Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #72 Brain Training, Addiction, Self-Love and Community - End of Season 2

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, my name is Rangan Chastji, GP, television presenter and author of the best-selling books The Stress Solution and The Four Pillar Plan. I believe that all of us have the ability to feel better than we currently do, but getting healthy has become far too complicated. With this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people both within as well as outside the health space to hopefully inspire you as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately to transform the way that you feel. I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. we feel better, we live more. Hello and welcome to episode 72 of my Feel Better Live More podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:55 My name is Rangan Chatterjee and I am your host. This is the final episode of this current season of my Feel Better Live More podcast. As per last year, I am taking a complete break over August. I will not be releasing any new podcasts until early September. I'm going to be switching off, spending some time with my family and spending some time doing the things that I don't usually get time to do and really try and recharge my batteries. I hope you are going to get some time off to do the same as well. Now for this final episode, I've decided to release a short compilation of four separate episodes. There have been so many amazing conversations over the past 12 months, and I try my best to pick four clips from different episodes

Starting point is 00:01:32 that represent all of these different aspects of our health. As you know, I aim to cover a whole variety of different topics on this podcast to keep things interesting, but also to help us understand that health is not just about one thing. This podcast is about 360 degree health, how all the different things that we expose ourselves to each day add up and play a significant role on how we feel and how much we get out of life. This is absolutely not a best-off compilation. There were far too many brilliant episodes in this season to choose from. These are simply four clips that I've chosen to reflect different aspects of our health.

Starting point is 00:02:10 The first clip is from episode 58 of my podcast with Dr. Tara Swart, the neuroscientist. Tara explains how we can all take back control of our lives by training our brains to create the life that we want to live. The next clip is with Dr. Gabor Mate from episode 37, which was entitled, How Our Childhood Shapes Every Aspect of Our Health. I have to say, I think this conversation with Gabor Mate was one of the most important conversations I've ever had on the podcast. In this clip, Dr. Mate talks about addiction, how it is not a choice. And he explains that basically all of us, or most of us, are affected with some kind of addiction, whether it be alcohol, nicotine, sugar, sex, work, exercise, gambling, the list is endless.

Starting point is 00:03:00 And he calls for a much more compassionate approach towards addiction, where we look for the source of the pain inside us that has led to the addiction in the first place. Dr. Mate makes a really compelling case that the root cause of all addiction comes down to our childhoods. We then move on to the third clip which is with the hypnotherapist Chloe Brotheridge from episode 65, Developing Confidence and Learning to Say No. Chloe talks about self-love and self-care, be it food, sleep, relaxation, or exercise, and how we need to put ourselves first in order to be the best that we can be for others, whether that's your children, your family, your friends, or your colleagues. She has some specific advice for parents that

Starting point is 00:03:43 actually carries across to everyone because we're better able to care for others when we're in a good place ourselves. And then I finish off with the amazing Johan Hari, episode 52, Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression. Johan shares a really powerful story from his 40,000 mile journey across the world to determine what causes depression and anxiety and what solves them. And he talks about the incredible people he met in a Berlin district called Kotti, sharing a heartwarming story of how an unlikely community was born out of desperation and the unbelievable transformations that occurred for the whole community as a result

Starting point is 00:04:22 of it. I really hope you enjoy these four clips, do stay listening to the end, but I will be signing off the season with some of my thoughts. Now, before we get started, I do need to give a quick shout out to the sponsors of today's episode who are critical and essential in order for me to put out weekly episodes like this one. Athletic Greens have been a long-term supporter of this podcast for the duration of season two and I do think that ethos and the ideology behind this company is absolutely fantastic. Now you know that I prefer people to get their nutrition from foods but I do recognize that for some of us this is not always possible. Athletic Greens is actually

Starting point is 00:05:01 one of the most nutrient-dense whole food supplements that I've ever come across and contains vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, and digestive enzymes. So if you are looking to take something each morning as an insurance policy to make sure that you are meeting your nutritional needs, I can highly recommend it. For listeners of this podcast, if you go to athleticgreens.com forward slash live more, you will be able to access a special offer where you get a free travel pack box containing 20 servings of athletic greens which is worth around 70 pounds with your first order if you have not tried athletic greens yet i would highly encourage you to take advantage of this offer and to give it a go you can check it out at athletic greens.com forward slash live more. Now, on to today's conversation.

Starting point is 00:05:47 I talk a lot about health and well-being and, you know, we often talk about food and exercise and sleep and stress, which of course are all very, very important. But what I really like about your approach is that you talk a lot about how important our thoughts are, how important our mind is. And I don't feel that that gets enough airtime. When we talk about health and well-being, why is it that our thoughts are so important? So I actually think that the pillars that you talk about, like sleep, diet, exercise, mindfulness, they're important to improve the quality of our thoughts. Because if you actually think about it, why are you doing those things? You're not just doing it so that

Starting point is 00:06:32 your body is in good shape. You're doing it so that you can think more clearly, you can do your job better, you can have better relationships. And all of that really boils down to how you think. relationships. And all of that really boils down to how you think. So all the physical factors put your brain in good condition. And then it's what you do with it that really counts. Yeah, I guess it's, it works both ways, doesn't it? Because I guess, you know, paying attention to these physical factors helps your brain function helps you think more clearly. But at the same time, I guess, if you change your mindset and you work on your thoughts, it can make it easier to actually do a lot of these physical things we're talking about. Absolutely. I mean, one of the chapters in the book is about that brain-body

Starting point is 00:07:14 connection. So I think because psychology was around for a long time before we could scan brains and bodies, it left us with this sort of idea that there's a cut off at the neck and that what you think and feel isn't connected to what goes on in your body and vice versa. But absolutely, if you're cold or hungry or tired, it affects the quality of thinking. And if you're confident or anxious, it affects the nerves and hormones in your body. Yeah, absolutely. And I think this whole brain-body connection that you do beautifully talk about in the book is so important. And I guess for me, it's something that's really been missing in my medical training. It's something that I think has been missing for a long time in medicine, particularly 20th century medicine,

Starting point is 00:07:58 the way medicine really, really evolved to do so many great things. But I think we've lost the idea that really, I guess, people have known for donkey's years. Was that one of your frustrations with medicine? I heard you speaking about that on another one of your podcasts, and it absolutely resonated with me. I was almost relieved to hear you say it, to feel like I'm not the only one. And you'll notice that I sort of started the book by talking about how we evolved and the fact that once we developed this cortex, which is much more, you know, a modern part of the brain that we use for articulated speech and for predicting and planning for the future,

Starting point is 00:08:38 the part of the brain that had got us to that point, the intuitive emotional part of the brain sort of seemed to be downgraded by society, you know, like logic and being able to speak suddenly became important and gut feeling and emotions just became less important. Yeah, I totally agree that there is that societal narrative, isn't there, that, you know, logic is key and intuition sort of gets marginalized and feelings get marginalized. What I think you've done so well, and obviously you're very well trained, huge scientific backgrounds. You have brought some of these ideas that have been there before to life, but you've got some scientific grounding in them now and and one of your you know i guess one of your core concepts is how do we create the life that we want how do we

Starting point is 00:09:31 be in charge of what happens to you know what happens to our life rather than let life sort of happen to us um is that something you've is that something you feel you've you've always had an inkling towards? Or is this something that has really evolved in your thinking in the past few years? It's funny you should say that because as I look back now, it feels like a lot of the concepts in the book were always there in the way that I lived my life. But even since writing the book, I've come up with this new analogy, which is, let's say you and I want to go on a journey. Would you rather be sitting in the passenger seat and I choose where we go and the route that we take? Or would you rather be driving and choosing the destination?

Starting point is 00:10:13 It's kind of like that in life. It's very easy to go through the motions every day and let life happen to you. But if you think about it, if we stop and step back, we have a lot more choice in what we tolerate, in what happens to us, in the choices that we make, than we necessarily think. It's easy to just sort of go on autopilot. There's so many things that we could start talking about. start talking about. But I think the place I'd like to start is something I heard you say once, which is addiction is not a choice. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:10:56 I think most of society probably thinks that it is a choice. And so I wonder if you could clarify that. The whole legal system is based on the assumption that people are making the choice to indulge in addictions and therefore the decisions they make that flow from that are conscious and deliberate and therefore of course what they need to do is to be punished for making such a choice it's basically the same attitude that a lot of people take towards child rearing when a child does something we don't like we punish them them. This is our idea of child rearing. Well, with adults, the punishment is called jail or legal sanctions. The assumption is totally false. There's no scientific basis

Starting point is 00:11:35 to it. And having worked with addicts, really seriously caught people who've been entrapped in the cycle and shoals of addiction with all the consequences like HIV, homelessness, loss of health, wealth, teeth, beauty, personal relationships. I never saw any instance of anybody having chosen

Starting point is 00:12:01 to become that way. And having had my own addictive behaviors, I can also tell you, I never chose, I never woke up one morning and said, my ambition is to become an addict. So it's an entirely shallow behavior, the view of human beings. And what we need to do is to look at the deeper reasons. If something appears to be a choice, it's an unconscious one. And we still have to look at what is it that would drive a person in that direction.

Starting point is 00:12:29 Conscious choice has nothing to do with it, which means to say that the legal system has no logical basis to stand on. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing how we have decided as a society that some addictions are criminal, but some are okay. And I've heard you talk about that many times in the past. I think that makes me think of a

Starting point is 00:12:51 line in your new book. Well, I say new, it's been out for over 10 years, I think. It's been a bestseller all over the world, but we've got it now in the UK in the realm of hungry ghosts. And in the introduction, you say all drugs and all behaviors of addiction substance dependent or not whether gambling sex the internet or cocaine all of them either soothe pain directly or distracts from it hence your mantra the first question is not why the addiction but why the pain and i think that beautifully sums it up um you know in in that you you're liking you're likening addiction to drugs potentially to you know sex gambling alcohol maybe shopping well so i've had my own shopping addiction and i can tell you that

Starting point is 00:13:43 the what happens in my brain when I'm indulged in my shopping addiction is exactly the same that happens in the brain of the cocaine addict. In other words, there's an excitation of the reward, incentive and motivation circuitry. And what the addict is after is that temporary change in brain status. Really what it is, all addictions are an attempt to regulate an unbearable emotional state internally. But you're trying to regulate your internal state through external means, and that's what an addiction is. So temporarily you get a change in the state of your brain,

Starting point is 00:14:17 in the change of your physiology. You can do that through drugs. You can also do it through gambling or Internet or sex or shopping. But essentially after that same revitalization of your incentive and motivation circuitry of your brain. And so from my perspective, there's only one universal addiction process that dominates all addicted people. The targets of addiction may be different. The internal effects are much the same. Yeah. And I'm'm sorry i should add when you look at the the the sources of it the states that people are trying to escape are

Starting point is 00:14:54 states of emotional distress states of emotional pain and hence why the addiction not why the addiction but why the pain so some people who are listening to this or watching this right now might be thinking yeah i get that that all sounds fine um for those people who are addicted but i of course i'm not addicted to anything so you've got a rather beautiful definition i think of addiction which i think will be really helpful to sort of go through at the start here so that people listening can actually figure out if it does relate to them or not. Well, when I speak to a room of people and I ask them how many are addicted, most people only think of drugs. So some people put their hand up.

Starting point is 00:15:35 Then I give them my broader definition of addiction and everybody puts their hand up. And that definition is that an addiction is manifested in any behavior that a person finds temporary pleasure or relief in and therefore craves, but suffers negative consequences in the long term and is going to be able to give it up. So any behavior, not just drugs. The key hallmarks are craving, pleasure, relief in the short term, negative outcomes in the long term, inability to give it up. That's what an addiction is. And that could be to drugs, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, the lethal and legal substances,

Starting point is 00:16:18 or it could be to heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, fentanyl, cannabis, any number of other substances, but it could also be to sex, to gambling, to shopping, to eating, to work, to exercise, to the internet, to gaming, to pornography, to political power, to the acquisition of wealth, to the hoarding of objects, anything. And when you give that definition and you ask people how many here would acknowledge some addiction in their lives, sometimes the vast majority of people would put their hands up, which means to say that addictions are on a continuum, it's on a spectrum, and they're distributed, dispersed throughout all of our society. And so that the identified drug addicts make up only a small, narrow segment of our addicted population.

Starting point is 00:17:12 Nothing in life is black or white. So let's say you've developed some experiences from your childhoods. And let's say, you know, your mum or your dad reacted in a certain way over a certain incident, and that has shaped the way you see things. It doesn't make them a bad parent. They were doing the best that they could. And it's like saying, well, maybe 90% of what they did was amazing for you. Maybe there's 10% that ideally we would have done in a slightly different way. That's certainly the way I'm trying to look at it because it can be quite hard to go down this road for some people. It can be challenging, but I think it's the most rewarding road to go down.

Starting point is 00:17:47 I really think it is. And I see in my role as a doctor, it's amazing how much I'm now seeing people's emotional programming manifesting in their behaviors. And I think we're really starting to realize, certainly I am, that our childhoods are pretty instrumental in determining so many of our life outcomes. But at the same time then, it's quite a lot of pressure because I'm a parent. So I hear these things and I think back to things I've said to my kids and think, oh, maybe I shouldn't have said it that way. And I'm sure many parents listening to this are probably thinking the same thing. So have you got any advice for parents? Yeah, I mean, I think we need to not be perfectionist about it because a lot of us in modern life can beat ourselves up about not doing things perfectly or feeling like we're failing. I think the best thing that a parent can do is look after themselves, you know, because often people are, well, parents are very busy, very stressed, maybe not putting themselves first all the time. And I know that might not always be

Starting point is 00:18:52 possible, but trying to take a bit more time for themselves and more self-care so that as a parent, you can be in the best position that you can be in to be there for other people. And it's this idea of knowing that it's not selfish to to look after yourself it's not selfish to make sure you're getting enough sleep and eating well it's really enabling you to be there for other people because you're filling yourself up first yeah i guess in many ways the highest expression of love is self-love. Because without that, it's very hard to be caring. It's very hard to be calm with other people, be relaxed, actually give them what you would like to give to yourself. And I think, you know, it is, it's almost a cliche with how many

Starting point is 00:19:40 people are talking about self-love, but it's not. I think it is the highest form of love, is loving yourself. And again, it's not something I feel I would have been able to say. I probably wouldn't have been able to think it five years ago, let alone say it publicly on a podcast, you know, but I do think it's that important. And I think once people start to prioritize themselves, first and foremost, they become better mothers, better fathers, better work colleagues, better partners, you know, better friends, better anything. I think the theme of connection is really important because you're saying, you know, we know this when individuals see themselves as part of a kind of connected tapestry of wider meaning right just like which

Starting point is 00:20:27 would have happened in the tribes in which humans evolved um they feel much better about their lives they feel much more satisfied naturally i learned so much from scientists some of the leading scientists in the world and reading loads of studies i think the place that taught me the most about depression and anxiety were not those people actually and i'll just tell you the story of what happened in this place if that's okay because it it's something i think about every day um so in the summer of 2011 on a big anonymous council estate in berlin um a german turkish woman called nuria chengis climbed out of her wheelchair and put a sign in her window she lives on the ground floor the sign

Starting point is 00:21:05 said something like i got a notice saying i'm going to be evicted next thursday so on wednesday night i'm going to kill myself now this is a council estate um it's in a funny area it's called cotti it's a poor part of what used to be west berlin and basically no one wanted to live there for years it was a mixture of recent muslim immigrants like nuria, gay men and punk squatters, right? As you can imagine, these three groups didn't get on very well, but no one really knew anyone, right? No one knew who this woman was. People are walking past her window and they're worried about her. And they're also pissed off because their rents are going up.

Starting point is 00:21:36 Loads of people are being evicted. So they know they might be next. People start to knock on Nuria's door. They said, do you need any help? And at first Nuria said, fuck you. I don't want any help. Shut the door in their faces, right? They're can't we shouldn't just leave her what should we do and this was actually the summer of the revolution in egypt and one of them was watching it on the

Starting point is 00:21:51 telly and they had an idea right they thought well if we there's a big um road that goes through kotti into the center of berlin and he said you know if we just blocked the road for a day it goes right through this council estate they said if we just block the road for a day and you know we protest and we wheel nuria out there'll be a bit of a fuss the media will probably come they'll probably let us stay um they'll probably you know um there might even be a little bit of pressure to keep our rents down right so they decide to do it they're like why not they block the road nuria's like i'm going to kill myself anyway i may as well let them push me into the middle of the street and they sit there and they protest and the media does come it's a little bit of a kerfuffle that day in Berlin and then at

Starting point is 00:22:33 the end of the day the police come and they say okay you've had your fun take it all down and the people there are like well hang on a minute you haven't told Nuria she gets to stay actually we want a rent freeze for this whole council estate so when we've got that then we'll take it down but of course they knew the minute they left the barricades that they put up the police would just tear it down anyway so one of my favorite people at cotty uh tanya gartner who's one of the punk squatters she wears um tiny little mini skirts even in berlin winter she's quite hardcore tanya had this idea in her flat she had a klaxon you know those things that make a loud noise at football matches so she went and got it she came down and she said

Starting point is 00:23:08 okay here's what we're going to do we're going to drop a timetable to man this barricade 24 hours a day until we've got what we want if the until Nuri gets told she can stay in until we get a rent freeze um and if the police come to take the barricade down let off the klaxon we'll all come down from our flats and stop them so people start signing up to man this barricade people who would never have met right so uh this very unlikely pairing so nuria who's very religious muslim in a full hijab was paired with tanya in her tiny little mini skirt right and i can't remember what night shift they got if it was it might be tuesday nights so they're sitting there tuesday nights super awkward they're like we've got what have

Starting point is 00:23:45 we got in common we've got nothing to talk about as the weeks went on they started talking and tanya and nuria realized there's something really profound in common um nuria had come to berlin when she was 16 from her village in turkey and she had two young children and her job was to raise enough money to send back for her husband to come and join her. And sitting there in the cold in Cotty, she told Tanya something she never told anyone in Germany. She'd always told people. So after she'd been in Berlin for 18 months, she got word from home that her husband was dead. And she'd always told people that he died of a heart attack.

Starting point is 00:24:23 He'd actually died of tuberculosis, which was seen as a kind of shameful disease of poverty. That's when Tanya told Nuria something she never talked about um she'd come to cotty when she was even younger when she was 15 she'd been thrown out by a middle-class family she made her way she lived in this punk squat and she got pregnant not long after she arrived so they both realized that they had been children with children of their own in this frightening place they didn't understand right they realized they had loads in common there were loads of these pairings happening over kossi of people who would never have taught there was a young uh a young lad who kept being a turkish german lad who kept being nearly thrown out of school they said he had adhd he got paired with a very grumpy old white german guy called dita who said he didn't believe in direct action because he loved stalin but in

Starting point is 00:25:01 this case he'd make an exception who started helping him with his homework he started doing much better at school and directly opposite this council estate there's a gay club called Zudblock it's run by a man I love called Rick Hardstein who to give you a sense of what he's like the previous place he owned was called Cafe Anal okay this is a pretty hardcore gay club right and when they when they opened it about two years before the protest began you know there's a lot of religious muslims there some of them had smashed the windows people were really pissed off and when the protest began they the zood block the gay club gave gave all their furniture to the protest um and after a while they said you know you guys could have all your meetings in

Starting point is 00:25:38 our club you could you know we'll give you drinks we'll give you free food um and even the lefties at koti were like look we're not going to get these very religious Muslims to come and have meetings underneath posters for things so obscene, I won't describe them on your podcast, right? It's not going to happen. But actually it did start to happen. As one of the Turkish-German women put it to me, we all realised we had to take these small steps to understand each other. After the protest had been going on for about a year one day a guy turned up at the protest called tung kai he was in his early 50s and tung kai when you meet him it's obvious he's got some kind of cognitive difficulties and he'd been living homeless but he has an amazing energy

Starting point is 00:26:14 about him and everyone he started asking if he could help out everyone liked him and by this time they'd actually the barricade had turned into a physical structure with a roof right a lot of them are construction workers um so they started saying to Tungkay, you know, you should come and live in this thing we've built, right? It's quite nice. We don't want you to be homeless. He started living there, became a much loved part of the protest camp. And after he'd been there for nine months, one day the police came. They would come every now and then to inspect. And Tungkay doesn't like it when people argue. So he went to hug one of the police officers, but they thought he was attacking them. So they arrested him. That was when it was discovered Tungkay doesn't like it when people argue. So he went to hug one of the police officers, but they thought he was attacking them. So they arrested him.

Starting point is 00:26:46 That was when it was discovered. Tungkay had been shut away for 20 years in a psychiatric hospital, often literally in a padded cell. He'd escaped one day, lived on the streets for a couple of months and made his way to Kotti. At which point the police took him back

Starting point is 00:26:59 to the psychiatric hospital. So this entire Kotti protest turned itself into a free Tungkay movement, right? They descend on this psychiatric hospital. So this entire Cottey protest turned itself into a free Tungkay movement, right? They descend on this psychiatric hospital at the other side of Berlin. And these psychiatrists are like, what is this? They've got, you know, had this person shut away for 20 years and suddenly they've got all these women in hijabs, these punks and these very camp gay men demanding his release. They're like, oh, they don't understand it. it and i remember uli hartman one of the protesters said to them yeah but you don't love him he doesn't belong with you we love him he belongs with us and many things happened at kotti i guess the headline is they

Starting point is 00:27:37 got a rent freeze for their entire housing project they then launched a referendum initiative to keep rents down across the entire city that got the largest number of written signatures in the history of the city of Berlin. They got Tungkay back. He lives there still. But the last time I saw Nuria, I remember her saying to me, you know, I'm really glad I got to stay in my neighborhood. That's great. I gained so much more than that. I was surrounded by these incredible people all along and I would never have known. And so many of the people there, these insights were just below the surface. I remember Neriman Tankeir, who's another one of the Turkish-German women there, saying to me,

Starting point is 00:28:13 you know, when I grew up in Turkey, I grew up in a village and I called my whole village home. And I learned when I came to live in the Western world that what you're meant to call home is just your four walls. And then this whole protest began and I started to call all these people my home. And she said she realised in some sense in this culture we are homeless. There's a Bosnian writer called Alexander Heyman who said, home is where people notice when you're not there. By that standard, lots of us are homeless. And it was so clear to me in Kotti, think about how unhappy these people were right um Nuria was about to kill herself uh Tunkai was shut away in a padded cell loads of them were depressed and anxious in the main these people did not need to be drugged they needed to be together they needed to be seen they needed to be loved and valued they needed to

Starting point is 00:28:59 have a sense that they were part of a tribe that they had purpose and meaning in their lives and I remember sitting with Tanya one time outside Zublock and her saying to me, you know, when you feel like shit and you're all alone, you think there's something wrong with you. But what we did is we came out of our corner crying and we started to fight. And we realised we were surrounded by people who felt the same way. And to me, this is the most important thing I learned, right? I love these people in Cotty, as I'm sure you can tell, but in one sense, they are not exceptional. They were entirely randomly selected people, right? That could have been anyone. This hunger for reconnection and for rediscovery of meaning and other people and meaningful values is just beneath the surface for all of us, right?

Starting point is 00:29:44 And arguably, it's the most important thing as a society we should be trying to promote um that that quote is profound i can't stop thinking about at home is when someone notices when you are not there yeah That concludes this episode and this season of my Feel Better Live More podcast. What did you think? Did you enjoy that compilation episode? Do you want more episodes like this one? As always, let me know, jump onto social media and tell me what you thought. If you can, please do use the hashtag FBLM so that I can easily find your comments. Before I sign off, I do want to say a big thank you. Thank you to each and every single one of you who listen every single week,

Starting point is 00:30:34 who comment on my social media posts about the podcast, who tell your friends and family about the show. I really do appreciate it. You have all helped to spread the word about the show and have made it one of the most listened to health podcasts in the whole of Europe. It is really exciting that this information is getting out now to more and more people. I have to say, I absolutely love doing this podcast. I get to talk to a whole variety of different guests about a whole range of different topics. And my goal is to try and keep it fresh every single week, to change up the topics,

Starting point is 00:31:11 to talk about areas of health that perhaps you may not have considered before. For me, this show is not just about putting out the same advice every single week, but trying to do something different, trying to share stories in a different way. In fact, my favorite comments are those where you guys tell me that you didn't think you were going to like a topic when you saw the title, but once you started listening, you were hooked. That really, really makes me happy and excited to do more and more different topics. As always, the goal with these podcasts is to give you fresh, but importantly, accessible information that you can apply in your own life immediately to improve the way that you feel. Just to reiterate

Starting point is 00:31:52 something I have said before, but when listening to my conversations, you know, take what you want from them, take what you need, take what resonates with you and abandon the rest. You know, I'd really encourage you to self-experiment, find out what works for you. There is no one right way to achieve good health. You are unique, your lifestyle, your beliefs, your environment. And if you disagree with one of my guests, then that is absolutely fine. I don't agree with everything that every single one of my guests say, but I love having my views challenged and I do try and maintain a healthy, respectful dialogue at all times. So as I mentioned in the introduction, I am going to be trying my best to switch off this summer. I'll be putting a very clear out of office on my email inbox. I'll be trying to do different

Starting point is 00:32:38 things, spending more time in nature, spending more time with my family, spending more time unplugged from technology. And also, I'll be working really hard on my barefoot running technique, which last week's guest, Tony Riddle, is helping me with. In fact, if you want to see a video of Tony and I running barefoot together, do head over to my YouTube channel, drchastity.com forward slash YouTube. You're going to see a lot of clips from that podcast. There's a lot of resources on that channel. And I'm actually looking to film more content, more of the podcast content and share more hints and tips from podcasts in video form. So do have a look at the latest videos and the short cutdowns that I've made on my YouTube channel. Let me know what you think.

Starting point is 00:33:21 Let me know what you want more of. So, so what about you? What are you going to do this summer? Do you have a holiday planned? Do you have some time off plans? Whatever it is, really try and apply some of the things that you have learnt on this podcast over the past 12 months. In fact, episode 64 with James Warman on how to spend time, it's an absolutely brilliant resource if you want to understand how to make the best use of whatever time off that you have. There are so many tips there on how you create stories, how you become a hero in your own life, spending time in nature, spending time offline, you know, really, really important things that I really think make a huge

Starting point is 00:34:00 difference. So if you've not heard that one yet, do check it out. But whatever it is that you have decided to do, I'd encourage you to let somebody else know. Whenever you're trying to make behavior change, one of the best ways is to really stay accountable. It's a really important part of making any change sustainable. And I'd encourage you to go to my new Facebook group, Dr. Chastity Four Pillar Community Tribe. This is a new group that I set up to create a really supportive community. So many of you have joined up already. It's amazing to see you guys commenting there every day, commenting each week, supporting each other on making changes, sharing the tips that you found useful with other people to really help inspire and empower as many people as possible to live

Starting point is 00:34:45 these happy and healthy lives. So guys, do go and check it out. It is really safe and supportive space. If you want to talk about the podcast each week with other listeners, that is the best place to do it. You can let me know about new guests that you want, new topics. Do you want more episodes where I'm interviewed? Do you want more episodes like this one? Do you want more episodes where I'm interviewed do you want more episodes like this one do you want solo episodes where I talk about a particular topic for 15 to 20 minutes do you want the long form conversations that I've been doing over the past six months or do you prefer the short 20 30 minute episodes I'd love to know your view my own personal view is that the longer conversations are better I can go deeper we can get more interesting and exciting conversations.

Starting point is 00:35:26 And that is exactly what I'm trying to do on this podcast. A final request before I sign off. Many of you ask me on email and on social media how you can support this podcast. As you know, this podcast takes me a lot of time, a lot of resource, a lot of expense. But I'm committed to continuing and I'm looking for more and more ways to make this sustainable. One of the best ways that you can support this podcast is to tell people about the show. So my heartfelt request to you is this summer, can you commit to telling five people about this podcast? Five people who don't already know about this show. Perhaps you can think about a particular episode that you think will resonate with them and recommend them to start listening there. If each of you recommend this podcast to five separate people, we will have

Starting point is 00:36:17 dramatically increased the listenership by the time that I relaunch in September. This will mean that I can access more and more exciting guests, but most importantly, it means that more people around the world will have access to what I consider really important information. More people will be improving their lives and ultimately together, all of us will be helping create a healthier and a happier society. You can also support the podcast and my work by picking up a copy of my first two books, The Four Pillar Plan and The Stress Solution. A lot of the content in these podcasts is succinctly summarized in both of my books to help give you actionable information to improve the way that you feel, to improve your health, to improve your life. If you're not a

Starting point is 00:37:02 big fan of reading, both of my books are available in audiobooks. I am narrating both of those audiobooks. The only one I am not narrating is in the US and Canadian version of my first book, The Four Pillar Plan, which is called How to Make Disease Disappear. I don't narrate that audiobook, but I've heard good reports about the narrator nonetheless. about the narrator nonetheless. So guys, that is it for season two of my podcast. Thank you very much for listening. Enjoy your summer and I will be back in early September. Make sure that you have pressed subscribe so that you get notified when the first episode of season three gets released. I've got some fabulous conversations already lined up. I know you're going to absolutely love them.

Starting point is 00:37:45 You can also sign up for my newsletter at drchastity.com forward slash subscribe. You get six videos that I have made to help you increase more energy. That's one of the best ways to keep up to date with what I'm doing. With any new research I've got, any new information I found, I send it out on a weekly newsletter that I'll be relaunching in September. So guys, do subscribe to that email list if you want more information. A big thank you to Richard Hughes for editing, Vedanta Chastity for producing, and to the rest of the team, Joe Murphy and Claire Moore. If you would like to join my team to help me spread my message, do send an email to info

Starting point is 00:38:22 at drchastity.com with your details i'm currently looking for videographers copywriters and maybe some social media help i'm not entirely sure of everything that i need yet but if you are interested do get in touch that is it enjoy your summer and remember you are the architects of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #72 Brain Training, Addiction, Self-Love and Community - End of Season 2

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