Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | Daily Habits to Reduce Stress and Anxiety | Dr Tara Swart #313

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel packs to

Starting point is 00:00:51 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 116 of the podcast with Dr. Tara Swartz, neuroscientist, executive coach and author of the bestselling book, The Source. In this clip, she explains how to build micro habits into your day that can increase your resilience to stress. There are some people that are just under so much pressure and they can't make time for themselves. So I think embedding micro habits, doing those small things that, you know, in your busy life, you say, oh, I wish I could get into the habit of exercising, taking supplements, but you don't do it. Well, try to focus on those small things that will actually make your brain and your body more able to cope with the stress that you're going through even if it's just having a bath

Starting point is 00:02:09 you know maybe with some magnesium salts because magnesium you know it sort of reduces levels of the stress hormone so because people who are stressed have high levels of circulating cortisol the stress hormone there's a systemic dryness you know we've got dry skin dry hair there might be issues with um you know bowel movements and things so just paying attention to drinking more water i love your you know five minutes a day and there's 30 or more tips in your book isn't there things that you can do for five minutes um my one is so i keep my yoga mat out in my bedroom because it's that trigger, you know, you sort of feel a little bit.

Starting point is 00:02:48 A yoga teacher once said to me when I asked, how do you get into the habit of a daily practice? You don't always have 90 minutes or an hour or even half an hour necessarily. And she said, if you leave your yoga mat out, even if you just lie on it for five minutes, that's a daily practice. even if you just lie on it for five minutes that's a daily practice if you can do 90 minutes the next day or you know an hour or whatever that's more of your practice but even if you just lie on your mat for five minutes then you've done you've connected with your yoga mat every day and last time we talked about self-love which I think is more important than ever now and I think even just lying on that mat is telling yourself I I care for myself. I love myself. I'm taking this time because

Starting point is 00:03:30 me being well and whole is important. And so doing these things that can also reduce your stress levels. So, you know, taking a bath, lying on your yoga mat, doing yoga, whatever it is for you that you know is the thing that reduces your stress. I mean, my one is that it's a, you know, a bath with the magnesium salts. And if I, you know, if I'm having a really bad day, I'll just go straight up to the bath. And, you know, keeping on top of things like ordering your magnesium salts, even that's an act of self-care, remembering to top up the stuff that you need to keep you going when you're not having a good day, but then absolutely focusing on the good days. It's so amazing to hear you say this. And I just want to, for people listening to this

Starting point is 00:04:17 now, just let me just re-emphasize, Tara is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, health coach, neuroscientist, lecturer at MIT, executive coach. You know, I could list that off. The point I'm trying to make is with all your specialist qualification in a number of different fields, you're still saying even five minutes a day of lying on a yoga mat has value and I really want people listening to this to really really absorb that and go it really makes a difference you know it's just so aligned with what I also stand for I think micro habits are very much undervalued you know I've been speaking about five minute interventions and how five minutes can make a huge difference. And we all have five minutes, right? We all have five minutes. So

Starting point is 00:05:11 if we analyze our day and what we've spent time doing, I would challenge most people to say they don't have five minutes in the day for a bit of self-care, you know, and it could be anything. It could be five minutes of journaling first thing in the morning. It could of self-care, you know, and it could be anything. It could be five minutes of journaling first thing in the morning. It could be last thing at night. It could be just before you have your lunch or your dinner, you do a quick five minute workout. And even if once a day you do five bicep curls on each arm, if that's all you do, that is still self-care. That is still sending a signal to your body saying, you know what? I prioritise myself. I'm a strong human being that's thriving.

Starting point is 00:05:50 And we really shouldn't undervalue the value and just how impactful these small micro habits are, especially when you do them consistently. I just want to add to that and say a lot of Professor BJ Fogg's work from Stanford on behavior change talks about the importance of tiny habits. And really even the point where even if you do one minute, you're still engaging in that. You're still going through the process of creating that habit. Like if you make one or two minutes or even five minutes your goal, if you do one or two minutes, you get your tick. Some days you'll do 10 minutes, some days you'll do 20 minutes, but on your bad day, still lie on the mat, still do your two minutes or your five minutes. And it takes the pressure off. And I

Starting point is 00:06:39 also like what he talks about, you've said this this before about how emotion also helps us um create these habits a positive emotion right so with your clients with the people you coach do you talk to them about how to create those positive emotions after they've engaged in habits yeah so the way that the word that i use but we're talking about the same thing is intention so it's your intention or desire to do something does make a difference to how likely you are to do it. And then the enjoyment of it also has a different effect on your brain of producing endorphins that make you, you know, they create a sort of motivational pathway where you want to do that activity more. So basically choosing something that you enjoy or is really meaningful to you. For me, that story of even if you lie on your yoga mat for five minutes,

Starting point is 00:07:32 in my mind, that's become associated with self-care and self-love. So it means a lot more to me than just lying on my mat for five minutes. And so each person needs to find that thing for themselves because when the intention is that positive and meaningful you're both more likely to do it and more likely to get more benefit out of it for your brain and your body so I have this really nice practice that I'm doing in the morning so as soon as I wake up otherwise I find that I don't do it um that's quite that's a tip I've been helping my clients with saying if something's important to you for your self-care do it first thing in the morning um because there's so many distractions so I ask myself a question whatever I'm working on at the moment and I ask it to my brain for a logical answer and then I do some deep breathing and then I place my hands on my heart and I ask it to my heart for an emotional answer

Starting point is 00:08:22 and then I do some deep breathing I place my hands on my belly and I ask the same question for an intuitive answer. And that's something I've written about in the book, which I've called harmony, which is that you're aligned in your head, your heart and your gut. And it's fascinating how you get answers. Like you said in your journaling, you sometimes write something that you weren't aware of that you didn't expect you get answers that were not at the front of your mind if you push it deeper and deeper so that's something I've been doing with with some of my clients as well. Oh Tara that's such a beautiful it's such a beautiful image comes with my mind of that's how you just align everything and you ask different parts of you for the answer rather than most of us often it's just this kind of, you know, the brain or the emotional brain that's kind of determining what we do and we don't sort of take time to tap into other parts of us to actually

Starting point is 00:09:15 tell us and help us to determine what's going on. I really, really like that. But for the purpose of this podcast, for people listening who like what they've heard today and feel inspired to make change, I always like to leave people with a few practical tips that they can think about applying into their own life immediately. So Tara, I wonder if you could share some of your top tips. Okay, so I do want to offer an exercise for the people who are sort of run ragged with stress, but it's for everyone. But it's, I did want to end with, you know, really like offering something to those people. And it's what I call body gratitude.

Starting point is 00:09:51 So you can do it in the shower or you can do it if you're moisturizing your skin. And you go from head to toe and you thank each different part of your body for what it's doing. So your lungs for breathing for you, your skin for protecting you, for maintaining your physical boundary. Thank your hair for being in the condition that it's in.

Starting point is 00:10:11 So you just basically go through your whole body outside and inside and you literally thank each part. You know, maybe that hamstring that's playing up. You thank it for giving you information about the condition of the muscles and joints and tendons in your body. And it's just it's a really, really feel good exercise. giving you information about the condition of the muscles and joints and tendons in your body. And it's just, it's a really, really feel good exercise. Because, you know, when we're stressed, we, you know, there's this systemic dryness, it's a really good idea to get the benefits of moisturizing and the gratitude all in one. So I really hope people try it because you feel like a million dollars afterwards, it makes you feel amazing. So I think that's how I'd like people to feel at the end of this. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And I'll be back

Starting point is 00:10:55 next week with my long-form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | Daily Habits to Reduce Stress and Anxiety | Dr Tara Swart #313

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.