Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How To Reinvent Your Life In 2025: 5 Powerful Habits That Really Work with Dr Rangan Chatterjee #505

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

This is a very special BONUS solo episode to celebrate the release of the audiobook version of my new book Make Change That Lasts: 9 Simple Ways To Break Free From The Habits That Hold You Back which is available to download now on: Amazon https://amzn.to/4eIcI0j Audible https://amzn.to/4eIcI0j Apple Books https://apple.co/4b9B9Bx Spotify https://spoti.fi/3BAaUsh. This episode contains five of the most important (yet under-appreciated!) mindset shifts you can make right now, which will immediately improve the quality of your life: heath, happiness and relationships.   In this episode, I explore: ·      The important of taking less offence and how exactly you can develop this skill and the profound impact this will have on your behaviours. ·      Why complaining less will transform your life and my game-changing exercise for doing so. ·      The one question you should be asking yourself each morning and how it will change your relationship with busyness. ·      Why reframing your relationship with your past is essential in order to live a meaningful life in the present, and how your perspective on regrets can give you a lot of helpful information ·      The importance of doing something uncomfortable each day and the physical and psychological benefits of doing so I also explain the invisible nature of ‘emotional stress’ and how it is often the root cause behind our problematic behaviours. This episode is full of practical wisdom that will help you deal with stress much more effectively, build your resilience, improve your mental wellbeing and transform your physical health. It will also help you with self-compassion, enhance your sense of calm and help you feel more in control of yourself and the world around you. I’m pretty sure it will leave you feeling motivated and ready to make positive changes in your life - I hope you enjoy listening. Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com.   Thanks to our sponsors: https://drinkag1.com/livemore https://www.boncharge.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/505   DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. Today's episode is a bonus episode to celebrate the release of the audiobook version of my brand new book, Make Change That Lasts, Nine Simple Ways to Break Free from the Habits That Hold You Back. Although the paperback version of the book is not out until January the 2nd, 2025, the audiobook version, which I am narrating, has been released today, one week early. So if you want to get hold of it, it is available now in all the usual places, Amazon, Audible, Apple Books, and Spotify.

So in this bonus solo podcast, I want to share with you five powerful ideas or habits that will transform your life in many different ways. These are ideas and habits that I explore further in my book, but whether you choose to get the book or not, my hope is that by simply listening to these ideas and applying them in your life, these ideas and applying them in your life, you're going to be able to make meaningful changes in your life that will impact your health, your happiness, and your relationships. So let's get to it. This is, of course, a bit different to my usual podcast episodes where I talk to a guest, but I'm sitting here in my studio, it's raining outside, I've got a pot of coffee and I'm going to share with you what I consider to be five of the most important ideas that you can be thinking about right now. That honestly, they will change the quality of your

life. So bear with me, listen to what I have to say, and the ones that speak to you, think about how you can start applying them to improve the quality of your life. Okay, so habit number one, take less offense. Now when you heard me say that, what came up for you? Did you think, what on earth has taking less offense got to do with me improving the quality of my life and improving my health? Well, it actually has a lot to do with it, because I think it speaks to what I consider to be one of the most important and underappreciated aspects of making meaningful change, and that's emotional stress. We often don't think about that internal emotional stress that we create within ourselves by the way

we interact with the world. And once you truly understand where this emotional stress is coming from and how it's actually you that's generating it, you really have a lot of power, a lot of choice, and you realize just how many of your habits, let's say sugar or alcohol or three hours doom scrolling in the evening, you realize just how many of them are your way of trying to neutralize that emotional stress. And that's the key point. Emotional stress is not neutral. You will have to neutralize it in some way or another. You can do that in healthy ways, going for a walk, going to the gym, burning it off, talking to a friend. or more commonly, we turn to things like alcohol and sugar and more caffeine and more scrolling to compensate for that internal stress. So let's bring this back to taking less offense.

If you are someone who is regularly going around taking offense to the actions and the words of others, you are constantly walking around generating emotional stress. Now, a key point to understand here is that nothing is inherently offensive. Just think about that for a minute. Let's talk about a comment or an email, for example, that you may find offensive. You may take offense to. That email or comment cannot be inherently offensive. If it was, every single person reading that comment or reading that email would be taking offense to it. The fact that not everyone does means that it's not the comment or email that is offensive. It's something within us that's

been activated that has caused us to want to take offense. Now, once you truly understand that point, it's actually really liberating because it's very hard to make meaningful change in the long term in our lives if we're constantly blaming the world around us for our internal responses. Now, I want to make something really clear. I'm not saying that we need to like all the actions and comments from other people. I'm saying that you don't need to take offense. You can train yourself to stay relatively emotionally neutral, which means if actually you do want to address the behavior or the context of an email by someone else, say your boss, you're much better able to because you didn't take offense and you stayed emotionally neutral.

So I think this is a really, really important point. Now I mentioned already how this emotional stress that we generate leads us to a lot of these problematic behaviours, a lot of these behaviours that we're actually trying so hard to cut back on, reduce, maybe avoid. But there's another reason why taking less offence is really good for our well-being. Stress. Chronic stress is thought to be behind 80 to 90% of what a medical doctor sees in any given day because chronic stress impacts every single organ system in the body. Your brain, your immune system, your gut function, brain, your immune system, your gut function, your blood pressure, your blood sugar, all these things are negatively impacted by chronic stress. And if you're someone who regularly is taking offense to the world around you, you are going to be experiencing a lot of internal chronic stress.

So what can we actually do about it? The key point to understand is that it's you who's generating that offense. When you really understand what's going on, when you choose to take offense, it's actually very, very clear that it's not really possible for anyone else to offend us. It's our nervous system that is reacting, generating the response, not anybody else's. The fuse that is being lit resides within us. And when we place the blame elsewhere, we give power to other people, even complete strangers on the internet. So if we want to thrive in the long term, we simply have to give up our reliance on blaming the external world for our internal responses. Now, in my book, I have a few practical exercises to help you take less offense, to help you deal with criticism in a much more helpful way.

But one of the exercises I want to share with you right now is what I call in the book, the widen the gap exercise. The next time you find yourself wanting to take a fence at something, see if you can take a pause. Now you might be able to work through the situation in your mind right there in the moment. If not, you might want to do it at the end of the day in a journaling exercise, for example, where you reflect on when you did take offense of the day and figure out why that bothered you so much. Either way, whether it's in the moment or in a journaling exercise in the evening, go through the following step-by-step process to help you gain clarity on the situation and your emotions surrounding it. Okay, number one, what is it that is causing you to want to take offense?

Number two, what is it specifically that is bothering you? Number three, is it the intention of that person to offend you? Number four, what story about the situation could you write in your mind that would add compassion and understanding? Number five, can you imagine a scenario whereby you would understand why that person has that point of view. For example, their childhood, upbringing, parents, early life experience, friends. Does this change how you feel about them? Number seven, is there any possibility that you might have misinterpreted things and got the wrong end of the stick. And finally, number eight, what would happen if you did not choose to take offense here? With regular practice of this

exercise, you will find that you feel offended less often and are able to take a different, more empowering perspective in many situations. Now, we just want to go back to point seven for just a moment. Is there any possibility that you might have misinterpreted things and got the wrong end of the stick? This is a really important one, and it speaks to this wider idea that you may have heard me talk about before, which is this idea that we see the world through the state of our nervous system. So have you ever misinterpreted an email? And again, this really speaks to this idea that most events in life are neutral. It's the perspective we take on them that determines its impact on us.

So an email fundamentally is neutral. It's the perspective we take And the reality is, if you stop paying attention You will find that a lot of the time you interpret the email differently Depending on your emotional state For example, if you've had a weekend off And you've been totally relaxed and chilled Then you could get an email on the Monday morning and interpret it a certain way. Maybe you can see a different perspective. Whereas if that was on a Friday afternoon, that same email and you had had a busy work week and a lot of stress and you're a bit

sleep deprived, you would interpret that same email completely differently because it's within you. The state of your nervous system often determines how you view the situations in your life. And that's one of the wider points about why I'm so passionate about people training themselves and learning the skill of taking less offense. Because if you're chronically taking offence, you're walking around thinking the world is against you. Everyone else is acting in the wrong way. If they acted differently, I would feel better. People should be more careful about what they post on social media. Their comment is why I feel bad. I'm going to take offence to that. What you don't realise is that you are the one generating huge amounts of emotional stress

by the way you are interacting with the world. And over time, that chronic stress is harmful to your health, your happiness, and your relationships. Habit number two, stop complaining. Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor, once said, don't be overheard complaining, not even to yourself. Now, why is not complaining so important for our health, our happiness, and our relationships? Well, for so many reasons, but one of the big reasons is because of this idea that I have already been talking about, emotional stress. People who regularly complain are generating huge amounts of internal stress

within them, which they then need to neutralize, often with unhelpful behaviors. So complaining less will help your behaviors. It's also going to help your relationships because people don't generally like to be around people who complain a lot. It's not that pleasant. So I think it's worth you asking yourself, and perhaps you've already done this, how much do you complain? I don't know if you've ever done that before. It's a very powerful exercise.

You just try and go through the day and note down how much you complain. You can also do this over the course of the week and it's very, very powerful. And if you want an even deeper insight into how much you complain, you might want to ask your partner or a friend or a work colleague. They may have a slightly different perspective to you, a perspective that can be very, very helpful. Because basically, every time you complain, what are you saying? You are saying that I am disappointed and surprised by the natural order of life. What do I mean by that? Well, the natural order of life is that things are always going to go wrong. Things are always going to happen in a way that perhaps you don't want or you don't expect them to. And there's a chapter in my new book called Expect Adversity. And in that chapter, I really

talk about this idea that actually, if you can train yourself to expect adversity, when that adversity does arise, you're not stressed out by it because you knew it was coming. So let me frame that another way. Businesses really, really understand this idea. They have a concept which I think is really valuable for us to apply to life. It's called shrinkage. So let's take a supermarket, right? If you're a supermarket and you're trying to plan how much profit you're going to make in the year, you know that some things that you don't want to happen are actually going to happen. People are going to steal some of your stock, right? That's going to happen. Some of your stock, despite your best planning, is going to go off. They're not surprised by that. They build it into their business plan, right? That's their shrinkage.

They built it in. And we can actually apply that concept in our own lives because we've all got shrinkage waiting for us in our futures. When we look ahead, we can't predict what adverse experiences are coming our way. The only guarantee is that they are coming for us in some way or another. But too many of us are reliant on this myth that nothing in our lives will ever go wrong. And basically we set ourselves up for misery and sickness. Now I want to tell you a little story about a close friend of mine, a GP, who had a complaint made against them about the misdiagnosis of cancer. Now first of all, I want to acknowledge that if you're a family and that you feel that cancer has been misdiagnosed or was diagnosed too late,

I totally understand why you wouldn't want to take that further and get some answers. But when I'm talking about complaining less, that's not really the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is the impact that complaints had on my GP friends. Now, if you look rationally at the statistics, they show that in the UK, a doctor, on average, over the course of a 40-year career will be sued four times. Okay, so this is the standard level of shrinkage that any doctor should really expect. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you see enough patients, you are going to get complaints. You can apply that concept to driving. If you drive enough miles and for enough

years, the likelihood is, even if you are the best driver on the planet, at some point you're likely to get into a scrape or a crash of some sort. Okay, it's just a numbers game. Now, my friends, even though he had nothing to do with the misdiagnosis of cancer, that complaint ran for two years. And during those two years, he really, really struggled. He was constantly stressed. He barely slept. He drank heavily. His emotional and physical health went through a slow but steady decline. And look, this may seem like quite an extreme case, right? Something like that is always going to be a little bit stressful, but it is possible to train yourself to take a different mindset. The thriving mindset is one that actually expects adversity and says,

hey, look, I've been a doctor for two decades. I've seen tens of thousands of patients, sometimes in stressful time pressured consultations. It was inevitable that one day I would be subject to a serious complaint. It is possible to actually train your mindset to not be surprised. And when you do that, you stay calmer, you stay less stressed, and you actually are much better able to navigate life. Now, my friend's example might appear to be quite an extreme one, but you can apply that same principle, like I've already mentioned, to an everyday activity like driving. We could choose to expect that we will never have a crash, or we could look at the odds

and accept that if we drive for long enough, there is a strong chance that we will be have a crash or we could look at the odds and accept that if we drive for long enough, there is a strong chance that we will be involved in one at some point. Now, let me explain an incident from my own life that I think really lands this point. A few years ago, I was asleep in my house when my mum's emergency buzzer went off. So my mum, who lives five minutes away from me, she has an emergency buzzer around her neck. So if she is to fall and she can't get up, she can call for help. So I was asleep one night and my phone rang. So in a haze, I picked it up and it was a lady who'd been communicating with my mum over the intercom saying, hey, your mum's had a fall. She can't get up. She needs some help. Are you able to go around and help? I said, yeah, sure. Just let her know over the intercom that I'll be there within a few minutes. So I'd just woken up. I was fast asleep in my pyjamas. I got into my car. I drove round. I went to see mum,

checked she was okay, helped her back up, got her into bed, got her settled. And when I was happy that she was okay, I said, hey mum, any problems, phone me in the night, I'll keep my phone with me, but I'm going to go back home now, I'll see you in the morning. So I got into my car in mum's drive, I reversed out of the drive straight into a parked car on the opposite side of the street. Now, the older version of me, the one who would complain a lot and not expect adversity, would probably have done something like this. I can't believe that happened. Typical. I've got all this work on. Now, on top of all that work, I've got to sort out the car, phone insurance. And that kind of mindset, the self-pity mindset would have led to other behaviours,

other habits, things like sugar, an extra bit of sugar to soothe that internal stress, a bit more caffeine, a bit more indulgence because I deserve it because the world is against me. But I've trained myself and I'll share the exercise or I'll share one of the exercises in just a moment that you can do. But because I've been changing actively my mindset around adversity, what I did in real time, which I was really pleased about, was I had a completely different response. Basically, I remember I went into the car, I just sat there and I said, I remember I went into the car, I just sat there and I said, oh well, first of all, Rangan, no one's hurt, right? No one's in that other car. I'm not hurt. No harm done. Secondly, I've got insurance. No big deal. They'll sort this out. And thirdly, I said, Rangan, if you're going to keep coming round to your mum's house to help her up off the floor and

get her settled when you're half asleep, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Because of the way I interacted with that adverse situation, the next few days of my life go completely differently. Because I haven't generated a self-pity story, I have no need to engage in a lot of those behaviors. So I was totally calm that evening when I went to bed and the following day. I don't need the extra caffeine, the extra sugar, the extra alcohol, the extra few hours scrolling because those things are so often, more often than not in my view, they're there to alleviate this internal stress that we have created by the way we interacted with the world. And that's why I started off

in this second habit talking about complaining. How often you complain is a really strong signal to how often you are being disappointed by the natural order of life. So let me share with you a very simple exercise from my new book that's going to help you reframe your complaints. Every time you catch yourself complaining about something, without exception, I want you to stop and do one of two things. Every time you catch yourself complaining about something, without exception, I want you to pause and either turn it into an action, basically you do something about it, basically you do something about it or reframe it into a moment of gratitude this is such a powerful exercise and if you do it regularly i promise you it will change the way you interact with adversity the way you interact with life if you choose gratitude you are reminding yourself how much worse things could be and how lucky you are in so many other

ways. And if you choose action, you are basically embracing your own power and agency and ability to make the situation better. Put more succinctly, choosing gratitude will stop you thinking like a victim and choosing action will stop you acting like one. So it's a powerful exercise. I encourage you to give it a go. And over time, you will find that you start complaining less. Habit number three, ask yourself the anti-business question every single day. Okay, guys, so I'm very shortly going to explain to you

what that question is, but before I get to that question, let me try and explain the problem that question is trying to address. Busyness. Right, so many of us confuse busyness with success. Our culture equates being busy with being successful. This creates the toxic idea that if we have space in our lives, we are failing. And this reliance on busyness is widespread and it's incredibly harmful to our mental and our physical health. A recent survey showed that 88% of UK office workers have experienced some degree of burnout in the past two years. That's a staggering statistic. I don't think it's a very favourable take on the state of modern society, but I think many of us understand what that feels like to be busy all the time. Now, why are we so busy?

Yes, there are external pressures on our time. Maybe there's lots of things that you have to do for your job. And I understand that. But I think for many of us, it actually goes much deeper than that. I'm not sure if you ever heard the conversation I had with Will Storr. It was episode 354 of this podcast. And in that conversation, Will told me about scientific research that has found status to be a universal driver in all humans. We all want status. But contrary to what you might assume, seeking status doesn't mean chasing wealth or celebrity or high-powered jobs It's simply the feeling that we're offering value to the world around us I think that's really key

I think for so many of us Our reliance on busyness comes from a fear of insignificance Right back in the hunter-gatherer tribes that we evolved in, we would have received status for being a great forager of sweet potatoes, a great hunter, a wonderful storyteller, someone who guards the tribe at night, right? We would know on a daily basis what value we held for the people around us. But I think for many of us in today's culture, where we've often moved away from our tribe, our communities, our families for job opportunities, and maybe better pay, I think this creates a deep unconscious fear that we are not of value,

which is one of the reasons why we are hell-bent on trying to prove that we have status by always appearing busy. Now, the truth is, rather than being a sign of success, busyness can often be a sign of laziness. Now, listen, I want to make it very clear. Some people, of course, cannot help being incredibly busy. Perhaps you are a single parent struggling to pay your bills and bring out your kids. Perhaps you're a mother or father who's trying to run a business, spend time with your children and care for elderly parents without much support. I understand that. But I'm saying for many of us, our reliance on busyness is a signal that we haven't organised our life properly and are too focused on one aspect of it at the expense of all others. And that's why I created this anti-business

question. It's very simple, it's very powerful. I do it every morning and I'd encourage you to answer it every morning as well. And it goes like this. What is the most important thing I have to do today? It's a simple question, but it's very, very powerful. And one of the reasons I think it's so powerful is because in a world where our to-do lists are never done, just think about that in your own life. When was the last time your to-do list was complete? Because we live in a time where, let's say, you have a lot of emails in your inbox. And let's say that you managed to clear them all and get through your to-do list. And you take a break and go to your kitchen, make a cup of tea to switch off and chill out for 20 minutes or so.

make a cup of tea to switch off and chill out for 20 minutes or so. In those 20 minutes, you may have received 20 brand new emails. There is simply nothing you can do about that. Those emails may or may not come, irrespective of what you do. So I think this question becomes really, really helpful in this modern world where our to-do lists are never done. It helps you modern world where our to-do lists are never done. It helps you prioritise. It helps you make a decision. It encourages you every single morning to choose and go, no, today this is the most important thing I have to do today. If you say in the morning what the most important thing that you have to do is and you make sure you do it, this is how your life starts to change. I promise you, this is one of the most important and effective things you can do. And I'd really, really encourage you to actually do it. Don't just hear it and go, you know, that sounds nice. Sounds like a good idea.

And then get on with your day and your life. If this connects with you, why can't you today start answering that question? Do it for seven days and make sure you do the thing that you said was the most important thing. And I guarantee your life will start to change. Some days you'll put down something related to work, sometimes related to health, sometimes related to family. And actually by you choosing, it doesn't mean that nothing else in your life is important. It just means on that particular day, that's what you've decided to choose as the most important thing. So on a Monday for me, for example, it might be a work related thing that I put down in my journal. Maybe on a Tuesday,

it will be, I haven't seen my wife properly for a few days. She was away at the weekend. Maybe tonight, once the kids are in bed, we must spend some quality time together. Maybe on another day, it will be, oh, I'm working from home today. The most important thing I have to do today is make sure when my kids walk in through the door at 4.30pm, that my laptop is shut, my phone is in a different room, so I can be present and listen attentively to what they have to tell me. It doesn't matter what you put down, it's highly personal to you. But I promise you, by answering this question in your life regularly, you'll very quickly realise what is truly important in your life. And in turn, this question will help you become less busy.

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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. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Habit number four, reframe your relationship with your past. Okay, this is big. There are so many ideas within this concept that I explore in Make Change That Lasts, but for this podcast, the one idea I wanted to share with you was about regret. Are you someone who has a lot of regrets if you look up regret in the dictionary one of the definitions is a feeling of sadness repentance or disappointment over an occurrence or something that one has done or failed to do it's interesting isn't it? This concept of regret, a feeling of sadness, what disappointment.

And I think for me, that's one of the reasons why I believe regret to be unhelpful for so many different people. Because I think those feelings for many of us lead to guilt and shame. And if we are being consumed with guilt and or shame, it's actually very, very hard to make meaningful change in our lives. It really, really is. Every single behavior in our life either comes from the energy of love or the energy of fear. And things like guilt and shame are downstream from fear. So when we try and change our life for the better, we try and bring in new helpful habits and shed previous unhelpful ones. If it's guilt or shame that is driving us, that can be problematic. Now this also relates to a problem that is widespread in society called perfectionism. Rates of perfectionism are rising rapidly in many parts of the world.

There was a 2018 study of over 40,000 people in the US, UK, and Canada found that levels of perfectionism had risen substantially. Between 1989 and 2016, the extent to which people felt they had to display perfection to secure approval had soared by an astonishing 33%. This is one of the issues I have with regret, especially for people who suffer from perfectionism. And I definitely suffered from perfectionism for much of my life. I would call myself a perfectionist in recovery. And I've actually come to believe that regret is a form of perfectionism. At its core is the belief that we have the capability to be perfect and make perfect decisions. And the fact that we didn't means

that we've somehow failed. But the truth is that all of us are imperfect. And when we do make mistakes, those mistakes are usually not apparent until sometime after. Of course, that doesn't mean we can't learn from our past and make better decisions going forward. Of course we can, but I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that it doesn't really help us to look back on our past mistakes with negativity and guilt. I think it's much better to be compassionate to ourselves and accept that we made certain choices in the past which had certain consequences. And if faced with similar situations again, we'll choose to make different ones. If we could have done better, we would have done. And now that we do, we will.

I think it's really, really important that you spend a little bit of time thinking about your own relationship with your past. Are you consumed with regret over things that you either did or did not do? And perhaps a slightly different way, and hopefully a helpful way to look at this, is with this idea that every single person is doing the best that they can. Well, that's a belief that you can choose to take, you can choose to apply to other people, and you can choose to apply to yourself. And I genuinely do believe that we are always doing the best that we can based upon what we know and based upon the current situation in our life. You don't have to choose to take that view on the world. After all, it's a belief that we can choose to adopt certain beliefs or not adopt them.

The question is always though, what is going to be helpful for me? Is the belief I hold around the world useful? I contend that if that's the view you take on the world, that every single person, including yourself, is doing the best that you can. I think it's a much calmer, happier, and more compassionate way to live. And then let's just apply that to ourselves through the lens of regret. Let's say, I don't know, you're in your 40s right now, and you're regretting something that you did in your 20s. Do you think that's really fair? I mean, think about it another way. Are you the same person that you were five years ago or even one year ago? Or have you changed? Have you updated your beliefs somewhat about the world?

I know I have. I'm constantly evolving and updating my beliefs. It seems a little bit harsh for me now in my 40s to judge my 22-year-old self about something they did or did not do. Back then, I was doing the best that I could based upon what I knew. If I'm faced with a similar situation again now, now sure with my increased knowledge And life experience I may choose to act differently and I believe that for most of us That is a much more helpful way to look at our pasts instead of regretting things in our past and being consumed with guilt and shame I prefer instead to look back at our past

to help us make better decisions in the present and in the future. If we could have done better, we would have done. And now that we do, we will. Habit number five, do something hard every single day. Okay, what is your relationship like with discomfort? Are you someone who naturally likes to embrace it or are you someone who tries to avoid it at all costs? Well, look, if you are someone who tries to avoid it, please don't feel bad. Humans are hardwired for comfort. We want to make our lives more and more comfortable. That's why today we've got apartments, houses with heating, air conditioning, all kinds of modern inventions that in so many ways have improved the quality of our lives. But I would say about 50 years ago or so, something changed in the world. Prior to that, our desire for comfort and to make our lives easier actually improved our lives.

But I would argue today, our desire for comfort is not only harming our lives, it's actually killing us. Most of the chronic diseases that we are suffering from today can be directly linked to our reliance on comfort. Take type 2 diabetes, for example, which currently affects around 7 million people in the UK alone. currently affects around 7 million people in the UK alone. Now type 2 diabetes is a condition that occurs because excess fat has accumulated inside our bodies which damages our metabolism. This causes our blood glucose levels to rise which results in kidney, eye, circulation and nerve problems to name just a few. Now a condition like this can pretty much only exist in a world of comfort and convenience. If you look at traditional societies or hunter-gatherer societies, everyday life is a little bit uncomfortable. In fact for most of our

existence, humans have had to move their bodies every day to acquire their food and cook it. It would have been almost impossible for excess fat to build up inside our bodies over a long period of time with all the damaging effects on our health that this causes. Our bodies still expect this kind of daily effort and movement. And the truth is, today, most of us live lives of excessive physical comfort with our sofas, sedentary jobs, cars, and home deliveries of anything you could possibly imagine, from food to books to light bulbs, and it's literally killing us. The scientific research shows us clearly that a lack of movement is one of the leading causes of premature death globally, increasing our risk of cancer,

obesity, heart attacks, strokes, and type 2 diabetes. Now this over-reliance on comfort is not just affecting us as adults, it's also affecting our kids. A scientific review of 50 studies that involved 25 million children from 28 countries found that today's kids take on average 90 seconds longer to run a mile than children did in the 1980s. This is a shocking but extremely telling finding as we rely more and more on things outside ourselves to solve all of our problems for us, the ability of our own minds and bodies to survive and thrive deteriorate. I said the minds and bodies. How does a reliance on comfort affect our minds? I think this is a really, really important point and arguably one of the most important reasons why we should embrace some form of discomfort every day. Let's think about our moods for a moment and

the relationship between our moods and discomfort. If we get used to certain things happening, if we become reliant, overly reliant on comfort, and then we don't get it for whatever reason, we can start to feel bad. We can experience low mood and start complaining. It wasn't that long ago that I was on a train down to London with a friend who was actually getting really frustrated because the app that was supposed to get a bottle of water delivered to his seat wouldn't work. Now, honestly, I reflected on that situation and thought, this is absolutely absurd. There we were in a warm carriage in the middle of winter, traveling at over 100 miles an hour to one of the great capital cities of the world. And my friend's mood had been spoiled because he actually

had to stand up and walk to the cafe in a different carriage to get a drink. And this is actually one of the traps of modern life. We're seduced into becoming reliant on companies and services which when they work, they make us briefly more comfortable, whilst at the same time putting us in a state of permanent dependency. And that's the issue when our lives become too comfortable. When our lives aren't that comfortable, we start to get stressed out and frustrated when we have to experience even just a little bit of discomfort. And often those little bits of discomfort are things that we've always had to experience. We've just unconditioned ourselves from it. And this actually causes us a lot of problems, because no matter how hard companies and services

work to remove problems from our life, we will never stop experiencing them, no matter how easy life becomes. Now, evidence for this comes from the Harvard psychologists, David Levary and Daniel Gilbert, and they showed that the human brain will start looking for problems even when they don't exist. Levary calls this phenomenon prevalence-induced concept change, which basically means that as we experience fewer problems, we start to lower our threshold for what actually constitutes a problem. So they conducted a series of experiments that beautifully demonstrated this, including one in which they asked participants to identify faces that appeared threatening, which they did just fine. But as the number of threatening faces they were shown was

reduced, they then started to classify ordinary faces as threatening as well. That's the problem here. If your life becomes really, really comfortable, yes, you're going to get physically weaker. You're going to be at risk of low moods, but you're also going to start finding problems where problems don't really exist. And I honestly believe this is one of the reasons, not the only one, one of the reasons why rates of anxiety are growing these days. Now, over the years, I've seen this with so many of my patients. Many of them seem to have a low-grade anxiety that was built on this foundation of fragility. On a deep level, they knew that things in their life could get worse, but because they had never tested themselves, they didn't actually trust themselves to be able to handle whatever came

their way. That's why it's so important to regularly do uncomfortable things. Sure, a lot of those practices have physical benefits, but for me, their real benefit is psychological. It's about changing the way we feel about ourselves. How resilient do we feel? How capable do we feel? There's plenty more that I expand upon around this concept in chapter four of Make Change That Lasts. But in terms of giving you some practical take-homes right now, always think about how can you start to embrace discomfort every single day in your life? And please remember, this doesn't need to be something massive or a big gesture. There are simple things that we can do each morning that are basically us embracing discomfort.

Doing your meditation each morning takes more effort than drinking your coffee while scrolling Instagram, but it will help you feel calmer and more in control. Turning your smartphone off one hour before bed takes more effort than watching YouTube on it, but will likely improve intimacy with your partner, as well as the quality of your sleep. Taking the stairs to get to the supermarket parking lot is harder than taking the elevator, but over time will make you stronger and more resilient, right? So there's all kinds of things that you can think about doing. You could take a cold shower, if that's your thing, at the end of your warm shower, even 10 or 15 seconds, right? It doesn't have to be something really extreme, like a cold plunge with freezing cold water, just a small cold shower each day is you intentionally

embracing discomfort. Now look, there is one study that actually shows that people who take a 30 second cold shower each day at the end of their warm shower reports fewer sick days than those who don't. But for me, the most important benefits are psychological. You're doing something hard when you don't need to, and that's where the value lies. I mentioned taking the stairs before. That is something I've done for the last five years. I made myself this internal rule to basically say that I'm always going to take the stairs unless there's a damn good reason not to. And basically that means that my default has become taking the stairs. Sure. Do I do it 100% of the time? No. If I'm on holiday with my family, with multiple suitcases and our room is on the

15th floor of a hotel, sure, I may not take the stairs. I may actually take the lift. But generally speaking, I will pretty much always take the stairs now, unless there's a really good reason not to. And in the book, I have this whole section on creating your own rules for discomfort. I have a rule that I always take the stairs. And rules can be really, really important because they help get you away from constant decision-making in the moment. Shall I take the stairs or shall I take the lift? I don't know. Oh, you know, I'll just take the lift. But because I made that internal rule, it means my default has now become to take the stairs. Now, whilst I think the majority of benefits for these practices are psychological in terms of

what they do to how we feel about ourselves, our resilience, our trust in ourselves, there are also physical benefits. And just on climbing stairs, in April 2024, there was this research paper, a meta-analysis of studies covering more than 400,000 people, where they showed that climbing stairs was associated with a 39% reduced risk of death from heart disease and a 24% reduced risk of death of any cause, which is simply remarkable. So have a think about what would work in your life. Which daily act of discomfort do you think you could do and that you could do regularly? Okay guys, I hope you found those five ideas useful. I've now finished my coffee. I hope it stopped raining outside. As a quick refresher, number one was take less offense.

Number two, stop complaining. Number three, ask yourself the anti-business question every day. Number four, reframe your relationship with your past. And number five, do something uncomfortable each day. Of course, these are all ideas that I expand upon in a lot of detail with loads more practical exercises in my new book Make Change That Lasts as I mentioned in the introduction the audiobook is now available and to finish off today's episode I want to leave you with a short snippet from the actual introduction of the audiobook. I hope you enjoy listening. Introduction. As soon as I answered the call, I could tell my old friend Helen was in a bad way. Helen had been a GP for 16 years and was one of the most resilient, positive people I knew.

years and was one of the most resilient, positive people I knew. Despite the gruelling demands made on her in her inner-city practice, I'd never once heard her complain. She was a brilliant doctor who cared deeply about people. I felt lucky to know her, but on the phone that morning, I was surprised to hear her voice break as she asked if she could discuss something with me face to face. Something was definitely wrong. When we met for coffee that weekend, Helen explained that she'd had a run-in with a patient that had left her deeply upset. This patient was pre-diabetic and she was talking to him about modifying his diet. There weren't many GPs who were more knowledgeable than Helen about the damage that too many ultra-processed and sugary foods can do to the body. She was a true expert in the field, always up to date with the latest peer-reviewed studies,

many of which she would email me alongside her own informed and fascinating commentary. She was carefully explaining to this patient how excess sugar can increase his levels of inflammation when he said to her, why should I listen to you? You're fatter than I am. I was shocked to hear this and felt terrible for Helen. But as Helen herself pointed out to me, her patient was right. God, it was so humiliating, she told me. I just didn't know what to say. She shook her head and laughed sadly. I'm lecturing him about the harmful effects of sugar. She shook her head and laughed sadly. I'm lecturing him about the harmful effects of sugar when I've got a bag of Cadbury's giant buttons sitting right there in my desk drawer.

Helen had been trying to control her chocolate habit for years. In fact, the reason she had become so well-versed in the science of unhealthy eating was because she'd been trying to educate herself into having a better diet. She said, it clearly hasn't worked. I know everything there is to know pretty much. I know that sugar is harming my health and now apparently it's harming my ability to help my patients, but I still can't stop. There's always some excuse I managed to come up with to treat myself. I don't know what to do. I immediately thought of some of my own patients who seemed to already know everything I could tell them about health. And yet, despite being

desperate for change, I also thought about the listeners of my podcast, Feel Better Live More, and the readers of my books. So many times i'd spoken to people who were enthusiastic and committed to learning about health and made absolutely sure they were up to date on the latest ideas and findings but still struggled massively to achieve the change they were so desperate for. They might be eating too much sugar, like Helen, or ultra-processed foods, or drinking too much caffeine or alcohol. They might be struggling to manage their stress, or sleeping poorly. They might be failing to move their body enough.

I could think of so many people who knew perfectly well what they should be doing and why they should be doing it, but were still unable to make the final brave leap to successful change. They had all found what Helen had also discovered, that sometimes knowledge is not enough. How could I help these people? What was going on with them? What exactly was the short circuit that needed fixing? Insight versus Outsight. This audiobook is the result of years of deep thinking about how to help anyone who finds himself in Helen's position. It will teach you how to achieve the life you want, not by looking outside to the wider world for the latest facts, findings and health trends, but by looking inside.

Because inside is where so many of our problems begin. Unhealthy habits are always seen as a cause of ill health. Get rid of the habits, then you'll improve your health. This sounds so easy, but we all know that it's anything but. I believe it's hard because we've got the concept of unhealthy habits all wrong. Instead of being a cause of problems that somehow need to be eradicated, I see unhealthy habits as a symptom of other upstream problems. Problems that are very often completely invisible to us. An individual's overconsumption of sugar, for example, may be their way of dealing with a toxic work environment. Someone else's excess alcohol

consumption may be their way of dealing with unresolved issues in their intimate relationships. In order to get rid of the downstream symptom, we have to first identify its upstream cause. And this means developing our powers of insight. I think of it as being the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer. Helen was a brilliantly effective thermometer. She knew everything there was to know about the harm caused by the overconsumption of sugar. Just like a thermometer, she had the power of outside, the ability to look out into the world and read its information. She could use her excellent outside to make a judgment on how well or how badly she was doing. But that's all she could do. She didn't have the power to actually change anything. For that, she'd have to become a

thermostat. A thermostat has outside but also inside. It has the knowledge and the power that enables it to change what it needs to change to achieve its ideal temperature. Meet your invisible reliances. By learning the art and practice of looking inside ourselves, we can discover the hidden causes of our unwanted behaviors. Almost without exception, the stubborn habits that damage our health and well-being are an escape from inner discomfort. As we go through our days, we inevitably encounter many situations that have the potential to generate emotional stress and internal tension. This stress and tension has to be neutralized somehow. Most of us do it mindlessly by relying on unhealthy yet soothing habits. Whether it's doom scrolling on our phones, drinking alcohol,

or gorging on sugar, carbs, or highly processed foods. By becoming conscious of the situations that trigger these responses, we can respond to them intentionally and make changes that actually last. I'd like you to start thinking about your emotional triggers as reliances. Without really being aware of it, we all have different things we rely on in order to feel calm and happy why not take a moment to make a rough list of all the things large and small that you're reliant upon to feel good what's on your list do you need your partner to have woken up in a good mood your children to have put their shoes away and not be arguing, for your smartphone to always

be at hand. For there to be no terrible news in the morning headlines. For there to be no opinions you don't agree with on social media. For there to be no heavy traffic or bad drivers on your way to the school, office or station. For there to be someone you admire leading the country? For there to be no racism, homophobia or misogyny in the world? Do you need to be pleased with the reflection you see in the mirror? For there to be no new signs of increased weight or aging? Do you need your boss to be always kind, generous and complimentary towards you? Do you need queues in coffee shops and supermarkets to never be too long and for checkout staff to always be polite and efficient? Do you need the weather to be neither too hot nor too cold and for the wind to not be blowing too

hard? Well, if you're anything like me, you'll find this simple thought experiment a little jarring. When I first did this exercise around five years ago or so, it felt like I could go on listing things forever. I realized that waking up to the rain would often put my mood off, and traffic on the way to work would sometimes leave me feeling frustrated, And traffic on the way to work would sometimes leave me feeling frustrated, which if you really think about it, is crazy. How could I expect to live my life to the fullest when I was being tied down by all these invisible needs and expectations, all of which were completely outside my control?

Minimal reliance. Every individual reliance we have ties us to the ground and prevents us from thriving. When we're over-reliant, we're like the hero of the famous book Gulliver's Travels, bound to the ground by an army of tiny Lilliputians who are intent on keeping us prisoner. putians who are intent on keeping us prisoner. Every invisible reliance is a separate point of risk. Yes, we're able to feel somewhat good when some of them are met. On the rare occasions when most of them are met, we can even feel extremely good. But the cost of all that reliance is vulnerability. We're giving our power and agency away and putting our well-being into the hands of people and forces that we can't control. This is a huge problem,

especially in an era in which many of us are already feeling out of control. Our lives are increasingly complex and demanding. It wasn't that long ago that one parent could afford to look after their children full-time, while the other went to a job that was often nine to five. The working partner would be home by six, and they'd be able to enjoy evenings and weekends together as a family, with the shops shut on Sundays. Now there are many reasons to see this kind of life as antiquated and contrary to modern values, and I understand them fully. My point is that this was a simpler, less stressful existence, one that was completely normal until relatively recently. Today's family has to endure far more pressure if, as is usual, both parents work.

And even if you don't have children, there is still a cultural pressure to overwork and balance in life feels hard to achieve. On top of this, we have smartphones and constant access to social media, which has surely played a huge part in the surge of mental health problems that we now see. Then there are the various crises we have lurched from over the last few years, one after the other, from the global financial crisis, all the way up to the cost of living crisis, with the COVID pandemic happening in between. With all of this going on, it's almost impossible for every single one of our reliances to be met.

As a consequence, we feel our lives are out of control. When we feel out of control, we feel stressed and anxious. When we feel stressed and anxious, we often seek short-term release from discomfort in the form of an unhealthy habit. and release from discomfort in the form of an unhealthy habit. This is why I believe it makes sense to radically reduce our reliance on a world that is, and always will be, almost entirely uncontrollable. If you follow the advice in this audiobook, you will achieve a state of freedom and inner power that I call minimal reliance. Waking up to what's tying you down. When we're minimally reliant, we're maximally in control of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

But before we can reduce our reliances, we first have to discover what they are. This means developing our powers of insight. Humans are complex creatures, and the number of reliances we can have is effectively infinite. But I have identified eight major reliances, each of which seriously impacts a large number of people, and often remains invisible to them. Each chapter of Make Change That Lasts is a deep exploration of one of these major reliances. We're going to examine our need for other people to like us and validate our opinions. We'll break down our hidden attachment to myths we buy into about the heroes we look up to and measure ourselves against, and the false idea that our

past controls our future. We're also going to analyze our reliance on comfort and success. We'll explore where these reliances and a great many more come from and learn to identify them in ourselves. Once our hidden reliances have been identified, we'll discover how to break free of them. Simply becoming aware of our reliances and understanding the power they exert over our lives will immediately change our relationship to them. And because we are now conscious of the invisible forces that have been influencing the way we feel and act, we're better able to live more intentionally and make purposeful choices that are aligned with who we want to be.

If you enjoyed that short extract from my new book's introduction, and if you enjoyed the concepts that I discussed in today's episode, please do consider picking up a copy of my brand new book, Make Change That Lasts, nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back. It is available today right now as an audiobook, which I am narrating. You can download your very own copy all over the world on Amazon, Audible, Apple Books and Spotify so just go to your preferred platform. And for those of you who prefer the real paperback version that comes out on January the 2nd, don't forget if you pre-order before January the 2nd, 2025, you get access to some exclusive pre-order bonuses, a one hour video masterclass from me

and a 10 question worksheet that so many of you are already enjoying and finding incredibly useful. You can see all details at drchatagy.com forward slash make change or by clicking on the link in the episode notes in your podcast app. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. If you do download my new audio book, I hope you enjoyed listening. And always remember,

you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more.