taught it. I teach it to every patient I come into contact with, to all of my students, sometimes to very large groups of people. It's so time efficient. It's just, you know, the method is simply breathing in quietly through your nose to a count of four, holding your breath for a for a count of seven and blowing air out forcibly through your mouth to a count of eight and repeating that for four breath cycles when you're first learning it and doing that twice a day religiously. you know over the space of a month or two months you really change the dynamics of the involuntary nervous system a decrease sympathetic tone increased parasympathetic tone the relaxation

response lowers heart rate lowers blood pressure improves digestion uh really amazing results and and it takes 30 seconds twice a day i mean i love recommendations like that you know very very effective but but free and accessible to everybody which i think is something that i always try and keep at the back of my mind when talking about health what what there's this theme coming up um and, which is, you mentioned inflammation before, you were becoming aware in the maybe early 80s that there's this kind of root cause of chronic unresolved inflammation that may be behind or at least contributing in a large way to things like hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, you know, depression, whatever. It's like, okay, great. you also mentioned

that you teach the four seven eight breaths to pretty much every single one of your patients so what what i really love is this understanding and this idea that there are some basics of health right there are some there are some common commonalities if we focus on the creation of health in the body if we focus on reducing inflammation in the body through hopefully lots of uh you know lifestyle practices we can tackle multiple different diseases even though we're not targeting them specifically and it's you know as And as you say, that 4-7-8 breath, it sounds like you use that as prevention, as prophylaxis, but also as treatment when somebody has a problem. And I think this is in many ways changing the way that we look at medicine because we have been taught in a, certainly I was trained, what, maybe 30, 35 years after you, but a very sort of, quite a reductionist model.

We're very good at giving labels to different diseases. We separate off the body into different specialities and that can have value. But also we forget that we're one interconnecting system. And if you change one part of that system, you also have a knock-on effect on other parts as well. Yeah, let me give you an example with 478 breath. This is by far the most effective anti-anxiety measure that I've come across. It makes the drugs that we use for anxiety look very pathetic by comparison. And I have used that in patients with the most extreme forms of panic disorder successfully,

although in some cases it took some time of regular practice for them to get control of it. But the difference between treating an anxiety attack or panic disorder with a drug like a benzodiazepine and with the 478 breath, it's a very stark contrast. and with the 4-7-8 breath, it's a very stark contrast. When people are panicked or in anxiety states, the subjective experience usually is of being out of control. If you deal with that by giving a medication, you reinforce the false idea that the locus of control is external. And over time, that method becomes less and less effective and often creates dependence. If when a person discovers that they have within them, the ability to control an anxiety state by regulation of the breath, it's a revelation, it's totally empowering. And that method becomes more effective with repetition and creates greater independence and greater autonomy.

It just couldn't be a greater contrast of those two approaches. Yeah, completely agree. It's about connecting the patient to what's going on, the feeling that they have got some control over. Otherwise, I agree. It's not only the feeling that they have got some control over it. Otherwise, it's, yeah, I agree. It's not only the fact that the treatment itself has very few, if any, side effects, but it's also that empowerment. And I guess that kind of leads on to this term mind-body medicine, which I've heard you talk about a lot. And I think it's worth kind of really trying to understand, you know, what do you mean when you say mind-body medicine? You know, do you see the mind and body as separate? Does society see it as separate? And, you know, what does that umbrella mean?

I think the only way you can separate mind and body is verbally. I think they are two poles of the same reality. And I think the reigning paradigm in Western science and medicine simply does not see that, you know, that we have a materialistic paradigm in place that states that all that is real is that which is physical, that which can be touched, measured, um, I guess in medicine taken out, uh, and that if you observe a change in a physical system, the cause has to be physical, non-physical causation of physical events simply is not allowed for in that paradigm. And this is why mind-body interactions have been never accorded their proper due, why research in that area has been stunted, why hypnosis has never been fully accepted as a medical modality, for example, why we can't make sense of work cures. I mean, there's a whole range of things, but that is changing. And some of the change has come about with validating placebo responses through brain imaging and showing that there are correlations with activity in particular areas of the brain. So this makes it accessible to people. Gradually changing, but I would say there's a whole range of therapies under the

heading mind-body medicine from biofeedback, hypnosis, visualization, and so forth. In general, these methods are very cost-effective, time-effective, even fun for both practitioner and patient, and yet they are very underutilized in medicine. And they're underutilized because we just don't take this kind of stuff seriously. In my clinical experience, I have again and again seen that the root causes of illness are in the non-physical compartment. Unless that's dealt with, all the physical intervention that you do is not going to solve the problem. all the physical intervention that you do is not going to solve the problem. It's tricky sometimes to present this to patients because many patients are very sensitive to being accused of making up their illness or imagining it, that it's all in their head. And that's not what is meant by this. It's very difficult to use the term psychosomatic because of that connotation.

I don't think we've, as a profession, we've got a bit of a bad reputation in the past for telling people that their IBS, their irritable bowel syndrome, is sort of kind of in their head or their fibromyalgia is sort of in their head. And I think so there's a real defensiveness from people, understandably. Understandably, right. But IBS is clearly in the bowel as well as in the head. And everything is in both. interested as to what state this was in in the 60s and 70s. But, you know, the last 5-10 years, we've got the microbiome, the gut-brain axis, lots of research showing this bidirectional communication between body, our gut, and the mind in our brains. And, you know, were you aware of this early on? You know, what did the research say? Or did you just intuitively and through your experience know that this was going on? What did the research say or did you just intuitively and through your experience know that this was going on? 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, 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. I took a course in medical hypnosis at Columbia University right after I finished my internship.

It was one of the most fascinating courses I ever took and certainly made me aware of the research that was out there and it totally resonated with my own interests. So I've paid attention to that for a long time. I have a colleague that I've worked with for many years who's on our faculty, who is a teaching member of the american academy of clinical hypnosis and i've sent him many patients and i remember early on him saying to me that he thought that every dermatological patient and every gi patient should first go to hypnotherapy before they went to dermatologists or gastroenterologists because those two systems of the body have the highest ratio of innervation and connection to the mind. And I've absolutely found that to be true.

And another experience I had shortly after he said that, the leading gastroenterologist in Tucson asked me to have dinner with him. He was in his 60s and he was very depressed and said that he hoped that I had something that could help him because he said 90% of the patients that he saw had conditions for which his training did not equip them to do anything about. I mean, that's remarkable. And I think this is absolutely the way it is. And it's not just for GI disorders and dermatological disorders. It applies to many other things as well. And that doesn't mean you should not work on the physical problem, but you want to also be working on the non-physical

aspect of it. I mean, there's two things that come to mind there that, that 90% statistic is, is a very striking one. And what's interesting to me is that I would agree with that, actually. There's so much of what we see, we don't, certainly as medical doctors, we don't have tools that work really well for them. Yet I feel, I don't know what it is about, I'm not trying to get too down on my profession at all. I'm very proud to be a medical doctor. I'm pleased I went through like you that conventional medical training. But I do feel sometimes that there's a certain arrogance within the profession or there's a, I don't know what happens at medical school where you go in as a kind of open-minded, curious individual and you come out or many of us come out quite close-minded thinking we know it all

and actually anything that we weren't taught has no value and because you know a real striking moment for me uh andrew was one it was one of my days as a general practitioner you know i moved from specialism into general practice i was getting quite frustrated with just looking at kidneys. And I really wanted to see how everything linked together. And one day I'd seen, I think, close to 50 patients. And I was a bit frustrated. And before I left the clinic to go home, I went through the whole list. And I asked myself, okay, Rangan, how many patients have you really, really helped today? And I honestly thought it was about 20%. I thought, yeah, those 20%, I think I've really done something for the other 80%. You know, I've referred them somewhere, I've given them something to suppress a symptom,

but I didn't really understand what was going on. I knew that they would be back. And I thought, I can't do this for 30, 40 years. Like, there must be more to this than that, right? So why is it that some of us look at that with honesty and transparency and go, actually, we're really good at this stuff. We're not so good at that stuff. And why is it that others kind of almost ignore that and just stay within that system of going, no, no, no, no, this is the way to do it. You know, have you got any answers there?

What goes on there? Well, I consider myself an open-minded skeptic. I'm willing to look at anything, believe anything, but then I need to see proof. I need to confirm that with my own experience. A lot of people that I run into in medicine and science generally, I would say, are closed-minded skeptics, which is very different. And I think in medicine, especially, there is a tendency to be suspicious of, defensive about any information that comes from unfamiliar sources. So a lot of the ideas that are out there in the world of alternative medicine, anything of that sort is just dismissed as nonsense without even paying attention to it. The dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona who gave me the green light to start this center years ago, Jim Dolan, he was a cardiologist and had been a psychologist as an undergraduate, which has probably accounted for some of his openness to this. When he retired, he said that the achievement he was most proud of in his career was starting the Integrative Medicine Center.

And he told this – said this about all the flack that he got for allowing this to happen. And he told a story about attitudes of people in our profession. And I think it's interesting. The observation that aspirin was an anticoagulant and may have a preventive effect in coronary artery disease was first made, I think it was in the 1950s, by a general practitioner in Kansas who noticed that when he was taking aspirin, noticed that when he cut himself shaving that he bled more than usual. So he thought maybe aspirin was responsible for this. He started giving aspirin to some of his friends and confirming this effect.

And he wrote an article in a journal of general practice saying that aspirin had anticoagulant activities and might be useful as a preventive in coronary artery disease. It took something like 30 years for the medical profession to come around to that point of view. And a major reason why they didn't was that this had been proposed by a general practitioner and published in a journal that cardiologists didn't read. And it was dismissed as an outrageous idea. And that's within the profession. So imagine when something comes from the world of traditional Chinese medicine or the world

of herbal medicine that provokes this kind of the same sort of response. same sort of response. When you were giving the definition of integrated medicine, I think you used the word conventional medicine within it. And you just mentioned the phrase traditional Chinese medicine. And it's an interesting thought, isn't it? When we talk about conventional medicine or traditional medicine, it's, again, there's a sort of inbuilt arrogance there. Yes, it is. You know, our system of medicine is not that old. And if you're going to call something traditional, I think it should be at least a thousand years old. You know, Native American medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, but not what we're doing today

as allopathic medicine i mean that only goes back maybe a hundred years i mean what is incredible is to see as you said with with breathing but there's a lot of science now coming out isn't there to support what these ancient healing modalities you know traditional chinese medicine indian Ayurvedic medicine, have been talking about for years, whether it's a period of time each day without food or a period of time every 24 hours where you're not putting food in, whether it's breathing practices, whether it's the fact that different organs have different genetic activity and that they're more or less active at different parts of the day i remember the guardian newspaper in the uk covered a study maybe two or three years ago

which was showing you know it was about the circadian clock and how the liver is more and less active at certain parts of the day other organs are as well. And the kind of conclusion was, oh, so we can then use different medications at different times in the day. And okay, that may be one of the conclusions. But I was also thinking, have traditional Chinese medicine and Indian medicine not been saying this for thousands of years, that there's a different rhythm to different organs at different times of the day? And I guess for you as someone who's been preaching this message for a good 50 years, you're now seeing a lot more mainstream support in a way that you presumably you weren't 40, 50 years ago. I guess for some of these other modalities, not that they need it, I guess,

but it must be quite gratifying to see, oh, these guys are kind of catching up to what we already knew. You know, as I say, there are ideas in these systems that to me seem so powerful and useful. And there's other ideas that don't seem that way. And I look at all this and I'm very selective in what I take from other systems. One idea that I find very powerful from Chinese medicine, I have another colleague, an MD in New York who practices what he calls modern Chinese medicine. And I once heard him say that if you could summarize all of Chinese medical philosophy in one sentence, it would be to dispel evil and support the good. In Western medicine, all of our focus is on dispelling evil. We identify what we see as agents of disease or causes disease, and we blast them with weapons, usually pharmaceutical. And we really pay no attention to supporting the good, which are the

intrinsic resistance or defensive functions of the human body. And just as a concrete example of this, if you look at the way we manage gastroesophageal reflux disease, you know, we use these very powerful medications that suppress production of stomach acid. We say that's the problem is too much acid in the stomach and we stop it with a very powerful drug. That's an example of the dispelling evil philosophy. We do nothing to support the defensive function of the body, which is how do you make the gastric mucosa more resistant to the erosive action of stomach acid. And there are various ways of doing that. There are natural products that do that, adjustment of diet. I see so many patients who are put on these medications without any dietary history being taken, without any

warning of the addictive nature of these drugs, the long-term problems that they cause. I mean, that's the unbalanced Western approach that could really benefit from paying attention to that idea from Chinese medical philosophy. Yeah, and the system, the modern medical system really feeds that, doesn't it? Because, you know, as you said that, I had a flashback to, I don't know,

12, 13 years ago, I'm going to guess, in clinic, you know. A lot of patients waiting outside. This is much more conventional NHS general practice. And I can't remember the exact patient, but they'd come in, they'd still got these gut acid type symptoms. They'd already been on, I think they started off on omeprazole, the proson pump inhibitor. already been on, I think they started off on omeprazole, the proton pump inhibitor. Then a doctor had changed it. It wasn't working to lansoprazole. And then I think I had a protocol which said, oh, there's a new one called ezomeprazole. Let's try that. That's the third line that's recommended by the local hospitals. And you just get into this maddening

vortex where, you know, no one's understood the root cause of it. They've been put on one proton pump inhibitor. My understanding is that the early trials on proton pump inhibitors only looked at their use for a few weeks, three, four weeks maximum, which now people are on there for 10 plus years just on repeat prescriptions. And this is a problem that I think is really not appreciated that I've been trying to call people's attention to, both my colleagues and patients, that when you use these powerful counteractive agents long term, you run into a problem I call the homeostatic trap, that the body will push back against what you're doing. So if you try to block the production of stomach acid with a drug, over time, the body

is going to try to produce more acid. So if you lower the dose or stop the medication, there's going to be an outpouring of acid much worse than you had to begin with. And so people think, well, then I can't get off these. I have to take them. And over time, you are worsening or prolonging the problem. And the same thing happens with depression. You give SSRI antidepressant drugs to increase serotonin at neural junctions. How is the body going to respond to that? It's going to try to make less serotonin and that will drop serotonin receptors. So if after a year of use, you try to get off that or reduce the dose, depression is increased.

You know, there's, there's even a name for this now. It's tardive dysphoria, which is lingering, lingering depression as a result of treatment. And you see this again and again with so many of our pharmaceutical agents. And there's a double problem, isn't there, Andrew? There's a problem that the person who initially came to the doctor with these heartburn acid symptoms that were causing them problems at work or when they went to sleep, because we didn't address the root cause then, we gave them a pill, which may, unless we have been really clear that this is a short-term intervention to help your symptoms while we deal with the underlying root cause, which is where I think those things can potentially have value sometimes for some patients. Short-term, yeah. You know, if we explain that, but we disempower the patient, they start taking the pill,

they think, oh, I've got a problem that I need this pill to fix. And then when they can't get off it, they think, yeah, it reinforces, yeah, I have that problem. I need the pill or I can't function without realizing your body is reacting. And this, it sounds as though we're talking about rare cases. I bet you, if you go to any general practice in the UK, you will have hundreds, if not thousands of patients at every practice who are in this situation. And it's so frustrating because once they're on it, it is challenging to get them off it. Very challenging. And by the way, Ranga, when I was growing up in the late 1940s, 1950s, reflux, gastric reflux did not exist.

People had heartburn and they dealt with it mostly by taking calcium carbonate, mint flavored calcium carbonate, which is relatively safe. And I think most people understood that heartburn was your stomach's way of telling you that you'd mistreated it. Either you ate too much, you ate the wrong things. But now this has become completely medicalized into this condition due to too much stomach acid and you treat it with these powerful medications and then go about your business and as i say almost every patient i see who is in this situation where they're dependent on the drug and can't get off they were started on them without any questions being asked about what they were eating were they drinking coffee were they, what their stress levels was. There were no inquiry into any of that. Yeah. Or how stressful their lives were. Were they

eating on the move? It sounds so basic, but there's almost always a way to help people with those symptoms if you take the time to understand what's causing them in the first place. And it's, you're spot on. It's this medicalization of symptoms, whereas, you know, it's the body sign. It's trying to talk to you and raise, it's trying to scream at you. You got to do something differently, right? You're not treating me well. But instead of listening, I guess it's reflective of just how busy and stressed out people are now, whether it's the doctors in practice, whether it's the patients in their busy, busy lives, that it's almost, it kind of feels like it's the perfect storm. Medicine has got these quick fix solutions for

busy people who don't feel they've got the time and energy to make change. And then you end up in this really problematic and quite toxic situation. Well, this is the perfect opportunity for doctors to be teachers and to be able to explain to patients why long-term use of these counteractive pharmaceutical strategies is not wise, that it's going to get you into worse trouble and may produce bad effects of its own. And what the root causes of these things are and what changes you can make, you know, that's what we should be doing. And it is very rewarding to do that and to see, you know, good results. Yeah. You mentioned the placebo effect before and the power of the mind. And I've shared on this podcast before that my realization over the past few years has been, yes, food, movement, sleep, stress, super important. They are very, very important things to try and help everyone with. but actually, if you go one step further, I really am feeling more and more that it's the mind,

it's our belief systems up here, how we view the world actually determines a lot of those behaviors in the first place. And unless we tackle that, yeah, we can make big improvements with food and movement and stress, but at some point to really get that long-term change, we've got to tackle what's going on up here. And you mentioned the placebo and it's interesting that there's such powerful research behind the placebo, but how do we talk about it in medicine? It's the most derogatory thing in the world when you were talking about trials, isn't it? It speaks to how little credence we give or have typically given to the power of our minds. Yes. The two most common usages of the word placebo I hear in medicine are, how do you know that's not just a placebo effect? And the most interesting word there is just,

or we have to rule out the placebo effect. We should be ruling it in. Placebo responses are pure healing responses from within, mediated by the mind. And that's what we should be ruling it in. Placebo responses are pure healing responses from within, mediated by the mind. And that's what we should be trying to make happen more often. That is the art of medicine. How do you present treatments to patients to get the maximum healing response with the minimum direct physical intervention? Again, something that I began writing about long ago and talking about, and I'm happy to see gradually a change coming about in that area. But that word is so charged and so loaded, and, you know, the thinking that placebo responses are imaginary and they're not as important.

little assignment that I like to give to medical students and also to doctors in training as well is to go into, pick up any medical journal at random that reports randomized controlled testing of drugs and look up an article and flip to the back where there's a table summarizing the results. In the placebo group, there will always be, always be one or two or a small number of subjects who show all of the changes produced in the experimental group. In other words, any change that we can produce in the human body with a pharmaceutical agent can be exactly reproduced in at least some individuals some of the, purely by a mind-mediated mechanism. To me, that is the most important single fact that's come out of this whole era, 70 years of randomized controlled drug testing. And that's what we should be trying to figure out

how to take advantage of and make happen more of the time. It's something that doctors who I train ask a lot they say this and I'm assuming you've heard this a lot as well you know Dr. Weil, Dr. Chastity you know I understand what you're saying but you know patients don't patients just don't do what I tell them to do and I find that language and that phrasing very telling in and of itself what I tell them to do. And I find that language and that phrasing very telling in and of itself. What I tell them to do, I think is potentially problematic. And there's this kind of thing that, oh, you know, I know everything, but the patients just don't do what I ask them. And one thing I teach doctors is when I get asked, what's the most important thing I've learned

doctors, is when I get asked what's the most important thing I've learned in 20 years of seeing patients, my answer is always connect first, educate second. Yeah, and also to model behavior for patients, as I said this earlier, that you have to model, you have to embody the changes that you want to see in others. So you have to model health for your patients and healthy living. and others so you have to model health for your patients and healthy living but i mean i totally agree and i what i why i'm so passionate about that is i've realized that until the patient across the table from you has really connected with you made eye contact like really felt hurt i just don't think they're that willing or that engaged to then take the next step. Whereas if we just rush in to give the solution, it just doesn't work that well. And then if you take that outside medicine, because what is the patient-doctor relationship?

Well, it's a relationship, isn't it? So how does it work with your partner or your wife or your children? You know, who responds well to just being told what to do? It's always about feeling seen, feeling heard, really, really having someone validate who you are and how you're feeling before you take that next step. And I, it's such an obvious thing. Again, we're not taught it in medical school, but for me, Dr. Wild, that is one of the big truths that I've learned from seeing thousands of patients. And I'm, I'm interested as to your view on that. Is that something you've come across before? Would you agree with that?

Or would you modify that somewhat? I very much agree with that. By the way, one of the reasons that I like doing the 4-7-8 breath with patients is that it establishes a very intimate connection with the patient to breathe with them. They're not expecting that. They're not used to that. And I find that facilitates further connection. Also, a practical technique that we teach to the people that we train is motivational interviewing. And this is a technique developed recently. It's a dialogue that you have with a patient that helps you and the patient identify mental patterns that are obstacles to making changes in behavior and lifestyle, and then helping them develop alternative mental patterns that facilitate the changes you want. It's a very useful technique,

and it's something practical that can be taught. I mean speaking of Hippocrates that you mentioned before a phrase that popped into my mind was it's I think this is Hippocrates it's more useful to know what sort of person has a disease than what type of disease a person has and I think that really that is again something I figured out over over many years of getting frustrated and not being able to help my patients as much as I wanted to. I sort of came to that truth that way. And that, I guess, speaks to the power of the mind and how we're all sort of individual. You know, you mentioned the power of the mind.

Sorry, yeah. No, you made me think. I just had a flash on being in medical school and being told by an attending physician, you know, go see the gallbladder in room seven. Yeah. That says it all, doesn't it? It says it all. Am I right in thinking that you've shared a story in the past where I think you had taken some form of psychedelic mushroom potentially, and whilst you were under its influence, you were able to do a yoga pose that previously you were unable to do. I wonder if you could just share that story because I think that really speaks beautifully to how our mind can get in the way. It's an example of what the potential of these

agents is. It was actually LSD. And I was, I think, 28, living in a rural area in Virginia. It was a beautiful spring day. And I took LSD with a group of friends outside. And I had been just starting to practice Hatha yoga. I had been doing it for, I don't know, a month or so. And one posture that I had a really hard time with is the plow, where you lie on your back on the floor and you raise your legs and then try to touch your toes behind your head. I got my toes within a foot of the floor and I had a horrible pain in my neck and I just got stuck there. I couldn't do it no matter how much I practiced. And I was on the verge of giving up. I thought I was too old. My body was too stiff. Uh, and then under the, on this day, when I was under the influence of LSD, I felt

terrific. My body felt really elastic. I was, you know, wonderful. I thought, gee, I ought to try that. So I lay down and I was lowering my feet. I thought I had about a foot to go and they touched the ground. I couldn't believe it. And I did it repeatedly. I was just so joyful to be able to do that. The next day I tried to do it and I got my feet within a foot of the floor and I had excruciating pain in my neck, but there was a difference. I now knew that it was possible and up to that point, I didn't think so. And so I kept at it. And in another couple of weeks, I was able to do it. If I had not had that experience, I think I would have given up.

So, you know, I saw a possibility that I did not believe in. And that motivated me. And I think there's tremendous potential for psychedelics in medicine, not just in psychiatric medicine, of showing people that it's possible to experience their bodies in a different way. I think that's very applicable to chronic pain, for example, allergies, autoimmunity. But there's other ways of, you know, of getting glimpses of that as well. You know, one of them is simply meeting a person who's had your illness and is now better. And if I can arrange for patients to meet other people who are well, who've had their same illness, that's a very powerful way of overriding any negative predictions they've had. You mentioned psychedelics and sort of my feeling is that in America, at least the things and the interviews and the conversations I consume from America, a lot of quite prominent

people seem to be talking about the potential value of certain psychedelics for certain conditions. And I know, I think Johns Hopkins, I think lots of prestigious institutions, research institutions are now studying this. So I wonder, you know, you're someone who was, I think, studying marijuana and its effects on health in the 1960s, a long time ago, maybe one of the first people to do this. I wonder if you, for any listeners who are naive to this, who've never heard about this, you're a super well-respected doctor, you train at Harvard Medical School.

Could you just outline, you know, what are psychedelics? How can they provide utility for people? And why have they been demonized for so long? Well, psychedelics are, there are two groups of them chemically. There are natural sources of them and there are chemical sources of them. These are substances that I think have extremely low potential for toxicity, probably lower than any other drugs that we know of. of, they can produce very dramatic psychological effects that are quite dependent on set and setting on people's expectations and on the environment in which they're taken. So the most common ones are LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, which comes from the peyote cactus, psilocybin is from mushrooms. There is a drug called MDMA, which is slightly different category. Marijuana, cannabis is not a psychedelic, it's something else. But there was a lot of research interest in these in the 1950s and some really wonderful research on them. And then it all got shut down when in the wake of

the hippies and Timothy Leary and very restrictive laws were passed against them. And only now recently has this come about again. And it's not just in the US, although I think we're farther along. Canada is uh you know well along in making psilocybin available for the treatment of depression and there's actually a lot of activity in the uk with psychedelics as well and in some of the continental europe's i think this is happening all over and that we're going to see yeah very quickly that you know i think we'll see psilocybin made available for the treatment of drug-resistant depression and anxiety, MDMA for PTSD, which is a huge problem in America

among returning war veterans. So I think we're going to see these compounds made available for therapeutic use. But at the same time, there's tremendous interest in the general public in the pre-COVID when I was traveling a lot and speaking. Whatever the subject I was talking about, whether it was healthy aging, integrative medicine, nutrition, the questions I got were about psychedelics. You know, where can we, how can we take them? How can we find can we take them how can we find guides for the experiences just tremendous mainstream interest i i think two months ago vogue magazine in the u.s had a cover story on psilocybin you know that that's

kind of mainstream interest that's really remarkable wow so you mentioned before when we were talking about um anti-inflammatory diets you mentioned green tea and i know you are a particular fan of green tea in in particular from what i understand it's matcha can you tell me about you know when you became aware of matcha what happened there and why you're so passionate about people drinking more of it? When I was growing up, tea was something drunk by old people and sick people. And I drank iced tea, heavily sweetened. When I was 17, I had a chance to live in Japan with Japanese families. And I really came to love green tea. Very good. and I'd seen nothing like that in America. And I was also introduced at that time to matcha in the Japanese tea ceremony. Matcha is the powdered green tea that's whisked into a froth and consumed in the tea ceremony.

And I began bringing that back when I would go to Japan and turn people on to it. Nobody had ever heard of it in the States. And then sometime in the 1980s, I think this was again, way ahead of its time. I formed a connection with a Japanese company that produced matcha and tried to sell it through my website, drweil.com, but it was not the right time for it. And then it's been quite amazing to me to watch how fashionable matcha has become in recent years but i i was concerned that most of the stuff that people were drinking was not good quality because matcha is so finely powdered that it oxidizes very

quickly and it loses its bright green color and and good. And so I wanted to make really good quality matcha available. And I again formed a relationship with another Japanese company near Kyoto and formed a company called matcha.com, Matchakari, that's selling this and, you know, turning a lot of people on to this. I think it's a wonderful product. First of all, there's a great deal of research on the health benefits of tea in general, on green tea in particular, a lot due to its antioxidant content. Matcha is different in that the leaves are grown in a way that increases the content of antioxidants. And it also has a high content of an amino acid called L-theanine that has a calming effect. And I think that modifies the effect of caffeine and makes the stimulation of tea and matcha in particular very different from that of coffee.

It does not have the jangling effect of coffee. It does not leave you with a crash when the stimulation wears off. People say it causes a state of calm alertness that I think is very desirable. So I think it's a good thing. Much is also beautiful and delicious, and I'm going to have a bowl of it after we finish talking. There's a ritual, isn't there, in Japan as to how this is prepared, though. And I sort of feel like the matcha tea that you sell, what are people buying? They're buying the powder that they then have to... They buy the powder, and I don't care what they do with it. I mean, if they want to use an electric whisk, if they want to make a latte out of it, if they want to sweeten it, however they want to do it. I like doing it in the traditional way, which is using a bamboo whisk in a small amount of hot water unsweetened.

But, you know, in Japan now, matcha has escaped the tea ceremony ritual. That's really a kind of old-fashioned thing, and matcha is now consumed mostly by people, not as part of a ritual. Although I think there's a long association of tea in general and matcha in particular with meditation. And again, very different association from that of coffee. I think matcha has been associated with contemplation, with meditation. And the ritual of preparing it, when I whisk it in a bowl, I find that to be very meditative and relaxing. I think what you're speaking to there is something that, again, I think is a missing piece in modern life and even in modern day health promotion, which is, it's not only what you're doing, it's how you're doing it. So, you know, if you're

taking five or 10 minutes to prepare your green tea, you know, it's not just a habit, it's a ritual, it's a time to dedicate to yourself, to actually be present with a certain process. And I mean, interested is your view on this, but I've been thinking recently that we do science, we look at green tea, or we look at the polyphenols in coffee, and we go, oh, this is a great thing. And so in our rushed lives, we make a quick coffee, we slug it down, and we go and then we say, oh yeah, it's got loads of polyphenols in it, it's really good for me. And I kind of feel, have we lost something somewhere? Because for me, for example, I do drink coffee. I've, I've limited it. I know what works for me, but I have it first

thing in the morning. Now I know people will say, cause I'm an early riser. I'm usually up by five. People will say it's, you know, it's probably not with your circadian biology, the perfect time to have it. However, I would argue that, you know what, that hour, hour and a half in the morning before my wife and kids get up is my sacred time for myself. And I make it in a very ritualistic way. I don't slug it down while doing something else. I'm paying attention to it. And I feel actually for me on balance, when you take into account everything, that forms a very important part of my day. And I feel more and more we're missing this piece when we talk about health. I agree with you. And I would extend that to eating in general. And one of the things that

struck me, especially when I spent time in Italy and in France, is how different the attitude is of people toward eating. You know, that in the U.S., you're rushed out of restaurants. It's in a hurry. There's a lot of concern about, you know, is this healthy? Is this not healthy? I think in continental Europe, especially in France and Italy, there's so much more attention and time given to the enjoyment of food, to lingering over it, to sharing, eating in company as a social ritual. And I think that has you know as much to do with the lowered rates of obesity for example as you know the what what people are eating yeah I mean I think there was a study a UK study I think

it was the University of Birmingham um a few years ago showed that actually if you eat in a rush while distracted so doing something else watching television you eat more a rush while distracted, so doing something else, watching television, you eat more at that meal and at subsequent meals for the rest of the day, right? Which, which again, really speaks to what you're saying. You know, there, there are, it's not just what you're eating, it's how you're eating. It's the intention. It's what's going on in the mind as you're eating. Yeah, super interesting. So I feel you've definitely sparked my interest to have some matcha tea this weekend.

What's the URL? It's just matcha.com. Matcha.com. Matcha? Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. What about your daily routine?

I mean, you're someone who has been sort of, you know, really a pioneer in this field. And I think a lot of us would be interested to know, how do you, I mean, you know, how old are you now? I think it's... I am 79. I mean, 79, incredible, and looking in tip-top health. What do you do on a daily basis because i think it would be quite i get up early i beat you wrong on i got up at 4 20 this morning i tend to get up when the sky starts to get light and that's my best time i uh do some sitting meditation in the morning i have

two dogs i come down and feed them um i usually have i might have my bowl of matcha and something light to eat. And then I take the dogs on a walk. I have a garden that I tend to, I grow a lot of my own food. I try to get walks in or swim every day. That's my favorite form of exercise. I'm mentally active most in the morning. If I'm going to write or do intellectual work, I like to do that in the morning. And afternoons are more for relaxing, reading, spending time with friends, preparing food, cooking. You know, that's my usual day. And I'm usually in bed by usually nine at the latest 10. Yeah. Love it. So much to think about there. Just to sort of close off this conversation, Dr. Weil, I'm interested. You've seen a lot of changes in healthcare over the past 50 years you've seen things come in

things go you've seen things take the public interest and leave the public interest if you look at the US healthcare system because I know that's where you're based I know you've traveled the world so you're probably quite familiar, I think, with other healthcare systems. It's very easy for, I think, many of us to criticize our own healthcare systems, other healthcare systems. But if you were to look at the US healthcare system, yes, there are some negatives, which you've spoken about before, you've spoken about on this show, you can perhaps recap on what some of those negatives are. But are there any positives that we can take that around the world, we can learn to go, oh, America doing that really, really well when it comes to health. I'm really interested as to your view on that. And you know, how other countries need to evolve their healthcare

systems as well. Well, we don't have a healthcare system in the US, we have a disease management system. And it's functioning very imperfectly and getting worse by the minute. And also, we, as the richest nation, are unable to guarantee basic health care services to all of our health care system, we're spending an outrageous amount of our gross domestic product on health care and have terrible health outcomes. That's unsustainable. But as a result of that, that is what's fueling the integrative medicine movement, which is much more developed in the U.S. than it is anywhere else. If our health care system were not in such trouble, our institutions would not be open to this. You know, a lot of the people that come to, the fellows who

come to us to study are sponsored by their institutions, by their hospital systems who are paying for their tuition. You know, this would not be happening if the economics of health care in this country weren't such a mess. And I see this happening around the world. We were not getting any people from the UK until very recently, for example, or from Western Europe. But as the economics of healthcare begin to deteriorate everywhere, there is openness to integrative medicine, and i think that's the great change do people from around the world have to come to america to do that residency or can they do it

online it's online we have had you know until covid we had three residential weeks in tucson that were scattered through the the two-year fellowship But in the past two years, we've done it all online, and we may now go back to some residential teaching. Yeah, I mean, we'll get a link from you. We'll put it in the show notes for people and doctors who are interested in that. You mentioned universal healthcare. Of course, that's something we do have in the UK. We have the National Health Service, which is something this country is very, very proud of. But something I've been thinking about over the summer is, you know, I'm on a social media hiatus at the moment for four weeks. And it's really the time of year where I really feel I really get to tune into my own thoughts again and what I think rather than being influenced by what I'm reading online each day. And I've been thinking about the NHS and of course, incredible benefits of having something like the National Health Service.

My own father who had lupus when he was 59, kidneys failed, dialysis for 15 years, no problem, all paid for. If he was in India or in another country around the world and he couldn't afford dialysis, I wouldn't have had those 15 years with dad that I had. So there's huge benefits. But in an era, in the 21st century, in an era where the majority of our health problems are driven by our collective modern lifestyles, I'm really interested as is that is there any downside of having this kind

of universal healthcare system whereby we're not really incentivized personally to look after ourselves? Because actually, if you look after yourself, you never even need to access the doctor. So you're not even getting what you put in. I'm just sort of, it's a thought experiment for me at the moment to figure out, is there any downside here? Do you see what I'm getting at? Yeah, but first of all, I don't think it's sustainable because in the UK, as everywhere now, you have an aging population.

You have epidemics of lifestyle-related diseases. You have increasing costs of the high tech interventions, which is what conventional medicine depends on. And all of those trends are making healthcare increasingly unaffordable. So the system cannot go on that way. And the issue that you raise that this really does not provide incentives for prevention and for people taking responsibility for how they live and managing their disease risks. It's all feeding into this. So I can't see that this can go on. Yeah, for sure. Well, it's been a real honor to speak to you today. I could have spoken to you for many more hours and I hope we

get the chance to meet at some point in the future when the world opens up. Just to finish off then, this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our life. You've shared a lot of things today on the show. And I wonder if we could just finish off with you sharing some of your most practical most impactful tips that you've seen over 50 years make the most difference in people's lives i think really trust in and pay attention to your body's healing ability because it is your greatest asset you know learn the basic facts about nutrition avoid processed manufactured, and really pay attention to breathing and learn how to breathe. I mean, that's absolutely basic.

Thanks so much for joining us. That's all your work over the years. And I hope we get to meet at some point in the future. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. As always, do think about one thing that you might be able to take away and start applying into your own life. And of course, let me and Andrew know on social media what you thought. Before we finish, I really want to let you know about Friday Five. It's my weekly newsletter that contains five short doses of positivity to get you ready for the weekend. 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. I might share a recipe

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