Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - Arianna Huffington: Microsteps and Rituals to Help You Thrive #136

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

In times of uncertainty, anxiety and stress, taking care of your wellbeing is more important than ever and no one knows this better than my guest on today’s episode. Arianna Huffington is author and businesswoman who founded the original ‘internet newspaper’, The Huffington Post. She’s also one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and on Forbes’ Most Powerful Women list. After collapsing at her desk from sleep deprivation and exhaustion in 2007, Arianna became more passionate about the connection between wellbeing and performance. She therefore launched a company called Thrive Global with a mission of ending the stress and burnout epidemic by offering individuals, companies and communities sustainable, science-based solutions to wellbeing. Arianna and I share a desire to show millions of people globally that habit change and healthy living doesn’t have to be hard. We are both passionate that tiny ‘microsteps’ that we can all take each day, can have a dramatic impact on our health and the quality of our lives. Arianna talks me through her Thrive app, which is like a ‘health coach in your pocket’ and how it uses the concept of ‘microsteps’ to show that behaviour change doesn’t have to be a huge commitment. Small things you can do that, if regular and consistent, will add up to significant and lasting benefits. We discuss the idea of ‘compassionate directness’ as a way of resolving tensions both at home and at work. Arianna shares her wisdom on sleep, motherhood, on creating boundaries when working from home, and on having rituals to mark the end of the day. We also speak about the importance of solitude and discuss how modern life is sending many of us back to ancient wisdom and texts such as the Bhagavad Gita. This conversation is full of brilliant tips and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  Show notes available at drchatterjee.com/136 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.

I think we need to use what the fashion industry is using and the entertainment industry is using to sell things. They know how to connect to people's hearts, not just their minds. So why not take the same tools to help people make the right, better choices for themselves. Hi, my name is Romgen Chatterjee. Welcome to Feel Better, Live More. So, we are living in uncertain times. Stress is up, anxiety is up. And in times like these, taking care of your wellbeing is more important than ever. And nobody knows this better than my guest on today's show. Arianna Huffington is an author

and she's a businesswoman who founded the original internet newspaper, The Huffington Post. She's also one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, and she also features on Forbes' Most Powerful Women in the World list. Now, Ariana collapsed at her desk from sleep deprivation and exhaustion all the way back in 2007. And since then, she has become more and more passionate about the connection between well-being and performance. She has therefore launched a company called Thrive Global with a mission of ending the stress and burnout epidemic by offering individuals, companies, and communities sustainable science-based solutions to well-being. Now on the show today, Arianna and I cover a whole variety of different

subject areas. We both share a desire to show millions of people around the world that habit change and healthy living really doesn't have to be that hard. We're both passionate that tiny micro steps that we can all take each day can have a dramatic impact on our health and as a consequence, the quality of our lives. Now Arianna's organization has created the wonderful Thrive app, which is a bit like having a health coach in your pocket. And it uses the concepts of micro steps to show that behavior change doesn't have to be a huge commitment. Now, one of my favourite parts of this conversation is when we discuss the gorgeous idea of compassionate directness as a way of resolving tensions at work, but also at home. We talk about sleep, motherhood, the importance of solitude,

how to create boundaries when working from home, and the importance of rituals to mark the end of the day. Now, Ariane is someone whose work I have respected and been aware of for many years, and it really was an honour for me to have some time speaking with this incredible individual. This conversation is full of brilliant tips, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Now, on to my conversation with the one and only Arianna Huffington. So, I've got to say, researching you and your career over the last few days has been an absolute joy. I think I've learned a lot about myself as I researched your life. And you're someone who's achieved so much. You're a female business leader, entrepreneur. You're a mother. I saw recently on Instagram, your daughter got

married. So congratulations. But I thought a really nice place to start would be, you've had such a full life, you've achieved so much business-wise, family-wise. What do you regard as your biggest achievement to date? Well, definitely being a mother and my relationship with my daughters, which is absolutely amazing and has been through a lot of ups and downs like any relationship. deep friendship as well as mother-daughter and seeing them grow and build their own lives and want to have an impact in the world. It means so much to me. And also, I think the way I've been working on myself, you know, it's kind of amazing to look back and see how much I knew I wanted to do internally, like the way I wanted to live my life

as a dance, as I came up with early on in my 20s, that I wanted my life to be a dance between making it happen and letting it happen. And yet how much longer it took to actually live like that. So going back through all journals, I see how early on I knew how I wanted to live my life, but it took longer to live it that way than I thought it would take. And that's definitely what I feel is the greatest achievement in any life. You know, how are we changing the way we live our life and our attitude and how much loving are we bringing into everything we are doing? Yeah. I mean, it's wonderful to hear that. that and as you were describing that Arianna I've been thinking back to you talking about your very first book which I think was written is it 50 years ago could that be right yes you know I

actually I just celebrated my 70th birthday in July so yes my first book was written when I was 23. And it was a coincidence that I became a writer. And that's also something interesting for all of us to look at in our lives, because I was at Cambridge studying economics. And I was going to be going to the Harvard Kennedy School to do a post-grad degree in politics. And then an English publisher who happened to see a debate I participated in at the Cambridge Union sent me a letter asking me if I wanted to write a book on the views I expressed in the debate.

And I wrote back and I said, I can't write. And he wrote back and he said, can you have lunch? And I took the train from Cambridge, went to London, had lunch with him. And he offered me a modest advance to write a book and um and i thought wow um that's an unexpected turn of events and i i had too many friends walking around with unpublished manuscripts so i'm i i said yes and that was how my book, which was about the changing role of women, came about. Yeah. Yeah.

That was quite an incredible story, wasn't there, for you to actually get to Cambridge in the first place. I believe that that was something that you just saw in a magazine when you were a lot younger. Yes. In fact, we have a special podcast, we'd love you to be on it, called Meditative Story, which is about a pivotal story in our guest lives. And mine was about how I got into Cambridge, how literally I saw a picture of Cambridge on the cover of a magazine and I got home and I said to my mother I want to go there and my mother who was an amazing woman um didn't say what everybody else said which was don't be ridiculous you can't

go there we have no money you don't speak English and and it's hard for English girls to get into Cambridge. My mother said, let's find out how you can get there. And she found out that I could learn English and take my GCSEs through the British Council, et cetera, et cetera. She even found two cheap tickets to go to London and go see Cambridge. Literally, it was an early visualization exercise because we didn't go to see anybody at Cambridge, the admissions office or anything like that. We just went to see Cambridge and visualize myself as a student there. So anyway, I did get into Cambridge and that definitely changed my life.

Yeah in what way would you say it changed your life because you grew up you didn't grow up in the UK you moved to the UK and it is interesting hearing that that you know visualization is something that athletes do you know Tiger Woods does that before he plays his final round at a major. Usain Bolt will probably do that before he runs 100 meters. Yet you as a, I don't know, 14-year-old, 16-year-old girl, is also visualizing this university where you want to study. Exactly. Without knowing exactly the impact that had,

but it suddenly made it real. And for me, it changed my life because a lot of things that happened in my life, like being asked to write a book, it was as a function of being at Cambridge and also taking part in the Cambridge Union, becoming president of the Cambridge Union, learning to speak and debate and use words to move hearts and minds. That was really the biggest thing I learned at Cambridge. Whether it's through writing or through speaking, how can you move hearts and minds? As a parent myself, I hear someone like you say that, and I'm immediately drawn to my kids. And I think, well, I have concerns sometimes over what schools are now prioritizing, what they're teaching our children, given the way that the world is changing. But the fact that you found debating so pivotal and what you said there, how do you use words to influence and change hearts and minds?

Do you therefore think that one of the key skills we can teach our children is how to have a good grasp of language and how to use words effectively? with language and how to use words effectively? Yes, I really believe that. It's also an incredible source of confidence. And when you think of how many people are terrified of public speaking, it's supposed to be, you know, one of the biggest fears and that people have and and I definitely had that fear and I was a lousy speaker and I had an even heavier accent at a time when in England you know accents were definitely ridiculed but then to see how um i really i really practiced and practiced and developed that new muscle and it's a little bit about your what you are writing about the five minutes and what thrive is about which is micro steps and what our friend BJ Fogg calls tiny habits.

It's basically all the same. It's like that you change habits and you change your life and you acquire new skills through these micro habits and these micro practices. And that was definitely true when it came to speaking for me and the amount of confidence that that brought me. Yeah, it's interesting to hear because I was super delighted when you enjoyed my book and you gave it such great support in America, which is, you know, I'm so grateful for. I think back to why I'm so passionate about these little habits, these five minute steps. And you could see that in me, even as a teenager, we used to come home from school, my mum would have

lots of kind of Indian food ready in the fridge or on the stove. And we'd put it in the microwave for two minutes to heat up. Because then there was this soap at the time called Neighbours in the UK, because then there was this soap at the time called Neighbours in the UK, and we used to watch it at 5.35. My mum thought we could multitask, we could eat and watch Neighbours, and that means we've got more time for homework afterwards. But what's relevant is in those two minutes while the food was in the microwave, I'd be doing press-ups or I'd be doing sit-ups. And it's really interesting to see where I am in my career now, that that was sort of inbuilt into me. I think I just had it as an innate thing that I liked doing when I was so young. And it sounds like you also, even though your whole business and your new

company promotes micro habits, it sounds like you also had that within you at a young age. micro habits it sounds like you also had that within you at a young age yes that's I hadn't thought of it that way but you're absolutely right and and the fact that we do that unconsciously and but now we have so much science behind it and so much data and we can actually do it consciously. And at Thrive, we teach a lot of habit stacking, which is exactly what you are practicing while your food was in the microwave. And, you know, habit stacking around gratitude is a key part of what we teach. You know, you're washing your hands. Think of what three things you're grateful for, you're washing the dishes. Anytime your brain is not actively engaged. Yeah, no, I love it. And I want to talk about Thrive because

I think when you set up this company, people needed help in the workplace. And I sort of think that has been magnified even more this year over the past few months. Before we get into that, I think your story is really worth telling. I mean, why you're so passionate about this, why you set up Thrive, because you had to really face it, didn't you, in your own life. And I really want to touch on that as well, it, didn't you, in your own life? And I really want to touch on that as well, Ariana. So do we need that kind of pain point before we make change? Or actually, as you tell your story, can you also elaborate on, can people also make those changes without hitting that sort of extreme point of ill health? Oh, I definitely hope so. But unfortunately, most of us don't. That's really the truth. There's absolutely no reason on earth why we can't. But if we look around, we see that millions of people reach burnout with terrible consequences to their health and then often begin to make changes and then fall off the wagon of the changes.

So that's why I'm so passionate about micro habits, because at least they can be incorporated easily into our daily lives and lead to new habits and a new life without that constant sense of achievement, falling off the wagon, going back. That makes people feel a lot of shame and guilt about what they're doing. What do you think you would have said before you had your incident where you hit your head, which I hope you can share with my audience. If someone had told you six months before that, hey, look, you need to slow down, you're working too hard, you need to start applying micro habits. What do you think you would have said to them back then? You know, I think if they had mentioned micro habits, I might have listened more than if they

had said, you know, you need to really change your life, You need to give up X or not do Y. So that's why I think that the concept of micro habits, which was definitely not at all as prevalent in 2007, when I collapsed from burnout, hit my head on my desk and broke my cheekbone, and broke my cheekbone is, I think, a cause of tremendous optimism in helping people change their lives. And I know we're seeing amazing results. But the other thing that has to shift, as well as micro steps and micro habits, is our mindset. steps and micro habits is our mindset. Because if you had told me before I collapsed that, hey,

you know, there's another way to do your life and you're actually going to be more productive if you do it another way, I would have had to shift my mindset because my mindset was the mindset of our age which is to be successful to achieve a lot you just need to power through you just need to be on all the time you know everything else is supposed to be self-indulgent and being a bit of a research nerd you know I've looked at where did we get that idea from? And it goes back to the first industrial revolution when we started revering machines. And the goal with machines is the same as the goal with software, which is to minimize downtime. You know, we now, for example, proudly say when we launch a new piece of software that it has 99.999% uptime. Yeah. So that's really what we need to change first, the mindset.

And then through micro steps, we see how we can build new habits and new muscles. Yeah. No, for sure. Now, you mentioned the first industrial revolution there. Do you think we are currently in the middle of a new workplace revolution? Because things have changed now. Things have changed significantly. And how does this change impact what your company is trying to do and help people with their well-being? Yes, things have changed significantly because we've reached a point where where it's much harder to ignore the problems. Chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension and mental health crisis predate the pandemic.

But now with the pandemic is a huge crisis, but also a catalyst for fundamental changes here because it's like a forced pause. And during this pause, many, many people are looking at their lives and saying, hey, you know, maybe there's another way to live. Maybe we don't have to live in this state of frenzy. And we are finding among multiple populations, both those who are working from home and frontline workers, we have a big partnership with Walmart, for example, and are working with employees in the stores

and through our Thrive Zip-Up. And it's kind of amazing, Rangan, to see the results we're seeing. People are losing over 100 pounds and reversing diabetes through this one better choice a day, as we call it. One better choice. And there are small choices around food, around movement, around gratitude, sleep, family family and the changes they make and the other thing that we are finding um has a huge impact is storytelling yeah so they don't just make these changes in their lives they write about it and then their peers are encouraged to participate. Yeah.

I mean, storytelling is a very much underutilized tool, I think, in behavior change because humans, that's how we're wired, right? We love stories. You suddenly engage in a story in a way that you don't engage in just hard facts. And I spoke to our mutual friend BJ about this in LA last year. I was saying, you know, public health guidelines, I think often fail badly because they're just facts.

You know, it's just, you know, if you do this, you'll reduce your chance of this. And it's a bit boring. There needs to be some story around it that connects with people's hearts. Filmmakers know this, right? Filmmakers know this so, so well. And it's interesting that you have storytelling as a key part of helping people with their well-being. How did that come about? So, you know, what is interesting is that obviously i came from the world of media um having launched the huffington post i left the huffington post in 2016 to launch thrive

because i wanted to help people move from awareness to action and from simply knowing what they had to do to actually doing it. But I and a lot of the people who came with me to launch the new company came from the world of media. We were storytellers. That's what we did. And we also knew how to activate people to tell their own stories. knew how to activate people to tell their own stories. And that has been at the heart of our behavior change success at Thrive because we are finding that, let's say, if we go into a company, Rangan,

let's say a big multinational company like Accenture, and we work with our 500,000 employees, and we work with our 500,000 employees. And we get the CEO to tell her story of what she's doing. And then we get the intern to tell his story. And suddenly you have this whole internal marketing campaign, if you want, about how to change habits. internal marketing campaign, if you want, about how to change habits. While the old HR system, if you think of it, is you put a benefit out there and you pay based on utilization.

So there is no cultural change. Yeah. Yeah. And I love what you said about the CEO sharing their story, because I think that is so powerful when the guy or the woman at the top opens up, shows that vulnerability. That actually leads to vulnerability and more authenticity are going through, to share solutions. And they are small, like we just completed the leadership series at Walmart where people start using our app, but also have webinars. And then they all share their stories so you have all the stories that are populating the app so that you go to the app and it feels very personal because you have somebody you work with who is sharing just to give you an example how they stopped sleeping with their phone. And a microstep, they start their morning with one minute of deep breathing instead of rushing to their phone immediately. 60 seconds can be game-changing, which is unbelievable if you think.

It's such an incredible source of optimism that in 60 seconds, you can change the neural pathways of your brain and course correct from stress i don't know i find this one of the biggest gifts from god hey i agree i mean it just i mean i'm so passionate about this stuff like you i write about this stuff but even hearing you say, I can feel me getting excited because we think it's got to be tough. We think, oh, I've got to do 30 minutes of breath work a day or go to the gym five times a week. We really undervalue these small micro steps., what I love about this idea of storytelling is I'm interested in how you get people, they share stories. I wonder if you ask them, you know, to write their own

stories down perhaps, because what I found, Arianna, with patients when I've taken this approach is that they've tried things before. They've tried big lifestyle transformation in the past, and often it's failed, and then they feel like a failure, right? So it becomes their story, I am a failure. But when they start making micro changes, let's say it's a five-minute workout. I've spoken about this before. Every morning when my coffee brews for five minutes, in those five minutes, I do a workout in my kitchen. I don't go to a gym. I don't have time for that, but I do that micro step every day. And when I've done it with my patients, they start to change the story about themselves.

So they're no longer a failure. They start telling them a story that, hey, they start telling them a story that, hey, I can stick to a health regime. I'm the kind of person who works out every day or who does meditation every day. So I think the storytelling has, yes, storytelling to the world and our company, but also storytelling to ourself. Absolutely. I love that. And there's something else that you wrote in your book that I love, which I'd love you to repeat, which I've never heard before, but I'm loving it. And I'm now quoting you everywhere, which people may think, you know, five minutes, how can you change anything in five minutes? And you said, you know, if somebody told you to smoke cigarettes for five

minutes, three times a day, or anyway, you should say it's your story because it really immediately brings it home. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It's a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important, especially at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health.

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limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. thank you for sharing I'm glad it resonated because I mean there's two there's two strands to that there's I remember I can I can remember and you're someone who's I think written 15 books now you know I'm only on on book four but I remember writing this and I was sitting there thinking how can I make this How can I really make the point that these small habits are going to add up? And I remember just going out for walks trying to think, how can I make it simple so people get it? And then I thought, yeah, as you say, with bad habits, we understand if we were to smoke a cigarette five minutes continuously,

to smoke a cigarette five minutes continuously day after day, we understand we'd start to feel unwell, we'd cough, you know, we may not sleep so well. Or if we were to have a soft drink, a full sugar soft drink for five minutes, you have to continuously slurp it, you know, until the five minutes is up. You know, your mood is going to go down, your teeth are going to hurt, minutes is up, you know, your mood is going to go down, your teeth are going to hurt your, you know, we feel that but we don't see it in the same way with positive habits. And I think that's one of the big problems actually is how to sell the power of small positive steps. Well, here's the thing, I think we need to use what the fashion industry is using and the entertainment industry is using to sell things. They know how to connect to people's hearts and not just their minds. And I think we need to do a better job.

And that's what we did before we launched our behavior change app. We worked with a lot of people in the fashion industry in the entertainment industry a lot of that storytelling um came from that because how can the fashion industry convince a woman say making forty thousand dollars or pounds or euros whatever a year to buy a two thousand dollar Prada bag I mean it makes no sense right so something is activated that makes her feel that this is aspirational this is who she wants to be identified with and there are so many examples like that. So why not take the same tools to help people make the right, better choices for themselves? Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And it's so obvious when you say it, you almost think back

and go, well, why have we not widespread across society adopted this approach? Health is often very dry. It's very boring, right? It's not fun. And you know, what I loved about your book is the pictures you used. I love that you showed pictures where you, you know, they were so beautiful. And, you know, the flowers and the lemons and you walking through and their spaciousness. And so it had an impact, an unconscious impact. Yeah. As I was reading your prescriptions in a way, but they were presented in an aspirational environment. It wasn't luxurious, like something nobody else could have.

I'm super touched that you noticed that. And I've got to say, so my publisher in the UK are Penguin Life. They're the sort of publisher here. And I remember when my first book was coming out and we were talking about it and I shared the proposal and I thought, this is so interesting. What are people going to think of me? What are my colleagues, what are my medical colleagues going to think if I have a book with photos in? What's that going to do for my reputation? I have a book with photos in, you know, what's that going to do for my reputation? And then I was writing there and I thought, Rangan, why are you writing this book? Is it for your ego or are you actually writing it to help people? And I figured out, I did a bit of, you know, deep thinking for those few weeks and I thought, actually, you're writing this book because

you want to help people. You want to help as many people as possible. So the goal should be then, you want to make this book as accessible as possible, particularly to the people who need this more than anyone else. And once I got really clear at the intention behind writing it, it was really easy to say, yeah, okay, let's make this a beautiful designed aspirational book. A bit like you say the fashion industry, right? When they're trying to sell a product, they make it seem as though that's the life I want to lead. I want to be that woman in that dress or that guy wearing that suit and that watch. And it was very intentional. I think all my books are published in that way,

certainly here in the UK. And I actually think they really bring the lifestyle i'm trying to promote with people it helps to bring it to life absolutely and you want to have an impact exactly that's what you're about i mean you said you want to affect a hundred million people yeah right um to start living a healthier lifestyle well Well, how do you do that? You've got to use everything at our disposal. And also there is a sense of urgency. So many people are destroying their lives because of unhealthy choices. And also because they think it's impossible to make healthy choices it's so hard it requires so much discipline and willpower and I think what all the new science and what the work

you are doing and I'm doing and BJ Fogg is doing is telling us that no you can't depend on willpower to change your habit yeah no for sure can for sure. Can I ask you, the storytelling piece really interests me. So let's say a company signs up with Thrive, and you provide and your company provides help and well being for them. How do they tell their story? I find that super fascinating. How do you help them do that? So basically, with all our big customers, what we bring to them in terms of the app and the webinars comes with an internal marketing campaign. we create videos and stories within the company and then often in most cases an external marketing campaign because then they use it to be identified as the company that cares for its employees, which therefore leads to better recruitment, less attrition, and better business metrics generally.

So you see, that for me is the complete cycle. Our app is like the coach in your pocket that reminds you to do these things. It's divided into these four journeys that are the interconnected life I think one of the problems with behavior change ups is they tend to be point solutions like you have the meditation up or you have the steps up or you have the sleep up and the truth is that everything is interconnected like if you don't sleep enough or well, it's going to affect what you eat. It's going to affect how much you move, et cetera. So our app is broken down into these four journeys.

Recharge, which is about sleep and 60-second research during the day. Fuel, which is about movement and what you eat. Connect, which is connecting with others but starting with connecting with yourself and focus how do you get your brain to focus broken down into hundreds of micro steps all of them with the storytelling people who've who've practiced different micro steps they impact its head into their lives and then inviting the user to tell their story. Yeah, incredible.

60 second resets. I think my audience would be super interested in what they are. So I wonder if you could expand. Thank you so much for asking me about that, Rangan, because it's my absolute favorite feature. And actually, we are launching it with Zoom as what they are calling a Zap, an app within Zoom, so that in between endless Zoom meetings, instead of going through Zoom fatigue, you can play this reset.

So let me tell you how it works. Reset is a feature in our app and will be something you can launch on your Zoom app that comes preloaded with guides like a gratitude guide, a breathing guide, a stretching guide that basically helps you for 60 seconds course correct from stress. But the best feature about it is that it allows you to create your own personalized guide.

So my guide, for example, has pictures of my kids when they were young and unproblematic. Pictures of our dog, pictures of my favorite quotes, landscapes, and a piece of music, Yo, Yo, Ma, playing Ave Maria, that really relaxes me. And all that with a breathing pacer. All that takes place in 60 seconds. Wow. So this is something, let's say you and I, before we started our conversation, could have played each other's guides.

It would have taken us two minutes, but it would have brought us even closer together, although I think we're feeling very close. But for people who are not as close in a business meeting, let's say you and I are in a business meeting and then I play my guide or you play your guide. It suddenly brings some new intimacy and authenticity to the meeting. So sharing those guides is another feature that we're excited about. Yeah, that is really, really exciting, especially partnering with Zoom, because the impact there could be huge. exciting, especially partnering with Zoom, because the impact there could be huge. Because these are, they're such little things that have such a big impact. What's really interesting is that I, and actually, this is something I wanted to talk to you about is your culture within Thrive. I think,

did you call it compassionate directness? And I loved it. And before you answer that, I just want to give you a bit of context for me. So I went to medical school to become a doctor. So I was trained to be an NHS, National Health Service doctor. And that's what I was doing. But because of my sort of frustrations that we were serving only a small population of our patients well, that we were serving only a small population of our patients well. And because I think 80% of what we see is related to our collective modern lifestyles, I wanted to see, well, how can I help people? How can I help my patients? And then I realized the power of the media to sort of, if you can try and get a message out there, you can impact a lot of people. Now, as part of that journey, I ended up starting this podcast a couple of years ago, which has grown so quickly to becoming the biggest health show in

Europe. And I love doing it. But why that's relevant to the question, Arianna, is I used to work for myself. I worked for the NHS. I'd go and do my job. Now I have a team of about seven or eight people to help get this show out each week. And I didn't learn how to run a team, right? I learned how to run myself. And when I saw, I read an article that you wrote on compassionate directness, and I loved it. I read it on Sunday. I've not stopped thinking about it since. And I'm looking forward to putting it into action with various members of the team and certainly hopefully within my little small team from all of us. So could you explain what it is and how you came up with it? So I came up with it by observing what makes cultures toxic. You know, I was on the board of Uber during Uber's crisis.

And I saw that the most toxic thing in a culture is when people don't express what they're upset about, but they sit on it. And these resentments become bigger and bigger. And so I wanted to create a culture, both within Thrive and with the companies we work with, that honors expressing what you're feeling in a compassionate way.

That's why we said compassionate directness rather than adversarially and not sitting on it. And when you do that, most of the time you can clear the air. You can deal with it. Often people are not mind readers. We forget that. And we assume they know how we are feeling, but we don't. And also to make sure that it's not a hierarchical concept, like an intern on your podcast should feel free to express something that's not working for her or him to you rather than feeling that, oh, you know, it's not my place to express it.

And it's not just about grievances. It's also about good ideas. Somebody may have an idea. They need to be empowered to express. But the corollary is the recognition that any successful company cannot be a debating society. At some point, you have to make a decision. And then I love Jeff Bezos's principle of disagree and commit yeah I love it I'm actually reflecting on it quite a lot of the moments and thinking just it's it's

very hard as you tell that story it's hard for me not to try and try and relay that to various episodes that have happened and things that continues to happen and how we're trying to improve things. I think compassionate directness is such a lovely term. But then Arianna, it reminds me of something you said at the start of the conversation. So business relationships, getting teams to work well in business, actually the same themes are there outside business, right? So that kind of works. Compassionate directness, I reckon, is going to work with my wife, with my children, with my friends. So do you see much difference between work culture and home culture?

Absolutely, not at all. In in the most intimate important relationships in our lives always things come up that we're not happy about I mean even in the most loving marriage I mean I'm divorced but you can speak to it and things come up you know whether it's tiny things like who took the garbage out or bigger things and I feel they're all solvable if they're expressed. Yeah yeah and that we know more and more that it's toxic to hold on to emotions actually that's a huge stressor on the body not being able to express that that is bad bad for your health. You know, there's so much research and data mounting up on that, right? Absolutely. And I think what you write about, you know, the importance of tackling the underlying stress underneath all these chronic conditions, because otherwise,

as you said, your patients were going to revert back to what they were doing if you don't tackle what the underlying stresses are. Yeah, fantastic. Irene, before you said that you started Thrive to take people from awareness to action. And I really love that as an idea. But as I think about it more, what about people who are not even at that awareness stage? And again, I'm sort of saying many of us, we can see it clearly in other people. If we saw a Hollywood film about somebody who was working hard, they were sleep deprived, they were starting

to be annoying, they were starting to have arguments with people around them. We can see it easily in someone else's life, yet we find it pretty hard to see in our own life. So how do you take people to awareness, which is of course the first step of any change? So, you know, awareness is for me twofold. The first is, let's take sleep. Sleep is a good example because really, until relatively recently, we didn't even think sleep was important. So it was like we saw, in fact, sleep deprivation as a badge of honor. Look at the language. You know, I'll sleep when I'm dead. You snooze, you lose.

Businessmen especially bragging about how they pulled all-nighters, et cetera. So the first thing around awareness was simply giving people the data and the science. Yeah. But that was not enough. That's what I discovered. People might have known that sleep was important, but then not being able to sleep well in their own life. So that's where the gap between awareness and action happens. And as you are implying, people are on different parts of the journey.

There are still people who are still not convinced that sleep is important, but there are fewer and fewer. And the same way around sugar, say. There are still people who think it's not a problem to be eating lots of sugar every day, but fewer and fewer. So the hard thing now is moving people from knowing they should be getting enough sleep, they should be reducing sugar intake,

to actually being able to do it consistently. Yeah, no, for sure. I agree. And I think one of the, I hesitate to say one of the upsides of the current global situation, but I think it's okay to recognize that anything negative also often has a flip side of positive. I don't think that's insensitive to sort of say that. And I actually think that people are getting squeezed so much that actually people are realizing now, wow, health and well-being is important. My stress is important. My sleep is important. Are you as a company seeing more problems now that people are you know working from home do you see them actually you know because obviously boundaries

is a massive issue now for people how how has that sort of played out in in terms of what you've seen Yes, absolutely. We're seeing, first of all, many more mental health problems. And what we're seeing is that now business executives, CEOs, CFOs, you know, are actually recognizing that because it's a business problem. So the mental resilience of employees is no longer the province of human resources departments. Everybody in the business cares about them. That's a huge shift. These are no longer seen as nice to have benefits. They are seen as existential for the business. And we are working with many companies, for example,

to give them a better understanding of where their employees are. We've built a mental resilience dashboard, for example, that gives management a view, anonymized and aggregated, so there are no privacy concerns, as to where their employees are in terms of their mental resilience as well as their burnout risk. And that is so important for employers to know because it's kind of a leading indicator of where the business is going to be. Yeah.

And there's so much new science. There's a new piece of science coming out of Yale that shows that when employees are stressed, it's going to affect their productivity. It sounds obvious, but it hasn't been obvious for management. They literally cannot get their brain to focus because their prefrontal cortex shuts down and they move into a fight or flight response. Now, that's a huge business problem. And that's what I think is the shift. And what you said about the upside of the pandemic, yes, it's as a Stanford economist said many years ago, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. So now we have an opportunity to actually use this crisis to change what was not working pre-pandemic. Yeah, absolutely. Another article I saw that you wrote recently,

you mentioned that it's important to declare an end to the day, even when you haven't completed everything. I think that is such powerful advice. And I wonder if you could sort of explain what exactly you mean by that and how that can help people. Yes, you know um it's really amazing that um declaring an end to the day is one of my favorite micro steps right now because the truth is that the vast majority of people do not have an end to their day. You know, we could all stay answering emails,

handling things through the night. So we need to declare it. And I believe in rituals. So I believe in a little ritual. And my ritual is turning off my phone and charging it outside my room. In fact, Thrive has launched only one product and we are selling it at cost because we are selling it to help people change habits rather than as a profit-making exercise. It's a little bed. It's a phone charging a little bed with a

blankie and you can under the blankie, tuck them in, say good night. I'm going to send you one Rangan as a gift. Great for your kids. Your kids are nine and seven, right? Ranganath Nalwaniyar. Yeah, 10 and seven now. Yeah. And they probably don't have phones yet they don't and this is something that's well a you know they know what daddy stands for what he writes about in his books but um for me there's a conflict between knowing what this what this technology can do but not wanting my son or my daughter to be a social outcast in terms of what

the rest of their friends are doing and it's something I'm wrestling with myself if I'm honest. Well I think Rangan just being able to set boundaries like when you have your phone bed teaching for example your son that's where your phone sleeps from the beginning. It's not a punishment. It's like the way we teach our kids to brush their teeth. We teach them phone hygiene. Because one of the biggest problems is that teenagers sleep with their phones. I mean, we all sleep with our phones. Unless we consciously choose not to sleep with their phones that's the default position so they sleep with their phones and then in the middle of the night they snap and they tick-tock and then they wake up exhausted and that's the vicious cycle so I think for me that's why we

actually called it the family phone bed, because we wanted it to be used by families. It has room for 10 phones to teach each other and support each other in building these good habits. I think that's one of the best things I've ever heard, a phone bed. It's such a lovely concept, isn't it? And I like that's one of the best things I've ever heard. A phone bed. It's such a lovely concept, isn't it? And I like that idea that it's not a punishment. You know, your phone, your beloved phone needs to rest. Here's a nice bed for it. I can't wait to see it. It sounds really, really cool, actually. You've obviously written an amazing book on sleep. And, you know, what are the habits that you do

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

happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life, and I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change. Now journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours

into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are of course many different ways to journal. And as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you. One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal. In it, you will find a really simple and structured way

of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening. Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes, but the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel. Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three

question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal, or click on the link in your podcast app. Well, the science is very clear that unless you have a genetic mutation, and that's interesting, some people who are listening may have a genetic mutation. One to one and a half percent of the population does, and they don't need a lot of sleep. You can take a genetic test, or if you are conscious, you probably know if you have it or not. I know I don't have it. If I get four hours, I'm like a zombie.

I need eight hours. People need somewhere between seven and nine to be fully recharged, to go through all the cycles. Think of it like a dishwasher. In my book on sleep, you can see that it's like you need to complete all the cycles. And the dishwasher is a good metaphor because you wouldn't say, I'm going to take the laundry out 15 minutes early because I'm in a hurry. Well, you're going to end up with wet and dirty laundry because you have not completed the cycles.

And sleep is as important for the body as it is for the brain. It's the only time when we can clear the toxins from the brain. And that's why now there are all these findings about the connection between sleep deprivation and Alzheimer's. Yeah. Yeah, it's so fascinating. It's so fascinating. I absolutely agree that charging your phone outside the bedroom is, it's such a, it's like a keystone habit. If you get that right, the things are designed to be addictive. It's not a failing on your part. You know, if you have it next to your bed and you wake up at three o'clock to use the bathroom and you then look at it on your way back, that's not because you're weak. It's, you know, it's designed for you to touch it and play with it and do things. So I agree with you, you know, keeping it outside of the bedroom. If I bring it into the bedroom, which I do sometimes still, I mostly don't, but I'm human, I'm tempted, you know, I struggle,

you know, I can't get off the thing. In fact, my wife and I have a deal with each other, which is like, we've got full permission to, you know, tell the other one, leave that phone in the kitchen, leave it, it charges in the kitchen overnight is basically how we try and do it right and that's fantastic to have like an accountability body so you are each other's accountability body um and then no judgments i mean one of the things we uh we tell our the people we work with this, you know, yes, we're not going to do it perfectly. No judgments. Let's just do it the next night. Yeah, no, for sure.

Irina, I wanted to talk about your own mother because I've heard you talk about her on multiple occasions and what an amazing influence she was on you. What would you say some of the key lessons that she taught you were? So one of the key lessons was around failure. You know, she used to say that failure is not the opposite of success. It's a stepping stone to success. And so she really taught my sister and me to be very willing to take risks and to be willing to fail along the way. And that made a big difference in, you know, starting businesses or even launching books,

because when you publish a book, you never know how it's going to be received. And a lot of people shy away from that. So I think that was a big, big lesson from her. Another one was her unconditional loving, which I think the greatest gift we can give to our children because it also empowered me to reach for whatever I wanted to achieve knowing that if I didn't she wouldn't love me any less yeah wonderful and are those two lessons that you think you have managed to also pass on to your own children? I often ask them because I always have been judging myself against having an amazing mother and they tell me I do. And I, you know, my kids went through a lot of problems.

You know, my youngest daughter dealt with anorexia. My oldest daughter dealt with drugs. She's been sober for eight years now. So it's not like it was a story of linear success. But we kind of, all everything we went together I feel that um they've become so much more um resilient and loving towards others and actually my my youngest daughter who is a painter she um did art at Yale and she's made her living by painting um now has her first book coming out I'll send it to you uh it was kind of interesting she

she was hit by a bike in New York two and a half years ago and hit her head hard on the pavement and suffered from debilitating headaches and a lot of other medical problems as a result and during that time she she had her own like a spiritual awakening and so she wrote this book which is an audible original coming out in November which was going to be called my cosmic quarrel with the universe and other minor matters but now it's called the map to the unknown but it was kind of interesting for her generation in her 20s grappling with this big existential questions of God and the universe and meaning plus chronic pain and and it was wonderful and being very funny I think sometimes using humor even during difficult moments in our lives is one of the best ways to get our messages across.

Yeah, for sure. Thank you for sharing that. And yeah, I look forward to reading your daughter's book. It sounds incredible. You mentioned she had a spiritual awakening. And I've often got the thought in my head as I've spent a lot of time reading about you over the last few days, actually. And as I said, it's really been very enjoyable. There's so much out there. But often I've heard things like you mentioned Stoic philosophy, or you mentioned the Indian texts, the Bhagavad Gita. And I've often thought, are you spiritual? How do you feel that these are you spiritual? How do you feel that these ancient texts and these ancient philosophies, how and can they help us in the modern 21st century? Oh, a thousand percent. In fact, the last piece I wrote in my newsletter, I'll send it to you, is about all of our spiritual quests. And I wrote a book in the 90s about it, which don't worry, about four people read. So don't worry if you didn't read it, which was called The Fourth Instinct.

instinct, and for me, if you think of the first three instincts being survival, sex, and power, you know, different biologists and psychologists give them different names, but these are the three acknowledged instincts. I think you can't understand human behavior without looking at what I call the fourth instinct, which is our instinct towards meaning and something larger than ourselves, which if you want is the spiritual instinct. And a lot of people have rejected it because they've rejected organized religion. But the instinct is an instinct. And organized religion is just one of thousands of manifestations. And ancient wisdom, whether it's in the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao in China or Zen in Japan or the Stoics, is just really many different ways to describe one universal truth, which is that we all have in us that place of wisdom peace and strength

and most of the time we are completely disconnected from it and all these pauses that we are encouraging people to bring into their lives are about giving us opportunities to reconnect to that place, which is our birthright. We all have it. Yeah, I completely agree. And you know, I'm in my early 40s. I find that, you know, my mother was very religious. She would pray every day. I was surrounded by that at home. She's a Hindu, like a lot of Indian families are. But I would consider myself a bit more spiritual than religious. I feel there has got to be something greater than just me. There's got to be, not there's got to be, there is. I very much value solitude. Actually, when you're talking about micro habits, I actually think one of the

most important micro habits for anybody anywhere in the world today is solitude. And I think these phones are one of the reasons why, because for all their benefits, you know, if you look at that thing first thing in the morning and you're looking at it until you go to bed, you don't have any time to yourself. Everything is external. Everything is reactive. And so I am always talking about solitude to my patients and to the public. Say, you know, even 10 minutes, even five minutes of solitude a day where you're not on that device and you're not consuming something else, you know, just allow your thoughts to come up. I mean, it's something I crave more and more. And actually, I guard it very, very rigidly in my life. I wonder what your thoughts are on solitude. And do you take steps to make sure you get some each day? Yes, absolutely. And you're absolutely right, first of all, about the phone being like the greatest enemy of solitude and reconnecting with ourselves.

Because basically, those moments of solitude are competing with all the stimulation from our phone, and it's a hard competition. So we need, first of all, to understand the value of solitude, and that's why I think breaking it down into these one-minute or five-minute increments makes a big difference because you are not asking for a big commitment and for me it's I start my day like that I start my day with meditation and and then at night I I always love to read something which has nothing to do with my work. The spiritual text. Listen, you come from such amazing culture.

I spent time in India when I was 18 studying comparative religion at Shantaniketan University outside Calcutta. And I love the country, the culture, the food, everything. But the wisdom. And when we do our work in India or in China, we try to connect everything we are saying with their ancient wisdom. Because even if people are disconnected from it, something in their DNA resonates. disconnected from it, something in their DNA resonates. So we've done, you know, a whole series on Chinese ancient wisdom,

for example, and the Tao, a video series that we incorporate in our app. And also invite people to tell their stories. A lot of modern people are actually still practicing different parts of their ancient traditions, but they don't speak about it as much. Yeah. You know, it's funny, as I'm sure you may, or maybe with your kids, maybe be familiar with this. But, you know, my parents came over from India to the UK. And so like many immigrant families, you have this, particularly in your teenage years, you have this real clash with trying to fit in with the culture around you versus the culture you have at home. And it's funny, this rich Indian culture that has been there, I think I suppressed for years. I think I

wouldn't allow it to come out and flourish in me because I wanted to be Western. I wanted to do what my friends were doing. But it's funny, as I sort of tap into myself, as I get a little bit older, I'm really reconnecting with it. I'm reading the Gita at the moment. Actually, that's the book I read at the moment in the morning. And it's funny, you can often think that, you know, what did these guys know? We're in a different world now. We've got technology, we're busy. But you know what? It's amazing how many of those truths ring true just as much today. just as much today. Oh, absolutely. And indeed, science is validating ancient wisdom. Yeah. And the Gita really described these three lives. I think it's like such a prophetic description. I don't know if you got to that passage, you know, which is, you know, the life

of inertia, you know, what we would call today the couch potato. And, you know, there are still some people like that, but that's not the big problem. The second life is the life of business, extreme frenetic business, which is our modern life. And the third life is the life that we are aspiring to now, that we want to create. So it was just like beautifully expressed in the poetry of the Gita, but also completely validated by the latest neuroscience. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it's never been easier, has it, to get away from ourselves. And again, I don't want to blame phones for everything. I think there's so many incredible things that phones do. Of course, I want to make that clear.

But at the same time, we never have to be uncomfortable anymore. Any moment of discomfort or having to sit with our own thoughts, we can numb that straight away. It doesn't have to be alcohol or cigarettes or any more or sugar. It can be those things, but we can just pull out of our pocket, our smartphone and distract ourselves for hours, can't we? Absolutely. And it's something that we need to be very conscious about dealing with and setting boundaries. In the social dilemma, it shows how this is deliberate. This is not just accidental, that these phones come programmed with all the hooks, all the neuroscientific hooks that make us addicted. Yeah. I actually think it goes beyond our own health. I actually have been reflecting a your history, the things that you look at,

with the algorithms. It just keeps pushing to you everything that you've positively consumed with a dopamine hit. How can your wife compete? How can your kids compete? It's actually an unfair battle. And I would go as far as to say, I think phones or the unintentional use of our smartphones is not just impacting our health it's damaging our most important relationships I completely agree with you completely agree and it's I mean the way you are describing it. It's like describing the most amazing mistress. Yeah. You know, gorgeous, sexually trained, incredibly intellectual. You could bring everything together and knowing what are your buttons.

It's not just like a generalized ideal mistress, but each person's ideal one. Yeah, that's a beautiful description. You should write a piece about that. Yeah, no, I'd love to. I'm writing a few things down at the moment. It's just an idea that I can't throw from my brain. I just think it's super important. And one of my favorite things that is each night, and I don't know if you've got to this bit in my

book yet, but it's the tea ritual that I do with my wife every night. And it's just five minutes. It's a commitment that we all sit once the kids are in bed with a pot of mint tea. And we were literally without devices, the commitment is just five minutes to catch up with each other. If it happens to be half an hour and 40 minutes, that's great. But if it's only five minutes, then that's enough. And you know, that micro habit, when we do it, it results in a more intimate relationship, a closer, a more loving relationship. And when we don't do it, little niggles start to build up. And, you know, we're so, both of us are so passionate about these micro habits, but I really just want to hammer home to people, they really make a difference,

even if you just choose one and stick to it. I love it. Look at your book, Underlined with Stickies. I'm very touched. And I absolutely love also the tea ritual. I mean, tea is another ritual. And I practice it a lot you know um I mean this is actually one of the things that the Indians and the and the English have in common right I mean the the cup of tea that's supposed to solve all problems there is something about it yeah no for sure absolutely and again it goes back to what you say the ritual the ritualistic aspects of, we could do that without a tea.

We could just sit there. But there's something about the tea, the making of it, the pouring it out, right? And that's why, you know, the Japanese have this 30 minutes to make a cup of tea, right? But that just shows how important it can be. And I think it brings a lot of intimacy and closeness. And actually, that's one thing I do want to talk about is that you have consistently been ahead of the curve in your career, whether it's your first book when you're writing about women should be given equal respect, whether they choose to be mothers, whether they choose to work, whatever it is.

In the early 1970s, that's way ahead of its time when it came to prime time. You also did the same, I think, with Thrive Global in terms of it's now needed more than ever. It was very prophetic, I think, in terms of what's required. But when I heard you talk about the Huffington Post, there's something you said that really struck a deep chord with me. And again, if I've got this slightly incorrect, please correct me. But it was about this idea that just before you started it, you saw bloggers and you thought, well, these are more conversational. There's real authenticity in these blogs. And you sort of took advantage of that with your amazing platform, The HuffPost. And I also see a very similar pattern with podcasting today in that why are podcasts exploding? Why are they the fastest growing outlet in media. And I think it's because we are craving authenticity and we're sick of

soundbites and the mainstream media, a one minute cut conversation right down. And I have purposely gone to these longer form conversations. And again, I say conversations, they're not interviews, they're conversations and they're just getting more and more popular so I just thought it was quite an interesting comparison what you saw in the was it the early 2000s I think for the we launched half post in 2005 yeah so do you see like in terms of I wonder if you could just have I got that right in terms of your perception of the media landscape back then and then do you see a similarity in terms of podcasting and why that's exploding absolutely and I love what you said the key is conversation it's not like an interview and I mean that's what I love about your podcast that

is really conversational and you speak about your life your guest speaks about their life and that's that's what resonates with people and I think that's why you see this explosion in podcast and important and and inside the conversation there are a lot of things that people can take away for their own lives and we are both passionate about that we are passionate about having an impact and i love that you um you said you know you want to impact 100 million people because i'm equally ambitious and that's why i was so excited when we launched this partnership with Walmart to be the exclusive wellness provider for the 2.2 million employees. I thought, great, that's a large number. And also to be able to support not just people who have the luxury to work from home now,

but for people who are in stores, in factories, and to see the impact there. Take a look at, we launched an Instagram account, ThriveZip, Z-P. And really, it's going to touch your heart to read these stories and to see the changes people are making in their lives through these small, tiny, better choices.

Yeah, just amazing work you continue to do, Arianna. And when I hear that 2.2 million, I think that's not just 2.2 million people, because there's a ripple effect from that. That's their partner, their children, their parents, their friends, right? That's how this stuff spreads. If they do an act of gratitude as a microstep and they share that with their family and then their family share it with one of their friends, well, it's not 2.2 million people anymore. It's probably 50 million, right? Absolutely.

That's such a good point. And their community. And we are actually now working with whole communities, like in Muskegon, Michigan, was the first community to work with, and try and bring everything that can possibly lead to these small, better habits. I mean, we've gamified a lot of it. We've launched 21-day challenges with financial rewards. We have 15 winners every month, and the rewards range from $1,000 to $25,000.

So basically, why not use every possible incentive? So basically, why not use every possible incentive? If you think of it, companies and the whole industries use terrible incentives to hook people into bad behaviors. We should not be above using the same incentives to hook people into good behaviors. Yeah. Well, ultimately, it's human behavior, isn't it? We're motivated a certain way. There's a certain way to get humans to do what you want them to do. And as you say, these so-called bad behaviors, they've mastered how to do it. So let's use the same techniques.

Aaron, as we come towards the end, I always like to leave people with practical type tips. You know, I want hopefully some inspiration from the conversation, but I also want them to take away some practical things that they can start doing in their own life. Now, before we get to that, I again want to acknowledge you for the amazing work you continue to do. You quoted, I think it was in your interview with Oprah maybe, which I heard at the weekends. Because I love quotes and have a few kicking around the house. I love a lot of the... Yeah, I just love them because they really help you look at things in a slightly different way. And I've never heard that roomy one that

you shared with Oprah, I think, live life as if it is rigged in your favor. That made me stop, press pause, and just think about, if you start applying that to everything in life, even when things aren't going well, you just go, oh no, that's rigged for me. It's really, really powerful. I wonder if you could share why that's so powerful for you, and if there's any other quotes that you want to share with my audience. Yeah, so Robert, this is my favorite quote precisely because when I look back on my life, there were so many things that didn't happen the way I wanted them. Some of them were heartbreaks. And when I look back, I think, oh, my God, that that was the best thing that could possibly have happened.

I mean, I was in love with this man, for example, in England, who was an unbelievable writer. You can check him out, Bernard Levin. And we were together for seven years, but he didn't want to have children. He only wanted to have cats. And I was clear I wanted to have children. clear I wanted to have children so I ended up literally leaving England to basically leave this man because I didn't trust myself that I would be able to stay in London and not go back to him so everything that happened in my life really my whole life in the States, my books, my children, the Huffington Post, Thrive Global, happened because a man wouldn't marry me. Good to remember that when things go wrong. And for me,

that's really what rooming means in terms of live life as though everything is rigged in your favor, because you never know until you look back. Yeah, that's wonderful, wonderful advice for all of us. Ariana, the podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of life. So in all your years of experience, both personally and professionally, can you leave my listeners, my viewers, with some really practical tips that they can think about applying into their own life immediately to improve the quality of their lives? Absolutely. And it's back to micro steps.

So I would really want to leave you with three of my favorite micro steps. We already mentioned one, which is pick a time at the end of your day that you declare the end of your day. Mark it by turning off your phone and charging it outside your room. And that also means this is the moment you stop consuming coronavirus news, which is essential if you're going to have a recharging night's sleep. The second favorite micro step is how you start your day. 60 seconds before you go to your phone. And those 60 seconds are key because that's the time to focus on your breath, remember what you're grateful for, set your intention for the day, something where you have agency over the rest of your how most of us start the day. Like, what does the world want of me instead of what do I want from my day and from the world? And the third thing, something that you write about in your book as well, is the recognition that breath is our superpower.

And we have to remember that throughout the day at different moments. You know, stress is unavoidable. Cumulative stress is not. And if we can arrest the cycle of stress, we truly transform our health and our productivity. And, you know, you're a doctor, so when you say that how important it is to recognize that our behaviors trump our genetics. That is key. And stress is at the heart of that. And breath is, again, our superpower.

You talk about a three, four, five breath. Another favorite breathing technique I want to leave your listeners with that the Navy SEALs practice here in the States is box breathing, which is inhale to the count of four, pause to the count of four, exhale to the count of four, whatever, experiment. That's what's wonderful about that. Experiment, but find something that you can return to multiple times during the day when you're stressed.

There are times when you're so stressed, you may not even remember that you can breathe more consciously. Well, during those times, you can just play your prearranged reset guide with all the things you love about your life as a reminder of what you are grateful for because Rangan, as you know, gratitude is the greatest antidote to stress and anxiety. Yeah, that's such wonderful advice.

Of course, everything that you've spoken about today, we will link to. I'd love people to do that reset. I'm looking forward to creating my own, actually. That sounds wonderful. Ariana, really, it's been such an honor to talk to you today. You have been incredible. You've been open. You've been authentic. You've shared so much wisdom. You've offered to send me so many things. I'm definitely going to send you a copy of my second book, The Stress Solution. I really think you'll like it. It's from a couple of years back. But I've got this concept of micro stress doses and macro stress doses that I'm pretty sure you're going to resonate with. So I'll put one in the post tomorrow for you. I hope you enjoy that. But honestly, my honor to speak to you today.

Thank you so much. And hopefully we'll get the chance to do this again, but face to face when the world starts to return back to normal. Thank you so much, Rangan. Thank you for all you're doing. And let's keep finding ways to work together. For sure.

Thank you. So what did you think? Did you enjoy the conversation? Did you like the tips that Ariana shared? As always, have a think about one thing that you can take from today's show and apply into your own life. And of course, do let Ariana and I what you thought of

today's show on social media. She's on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. And if you go to the show notes page on my website, you will see links to her app, her books, and some really great articles about her and ones that she has written, including that one on compassionate directness. Now, as you heard in the conversation, Ariana is a big fan of my third book, Feel Better in Five, which really helps you to transform your physical, mental, and emotional health in small five-minute chunks. So if that interests you, it is available pretty much all over the world now, UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Sweden, Holland, so many countries,

and you can pick up your copy in paperback, ebook, or as an audio book, which I am narrating now. Is this a conversation you think somebody in your life needs to hear. I want to take a moment right now to choose a few people who you think would benefit from hearing this episode and send them a link with a personal note. This is such an impactful thing to do. It serves as an act of kindness that has benefits not just for the other person, but for you as well. And don't forget this episode, like all of them, is also available on YouTube if they prefer videos as opposed to audio podcasts. A big thank you to my wife, Vedanta Chatterjee, for producing this week's podcast, and to Richard Hughes for audio engineering. Have a wonderful week. Make sure you have pressed

subscribe, and I'll be back in one week's time with my latest conversation. Remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it because when you feel better, you live more. I'll see you next time.