Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - Life Lessons from an Astronaut with Tim Peake #300

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

Have you ever thought about going into space? What it might be like to be there, how you might deal with the fear, the uncertainty, the pressure? In this week’s conversation, I speak to Tim Peake, a real live Spaceman, who can answer those questions and more. Tim was the first British European Space Agency astronaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS) where his work captured the hearts and minds of millions. He is an inspirational communicator of science to audiences of all ages and he's also a best-selling author of multiple books. His latest book, the Cosmic Diary of our Incredible Universe, is written for children and in it, Tim takes the readers on a fascinating adventure through space, time, and the diary of our truly incredible universe. I ask Tim about the tipping point where stress and fear stop being motivating and become dangerous. Part of being an astronaut is living with underlying stress because you need to be on high alert at all times – and he insists this is a skill we can learn. We discuss the importance of structure and routine, essential on a space station, but equally beneficial to all of us. And we talk about the power of reflection, as well as stepping out of your comfort zone to increase your resilience. Of course, I ask Tim all those questions we really want to know about life in space: what it’s like to eat, sleep and yes, use the toilet in zero gravity. We also talk about why exactly Tim was the one who got picked to be an astronaut above 8000 other applicants. And interestingly, it was not just about physical skills and capability, the soft skills such as teamwork, communication, and conflict management, were also what ultimately made him the right ‘ambassador for space’. I think for me, one of the major insights from this conversation is about perspective. So many of us get caught up in the small stresses of day-to-day life but when we take a moment to zoom out of our lives, we really can start to see things with a lot more clarity. Tim had the great privilege of doing this from space, something that fewer than 600 other humans have ever done. But I think that big picture perspective is available to all of us every single day if we choose to take it. This was a fascinating conversation, full of insights that we can all start applying into our own lives immediately. 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 or https://fblm.supercast.com. Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/300 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 health care provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

As fear increases, it's beneficial. The adrenaline levels rise, you become sharp, you become clear, you become focused, and you can actually use that in a positive way. And throughout my career, it's been a process of learning to live with fear and understand it and use it to help you. 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. Have you ever thought about going into space? What it might be like to be there? How you might deal with the fear, the uncertainty, the pressure? Well, whether you have or not, I think you are going to really enjoy today's conversation

with a real-life spaceman, Tim Peake. Now, Tim Peake was the first British European Space Agency astronaut to visit the International Space Station, where his work captured the hearts and minds of millions. He's an inspirational communicator of science to audiences of all ages, and he's also a best-selling author of multiple books. And his latest one, The Cosmic Diary of Our Incredible Universe, is written for children. And in it, Tim takes the readers through a fascinating adventure through space, time, and the diary of our truly incredible universe. time, and the diary of our truly incredible universe. Now, Tim was actually selected to be an astronaut back in May 2009 when his wife was pregnant with the first of his two children.

Then, after six years of training, he famously went on a mission to the International Space Station in 2015, becoming the first British ESA astronaut to do so, and the first to do a spacewalk whilst there. Our conversation today starts with a dramatic first-hand account of the closest near-miss in the history of the International Space Station. When a thruster on his spacecraft failed, Tim and his crew did what their years of training had prepared them for. Tim and his crew did what their years of training had prepared them for. They stayed calm, they took control and they averted disaster. But how exactly did they manage to do this and what can we potentially learn from them about dealing with stress and becoming more resilient? Of course, this is a topic that we dive into during our conversation today.

Now, part of being an astronaut is living with a constant background level of underlying stress because of the constant threats of danger. But Tim insists that this is a skill we can all learn, and he shares some of his ideas on how we can all do this. We discuss the importance of structure and routine. We talk about the power of reflection as a tool to help us build resilience. And we cover a theme that comes up regularly on the show, the importance of regularly stepping outside your comfort zone. I also had the great luxury of asking Tim all those questions that I really wanted to know, and I think you might want to know as well, about life in space,

what it's like to eat, the reality of sleeping in a zero-gravity environment, and yes, even how does one actually go to the toilet? We also talk about why exactly Tim was the one who got picked to be an astronaut above 8,000 other applicants. And interestingly, it was not just about physical skills and capability. The soft skills such as teamwork, communication and conflict management were also what ultimately made him the right ambassador for space. I think for me, one of the major insights from this conversation is about perspective. You see, many of us get caught up, don't we, in the small stresses of day-to-day life. And when we take a moment to zoom out of our lives, we really can start to see things with a lot more clarity. Of course, Tim had the great privilege of doing this from space, something that fewer than 600 other humans have ever done. But I think that big picture perspective is available to all

of us every single day, if we choose to take it. I think this was a fascinating conversation full of real life insights that we can all start applying into our own life immediately. I hope you enjoy listening. And now my conversation with the astronaut, Mr. Tim Peake. Looking back now, we had what was probably the closest near miss in the ISS's history. I think the words you used were, it would have been catastrophic. Yes, yeah. I mean, we were quite fortunate that we had had a flawless mission up until that point. The launch went really well.

The whole day of launch with all the preparation was really well. The rendezvous had gone well. And so we were in the final stretches coming towards the space station after a six-hour rendezvous process. And the Soyuz has an automated system, so it was doing its own thing. We were just monitoring it. When you say Soyuz, that's the spacecraft? That's the spacecraft, yeah, the Soyuz has an automated system. So it was doing its own thing. We were just monitoring it. When you say Soyuz, that's the spacecraft? That's the spacecraft. Yeah,

the Soyuz spacecraft. So we were fully expecting it to dock itself. Everything was working normally. And we were 17 meters from the ISS. And that's the closest that any spacecraft has been when it's had a problem. Normally, when you're inside 50 meters there's nothing really much that will go wrong so we were not expecting anything to go wrong and at 17 meters to go master alarm went off and we had had a master alarm going off a few times during the rendezvous process but it was for a very trivial condensation problem and that's what our spacecraft told us it was again it's a condensation problem so we thought's what our spacecraft told us it was again, it's a condensation problem. So we thought, hang on, you know, this feels a bit more serious, we could feel the spacecraft had stopped its approach, and it was backing out into space. And we started to dig down

into the emergency procedures, and we'd had one of our thrusters had failed. So Yuri, our commander at the time had to take manual control of the spacecraft. And he was going to have to manually dock us at that point, which is a process that has happened before and we do train for. But it is a reasonably serious situation, a manual docking, it requires a high degree of skill in order to do it. And so immediately at that point, your training just kicks in. And it felt like we were back in the simulator again, running through an exercise. At that point, you just have to focus as a crew. You have to run through the procedures.

And we were just doing everything we could to make sure that this docking was going to go okay. And the sun angle was very, very poor. So lighting conditions were poor. We were going from daylight to darkness, making it very, very difficult. We were very tight next to another cargo vehicle. So a very small margin of error and the solar panels would have collided. And then we had a further failure inside the spacecraft. So now we're in a situation where we've got multiple failures stacking up. And Tim Coper and myself couldn't do much at this point to help Yuri out.

And it was one of those situations where you can feel things just starting to spiral out of control. And I think that's the key where training and experience comes in. That's the point where accidents will happen with a junior crew. Yuri was very experienced on his sixth mission to space. Tim and I were both test pilots. And we just could feel this situation was starting to tick all the boxes that was going to lead up to a catastrophe. Yeah. Do you remember actually how it felt in that moment?

Because several hours before that, you had kissed your wife and kids goodbye. Did your training just kick in? Or was there a little bit of fear initially? Oh, well, there is fear, but I think fear is good. And throughout my career, I think it's been a process of learning to live with fear and understand it and use it to help you. There's kind of a fear curve, where, you know, as fear increases, it's beneficial, the adrenaline levels start to rise, you become sharp, you become clear, you become focused. And you can actually use that in a positive way, along with your training and experience to deal with a situation,

then you get to the point where fear increases, increases further. And then it starts to be a negative process where it starts to inhibit your thinking and your clarity of thought and your focus. And, and that's when you know, you've you've really gone too far and where fear gets out of control. What we do is we train a lot so that we can manage our fear, we can manage it and use it to help us in a situation. As a test pilot, that happened on several occasions when we had perhaps a fire or an engine failure or things, you know, problems were going out of control. And, you know, throughout my life, I've kind of been able to play with that and manage it and understand myself as to when, you as to when I'm getting to the point

that I really need to start worrying. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating because I think one of the things that we think about when we think about people like yourself who have been to space and are astronauts is, you know, how do you deal with fear? How do you deal with stress? How do you keep your cool in potentially very challenging and life-threatening situations? Because I think, although what you're doing is potentially very different in many ways from what I might do or a mother might do or a father might do in their day-to-day

lives, presumably the principles are actually the same. A little bit of stress can help us, too much stress starts to become damaging. Yes, absolutely. And you're absolutely right. I think it's, to me, in that situation, for example, in the spacecraft, it was a case of, right, what can i do now let's start running through the procedures let's stay on top of the problem let's start getting ahead of the game um you always want to be ahead of the situation so whilst yuri was focused on flying the spacecraft um and there was little i could do to help i was thinking about the fuel about the life support systems because i knew the next step was if this you know takes a long time we're burning

up precious fuel that could be a problem and so I can be the one who's already got the calculations done I can be keeping an eye on the clock and Tim Cobra was was similarly keeping an eye on the engine systems and we just knew what each other was we're doing we're working through this problem and I think it's a case of having options. And the fear really kicks in when you start to run out of options. That's true fear, because now you don't know what to do. And now you're reacting rather than being proactive. It sounds very much like the stoic philosophy, control what you can control. Absolutely. Is that something you think is important for you, your team, your crew, and I guess for all of us?

Completely. I mean, with the rocket launch as well, you could have a catastrophic failure. We know there is a risk of that and we understand approximately what the odds are, what the risk is. What are the odds? It's about, for any rocket launch, it's about 10%, but that's not on the human rated launches. We have a lower percentage than that. So it's about a one in 120 are the odds of having a catastrophic problem. Now, I just want to pause you there because as a doctor, we're often talking to patients about risk of certain procedures. Surgeons will do this all the time. You know, they'll say, you know, the benefits of this surgery are X, Y, and Z.

But I need to make sure you're aware of the risks. You know, there's a one in a hundred chance of this, a one in a thousand chance of this. And, you know, these are really rare, one in 10,000 or one in 100,000. To me, and to what I'm used to talking about, one in 120 sounds like quite a common thing. To me, that is something that really could happen. But you're still doing that. I mean, is your perception the same? This one in 120 sound?

Well, that means 119 times I'm going to be fine that's that's it that's a good hand to be playing what how do you perceive that um i i don't look at it from a statistical point of view really i what i've look at are the incidents that have happened and i try and assess the risk so we know that you know we had an apollo one fire killed three crew we've had the challenger and the Columbia incidents, 14 crew members killed. We had a Russian incident, three crew members killed. You look at the incidents, you look at why they happen, how they happen, what we've done to mitigate them. And I prefer to analyze the technical aspects and think, okay, how have we addressed those problems? And how is it now a safer environment? And what are the potential problems that could happen?, how have we addressed those problems? And how is it now a safer environment? And what

are the potential problems that could happen? And how would we deal with that? So, and that gives me, I think, a better understanding of the real risk that I'm taking. There is obviously a potential that something breaks that nobody has yet noticed or a problem that hasn't yet occurred. But that comes into the area of you can't control that. And that's what we put to one side. And I think it's exactly that situation you said you control, you know, what you what you can control, you have a plan to do something about it. And those elements that you can't control, don't let them overtake you. And then at the end of the day, you have to decide if you're prepared to take that risk or not. That approach, is that something you've learned through your life?

I'm sure many of those aspects you have trained at and got better at. But was it also innate to you, do you think? I think as a youngster, I was somebody who embraced adventure, definitely. And I was happy to push myself out of my comfort zone and I think my years of flying a helicopter have always made me expect the unexpected and there's a joke that you know an aircraft a plane will want to fly itself it's got wings it will naturally glide you do nothing to it and it will want to stay in the air whereas a helicopter is thrashing itself to bits and if something goes wrong, it will want to just take itself out of the sky.

So as a helicopter pilot, you're constantly looking at the next field to land in, where to put it down if there's a problem. And that just ingrains in you this expectation of something is going to go wrong. And I think I carry that with me when I'm on a mission and also we get into that mindset as astronauts because you never allow your guard to drop completely. Even when you're on the space station, you're four months into your mission,

it's a routine Saturday morning, you're just having a cup of tea, bacon sandwich. There's a part of you that knows that the space station could get hit by a piece of space debris at any point and you have to click into your emergency procedures. So you never really let your guard down. Is that stressful? Yes, there is an underlying element of stress there.

And I think that it would be unhealthy to live with that for a long, long period of time. Having said that, we've had two crew members when I was on board, Scott Kelly and Misha Kornienko were spending a year living in space. And in fact, Scott was fantastic to work with as my first ISS commander, because, you know, learning from him and his experiences and how he dealt with that stress, how he managed to relax, but also, you know, he made sure that we had sufficient rest that we could always have that extra 10% in the bag for when an emergency was going to happen. That's fascinating for me, Tim, because I imagine, and I want to talk about the recruitment process at some point,

but I'm guessing that you were already very, very good at dealing with stress, managing it, you know, dealing with fear. Yet you still said it was great to have this commander because you could learn from him. So therefore, my question is, is getting better at stress, is resilience, in your view, a trainable skill? Completely trainable. Yes, yes, absolutely. I mean, that's exactly what we do for several years before our first mission. We are essentially put into environments where we're building up our resilience.

We're learning how to deal with stress. When we're training down in a cave, for example, we'll spend seven or eight nights in a caving complex in Sardinia. And they're very technical caves. It takes about a day and a half just to get to the base camp and then we're exploring on from there. There's real risk involved. If you have an injury, it's going to be exceptionally hard

to extract somebody with a broken limb, for example. We'll spend 12 days living underwater in an aquarius habitat 30 meters down so you're completely saturated with nitrogen there is no option to come to the surface other rapidly otherwise you'll just suffer decompression sickness so we're put into environments where there's real risk and there are real consequences and that is so that we can build resilience we're learning not just the soft skills of learning how to get on with our crewmates, but we're learning for ourselves how we can deal with that pressure.

What does the word resilience mean to you? Well, I think resilience is, it's a case of exploring and pushing your boundaries. It's a case of doing something you haven't done before so that you learn something from that experience. And then you have, it's an armory, isn't it? You've got a toolbox that you go through life with and it's about putting tools into your toolbox. And the more different things you try, the more you learn about yourself,

then the more tools you're putting in your toolbox to be able to deal with situations that might come up in the future. be able to deal with situations that might come up in the future. So given that these skills are trainable, what advice would you give to someone who has no desire to be an astronaut who just wants to be better at managing stress in their day to day life? I think the advice is to try and have some time to think and reflect you first, that's the first thing you know, it's very, very difficult to even understand the problem or deal with it when you're in a very busy situation. So if you can just carve yourself

five, 10 minutes somewhere in the day to go and have some peace and quiet and then to think and think about what is it in your life that is causing you the stress? Why are you worried about something and analysing the problem? I've always approached things

from a technical point of view. That's the military, that's the test pilot in me. But it's a case of analyzing why am I afraid of this situation? Why is it causing me stress? And what can I do about it? And then start writing things down. I find that if I write things down, then it really helps to give me clarity of thought

and come up with a plan of where do I want to be? You know, what's the stress I want to get rid of? And how am I going to do it? And then stick to that plan. Yeah, I love that. Taking a bit of time out for yourself each day, reflecting on your life gives you perspective. And I totally agree about writing things down. You know, we've spoken about journaling on this show in many different forms over the years, because it's such a simple and effective practice to take a lot of the worries and anxieties out of our brain and popping them down onto paper. And it's really fascinating for me, you know, I talk to patients about doing that for anxiety, for stress, for all

kinds of things, for insomnia. But you're talking about it in, I guess, a slightly different way, but it's to get that perspective and then looking at, well, now that I've written it down, what can I actually address? What can I do? Which goes back to what you're saying before, it's like, what can I actually do to reduce the likelihood that this is going to stress me out in the future or what can I do to change it? Absolutely, yes. I mean, we do a lot of time looking at decision-making process. If we're trying to improve our capabilities to deal with emergencies

or deal with difficult situations. And there are all sorts of different processes and techniques out there for making a decision. But generally speaking, four quick steps. You'll look at the facts. That's the kind of bit I was saying about what's the problem, really what's the problem. That's the fact, get the facts. Now think of the options, because if you haven't got any options, there's no decision to make. So you've got to have at least more than one option as to what can you do about it. Then you reason those options. And then you take action. Well, after your reasoning, you've decided on the

option, you take action, very quick process. And that process enables you to make a decision. I think that's what causes a lot of stress and anxiety is people not knowing how to make a decision or what the right decision is to make. And once you've gone through a process, you take a decision. It's the right decision at the time. You might look back in six months' time and think, well, okay, that hasn't worked out how I wanted. But you can't beat yourself up about it because it was the right decision to make at the time because you went through this process,

you made the best decision given the facts that you had and given the reasoning that you've been through. And I think that process just helps people to sometimes just take a decision and go with it. Yeah, I love that because what we can control is the process we go through to make that decision. Sometimes we can make the right decision, to make that decision. Sometimes we can make the right decision, but for reasons outside our control,

the outcome wasn't what we wanted. And then we can fall into the trap of thinking, oh, we made the wrong decision. Completely, absolutely. There will always be factors outside of our control. Just look at what's happened in the last four or five years. From Brexit, from a pandemic to the war in Ukraine, inflation, cost of living crisis.

These kind of things are outside of most people's control. They are just events that are happening that we have to react to. There are things that you can do to try and protect yourself, give you a buffer maybe it's a financial buff or uh you know or something in your life to give you options and okay well if this if this were to happen then at least we could do x y or z but but you you know there will always be things outside of your control and i think that a lot of anxiety and worry is about those elements that we can't control. You said, I think in print before, I've read an article where you spoke about the importance of structure and routine.

I'd love to just touch on that a little bit because you've just outlined a lot of these things that happen in life that we have no control over. But if we focus on the things that we can control that helps give us that buffer, where does structure and routine fit into that? Structure and routine is brilliant. A lot of people think structure and routine, oh, God, it's horrible. It's so regimented. Gosh, you know, why can't we just have a bit of flexibility? Surely life will be better if we could just have some freedom without realizing that structure and routine gives you freedom. Yeah. that structure and routine gives you freedom.

Because structure and routine gives you that 15-minute coffee break that is your freedom because it's there, it's in the schedule, and I'm going to take my 15-minute coffee break. If it's not in the schedule, you'll work through it. You'll just plow on through it. It'll be the next email or onto the device, checking social media, whatever it might be. And on the space station, we stick to a very strict routine that makes sure that we get adequate sleep, that makes sure we get time to eat, time to exercise, and time in the evenings to switch off and relax.

So actually, structure and routine is giving us the freedom that we need. And I guess that has all intentionally been put in by the powers that be, you know, the experience from previous missions out into space. I guess people have learned what is the optimum thing that we must do with our astronauts to keep them performing well. I mean, you mentioned sleep. Sleep is obviously so important for our performance. Is it hard to sleep when you're up in space? It can be hard to sleep. Certainly in the first couple of weeks. Why? What happens? I mean, I just can't even imagine. What do you feel? It's getting to sleep is hard because it's, you know, you're floating and without the absence

of lying down in a bed, without being able to kind of, you know, have that comfort of a pillow against your head and all these things that we feel very comforting on earth and they give us the triggers to fall asleep without them um you feel like your you know your body isn't ready to go to sleep also ultraviolet light can be really uh terrible for sleep so if we go to the cupola window for example late at night and it happens to daytime, we're in the daytime part of the Earth's orbit, and you take a few photographs, and you get this big influx of UV light, you won't sleep for the whole night. Your body, it's very attuned to the lighting conditions. I mean, we've evolved over millions and millions of years to be attuned to a 24-hour cycle. Yeah, we have.

I believe that you see, is it 16 sunrises and sunsets a day when you're in space? Is that right? That's right. Yes. Yeah. So how does that work? We're attuned to this 24-hour cycle. You're a human being. Even though you're in space, you've still got that evolutionary biology. Yet you're seeing 16 sunrises and sunsets.

How does that fit together? Well, yeah, it messes up your circadian rhythm for the first couple of weeks. And that's why it takes this while just to get used to being in space. And what we do in the evenings is we'll now close the hatches. We'll try and prevent too much UV coming in. And on the space station today, they actually have LED lighting, so they can redshift the lighting in the evenings is we'll now close the hatches, we'll try and prevent too much UV coming in. And on the space station today, they actually have LED lighting, so they can redshift the lighting in the evenings, blue shift it during the day and get maximum performance, but make sure in the evenings, we're kind of redshifted and we're just starting to get into that sleep rhythm.

Are your routines then, whilst in space, kept on a 24-hour clock? Yes, we work GMT and we'll have a 24-hour schedule that gives us at least seven hours of sleep. But we're working to a normal, what you'd call a normal 24-hour schedule. Yeah. 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

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In terms of fear, you did a spacewalk. And one of the most profound things I learned as I was preparing for the conversation today is you were talking about, Tim, the feeling during that spacewalk, I think you were maybe as far as you could get from the ISS, the International Space Station. And I don't know if you actually did look or you just knew what was behind your right shoulder. I can't stop thinking about that,

this idea that actually if you were to look, it's just space. There's nothing. Can you talk me through that? What was going on? I mean, that is so hard to fathom. Yeah, it's unusual, actually, because we were quite fortunate. We had to go to the furthest edge of the space station,

out to one of the far solar panels to fix it. And we got there a bit early, and we had some time. What does early mean? Well, we try and plan the spacewalks, you know, meticulously, and we give plenty of time. So there's no rushing, there's no, you know, you're not going to make mistakes. And so when we had a long journey to get out to the farthest edge, there was extra buffer in there in case we'd had a problem. And Tim Coper and myself, thankfully, we moved pretty quickly. We didn't have a problem. So when we got to our work site,

we were 10 minutes ahead of schedule. But we couldn't repair the solar panel until darkness because there was live electricity just flowing down the solar panel from the sun's rays. We were only going to get 45 minutes of the night part of the orbit to get this repair job done so it was going to have to be a very you know well-run procedure but for the 10 minutes after we'd set up our work site there was nothing to do just wait for the sun to go down so that was when i had those precious moments to kind of clip on and and push off and just float in the blackness of space and just look out at the universe and watch the sun go down on Earth. So you pushed away?

Yeah, yeah. And you were literally floating in space? Yes. Now Tim, that is an experience that so few humans who currently live on planet Earth or who have ever lived on planet Earth have ever experienced. Are you able to put words to that kind of experience that even remotely explain what it felt like?

I think it's incredibly hard to process fully what that experience is like. In fact, I've spoken to several Apollo astronauts about it as well. One, a great friend of mine, Al Worden, who's passed away now, unfortunately, but Al did a deep space spacewalk. He was on his way back from the moon and had to retrieve the film canisters into the command module. So he had to go out halfway back and he was on this space walk picking up the film canisters. And he said, you know, he could cover the moon with one thumb in one direction, and he could cover the

earth with the other thumb in the other direction just by, you know, that's how far away he was from anything. And, of course, my experience wasn't quite as extreme as that. But still, when you're looking out at the Milky Way, looking away from Earth and floating and not feeling any pressure on your body, no forces, all you've got is a gentle hum from the ventilation system. So it's very, very quiet, very peaceful. It's a very, very strange environment, very surreal to be in that environment looking down on Earth. Were you able to fully be present with that experience and appreciate it and be there with it or was a part of you scared as well? Did you allow your mind to go, well, what if the tether breaks?

Because what if this, what if I do just float out into the blackness? Did that go through your mind? No, it didn't. It was. That's what I think is so strange. And that's why I think it's hard to process because I've done some free fall parachuting and every second of the parachuting experience for me was packed with adrenaline. And it was almost you know

this this incredible feeling of excitement and um not a situation i relaxed into always a situation where i was aware that you're plummeting to earth and will the parachute open or what's my next moves on a spacewalk it wasn't like that it was, my heart rate was probably about 60 or 70. I was incredibly relaxed, just enjoying that sensation of floating. It's like being in a warm bath of water, just in your suit without feeling anything and unbelievable. It was quite a surreal experience. Now, when I first knew we had a date in the diary,

booked in to talk, the big thing that kept going through my head is perspective. The perspective you gain when you're in space, how does that translate to day to day regular life? You know, does it feel pointless sometimes when you've seen the magnitude of the universe? You know, do you get caught up in the same stresses as we all tend to in day to day life? Or are you like a Zen monk because you've had this sort of huge perspective on the world and our place in it?

If you come into my house on a Monday morning when it's school, we're packing the bags and having got the... Of course, it's exactly the same as any other family in terms of the day-to-day stresses that you get involved in. But it does give you that ability to step back and just think, come on, you know, all right, what are the real problems here? What are the real stresses? And it is that sense of perspective that you get. You mentioned about resilience earlier on and about this is something that grows throughout your entire life. Your resilience builds with the experiences that you

have. So being in space will be an experience that I'll always carry with me now. And it's always something I can reflect on. And it's something I can use in my life to help me appreciate and have a bit more clarity of thought on situations that arise and maintain perspective when the stress builds. I understand that you would have weekly calls with your family. Were they video calls? Were they phone calls? And what is it like talking to your loved ones

when you're not on the same planet as them? We were able to, I was able to call back anytime I wanted on a phone call. So we've got a laptop in our crew quarters and it's a voice over IP system. So we just go to the laptop and you can dial up a number. So I'll be speaking to my friends. I had a list actually of people I'd wanted to call whilst in space. And of course, I was calling my wife regularly.

Often it was quite funny. It was too regular. She was busy. She had two kids to be looking after. And, you quite funny. It was too regular. She was busy. She had two kids to be looking after. And, you know, I was on GMT. So in the evening when I had had my dinner and I was just, you know, getting ready for bed, I think, oh, it's time to give Rebecca a call. And she'd be in the middle of the day in Houston, running around trying to get a million things done before the kids needed picking up from school. Like, okay, thanks, hon, but can't

really talk now. So no, we had a bit of an ego check. It was it was hilarious. But yes, it was a lot of it was great to be able to call you know, anybody and then once a week, we would have a video call. And that's when I would really talk to my boys. I wouldn't they were quite young at the time. So during the week, you know, we didn't want to have it was almost getting that balance between not so much contact with daddy that they would actually miss me, but enough at the weekends where we could have a video call and they could have a look. I'd be able to take them on a tour around the space station,

show them the view out the window and do some somersaults and have fun with food and water, all that kind of stuff. But as you know yourself, it's very hard to actually hold the attention of a seven-year-old and a four-year-old for very long. So often after half an hour, they were like, okay, thanks very much. We're off to go and play Lego now. I'm just wondering about the chats with your wife, you know, you know, hi darling, what have you been up to? Yeah, I've done the shopping, done this. And what about you, Tim? Yeah, you know, just the usual, done the stuff in the ISS, had to do a spacewalk today,

floated a little bit out in the universe. Yeah, see you tomorrow kind of thing. I mean, was it hard as well? Because, you know, we were talking about this in the kitchen before over coffee, this idea sometimes that it can be hard to mix work life and home life sometimes. And you're out there. There's huge risk.

Yes, you're trained for it. But you're out there to do a job, very important job for your team, but for humanity as well, right? In terms of our progress as a species. Talking to your children and your wife brings you back to your other life, you know, your personal life. Was that challenging? It was never something that I really felt tearful about or sad about because we had prepared so long for this moment.

We knew what was coming up. We knew it was a six-month mission. I knew I'd be missing Christmas and New Year and anniversary and birthdays. And we had kind of plans in place to deal with that. So it was a case of, I think, knowing beforehand that you were making this sacrifice. You're going to be away from your family but of course that connection with Earth always brings you back to that situation my worry was always about my family what if something happens to them you know I was always concerned that they would have the support structure in place and be okay and be able to deal with things.

And the space agencies have a very good network to enable your families to have that support if something were to happen. So it wasn't really, it wasn't a feeling of sadness. It was actually, it was very good for my morale to have that connection back to Earth. There's a nice moment I heard about. We share a mutual friend in Philip McCabe. And I remember a few years ago, Philip telling me, I would often go and ski in Chamonix

and me and Philip would often ski together. I wasn't there at this time, but he told me about a moment at the end of January, when it was, I think it was a powder day in Chamonix, he had skied La Vente Chez Bol, which I know super well. And at the bottom, he just completed the run and his phone's ringing. And he picks up his mobile and it says ISS, International Space Station. And he answered. And he said it was you phoning to wish him happy 50th birthday from the International Space Station, which it was such a wonderful story in a moment. And they said he got on the ski lift back up and he was chatting to you on the way. And

you know, Philip would say we could ask him about what his experience was of actually talking to someone who's in space. But that's a really nice moment, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, how special it is to be able to ring your friends and, you know, from space and just have a chat. And I think, for me, actually, I think they didn't realise, probably, that I was getting more from the conversation

than perhaps they were. Because for them, it's an incredible experience. Somebody from the space station has rung me and we're talking. But actually, for me, it was having that connection, that connection back to Earth, connection to my friends, to my family. And when you're off planets for six months and you're looking down at humanity, you need that. That's what I think is going to be so challenging

for the crews that go to Mars on those missions and they'll watch Earth just disappear to this small light in the sky, no bigger than a star. And that connection back to Earth is going to be so important. And that's something that we've we've realized, I think, within the space agencies. So it was and I think also that going back to the point about bringing my, my family and my wife and she was just so incredible for that entire mission there was not a single phone call where she allowed herself to get upset or tearful or to tell me about the stresses of her day and i know that she was you know busy and having a hard time you know being a single mum for several months whilst I'm away. And yet none of that was passed

on to me. And I think that's where it really helps is having that support structure, you know, that enables you to go out and do an extraordinary job. Was that something you spoke about beforehand? Do you think that was something that your wife intentionally thought about? Like actually, look, Tim's away, I'm not going to make it harder than it needs to be, you know, was that just something she did off her own back or had you guys spoken about things like this as well? She did that off her own back. I know that.

We, you know, she's been incredible and she's supported me when I was test flying and, you know, I went off to Afghanistan and I know there's been moments where she's been worried, very worried about what I'm going to do. And she has never let it show. She's just cracked on as normal, as if it's just a normal day of family life and see you, Tim, bye bye, off to work. And I know that she's, you know, working very hard to enable me to be able to go off and do what I need to do. Now, a lot of the time when

people become parents, their attitude to risk starts to change. I certainly feel in my own life that very much has been the case. I mean, we mentioned skiing before, the sort of off-piste runs I used to do on glaciers with crevasses. I'm just not sure. I've been skiing for a few years, having said that, but I'm just not sure I would be happy with that risk-benefit equation anymore now that I have dependents. And so what's interesting to me, if I look at your life from the outside, to me, at least, you were doing lots of risky things in your life.

Anyway, you were in the army, you were flying Apache helicopters, you were doing all kinds of stuff, right? But arguably, or certainly to me at least, one of the riskiest things you have done left the earth's orbit. Even as I say that, it just sounds ridiculous to me. And you know, you did that and experienced that after you had kids. So I get that you're trained to be focused, to be able to actually just look at the problem in hand. And I can tell that from talking to you, you're very, it's really wonderful. You're very methodical. It's very, it's very systematic. And I kind of think, well, of course it would be. That must be a trait that is required to be able to be an astronaut. Did any part of you ever think,

hey, look, I'm going to space. This is awesome. It's a great opportunity. But if I die, I leave my kids fatherless. Did that go into your mind at all at any point? Most definitely, yes. And when I was selected back in 2009, Rebecca was pregnant with Thomas, our eldest son. So really, you know, my career as an astronaut has been with children. But when I was going for the process and going for selection, we didn't have children. I was not prepared for how much becoming a father changed me. You mentioned

there about your whole attitude to risk changing your whole life changing. And it's very easy to be told that when you don't have children, your life will change. You don't fully every parent knows that you do not fully appreciate how your life will change. You don't fully every parent knows that you do not fully appreciate how your life will change and how your emotions will change and how you'll feel about the responsibility to another individual after you become a parent. And so that really struck me. And, and it was something that I had to deal with, that I hadn't expected to have to deal with. So there was very much that balancing within myself, that justifying what am I doing between my responsibility as a parent and as a husband versus my responsibility to myself and my career. And I think that it was really coming

to terms with the fact that you also have to be yourself. You have to be true to yourself and honest. And I think you're setting an example to your children. And if I were to stop doing what I was doing, if I was to stop being who I was as a person all my life as a pilot, test pilot, astronaut, who I was as a person all my life as a pilot, test pilot, astronaut, if I was to stop that because of my children, what would they then think of me? And what would the new me be? What would I go and do and how would I act?

And I think that that is really the balance to be struck. It's okay, yes, I know I do a job where there's perhaps more risks than many other jobs, but I've got to be true to myself and I've got to set the example to my children. Yeah, I really appreciate you sharing that because I think many of us in our own way face similar challenges. You know, when we have dependents, when we have a partner, people who rely on us,

you know, it's easy to stop doing all the things that make you you, to, you know, nourish that. But I've also learned over the past years, yeah, but part of you has to be you as well. And I guess it's for each and every single one of us to find, you know, where is that sweet spot for us? What are we happy with? What is our family and the

people around us happy with? But I think there's one right answer is that we've all got to kind of come to that conclusion for ourselves. We have, yes, absolutely. And you mentioned about your, I think your look at risk in a different way. And that's absolutely fine. You'll look at that glacier, you'll look at that potential avalanche and you'll think, okay, really, really, am I going to do that? And I, in the same way, I'll look at things now and I will perhaps analyze the risk in more detail and being a parent will affect my decision maybe. But I think you'll still, you know, be able to take that risk and you still have to be true to yourself. I want to talk about these transferable skills of resilience

that we can all work on and cultivate in ourselves. Because as I say, I think that's relevant for every single one of us. So let's talk about this. You know, you get chosen. And then there's a preparation period of what, six years? Is that right? It was six years for myself. You can do

it faster. That was basically just the order in which we were flying as astronauts. But it will be a minimum of about four years. Minimum of four years. Okay, so you get chosen to be an astronaut, and there's a minimum of four years of training. So that actually, when you go on your mission, you are as well prepared as you can possibly be to make that a success. So let's go through, in fact, let's go through that in a moment. Let's just back up to you getting chosen. Am I right in thinking that you didn't necessarily want to be an astronaut as a kid? It wasn't like a burning desire, but you saw an advert. And you just thought, yeah, that sounds good. I mean, what happened there? Yes, it's quite funny, because I've, you know, on occasion, I felt like a bit

of a fraud compared to some of my colleagues with Anissa who have been that four or five year old girl or boy dreaming of being an astronaut and doing everything in their life to work up to that moment. And I've lived my life really not looking more than about two years ahead, I think. I've been passionate about what I do when I was a cadet at school about flying and knowing I wanted to be a pilot and then when I was a pilot, but I didn't even want to be a test pilot when I first joined the Army Air Corps. I didn't want to be an instructor. I just wanted to fly. Now, what is a test pilot? So a test pilot is somebody who takes aircraft, experimental aircraft,

either brand new aircraft off the production line and tests them, making sure that they're safe, or you take an existing aircraft and you try and expand the flying envelope. You push the boundaries of what it's possible to do. like a human guinea pig yes kind of but uh but i guess again it's in a in a very we we approach we approach risk in a very incremental process okay so with the apache helicopter for example it was it was produced it was in service but we needed it to do more more than it was originally designed to do. So the test pilots will take it and slowly push the envelope of what is it really capable of doing. And sometimes you reach the

envelope and you realize, okay, that's it. But you're there to make it safe for frontline operational pilots to fly. So super important job. Absolutely, yes. Because you're the one who's pushing, you're setting the limits, you're writing the checklists, you're deciding how to deal with the emergency situations. So it's a very important job, very rewarding job. But it does teach you how to approach a problem in an incremental manner and how to deal with risk.

It's all about risk management. So you see this advert. I don't know, you email, you phone, what did you do? Did you think, yeah, astronaut, that sounds good. What went through your heads? So I'd been working as a test pilot for about five years. And when I saw the advert, absolutely, I thought, I have to go for this. It's a dream job. And it was very fortuitous because it suited my circumstances at the time. I was leaving the army, I was getting a job as a civilian test pilot. And so I was in a transition period anyway. And thankfully, just a couple of years before, I got a degree in flight dynamics. And I did that,

that was at the age of 33. So having left school after A levels, and I needed that degree really to become an astronaut. That wasn't mandatory. But looking back now, I can see that it was, you know, they haven't selected any astronauts who didn't have a degree qualification. So I had the right qualifications, right time, right age, and just decided to apply. Now, there were 8,000 applicants, I believe. You got chosen. That is a staggering achievement, I would say, in and of itself.

But if I think about it, I would imagine that those 8,000 applicants were all pretty high caliber anyway. Certainly the last 1,000, right, must be everyone's pretty damn good at what they're doing already. So, you know, as you were going through that process, can you shed some light for us as to what that experience is like? It morphed throughout the selection process. It was interesting because when I first went for it, it was a case of, I mean, although I hadn't wanted to be an astronaut when I was four or five years old, as my career progressed, I had worked much more closely with the space industry.

As a test pilot, we worked closely with the space industry. So I knew a lot more about space. I was excited and interested in space so it wasn't that it was kind of out of the blue and this was a brand new thing that I thought I'd just give it a shot there was definitely you know some some huge amount of desire to do the role but as you go through the selection process you go from a position or certainly myself I went from thinking I don't have a chance of getting this, but I've got to give it a go. And it will be a wonderful experience. I'm going to take the positives from it. And however far I may or may not get through the process, then it's going to

be great fun. So I started on this journey with that in mind. But as you progress through, and your chances increase, you become very emotionally involved, which I wasn't at the start. At the start, I was able to be a bit standoffish about it. And then as I came, got closer and closer and closer, you start to really, really want it.

And that's when I started to struggle because, of course, there's this burning desire within you that you really you know want to become an astronaut and you think you might have a chance of getting it and going back to what we said earlier about fear and how to make good decisions you need to take some time away and almost stay detached so you can make good decisions i guess in some ways those strong emotions that fear like i'm in the final 10, you know, I'm close,

but the other nine are probably all pretty damn good. Potentially that could have impacted how you performed at those final tests. Were you aware of that? Did you have to go through a process to make sure you didn't allow that emotion, Were you aware of that? Did you have to go through a process to make sure you didn't allow that emotion, that potential fear of missing out on this, you know, once in a lifetime opportunity

kind of get in the way? Did you have to do anything about that? Yes, I mean, consciously trying to relax before interviews and having, again, thinking about the whole process. And there's the element of preparation, but then being honest to yourself. So on the preparation side,

you need to show that you've been committed, you're dedicated. So you've got to learn and revise and study about what your potential role is going to be. And the space agencies will want to know that you've done the homework and you appreciate what you're letting yourself in for. But then not to let the preparation slip

into your personality and your character. That's where it's got to be honest and genuine and authentic. And you've got to make that delineation. And because there's nothing worse than going to an interview and trying to pretend to be somebody who you're not. They will see through that. And also, you're not being fair to yourself and you're not being fair to your employer. and also you're not being fair to yourself and you're not being fair to your employer.

And that's where I think that I was able to kind of just relax and think to myself, if I'm the right person for the job and if they like me, then they'll pick me. And if I'm not the right person for the job, then I shouldn't be picked. And so you kind of go in there and then try and just keep yourself relaxed. And now on the other side of the fence, we've got a selection, astronaut selection process on this year.

And I've now been interviewing candidates. And it's so important to do that because we have so little time with the candidates that we have to know them. We have to really know them because the space agencies are going to make a huge investment in that person and it's all about um a low risk candidate low risk from having a medical emergency a low risk from knowing that that person is going to be able to cope with the training um be able to speak

another language be able to you know develop or do spacewalks etc but in order to have a low risk of of knowing someone's personality and character, they have to open up quickly in a one-hour interview. By the end of that hour, we have to know that candidate very well. And we've had some candidates who have been brilliant on paper, but just did not allow themselves to open up.

And that's where they're doing themselves an injustice because if the employer doesn't get to know you fully, how can they possibly make an informed decision? Why did you get chosen over 8,000 others? It's a whole mixture of different things. Obviously, the skills that get tested throughout the selection process, there are tests you have to pass. There's a psychological profile that obviously my profile fit the desired profile. Then you get it analyzed in your soft skills when you're doing teamwork exercises and things like that.

Interview process. Ultimately, it boils down to, as I kind of mentioned there, somebody that the space agencies have the most confidence in, that that person is going to be able to fulfill the role and be an ambassador for space as well. And there are so many people who can do that job. When I got into the final 10, any one of the 10 of us could have done it.

There were 20 of us who passed the medical. Any one of those 20 could have done a brilliant job of being an astronaut. So when it comes down to the final stages, I think it's just the small details of your personality and character. And that's ultimately where you get picked or not picked. Do you know some of the other nine who were in that final 10 and didn't get the gig in the end? I do. And in fact, one of them, Matthias Maurer, who's a German astronaut, was subsequently picked

up. And he's now flown to space, done a spacewalk. So that was great. I became great friends with Matthias. In terms of this training then, it was six years for you, but a minimum of four years. training then this, it was six years for you, but a minimum of four years, you've been chosen. So you've got the gig, you know, you're now you've been chosen to be an astronaut. It sounds like there's all kinds of different things that they train you for. You mentioned resilience, they take you to these, these like remote caves, or it's dark, it's cold. they take you to these remote caves where it's dark, it's cold. What is the principle there that we can take? Like if we want to improve our resilience,

what's the principle we can learn from what they did with you guys to train you to be astronauts? What can we do in our kind of more regular lives to train to become more resilient for ourselves. 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. 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 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. I think maybe look at something that you've always wanted to do, but have been putting it off for one reason or another and go and do it. So we get pushed out of our comfort zone because that's when you will start to really identify someone's personality and character, how they deal with difficult circumstances, how they deal with stress, how they manage themselves. And that's where you start learning lessons. I, you lessons. I now know what I'm like when I'm tired and grumpy

and I'm cold and wet and I haven't eaten for four days. And I know what my thought process becomes and I know better now how to manage my emotions and I know how to help other people. That's interesting because you've said that, haven't you, before in an interview that you learn, I think in the army that if you want to know someone's true personality, make them go take them somewhere dark, make them cold, make them hungry, make them tired, right? And I love that. Is that our true personality? Or is um put someone in that situation let's say you get grumpy and you

fall out with someone how does that help us become more resilient um i think that it teaches you about how you are when you know you're out of your comfort zone It's very easy for people to, you know, to put on a facade and if everything is very good in their lives and everything is smooth and etc. But when the chips are down, it's, you know, there is no height, there are no hiding places. You are who you are. Are you really going to go the extra mile to help somebody out to be selfless? And are you going to offer that bit of food when you know that you'd rather eat the whole thing because you're so hungry? You know, are you going to volunteer to do an extra night shift when you haven't slept already for three days? These kind of things that just enable you to be able to have the strength

to analyze your character and personality and to go the extra mile. And presumably then by doing that, you may find some aspects of your personality that you don't like. You think, actually, you know what? I didn't behave as well as I would have liked to have behaved with my colleague in that situation.

So is the lesson then that put yourself in these uncomfortable situations, be honest, learn about yourself, and then go back and see if you can apply the new learnings in a different way? Completely. And part of the most interesting part of these exercises is the peer reviews afterwards.

Because you can learn about yourself, but that's just you analyzing it. But when you sit down afterwards and you do have a cup of coffee and you've had a nice meal and you've had a good night's sleep and it's like, right, let's talk about that. And we will analyze the situations

and have the peer reviews and people will then say, well, Tim, you know, really didn't appreciate that time in the cave where, you know, this happened and that could have been handled so much more differently. And you kind of think, wow, you know, this happened and that could have been handled so much more differently. And you kind of think, wow, you know,

I had no idea that maybe something I was doing or was having that effect on somebody else. And there is so much to learn. So I think it's also important. It's not just about one individual having self-reflection. It's about other people being able to tell you how it impacted on them. And did that help you?

That sort of experience in the cold, dark caves. Can you think of actually when you were on the International Space Station? Did those learnings there transfer? Was there a situation where it was difficult and stressful and actually go, no, you know what? I remember then I came across not as, I don't know, considerate as I could have done, like, whatever it might have been. Is it, you know, maybe it wasn't that one thing. Is it just bit by bit, you build up these skills. So actually, when you need it, you've just got

more resource to draw from. Completely, yes. And confidence to be able to do something. I remember one time during training, and we end up, you know, traveling around a lot and sleep patterns get disturbing. And I was doing a very, very stressful spacewalk test in the swimming pool in Houston. And I just could not sleep the night before, had absolutely zero sleep the night before. And I was driving to the swimming pool at six o'clock in the morning. And we'd go down for six hours at a time underwater. And I knew it was going to be one of the most stressful days of training in my life. And I was really, really worried about my cognitive ability and the lack of sleep. And I sailed through the test, you know, it wasn't easy,

but I managed to pass it. And I just remember drawing so much strength from that thinking, okay, you know, I know now that if I don't sleep the night before a spacewalk up on the space station, I know I can go out and do it. And you've got to be able to draw those lessons. I love that. I have an exercise called the five-step release that I wrote about in one of my books and I've used it with my patients for years who struggle with anxiety and they just have to simply answer five questions.

You know, what's one thing I'm anxious about today? What's one reason I know I can probably handle it? What's one reason it probably won't be as bad as I think it's going to be? Like there's a series of five simple questions. But a couple of them remind me of what you just said, which is, one of them is, you know, what's one reason I know I can probably handle it?

Because when you have done difficult things, and again, you have a bit of space and you can reflect and go, well, yeah, I'm knackered. I've got to do this difficult thing today. But you know what? I've been tired and done difficult things in the past. It just brings it to light. You go, oh yeah, you know what?

Yeah, it's probably going to be tricky, but I know I can handle it because I've handled difficult things already. Absolutely. Yes, it is about, you know, there's the tools in the toolbox. Yeah. And there's nothing like it's there. You know, I took a bit of time off this summer. And I've done a lot of deep reflection about life, you know, what I'm doing, you know, the world, you know, the sort of things that we often do when we have time on our hands.

the world, you know, the sort of things that we often do when we have time on our hands. And I keep thinking about this phrase about evidence. And, you know, we're so keen these days to look for evidence and expertise from other people. And again, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But I think we forget about the best form of evidence, which is when we do something for ourself or we experience it. Like I genuinely feel that experience is one of the best forms of evidence for ourselves. Like you can read about, oh, it's good to do difficult things.

Yeah, I know that's important. That's kind of cognitive, rational, but do it, feel it, go through it. That is immeasurably more important than kind of knowing this stuff, right? It's actually going through it and doing it, go through it, that is immeasurably more important than kind of knowing this stuff, right? It's actually going through it and doing it, isn't it? It is, yeah. And that's where coming back to structure and routine, I think helps because sometimes that is the thing. It's hard to put the time aside to do it. It's, you know, we might have all these things that we want to try, want to do, but then everyday life gets in the way and suddenly the normal routine kicks in and we never have enough time for

ourselves. So it's about making that time for yourself and achieving these goals that you might have. Yeah, and carving out the time. Yeah. You mentioned soft skills before, you know, how do you get on with people, communication, these kind of things. And I know from previous conversations I've heard you have, Tim, that those were things that they looked at really, really carefully before choosing who was going to be their astronaut. Because I think we probably take it for granted that, yeah, you guys have got to be medical specimens, you've got to be, you know, a low risk of something going wrong. So I'm guessing all your blood parameters and your blood pressure, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm guessing all those things must be pretty optimal around. So like, yeah, we're going to invest millions, maybe more than millions in this person. We don't want a simple medical problem to

botch the whole thing. So I think we kind of understand that that's important. How does this guy manage stress? You know, that's important. But the soft skills, how you interact with other people, what happens when you're tired, you know, you're in a pretty confined space, right? So talk to me about these soft skills and why they're so important. Yes, they are. But they're so important, because it's an area where the space agency just have to be able to trust you implicitly as an ambassador when you're traveling around, when you're working with your colleagues from Japan, from Canada, from America, from Russia, from all the other member states in Europe. And you are going to be a trusted individual who's going to represent yourself, represent the agency,

but also, of course, not cause a risk of conflict because that will be the worst case scenario on board the space station where you're in a confined environment and suddenly you've got a crew conflict going on and then that's going to impact the entire operating environment. So the soft skills are important on both levels, kind of that ambassadorial level and on the operational level. All the soft skills, that whole package of being able to appreciate where you are, what the environment is, how you should act,

and to recognise in yourself when you might be being a bit irrational. What about some of those simple things like, you know, we imagine what do you eat in space? How do you go to the toilet when there's no gravity? I don't know, but I mean, can you just talk us through some of that? Oh, it's amazing how routine it becomes, how normal it becomes. Eating is a normal event, really, in the fact that we just have to be careful with our food. It's all heated up in tins or foil pouches or rehydrated. We don't want to make a mess in the space station. So you've got to be careful. But your actual bodily process of eating is pretty

normal. We do end up having to kind of force ourselves to eat a little bit more because you feel full up very quickly, which is sometimes a bit uncomfortable as well. And we need to make sure that we take on enough calories. For the first few weeks in space, I just wasn't eating nearly enough because I didn't feel like I needed to. And then when I had my nutritional assessment, realized I'd lost five kilograms, and then it's okay, let's up the calorific content. But it's a normal experience. Sleeping, once you get used to it, is fantastic.

Going to the loo, you need to be very careful to switch the fan on, because that's what keeps everything clean and tidy. In the absence of gravity, airflow does the same job, really. So we have to keep the fans going all over the space station because that keeps the airflow mixing. If we weren't mixing the air, then little pockets of carbon dioxide would build up around us. As we breathe out, they would just hang around our head.

So it's the airflow, the fans that keep everything going, you know, mixing up. Do you still need to practice resilience? Because you've put yourself in difficult situations and, you know, the sort of situations that very few humans will put themselves into. So you develop those skills. You must be incredibly resilient.

You've had to keep your cool when, you know, your spacecraft is trying to dock in the middle of space and there's a problem. Do you still need to practice resilience or is it in you now? You've done your training, so you're like, yeah, I'm pretty good. No, I think you'll constantly have to practice your resilience and you might have a set of skills that can handle a particular situation very well. But there are, you know, other aspects of

your life where you may not have the skill set to deal with that. And so I think we always have to, you know, build resilience as we go through life, we have to look at the situations as they're evolving. You know, as a parent, every stage of your child's development is a new chapter and it requires new ways of dealing with things. So I'm permanently learning as a parent how to deal with situations. And I find that a fascinating journey,

but it's also a journey of resilience as well. Maybe the best resilience training, being a parent. I think it is. I want to talk to you about transition zones. This is something I talk to my patients a lot about, that transitional space in the day between, let's say, home and work or between work and home. You know, are you just going straight from your emails and your busy work life into family life. I think this became a real problem over the last years with working from home, no kind of transition. And I know that you have said that going to space, the transition from regular earth life to space life was actually okay

because it was meticulously trained for, you'd practiced, there was a whole team looking after you, making sure that you were prepared for that. So that was a relatively easy transition from what I understand. But from space back to earth into family life, that was a bit more challenging, wasn't it? Yes, it was much more challenging coming back down. And it wasn't so much family life. I think that happened very smoothly, just kind of straight into being a parent and a husband again. But it was that the whole transition, I think, for me,

just trying to process the mission. And I came back to a very, very busy environment where your body is literally a guinea pig. You're being analyzed for various science experiments over the first days and weeks. You need to go through a period of physical rehabilitation. Your muscles need to be built up, your lower back and your core strength.

And at the same time, you're exceptionally busy. You have to travel around the world again, doing debriefs with each mission control centers. And I think it's that period of having so much calm, if you like, of being, the space station is a very busy place to work, but it's such a structured place to work. And there are just a few of you up there

and you get into this environment, this isolated mindset. And there is no time when you get back to Earth, there is no time to just process what you've been through. You're straight into it. And I found that very difficult. And I guess it's hard to process

because if you're with your family or your mates, like no one knows what you've been through. Like to process stuff, sometimes we kind of need a shared experience with someone else. Hey, you know, you remember that? It's that tricky sometimes that how many people have been up into space? Do you know? We're up in the 500s now, over 50 years. space, do you know? We're up in the 500s now, over 50 years. But that's 500 people-ish in the history of all human life on this planet have experienced what you've experienced.

So is there something really powerful about being with other astronauts? Can you process, can you kind of go through stuff in a completely different way because they kind of know what you've been through yes absolutely it's like anybody who's been through somebody has a shared experience it's probably only the people that they've been through that experience with that can truly understand them um and so there is an element and i think what's one of the challenging things is actually when we come back from a mission to space, we don't have the time to do that. I landed with Tim and Yuri, so two people I'd spent, you know,

not just six months in space with, but I'd spent two years training intensively with. And within 12 hours of landing, the three of us were going three different directions and didn't see each other again for another couple of months. So you're into a very busy environment. Now, in the military, we've learned over the years how to do transition periods much better when you come back from an operational environment.

Soldiers won't go straight into a domestic environment. There'll be a period where they can just have a few days, maybe a week as a unit, decompressing and being able to talk about the situation and being able to normalize their situation before going into a domestic environment again. And we've discovered that really helps because you do need those transition periods. I guess a lot of companies have realized that, don't they?

That they need to have debriefs or you need to have, you know, intentionally have some time where you can process what's happened. It's not the same thing, but I guess, you know, on this show, we have a lot of deep conversations where sometimes I feel quite, you know,

that I'm potentially not the same person afterwards as I was beforehand, depending on who I'm talking to and what we discuss. And sometimes I found that if I then go straight into seeing my wife or my kids, I just can't be present. And actually what often ends up happening is Gareth, who records all the conversations,

we often spend half an hour chatting afterwards, just, and I guess it wasn't intentional, records all the conversations. We often spend half an hour chatting afterwards. And I guess it wasn't intentional, but I think if we were to think about it, we'd probably say that it's probably quite important for us to do that before we re-engage with normal life. Do you know? So I guess, you know, I'm not saying this is the same thing

as coming back from space to Earth at all, but the principle is the same, isn't it? It is the same. Yes, absolutely. You know, when you've been through an experience that's so extraordinary, you do need time. You need to reflect and you've got your own questions you need to answer. And you have to allow your body and your mind

to go through that process. Tim, having spent so much time in space, and I know you took up photography in space and I've seen some of the beautiful images that you've taken. Do you find it hard sometimes to experience awe on planet Earth? You know, if you go to a beautiful forest or you look out into your garden, you know, can you still experience the beauty in that? Or does the fact that you've seen things that most of us will never see,

you know, how does that change your kind of experience of day-to-day life, do you think? I think, if anything, I appreciate it more back here on Earth now. Yes, I think that, you know, that connection with nature means so much more to me now because when you're living off the planet, the one thing that you look at every day down on Earth is just this beautiful jewel, this oasis of life and the seasons are changing and you're watching the weather systems and you want that connection with nature. The space station is quite a sterile environment,

artificial lighting, artificial atmosphere. There's no green anywhere. And you start craving nature. The first thing I wanted to do when I got back down, I just wanted to go running in the woods. And I wanted to be out in the rain. It was raining and everyone was coming inside. I said, I'm going outside.

I just wanted to stand in the rain. Oh, I love that. And you just you kind of appreciate it more rather than less. There's a lot of talk about the planet at the moment and what humans are doing to the planet. One of the most powerful things I heard you say, And one of the most powerful things I heard you say, certainly for me, was that you realize that when you look down on Earth from space, that there are no borders. And I've been thinking about that a lot over the last few days, that there are no borders. It's, you know, when you had that realization or when you were aware of that, what kind of went through your mind? I think it just emphasizes how important it is that we cooperate and we collaborate here on Earth.

And sometimes it trivializes the problems that are going on not to say that there are they are trivial problems at all but i think that when you see from space the bigger picture you kind of think why are we doing this why is that a problem um you know if everybody could experience this and look at earth um i think it's it's always one of those things that as you go through life your your boundaries expand and your perspective changes um and when you grow up you might be uh when i was in the cubs you know i was i was at westbourne cubs and westbourne was was i was loyal to westbourne westbourne was west and then um you know you go to school in west sussex and then you play

county county games and then you join the army and it's the British army. And so I'm loyal to the UK and I joined the European Space Agency and I'm a European, I'm representing Europe. Then you go to space and you're an earthling. And you think, yeah, we're all earthlings, we're all representing earth. And it's almost as if we need an alien civilization to be able to communicate with so that we can actually appreciate what we are as a species and what we do as a species and to try and raise our game a little bit. Yeah, it's so powerful that because when I heard you say that, that there's no borders when you look at Earth from space,

I just thought it's all man-made. We're making up these distinctions between us and them. And, you know, these are all artificial man-made things. You know, we do this in this country, you do that in that country. But sure, fine, maybe there's some benefits for some reasons. But that big perspective that we're all in this together, that we are earthlings, I think we all could experience that. That would change humanity a lot, I think. I mean, I don't think it's realistic to get us all into space. In fact,

what was really interesting, Tim, last night at your talk, when you asked the audience how many of you would like to go to space, there weren't that many hands up. No. Is that normal? It depends when there's a younger audience. Last night was quite a late show and it's a school night. So there weren't so many youngsters, but the younger generation all put their hands up.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's what I think is so great when I, you know, go around talking to schools or with the scouts and, you know, the youngsters are just so so excited about about space and i think we all are at some point in our lives we look up to the stars we ask the big questions and we wonder about our existence and um uh but yes so i i draw a lot of strength from that as well let's talk about children i know you're super passionate about children um and there's kind of two areas I'd love to talk about. First of all,

I only found out yesterday that, you know, I think you would regard yourself as perhaps not the best student growing up. Is that fair to say? That's more than fair to say. Yeah. So I'm trying to respectfully, but the point I'm trying to make is that we would look at you, I think many of us, as an astronaut, as someone who, you know, for want of a better term, beat 8,000 other applicants to get the job. And it's tempting for us to think, you know, Tim must have just been the man since he was born, like top of his class at everything,

excelling at sports, doing this. He was always going to be an astronaut. But from what I understand from what I've heard about your life is that that was not the case. Not at all, no. And again, I love telling this story when I go to visit schools. The teachers don't like it so much. But, you know, I left school at 19.

I got a C, D and an E in my A levels. And I joined the military. And I went off and I flew helicopters. But, you know, I ended up gaining a degree in my 30s in flight dynamics. I never stopped studying after leaving school. Suddenly things became more relevant to me as a pilot. I understood why I needed to know about maths. I understood why I needed to know about maths. I understood why I need to know about physics. And it was just everybody matures, everybody develops

at a different stage. And I think it's great for young people to realise that, you know, that there's always opportunities, there's always learning, continual development, continual education, doors don't close, you know, you got to keep opportunities open. And I think that that helps some young people to realise that if it's not all working out, when the system says it should work out, that's not necessarily a problem. You know, you can chart your own course and you can always go back and and revisit things and um and so uh you know i that's why i'm so passionate about you know making sure that youngsters um try and develop personality and character and experience those other extracurricular activities where they can interact with people they can gain the soft skills

um so my I had a huge crisis of confidence when I was going through the selection process in that very first stage, the hard skills phase, the tests, the maths and the engineering. I was there with people who had, you know, doctorates, people who are working down at CERN, people who are way, way more qualified than I was academically. And I felt like a complete lightweight in their company. And I thought, well, you know, I'll give it my best shot. And when I passed that phase, I remember thinking, wow, you know, well, if I've passed that, the rest of it is just down to me.

It's down to who I am as a person. And I can do that. I can put on, you know, a good show. I can show the agencies what I'm capable of. I can demonstrate who I am. And so that was, you know, for me, that was probably the biggest hurdle was passing that. And I think that's where I speak to young people.

It's like, look, you know, you don't underestimate what you can achieve. You've got the potential. You've got the potential. You've got the capability. Just give it a shot. Yeah, that is super inspiring and super empowering. You've got a new book out for kids at the moment. Who's it for?

What's it about? Yeah, this is the Cosmic Diary of Our Incredible Universe. And it's about, I mean, it's really aimed at sort of eight to 12. And it's about how we came into existence. But it's about you. It's about you as a person. I think sometimes we look up to the stars and we look at it, we look at the universe, and we don't associate ourselves with the universe. So this is a book where the universe has written its own diary from the very beginnings, from the Big Bang,

as to how did you get here? You know, the evolution of stars, of galaxies, of neutron stars on black holes and planetary development and up to you. But not forgetting where you came from. You know, we are stardust. We've all been forged in the furnaces out in the in the galaxies in the universe and we are the consciousness of the universe and and that's why we're special

you are special life is special life is incredibly special that book sounds as though it might be quite good for adults as well i think i'm quite keen i think i'll buy that for my kids. And maybe when they fall asleep, I might sneak it into my room. That sounds really interesting. I think it's going to help a lot of people. So I got shivers then when you were talking, right? We're all made up of stardust. We are the consciousness of the universe. We are the consciousness of the universe. You have a perspective when you say that, that most of us don't.

And I think this is huge for me. You know, first of all, I don't know if you're religious at all, if you ever consider yourself religious, but I'm interested as to how your view on life, on humanity, spirituality, you know, how has that experience of going to space changed your fundamental view on who we are as humans on this planet? I am continually, you know, searching for answers to questions. I think that's the scientist in me. And so I'm not a religious person, but that doesn't mean I'm not, you know, a spiritual person or is not that I keep myself completely open to all ideas,

all opportunities. There comes a point where science stops and we run out of answers and we're constantly pushing that boundary we're constantly demanding more of science to give us the answers but when you look at the the universe we can learn so much about how old it is and how it came into existence and and how all the elements uh in our lives came into existence and how the biology has occurred. But there comes a point at which we don't really understand that system of how perhaps humans and how consciousness is different to other animals that we suspect don't have consciousness. They're just going on a hardwired biological program. And that's really fascinating when you start to think, okay, what part does a brain develop consciousness? And what does consciousness mean? What is this self-awareness?

Whatever it means, it's incredibly significant because to have from a physics point of view, just to have particles, you know, quarks and electrons that are just subatomic particles to be able to reassemble themselves into an organism that can start having self-awareness that can build spaceships that can send humans off and and to look down on life and start questioning the existence of what is just a subatomic particle. This is incredible. And this is where, of course, that forms the basis of many religions of faith because that's the step at which a lot of people will say, well, this is the creator. This is all being designed, the universe.

I approach it from a more scientific point of view, but I like to keep all options open. I like to keep an options open. I like to keep an open mind about everything. Is that one of the biggest things that you think has changed in yourself since going to space? I think it's reinforced something that I firmly believed in before I went to space. But yes, it really has. It opens your mind to so many possibilities and and and it really it just it fuels the fire within me if you like the fuel fuels the fire of curiosity uh and i just think that the more we learn about this is absolutely fascinating the more we learn about

the universe is fascinating as to how it operates and how it works at the very microscopic level to the macroscopic level. Would you go up again? Definitely. No doubt at all. No doubt at all. I think what's happening at the moment is so exciting. We have got a number of missions that are going back to the moon over the next few years.

First one coming off very soon, Artemis 1. It's going to be so exciting and i think that a lot of uh the public are starting to realize now that what's about to happen but it's it's been it hasn't been mainstream news so for for many people it'll be quite a surprise to learn that in the next couple of years we're going to have humans walking on the surface of the moon again that was such a monumental moment of course back in the 60s because they were the first missions to the moon but but for so many generations who haven't been alive to witness that it is going to be you know the second moon shot that we can all uh you know witness and enjoy and this is for a permanent

presence we're going to set up habitation modules there, a stepping stone to Mars, and it's all happening very soon. Humans say humans, what they can do. Tim, look, I can't thank you enough for stopping by during a busy tour. What you have done is incredible. The way you talk about it, the way you share your knowledge, your wisdom. It's really inspiring. I'm truly grateful I had the opportunity to talk to you today. This podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our lives. I just wonder, right at the end of our conversation, for my audience, for people who listen

regularly, who are inspired by what you've had to say, who might be struggling in their lives with the pressures and stresses of day-to-day regular planet Earth living. Do you have any final words? Try and just take some time for yourself every day, just a few moments in a quiet place, if you can connect with nature, just remember, you know, who we are, why we're here. I think it's just about trying to find happiness within yourself. And that comes down to having time for yourself. Thanks, Tim.

Thank you, Robin. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. As always, do have a think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. 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.