Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - 5 Powerful Ways to Transform Your Summer with Dr Rangan Chatterjee #468

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. So today's episode is a bonus episode and one that is a little bit different to usual. It's all about the summer months and some of my thoughts on how we can embrace this particular season to make meaningful changes in our life. I hope you enjoy. I absolutely love summer and I want to help you make the most of your summer. So I think there's something different about the energy, about our motivation, about the light in the summer months. And if we can harness them, I think it can have a

Starting point is 00:00:51 huge impact on our health, happiness, and the way we feel about ourselves. So in this podcast, I want to share five ideas with you that if you implement them, I think are going to have a massive impact on the quality of your summer. So first tip, change up your morning routine. Okay, look, you may or may not think you have a morning routine, but all of us do. We all have a routine that we do. Now, we're not always intentional about it, but we absolutely have a routine. So your routine could be that you are lying in, you're scrolling in bed, you're looking at the news headlines, you're getting up late, and then you're rushing around until you get to work. Or your routine could be more intentional where you get up and are doing some proactive things for your health like meditation

Starting point is 00:01:40 or journaling or exercise or whatever it might be. Whatever your current routine is, I want you to think about changing it up in the summer. And in particular, what I've seen work really, really well is to get up a bit earlier than usual and get outside. Now, of course, this will depend where you live. Here in the UK, at the moment, it's getting light at about 4.30 in the morning, okay? I'm not saying you have to get at about 4.30 in the morning. I'm not saying you have to get up at 4.30, but if you're living somewhere where it gets light earlier, this is the perfect time of year to take advantage of that. Set an alarm, get up, maybe even before coffee or tea or whatever drink you like to have in the morning, get outside, embrace the

Starting point is 00:02:26 morning lights, and maybe go for a 15 or 20 minute walk. More if you can, but even 10 or 15 minutes can make a really big difference. Now, why does it make such a big difference? The first thing it does is set your body's circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm influences so many systems in your body. Getting natural light first thing in the morning sets a timer for certain hormones in your body, which will help you sleep in the evening. A lot of people don't think about that when it comes to sleep. They're concentrating on what they do just before bed, but actually what you do first thing in the morning influences your ability to sleep at night. So you're getting that natural light

Starting point is 00:03:05 exposure, which helps your circadian biology. So that's really, really important. Number two, if you're going outside for a walk in natural light at that time, you're getting movement in. We know that simply walking will improve your mood, will improve your insulin sensitivity, will improve your focus. It's also a bit of solitude for you if you do this by yourself. Solitude is a really important daily practice, I think, arguably the most important practice for our health and our happiness, because it allows us to reflect on our lives. Often we're stuck in our lives, we never step outside with solitude to think about how is our life going? How could I

Starting point is 00:03:46 change things? Am I nourishing my relationships? Am I nourishing my health? Etc, etc. You need a practice of solitude to be able to do that. And I think a 15 minute walk every morning gives you that natural light, it gives you your movement, and it gives you a daily practice of solitude. Now, I had a patient a few years ago who thought that they were a night owl. They never wanted to get up before 7am. They said they were always tired in the morning. And I persuaded her in the summer months to get up at 5am and go for a 30 minute walk every morning. I said, try it for at least seven days and see what happens. The change was remarkable.

Starting point is 00:04:26 She found it hard at first, definitely. The alarm went off. She didn't want to get up, but she committed to it. Not only to me, she committed to herself that this was the behavior she was going to do. And she found within days, her body clock was starting to align. Within a few days, she was starting to get up just before her alarm. She was getting that natural light in the morning. She was getting that time to herself. And this lady found that when she came back, she was much more present with her children. She felt that she was ahead of the day. She felt it much easier to engage in other helpful behaviors for the rest of the day. And it all started with that 30-minute walk at 5

Starting point is 00:05:06 a.m. So I want you to think about that. You may already be doing that, but if you are not doing that already, and perhaps you find it hard to do that in the autumn months and the winter, and I get it is hard, embrace the season. Embrace the fact that it is light at that time. Your body wants to be up in that light. You may have to push through for a few days, but I honestly would recommend you try it for at least seven days, and I'm pretty sure you're going to feel better. The second thing I want you to think about is a social media detox. Okay, we hear all the time about social media and how it's controlling our lives, or it certainly is for many of us, but many of us feel that we can't do much about it,

Starting point is 00:05:48 or it's difficult. We're tired, we're stressed in the evenings, we just like to go on Instagram and scroll for a few hours. I get it. What I want you to consider in the summer months, and this is something that I've been doing now for maybe five years, is take a real break from social media in those summer months. Now, I want to acknowledge that not everyone is going to be able to do this. You might have a job where you need to be on it. I get that. You may have a business where you're the only one running it and you have to be on it. If that applies to you, sure, it may be more challenging. But for many of us, we just keep doing in the summer what we've done in every other

Starting point is 00:06:33 season. And I want you to really embrace the change in the season. I think we respond as human beings to these changes in rhythm. I do think in the winter months, when it gets, certainly here in the UK, it can be dark at 8am and dark at 4pm again. No, you want to hibernate. You don't want to be as active. That's natural at that time of year. Think about what animals do at that time of year. But in the summer months, it's very, very different. And I think we really need to lean into those differences. The modern world makes it hard for us to do that. We have the same work times, the same schedules. But I want you to think about what can you do differently in the summer months than you do for the rest of the year. And I think a social media detox is one of those things. Okay, what might that look like? First

Starting point is 00:07:25 of all, it depends on your relationship with social media. But I think so many of us are simply not aware of how much our thoughts are influenced by the world around us. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that many people don't really know what they think anymore. They're so used to getting up in the morning, picking up their phone and consuming, okay? So we're having very little time to be present with our own thoughts. That's why tip number one, the morning walk. And I forgot to say that morning walk without a phone if you can, or even if you have a phone with you, don't look at it. You want to be with your own thoughts. Allow your innermost thoughts to come up and process them. Once you start consuming material from the outside world, you've kind of lost that opportunity. Your thoughts, your feelings,

Starting point is 00:08:16 your behaviors are often downstream from the content you're consuming, right? So what I would recommend, if you can, get on your smartphone, if you've got one, and delete your social media apps. We know that if you make a behavior difficult, we do it less. If you make a behavior easy, we do it more. I mean, that applies to anything. It applies to Netflix, to exercise and movement. If you have to go to the gym that's 10 minutes away to do your workout, you're less likely to do it than if you can do a five-minute workout every day in your kitchen in your own clothes. All the human behavior research supports this. Make it easy, you'll do it. Make it hard, you won't. So if you delete those social media apps from your phone, yes, for the first few days,

Starting point is 00:09:06 because I do this every year, you pick up that phone and you feel that urge. You haven't quite got used to it yet. You're wanting to press and see because you're used to doing it. But within, I would say within three days, that urge has gone. And before you know it, you feel a lot calmer, you feel more relaxed, you feel more in tune with your own feelings and your own thoughts. I really would encourage you to do it. For me, it's been life-changing. Many people I've shared this with on Instagram over the past years, and they do it as well. And they say, oh my God, I didn't realize how good I could feel when I was off social media. And the key about deleting off your phone is you make it harder to go on. Now, technically,

Starting point is 00:09:51 you could go on your laptop and go onto that social media platform, but you're probably not going to do it as often. And again, if you've got people in your family, let's say a partner who can do it with you, but that could be really powerful. It is something that has really changed the way I experience my summers each year. And once it gets to April or May, I'm actually starting to look forward to my social media detox, which typically I start in the middle of July. As I say, I get that not everyone can do it. Again, it's just an idea I want to share with you. I've experienced the benefits. People have reported back to me the benefits. And I just want you to at least give it a try to see if you also experience those benefits.

Starting point is 00:10:36 Again, I tend to do it for four, maybe six weeks now. But I started off doing it for just one week. So maybe just start there, one week without any social media. Tip number three, can you do all of your movement and exercise outdoors? Okay, remember, everything here is about embracing the change in the season. Again, this is something I do. It's something I've been recommending to patients for years, it's how can you make things feel a bit different. So for me, I always want to be outside at this time of year, even if it's cloudy, as it often is in the UK. So I will leave a skipping rope outside, outside my office, outside my kitchen. And several times in the day, I'll just go there and I'll skip. Okay. Now I get many people love the gym. If you love the gym, I'm not necessarily saying stop doing it, but could you change it up?

Starting point is 00:11:31 What kind of movements and exercises that you do in the gym could you do outside? You know, being outside is very, very good for our health. As I mentioned in tip one, it's good for your circadian biology. It's good for your sleep. But we know that the more time we spend outside, the better able we are to deal with stress, the better our sleep quality, the better our moods. We have evolved outside over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. And so many of us spend our days indoors. Now, I get it in the winter. It's tricky. It could be cold. It could be rainy. It could be snowing. You may not be motivated to go outside. But in the summer, depending on where you live in the world, it's very, very different.

Starting point is 00:12:16 So I want you to lean into that. Can you do your movements outdoors? Skipping is a great one. I mentioned walking. Instead of walking on a treadmill or running on a treadmill Can you do it outside? Okay Instead of biking at the gym Can you get on your bike and go out onto a trail? Right? Or a local forest or a local park

Starting point is 00:12:37 Swimming Instead of swimming inside Do you have access to some open water? If it's safe to do so If you're equipped to do that Really it's safe to do so, if you're equipped to do that. Really, it's about embracing the season and getting as much movement in as you can outdoors. It could be a nice challenge, you say to yourself, maybe for one month over the summer, can I do all of

Starting point is 00:12:59 my movement outdoors? If so, what would you do? You can do weights outdoors. You can do kettlebells outdoors. You know, in my garden, I've got kettlebells and dumbbells that live outside. And again, throughout the day, I'll go out, I'll do 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there. And I love it. It makes me feel so much more alive than being indoors in a gym under artificial lighting. So again, embrace the season, see if you can do all of your movement outdoors. The fourth tip is to embrace slowness. Okay, what do I mean by that? Like when it's warmer, certainly on really hot days, I don't know about you, but it feels as if the pace of life starts to slow down. You know, if you're lucky

Starting point is 00:13:45 enough to live somewhere hot and sunny, or whenever I go on holiday to somewhere hot and sunny in the summer, the pace of life just feels slower. You don't want to be as busy and rushing around, right? So I know it's going to depend on your life, your work, what you're able to do. Many people have stressful lives, busy lives. They don't have any autonomy to start to change things. If that's you, I understand it may be challenging. But if you do have that autonomy or even a little bit of autonomy, how can you embrace the slowness of summer? Okay, tip one was to go for that walk in the morning without a phone if possible and just get that natural light in. Could you have some meals outdoors? Okay, if you're lucky enough to have a garden or a bit of patio, could you have your morning coffee outdoors? Your morning

Starting point is 00:14:37 cup of tea outdoors? Yes, your workouts outdoors, but can you have a lazy meal with your family or your partner outdoors without your phone there? So you're not actually clock watching. These things are possible for many people, but we haven't thought about it. So we often continue throughout the summer as we do for the rest of the year. I want you to just intentionally think about what are these things that you can do. I want you to just intentionally think about what are these things that you can do. Is your work lighter in the summer? You know, it might be, it might not be. If it is, can you embrace longer mealtimes? Can you have slow Sundays, for example, if you don't work on Sundays where you by yourself or with your partner or with your family can go for long walks, maybe a hike around some mountains, some hills, you know, without your

Starting point is 00:15:27 phone if you're able to, or even just put your phone in your backpack so you're not constantly tempted to look at it. It's that slowness that we often don't get at other parts of the year that I think we can really lean into in the summer. And it's kind of interesting. Over the past few years, all of my books have come out in Sweden, and I've gone out each time to do some promotion. I spent a bit of time there. And one thing I've learned, A, it's a lot more of an equal society than somewhere like the UK, which I find really interesting. But there's this concept of summer houses, but there's this concept of summer houses where many people in Sweden have summer houses now to be really clear it's not like here in the UK where you'd have to be of a certain income level before

Starting point is 00:16:13 you could even afford something like a summer house no from what I can gather in Sweden it's a lot more attainable and achievable for everyone I'm sure not every single person in Sweden has a summer house, but many people do. And from what I can tell, many people in Sweden, they switch off for maybe four weeks in the summer. The offices shut down, people aren't expecting responses, and they go off to their summer houses for maybe three or four weeks, and their summer houses are usually in nature or by the sea. I remember talking to a lady in Stockholm last year when I was there. She works in Stockholm in the year. She lives in a flat. Nice flat. She's got a nice job. But she says she really looks forward to her four weeks at her summer house. And I was asking her about it. She said, yeah,

Starting point is 00:17:03 you know, it's interesting. We don't have a dishwasher. We don't have heating. It's very, very simple. And I said, oh, would you put these things in? She goes, no, not at all. That's the charm. And I kind of feel that Sweden as a culture have this idea every summer where they remind themselves where they came from, from nature, simple, minimalist living. So they maybe embrace city living for the other 11 months, but in those four weeks, they go back, they switch off, they slow down and remind themselves where they came from. I find it so, so interesting. And I've spoken to many people in Sweden who do the same thing. And they say it's one of their favorite times of the year. And it's interesting, isn't it? No dishwasher, no heating, none of all this modern tech and all these conveniences. They actually embrace

Starting point is 00:17:49 the simplicity and the discomfort. So what can we take from them and apply in our lives in the summer? How can we embrace slowness? Maybe it's camping. Maybe you've got used to the material comforts of your home and your apartment. Maybe you'll embrace slowness by actually getting back to nature, maybe with your family. Maybe it's a weekend camping. It reminds us of who we are and where we came from. And then when we get back to our house or our flats, I think we appreciate the modern conveniences even more. The fifth and final tip would be to give yourself a mini challenge. Okay, I think this is a really great thing to do in the summer. As I've already mentioned, motivation and willpower tends to be higher at this time of year. Why? The weather tends to be better. There's more light. When light is out

Starting point is 00:18:47 there, we are wired to be awake. That's one of the reasons why light in the evening, especially artificial light, can keep us up for longer and disrupt our circadian rhythms and disrupt our sleep. So your motivation is high. Let's implement changes at this time of year. I've always found this with patients over the last two decades. Honestly, I found January, at New Year, it's not the best time for people to make changes, particularly in a country like the UK. It's cold, it's dark, it's wet, it's rainy. It's not really the kind of environment that's going to stimulate us to make these big lifestyle changes. And I think it's one of the reasons why so many New Year's resolutions fail, because it's the wrong time of year. But the springtime and the summertime is completely different. Motivation

Starting point is 00:19:35 tends to be higher. So why don't you set yourself a mini challenge? Okay, what could that look like? Well, of course, it's going to depend on your own preferences, your own passions, the things that you want. Here are some ideas, though, that might get you thinking. It could be that you've never run a 5K before. Okay, in the UK, we have something called Park Run. These community 5Ks every Saturday, depending on where you are in the world, there may be something like that. But even if there isn't, you may go, by the end of the summer, by the end of August, let's say, I want to have completed 5K. Ideally running, but maybe you have to walk a bit of it as well. It doesn't really matter whether you achieve the challenge or not. The challenge gives you a sense of urgency. It gives you direction in what you do. And I'm a huge fan

Starting point is 00:20:26 of mini challenges. I think far too often we give ourselves these big, huge things to do, like running a marathon. Hey, nothing wrong with that. If you want to do that, that's great. But I think we forget about mini challenges. And I think that could be really, really helpful. So it could be that you want to run a 5K and maybe that you want to bike or cycle 5K. It could be that you're doing some lengths in your local pool. And I know I said to do all your movement outdoors, but maybe you want to stay in your pool. You don't feel confident doing open water swimming, or maybe you don't have that option available to you. Yes, do a lot of your movement outdoors, but maybe a mini challenge could be to swim 20 lengths by the end of the summer or 30 lengths. Maybe all you can do now

Starting point is 00:21:11 is five lengths. Okay, no problem. Set out a program. Go, okay, five lengths this week, every day or four times a week. Next week, I'll move it up to seven. And bit by bit, it won't take long before you get to 20. It could be that you want to camp. You've never done camping, right? That could be your challenge. Okay, I'm a bit scared. I don't know what to do, but I think it'll be really good for me. I think I'll enjoy it. Go on YouTube, have a look, look at some videos, ask your friends, put a date in your diary, get some friends together, go for one night. Okay, that's a mini challenge. It could be that you think about, I don't know, doing something in your garden, putting out a vegetable patch,

Starting point is 00:21:53 you know, carving out some space, clearing out the weeds. Give yourself a mini challenge. And here's the important point. Whether you do it or not, I don't think it matters. Sure, it's great to complete a challenge. We feel good about ourselves. We said we were going to do it and we do it. But here's the thing. If you set yourself that challenge for 20 lengths and you currently can only do five and you get to 18 lengths, that's not failure. That's huge progress, right? And you only made that progress because you gave yourself that challenge, right? So use these as ideas. Maybe they resonate with you. Maybe they don't. But use them as a jumping off point to set your own mini challenge. What I'm currently doing,

Starting point is 00:22:41 I'm going to go away with my family for a few weeks this summer. And so my usual patterns and routines around working out are not going to be there. Maybe where I go, it's not going to be necessarily safe for me to go on long runs by myself. I don't know yet. I don't know what the environment will be like. So what I do is I travel with a skipping rope. I do this every summer. And I think this summer I'll set myself a goal of getting up to maybe a thousand skips a day. Okay. But that sounds a lot. Maybe it'll be 500 skips a day. But the point is when I start, if I've not been doing it, after about 50 or 60, I feel it. You can feel tired and breathless. So what I'll do is I'll do 50. A few hours later, I'll do another 50. A few hours later, I'll do another 50. And I'll slowly build up. I did this two summers ago in Greece when we were there for a few weeks. We had a wonderful holiday. And by the end of it, I was doing a

Starting point is 00:23:38 thousand skips a day. And I felt great. I felt strong. I felt my physique was improving. I had more energy, more focus. Now, that wouldn't have happened unless I set the mini challenge. It gave me a sense of urgency. It gave me something to try and do each day, and it didn't take away from my holiday at all. Now, the reason why it doesn't matter if you get there or not, as I mentioned with those 18 lengths versus 20 lengths, A, you've done something, but B, even if you fail, it's not really failure, it's learning. You've learned so much about yourself. You've learned what you're good at, what you're not so good at. You've learned about your motivation. You've learned about,

Starting point is 00:24:22 did I manage to do it every day? Did I not? You know, all these learnings happen when we push ourselves outside our comfort zone and whether we get there or not, we still learn something. So I hope that has sparked off some ideas off your own and inspired you to choose a mini challenge that you can do this summer. Now, I know I said that we're only going to be five tips, but I've just thought of a really quick sixth one. And again, this is something I do myself. So what do you spend most of your year reading? Right. I read mostly non-fiction books all throughout the year. A, I'm a doctor. B, I'm interested in nonfiction. And C, I release weekly episodes on this podcast, which means I end up reading about two books a week to prepare for each of my guests.

Starting point is 00:25:15 So what I started doing is in my summer break, I don't take nonfiction books. I try and lean into fictional books, which stimulates a different part of me. So again, going back to what I said at the start, it's just about trying to embrace the season and do something different. So that's what I do. I embrace fiction in the summer and non-fiction the rest of the year. What's it going to be for you? A, do you read? If not, I'd encourage you to get into reading over the summer. It's a fantastic habit. It's good for us on so many levels. And I honestly think that reading is one of the highest returns on your investment of time because it's hard writing books. Okay, I've just completed my sixth book and the amount of work that goes into books is profound because you have to

Starting point is 00:26:06 condense, compress all of your ideas into a coherent narrative. When you're actually reading a well-written book, you are acquiring a lot of knowledge, wisdom, and information. Okay, so reading is a great habit to do. And what I want to encourage you to do this summer is change up your reading habits, read a different type of book. So I hope you enjoyed that short episode. It was a bit different to usual, but hopefully it has given you some ideas to think about over the summer. Don't worry about doing them all unless of course you want to, but hopefully there's one or two there that might appeal. Now on the subject of the final tip, reading books, I wonder if I might suggest some of my own books to put on your reading list this summer. Many of you may not know

Starting point is 00:26:58 that I have published five books over the past six years. They have all been bestsellers across the world. And they are all available as paperbacks, ebooks, or as audiobooks, which I narrate myself. The first one was The Four Pillar Plan, also known as How to Make Disease Disappear in America and Canada. And this book outlines my overall philosophy on health and well-being, the four pillars that have the most impact on our short-term and long-term health that we also have a high degree of control over, food, movement, sleep and relaxation. The second book is called The Stress Solution and it covers the insidious impact of stress, where stress lives in your life, and most importantly, what you can actually do about it. The third one was called Feel Better in 5. This is probably the most successful health book I have

Starting point is 00:27:53 ever written. Everything in the book takes only five minutes to do. In it, I talk about the art and science of behavior change, and I share with you over 30 five-minute health interventions that you can do for your body, mind, and soul. The fourth one, Feel Great, Lose Weight, is about sustainable, healthy weight loss. But really, if you zoom out, it is a general health book that focuses on good habits and practices that if we follow, the pleasant side effect will be that we start to lose excess weight and the fifth book is called happy minds happy life it's my most recent book and it talks about the relationship between happiness and health in that book i explain

Starting point is 00:28:36 how happiness is a trainable skill that everyone can get better at once they know what to work on and of course like in all of my books, there are loads of simple, practical suggestions. If you enjoyed today's episode and want more solo episodes like this one, do let me know. And in the meantime, enjoy the rest of your week. And I'll see you this Wednesday for a brand new episode.

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Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - 5 Powerful Ways to Transform Your Summer with Dr Rangan Chatterjee #468

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