The Rich Roll Podcast - Rangan Chatterjee, MD On Quelling Stress, Cultivating Intimacy & Reinventing Health Care

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

Today we’re going to talk about stress. In proper doses it’s actually beneficial, promoting resilience -- both physical and mental. This week’s guest has seen the perils of chronic stress first hand. A UK-based medical doctor, he found himself increasingly treating patients suffering from the downstream implications of living with this malevolence. It prompted him to ask, why is this happening? His name is Rangan Chatterjee, MD. He decided to find answers to this question -- and do something about it. If that name sounds familiar, perhaps it’s because you caught him on the BBC, starring in Doctor in the House. Perhaps you read his bestselling book, The Four Pillar Plan, released in the United States under the title How To Make Disease Disappear. Or maybe, just maybe, you caught RRP 376, our popular first conversation from July of 2018 that launched our friendship. For those unfamiliar, Dr. Chatterjee is a pioneer in the field of progressive, functional medicine. Widely regarded as one of the most influential doctors in the UK, he is double board certified in internal medicine and family medicine and holds an honors degree in immunology. An in-demand lecturer, he created the very first “Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine” course accredited by the Royal College of General Practitioners in London. In addition, he hosts the popular Feel Better, Live More podcast (which I’ve appeared on twice) and has been widely featured on an array of prominent media outlets like the The New York Times, BBC, Forbes, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and many others. The focus of today’s conversation is also the subject of Rangan’s latest book, The Stress Solution -- an important primer on how chronic stress can lead to disease, along with strategies, tools and lifestyle changes proven to protect against and reverse its toxic effects. This is a conversation about the very nature of stress. What creates it. The health implications it produces. The many simple things you can do to alleviate it -- and it's varied ill effects. More specifically, we discuss Rangan’s direct experience fielding patients with chronic stress -- and the science-based strategies he deployed to ameliorate the condition and reverse it’s negative consequences. We talk about the critical role sleep, meditation and mindfulness practices play in combating stress. And how human touch, intimacy and connecting with nature can assuage it's impact. We cover breathing techniques. Disconnecting from our devices. Carving out “me time”. The importance of finding passion -- and infusing your life with purpose. Lastly, we dig into Rangan’s new found love for Swimrun (I’m taking a wee bit of credit for that one Dr. C!). You can watch it all go down on YouTube.  I think we can all benefit from de-stressing ourselves this holiday season. Both fun and important, my hope is that you listen keenly -- and put Dr. Chatterjee's prescription into action. Peace + Plants, Rich

The research is suggesting that the feeling of being lonely is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. We are social beings. We are wired to be together. Having close, nourishing relationships is one of the best ways to de-stress. But ironically, having too much stress in your life, I think, makes it very hard to have those close, nourishing relationships. too much stress in your life, I think makes it very hard to have those close nourishing relationships. But we are feeling isolated. We're feeling disconnected in this supposedly ultra-connected world. Sure, digitally, we've never been disconnected. There are amazing things about technology. I would accept that. But in terms of real, deep, meaningful human connection, I think there's a pretty strong case to say we've never been this isolated. It's between 70 and 90% of all conditions that a primary care doctor sees in

any given day is in some way related to stress. So I want the reader to be able to identify where does stress live in my life? Because you need awareness. Once you know where it lives, you know what? Pick one of the simple things, try it for seven days and? Because you need awareness. Once you know where it lives, you know what? Pick one of the simple things, try it for seven days, and see if you feel different. That is all I ask from someone. That's Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, this week on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? It's holiday season. Are you hanging in there? Is it going okay? Is it tricky? I know it's tough. There can be a lot of anxiety and stress around this time of year, but I am with you. I feel you. And I'm here, hopefully, to provide a little bit of respite

from all of that. My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Okay. Today, we're going to talk about stress. Why? Because it's the holiday season. And I would imagine it's kind of top of mind for a lot of people who are navigating the treacherous waters of the season that is upon us. And I guess I would say up front that it's important to point out that stress is part of being human. If you ask former podcast guests like Drs. Susan David and Kelly McGonigal, who is a guest that's coming up in January, they will tell you that in proper doses, stress is actually beneficial in promoting emotional resilience and other things.

But that's very different from the elevated levels of social and emotional stress that increasingly define our daily experience, leading the World Health Organization to qualify chronic stress as the health epidemic of the 21st century. epidemic of the 21st century. And over time, and left untreated, this type of stress promotes not only low libido, poor memory, and weight gain, it can also lead to heart disease, depression, autoimmune disorders, premature aging, and a litany of other serious and deleterious health conditions. Well, this week's guest has seen the perils of chronic stress firsthand. As a UK-based medical doctor, he found himself increasingly treating patients on the daily who suffer from the downstream implications of living with this malevolence. His name is Rangan Chatterjee, Rangan Chatterjee, MD, and he decided to do something about it. If that name sounds familiar, perhaps it's because you caught him on his BBC show, Doctor in the House, which was a very powerful and popular episode that also created

a great friendship between us. For those unfamiliar, Dr. Chatterjee is a pioneer in the field of progressive functional medicine. Widely regarded as one of the most influential doctors in the UK, Rangan is double board certified in internal medicine and family medicine and holds an honors degree in the UK. Rangan is double board certified in internal medicine and family medicine and holds an honors degree in immunology. An in-demand lecturer, he created the very first prescribing lifestyle medicine course accredited by the Royal College of General Practitioners in London. And in addition, he hosts the popular Feel Better Live More podcast, which I've appeared on

twice, and has been widely featured on an array of prominent media outlets like the New York Times, the BBC, of course, Forbes, The Guardian, the Financial Times, and many others. The focus of today's conversation is also the subject of Rangan's latest book, The Stress Solution, which is a great and important primer on how chronic stress can lead to disease, along with strategies, tools, and lifestyle changes proven to protect against and even reverse its toxic effects. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that

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I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming

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former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Rangan. So, this is, of course, a conversation focused on stress, the health implications caused by the chronic variety, and many simple things that you can do to alleviate it and its copious ill effects. More specifically, we discuss Rangan's direct experience fielding patients with chronic stress and the case study strategies deployed to treat the condition and

reverse its effects. We talk about the critical role that sleep, meditation, and mindfulness practices play in combating stress, the importance of human touch, intimacy, and connecting with nature. We cover breathing techniques, disconnecting from our devices, carving out me time, and the importance of finding purpose and passion in your life. And last but not least, we talk about Rangan's newfound love for swim runs, something I'm taking a wee bit of credit for on that one, Dr. C. We could all use a little less stress and a little bit more of what Rangan's prescribing. This one's important, so let's do it.

This is me talking to Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome back to the podcast. Rich, it's a pleasure to be here, for sure. Happy to resume our ongoing conversation. Welcome to Los Angeles, it's a pleasure to be here, for sure. Happy to resume our ongoing conversation. Welcome to Los Angeles. It's a beautiful day here in LA. I know you love it so much. You're gonna move here.

I'm gonna make that happen. I literally am thinking about going back to my wife and saying, listen, babe, I think we should really think about this. Yeah, it's pretty great, right? Oh, God. I mean, I did calls this morning on the beach, right? I didn't have anything for two hours. And. I mean, I did calls this morning on the beach, right? I

didn't have anything for two hours. And so I spoke to my PA for like literally an hour whilst walking on the beach and that's not fully embracing the nature, but I thought this is pretty nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Um, and what's cool about kind of watching you over the last year, uh, with the podcast and all the work that you're doing is there's a lot of overlap. I feel like almost every UK-based guest that I've had on the show is a friend of yours or has been on your show. We have Jim Newman and Ross Edgley. And we should talk about Tony Riddle

because just yesterday he finished his 30 days of running essentially 30 miles a day barefoot from south to north. Yeah, incredible. I mean, obviously we both had Tony on our shows and I've known Tony for a few years and I love what he does. I love what he stands for.

I think what he puts out there, I guess is quite out there for a lot of people, but I think we can all learn from that. And you can take a little snippet from that if you want and apply it into your own life. I'm literally working on my barefoot running. Like I wear barefoot shoes generally. You're all about the vivos.

I am. I love them, man. I really do. They've changed my life for sure. Well, the thing about Tony is that it may be out there, but basically he's attempting to get people to hearken back to a foregone era where these things were not out there, but basically he's attempting to get people to harken back to a foregone era where these things were not out there,

but basically just how we lived. That's all he's doing with is getting back to what we have done for the bulk of our revolution for sure. But what fascinates me about Tony's journey, because I've been following it like yourself, I was meant to go running with him on, I don't know, day seven, day eight. Right.

And then we were going to record a live event. He was trying to do podcasts like almost every day along the way. Yeah, exactly. So talk about filling his schedule, you know, running all day. Yeah. Bringing his kids and his wife with him and recording podcasts. But when I spoke to him, we didn't actually get to run together. A couple of reasons for that

but a few days in, Tony had come across a problem. You know, his feet were swollen. They were really painful. He couldn't put them down and we actually, we've not released it yet but we actually spoke live that evening about how is he dealing with that? How is, you know, this big thing he's put out to the world,

I'm gonna run 30 miles a day for 30 days, yet maybe day six, suddenly I can't put weight through my foot, right? You know, and on many levels, I think that is a stressor. It's kind of like, what am I doing this for? I've told everyone that I'm going to do this. I've been building up for this for years. I've been on national media talking about it

Do I need to pull out and so I really enjoyed that conversation about How do you deal with adversity and that was early on? That was early on. Yeah, and around day maybe I don't know in the mid uh mid 20s He really started to have big problems and I don't know if you saw the images of his feet, but they were like, it looked like he had elephantitis. They were so swollen up like balloons. And he had to, I think he took one day off maybe,

or he took a little bit of a break. And the thought that went through my mind was, look, man, I know you've got people watching you and you put this pressure on yourself, but there's a difference between the tenacity required to push through difficulties to kind of access that inner potential and that untapped reservoir of what we're all capable of.

And then there's just not being smart. I mean, I looked at his feet, I was like, you shouldn't be on your feet at all. And one day off isn't going to change it. So I had serious concerns and reservations about him continuing. Yeah, I think it was about two days off he took in the end. And he thought, you know, take a few days off, recover, recuperate, use the ice, use the breathing, do what you can. But still, I agree.

I was thinking, you know, if that was a patient in my clinic. Oh, you'd be like, forget it. Exactly. You'd be writing him a note saying you're off work, you can stay at home. So from that perspective, it's fascinating. But what I was keen to probe him on actually is you've come with your wife, you've come with your kids

and you're clearly very disappointed that this has happened. You know, it's clearly, you know, on a guttural level, that is frustrating. If I had set out to do something like that, it'd be like, I've got to tell the world now that I can't do this. But I was really intrigued as to how he deals with that, with his kids around him. Did he have, I often, I think put pressure on myself

as a father, I'm kind of figuring that out. I'm learning to let go and just accept things a lot more, which has been for sure a process of, a deep process of inner work and inner discovery. But I'm super intrigued as to, did he feel a pressure in front of his kids to demonstrate adversity happens in life? How am I gonna handle this?

And I found that super, super fascinating because I think he did. I'm sure he did. There's no question that he did. And here's another thought. His whole thing is that we're born to run barefoot, right? Yeah. But here he is with basically elephantitis on his feet,

which is, you know, you got to say like, this is sort of detracting from his core thesis. Like if your feet look like that, maybe you should be running barefoot. But that's the added pressure, right? That's the added pressure that this is my thing. This is what my whole thing that I'm putting out to the world

is around this sort of natural way of living. But hey, all credit to the guy. He did it. Because he did it, right? Yeah, I had some texts with him this morning. Super proud of him. So it's very cool to see. It really is awesome.

Yeah, and on the subject of Vivo barefoot shoes, we have to talk about your new fascination with swimwear. You've gotten it, you got yourself in a wetsuit and overcame your fears, did this race and now like this is kind of your thing. Yeah, I mean, I think if I'm honest Rich, I think you've played some role in that journey for me. Um, from, you know, I'm not, I'm genuinely not just saying this,

you know, I, I listened to your podcast. I really enjoy it. I find it's arguably the best podcast out there in terms of, um, what connects with me, where I'm at in my life and what I want to listen to. Uh, especially given that I don't really listen to many health and wellness podcasts anymore because I do that. So I don't really wanna be- I don't either, because it just, it feels like homework.

Yeah, it feels like homework. And I actually don't really consider my podcast a health and wellness podcast, frankly, anymore. I think it's- I don't either. I think it's, I don't actually know how I would define it. It's a, I don't know.

It's an everything podcast. Yeah. But to come back to your question about swim run, you know what? I've always been a pretty fit guy, I think, but I never did endurance sport. You know, I did little, you know, I was always about, you know, I'm going to do 10 minutes of bodyweight exercises today in my kitchen every day. But I never really did endurance. So what happened is over the past few years, I'm changing. I'm doing a ton of deep work on myself. And as part of that, what I thought my desires were and what I wanted to do is not what I thought it used to be. So that sounds really kind of quite vague. So swimimrun, I saw when you did it. Because I am a fan of Evo Barefoot Shoes,

and I have become friends with those guys. And that's a whole other story in itself. They're one of the big sponsors of the Swimrun. Your show too, right? Recently now on the show, yeah. But the World Series, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they invited me to, yeah, but the World Series, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they invited me to not one of the Otillo,

I don't know how you pronounce it. Yeah, like the officially branded. There was a guy who came to my live event the other night from Sweden, and he corrected my pronunciation. I thought I'd finally gotten it down. How are you? Give me your best shot. Otillo.

Which is close, but it's definitely not it. Don't even try. Just call it Otillo, and we'll just be English-speaking nimrods. Exactly. So they invited me last year, actually, to their inaugural one. So this was their own invite-only retreat that they were putting on in this- Vivo did, right? Yeah. Vivo did. I remember because Ross was there too. Ross was there, exactly. And I couldn't go last year in October for a variety of reasons. So it didn't work out. This year, they gave me

advance notice. They said, we're going to do this summer solstice in June. We'd love you to come. I said, yeah. Okay, guys, no worries. I've got plenty of time. I'm going to train. I'm going to figure this out. I think I called you once when you were in new york you very kindly gave me some time and gave me a few tips on what i needed to do because i'm not really a swimmer i'm not really a runner like an endurance runner so it was the week and this event was on the saturday and i'd been noticing that i was super busy on like my book came out of the uk i've been doing the tour and all the kind of crazy stuff that we're all doing now when we're in the public eye. And I thought, this is nuts. I can't really do this on Saturday. Like I haven't trained, I've hardly swum. I've certainly never swum in open

water. So I, you know, and I'm like, I phoned up a guy called Nick who sort of works there at Viva. I said, Hey Nick, look, we're coming to the event. You said we can come now with the family. We booked the flights, my wife, me, my two kids. We're going to come. We're looking forward to seeing Devin. I don't know that part of the world. I don't think I can compete, mate, if I'm honest, because I've been too busy, man. I've been overworked. I'm not trained. And he was great. And he said, listen, if you have a desire, Rangan, to do this at some point, this is the best place to start. We've got safety boats everywhere. You'll be absolutely fine. Any problems will pull you out.

And I thought, okay, all right, fine. I'm in. Let's do it. Right. So I didn't understand what it was. I didn't know what swimming was. I knew what it was in the sense that I know you swim and you run, right? I knew that much, but I didn't really know the feeling. I didn't know the training for it. Anyway, so let's fast forward to Saturday. It's Saturday morning and I didn't sleep that well. I was pretty nervous. You know, the night before, like people from Sweden

who like came second in the main event were talking and I'm like watching these guys and you know, everyone's feeling, you know, to me, everyone is pretty confident. They've done this stuff before. They know what they're doing. I'm thinking, all right, you, you know, you, you've always pushed yourself and let's see what happens. I think I'll be okay. So I wake up, I am opening the box for the first time with my new hoop wetsuit, right? I have not even tried it on yet. So let's, so this is, this is how unprepared I was. I'm taking it off. I put it on. I'm struggling to get this thing on. I'm like, this is pretty tight. Like,

should they be this tight? Man, I know you live in California, right? You wear wetsuits. If you have never worn one before, you don't know what it should feel like. So I'm, I mean, I think you saw that photo I posted on Instagram, like, is this what a wetsuit should look like? So I put it on. I think it's a bit tight. Then I thought, okay, well, I don't really have another option anyway. And I put my shoes on, and then I meet where we're meant to meet. And we now go on a journey.

Like, we have to get a coach with the other competitors to the start. So we get on the coach. I've got my goggles on my head. I've got my swim cap on. I've got my wetsuit. I'm wearing my shoes. Walk on. Everyone's got all this other gear around them. Like people have got like paddles and the paddles attached to their leg and the whole thing. And I'm initially thinking, I don't get this. What's going on here? I thought, okay, look, it's probably easier that you don't know anything about that. Keeps it simple in your head. Just go there. Now, look, I looked at the, I didn't do the kind of ultra type distance. I did the sort of medium one. I think it's the

sprint one, they call it. And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, okay, first swim 250 meters. Okay, look, I can swim that in the pool. Now, yes, I normally stop after every 50 meters for a little breather, but I reckon I could get through 250 meters. Then there's a 2.5 K run. Then there's a 600 meter swim, like I think a 6K run, 1.2 K swim downstream and a 3K run. So I thought- 1.2 K, that's legit. That is legit. It was downstream to be fair. But so here's what happens. I meet my partner and they partnered me up with someone who's very experienced.

So don't worry, we'll have someone who's super experienced. Anyway, we start. It's cold, number one, right? It is freezing. I go in and I'm like, oh my God, this is so cold. I think, okay, come on, you can do this. And so we start swimming. And I remember so clearly, we must've only gone about a hundred meters. And then I suddenly became aware that I can't see the

bottom. Like, I know this sounds obvious, but I'm suddenly aware in my head, I can't see the bottom of, this is not like the pool. I cannot see the bottom. I started to panic. I started to breathe fast. I wouldn't swim. I started to, you know, have a very mild sort of panic attack. You needed a stress solution. I needed a stress solution. You're right. You needed a pillar. But I did not have one. I did not have one. So I'm there. And then what I do, my partner, Dave, I grab hold of him. Like, I'm like, Dave, Dave, I can't do this. He's like, wrong. Look, just relax. Take some deep breaths. Lie on your back. You will float in your wetsuits.

Right. I think that was one of the things I told you when you called me. I was like, if you just get freaked out, you'll float. Just roll on your back. It's a shame that in that moment, my rational brain wasn't able to draw these things in. And I said to him, in my head, I'm thinking there is no way in hell I'm lying on my back. Like I am panicked. I didn't have confidence I would then float anyway. So listen, I'm thinking at that time, if we get to the end, if I get to the end of this 250 meters, when I get to the end of this 250 meters, there is no way in hell I'm getting back in this ocean. This is exactly what

I was feeling. Anyway, I ultimately managed to get to the end, right, get there. And then I think, okay, look, it's only 2.5K, the next run. I can do that easy. No problem. Let's just do the run. So I did the run. I'm feeling really tired doing it because I think I'd expended a lot of nervous energy with all that panic. Then I get there and now we've got the 600 meter swim. And it looks as though it's really away from the ocean, like, like quite far. Like you have to swim through this gorgeous arch. And I looked at it and I thought, come on, Rangan, you can do this. Come on. You've just done that. If you can swim 250, just take your time, stay calm. You've been through it. You can do it. And it was quite,

I was quite lucky because I started to go out. You can do it. And it was quite, I was quite lucky because I started to go out. I can remember so clearly you could still stand up right at the start. Then after about a hundred meters, the ocean, the floor seems to come up again where you could stand up again. So I thought, okay, I'm just going to stand here because I can. And my partner's like, are you okay? Are you okay? I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. I've just seen there's an opportunity for me to stand and just get my breath. I'm just going to take it. Anyway, I go, I finish it. I go and complete the whole race.

I feel literally like I've won the lottery. I feel, I don't think I felt that feeling of joy, exhilaration, pride. And I was just, this is one of the most amazing things I have ever done. And I mean, you can unpack that if you want. But for me, that was my first experience of swimrun. I loved it.

I have now become obsessed. I now, it's all I think about. I watch swimming instructional videos on YouTube every single night. I'm like doing the classic, I'm all in now. I'm working on my stroke. I'm like, oh, should it be this angle?'m working on my stroke I'm like oh should it be this angle should it be 90 degrees when it's coming through like 100 degrees I'm literally obsessed with swimming and then this summer so I don't live near the ocean right right so I go back

to my urban setting near Manchester in the UK I'm starting going to the pool and then at the start of July when my kids were off we booked a last minute holiday to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. And we go there and I'm thinking, you know what? I've not swum in the ocean for six weeks. We're on an island. And I started Googling for open water swimming nearby. You know, I certainly didn't have the confidence to just go and swim in the ocean by myself. And I found this guy called Paul, who I think is regarded as one of the best swimming teachers around. He's been out there for 25 years, phoned him up, lovely guy. He said, just come down to our, we do open, we do ocean swimming every, every Tuesday morning, come to the group setting. I'm like, hey man, I can't come to the

group. Like, can I have a one-on-one? He's like, just come to the group. I'll see what you like. Don't worry. So I go anyway, within two days, he has me swimming out from the coastline, 250 meters out and 250 meters back. Like in minutes without even thinking about it. He was such a good teacher. And you fast forward to the end of the summer in August. And I went back to Devon, back to the place of my fear. And Galahad, who's the CEO of Viva Bethe, he said,

mate, we're going to swim around the island. I'm like, mate, you know that two months ago, I couldn't get in the water. I said, how far is it? He said, it's about 1.5K around there. Anyway, after three days of being there, we went out. I swam 1.5K around this island. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. There were little rock channels. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. There were little rock channels. I saw wildlife and I just felt alive, man. So yeah, I mean, where do you want to go with swimrun?

I love it. That's amazing. So are you signed up for another race? Yeah, well, you know, we're in California. So I got here on Tuesday and I was a bit jet lagged. I didn't sleep much on that night, but I know that these guys, I've been, as part of my YouTube exploration, I've come across Tower 26.

Oh yeah, Jerry. Jerry. And I know they do a Wednesday morning ocean swim in Santa Monica. I'm staying with my buddy Drew in Santa Monica. I was lying in bed at 4.30 thinking, I'm knackered. I did my HRV on my phone,

which I don't always do, and I thought, it is tanked. You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to go to the ocean. So I went and I joined these guys. I didn't do and I thought, it is tanked. You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to go to the ocean. So I went and I joined these guys. I didn't do the whole session, but I did 750 meters there.

That's great. Yeah, it was awesome. And so I signed up, yeah, I'm going to do Malta. Oh, you're doing Malta? We do Malta. I know your buddy runs it. Yeah, so John Shaw, who is a friend of ours, who came on our, him and his wife came on our Italy retreat,

and Kurt Arrigo, well, I think it's, I think John, I don't know if he's the race director or organizer, but he's sort of the point person on the island who's in charge of making sure this thing gets pulled off. And when I was in Malta recently, I went out with their, they have a

Oh, I saw that after your trip. I saw it on Instagram. Yeah, there's like 10 guys and they get together like a couple mornings a week and they swim around the islands. It's fantastic. You're going to love it. I'm also going to do Cannes now. So literally one week ago, Galahad texted me and said, hey, man, we're going out to Cannes. We've got a villa.

There's spare beds there. Do you want to come out? Now, here's the challenge for me. My favorite artist in the world at this moment in time is John Mayer, right? I love, I love his lyrics. I love his music. I love his bands. I have seen every tour when he's ever been in the UK. Now, on the Friday nights before the Cannes event, I spent a lot of time, probably too much money, getting four very good seats for the John Mayer concert

in Manchester. And I thought this would be great because my kids like John Mayer as well. Maybe this would be a really great first gig for us all together. The four of us go near the front, we watch John Mayer play. This is how much I've changed is that for me now, even one year ago, I would not miss that John Mayer gig for anything. But for me now, it's like, if I'm honest, I'd rather go to camp for the weekend. I'd rather spend the weekend in nature. I want to get back in the ocean.

I want my kids to experience that. And so I'm canning the gig, and I'm going to camp. The sacrifices we make. Hey, Matt, I get it's a personal problem. John Mayer is on the chopping block for Swimrun. But you know, it's great, it's cool. No, it's super awesome to see you take to that like that.

And I love how Swimrun is growing and becoming this thing. I will say this, when I was in Malta and I went and worked out with those guys, we were attacked by a swarm of jellyfish. This is the stuff I'm not sure I need to hear. This is like a larger conversation about the environment and the acidification of our coastal waters, because I think it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of the marine wildlife is being decimated because of the degradation of the environment, which now allows jellyfish to proliferate.

And we were out in this bay, just, there was no way out. I mean, it was a massive swarm and everyone's just darting for the shore. And we all got bit and I've been bit by jellyfish quite a bit, like in Hawaii. I know what it feels like, I've managed it, but this was like a whole different thing. And I got bit on my wrist,

and I don't know if you can see that. This was in May, and I have like a permanent scar here from that, that's how bad it was. Joe may have sounded quiet. Joe may have sounded quiet. I shouldn't have told you that. Hopefully this time of year, that won't be a problem. So that was in Malta?

That was in Malta, yeah. Those guys go out like every day. It doesn't seem to be an issue. So I think you're going to be fine. Hey, look, it is. Now this is going to live in your head. I feel bad for you. I know, man, you can tell.

I like moving towards things that I can't do. If I reflect on my own personality traits, I'd say that is probably something I've always done a little bit. I kind of like that. I really do strongly feel that that's what you grow, right? So four months ago, swimrun was just a word I knew. I sort of had seen it a bit online.

I was interested, but now it's changed my life, right? What I love about it for me is that the events seem to all be done in harmony with a natural environment. Yeah, that's the thing? What I love about it for me is that the events seem to all be done in harmony with a natural environment. Yeah, that's the thing that's super cool about it. There's no plastic at these events. It's super cool. The people are great. That appears to be, from what I've seen in my limited experience, not that much of a competitive element to it as you may get in triathlon. And again, this is just a perception. But I think that's accurate. I mean, it's still, it's competitive and it's competition,

but it's a different, it's a completely different environment. The relationship to the competitive aspect of that is very different. It's very grounded in nature. It's very participatory in general. And it's, yeah, people want to win and all of that, but it's really not about that.

It's about this shared experience. Yeah, and so what am I doing with that is one of my best buddies, a guy called Jeremy who lives in Bristol, which is, I don't know, 150 miles away from me. We both have got this calling to do swim runs. So we're going to try and do three or four runs a year together.

Now we can't train really together, which of course from a competitive element may be an issue, but it's also a way that we can actually see each other, right? And do something fun together and not just, you know, hang out on a cafe when we get together or something, you know, do something. So we're super stoked and excited that actually we might be able to do this together. Now my son, because he's seen me do this, right? He now says, daddy can, you know, maybe I can do one of these with you. And I know Vivo are going to do a kid maybe I can do one of these with you. And I know

Vivo are going to do a kid's one next year at their event as well. And I'm thinking for me, I mean, circling back to what we said with Tony, I very much, I very much, the way, one of the motivations for me to complete that race, right, on a very deep level, I'm sure, right on on a very deep level i'm sure was that my kids were there right they knew that daddy was going to do this swim run event now it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with saying hey you know what guys i was too scared i couldn't do it right there's nothing wrong with that but i also felt wouldn't it be lovely to show my children actually it's okay to be scared of something it's okay to lean into that and see what happens. And it's just, hey, man, I'm trying to do the best I can, like every parent.

I don't know if I am, but that was also a slight motivation for me. It's great. That hasn't worked with my kids. They don't care at all. But have you tried to force them into it? No, definitely not. I mean, I think on some level it registers, but it's not as if they're saying,

hey, they're not tiptoeing towards it. They're just like, that's dad's thing, which is fine. They have their own stuff. Hey, exactly. But did you, I mean, you didn't grow up in California. No. So this whole love of the ocean,

I mean, is that a new thing since you moved here? No, I've always loved the ocean and I love summer is that a new thing since you moved here? No, I've always loved the ocean and I love summer and the beaches and all that kind of stuff. It's interesting when, what I've noticed living in California is that kids that grow up here

don't develop that same affinity for it because it's always there. Like when I was a kid, when we got to go to the beach, that was like a big deal. Like I would do anything to go to the beach. Like it was super exciting and exotic and something you only got to do a couple of times a year. But when you live here, like my kids are like,

we don't wanna go to the beach. But isn't that? I don't know. But I guess it's not the same with everything. Like when something's on our doorstep, we don't really appreciate it. Yeah, we take it for granted. Yeah, and I, a few nights ago,

I was with my friends, my buddy Drew, who I'm staying with, we went to see some of his friends in Venice and we were just hanging out in his friend's place in the evening. And I asked them all, I said, "'Hey guys, look, you are literally two blocks "'from the ocean.

"'Like I am literally, all I think about at the moment is getting to the ocean. Can we go to the beach? No, I just said, how often? I said, do you guys go regularly to the ocean? And they're like, you know what, we actually don't. We've not been there in a few weeks. And it was really telling for me that,

hey, this is super fascinating, isn't it? That these guys, they live here, they're not going because it's there all the time. And then, you know, that's how busy our lives are, right? And we don't often, myself included, appreciate those little things, appreciate the things about where we are. We always, you know, I travel to, you know, for me, it's a holiday when I'm at the beach or in the ocean. I'm like getting not as frustrated as I might've done in the past, but you know, all day on Sunday, it was a beautiful day. I could see the ocean, but I'm in getting not as frustrated as I might have done in the past, but you know, all day on Sunday, it was a beautiful day. I could see the ocean, but I'm in an office in fourth street recording

podcasts all day. Now I get it. That's work. Although frankly, to call it work seems ridiculous since I enjoy it so much, but it just, I've been, I've been really, really wrestling with this, this week, this whole idea of nature, the ocean. Do you move out? If you move out near the ocean, do you just start getting busy in your own life? And therefore, it is something that you might do when your friends visit and they want to go to the ocean. You're like, hey, hey, look, we've got this beautiful beach here. I don't know.

I haven't figured it out yet, but I'm really being cool to nature these days. I'm really being cool to nature these days. Well, I think all of this dovetails perfectly into the things that you care about and you talk about and the subject matter and themes of the book, The Stress Solution, which is about reconnecting and what Tony talks about too, like reconnecting with nature and prioritizing time for your friendships

and intimacy and touch and physical exercise and mindfulness and disconnecting from our digital lives and all of these things. For sure, I don't think it's unrelated. I think, hey, what do they say? That you often write the book that you need to write for yourself, right? I would absolutely accept that that was probably the case

for writing this book. You know, I can say I was writing it for patience and because this is what a problem that I see. And of course that is one of the reasons, but I think on some deeper level, it was like, look, I need to get on top of this. I need to figure this stuff out for myself. And yeah, as you say, a lot of the themes

that are in the book are the themes we've just spoken about because they are universal themes of what I think makes a healthy, happy human being. I don't think it's separate that, oh, this is about stress, or this is now about nutritional movement. Actually, it's all part of the same thing. And this is, as we were saying,

I don't know if we said it off air or on air, the whole idea of what we do in our podcasts, which is it's quite hard to define because it's not one thing. You know, I almost find it limiting to call mine a health and wellness podcast. It's an everything podcast. It's a how to live your best life podcast. Like very much yours is, although I don't want to pigeonhole yours into that category. I actually, when Apple Podcasts changed their categories, I took mine off of health and wellness and put it into education for that reason.

Wow. Because I wanted to broaden that spectrum a little bit because I don't think, yeah, I do a lot of health and wellness and fitness stuff on my show, but I think to define it as such is not really accurate. Yeah, I agree, I totally agree. The larger point being that we can look at these things in isolation, nutrition, sleep, fitness,

and all of these different sectors that all contribute to the wellbeing of a human being. But ultimately it is the synergy between these things and taking a more holistic, you know, 10,000 foot view on how we're living our lives. That is really the most important thing. Like if you have your diet completely 100% dialed in but you can't sleep at night,

or you don't get along with your boss, or you know, you're staring at your phone all day, how healthy are you? And that's something I've said many times before on this podcast, but in order to truly be at your full potential, you have to find a way to balance all of these disciplines. And it's hard, it's not easy, but to take them at piecemeal I think is missing a larger opportunity.

And I think this is some of the content that we covered when I was on for the first time, because my first book, again, it covers food, movement, sleep, stress, all these pieces, but I couldn't really, it just felt wrong to me to focus on one area because I believe health is a combination of all these various things.

And I think I really furthered that idea with this book. I really feel that the kind of the two books fit together. This is a progression. Am I more proud of this book? I don't know, on one level, yeah, because I don't think I could have written this book three or four years ago. I don't think I was able to.

The relationship section of it is probably the part of it I'm proudest of. Like, I think it's that and the meaning and purpose section, I think are possibly two areas that people may not have been expecting. And I think they potentially offer the most value for people in there. I'm proud of the other sections, but I think relationships, I think, and the erosion of our relationships, the fact that we are so busy all the time, we don't prioritize think relationships, I think, and the erosion of our relationships, the fact that we are so busy all the time, we don't prioritize our relationships,

even the relationships that we do have when we are with those people, often we're not present, often we're disconnected, often we are physically in the same space. Geographically, we are together, but in our heads, we could be millions of miles away because we're on our devices or we're distracted by what we've got to do.

Or you come home from work in your car and you stop. And as you get out, you pull out your phone and check your emails or you check Instagram. And as you're walking in, you are also checking that and then suddenly your daughter comes out

and actually you're not present there. You're still thinking about that. And I think these things sound small. They are so, so important. Having close nourishing relationships is one of the best ways to de-stress. But ironically, having too much stress in your life, I think makes it very hard

to have those close nourishing relationships. Yeah, there's no question about it. You know, I think it's super important and it leaves me, you know, doing an inventory of, you know, my personal relationships outside of, you know, you know, my marriage and my kids, but with my friendships, like, so I found myself in a situation where a lot of people I consider friends like yourself, our relationship is based on doing podcasts together. It's like, I feel bonded to you, but we've never spent any time off mic. You know what I mean? Like, there's something not right about that.

And as I was preparing to speak to you today, I was going over your book again again and I'm going through it. And I'm like, I think your talent and your genius is your ability to take all of this information that's out there and synthesize it and then present it in an incredibly accessible and digestible way, like taking concepts that are perhaps confusing

if you get into the weeds on them and just drilling down to the essentials and presenting the most important aspects of them so that people can actually fully understand and implement these things into their lives. And I'm looking at them like, yeah, I know that. I know it's like, I'm reading it and I'm like, there were certain things that were brand new to me

that I wanna talk to you about that I thought were super fascinating. But a lot of it is like, I know all this stuff. And yet here I am a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, I was in Nantucket. I did two conversations on stage, which was amazing and super gratifying and incredible. Came back, last minute preparations for this live event,

which we have to talk about the fact that you said you were gonna come and you did. I know, well, let's talk about that later. But hold on a second, we'll circle back to that. And had that experience, which was unbelievable, but also like a tremendous amount of work and stress and anxiety inducing. Now doing this with you and then tomorrow morning,

I have a 7 a.m. flight going to Telluride to do another conference. It's like, it's a lot. And I'm trying to be a husband and a parent and learn how to manage a team of people. And I'm like, I haven't made time for my friends or called this person back. I've just, I've been grinding, you know, and I'm tired.

And even though I understand all these principles that you speak about in the book, and I agree with all of them, if I'm honest with myself, I'm not practicing them very well. First of all, I appreciate your compliments about the book and what I try and do with them, because, you know, that is something when I'm sitting down

to write, I'm always thinking hard about my audience. I'm thinking, what exactly is going to help convert the knowledge into action? What is, I'm not interested in writing a book that everyone reads and then nobody does anything on the back of it. I'm not saying it's easy to write a book like that, but I've read many books like that where it's like, yeah, okay, fine. I get all that. It's nice to read. I feel inspired, but I'm not going to go and do anything. So in my head, I'm thinking, how can you take these deep concepts? How can you simplify to the bare necessity and then give an actionable, achievable solution for someone that they might feel, you know what, I can probably do that. And you actually, if I'm honest, you've got to put your

ego to the side a little bit, because I certainly found this with my first book as well. But also this book that there's a tendency at times to go, I want to show people what I know, you know, I know more, I know way more depth than this. But my editor was great for this as well, to give credit where it's due. It was a case of like, this is not a book for you to show off your knowledge. This is a book to help every single reader.

That's the goal. And so you've got to, I found I have to put my ego to the side and go, it's not about showing off. Is there a clear narrative? Have you made the case well enough have you inspired them so they they feel that this is achievable for them that's a key one for me i work as a doctor rich with patients from all different backgrounds wealthy people affluent people but also people without much money i spent a lot of time in deprived communities and I'm very passionate that actually we should be giving health information to people that is applicable to everyone. You know, we are living, you know, I'm staying in Santa Monica this week. What is this? The wellness

capsule of the world, right? You walk around. Well, I went to Air One on the way here to grab lunch, right? It's easy to buy a healthy lunch, but I probably dropped $42 there. And I'm thinking- It's not cheap at Air One. No, right. Again, I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying that is not accessible to many people. Not at all. So what I try and do is think, what is the most important thing here?

And what is the action point? So you mentioned friendship, that you're not making time for your friends. I think a lot of guys get into that position where they get busy with their career. I think it probably affects men more than women. Although I can't say that in all cases, I know many of my male friends, as we've got busier, right? As we have gotten to our thirties and our forties and mortgage and

family and work commitments, we often don't spend time with our friends. Many of us are lucky to have friends, but we don't prioritize because what happens? We see what they're doing on social media. We see where they've been on holiday. You feel like you know them, right? You feel like you've been spending time with them. Yeah. I feel like I've been spending time with you because I listen to you in my ears when I'm doing something else most weeks. So I feel, hey, I know Rich. I've seen what he's doing on Instagram and Insta stories. I've watched a YouTube video. And on one level, I genuinely do feel that I know you. But on another level, it's like, you're right, we've not spent that much

face-to-face time. I would like to unpack that because I think it's not always necessary. But to illustrate how important I think it is, let me tell you, I mean, there's a patient I saw, 37-year-old chap. So this guy is self-employed. He has got a successful business. He works for himself. He drives a sports car. You know, he is, from the outside, he's very successful. He is working late every night. He's doing emails at the weekends. He's going, go, go, go. Comes in to see me, says, hey, Dr. Chachi, look, I find it hard to get out of bed sometimes in the morning. I'm struggling to concentrate. Sometimes I'll just sit there and I'll feel nothing. I get tearful from time to time. Is this what depression is? And I said, okay, look, let's try and figure out what's going on. So I'm asking him various aspects about his life, finding out what's

going on, what does he do, what are his passions, what are his hobbies, how long has he felt like this, et cetera, et cetera. I do a few tests, everything's normal. And then it becomes quite clear to me that this guy never sees anybody that he's friends with. And he's quite lucky in the sense that he lives in the village where he grew up.

So what does that mean? A lot of his friends live nearby to him, but he was saying, well, you know, I see what they're up to. You know, I see, I see what they're up on social media. This is not an anti-social media piece, right? But he thought, because he's seeing them, he's seen where they've gone. He's seen pictures of their kids. He sees what they had for dinner last night, right? This is the madness, but he doesn't see them. So I said, look, would you consider for the next six weeks, this suggestion, what I would like you to do is at least once a week, I would like you to see one of your friends in person. And when you're with them, I'd love you to put your phones away and really be present for that interaction.

Now, he was pretty desperate, right? He was at that point where he was open to what I had to offer. And he said, yeah, sure. Okay, I'll give that a go. He goes away. Maybe five or six weeks later, he comes back. And I ask him, how are you doing? He said, Dr. Chachi, I feel like a different person. I'm feeling good. My energy's come back. I'm concentrating at work. listen, I'm feeling good. My energy's come back. I'm concentrating at work. I've got that spark back in my life. I want to say thank you. Now, I then said to him, well, what's going on? You know, what did you do with your friends? He said, look, well, the first time we played five-a-side football and that was super fun. But after that, all we did is every Sunday morning, I'd get together with at least one of my friends in our local cafe, and we would chew the fats over a latte. So the question then for

me is, and I would ask the listeners who are hearing this story to think about is, did this guy have a mental health problem? Right? He certainly had symptoms that were consistent with a mental health problem, or did he have a deficiency of friendship in his life? And when that friendship deficiency got corrected, other things in his life came back online. Now, I have seen this pattern, Rich, over and over again. I am not trying to say in every case it is that simple. It is clearly not. But I think that's a very powerful example of somebody who literally had

a friendship deficiency when he corrected that things got better and we know you know the science supports all of this uh what is it that the research is suggesting that being lonely the feeling of being lonely is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day I mean when I go and talk about this in companies about wellness and I ask people, it says, does that surprise you? I mean, pretty much everyone's got their hands up saying, yeah, how could that be? And then I explain that once you understand what the stress response is, when you understand what it is doing, everything in your life starts to become clear. So two million years ago, you're in your hunter-gatherer tribe, or let's say you are not in your hunter-gatherer tribe. Actually, you are separate from the tribe. Your body is smart. Your body is trying to prepare

you for what might happen. Your body knows you are vulnerable to attack. So it activates your stress response. Your immune system gets ramped up. Your body becomes inflamed. All of these things are smart things because if you then do get attacked, you're not going to die. You've got your best chance of survival. Fast forward now to 2019, and we've got a problem where many of us are not really in danger, but we are feeling isolated. We're feeling disconnected in this supposedly ultra-connected world. Sure, digitally, we've never been disconnected. I would accept that. There are amazing things about technology. I would accept that. But in terms of real, digitally, we've never been this connected. I would accept that. There are amazing things about technology. I would accept that.

But in terms of real, deep, meaningful human connection, I think that's a pretty strong case to say we've never been this isolated. Yeah, I think that's accurate. I mean, there's a lot to talk about in what you just said. That was a brilliant monologue. I appreciate that. But I think what generally happens is that individual

that came into your office would go into, would either not seek help or in the event that that person has the wherewithal to seek help, would go to a practitioner. And at least in the United States, the system is set up wherein that doctor would only have 15 minutes with that person. And it's a setup rigged to diagnose and prescribe.

And that person would leave with some kind of antidepressant medication most likely, and would then consider themselves depressed or clinically having some kind of mental malady without that tactile kind of real world practical solution that you would implement because you had the opportunity to provide that person with a little bit more bandwidth the the the the setup is the same in the uk right we have 10 minute appointments so this was over the course of two appointments because I did

some tests, came back. Yeah, sure. It wasn't just 10. I probably ran late and I probably did 15 to 20 minutes, but I am passionate that actually, yes, the system is not set up to make it easy to do these things. I absolutely recognize that. And it's a common theme that doctors will say, I will also say, but it is possible. It is possible. And it's possible when you listen, you need time to listen for sure. And I'm not, don't get me wrong. I can't do that in every case, right? I have to, obviously in that sort of system, you have to pick and choose which ones you're going to go deep on. When do you pick up that actually this person may be receptive to this? Because you could make the case that a patient comes in like that,

they're not going to listen. What, the doctor gives them a prescription to see a friend once a week. What kind of prescription is that? What kind of doctor are you? But of course, I don't do that in every case. I do that where I feel it's appropriate. But the reason he did it, I believe, is because I listened. I did not judge him.

I offered a number of solutions. And I said, look, would you be interested in this? And when I teach doctors about, for want of a better term, lifestyle medicine and how we can use lifestyle not only as prevention, but also as the treatment for many of the chronic conditions we're seeing, I say to them, the number one skill you need as a healthcare practitioner, in my view, after nearly 20 years of seeing patients is, can you listen non-judgmentally and can you be compassionate? Because I think when you can do those two things, opportunity and options start to rise to the surface. And I'm super proud of that case, but that case actually taught me more than it probably taught him.

Because I have applied that with other people. It's like this book, right? I'm sure you've read this book, Lost Connections. You probably know Johan. I know Johan. I've, again, probably my most listened to podcast so far is my one with Johan, right? Oh, you did one with Johan, yeah.

I mean, that's the entire thesis of his book right there. Yeah, but people don't get, I don't think that this is biological. It feels a bit trivial. Friends, we are social beings. We are wired to be together. You mentioned touch before, right? So there was a chapter on touch in this book.

And again, this is something I was super proud of because I devoted a whole chapter to the importance of human touch. Can I expand on that? Yeah, so I was filming a new BBC One documentary about a couple of years ago, and as part of it, we ended up at Liverpool John Moores University, and I met a chap called Professor Francis McGlone,

who is probably one of the world's leading researchers in touch. And he was telling me about his research and I was literally getting mesmerized and blown away by it. I thought, I don't know anything about this. This sounds utterly incredible. This is starting to connect a few dots for me in my head. And so, you know, dived into the research, wrote the chapter about it, but there is something primal about human touch and it links to that story we just mentioned about us being social beings. So there are two kinds of touch nerve fiber, okay? We often feel

that actually the touch nerve fiber is there. So if you were to touch me on my forearm, I would know, oh yeah, Rich has touched me on my forearm. So geographically telling me where I'm being touched. But there is another type of nerve fiber as well that is super, super important. There's a fast nerve fiber, which tells you where you're being touched and there is a slow one.

Right, let's use pain as a way of unpacking this. I think it's a little easier to understand with pain. So if you're in your kitchen and you are cooking something and you hold a boiling hot pan by accident, instantaneously what happens? You feel the burn in your hand. But there's actually a little bit of a delay

before you actually feel it. Exactly. You initially, you let go. Straight away, within milliseconds, you will let go of that pan. That is the fast pain nerve fiber telling your brain, I've been touched.

This is a problem. Move your hand. A few seconds later is when the emotional quality to that pain comes in. You might feel a little bit affronted that actually that has happened. Even a better example, I guess, is a kid falling down. I remember when my daughter was four years old and she tripped in the back garden and she fell on her knee. So initially she's like rubbing her knee. She's not crying. She's a bit

bemused. She's just rubbing her knee. About four seconds later, the crying kicks in. Yeah. Every, every parent has seen that in the child, that delayed response. Exactly. So what is that? These are the two different pain fibers. One is telling you what's happened. So she rubs her knee. The other one is the slow one. It takes longer, but that gives the emotional quality to the pain. Touch is the same thing, right? So we've got touch. One touch nerve fiber tells you where you've been touched, but there's another one. It's called the CT afferents. The name doesn't matter, but they're basically slow nerve fibers. Now, what I saw in Professor McGlone's lab is incredible. These nerve fibers are optimally

stimulated when you stroke them at three to five centimeters per second. Now, I know what you're thinking. When I stroke my partner or my kids, I'm not calculating on my watch, am I doing it at this pace? But when researchers look at mothers stroking their children, stroking their babies, they automatically lock into that speed. It is innate. It is within us as humans. And what does that nerve fiber do? That nerve fiber goes to a different part of the brain. That nerve fiber goes all the way up to the deep, the primitive different part of the brain. That nerve fiber goes all the way up to the deep, that the primitive emotional part of the brain. It helps you lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

It helps increase levels of natural killer cells. That's the part of your immune system that fights off viruses. It lowers your heart rate. It lowers your blood pressure simply from being touched, right? So we have become a touch-averse society. I totally get that there are reasons for that, right? So we have become a touch-averse society. I totally get that there are reasons for that, right?

There has been far too much inappropriate touch. But have there been some unintended consequences from doing that? Have we now become so scared to touch other people that actually we're now not nourishing a really fundamental and important part of what it is to be human? I think that's the case. Now, to tie it up to where I was going before, when we were talking about humans being

social beings, what is amazing about these CT afferent nerve fibers is that the bulk of them are on our upper back and our shoulder, right? So on an evolutionary level, why would nature put so many of these nerve fibers on our back? And a place that we can't actually easily touch. Why would it do that? Well, I was chatting to Francis about this. We hypothesize that actually it is a way of bringing us close together. We would have to have somebody else give us that touch. It would help bond us to another person. else give us that touch. It would help bond us to another person. Not only that, not only do we, as the touch receivers, get benefit from doing this, right? The touch giver also gets benefit. They have a release of endogenous opioids in their body from giving touch. So human touch is,

you know, he says this, this is his phrase, human touch is not a sentimental human indulgence. It is a biological necessity. And when you dive into the research, you can't come up with any other conclusion. That's super interesting. Yeah, and we're in a dearth of that right now. I think we're all starving for real human touch. I think we have to bifurcate sexuality from this and just focus on what it means to be connected

to another human being. What does intimacy mean? I think intimacy gets conflated with sexuality, but to be intimate with another human being is the stuff of life. And when we're separated from that, we de-evolve mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and ultimately physically.

I mean, if I reflect on my own behavior as a doctor, like 10 years ago, if someone came into my surgery in my clinic and if I had to deliver bad news, I know what I used to do. I'd pull my chair close. I would lower my tone in my voice. I'd put my arm or my hands on their upper back and shoulder, and I would deliver the news. These days, I don't do that. I am also a little bit scared that it is inappropriate now to touch someone. It is inappropriate to touch a patient. And just to be clear, of course, in many occasions, it is.

But have we lost something? I mean, that's a rhetorical question. Yes, we have lost something, but it is so fundamental. And that's why one of my recommendations that I make is, you know, again, trying to present the case, then give somebody something actionable is keep a touch diary, right? Write a diary of how many times in a week you have meaningful, appropriate human touch, right? And my challenge is, look at the number and see if the net's where you can double it. Just try it and see what happens. But you know, Rich,

there's also some really fascinating research that kind of supports this. In the NBA a few years ago, they did a study and they showed that the teams who touched each other more at the start of the season, who had more physical contact were the teams who finished season, who had more physical contact

with the teams who finished higher, which is incredible. Now look, I'm not trying to- That's amazing that someone even thought of doing that study. But this stuff is primal. If a waiter or a waitress gives you the check in a restaurant and they put their hand on your shoulder when they do it, you tip more, right?

That has been shown in other research. The point I'm trying to make is that this stuff is important. We are starving when it comes to human touch, and it's not as hard as we think it is. Like, I met you today, and what did we do? We had a hug, right? That was nice, right? I encourage, you know, my guy friends, we now hug a lot more. Since I dived into this research, like a good mate of mine, Steve, Steve, sorry about this, buddy, but I probably wouldn't have, you know, in the past we might've just given a hug. Very un-British of you. Yeah, well, I got it. It's probably spending seven days in LA. Here in Southern California, we hug all the time, but it feels good, right? Last time I met him, he came to my house a few weeks ago. We hugged and it feels good. And I think this stuff, you know, the conversation around health,

I feel, gets overly polarized regarding food and movement. Now, I am not for one minute saying that these things are not important, but I think there is far too much focus on them personally at the expense of other factors. And here's the funny thing about stress, right? And this is what I really figured out as I was unpacking the book and writing it. Often our food choices, often our movement habits, often why we do certain things is because of the stresses in our life. So what happens in January? Every January in the US, in the UK, new year, new you, time to get healthy, right? So what are the two commonest things that I see people doing in my clinic? I want to reduce sugar or I want to reduce my booze, right? Those are two common things.

So what is the pattern that I see is this, for a week, for two weeks, maybe for three weeks, willpower gets them through. It's like, yeah, getting sugar out of the house, I'm not going to have it. This year is going to be different. It's not going to be like the last few years. This year I get on top of things. Same with alcohol. You know, I'm now not going to drink. Yeah, I've overdone it over Christmas and New Year. That's it now. I'm in. I'm sorting my life out. One week, two weeks, three weeks.

Then the time it starts to creep back in. And my view on that is, in a lot of cases, it's because the sugar or the alcohol was serving a role in someone's life. Of course. Of course. I know it's super obvious to say it, but what they're doing is that,

and the reason I'm explaining is I think people will be listening to this and somebody there is gonna go, yeah, that's me actually, I do that every January, but I can never get past January the 14th. And if you are using sugar, or if you're using alcohol, or if you're using anything to soothe the stresses in your life, I think many people are going to be very limited in the change they're going to make unless they address the underlying stresses. Address the underlying stresses, then you no longer need

to engage in the same behavior. I'll give you another example. I had a patient who was a, I can't remember his job, he was sort of some sort of managerial position in a company. And he came to see me for a whole variety of different reasons. The point was, is that when we looked at his lifestyle, it was quite clear to me what was happening. So he would drink a lot of alcohol. And it was affecting his relationship. It was affecting his sleep. It was affecting his performance, right? But he wouldn't,

you know, he wouldn't drink every day. But what would happen when you looked at his week is he would start drinking on a Wednesday. So what happens when you unpack his life? Wednesday, just after lunch, he has to present a team meeting. He finds it incredibly stressful. So by the end of Wednesday's work, he is super amped up. He goes straight home and he wants to unwind. So he opens a bottle of wine, has a glass, one glass turns into two, two turns into three. And before you know it, Wednesday, he has a whole bottle of wine. Therefore, doesn't sleep well, wakes up tired, feeling a bit angsty, needs more caffeine to get him through. By default of

that happening, he's quite anxious throughout the day, feeling stressed throughout the day. Because he's drinking caffeine all the way into the afternoon, he then drinks more alcohol on Thursday, affects his sleep, and this pattern continues whereby come Friday, it's two bottles of wine. Come Saturday, it's two bottles of wine. And Sunday, he spends just recovering for the week ahead. Now, what did I do? Of course, as you well know, Rich, there are multiple things at play here. But in this particular instance, I helped him. We sort of unpacked his week and I helped to say, hey, look, you know, it seems that on Wednesdays, things start to go wrong. So is there something else that we can maybe think about doing to de-stress? And he said, well, you know, we looked at a few options. There was a yoga class.

I was just going to say you should go to yoga class right after. Well, again, we should swap places, man. In fact, you go to my class. I'll come and live in California. So what happens next is that he goes, okay, fine. So Wednesday, straight after work, before going home, what does he do? He goes to yoga. Now, he was a little resistant, but again, he was seeking help, so he came to see me. So he goes to yoga. Within weeks, everything changes. When he comes back, he reports what happens. On a Wednesday now, he relieves that stress at yoga. He goes home feeling calm, feeling present, changes his relationship with his wife.

He still has a glass of wine on a Wednesday night, but it's one glass. Doesn't affect his sleep as much. He feels good on Thursday. Again, he'll have a glass of wine on the Thursday, not the whole bottle. And ultimately over the course of a few weeks, it completely transformed things.

So that was the trigger point for him in the week. So I hope that people listen to this. Someone's going to identify in their own life and go, yeah, wait a minute. Yeah, that's like a similar pattern for me. Maybe if I can manage my stress in a slightly different way, maybe those knock-on consequences will be different. And so look, these are individual cases, but they apply to all of us in many aspects of our life. Yeah, I think basically what you're doing is you're telescoping up on the whole situation and trying to get at the root causes of these things so that the solutions that you're implementing

are taking into consideration the downstream impacts of these behavior. So instead of just saying, well, don't drink a bottle of wine, you're looking at what is causing the person to make that choice in the first place. And then you see the domino impact either way,

either positive or negative to what happens to that, which I think is, I mean, that's the way to address these things you know this has come from experience because what what is all public health messaging it's you know eat less of this move more you know you're drinking too much alcohol you know doctors over and over again tell me um this stuff is all great doctor's chastity but um you know patients just don't do what we tell them to do. I would argue that that phrasing in itself needs shifting. I generally get really

good compliance with my patients. I do not say that to boast. I say that because I really think that when you communicate effectively with them, right, people want to change. People don't want to come in and not follow your advice. People don't want to take half a day off work to come and sit in a waiting room, wait for 20 minutes whilst you're running late to come in and see you so that they can ignore your advice. People want to feel better. That is my number one belief in my job is that people fundamentally want to feel better. They don't really want to be there. So let me help them feel better. So what is leading to that idea that patients don't take the doctor's advice?

Is it in the delivery, in the manner in which these practitioners are trying to advise the patients? Like where is that communication breakdown? Look, I think conventionally, if we look back over the last 30, 40 years, there has been a certain tradition in medicine, this very paternalistic relationship that I have a problem. I can tell the doctor, he's gonna, he or she is gonna figure out what the problem is,

give me a diagnosis, and then give me some form of prescription, usually a pill to take to get rid of it. And again, I would make the case that maybe 30, 40 years ago, that worked super well. Like if you were coming in with an acute problem, like a pneumonia, and you know, you're coughing, you can't sleep, you've got sweats, hey, doctor, help me. You know, they listen. They make some tests. Hey, you have got pneumonia. That's the overgrowth of this bug. I've got a pill for you that is going to kill that bug and you will be better. Right? That approach has worked and still does work. Of course, there are unintended consequences of that in the example I gave, but that approach I think does work. And the whole medical system, as you've alluded to already, is set up around that model.

We are not set up, A, to look for root causes. People online will say, yeah, we are. This is all nonsense. You know, all doctors look for the root cause. I'm sorry, but I disagree because I know what our training is. And we're not really trained to look at it because I don't think we had to in the past. So, A, I don't think we're trained to do it. B, I don't think the system is

set up in a way that allows us to do it. And look, if you are a busy, tired, stressed out doctor, and you have, like in the UK, a NHS GP will see between 30 and 50 patients a day, right? I get it, right? You're sitting there, you've got five people waiting outside the easiest thing in the world is to give a prescription because you can get that done quickly and run on time and start to build through your backlog but also i think the way we're taught and the way often in that rushed setting that we deliver this information is i think it's i think it's destined to fail like if you have a patient, right, who comes in, type 2 diabetes is the obvious example to use, right? The patient's in front of you

and you've got their test, right? Let's say they're coming in for some blood tests. They're trying to figure out what's wrong with them, why they're so tired. You run some blood tests and they've got type 2 diabetes, but they don't know this. So I actually do this at role play at the end of the course that I teach the doctors to demonstrate just how different these things can go. So the conventional one is this. Patient comes in, knocks on the door. Hey, Brian, how you doing? Yeah, doc, you know what? I'm feeling knackered. I've got these blood tests. I wonder if I could get the results. Yeah, sure. So without looking at them, looking at the computer, looking at the

screen going, yeah, you know, you have got something called type 2 diabetes, right? That's a chronic illness. It's a bit of a problem because if we don't get on top of it, it may lead to heart attacks. It may lead to amputations in your leg. It's the commonest cause of blindness in this country. So we really need to get on top of it. Now, the good news is we've caught it. I've got some drugs for you. We're going to start you today on metformin. Normally, within a couple of years, we need to add a second drug. Sometimes we then have to go to insulin, which are injections. But don't worry, we've got it all under control. I'll get you seeing the diabetes nurse and we'll get this stuff licked. Okay, Brian's in shock. As he gets up and walks out the door, I was like, hey, but also, Brian,

if you can lose a bit of weight and go to the gym, that would help as well. Okay. So Brian walks out. Yes, you've given lifestyle advice, but what does he take away? He takes away that, oh, well, 99% of that conversation was that we didn't mention lifestyle, mentioned this drug and that they've got this under control for me. Cool. But I can keep going, doing what I'm doing. If you, that sounds like I'm making this up, but that's an extreme example. I can guarantee you that is how some of these consultations go down. There'll be people listening to this who have been in that consultation. Now, I'm not having to go with the dot set because I do recognize that things are challenging. But what about the same scenario where Brian comes in, you make eye contact with him, you don't look at your computer screen,

you have a conversation with him, find out what he's concerned about. And then you say, hey, look, something actually has come up, Brian. Do you know anything about blood sugar? A little bit. You explain, hey, your blood sugar is a little bit higher than we would ideally want. Now, it's actually gone into the range of something that we call type 2 diabetes. Do you know what that is? No, doctor, I don't know what that is. Okay, look, it's a condition that actually it doesn't develop overnight. You have not just got this in the last week or the last few months. This has been going on in your body for maybe five years, maybe even 10 years. This has been building up. Now, look, there are a couple of options. Yeah, there are some drugs that we sometimes need to use. But if you're open to this,

I can help you look at your lifestyle and try and figure out with you what are the various factors that may have led to this. Are you interested? Hey, doc, yeah, if you can let me know what I can do, that'd be amazing. And if you go down that road and you spend the time connecting and spend the time explaining to them what they can do and what they feel is achievable, I think even within 10 minutes, you can get good results. But this is communication. Yeah, right?

So why aren't medical schools training doctors to better communicate with patients, particularly if compliance is an issue. It seems like that should be part and parcel of what it means to be trained as a doctor. Like you're gonna spend your entire career communicating with patients, telling them what to do, what's wrong with them, et cetera.

Shouldn't there be a, there's a skill to that, right? To do it effectively. Yeah. You know, one of the things I'd say from, certainly when I was going through med school applications, and from what I understand, it's not really changed that much, although they have tried to evolve. That is not anywhere in literally how you are assessed.

It is what are your grades, right? What is your interview like? Now, I guess an interview on some level is looking at your ability to communicate. I get that. But I think the health landscape has changed. What we needed in doctors 30 years ago is frankly not what we need in the bulk of our doctors today.

It has moved on. And therefore the skillset that a doctor requires in the 21st century is fundamentally different in my eyes than the skill set a doctor needed in the 20th century. So it is about saying, yes, we should be assessing it. I think that's important. But also, we should be looking at, can we train it? I think you probably can train it. You can teach people some skills of how you do that. How do you actively listen? How do you not interrupt the patient's story? You know, basic things that frankly, I would argue, it's not just about being a doctor. If you want to communicate with your partner, with your wife,

with your children, right? It's the same skillset. So given that most of what we now see as doctors is driven by collective modern lifestyles, I say 80 doctors is driven by collective modern lifestyles, I say 80% is driven by collective modern lifestyles. Well, does it not stand to reason that actually these sort of life skills that we need to be able to communicate effectively are probably top of the tree when it comes to being a doctor?

Yeah. Well, I think it is changing slowly. We're seeing the growth and the advent of functional medicine. And there are more and more people like yourselves who understand this and are stepping into a new way of practicing medicine. So I'm hopeful in that regard, but it does seem like there needs to be some systemic changes

in updating the education and also the continuing education, right? I mean, you have to do all this continuing education all the time, like, couldn't that be built into that as well? I mean, Rich, what I'm trying to do to help this problem is, because I was talking about it in the media for years, where I'm saying, this is a problem, we need to change this. And I was thinking, yeah, but what do you do?

It's all about talking about it, but then what is the solution? I thought, you know, I've hopefully inspired millions of people with my TV show showing that all these chronic lifestyle-driven conditions can absolutely be turned around and certainly dramatically improved by making small changes to key areas in your lifestyle.

And then I thought with a colleague of mine, Dr. Ian Panja, we were like, do you know what? Should we just set up a course? Should we just create one? And we did it. And we've created the first in the UK and Europe. It's the very first course

called Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine that is accredited by the Royal College of GPs. Now that is important because it gives a certain gravitas to the course. It gives a stamp of approval that people may not otherwise give it. And it was very hard to get accreditation. We had to jump through a lot of hoops.

We probably had to compromise various aspects of the course that we ideally wanted, but nonetheless, we've done it. And we have more than 95% of attendees so far think it's the best course they attended, highly recommend it to their colleagues. And we have not just had primary care practitioners, we've had consultant cardiologists come, psychiatrists, nurses, pharmacists, because this is a problem that is systemic in medicine. Now, we probably train nearly a thousand healthcare professionals so far in the past 18 months, and we've got big plans on how to expand that. Now, people always say, you know what it's like,

you do anything and there's the naysayers. It's like, oh, that's fine, but it should be compulsory in medical school. Oh, that's fine, but you're never going to make change like that. And I'm like, well, hold on a minute. Five years ago, this course didn't exist. It didn't have any credibility. This year, we've got a fully accredited course where people can come and get their CPD points. That is progress. At every single event, we invite some medical students for free to come. They come, give us feedback. We are talking to medical schools. This is how change happens. I'm not saying we'll get there, right? I don't know if we'll get there, but this is my effort to try and contribute to this process and say, hey, look, this course is fantastic. Please come if you're interested. But here's the problem, Rich. We're still relying on a doctor

who has an interest, who is prepared to give up a Saturday and pay the money to come and train the course, right? So in many ways, you're only attracting the people who've got that interest, right? Yeah, but you started, you know, and you gotta fan the flames of positive change, right? This is forward progress, so. Yeah, and so hopefully in five years time, this will be a part of medical school training

or it'll be compulsory. We can only hope. Right, well, let's drill down into stress a little bit more deeply. This book opens up with you saying, listen, 60 to 80% of the people that come into my office have some kind of stress-related condition. The World Health Organization has qualified stress as the epidemic of the 21st century. Like this is something that we really need to look at stringently and figure out protocols for redressing. And I feel like the word stress is used very cavalierly.

Like, wow, we're all stressed. I'm stressed out, I'm anxious or whatever. But perhaps it might be beneficial to define the term. Like when we say stress, like what do we actually mean? And what is happening biologically, physiologically in the body when we are under this form of duress? I mean, I would agree with you that the term is slightly problematic.

I think we do use it. There's common parlance now, not a day goes by where you do not hear the term, right? You talk to a buddy you've not spoken to in a while. Hey, mate, how you doing? You're like, yeah, yeah, mate, I'm okay. I'm not too bad. A little bit busy, a little bit stressed, but I'm okay. It's become that normal. And so I guess taking that 30,000 foot view, fundamentally what stress is, because stress is different for every single person. It is a perception. It is a perception when your body feels that it's under threat, that it is in danger. That fundamentally is what I think stress is. Now, how do you explain that? Because that statistic you mentioned,

and it comes from the Journal of the American Medical Association, 2013, there was a paper where they did a little study and they said that up to, it's actually 70 to 90%, between 70 and 90% of all conditions that a primary care doctor sees in any given day is in some way related to stress. That's bananas. That is bananas, but I'm gonna explain why I think it is quite easy to understand

when you understand what the stress response is. So let's go back again two million years, right? Two, three, whatever. We go back a couple of million years ago and understand how our stress response evolved. So we were again in our hunter gatherer community, getting on with our business, doing what we need to do, and a wild predator is attacking or approaching. We get scared. In an instant, our stress response kicks into gear. So what happens then? Well, the series of physiological changes start to take place that are designed to keep us safe. So I can't list them all, but let's go through some of them. Your blood sugar starts to rise. Great. That means you're going to deliver more glucose to your brain. That is fantastic in that threat scenario. Your blood pressure starts to go up so you can deliver more oxygen to your brain. Your amygdala, that's the emotional part

of your brain, right? That becomes hyperreactive. So you are literally hypervigilant for all the threats around you. Your blood starts to become more prone to clotting. So that if you were to get attacked by that lion and that predator, you're not going to bleed to death. Your blood's going to clot. It's going to keep you safe. These are very, very smart, complex mechanisms that are designed to keep us safe. The problem is, quite simply, is that now in the 21st century, many of us are having our stress responses activated, not to wild predators, but to our daily lives, to our email inboxes, to our to-do lists, to the fact that we've got competing demands at work, to the fact that two parents are working

and someone's trying to rush home to pick up the kids, the fact that actually we're living separate from our family, so we're having to do all the childcare ourselves, we don't have grandparents around us, to the fact that we may have elderly parents now we're looking after, as well as looking after a young family, for many of us, that is activating our stress response. So what happens? Well, those mechanisms that are so helpful to us in the short term, they start to become problematic. Blood sugar going up is fine for 30 minutes. If your blood sugar is going up day in, day out, well, that leads to fatigue, obesity, high blood pressure, and ultimately type 2 diabetes just from being stressed. And I go back to saying what I said

before, what the whole conversation around health is dominated by diet and movement. Talk about type two diabetes. It's all about which dietary tribe you subscribe to. I can tell you that stress is a very, very key player when it comes to your blood sugar. And I have put many cases of type two diabetes into remission. Yes, I changed their diet for sure. But when the diet plateaued, the way I got the blood sugar lower was by addressing their stress levels. So blood sugar problem, helpful in the short term, harmful in the long term. Blood pressure, again, same thing. Great if you're running away from a tiger. Great if you're in your spinning class in the gym. It's an appropriate response to that stressor. But if that's happening to your email inbox, that's a problem. What about your emotional brain, right? The amygdala. I just said, when you are trying to escape a predator, you become hypervigilant to all the threats around you.

That is appropriate. If you go to downtown LA tonight and it is dark and you are walking down a dark street and you think somebody is following you, you know what? You want your amygdala to go on high alert. You want to be hypervigilant to all the threats around you. If that's happening day in day out to your life, that's what we call anxiety, right? So suddenly this very complex mechanism, when you simplify it right down, we can start to see why up to 90% of what I see as a doctor is in some way related to stress. But what about the things that it switches off, right? We've spoken a bit about relationships. So libido is a big problem these days. I've been practicing

for nearly 20 years. I'm seeing more cases of low libido now than I've ever seen. Not a week goes by where I don't see a young male in their 20s complaining of low libido now than I've ever seen. Not a week goes by where I don't see a young male in their 20s complaining of low libido. This was not happening even five years ago, certainly in my practice. There are many factors to consider, but stress is probably the biggest in my view. Again, go back two million years. You are running away from a threat. In that moment, you need to prioritize survival. You do not need to be able to chill out and procreate with your partner. So your body switches it off, right? It almost sounds overly simplistic, but I love simplicity because when you understand it simply, you start

to realize, hey, I understand now why anxiety, why low memory, why poor concentration, why insomnia, why low libido, why hormonal problems, why obesity, why type 2 diabetes can all have stress as a key player. Gut problems, right? Last Mintel survey in the UK showed us that 80% of UK adults have complained of some form of GI problem in any given year, right? Now, food, of course, is a factor, but I would argue that stress is a bigger factor because what happens, again, just like libido, if you're running away from a lion, you don't need to be able to digest food. You just get switched off just like that. And I tell you, one thing that I've discovered in my practice for maybe the last two, two and a half years, a lot of people feel that they are reacting to certain foods. And I say that, that they are

reacting. They're intolerant to certain foods. And I have gone through many years asking people to maybe avoid certain foods for a short period of time as a trial, then reintroduce and see what happens. But what I've discovered since I've really dialed into stress is sometimes people are actually not reacting to the food, they're reacting to the fact that they're eating in a stressed out state. So when I teach some of my patients breathing techniques and I say, look, you really need to have some sort of switch off between your work and your eating.

I am not casting judgment on anyone. I also often will buy my healthy, organic whole food lunch, and I'll still be working and doing my emails whilst doing it, right? But you've got to understand, you might be eating the right thing, but if you're not eating it in the right way, there could be a consequence. And some of these patients no longer react to those foods when they change their state before they eat, which literally was mind blowing to me because those patients in the past,

I had asked them to remove that food for a period of time. So it is so, so powerful. And I kind of reflect on the French when I think about this because there is this whole French paradox, right? You've heard of this, right? Right, well, they eat all these crazy foods and they don't have the obesity problems and the chronic disease problems that we have.

And so why is that? Is it their de-stressed lifestyle? They take, you know, their meal times are sacred and elongated compared to what we do here in America. So same in the UK. Look, I've recently been thinking about this a lot because there are multiple theories why the French paradox exists.

But with the knowledge I now have on stress, I would have to say that there's a very powerful case to be made that actually the way they are eating means that actually their food is gonna have a different impact on their body. It's going to do something different. If you prioritize a 90-minute lunch break, well, hey, you know what? It's lunchtime. We're not doing that cool. We're closing the computer.

We're sitting down. We're chilling. And we are now going to have lunchtime, right? Of course, when you understand the stress response, it is going to do something different. And I actually had an interview with a French journalist last week because my first book has just come out in France. And I asked her at the end of that interview, I said, hey, look, can I ask you, does that still go on? I've spent a lot of time in France for skiing, for sure. But I was saying, does that still go on? She goes, yeah. By and large, it is still what goes on. Now, in some of the heavily urbanized places like Paris, in some of the companies where there's a lot of international people working there,

it is starting to get eroded away, which kind of makes sense. But I don't know, I find it so interesting. Well, I get the idea that when you're in a stressed state, it restricts blood flow to your digestive system. that when you're in a stress state, it restricts blood flow to your digestive system, but what is the impact on the microbiome or why would that lead to some kind of allergic reaction to a certain kind of food?

Yeah, well, first of all, I'm not saying true allergy. We've got to be very careful that we distinguish allergy from intolerance. That's a very different biological mechanism. So I think it's important just to clarify that. If you have a true allergy, that when you eat some food, you get, you know, you get red cheeks and your lips start to swell. I'm not saying in that instant, but I think some of these milder intolerances or not so mild, many things happen. Your microbiome changes with stress. It's not just food that impacts your microbiome. Your stress levels do. That has been shown time and time again. Your digestive enzymes. So in order

to digest food, whatever it is you're eating, you need the presence of certain digestive enzymes to digest that food. If you are switching off, as a very broad and non-precise term, your digestion, the levels of digestive enzymes go down. So it can affect multiple different organ systems. It can affect various different things in your gut. I have found over and over again now, not only for intolerances, that with gut problems, I am more and more focusing on the stress around how they eat. And I'm getting great results from doing it. I had a patient, right, who had Crohn's disease, right? So Crohn's disease, for people who don't know, is one of the inflammatory bowel diseases. People often have severe stomach cramps. They will often have to

go to the toilet maybe up to 15, 20 times a day. There'll be blood there. Very, very physically unpleasant, socially unpleasant. A few years ago, I had a patient who was under the gastroenterologist. She had tried the various drugs. They didn't work that well for her. She didn't like the way that they made her feel. So she ends up at my door. I start trying to help her. Now, granted, I did start with diets. I thought, okay, let's see if we can change some things. Let's see what happens. And we got a bit of an improvement, for sure. And she was feeling motivated and inspired. I thought, okay, this is great.

You know, I'm finally getting some control over this condition. Then I don't see her for a little while and then she plateaus. She comes in to see me. I hadn't seen her maybe in six months. And I'm talking to her and she's like, Dr. Chaz, you've got to do something. What else do I need to do? What do I need to add into my diet? What do I need to cut out? She was talking really fast, and I started to unpick her life a little bit, and it was really clear to me. I was just trying

to pick up on this sense of background anxiety. She was rushing around. She was like many of the female patients I see in my practice. They were so caring. They were nurturing. She was looking after her husband. She was looking after the kids. Everything she did in her life was for somebody else. And she was not doing anything for herself. And there was many things to do.

But the first thing I started off with her was with, I said, look, I said, look, I know you want me to give you some more advice on your diets. I know you might want me to refer you to a nutrition professional, maybe to go deep into this, but just hear me out. I think that's not the lever to turn at the moment. I think the background stress levels in your life are playing a role here. And I wonder if we could try something there. Now, she was resistant because in her head, it was all about diet. So she wanted more dietary advice. And I said, look, all I want you to do is I want you to take a bit of time for yourself every day, just 15 minutes, right? So this is not deep breathing before a meal. This is just saying, look, do something for yourself, 15 minutes a day.

And if you can, once a week, I want you to do something that you're really, really passionate about, that you've always wanted to do and you've never done. Anyway, so we also did what's called an MSQ, a medical symptom questionnaire. So I scored the level of her symptoms. She goes away. A month later, she comes back. She feels like a different person. Her symptoms have gone down by 50%. 50%. Now, she still has Crohn's disease. She still has symptoms. It's just significantly better.

I said, what have you been doing? She said, well, you know what? Every morning when I drop the kids at school, I now park the car, leave my phone in the car, and I go for a walk in the local park for 15 minutes. I said, okay, great. What else do you do? Doc, I've always wanted to do salsa dancing. Always.

I've never done it, but you give me the kicks. Every Thursday night, I go to a salsa class. Now, this was just a month, Rich, but I have followed up, so I've seen what's consequently happened. What does this tell you? This tells you that there are multiple facets going on in everybody's life that can impact every organ system in the body. I have not got rid of her condition. She still has Crohn's disease, but it is a damn sight easier on her and easier to manage now that she started to lower her stress level. So when you ask the question, what is stress? Well, her stress, right? Wasn't too many emails necessarily. Her stress was the fact that she didn't have enough passion in her life,

that she didn't do anything for her that made her feel complete, that nourished her. And so when you ask the question, what is stress? It's going to be different for different people. And that is fundamentally what I try to do with this book is as completely as possible, is as completely as possible, simplify the topic, but then have these four concrete areas. So I want the reader to be able to identify where does stress live in my life? Because you need awareness. Once you know where it lives, you know what?

Pick one of the simple things, try it for seven days and see if you feel different. That is all I ask from someone. I mean, what's interesting about that example that you just gave is that the stress in that woman's life wasn't some external pressure, it was an absence of something in her life, right? Which is not how we really think of stress.

It was the fact that she didn't have something that was causing her that kind of duress that was contributing to her symptoms. And it is interesting to kind of deconstruct stress and look at the different faces that it has. And you talk about this in the book, you talk about like the MSDs, the micro stress doses that we get throughout the day.

It's not that stress is inherently bad, it's the chronic stress or the repetitive nature of these little micro doses of stress that we're getting all day long throughout our day within moments of waking up in the morning that culminate in this chronic stress condition that's creating all of these problems. But that's also very different from this thing

that you call the adverse childhood experience, like the ACE, which is essentially the idea that we've all experienced traumas in our lives, some more severe than others, whether it's a childhood trauma or some experience that you had, that even though it was in the past, it still rears its head and contributes

to your stress condition when it's sort of provoked through memory or some experience that you have throughout the day that reminds you of it. Yeah, you know, this is one of the challenges when I sat down to write this thing. It was, how do you explain what stress is? And how do you also differentiate these different kinds of stresses?

Like you mentioned adverse childhood experiences. These are, you know, really significant and traumatic things that happen, you know, when you're a kid, whether it's abuse, whether it's maybe, you know, not having parents, you know, being an orphan, all kinds of things that we know impact all of your life outcomes. And I was trying to figure out how can you describe this? And then I came up with this concept of micro stress doses and macro stress doses. And I'm so pleased that this has taken off and like lots of people now use that in their classes. Lots of yoga instructors contact me on Instagram and say, hey, look, I'm using this as a way of

describing to people the difference. And I think it's a very useful way of looking at your own life. So a micro stress dose is a little dose of stress that in isolation you can easily handle. But when they mount up one on top of the other, they start to add up and they can start to become problematic. So we have all got what I call our own personal stress threshold. And it will probably vary throughout various different days of the week, depending on what we've got going on, depending on how well we've slept, how many balls we're juggling. But we have this stress threshold. So let's say you wake up in the morning and you're feeling calm. You can start accumulating micro stress doses bit by bit. And the more of them you accumulate,

the closer you get to your own stress threshold. When you get to your stress threshold, that is when things start to go wrong. That is when you have an unreasonable reaction to an email that you've received. That is when you have an argument with your partner. That is when things start to go wrong. That is when you have an unreasonable reaction to an email that you've received. That is when you have an argument with your partner. That is when you scream at your kids when they haven't actually done anything because you have passed your threshold. And I made the case that many of us

have had 10 to 15 hits of micro stress before we've walked out the door in the morning. So what is the conventional, not the conventional, what is a common scenario these days? Okay, work's stressful. Come back, I'm knackered. I want to unwind. I don't want to go to bed because then it all starts tomorrow. So I'm going to stay up late on Netflix, unwinding and numbing what is going on in my life. So I go to bed late, right? I set my alarm for 6.30 in the morning because I've got work the next day. Okay, so you're in a deep sleep and at 6.30, your alarm goes off.

Boom, micro stress dose number one, because waking you, jolting you from a deep sleep is a stressor on the body. You look at the time, which will be on your phone, you look at it, you know what? You look at the time, which will be on your phone. You look at it. You know what? I've got a few more minutes. You press snooze. At 6.36, boom, alarm hits again.

Micro stress dose number two. Then you think, you know what? Yeah, I better get up now. So you grab your phone. Whilst you're sort of stretching in bed, let me just look at my email. Oh man, there was three work emails yesterday. I didn't get around to doing them. I've got to do that today.

MSD, micro stress dose number three. Then you quickly go onto social media. Oh, you know what? Someone's been mean to me on my last post. MSD number four. Then you realize, oh my God, I've been in bed for 20 minutes. I'm running late now. I really need to get a move on. And I'm not going to keep sort of laboring the points, but you can very easily see how before you even leave the house in the morning, you've picked up 15 MSDs. And what does that mean? That means you are closer to your threshold, which means it's going to take less little hits of micro stress in the day to tip you over. This is why I'm so passionate about having some downtime, having some space in the morning to insulate yourself, make you more resilient. It's not just about reducing the stress in our life where we can. I get some people live difficult

lives. Some people don't earn much money. They're working two jobs. That is fundamentally stressful. But if you can adopt some of these techniques, and pretty much every single tip in the book is free, some of these techniques and pretty much every single tip in the book is free. And I'm super passionate about that, that they are accessible to everyone. You know what? You can apply these tools to make yourself more resilient to the stress. So let's say you've got a stressful life. If you're going out of the house with only two micro stress doses, as opposed to 15, you've got a much bigger buffer before you start to have problems. And so I think that's a useful analogy. I will say though, even if you have had a macro stress dose, one of these big hits of stress, like trauma of some sort, like physical abuse, and I say this with the utmost

respect, of course, that needs processing. That needs probably to see a professional and actually untangle that. But if you talk to psychologists, if you talk to therapists, they will tell you that it is even more important in those situations that you apply these principles, because they will help keep you at a level that hopefully you can manage things a bit better than without. So it really, I really do believe that this is a book for everyone, whether you have macro stress doses, micro stress doses, whether you have too much stress in your life, or whether you have not enough passion, because these are universal themes. And I do think I have simplified it right down where people will think,

you know what? Yeah, you know what? Maybe I can do that. I think I can do that. you know what, maybe I can do that. I think I can do that. Yeah, I think that, I think you're absolutely right. And what I like about the book is that it's very practical and solution. I mean, it's called the stress solution. I mean, it's about the solutions, right? And some of these are very easy to implement in your life,

like go for a walk, turn your phone off, go to bed early, like very, very like simple implementable tools, morning routine, whatever that may look like for you, meditation, mindfulness practices. Some of them are a little bit more ephemeral. I mean, your first bucket here is purpose. And that's a harder thing to kind of figure out for yourself. Everybody has their own relationship to purpose. And, you know, I feel like there's a lot of people

who live their lives relatively untethered and don't have a sense of purpose or what, you know, we both know the Okinawans call it ikigai, which you talk about in the book. And that's a journey, right? So how do you help? I mean, I think that's fundamental, right? If you don't have purpose, then everything else is sort of a house of cards. Well, that's the hardest one. That's the hardest one.

That's why I started the book with it because it's the hardest. And I think it's the most important because fundamentally a life lacking meaning and purpose is inherently a stressful life, right? It just is. We all know that. The research backs it up. Not having a sense of meaning and purpose in your life is associated with much worse health outcomes. Of course, do we need science to tell us that? No, probably not. And feeling bad about the fact that you don't know what your purpose is is an added stress

on top of that. Absolutely. So let me clarify my view on this. So I thought, okay, this is all about practical solutions. I, like you, love that Japanese concept of ikigai. Right, I do. I came across it, I think, on a Facebook post a few years ago, and I was, you know, one of my— It's a Dan Buettner thing from Blue Zones. I didn't come across it with Dan, actually.

He helped kind of usher it in because Okinawa is one of the Blue Zones. And their relationship with purpose, which they call ikigai, is fundamental to their longevity and happiness. For sure. And so one of my Facebook friends, so if you're watching the video, that was inverted commas friends. And to be fair, I'm being slightly, you know, I'm sort of trying to make a point, which is probably not the best way of doing it. But I saw this post and she put this thing up about Ikigai. And I saw these four circles and the middle area was shaded where these four things intersect. You know, Ikigai is when you find something in your life to do, something that you love, something that you're good at, something that the world needs,

and something that pays you money. And I read it, and I think I read this pretty soon after my dad died, which is a very significant moment clearly for me. And I remember reading that and I thought, I like that. You know, I fancy a bit of Ikigai in my life. You know, I want that. And I started to reflect on it. I think about it. I thought, well, this could be useful for some of my patients. So I started to talk about this idea with my patients and I found many of them found it quite stressful

to think about it. How can I find one thing in my life that gives me this sense of Ikigai? That's just too stressful. I'm working to pay the bills and to meet the mortgage payments and to put food on my plate. And you feel ashamed that you can't master that.

And what was super interesting to me is in January when the book came out in the UK and I was on my tour, I was in London and I spoke about this. And at the end, there was a Q&A and this Japanese student in London put her hand up. So she asks a question. She says, Dr. Chastity, I just want to add to this that I have grown up in Japan, and I have heard about this concept of ikigai, and I found it super stressful my whole life as I have to live up to this esteemed idea

that is embedded in my culture, and I find it stressful, and I can't do it. So that was super interesting. I heard that from my patients. I also heard it from a Japanese student in London. So I'm not, I sort of pay homage to this in the book, but then I come up with what I call the live framework. I've come up, created a framework that I think, and I've seen very, very practical for people of how they start to find meaning and purpose in their life. Because I get it. You're listening to this podcast on a train and you're thinking, yeah, meaning and purpose. It's all very well for you to talk about that. You know what? Your life is different from

mine. So it's a very simple framework. L is for love. I is for intention. V is for vision. E is for engagement. Now, we don't necessarily need to unpack the whole thing, but the point about it is you don't need to get all of these from one aspect in your life. You can get them from different aspects in your life, but it's a simple way to start moving you towards finding your meaning and purpose. So what is the first L?

The first L is love. It's about passion. Right, so research shows us that regularly doing things that you love helps to make you more resilient to stress. And I'm saying that resilience is super important. But at the same time, being stressed out day in, day out makes it harder to experience pleasure in day-to-day things.

So one of the prescriptions I give people, and I don't particularly like the term prescription, but one of the recommendations I make is to have a daily dose of pleasure. You can move just for five minutes. Now, again, just to bring this to life, I had a patient, 52-year-old chap, or maybe 53. You know, early 50s chap,

CFO of a local plastics company, right? Again, comes in to see me. He's worried, doctor, do I have depression? What's going on? I struggle to motivate myself sometimes. I can't concentrate at work. I feel quite indifferent about my relationships. You know, what is going on? So as always, I try to unpack different aspects of their life. So do you like your job? Yeah, not really. You know, it's so-so. I have to do it. I've got a family I need to provide for them. I said, okay, fine. How's your relationship with your wife? You know what? So-so. You know, I don't really see her that much. It's fine. Do you have any hobbies? I don't have time for hobbies. I'm busy. I get

back late. I said, okay, what about weekends? Weekends, I've got to do the household chores. I've got to take the kids to their classes. I don't have time for hobbies. So the prescription I gave him, the recommendation I made to him at the end of doing this, and again, so that I don't get, not that it matters if I get criticized, but just so people understand, I did do the safety nesting that is required of me. I didn't feel he was an active suicide risk. I didn't do all these sort of various things that I have to do as a doctor. I did check. But ultimately what I felt was that he didn't have any passion in his life, right? And I said, look, I know you don't do any hobbies now. Did you ever have a hobby? Well, yeah, I guess, you know, when I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I loved playing with train sets. I said, okay, great. Do you have a train set at home? I've got one at home. It's in my attic.

I'm not seeing it for years. I said, okay, look, what I would love you to do when you go home tonight is to get your train set out. And you've got a smirk on your face, right? Yeah, I get it. Hey, I have no judgment on people's hobbies. I had a train set when I was a kid. Well, I thought you were smoking at the fact that he came in to see me with a problem he was concerned about and my prescription was to get out his train set. Oh no, I'm with you on that.

Okay, you're with me on that. Okay, so he, again, he agrees to go and do this. So he goes away. I don't see him then. It is not uncommon in general practice in the UK for you not to be able to follow up every single patient. You just simply cannot do that. So I got on with my job. I was, you know, doing my thing. Three months later, I finished my morning clinic. And then we have something called home visits in the UK where, you know, normally after

your morning clinic, you will then have a list from reception of people who are maybe elderly and firm, who can't get out to the practice and you go and visit them at home to look after them. So I was, I went to the car park to go do my home visits and I bumped into his wife and I said, Hey, Hey, look, um, you know, how's your husband getting on? He said, Dr. Chastity, I feel like I've got the guy I married back again. He comes home from work. He's straight onto his train set. He's on eBay all the time trying to buy collector's items. And he's subscribed to this monthly collector's magazine now. So she's happy. He's wearing his conductor hat in the house. Hey, fuck, she's happy.

But I still hadn't seen him, right? Again, roughly three months later, I'm just going through my clinic as usual. And I see his name pop up. And he has had some blood tests, had a well-manned check and he's coming in to see me to go through them. Welcoming in and before we go into the blood results, I say, hey, look, how are you getting on? He says, doc, I feel like a different person. Life is great. I said, my mood's better. I've got energy. I said, okay, cool. You know, how's your job? Job, I love it. Really getting a lot out of my job now. How's your relationship with your wife? Really, really good. I said, okay, cool. You know, how's your job? Job, I love it. Really getting a lot out of my job now.

How's your relationship with your wife? Really, really good. I feel really close to her. So just like that case, I don't know how long we've been chatting for, maybe an hour ago, just like that story about the kid who was feeling low

and who had a friendship deficiency, did this guy have a mental health problem? Sure. I think he had symptoms that would be consistent. I could have made, I could have labeled him and given him a diagnosis, right? And of course, sometimes that may be appropriate. Although I have issues with labels because I think what that does to people, that's a separate story. Or did this chap really have a deficiency of passion in his life? And the remarkable thing for me is when that passion deficiency gets corrected, not only does he feel better in himself, but everything else in his life starts to come back online. The job that he couldn't

stand before, now he enjoys. The relationship that was a bit tired and he felt a bit indifferent about, now he's feeling closer to his wife. And this is why I'm trying to make the case that this live framework is applicable. It is achievable. If you are listening to this and you want more meaning and purpose and you don't know where to start, I challenge you, when was the last time you did something you love, right? If you haven't done it recently, schedule it in your diary. It doesn't need to be fancy. It doesn't need to be swim run like we did at the start, right? For many of my patients, I say, give yourself five minutes a day for a daily dose of pleasure. That could be going for a walk. That could be reading a book, listening to a podcast. It could even be coming home from work, going onto YouTube, finding your favorite comedian and laughing for five minutes. So when we say meaning and purpose is unattainable for many

people, I disagree because if you start with small, small steps, I mean, you could call them hacks. I know you're not a huge fan of the hacking worlds and I wouldn't call them hacking in the same sense. I'd call them, you want to get to a certain destination. The destination seems too far away. So let's look at a signpost that's nearby. Let's just break this down, make it super, super simple. Do something for five minutes a day that you enjoy. Do that consistently week after week, and you will start to find other things in your life that will bring you closer to meaning and purpose. That's just the L, right? But I'm super passionate that we can all find meaning and purpose. Of course, it's harder. This guy didn't find his icky guy, right? This chap I just

spoke about, he's not quit his job and is now living on a beach and living his kind of this romantic idea of what a beautiful life looks like. No, he's just found passion in his life. And suddenly his day-to-day life that was monotonous before suddenly is vibrant. And I'm so passionate about this, Rich, because it's not as hard as we think it is. Take small, small steps.

Small steps are everything. I mean, I think what happens is people, I mean, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, but people see, read, hear this message of follow your passion. And it does have that shame provoking, unintended consequence to it. And it just seems overwhelming and intimidating

because that gets associated with quitting your job or, you know, sort of, you know, being a digital nomad or like making these massive, you know, seismic shifts in your life. But, and that may be the ultimate trajectory if you keep pulling on that thread, like maybe that train guy is gonna reinvent himself and become some kind of, you know, like toy train entrepreneur, who knows. But more likely than not, it is just having the wherewithal to set aside a little bit of time to take a tiny step to like embrace some aspect of what you love.

I mean, that's how it started with me. Like I just, I went back to the swimming pool and jumped in the water. You know, it was nothing more than that. And it started with me. Like I just, I went back to the swimming pool and jumped in the water. You know, it was nothing more than that. And it's led to me sitting here with you in a manner I could have never predicted in a million years. But the tiny first step that seems meaningless and unconnected to ephemeral concepts like Ikigai

and passion is where all of these things are seated. Yeah, for sure for sure and you know this is such a fundamentally important point not only under the umbrella term of stress just for just our overall well-being you know how we feel about ourselves it's very hard to do that without passion it's very hard to do that unless there is some overarching objective or direction in your life where you are going. And I get it. Many people don't feel that they can have it. This is why I drill down, I think so hard, how do you make this achievable? How do you bring these kind of really lofty concepts and ideals? How do you bring them right down to something that someone who's working in a council flat,

who's working two jobs, who feels that there is no way out to something that they can apply? And, you know, I know this stuff works because I've been using these tips with real people, busy people with busy lives. And you pointed it out. That's it. It's not about necessarily that first step. Of course, that's very important, but who knows what that guy will be doing in five years. He's now on the road to that destination. Well, there is no destination, but he's on that road, on that journey towards meaning and purpose. And it starts with those small steps. So we are headed into holiday season, the most stressful time of the year. By the time this podcast comes out, we'll be more in the thick of it.

This is the moment where stress peaks, people are with their relatives, they're in high stress situations, there's a lot of pressure to show up for other people and it pushes people over the edge. So I think it would be really helpful and instructive to kind of provide some guidance for how people can better navigate

the minefields of the holiday season. Yeah, sure, you're right. It is all over the world, I think. Well, certainly in the countries in which we live, it's a time fraught with problems, pressures, external pressures, things that we feel that we have to do. There are so many things that we can do, but the thing that is rising to the surface in me now

is think about downtime, right? We need downtime. We thrive on downtime. Our brains thrive on downtime. You simply cannot get up, go on your phone, consume, watch what the world is giving you, reacting, go to after work drinks, go to all these family engagements, come back, lie in bed, consume more. You simply just cannot do that without there being a consequence. You will be accumulating micro stress dose after micro stress dose and you will go over and it will lead to family arguments. It will lead to a row with your partner. It will lead to you getting stressed out at work and falling out with your boss. It is all a consequence of that framework of micro stress doses and where is your stress threshold. You need to minimize the micro stress doses and you need to take active steps to increase your resilience. So let's call it simple.

You mentioned a morning routine, right? I'm a huge fan of morning routines. And the framework I create for people is a morning routine has three M's and the way I see it, mindfulness, movement, and mindset. So if you want a morning routine, you don't know where to start. Think about those three M's. Now you can personalize them to your own life. If you have got an hour in the morning, great. If you've got five minutes, you can stillize them to your own life. If you have got an hour in the morning, great. If you've got five minutes, you can still do it in five minutes. Mindfulness, that could be meditation. It could be breathing.

You know, whatever you want can be mindfulness, whatever appeals to you. Movement, anything you want. Do some push-ups, do some yoga stretches. And then mindset. Mindset is do something to put you in a positive frame of mind. That can be reading a book that you enjoy that makes you feel good. It could be doing some affirmations like I often do with my daughter. Now, to really be clear on this, I have a patient in particular who says, doc, these morning routines, they sound great.

I'm too busy. I've got to get the kids ready. I don't have time for this. She now, I have persuaded her to try it. And she now sticks religiously to her five minute morning routine, right? So my own routine tends to be about half an hour. I have that luxury now. I didn't always, but hers is five minutes. So what does she do? Let's break this three M's down. First 10, mindfulness. She does deep breathing for one minute when she gets up, right? She does the breath that I've taught her that I really like called the three, four, five breath. When she breathes in for three, she holds for four and she breathes out for five. Now that is one breath. In the book, there is a whole breathing menu with six different breaths. If you don't like that one, don't do it. Choose one that you do like.

So that's her one minute breathing. Then what does she do for her next two minutes? She does some sun salutations that she learned in a yoga class. Just two minutes. Then what she does, she reads a book that she likes. She keeps five books there and she picks one. She reads a few pages. Just the act of having five minutes to herself in that morning actually transforms the rest of her day. This particular patient had really bad eczema. Her eczema has gone down dramatically since she started doing this morning routine. When you understand the physiology, of course that makes sense. Stress ultimately impacts the immune system. Eczema actually at its core is a slight dysfunction of certain parts of the immune system. Therefore, if you can impact the immune system, you stand a chance that you actually might be able to reduce your eczema. Not in every case, but in this case.

So have some time to yourself, really be mindful of that. And if you find a morning routine helpful, start there. Now, the next thing I'd probably say to people is think about how much you've moved, right? Yes, we know physical activity is important, but fundamentally, if we go back to too many years ago, when we think about our stress response, what is the stress response designed to do? It is priming us for physical activity. Nowadays, the stresses are coming in such a way like, you know, we're sitting on our butts at our desk and our email inbox is stressing us out. Or the fact that actually, oh man, I am exhausted today, but everyone at work's going out tonight. And then my sister's flying into town tonight. Oh man, I just want to go to sleep, right?

So I would say, have you moved enough? Just ask yourself, have you moved? If you haven't, just make it a priority every day to do something. Even if it's a 10 minute walk at lunchtime, put your phone down, go outside for 10 minutes, and you will start to burn off that stress in your body. But those are two simple things, right? When you're traveling, if you're traveling to go and see your family, right? And this applies not in the holiday season as well, that people are traveling to work and they're getting stressed out. Use that travel time to really look after your mental health, right? Don't put the news on. Don't listen to what Trump has just tweeted, right? Own your mental space. Own what's going on in there. Use that time to listen to relaxing

music, listen to an inspiring podcast, pull up the Calm Meditation app on your phone and put your headphones in and meditate for 10 minutes. I am not asking you to do three hours of yoga every day, even though that will help you, right? I'm asking you to just think about have i given myself a bit of time today if you are getting stressed out at a party your family are there your mother is stressing you out right your mother-in-law let's say you know or whatever check in with your breath it's a cliche it is the biggest cliche just breathe if people understood what breathing actually does on a fundamental physiological level, we would all be practicing every day. Breathing is information for your body. When you're feeling stressed, when you've got deadlines that you're working away for,

you will not realize, but your breathing will change. You will start to breathe more from your chest than your diaphragm. You will breathe quicker. Your breasts will be more shallow. And what does that do? That sends messages to your brain that I am in danger, that there is a problem. And that gets you in a vicious loop where you start to breathe faster. Now, the great news about that is, is that you can very easily change that situation. If you consciously change your breathing, you can change your physiology. So if that's happening, you're at a party, whatever, there's a work do, you know what, maybe go to the restroom or go outside and just for two minutes, breathe. Do the three, four, five breath. If you don't like that one, do a box breath where you breathe

in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four. I guarantee if you do that for one minute or two minutes, you will feel calmer. And the way you deal with that situation will absolutely, it will change. You will be less reactive. Alcohol, right? I get it. It's a time of year where people like to drink. Fine. I recognize that. That is something people associate with that time of year. Just be mindful of the fact that alcohol will trash your sleep, right? There's no other way of saying it. Alcohol trashes our sleep quality.

If you've been out for a few nights on the bounce and you're tired, you know what? Learn to say no. Just look at your diary and go, you know what? Do I need to go to every single social engagement or can I go, you know, I've gone to two this week, maybe I'll just stay in one night and, you know, I'll reset my stress threshold by having an early night and going to bed. And then maybe I'll go out tomorrow night. If you're out drinking, maybe

can you just reduce it a little bit? You know, if you like to have a glass of wine when you're out, fine. Most people who drink, when you talk to them sober, will tell you, and I appreciate, you know, I appreciate that everyone's different on this, but for most people, the enjoyment comes from that first drink. I shouldn't say for most, for many people, right? There's kind of diminishing returns after that. I mean, you may have a different perspective on this. I'm sort of- Yeah, I have a whole other thing on that, but go ahead. Okay. I'm going to say some people, right? They will find that actually their enjoyment

comes from that first drink. That just little feeling of unwind from the day. You know, maybe have that first drink, enjoy yourself, stay out. And then, I don't know, don't go overboard because what happens in holiday season, I've never really thought about this, never really been asked this, but what happens in holiday season, and I've never really thought about this, never really been asked this,

but what happens in holiday season is fundamentally your micro stress doses add up. There are more micro stress doses in your life. So you are operating near to your stress threshold much more than you ordinarily would. So anything that pulls you away from that is important. Yeah, I mean, I think the holiday season is an exacerbated scenario in which we become very reactive to our environment and less

mindful about the choices that we're making because there's a lot of expectations set by other people. And we ping pong around like, oh, I have to go to this event and then there's that thing. And then my relatives are coming in and I got to make sure that I have to go to this event and then there's that thing and then my relatives are coming in and I gotta make sure that I get a gift to this person. And it is a, that can be a fight or flight situation. But I think fundamentally, the more we can cultivate a healthy respect for how to say no when appropriate

and how to create healthy boundaries around self-care. These are the preservation strategies for navigating these things. Just because you're invited to all these places doesn't mean you have to say yes to all of them. And I feel like sometimes, and I know this for myself, I feel like, no, I can't, you don't understand. Like I have to go to this thing,

because if I don't, then this will happen and that person will say that. Or you don't understand. Like I have to go to this thing because if I don't, then this will happen and that person will say that. Or you don't know my family and all of that. Like I get all of that, but to have the wherewithal or the compunction to say, okay, maybe I do have to go to that, but let me take two minutes to just be with myself and breathe so that I can create

kind of a protective invisible boundary around myself that allows me to be more present, more mindful and less reactive so that when I am with that family member that easily provokes me, when they push that button, like I know that they're going to, I don't do what I always do,

which is react and then create this downward spiral of emotional turpitude. That's what detachment does, doesn't it? That's what a daily practice of just simply taking a bit of time for yourself, whether it's meditation or breathing, or just sitting out staring at the garden where you live, right?

What these things start to do for you, they help you get that bit detached. So when someone does potentially inflame you, you're not immediately- Have that extra moment. You've got an extra moment to go, hey, you know what? I just, you know what? I get it.

You know, she's traveled a long way. You know, she didn't sleep well last night. Okay, I get it. Let's just let that be. So I think that's important. The other thing, you know, thinking about the holiday season, it's, I've got to say, it's hard to think about it

because I am literally, I've been walking on the beach this morning. I don't know what the temperature is. It's sunny outside. It's like 75 degrees out right now. Yeah, it's so gorgeous. It I've been walking on the beach this morning. I don't know what the temperature is. It's sunny outside. 75 degrees out right now. Yeah, it's so gorgeous. It feels like hard to be talking about this, but thinking about it, I think over the last two years,

what we have done with my wife's family around Christmas time, the holiday season in the UK is, I mean, it's not the holiday season. This is particularly around Christmas is for us and for many people, this whole idea of gift buying is incredibly stressful. Oh, I must get everyone a gift. I need, you know, I mean, there's so many facets to this,

but we have had a very open conversation with her family about not buying gifts, right? Now I get for some people, it is a fundamental part of Christmas. I am not trying to suggest that that need not be the case. It was a fundamental part of Christmas for us, but we have really thought about what Christmas means to us. And it really is, for us, it's about a time where we can actually switch off and actually spend time with people who maybe we don't prioritise enough at other parts of the year. So we have asked everyone, it is like, look, would you be open to not doing the

whole gift thing, right? A, there's an environmental component to this, which is a big thing for many of us these days, this whole idea that we're buying all these frankly unnecessary gifts that most people don't like what we buy for them anyway, and they go in the charity shop or they just sit in a cupboard and they just accumulate. We buy wrapping paper and we wrap it all. Again, I am not trying to take away the magic of Christmas for someone who's listening to this and they love that. I'm just articulating what we have done. We still do that for our kids, although a lot less than we used to. But with my wife's family, we simply, we don't buy gifts for anyone anymore. And we used to, and you know what? That has reduced the stress level so much.

Like there's days running into Christmas. I'm not fancy trying to rush around thinking, oh, I need to buy a present. That A, you know, you buy something just so you can give them the present and say, happy Christmas. I check the box and then it ends up in a landfill. Yeah.

So I think there are many components to sort of, I would ask people, think about the holiday season. What is it really about for you? Not what is it about the way you just, you know, gut reaction, sort of, oh, it is about presence, it's about going out, it's about seeing my friends. Really take a step back and maybe write down, actually, what is it I love about the holiday season? And I think whenever we get our thoughts out of our mind onto paper, it helps to order things, helps to clarify. I mean, on another note, one of the best things about writing a book, I think, is

you can have all these wild ideas in your heads, but actually the act of writing a book means you have to order them, you have to find some sort of coherence and clarity to them, and I think you can apply the same thing to the festive season. Write down what you like out of it, what it means to you, and then think about all these engagements, all these things that you've got to do, which ones actually truly match what gives you joy about that part of the season.

And I think people might find that, look, I've never tried this to anyone. I'm just, it's coming up to me now, but I'm thinking that might be a useful framework for people to look at this and go, hey, you know what? You know, I do love seeing my family because I don't see these guys much. But the fact that I go out with work for three nights just before that, and I get drunk every night and I'm not sleeping means I go into the funnest part of that time already exhausted, already a little bit ratty. maybe I should just prioritize the thing

that I really like about it and not do all this other extra stuff. So I don't know if people find that useful. Yeah, no, I think that's, it's super practical advice. You know, I mean, it's a time fraught with emotional landmines. And, you know, I think there's a lot of people, myself included, who go into it thinking

this year is gonna be different. And then I do the same things that I've always done and I get the same results. And it's only if you're willing to make those alterations and invest in your well-being and you're proactive about how you set that schedule and that agenda and what is important and what your priorities are that you're going to get a different result. So based on that, what are you gonna do differently this year? I'm actually taking the entire month of December off.

So I haven't really taken a break. Like I get to go on a lot of cool trips to cool places, but it's generally related to some work thing or some conference or something like that. I really haven't taken like a vacation, let alone a legitimate break from what I do. Like I've never missed a week of the podcast in seven years. So I'm gonna completely tune out 100% for-

No episodes getting released? No, we're banking everything now. We're getting all the work done. So the show will continue to go on. Um, but I'm going to have nothing to do with it. And I'm going to be off email completely. So I haven't, I've never done it. It's, it's kind of frightening actually. Like I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also a little scared. I'm excited for emotional attachment. Like, Oh, if I, if I, what happens if I step out of this, you know, do you think, do you think you can step out without checking, without going?

Well, that's what we're gonna find out. I'm committed to it though. And I've had like a year to mentally prepare for it because last year I had good intentions about doing this, but I didn't set in motion everything that needed to be set in motion for it to become a practical reality. And this year I took steps to make sure that I could do that.

So, I mean, that's incredible. It's gonna be a hectic October and November in order to get everything done so that I can do that. But I'm actually looking forward to it. And I really need it. And I think, Rangan, part of it is I love what I do and I've been doing it for a while, but I started to sense this feeling

of like burden around it, and that's not the relationship I wanna have to my work. I wanna be excited about it and enthusiastic about it. And so there's warning signs like, hey, you really need to reset a little bit and invest in a little bit of rest and self-care so that you can maintain that kind of relationship with the career that you worked so hard to create

and that you care so much about. I mean, I guess what you're fundamentally talking about is downtime. Yeah, and I haven't taken any downtime in years and years and years. And I'll take like a day. I mean, most weeks I work seven days a week. It's not like I'm working all day every day, but I'm like, it's never off. And I don't know if I've

ever even gone on like a week vacation. So this is like very, very much longer. For me, as a listener of your show, as well as someone who's been on for the second time now, it's interesting because I'm not necessarily sure that everybody is aware of that in the sense that, you know, we, we all, you know, what do we do on social media, right? We, we, we post the cool things that we're doing in our life, right? So I may look at your feed and go, Hey, oh man, Rich has gone on this cool run in the hills today, or he's now in the ocean, or he's training for swimming. I've not trained. I need to, that's the motivation to go and train, right? And may not also recognize that actually,

yes, you're doing that and you're sharing that, but at those other times, you are working your butt off, right? And I think that's super fascinating because although that might seem unrelatable to someone, someone may go, well, I can't take four weeks off. Okay, well, use that and break it down into your own life and figure out what is it that you can do?

What is achievable? As you said, you tried to do it last year. You couldn't manage it, but you are doing it this year. I'm so excited to hear you say that because frankly, I have no idea how you have put an episode out every week for seven years. Yeah, I mean, you do seasons, right? Which is a much more... I do what I don't, right? So what do I do? Responsible way of doing it. I don't do it

in a conventional way. I basically take August off each year from the podcast. And I say each year, it's only been going for 18 months. So there's been two August in that where I've taken off. Now, my decision to do that is because I have a young family. You know, they're off school during that time. My life and my career has really got super, super busy over the last few years. I enjoy it, but I also want to make sure I give time to my kids whilst they're young. So I am not perfect. I have not done it the way I want to ideally do it but not putting the podcast out because I don't have a team yet um who I can well I'm not at the stage yet where that can go out without me but it sounds as though you couldn't either for seven years well I mean it's it's also been a situation of me addressing certain character defects around like my control freakness and like, and how I've managed the workload.

And now being in a situation where in order to continue to do it and kind of ensure the best evolution of it, there are certain things that I need to step back from and empower other people to do, which makes me nervous as well. So this is like a growth thing for me where I feel very uncomfortable about it, but also believe in its necessity

in order to continue doing this. But let me just make clear at the same time, I'm not a practicing doctor while trying to do a podcast like you are. This is like the main thing that I do. I mean, I do other things, but this is the thing that takes up the most amount of my time.

I think, you know what, that's such a, it's really fun for me to hear that on one level because, you know, it's easy. We all fall into the comparison trap, you know, whether we want to or not. We look at people, we go look at this, this show's doing this, and this show's doing this and stuff.

And one of my friends said to me the other day, he said, mate, you know, like you do the podcast as well as see patients, as well as write a book a year at the moment. And I'm thinking, oh yeah, that's a good point actually. It's kind of like, it's not my main thing. And you're like, you're out like talking about the stress solution,

but you got another book that's about to come out. In the UK, I've got- So you're cranking out these books. I was gonna make a joke about how you have this irrational affinity for the number four, but because all your books are changed in the next one. Yeah. Like you're now you're stepping up to five in the next one. Yeah. Look, Hey man, look, I am not perfect. I'm trying to figure this stuff out at the same time. But one thing that really excites me about hearing your story is as well as you giving yourself some time off, I bet some magic starts to happen, right?

Downtime is so fundamentally important for our brains. And just to make it super clear for people and make it really practical and accessible in their own life, right? We used to think that when we stopped focusing on a task in front of us, we used to think that our brains would go to sleep, right? That is not what happens. There is a part of the brain called the default mode network or the DMN

that goes into overdrive when we stop focusing on a task in front of us. So what does that part of the brain do? Well, it does many, many things. Two of the ones I think are hyper-relevant here are the DMN helps you to solve problems and it helps you to be more creative, right? So this is the reason why so many of us come up with our best ideas when we go for a walk or, if you're like me, when you're in the shower, right? Because you have disconnected, you're not focused on something, so your brain does what it wants to do, which is help you and solve problems for you. So I would hypothesize, and I look forward to hearing

what happens on this time out for you, I would imagine you are going to get a ton of creative ideas, stuff that have been bubbling away there that is potentially, look, I recognize you go for long runs, so I'm sure ideas come up. Yeah, I mean, the running and the swimming is part of that for me, but I get what you're saying. And that is part of the intention as well. Like I have other books that I wanna write,

but this takes up so much time that it's very difficult for me to carve out the amount of solitude required to actually write another book. For sure. But for someone listening to this, who's just heard what I said about the default mode network, I'd really love them to take a minute and think, how can I access that sort of creativity and problem solving ability in my day-to-day life? And one of my top tips for people, I speak to in a lot of companies now about employee wellness, and I say one of the most transformative things you can do is take a tech-free lunch break, even if it's just for 15 minutes, right? Because what that does is that you fire up the DMN. You will start to, you will come

back more productive. Your stress levels will have come down. You will have more energy. Problems that you couldn't solve in the morning, you will start to solve in the afternoon. And it's such a simple little thing. It's, you know, for want of a better term, it's a hack, right? But there is incredible science around what that actually does. Many of us, if we work in an office, we're sitting there typing away on our computers, on our emails, oh, it's lunchtime. Okay, pull it out, right? Let's have a look at Instagram. Let's go on my personal email, right? Again, no judgment. I also do that much of the time, but you will start to tap in to this innate potential that your brain has when you give

it downtime. I made a show for ITV in the UK last year on stress, right? And what do we do as part of that show? We took three people and we measured their heart rate variability 24 hours a day for three days. Now that is, you know, we don't need to go down that road, but that is just a measure of your stress levels. You know, you want a lot of variability from one beat to the next. That shows you are constantly able to adapt to a changing environment around you. If there is no variation or little variation, it means you have taken on a lot of stress and you are unable to adapt. So it's a bit of a marker of resilience as well.

Now, one of these people in particular, he was a manager. I don't know how old he is. About 40 years old, I'm going to guess. He was a manager. I don't know how old he is. About 40 years old, I'm going to guess. Manager, working super hard in his company, wants to lead by example.

So gets in early, works right through lunch, stays late working. Now, he obviously applied to come on the show because he was feeling super stressed. He was drinking a bit too much. It was affecting his relationship with his wife. I mean, these are common themes, right? And we measured things. We measured his stress levels.

We had an objective measurement. So what was really clear is when he was in the office, he started the day pretty low stress. They start to go up, start to go up. At lunchtime, they kept going up. They kept staying high. In the afternoon, they kept staying high. He'd leave work late.

His stress levels are pretty high when he's coming back home. And consequently, there were a lot of compensatory behaviors on the back of that. All I did with him in the week, all I did was suggest to him that he takes a 15 minute break at lunchtime without his phone. Now, he was super lucky because very near his office, there was a river, right? So he had a bit of nature. So all this guy does at lunchtime, phone goes in the drawer, he walks for 15 minutes around a river and comes back. And we did that for a couple of weeks. We re-put the tracking devices on him. Objectively, huge difference. Stress levels, again, mounting up in the morning, but at lunchtime, they almost reset back to normal, okay? So he's, again, starting off the afternoon very far away from

his stress threshold, to use my initial analogy. In the afternoon, they're not going up anywhere near as high as they did before, and that's impacting his behaviors in the evening. So objectively, we've seen a difference. That's important, but not as important as his own subjective experience, at least not to me. What did he feel? He says, doc, you know, I've got more energy. I'm more productive in the afternoon. I'm actually finishing work early now. And he's not drinking as much and he feels closer with his wife, right? So the point I'm trying to make is that may sound super, super trivial. Go for a walk. Yeah, I've heard that before. Go for an intentional walk at lunchtime without your phone. I guarantee if you do that for seven days in a row, you will start to feel the difference. Probably not even for seven days,

you will start to feel the difference. And so it is such an important tip. You fire up that part of your brain. And I don't think it's just the walk for him or just the downtime. Nature is very powerful as well, what it does for your stress level. Simply being in nature lowers levels of the stress hormone cortisol. It is utterly remarkable. Many theories, but have you heard of fractals? I was just gonna say that I wrote it down here.

And as you were talking, I was like, oh, here's the moment where I'm gonna interject about fractals. Cause that was when I said at the very beginning of the podcast, there were a couple of things I did not know about that I wanted to talk to you about fractals. Because that was, when I said at the very beginning of the podcast, there were a couple of things I did not know about that I wanted to talk to you about. That was one of them.

Oh my God. What is going on here? Okay, so that's because we've got such a deep connection from actually never having met each other, apart from in a podcast studio. No, it's, fractals are, you know, fractals are a shape. They're a particular kind of geometrical shape that you only get in nature.

You get it in rivers, in coastlines, in leaves, you know, on trees. That's where you get fractals. And the research suggests that when a human being looks at a fractal, something happens, right? The act of looking at a fractal means that your stress hormone cortisol starts to come down simply from looking and being in nature. Now, that was remarkable when I read it and I looked at the research. But then as I was diving deep

into this, I found some more research which suggests that even if you can't get into nature, if you just look at a picture of nature, you also start to lower your stress levels as well. Not to the same degree, I don't think, but nonetheless. So there is something uniquely powerful around nature. Simply being in nature will lower your stress levels. And so I think going back to that story, I think, you know, if you are lucky enough to live near some green space or you work near some green space and at lunchtime, you can go and access that. Great. If not, look at a picture. If not, right, there's a section in there, which I've entitled staring at a tree. And I say, you

know what? Go outside, sit on a chair somewhere and stare at a tree for five minutes. You will lower your stress levels. And so, you know, but Rich, on what level does this not make sense that we are hardwired as human beings to being in nature? Does it actually surprise you that much that there is research to back up what you intuitively feel? No, it's common sense. And what I love about basically almost everything that you said today is that these are all tiny little things

but there's something about the aggregation of them that can accumulate to really combat this epidemic of stress that we're experiencing. And I think what happens is, and I'm sure you've experienced this with your patients, is that when you embark on one of these small little things, whether it's a walk down to the river or the five minutes of mindfulness practice in the morning,

once you start to feel a little bit better, that creates an emotional connection with that practice that then encourages you to do more and then a momentum begins. And once you have momentum, it becomes a lot easier to do these things. And then you want more. And before you know it, your life shifts. And I think what happens with people is they look at a little practice like that and they're like, well, how much difference can that make? And they

just dismiss it, right? Or they think, you know, I need to lose 50 pounds or they set some crazy goal, but then they are short sighted about the work that's required or the time period that is rational to achieve that. And when they don't achieve the results that they seek in a compressed period of time, they lose hope. And my encouragement is always to take a longer view. Like I think that we overestimate the changes that we can make in this short period while forsaking, I think the huge changes that can be seen a year from now, two years from now, three years from now

that are achievable through these very small bite-sized little practices. Yeah, for sure. And that's the exact approach that I take that I've seen work not only in my own life because I have a slight A-type tendency to sort of go all in or all out. Right, me too.

You know, as my, the amount of hours- I'm gonna do it an hour in the morning. Yeah, exactly. This is five minutes stuff. Exactly. And then I burn out. And then I'm like, and then- It's not for me.

And then a month goes by before I'll just do five minutes again. Yeah, I think that's a common thing too. Yeah, this is sort of kind of demonstrated by my two hours on YouTube swimming videos every night at the moment, right? But this is kind of, you know, this is actually the subject that I'm unpacking

in my third book, Feel Better in Five. That's actually exactly what I'm looking at is how do you create, what is the science of behavior change? And what was super fascinating for me is when you delve into the science, it actually supports exactly what we've been talking about. It's so beautiful. It's so, and obviously you want to, let's come back to why I didn't come

to your event on Friday. Okay. Cause you didn't want to cover that. It's all right, man. I'm just, I can give you a little bit of shit, but it's, but it's relevant for this story because the reason I couldn't come in the ends. So I remember seeing the posts on Instagram and you said you're doing your first live event. And as a fan, I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to be in LA at the same time. Or I could be in LA if I just shift things a bit. I can come. So I text my buddies like, hey, should we all go to Richard's event on Friday? Sort everything out.

Obviously then schedules change and all kinds of things came in. And I was trying to, I wanted to talk to BJ Fogg. Right. Because A, I've been looking into some of his research the last few months and I thought hey, I don't know how far he is from LA but maybe I can interview him whilst I'm here and I contacted BJ

and he said hey Rongan, look while you're here I'm running my two day boot camp and I wanted to attend 12 months ago but I couldn't fit it in and I've heard rave reviews about it and so I had to do a lot of personal wrestling in myself what so I had to do a lot of personal wrestling in myself. What am I going to do here? And then I looked into, I thought I can cut it fine.

I can leave an hour early on the Friday. I get to LAX at 7.30. I text my buddy and say, if I land LAX at 7.30, how far is the Wilshire theater from there? Can I make it? He goes, man, I think you're going to be cutting this a little bit too fine. And then I was thinking, honestly, I thought, so you, I thought- That's not part of the stress solution.

Yeah. I thought you're going to go to bootcamp. You're not going to properly engage in it because you're going to be thinking about the time. There's other factors in there, but ultimately I didn't come. But the reason for bringing that up is because I want to talk about BJ Fogg in the sense that what I unpacked when doing this research is that it ultimately is these small changes when done consistently that lead to those big ones. The research is out there to support that. But what fascinates me so much is this is what I figured out intuitively as a clinician who listens to patients and watches what tends to work and what tends not to work. Because anybody can lose weight over two or three weeks if they go on a crash diet. They can, right? You can follow

any diet book out there and you can go all in and you will probably, if you stick to that, will probably lose weight. But the question then is, will that still be there in six months? Will it be there in two months? In 12 months? More often than not, it is not. And I found, as I say, to beat the same drum, it is not necessarily about those big changes. Of course, some people can do that. I'm not trying to take away from people's experience if that is the way they have done it.

Great, good luck to you. But if you have struggled to make consistent, significant progress in your lifestyle, if you listen to your podcast and you get inspiration each week, but you still feel, hey, that sounds great, but I don't know where to start, I would say, find one thing you heard us talk about today

that resonates with you, that you think you want to do. Don't pick something that you don't wanna do. Pick something you do wanna do. Figure out how you can introduce a very small change in that area consistently for the next few days and then reassess. And I bet you, more often than not, you're going to feel good about yourself. Your identity is going to change because suddenly what happens then, oh, I'm the kind of person who can make behavior change. I've done that for the last five days That has always been my approach with patients set the bar super low

Set it low patient meets that able to do it feels good and then they by themselves start raising the bar Meditation I one patient I asked once I made a deal with it. I said, what can you commit to? She told me I can't do meditation. It's not for me. I've tried dark. I said, okay, okay. What do you think you can do? Can you do 10 minutes a day? Yeah, maybe. I said, okay, okay.

Can you do five? Maybe. I said, okay, okay. How about this? Can you do one minute a day? One minute? Yeah, yeah. Sure, I could do one minute.

I said, okay, look, can you commit to me now? For the next few weeks, you're going to do one minute a day. Okay. Yeah, I can do one minute. I said, okay, look, can you commit to me now, for the next few weeks, you're going to do one minute a day? Okay, yeah, I can do one minute a day. I said, fine, let's do one minute a day. I'll give you an extra tip here. The best way to create a new habit is to stick it on to an existing habit

that you are already doing without thinking about it. So what do you do first thing in the morning? Yeah, I go out and put the kettle on and make a cup of tea. This is the UK, right? So we make tea. So I said, okay, fine. What do you do when you put the kettle on and while the water is boiling? I probably just flick on my phone a little bit, have a little check on the internet. I said, okay, fine. So let's, why not, is this acceptable to you? Every morning you are going to make a cup of tea. You don't need to think about that. Yeah. Why not at that time you do one minute of meditation? She says, okay, I can do that. So you're not having to find any extra time in your day to fit this in. She goes away.

She starts doing this. One month later, she's doing 10 minutes a day, right? Because what happens? She does it every day for a few days. She does it for a week. She's like, it's not so bad. I can do this. And then that one minute becomes two minutes. That two minutes becomes five minutes. That five minutes becomes 10 minutes. That is the approach I have seen over and over again work for people. Please, if you are struggling, take something from that.

Put that into your practice. Not next Monday. Maybe put it into practice tomorrow, you know? Do it, if this is the holiday season when it comes out, right, can somebody listening to this put this into practice tomorrow morning, right? First thing you do, tomorrow morning, give yourself some time.

Do one minute of deep breathing if you don't wanna do meditation. Yeah, beautifully put. The only caveat that I would add to that involves sidestepping the logical next question. And the logical next question being, okay, you have all of these little practices that I can do, meditation, sleep, going into nature, going on a walk,

turning off your phone. What's the most important one? Just tell me the one thing that is the biggest one. And I'm sure you've gotten this question, right? To me, and I'm interested in your perspective, and then we gotta end this because we've been going forever. But to me, the answer to that is,

which one speaks to you? Which is the thing that you feel like you are naturally magnetized by? Like, what is the one thing that you feel like resonates with who you are as a person or the person that you would like to be? Like, if you're repelled by one of these things and another one looks like, oh, that might be cool. Like maybe do that one first. Okay. So what I would say to that is for other people, I would say, as I always say,

do not try and make a change in something that doesn't speak to you. There's no point, because you're setting yourself up for failure. And I've said this at talks before. I've said, look, if any of the tips and tools I'm recommending you don't like, and you don't think, that's not for me. Fine. Don't do it. There are so many tips. Pick one that you do like, that does speak to you. So that's the first way I'll answer that question is for advice to other people. If you're asking me, and I am literally trying to rack my head now through all these chapters in the book and trying to figure out which one speaks to me the most at this moment in time. There's two that are coming to the surface for me. Two are

jumping up. There's 12 chapters and about two of them are coming right to the surface for me, which is the nature chapter and the one on intimacy. Those are the ones that are really coming up for me at the moment if I really tune into how I'm feeling. I'll start with nature. I mean, you've asked me to say one thing. So, okay, let's go with nature. I can expand on the other as well if you want, but I think nature is what is calling me more than anything at the moment. And I've tried to figure out where this has come from. And I think it's because I grew up in a very urban environment, right? My parents were immigrants from India. They came over to the UK to set up a better life for themselves and for their kids and their family. And I really reflect on this. What

did we used to do on holidays? Well, every other summer as a kid, we'd go to Calcutta in India and spend six weeks there. Three weeks, my dad would come, then he had to go back and work. But six weeks with my mum and my brother, we'd play with our cousins. We'd play street cricket. We'd do all this stuff in an urban setting. I didn't go to the ocean, right? I didn't go into forests. When we didn't do those things, the alternate years, we'd go around Europe. My dad would take a holiday. He'd drive us around Europe. We'd go sightseeing in all these European cities. My parents had never left India before, before they came to the UK. It was for them. They wanted to see all these European cities, right? We'd walk around.

We'd stand in queues to go to all these tourist attractions, right? Of course, it was fun. But I didn't really get exposed to nature. I am not criticizing my parents. But as I'm getting older, and as I sort of think about what I want to introduce into my children's lives, nature really calls me at the moment. And, you know, I did it at a week in Devon at the end of August this year, and we did things I've never done before. I got on a surfboard, right? I'm

what, 42. I have not been on a surfboard until the summer in my life. I watched Point Break when I was 14. I was mesmerized. I was like, oh my God, I want to learn how to surf. I booked a surfing holiday in Newquay. And for some reason, I think I wasn't allowed to go or something happens. And I'm feeling alive when I'm getting in the ocean. Like this whole open water swimming that we started this podcast with, it makes me feel alive. Yes, I'm a little bit scared when I'm in there still, but I come back feeling, oh my God, I've just done that. So the one that speaks to me, the one that I'm trying to put into practice

every day in my life is nature. I don't think anything is speaking to me more than nature at the moment. Fractals, fractals. Good talking to you. Thanks for having me, man. I love it. I love the work that you do. Fractals, good talking to you. Thanks for having me, man. I love it, I love the work that you do. I love your enthusiasm.

And I feel like if I were to pull out that Venn diagram of Ikigai, that this is all operating at the highest level for you, that you are doing what you're passionate about, that it is fulfilling a need and it's in service to other people. It's providing you with a living. All of those boxes are checked and I think you're exactly where you're supposed to be. And I'm excited about the new book.

You're always welcome to come back and talk to me about that as well. And thanks for sharing today. That's having me rich to see soon. The book is The Stress Solution, The Four Steps to Reset Your Body, Mind, Relationships and Purpose, available everywhere. And Rangan is pretty easy to find on the internet these days, right?

So what's the best place to direct people if they wanna connect with you? Yeah. Instagram, probably. Probably Instagram, yeah. Instagram and all the podcasts, I'd say it's probably the best place. Oh, yeah.

Feel better, live more. That says it all, right? That's right, man. Tune it up. All right. Until next time. Thank you. Thanks, buddy.

Peace, plants, fractals. A beautiful and multi-talented man, that Dr. Chatterjee. Hope you guys enjoyed that. I did. I also hope you got a good education, a good overview on how you can reduce the anxiety and stress in your life, particularly throughout this heightened holiday season.

And hopefully sidestep these chronic ailments, avoid becoming a statistic and live a long, healthy life. Do me a favor, share your thoughts with Rangan directly. He is at drchattergyuk on Twitter and at drchattergy on Instagram. Pick up his new book, The Stress Solution, as well as The Four Pillar Plan in the UK, alternately titled, How to Make Disease Disappear in North America. And I got links to all of that in the show notes. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate, and comment on the program

on Apple Podcasts. Tell your friends about your favorite episodes, share the show on social media, hit that subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Google, and, or you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. Mad love for my team for helping me put on the show every week, including this episode. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing and editing the show. Jessica

Miranda for graphics. Allie Rogers for portraits, TK David Kahn for advertiser relationships and theme music by Analema. Appreciate all of you guys. I love you. I will see you back here next week with an extraordinary, very unique conversation with Kendra Little. Kendra is a former collegiate and professional golfer

who at the age of 12 was discovered by doctors to be born intersex. And for nearly 20 years, she's kept it hidden until now. I really appreciate her trusting me with her story. It's an amazing conversation. And here's a clip. Until then, stay healthy. Take care of yourself. It's not indulgent. You are the only one of you that you've got. Happy holidays. Peace, plants, namaste. I did everything in my power just to block it out and not think about it.

And I got really good at it, which probably not a good thing to, you know, block things out that are clearly impacting your life and need to be addressed. You know, I'd have moments where I'd see things in the news or hear about other people that were somewhat related to gender or whatever, and it would kind of bring me back to a self-realization moment. It was like a great cause of anxiety. I think that's an important thing to say. This is something that I've been trying to kind of tiptoe around in talking about this because one thing I don't want to do is alienate the trans community

and delegitimize what they're feeling just because it's not from a genetic standpoint. I was genetically born both, but that doesn't mean that someone that wasn't genetically born as they were born or who they were born as. That doesn't take away from how they feel just because they don't have a genetic thing to back it up. It goes back to it's never about what anyone else thinks or anyone else feels about you.