Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - #92 How To Make Lifestyle Changes That Will Last with Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Dr Ayan Panja

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Why is it that so many of us find it hard to stick to a new diet or lifestyle plan? We all start off well enough – full of energy and optimism but then the novelty soon wears off and life gets in the way. After some time, we are right back where we first started. The fact is, most health plans are based on the common, but incorrect assumption that we can make sweeping and lasting changes to our health by relying solely on willpower and motivation. But for the vast majority of us, this is just not true. This is exactly why I wrote my new book, ‘Feel Better in 5’– I want to empower people to make changes in their life not just in the short term, but ones that will stand the test of time. This week, my good friend Dr Ayan Panja returns to my Feel Better, Live More podcast and puts me in the hot seat. We talk about how 5 minute chunks of time really can change your life, the importance of human connection when trying to make lifestyle change, why I am such a fan of a rounded approach to health and the ripple effect – how one small change in one aspect of your life can very quickly ripple into other areas. We also discuss what, in our collective 40 years of clinical experience, we have found to actually work with our patients when making lifestyle change. We delve into the latest in behaviour science and how we can use this to help us make new healthy habits. Finally, I explain to Ayan that my goal in writing ‘Feel Better in 5’ was to make health as accessible as possible to people of all backgrounds hence the reason nearly all the recommendations within it are completely free. Ayan finishes by sharing some of his tops tips. I really enjoyed taking some time out to sit down and chat with one of my best friends – I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did! Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/92 Follow me on instagram.com/drchatterjee/ Follow me on facebook.com/DrChatterjee/ Follow me on twitter.com/drchatterjeeuk DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is one of the most effective health programs out there. It really is. And it's deceptively simple. You might think five minutes, come on, it's got to be harder than that. It's not. If you get good at doing five minutes every day, that's where the magic happens. That's when things start to change. If every single person in this country adopted the Feel Better in 5 program, so basically spent five minutes each day on their mind, five minutes on their body, and five minutes on their heart. I guarantee we would have a healthier and a happier society. Hi, my name is Rangan Chastji, GP, television presenter, and author of the bestselling books, The Stress Solution and The Four Pillar Plan. I believe that all of us have the ability to feel better than we currently do,

but getting healthy has become far too complicated. With this podcast, I aim to simplify it. I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most interesting and exciting people, both within as well as outside the health space, to hopefully inspire you as well as empower you with simple tips that you can put into practice immediately to transform the way that you feel. I believe that when we are healthier, we are happier because when we feel better, we live more. Hello and welcome back to episode 92 of my Feel Better Live More podcast. My name is Rangan Chatterjee and I am your host.

I hope you are all having a good start to the new year. Of course, this is the time of year when many people focus on their new year resolutions. And I guess over the past few years, I've really gone off new year's resolutions, at least in the way that most people tend to do them. Because I feel that a lot of the time they encourage an all or nothing approach. And also because they often focus on something that I call destination thinking. We are so keen to visualize who that person is that we want to become that we often forget about the small daily steps that are required for us to get there. This is actually one of the core ideas in my new

book, Feel Better in 5, which is also the subject of today's show. My good friend, Dr. Ayan Panja, who is a brilliant and very experienced doctor, returns to the show for the third time now and puts me in the hot seat. Now, like all good buddies, Ian did not tell me what he was going to ask me before we recorded this conversation. So it really is an authentic conversation between two very good friends. We talk about how five minute chunks of time really can change your life. The importance of human connection when trying to make lifestyle change. The ripple effect, the idea that one small change in one aspect of your life can very quickly ripple into other areas.

Ayn and I also discussed with our collective 40 years of clinical experience what we have found to actually work with our patients. We of course touched on behavior science and also why I'm such a huge fan of a rounded approach to health, rather than just focusing on one area like food or exercise, which is all too common at this time of year. We also talk about my goal to make health as accessible as possible to people of all

backgrounds. And going along with that, I have pretty much all of the recommendations I make in my new book are completely free. I think for those of you who already have my book, this will serve as a great accompaniment. And if you haven't, I hope it gives you a deep insight into why I felt it was so important to write. Now, before we get started, as always, I do need to give a quick shout out to some of the sponsors of today's show who are essential in order for me to continue putting out weekly episodes like this one. Vivo Barefoot, the minimalist footwear company, continue to support my podcast. I am a huge fan of Vivo Barefoot shoes and have been wearing them for many years, well before they started supporting my podcasts. And I've seen incredible benefits,

both on myself, but also for many of my patients with issues such as mobility, back pain, hip pain, knee pain, but also stability and balance with a lot of my patients, particularly the elderly. Now, I really like this brand and everything that they stand for. In fact, in every picture of me in my new book, I'm either barefoot or in Vivo Barefoot shoes. Not because I'm paid to do so, which I am not, but because I absolutely love wearing them and feel huge benefits. For listeners of my show, they continue to offer a fantastic discount. If you go to vivobarefoot.com forward slash live more, they are giving 20% off as a one-time code for all of my podcast listeners in the UK, USA and Australia.

Importantly, they offer a 30-day free trial for new customers. So if you are not happy, you can simply send them back for a full refund. If you are keen to get moving more this year, I would highly recommend that you consider investing in some minimalist shoes like Vivo Barefoot. You can get your 20% off code by going to vivobarefoot.com forward slash live more. Now, on to today's conversation. So I'm super excited because today I get to take over Feel Better Live More. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee,

welcome to your own podcast. Thank you for having me, Ian. Thank you. So listen, we were having a chat this time last year, and that was just before you were publishing your second book, The Stress Solution. And at the end of that conversation, I remember asking you, what are you going to be doing in a year's time? And I remember vividly you saying, look, I don't really know. I'm not sure. But all I do know is that it will involve improving people's health and making that easy for them. We're here now at the end of 2019, in fact, the end of the decade. And you've got another book on the table that is about to launch feel better in five can you tell us a bit about that yeah i'm just thinking back now to that conversation it was about a year ago wasn't it and um you did throw me that question right at the end and just for

people listening you know we we don't prepare this you know you've not sent me the list of questions you're going to ask me you may not even know what you're about to ask me but i remember you did you did ask me that question and yeah you're right it is um i didn't quite know but i guess if i go back and listen to that i guess my forecast probably would have been relatively accurate in the sense that i am continuing to i hope you, make health accessible for people and take a lot of complex ideas and break them right down into their most simplest forms so people actually feel as though they can do something about it in their own lives. And I think that's what Field Breakthrough in 5 is for me, really. I think it's really

I think it's really almost 20 years of clinical experience of seeing patients, helping people from all walks of life with all kinds of different problems and actually seeing from them what really works for busy people with busy lives. And really, I put everything that I've learned into this new book. I think it's my simplest. I think it's my most practical book to date. I mean, I think it really tackles the biggest issue at the moment, which is that nobody's got any time. I mean, you're a GP like me and people will constantly come in and say to me, look, Dr. Chastity, you know, I get that. I want to do that. I want to do some things that are going to help me with my health and my wellbeing, but I don't have time. I'm busy. It's the biggest barrier, 100%.

Yeah. And so I don't think time has to be the obstacle to health and wellbeing that we think it is. And I think the reason we think it is, is because we have been conditioned to think that health is hard, that it's complicated. Let's say you want to move your body more, right? We've been conditioned to think that that happens if you go to the gym, or if you're training for a half marathon, right? And if you're not doing one of those sort of, if you don't have one of those lofty goals, it doesn't count yeah and you know no doubt we'll dive into the book in more detail during this conversation but i'm really trying to show people that you know every little bit does count right and five minutes of movement let's say every day

simple movements right that fits in around your lifestyle it's going to have much more impact on your life and your well- wellbeing than going to the gym for one hour a week. And the thing about this book, it all revolves around five minutes. That's what it's called, Feel Better in Five. Every single recommendation I make in the book takes five minutes. So even the busiest person really can't say, I don't have five minutes to do something for my body or do something for my mind or do something for my heart. And I've really given people a lot of options in this book. Honestly, you know, I've read a lot of health books. I don't think there's anything out there like it. It's a very

different style. There's different formats. It allows anybody, whether they've already got a significant health problem that they want help with or whether they simply just want to optimize how they feel and increase their focus and creativity right i think this program works for everyone because you can personalize it yeah i mean i think you touch on so many things there the time thing i completely agree with it's something i hear every day it's like i've got time to do this I've got time to do that and what I also love is when you listen to your podcast and I have to say you know that some of the conversations on your feel better live more podcast are some of the best conversations I've ever heard honestly but they're very long form and some of them you you know, are life changing

in themselves, I think, when you listen to them. But what you've managed to do, I think, with this book is distill all of that down into these chunk sized five minute little slivers. And that is not easy. And I was thinking the other day, you know, you and I have known each other for what, 40 years? easy um and i was thinking the other day you know you and i have known each other for what 40 years wow um which is a long time and for 25 years of that you've been immersed in medicine you know from the day that you started medical school and and actually me reading this as someone who knows you very well um it really comes across you know that all of those years of experience um but what i'd like to also just get into a little bit is you know i had a look at this last night and um again it's a beautiful book to look at but also it's it's very very practical and very very easy what just just in terms of being

helpful to everyone you know say i'm 80 years old and I just want to improve my health. What can this book do for me? And how do I use this book? Where's the starting point? Yeah. I mean, I kind of touched on something you just mentioned just before that, which was the different forms of content that are out there. And as I said to you at the end of our conversation last year, my goal is to help empower as many people as possible.

I've said over my career, I want to empower 100 million people to understand that they can be the architects of their own health. Now, the way you do that, I think, is by making health accessible, making it simple. But you also got to understand that people learn in different ways. People resonate with different kinds of information, right?

Some people will like the long form conversation on the podcast. Some people may not. They may feel it's too in-depth and it's not for them. Some people may like the bite-sized chunks of this new book. You know, I hope they do. Some people may like the bite-sized chunks of this new book. I hope they do. Some people may like both. And I think different people, it's a bit like an approach to health that we always talk about. You've got to personalize your approach to the patient in front of you. And different people like to learn in different ways. So if I am going to get to that

100 million goal by the end of my career, I don't know if I will or not, but I think it's a nice thing to aim for, then I have to be able to deliver content and give people information in a variety of different ways. And I actually think that the books actually go really nicely alongside the podcast. So very practical, bite-sized, accessible pieces of things to do in the book and if you want a bit more detail right you can actually listen to one of their two-hour conversations or one of the one hour conversations when you're commuting to work and i think it all sort of fits together quite nicely yeah but in terms of your last question if you're an 80 year old um you know man or woman and

you want to do the field bathroom fire plan what can it do for you it can do whatever you want it to do for you right and let me explain what i mean by that like you i don't believe that you can be healthy by just focusing on one area of your health right at this time of year it's very typical that someone will go right okay i'm going into the new year and i'm going to change my diet this year i'm going to do something this january that i've never done before i'm going to get a new diet plan i'm going to stick to it i'm just going to change my life right i've heard that before you heard that before and you know i've probably been guilty of that myself before right it's a i think it's a it's very common

human trait to do that but it very much feeds into that all or nothing approach which i'm trying to move people away from but if we take diet for example sugar or the other one you could you could talk about as alcohol right at this time of year people are trying to reduce their sugar intake they're trying to reduce how much alcohol they're consuming. And often, first two weeks of January, they'll go completely cold turkey, right? No sugar, no alcohol, right? And for a week or two, they managed to do that. And they're feeling good. They're feeling, you know, they're sleeping better. They've got more energy. They can concentrate for

longer. But then two weeks in, three weeks in, it just slowly starts to slip back. And by the end of January, they're right back to where they started. Because maybe the diet or the alcohol wasn't the problem, maybe they were the way that they coped with the stress that was in their life. Let's say there was a lot of work stress or family stress, right? Well, actually, a bit of sugar in the evening helps kind of numb that a little bit, helps soothe it. It's a sticking plaster, isn't it? Sticking plaster, right?

And it's the same with a glass of wine often. And I found, and I'd be interested in your view on this, because you've got more experience than me as a doctor. What is it now? 22, 23 years working? I don't know, actually. A long time.

A long time. Yeah, a long time. Yeah, and the point is that you've got to really understand what that is serving for that patient. It's no good saying, hey, you're eating too much sugar. You have to reduce it.

Well, if we don't understand why they're choosing to do that in the first place, is it psychological reason? Is it conditioning? Is it they don't understand why they're choosing to do that in the first place is it psychological reason is it conditioning is it they don't know is it an education issue that they don't know how harmful it is or is it a way to soothe the stress in their life actually depending on which one of those things it is that will also alter the approach you take simply saying you've got to reduce your sugar without understanding why they're doing that you know what i just haven't found it to be that useful in the long term. I mean, what do you think? Yeah, no, I totally agree. I mean, I think behaviour change is the key to this and

understanding what makes you tick. And I think reading through your book, that falls out of this because people will think, wait a second, you know, that is why I'm craving sugar at this time of day, because whatever, you know, I'm stressed'm craving sugar at this time of day because whatever you know i'm stressed or they've had sugary snacks earlier in the day and they're crashing or they're reliant on caffeine whatever yeah and that's why i put so many case studies in the book to bring these ideas to life and say look well when i saw this patient and i'm really hoping that people and i know the people who've read the early copies love the case stories because they're great really good people can really often see themselves in those various stories and go oh actually that might be

me yeah um but instead of what an 80 year old can get from it if they want more energy like this book can give them that they want more creativity this book can give them that if they want to lose excess weight that they feel they might be carrying, this book will help them do that. And why is that? That's because I've looked at health in a rounded 360 degree fashion. So we just said, we can't look at one thing in isolation if we're going to make long-term change. And I was thinking, okay, I had this idea for five minutes because I've seen over and over again that five minutes chunks of health are achievable and people can do them repeatedly in the long term. And I'll give you a couple of stories of where that came from. But I'll tell you,

I'll tell you now actually, it's a funny dynamic actually chatting to you on this show because you are one of my best mates and it's um it's great it's hard to get out of uh i should be interviewing you you kind of i guess we are just having a chat aren't we catching up yeah yeah but the five minutes right it's it's come from a lot of experience but also research so the experiences and there's many patients i could bring up here but there's one in particular i always remember um a 42 year old chap who came to see me seven years ago maybe now i can't quite remember exactly when it was but he was a little bit overweight struggling with energy struggling with his mood you know a very typical patient that you

might see in general practice so i chatted to him for a while and i felt that um his lifestyle was probably contributing in a huge part to the way he was feeling but i don't think he was quite aware of what he was doing that was contributing and also what he'd do about it so we went through a variety of different things and at the end of it he really seemed to enjoy and resonate with what i said about strength training he said um yeah i'm in doc strength training. He said, yeah, I'm in doc, strength training. I'm going to do it. I can see all the benefits for it. And what would you like me to do? 40 minutes, three times a week at the gym. And I said, hey, look, that would be absolutely amazing if you can do that. And he goes, yeah, yeah, I'm going to do it. And he walks out of

the surgery. He's feeling good. He's got a smile on his face and he's full of motivation. the surgery you know he's feeling good he's got a smile on his face and he's full of motivation right he comes back a month later at the follow-up and he walks in and i said hey look so um how are you getting on and his body language changes he's he becomes a bit sunken his shoulders rolling and he's he looks a bit sheepish and he says hey doc um i've not actually managed to go yet because your work's been really busy. The gym's quite far away from work and my house is quite expensive. So I've just not done it yet. And I remember thinking, I didn't think, why is he not doing what I've asked him to do? I thought, Rangan, you've clearly not given him advice that he feels is relevant in the context

of his own life. And, you know, I took my jacket off and I said, right, I'm going to teach you a strength workout right now where you don't need to join the gym. You don't need to buy any equipment and you don't even need to get changed he's like okay so i went through it with him i taught him these five moves yeah the kitchen workout it was it was right there's a series of one i mean that one was a combo i do that one well there's there's there's a new one in the book called the classic five which i think are the best five body weight exercises that one can do without any equipment and And I went through about 50 exercises to come up with those five. Um, what was interesting is that I said to him, then what I'd like you to do is do these, do this five minute workout twice a week in your kitchen.

And, um, he's like, what? Five minutes twice. Well, like 10 minutes a week. I said, yeah, can you do that he goes yeah of course i can do that i said okay fine i'll see you in a month so he goes out like probably a bit bemused that i told him to only do five minutes twice a week a month later he comes back and i say hey look how you're getting on and he said dog i've got to tell you right and his body language was different right his chest is out he's standing up straight right there's a sort of smile on his face complete contrast to the month before when he comes back to see me and he says dr chastity i love it i started off doing it five minutes twice a week like you

told me to but you know what i really like it i love doing it so now i do it for 10 minutes every evening before my evening meal right so this now, and he's been doing that for a number of years now, at least four or five years after that, he was still doing it. So this guy now does 70 minutes of strength training every week when before he couldn't manage it. And there's a few little keys in there for me, which is when you make things simple for people and easy, right? They start doing it. And once they start doing it yeah absolutely and once they start doing it for a few days what happens you start to feel good about yourself right it's behavior change on so many levels it's actually identity change because now he's not the kind of person who can't

do a health plan he's the kind of person now he can do a health plan yeah because i said five minutes twice a week and he's done that yeah he's like well hold on a minute and then he increases it in himself not because i asked him to right but because he wants to and that's another key point for people is that nobody in the long term will ever ever do something because somebody else told them to do so right they might do for a week or two weeks but long term you're only going to continue doing something if you've got some degree of ownership on it and um that's that's one of the examples from patients where this whole five minute idea was born because i've seen it work over and over again and the fact that he was doing more than

you'd initially asked him you mentioned something called the ripple effect in the book, which we'll come on to. But I'm going to make a confession. I know that works because while you were writing this, you asked me and one of your other friends to try it for two weeks. Do you remember? Yeah, I do. And I tried it and I noticed I felt less tired and a lot stronger. And it was simple stuff that you do on the floor. I remember sort of, I don't know whether i'm allowed to share this but you sent a video of yourself doing these exercises i probably won't share that video on my social media channels but i sent you and our buddy but it was great it it really worked you know do you remember what you text me a few weeks after doing that yes yeah i you said about your shoulder pain yeah had gone that had gone yeah

that you had for years that's right by doing the reverse fly which is in this book yeah exactly and and you know we we mentioned one of our other friends who i won't mention the name because i don't want to be names um we know who he is we know who he is but i saw him this summer at the beach in devon like so he was there with his wife and kids. I was there with my family. And it was a beautiful sunny day. You didn't have one of your races, did you? We didn't have one of our races, no. But he was out there on the beach.

And I've known this guy for a long, long time. And actually, I thought, you know, physically, he looked really, really good. And I said, hey, mate, what have you been doing? You look in great shape. And he turned around to me and he said, all I've been doing is your classic five workouts for five minutes every day before I leave work.

And he'd been doing that for about two months, right? So I knew our friend really, really well. And just by doing five minutes a, every day before he left work, a body weight strength workout that requires no equipment. I could visibly tell a change in his physique. Now look, the book is not necessarily about physical appearance. It's about feeling good on the inside. It's about helping your physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, emotional wellbeing. It's about long-term health and longevity. That's what this book is about. But let's be honest, a lot of us like to look a

bit better physically as well. And I'm just sharing that because a lot of people would say to get that sort of physique, you'd have to go to the gym for an hour, four times a week, but it's simply not true. We overly estimate how much we need. We sort of overly focus on those big unattainable goals. And we forget that it's about getting really good at doing the little things, right? Five minutes a day on that strength workout changed his physique. But not only that, this guy's a good runner and he cycles regularly to work. What else has he reported? He says, well, as you know, he says that when he cycles to work, he used to have to stop halfway up because he was cycling up a hill. But now he can go the whole way

because the exercises are working on his legs. He's a very good runner. He's now running faster and for longer since doing it. So, you know, I'm just using that as an example to show that this program and this plan is for everyone. Now it doesn't just focus on the body, right? There are three sections to the book. I was just going to come on to that. So it's mind, body, and heart. Tell us a bit about how you came up with that. Because that's, I think that just in terms of getting inside your head, why is it those three? Okay. So, okay. Just to rewind back to when I sat down to write this book, I was thinking, okay, I'm really, really happy with the first two books. Really, really happy with how many people are using them to improve their health and their family's health. But I thought, well,

there's a lot of people out there who probably aren't familiar with my work or this kind of approach to health. So how do you make it more accessible to more people? And I was thinking, what is the biggest problem that people tell me when they come and see me in my GP practice? And as we mentioned before, it's time, right? People don't feel as though they've got time. Yeah. So I thought, okay, so what, how can I help them understand that they do have time? And I thought about every patient that I've seen and what works and what doesn't work. And it's really consistently, it's about when you make things practical for people, not just practical in

terms of time practical in terms of how easy it is to do something we'll come we'll come on to that later no doubt then people actually make the changes and before you know it they're feeling good and they're empowered to keep going so i knew i wanted to do it around five minutes because five minutes is it's short enough of a time uh periods where you think yeah i've got five minutes to do this but it's also long enough where you actually feel a benefit and i think it's trying to get that balance because the only way you're going to keep doing something is when you feel the benefits yeah and so it's it's i think it's in that sweet spot uh from what works with people you know you can go lower than that and you can still create habits if you do start with one minute interventions

you really can yeah but for some people especially when you're trying to write a book that's going to appeal to a lot of people i think five minutes is the right amount of time for those reasons but then i also was thinking okay i like the idea of five minutes because i've seen that work with patients but then what actually how do you get that sort of rounded health approach with five minute intervals? Because as we've already mentioned, I don't want to just focus on one area. You know, if you just do five minute workouts every day, sure that'll improve your health, but there's other issues going on. And I thought there's issues with our mental health, our physical health and our emotional health, right? So how can I really simplify that down to help people?

And mind is all about doing something each day for five minutes that helps you to nourish your mind. You know, we're being bombarded in the 21st century with messages, with emails, with things to do, with overload that's frankly overpowering and overwhelming our minds. with messages, with emails, with things to do, with overload that's frankly overpowering and overwhelming our minds. And that is a huge driver behind our stress levels and the mental health problems that exist. So I thought, okay, so I kind of feel all of us need five minutes on our mind

each day. Then I thought, okay, well, we know we need to move more, right? Now movement can be many different things to many different people but i thought okay so five minute movements um also works super super well and that's really important everyone's trying to move more than they already do but again a lot of people that may have to go to the gym right and it's just simply not true and i'd say to a lot of people joining a gym is probably the worst thing they can do honestly yeah it's a waste of money for a lot of people for most people it is and actually if you talk to a lot of gym managers you know here's the sad truth about this is if everyone who joined the gym actually went to the gym you won't be able to get in i've heard the same it would be too

full to get in it relies the whole model relies on people not going right so the body is all about five minute movements and And every day we should do a five minute movements. And I've given people options, whether it's strength workout, a high intensity interval workout, a yoga flow, a dancing workout, skipping, a playful workouts, you know, something to work on your posture. There are so many options there, but the beauty of all of them is they all take five minutes max. And for all of them, you don't need any equipment, right? You don't need to join a gym. You don't even need to get changed. Right? So that's the body section. But then I thought, because I got mind and body sorted first, but I thought there's still

something missing here, right? That is not complete health. and i was thinking about what is that other component that is that is vital for health and this is the final part of the book and i actually think it's the most important part of the book and i say that in the book i actually say you may be skeptical about this section but it is the most important section it's what i've called heart i know exactly what you mean because when i read it i it's it's woolly and nebulous in comparison to the first two parts and much harder to define isn't it but but i'm interested to hear what you're going to say because i kind of agree with you but i couldn't justify why so it'd be great to hear your your view on it yeah well what is heart hearts look you're a medical student i

was a medical student right so we learned about the heart at medical school. But what we learned about it was that the heart is a physical organ, right? And it pumps blood around the body and that's its job. Now that's one meaning of heart. But what about the other meaning of heart that poets and artists have been waxing lyrical about for years, right? That's got a slightly different meaning. That's about connection, right? That's about connection with other people, the world around us, our friends, our work colleagues, our partners, our children, but also connection with ourself. And the reason I think it's more important than any of the other sections is I've found over and

over again when you get that heart piece right when you get that connection right mind and body sort of take care of themselves but you know when we don't have that connection we seek to find it or to or to compensate for it with a lot of our behaviors whether that's sugar whether it's alcohol um whether it's alcohol, whether it's, you know, mindlessly scrolling Instagram in the evening. Whatever it is, often I've realized, and it's taken me a long time to realize this and seeing a lot of patients, but often that is the drive. And we are living in a society devoid of connection. You know, we're ultra connected in so many ways, but that's electronic connection. And that's not the same as human meaningful connection. And, you know, I put some stats in the book, right? The feeling of being lonely is very harmful for our health.

You know, if you feel lonely, you're 50% more likely to die earlier than somebody who doesn't. You're 30% more likely to have a heart attack or a stroke than someone who's not the feeling of being lonely is thought to be as harmful for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day yeah that's the study i've seen yeah yeah so that so we can't ignore that we can't actually go oh yeah we've seen all that but actually how can i write a health book that i want to help every single person who reads it and their family and their community how can i write that and not cover this you know if for me it would be an incomplete health plan to do that and the reality is there's there's many great health books out there but one of the things i see over and over again is they

a lot of them just focus on one area and i understand that and if i was writing books 10 years ago i might focus on one area but 20 years of clinical experience teaches me otherwise and that you have to look at the whole picture um before you get that response so so it's mind it's body and it's heart and there's a lot of five minute health ops i call them health snacks in the book and they're not literally snacks or one of them is um they're they're five minute health snacks and there's a lot of five minute uh hard snacks and you know these are these are little five minute things that you can do often in the evening whether it's gratitude whether it's sort of journaling practice um you know one of my favorites and the one i try and do

on most evenings is something that i call the tea ritual. And the tea ritual is something, as I say, I use to myself, but I also use with many of my patients. And it's really, really simple. The idea is that our relationships are under strain these days. You know, look at the divorce rates, they're going through the roof. You look, you know, I'm sure in your friend's circle and just talking to patients, would you agree? You know, everyone's struggling with their relationships. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The connection. the connection i mean it's just it's harder i think to to connect because of society and i think just on a tangent you know what your book and what your work does very cleverly is it's like a wobble board on a wobble board on a wobble board you've got these societal factors you've got health and illness but what goes through the middle of them in in the work that you're doing

is actually feeling better and living more but you've cleverly done it through these five minute chunks it's you know and you're giving people so many options because one of the things i find is people come in and they go should i eat more turmeric do i need iron you know do i need to join a gym and it's they're overwhelmed whereas actually it doesn't matter is what you're saying in a way i'm saying it doesn't matter a little bit yeah um for most people it doesn't matter we and actually all that information and all that indecision about what we should do it's paralyzing it is it's a reason not to do anything we're paralyzed by choice choice. We end up doing nothing. And, you know, that's the whole behavior change piece, which let's talk about that a little bit later.

But that's one of the reasons why it's so hard to connect because your brain is just full of information. So you're distracted and you're not present. Yeah. And I think that's part of the problem. I think that's the main part of the problem. I think even when we've got those golden moments with the people that mean the world to us you're filming it yeah not me but a lot of people do don't they yeah you're filming it and again look just to be clear we're not

having to go anyone who's doing that right well i've done i do it exactly we're just reflecting what's going on we're all of us pretty much times, we're with the people we love or the people we really care for. Physically, we're there. But emotionally, we're not. Mentally, we could be a million miles away. Because we're thinking about our Instagram feed or sort of half-reading emails at the same time. And you know what it's like. So, what is the tea ritual well the tea ritual is five minutes where you connect

each day with somebody who's close to you now for me because i'm married and i find that because we've got two young kids and i'm busy and my wife's busy often days could go by and we were like passing ships you know you get up you'd sort of you're nodding your heads right co-workers i used to call it yeah exactly and i think a lot of people it is but a lot of people will resonate with that and connect with that and i have found that by having five minutes every day of connection time it has transformed our relationship so the way it works in my house is when the kids are in bed and we've cleaned up the kitchen which again is something where we've been trying hard to do so it doesn't when it comes down to the place in the morning job is it no so we do that generally together and then before we

do anything else before we go on our devices or you know whatever the things that we want to do in the evening individually are for five minutes we'll have a little tea ritual we've got a nice teapot put the kettle on um we have mint tea in the evening i was gonna ask you what's your favorite tea yeah it's fresh mint tea for a number of reasons a doesn't have caffeine in b i love it it's tasty see it's really really cheap you just buy mint leaves and pop it in yeah it's cheaper than buying herbal teas really good isn't it and so we'll sit down and we won't have devices and And for five minutes, we sit down and just ask each other about each other's days. Now listen, Ian, I get it. It sounds so simple. 15, 20 years ago, I don't think you needed to have tea rituals, right? But what does that do?

Just that five minutes of connection each day, you feel closer. You feel more connected. You're more loving towards each other. You start to feel that you care more for your partner in a way that you've always cared, but it's easy to take people for granted when you're just busy all the time. And I've used that with my patients. If you haven't, I'd recommend you do it because it is so many patients come back to me and say, Dr. Chachi, that has transformed my relationship. And that's just one example. There's loads and loads of examples. And why I'm so passionate about this book, Ane, is because I'm just sort of giving you a few examples. There's over 50, I think, examples of five-minute health snacks in the book, right? But all you've got to do is choose three.

One from mind, one from body, and one from heart. That's the other genius that is it that's all you have to do you don't need the choice will not paralyze you it's great i mean and that's that's the thing that surprised me because i was reading through the health snacks but then you keep reiterating you only need to pick three but the menu's enormous isn't it i mean the variety i mean even your most pernickety person would find something for them in there that's the great thing i mean i would be surprised ifickety person would find something for them in there that's the great thing i mean i would be surprised if somebody can read this book and actually go and actually

none of this applies to me yeah you know because i've always said even in my first two books i've said to people when i go around the talk the country and i give talks and i talk to the public i say if there's a recommendation i've i've made that you don't like, don't do it. People are shocked when I say that. I'm like, no, no, don't do it. There's loads of options in these books. Choose the ones that do speak to you. So if you try, and maybe we can sort of talk about behavior change, because this really plays into that. We know long-term, you're only going to stick to doing a behavior if you like doing it. It's very, very rare that people manage to stick to things long-term that you're only going to stick to doing a behavior if you like doing it. It's very, very rare that people manage to stick to things long-term that they don't like. So I'm saying choose one that you like, choose one that speaks to you and actually makes your heart sing

as you're reading it. Do that one. If there's one that you hear me talk about or you read about and you like all the health benefits and you think it might work, but you think, I'm not really sure that's for me. Don't do it. Pick another one. There's so many choices, but when you've picked, stick to the same ones every day. And why is that? That's to do with how you create a new habit. Right. So I use an analogy in the book of toothbrushing, right? So most of us, I think, brush our teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening so four minutes a day now we're not doing that anymore because our parents told us to do it um we're doing it as a habit it's a routine it's become ingrained it's just ingrained it's just what you do and i know that these five minute health stats

can also become ingrained in exactly the same way if you follow the rules of behavior change, right? But unfortunately, we don't follow the rules of behavior change. Unfortunately, look, here's the reality. You could buy at this time of year any health book off the shelf, right? Anyone.

And if you follow it for two weeks,'ll feel better you will it doesn't matter what the diet plan is if i'm honest right if you follow it or the movement plan or whatever if you manage to stick to it most of them are going to work you talk about making it stick don't you that's what you're talking about exactly exactly what i'm talking about there's all there's every few paragraph every few chapters i've got this theme throughout the book called making it stick and they're these one pages where i teach people how do you make this new health stack that you may like how do you make it stick in your life yeah and i give them you know make it very actionable but it all comes from behavior change science and one of the ways you do it, I've already mentioned about making it easy, right?

But it's going back to these health books that will work. Anything can work for two weeks, but what I'm interested in and what you're interested in as a doctor is what's going to still be working in two months, in two years, right? What's going to stop and break this cycle

of this new year, new you? Market every January, right? Where suddenly everyone's buying health and wellbeing books and then by February, they're sort of on the shelf somewhere. I've been not doing them, right? I very much hope

mine don't fall into that category. I try my best for them not to. And judging from the comments I get and the emails and the messages, I think people are using my books throughout the year which which feels amazing to me but i think i really do think this is the most practical of the lot and for someone who's really struggling this is probably one of the most effective health plans i think that they're going to be able to do um so when we talk about behavior change right you've got to make it easy right and let me just draw a contrast um

or a comparison with amazon yeah right so you know amazon big business i don't know probably one of the world's biggest businesses i'm guessing in terms of turnover now when amazon moved to one click ordering a few years ago estimates sayimates say that their profits went up by I think $200 million to $300 million a year. So why is that? Well, that's because in the past, you had to check your order, go to the next page,

confirm that you're happy with it, next page, type in your credit card details, and then for the final time, check again. So maybe three or four steps before you placed your order it's too hard now before you've even blinked it says your order will arrive tomorrow yeah right buy it now yeah so the point is for all of us our behavior is constantly being changed

whether we think it is or not by marketing by media by amazon by Netflix, right? Netflix roll one episode into the next episode. Why? Because before you know it, you've started watching the second one. Every time you put an obstacle in the way, it's a reason to say no. If you had to get up from your sofa, go there, switch something on the DVD player or something, you might be thinking, you know what? Maybe I'll go to bed now. But before you know it, you've started watching again, right? And I'm not, look, Amazon are doing what they need to do as a business. Netflix are doing what they need to do as a business. But I'm saying we can use those same tools that businesses use to get you to buy more of their products. We can use the same tools to help us with our health, right? And if you make something easy, you will do it. And that's why, if we talk

about this five-minute workouts, for example, that's why every single workout in the book, whether it's a yoga one, whether it's a strength one, whether it's an interval one, requires no equipment, right? You don't need to get any equipment. You don't need to get changed. You don't need to go to a gym to make it as simple as possible like that patient i told you about right at the start yeah that's why he did it because there wasn't a reason really to say no and so i'm trying to help people say look i understand behavior science i've studied it i've gone and studied with one of the world's leading experts bj fogg right and he's had a look at this and it's it all it was it was a beautiful meeting actually

when i met bj because he he looked at it and he and i'm really delighted that he loved it but he said what's really interesting for me rongan is that you've got 20 years clinical experience and your clinical experience has come to the same conclusion as my 20 years of research and it was really nice i mean he's well he's the only name I know in behaviour change, actually. And actually, there's a quote about your book from him that I've got here, which is high praise indeed. So this is what PJ Fogg says about Feel Better in 5. It says,

A superb guide to making lasting change in your life and one of the best habit change programmes I've ever seen. Deceptively simple, but remarkably effective. How does that make you feel? You know, I have, um, I've looked up to BJ and his work for years. Uh, I know that he is the world's leading expert in human behavior. A lot of the books that people buy on habit change, whether it's Nir Eyal or James Clear, these guys have all gone and studied with bj you know instagram i think was founded in his stanford class you know he set his students a um a challenge to he said i think he said that photo sharing is going to be big in the future um and so i want you guys to create

an idea and an app that utilizes that and he's got the mark sheet that he gave to instagram and i think he gave a high commendation i think he said something like yeah it's got very high chance of success this he was right he was right and so to have that sort of praise from him of course it's very humbling it's um you know of course on a personal level it makes me feel good you, it's nice to hear that. But it also just, it almost reinforces my belief that this is one of the most effective health programs out there. It really is. And it's deceptively simple.

I think he's nailed it. It is deceptively simple. But you might think five minutes, come on, you know, it's got to be harder than that. It's not. If you get good at doing five minutes every day, that's where the magic happens. That's when things start to change, right? And it's, you know, if every single person in this country adopted the Feel Better and Find program, so basically spent five minutes each day on their mind, five minutes on their body, and five minutes on their heart, I guarantee we would have a healthier and a happier society. I think you're right. And

I want to come on a little bit later about your visions for the future, but I'm going to spring that on you later on. But one of the things I really like about this, in the beginning of the book, you said, look, all I want is 15 minutes of your time a day. And what's really nice is that you don't sort of scold the reader and you don't, you know, you're not saying, look, you know, you probably spend more than 15 minutes a day planning your shopping, but you don't spend it on your health. But that is the reality for a lot of people. a lot of people and you know it the fact it's so accessible and that 15 minutes a day is so effective because it's cumulative isn't it it's almost invisible but but as i found when i was trying what you suggested literally after a week you you notice the benefits and so it just makes you carry on it sort of sucks you in doesn't it sucks you in it's that easy that it sucks you in and before you know it you you're doing it regularly. Well, let's look at that another way.

If I asked you, right, to drink a sugary fizzy drink for five minutes a day continuously every day, right, you'd soon figure out, it's not hard for you to understand that within days you're going to feel tired, a bit groggy, you're not going to sleep so well,

become a bit moody, but it's just five minutes a day right so the point is we don't think of good habits in the same way to think of bad habits if i asked you to smoke a cigarette for five minutes continuously every day it wouldn't surprise you if within a few days you start to cough a little bit and you know you're bringing up mucus and you're not feeling so good right right? So we've been conditioned in a way that we think, we know that bad habits add up very quickly, but we don't look at good habits in the same way. We think, oh no, good habits have got to be deprivation.

We've got to stop doing things. We've got to go and punish ourselves at the gym. We've got to stop eating the foods that we like eating. Well, hold on a minute. Who said it's got to be that hard? That's where we've got to stop eating the foods that we like eating. Well, hold on a minute. Who said it's got to be that hard? That's where we've gone wrong. We've been so reductionist around the way we look at health, right? Health is not that complicated.

And I literally have tried my best to make it as simple as possible in this book. And a couple of months ago, I read the audio book. And I'd had two months away from it. Yeah. And you need that distance away from it yeah and uh you need that distance away from it sometimes because after a while of writing and editing you don't know you don't know what you're saying anymore and i had a couple of months off away from it um went to the studio to read the audiobook and i gotta say i was really pleased actually i was

really really pleased because i have put a lot of work into this book. It's probably the hardest book I've written. I can see why it would be. To make something this simple is incredibly challenging. You've got to know what to leave out. What is the essence of health? What is the absolute essence that people need to know that's going to help them? And when I read it, I was like, you know what? I really think this is a really rounded, very approachable, very accessible book. And I'd like to think that a lot of people who maybe didn't feel my first two books were relevant for them, I'd like to think that they're going to pick it up and start to access the same benefits people have had from previous books. But yes, I also think it's absolutely relevant for the readers of the first two books as well, because I think it's going to make those ideas in the first two books

simpler for people to apply in their everyday lives. There's a couple of things I want to pick up on. The first is, I want to talk a bit more about the ripple effect, because it's something I see a lot in practice as well. And you touched on it just now, and we were talking about how once people feel better they're more likely to continue with behaviors but there are knock-ons aren't there to feeling better in one way and how it filters into other areas of your life i mean i had a patient who felt so much better from changing their diet they actually wanted to end up becoming a health coach so they changed profession i mean that's like a mega ripple effect isn't it but do you mean, do you see that yourself a lot in practice? A hundred percent. I mean, just like you, I think to be a good GP, to be a good generalist, you have to be able to read people. You have to

be able to pick up on those non-verbal cues and really sort of, frankly, to be a good communicator of any sort, you need to be able to do that. But in our jobs as GPs, the better you can do that, the better you can come up with the most appropriate plan or idea for that patient in front of you. Because 10 people can come in to see you with the same condition or the same complaints, but we might come up with 10 different ways of addressing it, depending on who that person is and what their beliefs are and so i think if you can start people off with something that they like and they start to do it consistently without realizing that they start to do other things in other aspects of their life that you didn't even ask them to do as i've called it in the book the ripple effect because that's the kind of the hidden secret behind these five minutes yes it's

about five minutes but it's not as well yeah right the five minutes are the gateway into everything else you just need an entry point really don't you need an entry point that's something you like something you resonate with do it consistently at the same time every day and that's really important and it will lead to other things. Just taking a quick break in the conversation to give a quick shout out to some of the sponsors of today's show. Now, the beginning of a new year is an opportunity to create new habits to be our happiest, healthiest selves. And if you want to sleep better and feel less stressed, you need a plan. My new book, Feel Better in 5, is all about five-minute health interventions that can transform the way that you feel.

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at calm.com forward slash live more. That's calm.com forward slash live more. um you know you're a doctor with over 20 years experience and you know you had to flip through the book last night um from what i've said so far i mean what's speaking to you i mean does any of this resonate with your own experience as a doctor in terms of helping people make positive changes yeah completely i mean i think the first thing is the biggest barrier is time. No one has time these days to do anything. And health has become something that is largely reactive. People tend to come to the GP when they're not feeling well. And there's a difference in people who, well, there's people who feel well or think they feel well. There's people who suddenly become very ill and might need hospital care. become very ill and might need hospital care. And then there's this group in the middle who gradually find themselves not feeling so well. So they're not suddenly ill. And I think a lot of us are in that middle category. And this book is perfect for all of those people. But it just speaks to most people that walk into my room, I think, because there is something in here that everyone could do. And it doesn't matter, you know, time is not an excuse. I think that's

the great thing about this because everyone's got 15 minutes. You've got 15 minutes to scroll Instagram. So surely you've got 15 minutes to do something that is going to help your health in the longterm, but it doesn't appear to be stealing too much time you know that's that's the sort of balance that's the secret and you know i'm all about personalization i believe in personalized medicine i believe that you know an individual has got to have the right plan that works for them in terms of their cultural beliefs in terms of their lifestyle in terms of what their family is doing around them you know it's got to work for them yeah otherwise it'll be limited and i'm allowing people with this plan to personalize it here's here's 50 options yeah right choose one

from each of the three sections and do the same three every day at the same time and i guarantee within days you'll feel like a different person and i'm allowing people to choose now the reason i say once you've chosen do the same one i think it's a really really important point because every single one of those 50 health snacks in the book has a benefit right so you could start to get paralyzed by choice and start reading through them and go well yeah okay i love that five minute breathing exercise i love that five minute meditation oh i love five minutes of accessing flow state each morning with a coloring in journal i love five minutes of journaling which one should i do in mind right because because they've all got benefits just pick them

basically yeah well yeah i mean first of all i gave people an option to say look if the choice is becoming overwhelming i've got this really nice double page in it where i say yeah how to get less and how to get more so if you've got a problem like if you want to get less anxiety or you're suffering with depression or with type 2 diabetes i love that so you've got you've kind of like listed preferences for well i've said you think i would recommend these three yeah because i get it for some people, it's going to be too much. And I'm going to be like, okay, look, if you want to know where to start, I have found with previous patients that if you have anxiety, do five minutes, I think on breathing, five minutes of a particular type of exercise and five minutes of gratitude, for

example. If you don't feel you've got a health problem, but you know what? You want to run faster at the weekends, there's also a plan for you how to get more athletic performance instead of increasing your focus, improving various things for your endurance. If you want to increase your longevity, right?

I've actually picked three for you. So I've given people those options if they want it. But if you don't want that, that's fine. Pick the three that work for you. So I've given people those options if they want it. But if you don't want that, that's fine. Pick the three that work for you. Now, two things you've got to remember. Most of what we do in any given day is not conscious choice. It's habit, right? So Duke University did a study and I think they found that 56% of what we do in any given day is habit. So we give ourselves far too much credit that we're actually of what we do in any given day is habit. So we give ourselves far too much credit that we're actually deciding what we do on any given day. No, we're not. Most of it

is habits. So the way you make a new behavior turn into a long-term habit, right? Is you stick it on to an existing habit, right? You piggyback it onto it because you're already doing the other habit without thinking about it. That's by definition what habit is, right? And so you're making it much more likely that you're going to do it in the long term. So what are these things? That's why that kitchen workout works so well. People are in their kitchen, right? Because you're waiting, aren't you? You're waiting, you're doing something. So yeah, kettle to boil, you know, that is a prime, prime one for so many of us certainly here in the uk we love a cup of tea in the morning or a cup of coffee for many people for many of my patients one of

the first things they do in the morning is go downstairs or go to a different room i put the kettle on that is a brilliant habit to stick on a new behavior and for a number of years when i had i can put it but if an unhealthy relationship with caffeine and coffee, I should say. Yeah. And it's something I've, you know, I've certainly been working on it and reduced dramatically. But when I did, you know, I would go and weigh out my coffee, I'd put it in the French press and I'd put the timer on for four minutes. During those four minutes, I would do a body weight strength workout right so for about three years i never missed a day of doing a strength workout why i was never going to miss my morning

cup of coffee which meant i was never going to miss my strength workout yeah and it's trying to find these little pockets in the day where you can fit in one of these five minute health snacks yeah um so that's that's why you want to do it at the same time every day, if possible. So those are a couple of options. I mean, it could be, for example, when you come home from work. I don't know about you, first thing I do when I come home from work is I take off my smart clothes and put on some comfy clothes, like a t-shirt and some jogger bottoms right so that's another what i call a transition point where you can stick in a five-minute health snack so if when you're coming through your front door

you go into your bedroom to change your clothes right you know if you want to do a five-minute yoga flow then you can leave your yoga mat there so you're prompted with a visual trigger every time you come back from work oh you know what before i go into the kitchen before i get involved with anything else or unwind in any other way let me just do my five minutes of yoga making it easy you make it easy and then what happens what are you bringing back the ripple effect if you if you come back from work stressed right like many of us do uncommon yeah not uncommon at all and the first thing you do when you coming through the door is do a five minute workout of some sort whether it's a five minute yoga flow or a five minute HIIT workout right you're gonna burn off some of that stress because fundamentally what the body stress response

does it primes us for physical activity it primes us to run away from a lion right so if you can burn off that stress energy it's going to change your evening. You're going to be more present with your children, with your partner, with your friends. You're going to be less inclined to drink maybe as much alcohol as you might have done because you've processed some of that stress. So these are just little options. Gratitude. If you want to do gratitude before you go to bed, right? You've got to leave a gratitude journal next to your bed, a journal that you like with a pen. Sounds simple, right? But if you don't, what's going to happen? You've got to leave a gratitude journal next to your bed, a journal that you like with a pen. Sounds simple, right? But if you don't, what's going to happen? You're going to go to

bed one night feeling a bit tired. You know what? The journal's downstairs, pens, forget it. Before you know it, you're not doing it anymore, right? So I have literally outlined all these little tips on how you make these habits stick. But the reason why you want to do the same habit each day, because let's say on a body workout, you're like, well, I like a strength workout. I like a high intensity and slow workout. I like a yoga flow, right? Well, the reason why initially, at least, you should stick to the same ones is because you want to remove decision-making. You want to remove procrastination. So if you come back from work and think, okay, you know, I get it. I'm going to do my five-minute

workout every day when I come home from work before I play with my kids or before I do anything else. If each day you have to decide, well, should I do strength today? You know what? Maybe I should do a bit of yoga. You know what? I'm going to do an interval workout today. Or maybe I should do dancing. Before you know it, you've wasted energy and cognitive energy trying to figure it out and you end up doing nothing. So I say, it doesn't matter what you choose. Just choose. You want to remove that interference.

You've got to remove that interference. Now, when you get really good and drilled in after a few months, sure, if you want to change it about, fine. but don't do that initially follow the rules of behavior change yeah don't get i won't say too cocky don't get too sure too quickly right there is a certain way that human beings make behavior amazon know what it is advertisers know what it is right it's what makes us tick it's what makes us tick yeah and i've literally put those secrets as it were in this book it's it's all it underpins the whole program is behavior science yeah and that's why it does work and i think that's why

bj fold gave such a lovely um a lovely recommendation well i i'd like to sort of ask you what I did last year. So what is in store for you and for this in the next year? And not just the next year, we're at the end of the decade. Let's imagine we're sitting here and it's nearly 2030, 10 years time. We're having the same sort of conversation. What does the world look like then and how has your work impacted it not asking big questions don't you there's no point otherwise but i think i think you know genuinely because i think i think this is much needed at the moment you know and i i see it because i'm at the coalface i think it's very easy for people who

because i know you've said this to me before, where someone stopped you in the street after you'd written your first book and said, you know, what's the big deal? It's like, eat, move, sleep, relax. I mean, so what? You know, like it was like something that I could have just pulled out of their backside. But the point is that, you know, it's a very hard book to write and people don't understand. And I think particularly, you know, people in very hard book to write and people don't understand and i think particularly you know people in the medical or scientific community who who whose radar's really not involved in this because their jobs and their roles are sort of so deep dive that they can't they kind of don't quite get this and it's all a bit woolly um but actually even a lot of them

have been i wouldn't say converted because that makes it sound like there's some sort of cult thing about this and there isn't because it's all based on you know proper science and you've managed very cleverly i think to distill it down but how can i'm more interested in the sort of knock on ripple effect because one of the things i noticed is if i gave this book to a friend of mine and it had a massive effect on them you can bet your bottom dollar it'd have a massive effect on their friend because suddenly they'd think you know just like you said about a mutual friend in Devon it's like wait a minute you look ripped you know and that that sort of triggers something it's what I call friendly jealousy and

that's another way of changing your behaviors you see that your friend suddenly looks fantastic and think i want a bit of that how can you leverage that you know in terms of what's in this book and looking ahead for a year and then 10 years yeah look um i think you're touching quite a few really really important points there um I guess for the next year to start there, what I would love to see for the Feel Better in 5 program is that it gets widely adopted by everyone. And what I mean by that is it's deceptively simple, but every single person in this country would benefit from spending five

minutes a day on their minds, five minutes a day on their body, and five minutes a day on their hearts, right? So if everyone adopts that, we're going to very quickly have a happier, healthier, more productive society, right? So I would love people who buy the book and who are finding it beneficial, I'd love them to share that with their family and their friends, whether it's telling them, whether it's putting on social media, you know, and actually let's try and engage that ripple effect to get this idea out to more people, right? I'd love to see this idea in schools. I'd love to get this idea of five minutes for your mind, five minutes for your body, five minutes for your heart into every single school in the United Kingdom, right? Schools are facing unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety,

mental health worries, right? Many teachers have contacted me. I'd love to try and help schools by developing some resources if I can. It's just about time and getting people to help me. But I think this plan is the perfect plan. It's the perfect blend of effectiveness and practicality. Every school could fit it into their busy curriculum. You know, a teacher listening to this, I hope they think, you know what?

When I talk to the headmaster or headmistress of my, I say, well, why don't we adopt this? Why don't we have this idea? Five minutes for mind, five minutes for body, five minutes for heart. It's so simple. It's almost too simple. Do you know what I mean? It's almost too simple. Almost, we've been conditioned to think it's got to be harder than that.

No, it doesn't. Right? Because when we think it's got to be harder than that, we end up doing nothing. We end up saying, oh, we can't do anything. You know, there's nothing we can do it's too hard it's not that hard we've all got five minutes so schools you know i love the nhs the the staff you know 53 of nhs staff i think are overweight or obese that's a stat from about five or six years ago it's probably higher than that now yeah right what if this was taught in medical schools what if as part of our well-being this concept became something that we all think about in our own lives you know in the evening have i done five minutes on mind five

minutes of body five minutes of heart today if i haven't well maybe i can do it right so i'd love this very simple but effective idea to spread hopefully like wildfire into businesses into supermarkets into schools into hospitals right um i'd love pharmacists to give this advice to their patients say hey look when people are coming in and say hey look have you thought about some things for your lifestyle you know to the pharmacist i don't have time you know i'd love to see when i'm busy say hey if you what about five minutes what if you try and find five minutes to do each day at the same time yeah right so i would love you know i would i really would love this idea to get to politicians right it doesn't have to be that hard. And on that, what I will say is that we know

that there is a huge socioeconomic component to health, right? If you live in a deprived area, your health outcomes are going to be significantly worse than if you live in an affluent middle-class area. Now, that's not something any of us should feel comfortable with in society right but that is going on and there's many reasons for that you know poverty lack of time potentially a different education and health understanding there's many many reasons different pressures i totally get that and i've worked like you in deprived communities but why i still think that this program will like you in deprived communities. But why I still think that this program will work, even in those communities, right,

is because I think pretty much all of these 50 plus health stats in the book, I think they're all free. Maybe one or two of them might require a bit of money, but most of them are completely free yeah so in theory they are accessible and available to everyone the cost is your time but it's not much time the cost is your time you know and as doctors we're passionate that we want to we want to be able to give information out to people that helps everyone yes Yes, the CEO of a company, but also a single mum on benefits, right? And I have used this approach with my patients when I worked in Oldham for seven years in a very poor area with a lot of my patients on benefits. And it still works. It helps them

reduce the stress in their life, helps them feel better about themselves. This plan builds self-esteem. If life is tough, but you've still got, I won't say discipline, you've still got enough respect for yourself to give you five minutes in each of these three hours every day, you know what? You become more resilient to the world around you.

So look, I think the sky's the limit with this. I really think this plan and this idea yeah i don't think it's out there as i say look i read a lot of health books i haven't seen i i personally you know haven't seen a health book that really tackles health in this way so i think it's very new that's an idea as someone told me actually he said wrong this feels a bit almost like a recipe book when you choose your favorite three recipes. Well, it has got the word menu in it, hasn't it? Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, in terms of my hope, I really feel that there's huge benefit and potential for this idea. Yeah, I totally agree. And there's two things I'd like to say. The first is that I would like, because as you know, at work, we're trying to do a bit more staff

well-being and it's challenging because we're at the coalface and we're so busy and some days you literally take a deep breath and you're glad that you made it to the end but i really want to try this on our staff if that's all right and and if it if it's not too much trouble next time you come and stay if you could pop in and say hi to them all just to check that we're doing it properly, that'd be great. And the other thing is just to say, I think, you know, the work you're doing is really important. I am convinced, you know, anyone who's listening to this and reads the book will realise that it has so much to offer. And I think it, you know, it cannot not filter into those areas like schools and the NHS. And, you know, as you say, everyone can benefit from this. Yeah, I think so. And to take you back to what you asked me at the start, if you are an 80-year-old, right, or, you know, a couple in their 70s wanting to do something proactive for your health.

And, you know, I think if your parents when I think of that, I think this plan would benefit your parents, right? This plan is also going to benefit teenagers. The rules of good health are always the same. And I really think that mind, body, heart way of simplifying it really gives us that complete mental health, physical health emotional health it's all there now i've got a question for you right so when i sent you and our unnamed friends that whatsapp video i'm saying guys you got to do this workout right um and i did a video of how you do all the moves so you guys are taking a slightly different approach so our friend has done it every day pretty much since then every work day right now you started doing it yeah yeah and we're experiencing

benefit you'd have the shoulder niggle for ages which i've got rid of and then this is getting you better and feeling good so i'm interested as to what happened when were you doing it first of all yeah so i was doing it as ad hoc so i hadn't stuck it onto an existing habit that was part of the problem there you go um and once the shoulder pain had gone i thought oh i'm sorted but um and and you know and i think but i could see and i and i think i think what i love about this and i don't want to demean this book in any way, but it's a very, you know, you and I way of thinking. It's like a almost, it's not quite a book of health cheats, but it sort of is because it's giving you good long-term health

and making you feel better in the now with 15 minutes a day, you know. And that is what people want. If you have to write a book on health cheats or health hacks this is it really but it's substantial do you know what i mean and i could and i think i was i was doing it in a way to sort of report back to you whether it was going to help and like an idiot i should i mean i still do bits of it but not all of it yeah but mate look the point here is that it's not about you know exposing you or this is human nature, right? We've all done that.

No, no. We've all done that, right? In various parts in our life, we've gone and done things. As soon as we feel better, we stop doing it. And that's why I find it super interesting. But as I said earlier on, the reason why most of the time when we start a new behavior, it doesn't turn into a habit right

it's because we don't follow the rules of behavior change and you you've you've you've you know you beautifully demonstrated that yeah yeah that if you do not stick it on to an existing habit you are dramatically reducing the likelihood of you being able to do it in the long term yeah and if you know we're so busy these days if you think oh when i've got time today i'm gonna do my five minutes body and my five minutes mind you know what yeah you ain't ever gonna get time it just reminds me as well i mean sometimes when you see when you meet someone for the first time and i think this is much more evident when you're younger and you think that someone is a little bit eccentric because they always do something at a particular time of day and actually they they're not, they've just mastered their own

behavior change. It's like, well, I always sing a song in the car on the way to dropping my kids off to school because that's just how they roll. Do you know what I mean? And I think you've just got to find your own. You've got to find how you roll. Yeah, exactly. You've got to use this as a menu and go, well, which of these menus is going to work for me, going to make me feel good? Can I say the other thing? This is a fun plan. It's not only about simplifying health,

it's about making it fun. We've got this idea that health's a bit boring. Really? Why does it have to be boring? We can have fun. And I would argue not only can it be only there's a section on play isn't that not only can health be fun yeah health has to be fun if health is not fun right i just don't see what is the point how is it going to help you in the long term unless it's something you enjoy

and i really feel that you know as i was writing it, not only was I thinking, keep it simple, keep it simple, make sure you stay on message. Don't get lost in more and more studies, right? The studies are all there in my first and second book. This is about simplicity, right? But also keep it fun. And one of the things I think people are going to really like is the five minutes of dancing. Yeah, the dancing. Right? Because again, who says you've got to go to the gym a lot of people like to dance right you want to move your body there's a great case study about that in the book yeah yeah about this uh mom and her 16 year old daughter but it's start with dancing for five minutes a day same time every day maybe before dinner that counts as movement you do that every day consistently you're going to feel better

you're going to be laughing you're going to connect with people around you can have more energy the ripple effect is going to fire in very very quickly yeah um so cooking music on yeah but you know i think all these things useful even hearing how you know and you know i will also acknowledge that when i because i've gone through phases here of not having any caffeine at all and I felt great actually when I've kicked the caffeine really really good um but then initially I wouldn't do my strength workout anymore I know it's weird isn't it because I did it whilst the coffee was brewing yeah so I've had to find another habit to exactly a new way and here's the other thing right I'll say just so people know that this really can work for all of us no matter whether we're working shifts whatever our family life is whatever our lifestyle is those three house snacks that i've asked people to do five

days a week i even give people weekends off if they want right if you want you can do what i do which is i get up in the morning and I do five minutes of mind, five minutes of body, five minutes of heart. So within 15 minutes of waking up, I've done the whole plan. And I know for the rest of the day, I don't need to worry because I've already done it. Now, what actually happens when you do that is it bleeds into the rest of your day. You end up doing more behaviors later in the day because you've already done it, even though that's not a requirement, right? But if you don't want to do it, then that's fine. If you want to do mind in the morning, body at lunch,

and heart in the evening, that's fine as well. If you want to do all three in the evening, that's fine. It's flexible. It's flexible. We can personalize it. We can take ownership, right? I hope giving people a framework and then people can use that framework and personalize it for them. You know, I'd love, you know, I'd love you to do it with your kids. Yeah, yeah. You know, wouldn't it be amazing, right? You're a dad like me. Think about your own kids and think about what teachers taught you about both in the practice, but also, you know, the playground or at school.

you know, at the playground or at school, like, can you imagine what it would be like if every school made sure that whilst the child was at school, while the teenager was at school, at some point within the curriculum every day, they spent five minutes on mind, five minutes on body, five minutes of heart. Can you imagine the transformative effect that would have? Yeah. I think it's essential in a way i mean the number of young people i see who are broken you know in one way or another is is astonishing and i think just by putting in these simple interventions that are almost not noticeable in a way because they're so straightforward is is just a great way to prevent that. Yeah.

One of the other things I think that is really relevant for people when they're starting off or embarking on a health journey is that they overestimate motivation and willpower. They make a plan based upon their perfect day, when there's no stress in their life, when they've slept for eight hours, when they've been working out regularly and they're feeling good, say, yeah, I'm going to do this health plan, right? But A, that's not real life. And B, it doesn't acknowledge or take into account the fact that motivation and willpower run out, right? That's something that BJ Fogg taught me about is the motivation wave right motivation doesn't stay

high forever and he talks about this idea of um well he his work suggests it's the three things isn't it yeah his work says that for in order to do any behavior you need three things to come together at the same time motivation ability and trigger right if we just start with motivation and ability motivation is how motivated you are to do a certain behavior ability is how easy is it to do a certain behavior and they've got a very unique relationship with each other so when your motivation is high if a task is really difficult to do you'll still do it right classic? Classic is January the 1st, people's motivation is through the roof. If the gym is 40 minutes away and they have to buy some equipment and they have to sit in traffic together, they will go, right? Motivation is high, so they will do a

difficult task. But when your motivation is low, you will only do a certain behavior if it's easy, right? So two weeks on, middle of January, when actually you're back in the grinds and actually your motivation is not quite as high as it was on the first day of 2020, actually, well, I have to sit in traffic and get to the, forget it, right? So you've got a plan for when your motivation is low and that's what this plan does it it knows that motivation is going to get low and i say to people right use the motivation when you first look at the book right or any book for that matter your motivation is probably quite high that's why you've got it use that motivation wave use the high motivation to pick the three things that you're going to do if there's a workout in there use the motivation to pick the three things that you're going to do. If there's a workout in there, use the motivation to learn the workout so that actually after a few days, you don't need to

look at the book, right? So that actually when your motivation does drop and you're knackered and you're stressed out and you've got back late from work, right? You don't need motivation because it's easy. Because it's automatic. It's automatic. You don't need motivation to brush your teeth. Well, you do when you're a kid, kid you know but you don't need to do that as an adult yeah because you know it's just it's just what you do it's part of your daily routine it's part of that 56 that you do each day let's get these things into that 56 as well yeah yeah well all i'd say is i absolutely love it i think it will change lots of people's lives as have your first two books. I think everything I read that you put out is really the essence of what you're about. You can really feel that distillation of 20 years of knowledge and experience. and i think that clinical experience is so important because you know there's a lot of stuff in here that's based on research but actually people who are seeing patients day in

day out are the ones that know what make people tick and all of that is in here and i wish you the best of luck with it and i hope it's another bestseller one thing i've got to ask you on page 251 are those your real slippers i've got them here look let me show you the pictures are gorgeous but they are not my slippers on page 251 i'm gutted they look they look legendary but uh i can i can get you a pair and get you a pair if you want oh no i'm disappointed now actually it was a question from home so i was just a question from the kids or from your wife? Might have been, might have been. Might have been, as I say.

I think it's an important question. Yeah. An important question. But I guess that's been one of the fun things for us is just we get to catch up and have a bit of a laugh. And I don't think we've been too silly today, have we? No, no, not silly enough. But once, you know, once the cameras are cut,

we can have some fun. Go and have some fun, exactly. Well, look, it's been amazing chatting to you. And yeah, thanks very much for coming in. It's just, it's been brilliant. I'm just going to throw it back to you right at the end here. Oh, mate, don't, go on. So I do, I think there's loads of tips in there.

Yeah. Right. But as you know, I thought you were going to ask me this actually, but you didn't. So I'm going to throw it to you. As you know, it's called feel better, live more.

When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our lives. And I always love to leave the listeners with some actionable tips. Right. Things that they can think about doing. I can see the pressure mounting on your face now. There's so many. The things that they can do in their own life immediately yeah to improve the way that they feel now it

doesn't have to be related to what we've spoken about it can be yeah but anything i mean you you are a damn good clinician yourself you get amazing feedback from your patients it's clear to me and your friends why that is you've got a lot of really interesting ideas on health and again you've got a proven track record of getting people better over and over again. So I would love for you to share, A.M. Panja, some of your top tips for the listeners of my podcast. I think you've summed it up in the last hour.

But I think it's interesting because we've talked a lot about behavior change. And that, to me, is something that doctors don't talk about enough. So I don't want to talk about, you know, drink more water and, you know, because all that stuff is logical and people know that stuff. what makes you tick. So in terms of behavior change, you know, there are so many categories. I've done, I've had one myself recently, so I've given up caffeine. And if you'd asked me six weeks ago, whether I thought I could live without coffee, I would say no way, because I'd, I love the smell of it, the taste of it, making it, you know, and in every morning, you know, like an addict almost, I would get down the stairs and the first thing I would do is put the kettle on. And how I managed to stop that was what I call a happy accident. So I forgot

to have it one morning and I'd got to the end of the afternoon and thought, I haven't had any caffeine today. And I thought, but I feel okay, maybe I'll try it tomorrow. And I felt fine the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day. And actually I feel better off it. fine the next day and the next day and the next day and the next day and actually I feel better off it and unlike with your story it hasn't impacted any other habits of mine so what I would say to anyone listening to this is if you have any happy accidents that change your behavior then capitalize on it so a lot of people find this with irritable bowel syndrome they suddenly run out of milk or orange juice and they don't drink it for a week. And they're like, well, do you know what? You know, I think it was milk all along that is causing my IBS. You know, it's a happy accident.

So going a bit off key here, but so that's one thing. The other is, the other is about not waiting. So we talked on the phone the other day a bit about this but you know the unthinkable happens or something tragic happens like your best friend dies of cancer or has a heart attack and that triggers behavior change what i would say is those two things are poles apart they're both things that trigger behavior change but you do not want to wait till that second one happens you can do it now and i think focusing on on on some of the themes that you've written in this book are essential. Working out how you tick, what makes you tick is really the essence of how happy you are, how healthy you are, and will affect the rest of your life. You know,

I think when particularly people are younger, and I see a lot of my patients who have addictions they don't know why they have them you know to me it's sort of i wouldn't say it's obvious but i can see through their life story why they've ended up in a position where they're gambling or they're drinking too much or they're you know they keep getting into trouble but everyone has the ability to you know to slightly to slightly unpick that. And I think that's my one tip is just think about your behaviors. Think about what makes you tick and understand that you, you do have the ability to change them and you can take control. Yeah. Brilliant tip saying, honestly, really, really good tips. Think people get a lot of value from that. Thank you so much for making time today to catch up with me

absolutely on the mics and interview me and um yeah we'll do it again soon yeah definitely can't wait cheers buddy that concludes today's episode of the feel better live more podcast what did you think did you enjoy the format where I was in the hot seat? Do you want more episodes like this one? Perhaps Ayan and I could do some regular Ask Me Anything podcasts where Ayan helps you to put your questions to me. As always, do let me know what you want from this podcast. I will do my very best to oblige. In fact, please do let Ayan and I know what you thought of today's chat on social media. Ayan had some brilliant tips to share there at the end. Do let him know what you thought of

them. He would absolutely love to hear from you. He is on Twitter at Dr. That's Dr underscore Ayan and on Instagram at Dr. Ayan Pancha. Now, as as always I'm really keen that these conversations are not just information and inspiration for you. I really want you to take action at the end of them. Was there something you heard today that really resonated with you? Does doing these five minute health snacks appeal? As already mentioned there are around 50 or so five-minute health stats in my new book, Feel Better in Five. All you have to do is choose three of them. The three that fit your lifestyle, your desires, your personality, and your goals. It really is that simple.

And it is a highly effective way of making short and long-term changes to your lifestyle. You can pick up the book in all the usual places as a paperback, ebook, or as an audiobook, which I'm narrating. As well as the UK, it is also available now in Australia, New Zealand, and India. And some of my followers on social media have told me that Book Depository is a great company to get the book from if it is not available in your country yet. If you go to the show notes page for this episode of the podcast, you will see a lot of links to interesting articles related to today's conversation, some press articles about the book, some videos that I have made. You will also see all international book links. You can find all of this at drchatterjee.com forward slash 92 don't forget that this conversation

as well as all of my conversations are available to watch in full on youtube so please do check out my youtube channel and subscribe if you've got friends and family who you feel would like the conversations on this podcast but don't like listening to audio podcasts please do let them know about my youtube channel the best way to find it is to type in drchastity.com forward slash youtube and if you enjoy my weekly shows please do consider leaving a review on apple podcasts or whichever podcast platform you listen on you can also help me spread the word by taking a screenshot right now and sharing with your friends and family on social media. Or you can simply do it the good old-fashioned way and tell your friends about the show. I really do appreciate your support. A big thank you to Richard Hughes

for editing and Vinata Chatterjee for producing this week's podcast. And of course, to Dr. A.N. Padgett for making some time to come and interview me on my own show. 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. Thank you.