Hey guys, how you doing? I hope you have any good weeks so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better Live More.
Today's episode is a bonus recording of a live event that took place earlier this year on Thursday the 29th of February in London to celebrate the publication of the journal I created and published in collaboration with Intelligent Change, the three question journal. Now think back to February earlier this year. What was going on in your life? How are you feeling?
Were there some changes back then that you really wanted to make and how did that go? Have things moved forward in a positive way or have things stayed the same?
I know for me back then, I was deep into the final stages of writing my six book, made change the last that comes out in just a few weeks. And I think the fact that I was so immersed in writing at that time is reflected in the content of this conversation.
One of the key themes I talk about is this idea that we are now living in an era where we're constantly bombarded with information and expert opinions. And as a result, many of us have become overly reliant on external expertise and less trusting of ourselves. Now, my contention is that you already know enough
to improve the quality of your life. It's not necessarily more external knowledge that you need, but more inner knowledge. And in this special live recording you will hear me explore a number of different topics relating to this theme.
I talk about the importance of routines and rituals, the value of repetition each day, the hidden cost of micro stress doses, a powerful journaling practice that you can start doing immediately. And I talk about the importance of a mindful and intentional approach to life. At its core, this is really a conversation about making positive changes in your life that actually last.
Now, if you enjoy listening to this bonus conversation, I am certain that you will enjoy reading my upcoming book, make change that lasts nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back, which comes out on January the 2nd and is available to pre-order right now. Now, you might be thinking, why on earth should I pre-order this book
when I can just get it when it comes out. Well, pre-orders are actually crucially important for authors. They basically signal to the retailers that people want this kind of content. And so when a book has a lot of pre-orders, the retailers order in more copies of the book,
and give the book more visibility in the shops, which of course helps the message within the book reach more people. So if you think you are going to get this book when it comes out on January the 2nd, I would love you to support the publication by pre-ordering if you are able to.
And if you do pre-order the book, you will get exclusive access to a free one-hour video masterclass that I have recorded and a free worksheet containing 10 powerful questions that you can start asking yourself immediately to develop your own insight and self-awareness.
In the free video, I go through why I decided to write this book. I explain the differences between this book and my previous five. I explain why I believe this to be the most important book that I have ever written. I go through practical exercises and I also walk you through these 10 powerful questions that you can start answering in your free worksheet alongside the video.
Now, with that sounds of interest and I really hope it does, you can see all details about this exclusive pre-order offer at dot2chatsky.com forward slash make change or click on the link in the episode notes in your podcast app. Now, on to today's brand new episode, myself live in conversation with intelligent change co-founder, Mimi icon.
How are you doing? I'm great. Please sit down. Sounds like you've been warming the crowd out. I'm so excited we're doing this and so grateful that, you know, I get to share stage with you. It's such an honor.
Well, thank you for helping put on this event. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous venue. And yeah, I feel very grateful that there's 700 people who've come out on a dark, rainy, winter, London night. It's not like this up north, you know. It was sunny this morning when I left. So that's why I live up north. The weather's better.
Dr. Rangan, I met you last year at the Intelligence Change Summit. And from the first moment we met, I was so deeply inspired, not just by the knowledge that you have, which I think is wonderful, and we all learned so much about you, but your sheer presence and that you truly embody your values in the way that you live your life.
I want to give you a proper introduction as well. You're one of the most influential doctors in the UK, but I would say arguably in the world, you are a best-selling author, a podcast host, an incredible podcast that we all love listening to, and also a TV presenter, and also a musician. There's so many things you do, multi-talented, really.
Like I said earlier, what I truly love about you is the human that you are, the kindness that you emanate, and all the knowledge that you so generously share with your audience. So I'm really grateful and excited to have a conversation with you. Well, thank you. Very kind words. Thank you.
So obviously, we're all here to learn from you, the expert, the doctor. Because if the doctor says to do something, we all listen, right? So what I really love about your approach, though, is that you're not a conventional doctor. And everything you share is essentially free, and we can all implement in our lives.
I'd love to start with routines because obviously morning routine, night routine, those are things we can all implement in our daily lives and it costs us nothing. Can you tell me more about your morning routine and then perhaps your night routine as well and just like walk me through it? What are some steps that we can all learn from and maybe also add to ours? Yeah, thanks, Mimi. So if I just back up for a minute, I will definitely share those things.
You said something there in the introduction about expertise. And this is something I'm probably more passionate about today than I ever have been before. And I spent the last few months writing about this. So this is something I write a lot about in my next book, which doesn't come out until the end of the year. But the first chance is about becoming your own expert. Because
We're living in an era where we're surrounded by information everywhere, right? We have experts dispensing information to us all the time in the media, on social media. And the problem I've seen over the last few years is that
You say, for example, our doctor is an expert. I'm only going to listen to a doctor for this advice. That's great. But the problem is, is that online, let's say, you're going to hear 10 doctors who may have 10 different opinions. Exactly. And I think it gets really confusing to people. And I think we have actually become a society that is now overly reliant
on expertise outside ourselves and what we need to do is get back in touch with our own expertise. I think one of the reasons my approach has resonated with so many over the past years is because
I don't really feel it's my job to tell anyone else what to do or how they should live their life. What I've always tried to do is share information for people that if they think it's relevant and if they try it and experiment and use themselves as data, I want them to start figuring out what's the right approach for them.
So I've always struggled with giving generic prescriptions actually. It's something, I know there's a few people from Penguin here tonight, something I've always struggled with in my books, right? I never wanted to give the 30-day plan because I don't believe everyone needs the same plan. And I give you a prime example of where I see this playing out. And this totally relates back to routine and ritual and why I think let's say a practice like journaling is so important. It's because
I don't want to start off in a controversial area. Let's talk about diet for a minute. You may feel that you know what is the right diet for you, but it doesn't mean that's the right diet for everyone else.
I really push back against this idea that there's one perfect diet for every individual. So for example, when people will say, Dr. Chansi, I don't know who to listen to, that doctor who I really like said that I need to be on a whole food plant-based diet, and that other doctor said a low carb diet is best for me. I don't know which expert to believe. The question for me isn't,
Which expert should I believe? It's why do I not trust myself? Right? Because no expert actually does know what the right diet is for you. Some people will thrive on a low carb diet at that point in their life. That of course can be plant-based, just to be really clear. Other people will thrive on a whole food plant myself or a vegan diet, but not everyone.
Right? And when I speak, I'm speaking, you know, as things stand today, I've been a practicing medical officer for 22 and a half years. I've seen tens of thousands of patients. And where my expertise and insights come from is from my patients. It's just not true that everyone needs the same diet. So how does that circle back to routine and ritual and a morning routine, let's say, or journaling? Knowledge,
is not enough. I want to say that again, so it's really, really important. Knowledge is not enough. What do I mean by that? Pretty much all of you in here know that too much sugar is probably not helping you in your life. So fair to say. You know that, how many of you think you might on occasion be consuming too much sugar?
Okay, three people in this audience, amazing. Okay, a few more, four people. Okay, I suspect it might be a smidgen more than that, right? It's not that you don't know the information. In the first lockdown in 2020, I was consuming a ton of sugar. I'd already written three books by that point. That's not that I didn't know the downsides of it. But this is a really important point.
Right? Knowledge is great, but it's not enough in and of itself. What you also need is insight. You need self-awareness. Right, how do you develop that? You develop that with routines and rituals and stepping outside your life to reflect on your life. That's why I'm such a fan of a practice like journaling or meditation or breath or it's something where you stop
And you stop consuming from the outside and you start to tap in to your own inner wisdom and your own inner expertise. Because once you start doing that regularly, you start to trust yourself more. When you trust yourself more, right, you start to make better decisions and they're decisions that come from you.
I think it's really important. I really feel strongly we become the society where we're waiting for other experts to tell us what to do. And I think it's a problem. I think it's a real problem.
That's a long way round. I absolutely love that. I really want to go a little deeper on like cultivating that trust because I think many people struggle with cultivating the trust within to know what are the right things to eat or how can they live their life in the right way. It's interesting, Mimi. I had a chat about two years ago with a lady called Vanessa van Edwards on my podcast. She's a body language expert. One of the things she said to me, she said, whenever you meet someone else,
another human being, you're asking yourself two questions. Can I trust them? Can I rely on them? But here's the thing, you're not just asking, you're not just asking those questions when you meet other people,
You're asking those same two questions of yourself every single day. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself? And why I'm such a fan of small routines, like a morning routine, is because you show yourself every day, but no matter how busy you are, no matter how many after school clubs the kids have got, no matter how busy your work is, that you still created five minutes,
to do something for yourself. That is more valuable than anything else you could do because you show yourself each day with a five-minute practice that I can trust myself, I can rely on myself. So one of the things I often say to patients is, okay, you don't know where to start, make one small promise to yourself each day and keep it.
Right? Literally, if that's all you take from today, make one small promise to yourself and keep it.
It will transform who you are and how you show up in the world, because what happens is that you can't kid yourself. You need to give yourself evidence every day that you actually care about yourself, that you've made time for yourself. I get it. People are busy, right? I totally get that. And that's why I've always worked hard to try and make sure, hey, short, listen, at this stage of my life, I actually do have a 45-minute morning routine.
Right? I'm almost feel nervous about sharing that because I don't want that to put people off because the natural reaction for people is, oh, all right for you, but you don't understand my life. You're right, I don't understand your life. But I can tell you what, I have been pretty busy at stages in my life and I still haven't met a patient to date who didn't have five minutes for themselves each day. And this is one of the big problems when we're trying to improve our life is that we make it too big.
I'm not saying don't set your goals high, but you can actually set them too high, at least in the short term, right? And so you don't follow through on what you're doing. So I think if all you do, for example, I mean, one of the questions in the three question journal is what's the most important thing you have to do today?
Right? I can pretty much guarantee for any of you who are not familiar with this journal or not familiar with my work and you're not sure where to start. You just think, I'm here tonight because life isn't where I want it to be. Right? But I feel I could be getting something more out of life. I challenge you.
If you answer that question every morning and I guarantee it will take you less than two minutes to answer that question, what's the most important thing I have to do today? You answer that question and you do it for the next seven days. If you don't feel any better and you're not making better decisions in your life, you know what, scrap it. So that guy was talking utter nonsense, right? I don't want you to believe me. I want you to believe yourself, but you've got to do it.
Right? So many people, and listen, I release a podcast every week, and I know there's a lot of information there. But it's also, some as I think about that content, I think, you know, some people are sometimes getting confused with too much information. Right? Oh, now I want to do that. I want to do that. I want to do that. I get like that. I want to do everything. I want to be a musician. I want to be a great dad. I want to learn martial arts. And I think I can do everything.
But I've realized that I've got to make choices, I've got to make decisions, I can't do everything. And so rituals and routines, I think, are really, really important to help you do this, to help you show up for yourself. And what's really interesting, I just had a thought, we're in a church, right? We're in a beautiful church. Do you agree it's a beautiful church? Yeah, what a nice warm, intimate setting for an event like this.
I think religion used to give people these rituals. They used to be there within culture. The Jewish Sabbath, for example, that 24 hours where people switch off, they don't answer the phone, they don't take cars, it's family time. Most of us were kids. Shorts were closed on Sundays, but there was natural downtime in the week, but we're now living in this time where everything's on all the time.
It's a problem. Again, this is not pro or anti-religion. That's not my point. My point is, is that you have to find a way of showing up for yourself each day.
You cannot expect your life to change, your relationships to change, your health to change, your happiness to change, how you feel about yourself to change. If you just get up every day, scroll Instagram and TikTok, look at the news, feel negative about the state of the world, and then spend the rest of their consuming sugar and caffeine to, I haven't seen your life, I promise, right? To counteract the emotional tension that you've created by what you did first in the morning.
You can listen to as many podcasts as you want to read as many books as you want. Nothing's going to change unless you take action. And that's why I think routines. And I'm going to use the word ritual. I prefer the word ritual because for me, a ritual is a routine with meaning.
Right? I mean, there's all kinds of complex definitions out there, but for me... I prefer that word too. Yeah, I mean, look, I like routine as well, but, like, you can take coffee, right? You can make coffee or you can make coffee. Right? You can just shove it in, the coffee, put the kettle in, slurp it down while you're answering your emails. Sure, you're making coffee and you're drinking coffee.
Or you could grind the coffee beans if that's your thing. You could weigh the coffee. You know, you could mix it a special part of your morning. And the impact of that is going to be completely different. So... I think the word ritual almost implies that there is sort of an element of mindfulness while you're doing the element or the exercise or whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah.
I'm interested because I wasn't here for this bit me me. Have you guys all done these questions or this question? Okay, so I love this, right? Because who isn't trying to at least change one behavior in their life? How many of you shared with the person next to why you think you're struggling with bringing that behavior into your life?
One person shared it. Amazing. That bore a few share, perhaps? Yeah, okay. I'm interested. Did anyone shout out their answers? Do you know what people saw down? They haven't, but I'd love to hear if anybody feels extra courageous tonight, because I'm really interested as to why, yeah, sure. You struggle with mind for leasing, and do you know why you struggle? Got it.
So the lady was saying that she struggles with mindful eating, and she thinks one of the reasons is because she works in the NHS, she feels she's very, very busy. You have incredible hearing, by the way. I don't know how you heard all that. And she's trying to cram everything in, right? So first of all, I totally understand that.
Again, I'm not directing this necessarily to you, but to everyone, I would submit that you probably have five minutes for a routine. And what that routine will do... Let's look at this a different way, right? Because I really want to get this idea across to people. A lot of the time, your thoughts, your feelings,
And your actions are downstream of the content you're consuming. Right. So let's imagine two quite extreme scenarios. Well, I don't think they're that extreme actually, but someone wakes up the phone's next to their beds. Okay. They pick it up. They're scrolling social media. They're scrolling the news, which of course is not that pleasant if you're looking at the news at the moment.
You get up late because you spent so much time there. You're feeling really negative about the world. Is there any surprise?
that your mood might be slightly off, that your interactions with your children might not be as present as you might want them to be, that you're not as present and focused at work compared to if for 10 or 15 minutes, you didn't look at your screen. Let's say you meditated, you did some breath work, maybe you wrote in this journal or another journal to just start to get in touch with yourself.
Does it really take a lot to convince you that how you feel later on in the day, how you interact with the people around you, even 10 or 15 minutes later, is going to be different?
Dr. Rangan, actually, I have a question. Please. Because I know a lot of people are listening now and they're like, great. You know, you're kind of selling them on the idea. But personally, I love to know the science behind why these things work and why I should practice them. Yeah. For example, obviously, we're big.
advocates of gratitude, and I've done a lot of research on the science behind that, but in terms of anything else that you're practicing, let's say doing the workouts in the morning, what is the science that if you do a little workout for five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever you can afford to do that, this is going to positively impact the rest of your day.
Yeah, I think that really makes it difficult. Whether it's a workout or journaling or gratitude, all of them have got their own science behind it, but again, just going upstream for a moment.
What routines do and rituals do is they give you a sense of control. And that's really important because all the evidence on control and a sense of control is pretty overwhelming at what it does for us humans, right? It can improve our mood, it can reduce symptoms of anxiety, it can reduce symptoms of depression, you're healthier, you're happier, you have better social relationships,
You actually do better at work and also earn more money if you have a sense of control in your life. And the word sense is really, really important. You can't control your life.
Right? The world is fundamentally uncontrollable. So you're not looking to control external events, you're trying to give yourself a sense of control because it grounds you and it means everything else in the day gets easier. Why so? Gratitude, okay? Well, depending on
which study you're looking at and which country and how long they studied it for, gratitude has been shown to reduce anxiety, depression, improve insomnia, improve productivity about to 25% at work. Gratitude is incredible, and some studies on gratitude have shown that if you do a week of gratitude three months later, you're still seeing the benefits in your life. Why is gratitude so important? Well,
Your brain has a negativity bias, right? We all do. And you probably know this already, but that's what's kept us alive for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. You know, it's almost a cliche to say now, but you had to know whether that sound in a bush was a predator or the wind, right? And you were handsomely rewarded
if you thought it was a predator when it wasn't, i.e., you lived. So you're hardwired to look for the negatives. Psychologists tell us that we take in maybe nine bits of negative information for every one bit of positive. So if you do nothing else, that's going to be your default. So if we've already got a negativity bias,
And then we think, do you know what? I'm going to get up and start looking at the news. You're basically, for the rest of the day, you're fighting again, it's that first decision that you made. And it's a big, big problem exercise you mentioned, right?
You know, exercise at any time of the day is going to be helpful for you, but exercise helps change your mood. It helps to change nerve cells and neuronal connections in your hippocampus, the memory center of your brain. It can help with cognition, with focus, helps reduce anxiety, depression, so many things. But again, I know you asked me the question on the science, Mimi. But I'm going to come back to what I said at the start.
In a head-based society, in a thought-based society, we love hearing all about the science. You know, we could just consume science all day and think we're doing something. You've not done anything.
You just got more knowledge. Knowledge is not enough. You have to take action. And I would argue that the science, sure, for the people who are interested, it's very important. But if you know bugger all about the science, but you get up each day and you spend 20 minutes moving your body and writing in a journal, you're going to do a million times better than someone who knows all the scientific research.
We think more knowledge is what we need. Every single one of you who is water near tonight, if you're familiar with anything I have ever put out on social media, on my podcasts and my books, which I presume many of you are, you already know enough to improve your life. You don't have a knowledge deficiency. You probably have an action deficiency. I love that.
So powerful. So powerful, Dr. Rangan. Thank you for sharing that. I'm wondering
If it makes sense to change a protein or do the same thing every single day, like is there a value in, let's say, when it comes to journal to filling out the same three, four, you know, six questions every day, or should we change it up? Like, what is the benefit when it comes to, let's say, specifically journaling to have this answer the same questions on daily basis? Yeah.
Again, there's two ways of answering this. The first way, I guess, the simpler way of answering it is, in a world of infinite choice, if you have to decide every day what you're going to do, that's a recipe for procrastination. The amount of patience you've over the years come in and said to me, Doc, you know,
I don't know whether I should do yoga or pilates or go running or whatever that list might be. And of course, I'd spend time trying to figure out which one speaks to that individual patient. But I've really more and more comes to the conclusion that doesn't matter. Pick one and do it.
Right? And I have fallen into this trap, so I'm not sitting up here looking down on anyone, right? I have fallen into that trap before, so I'm a fan of the morning routine, let's say, where you do the same thing every day. Because I think it makes it easier. You start to habituate it. And I think I said this on maybe the book tour for my third book, Feel Bastion Five, a few years ago. I don't think I said it for a little while. But let's just think about that.
you know, shifting it up through the lens of brushing your teeth. I don't think anyone in here brushes their teeth on Monday and on Tuesday night, it's like, you know what?
I brushed teeth last night. I'm just going to rinse them out tonight. Wednesday, I think I'm just going to floss tonight. No, you know that tooth brushing is good for you. It's going to help your teeth stay in good health. You do it every day, four minutes, two minutes in the morning, two minutes in the evening, four minutes, every day, pretty much for your entire life. That's why your teeth stay in good shape. Okay, of course, there's other factors as well, but you see the point I'm trying to make.
Many of you will have heard me say that I do a five-minute strength workout every morning while my coffee's brewing. I still do that. We're doing it for maybe five years now. I don't vary it up. I don't think, actually today, I'm going to do something else. I'm just going to stretch or whatever. No, because it's thoughts. It gets me out of creating a habit. Yet, is there a case for varying it up and doing something else? Sure.
OK, but that's not what I'm doing in my morning routine. My morning routine isn't about making sure I hit my cardio, my strength, all my other parameters. No, it's my equivalent of tooth brushing. It's about making sure that no matter what happens, because I drink coffee and it's going to happen every morning, about half five in my kitchen,
I don't, the fact that I do a workout whilst it's brewing means I don't think about it now. I don't ask myself a question, can I be bothered today or should I do something else? I just do it, just like I brush my teeth. So I think that's a really important thing. So I don't think it helps if you try to vary it up every day. The other thing to say is, is that I think, I mean, this is a much bigger idea for people, I think,
which is that I have spoken for many years that the way we're living our collective modern lives is causing many of us to be ill. And I stand by that.
But where I've evolved my view a few years ago, my first book, The Four Pillar Plan, I made the case that food movements sleep in relaxation. The four, I think, four of the most important pillars of health. These are the things that know they have the most impacts on our health, but we have a fair degree of control over. And I would encourage people to look at those four pillars and try and balance them and make small changes in each of them. But back then, I would have said that that's the root cause
of most people who are not feeling great, right? Not everyone, but most people. My view has evolved since then, where it is still a root cause, but it is not the most root cause. You can actually go higher upstream, and you can now start to think about your habits and your unhealthy behaviors as symptoms. They're symptoms of the problem, they're not the cause.
If you're not following me, please just bear with me, because I think it's a really important idea. I don't think I've spoken about that much yet. It goes back to this idea that knowledge is not enough. Why would you ever consume sugar when you know the damage it may well be doing to you? Doesn't make any sense, does it? Yet we still do it. It's because we haven't developed the insight and awareness of why we're turning to sugar.
And so what often happens, and this would definitely happen if you look at the news first thing, unless you're really grounded, is that the negativity that goes into your brain, you start to create emotional stress and internal tension, right, that you may or may not be aware of. But that emotional stress that you've created, by the way you interact with the world, is not neutral.
it will have to be neutralized in some way or another. And how do most of us neutralize it? We go to these common behaviors, sugar, alcohol, caffeine, shopping, pornography, whatever it might be. These are downstream problems in the vast majority of cases of the fact that you are trying to relieve an internal discomfort that you're feeling.
And I'm convinced this is the main reason why people cannot make transformative lifestyle change that lasts. It's because they don't realize they're creating internal tension by the way they're interacting with the world. This is basically
You drive here tonight, right? And it's raining outside and you're queuing up and you think someone's barge in front of you and you think, you know, I'm sure it happens somewhere. You're all a nice crowd, but someone must have felt a bit frustrated or someone knit your seats, right? You don't realize, by the way, you interact with that moment,
You've got the opportunity to either be really calm after it or to create internal stress. I can't believe that they definitely saw me. They definitely saw me, but they just ignore me and went forward. Whatever it might be, that's the start.
Because once that domino falls, you're then playing catch-up, right? You will have to neutralize that stress in some way or another. That's why I'm a fan of journaling. That's why I'm a fan of routines because it allows you to self-reflect on your life, right? Why are the questions there? Someone sent me a DM on Instagram the other day and said, come on, let's ask, haven't got the journal yet, but are the questions the same every day or are they different on each day?
And I thought long and hard about this when I was creating this. They're the same every day. And there's a very good reason for that. We love to distract ourselves. We love to get bored and go, oh, you know, give there must be something else now. You have done yoga for a little while. Let me try pilates. Let me try something else. The answer somewhere else. You answer these three questions every day, right? If you have to, let's say the question I've already mentioned, what's the most important thing you have to do today?
Ask yourself that question every day for 28 days. You will develop an insight and awareness of yourself that you will not get from anywhere else. You'll start to discover what truly is important to you, right? You say your family is important to you, but every day what you pop down is a work deadline.
No judgment, right? It's not about judgment. It's about a compassionate way of analyzing yourself and going, wow, am I really living how I want to live? So the reason they're the same each day as I write in the journal,
The magic lies in the repetition. You can't escape yourself. You can't distract yourself with a new question. The same question forces you to go deeper. It forces you to get to know yourself better. And that's why the questions are exactly the same every day.
So you can't hide. Does that make sense? Absolutely. I'm wondering if there's anything else you can recommend in regards to breaking through limiting beliefs. Because oftentimes, even, let's say, somebody received a journal today. They want to start this habit. They do it for three days.
And then they fall into the trap of maybe not feeling good enough or just not feeling like they deserve to have a better life. I find that oftentimes what's blocking us from losing weight or exercising or being
more open to love or anything like having a healthier lifestyle is those limiting beliefs that are quite subconscious. Sometimes we don't know how to reprogram the subconscious mind. So what are some tips or things we can all do today to reprogram the subconscious mind? Is there anything simple and easy we can do every day?
We can get lost in thought so much, right? We can overthink things. And then, you know, I had a, just before I came up, I bumped into a chap and never met before called Sam. And Sam shared with me,
Just how much of an impact the podcasts and the books have had on him over the past 12 months. He basically shared how 12 months ago he was in a really dark place with I don't want to say too much about negative thoughts and like really struggling mental health. It feels like a completely different person today.
And first of all, Sam, wherever you are, huge congratulations. It was such an inspiring story to hear. So wherever Sam is, please, in fact, let's give Sam a round of applause. I think what he's done is pretty incredible. There he is. There's Sam. What a mate. It really was inspiring to hear that.
Change is possible, right? You can absolutely reprogram these subconscious beliefs through taking action. So one way I like to help people do that is, in many ways, and of course, therapy with a trained healthcare professional can be really, really beneficial, okay? But I will say on that, there's a lot we can do ourselves as well.
And sometimes I think it's almost like, oh, we can't move on because we have to get therapy. No, right? Therapy is great. Ifa therapy, it's absolutely fantastic. It's been transformative. At the same time, for many people, they cannot access it because of cost or availability. So I don't want to, at that point, not be able to help someone move on in their life if they can't access that.
Right? So the third morning question in the three-question journal is, what is the quality I want to showcase to the world today? I know I say they're all my favourite questions because they are, which is why they're in it. But it's such a powerful question because so often we think the person who we are right now is the person who we have to remain. It's not.
You can change any time you like. If you want to, right? I absolutely believe that. You're not destined to be the person you were yesterday. So much of our personality.
I really, really believe can be changed, because I know because I've done it myself. So many aspects of myself, like I used to be hyper-competitive. I'm not, because that came from a feeling of inadequacy and not feeling good enough. Now that I feel adequate and good enough, and dare I say, in front of a British audience, I quite like myself, right? And I don't think I did for much of my life.
Behaviour change is a piece of cake because you're no longer fighting this internal discomfort. Like, I like how I live my life. I like, you know, the person who I am or the person who I try to be. I'm less bothered today by other people's opinions than I ever have been in my life. Just a minute, I don't care. I passionately care, but also respect that everyone's got the right to their opinion. They've got the right to think I'm the worst podcasts on the planet.
They absolutely have that right, just as someone else has got the rights thing, I'm the best. I'm actually neither. To one individual, they probably, who loves my podcast, I may be the best host for them. So that other person, they may find me, as people will tell me, the most irritating host on the planet, right? I'm okay with that, because they're right in their head for them. Right, coming back to that question,
Who do you wanna be in the world, essentially? I wanna show the quality, let's say, well, that I put this morning, I put down patience today. I wanna show the quality of patience to the world today. By setting the intention first thing in the morning, I'm being prompted in the day to act with patience. As someone barges in front of me, I'm much more likely to be patient and calm by setting that intention in the morning.
doesn't mean I'm perfect and I am always going to be. But that's why the evening questions are really important because one of the questions is what went well today and one of the questions is what can I do differently tomorrow?
Well, that's a very compassionate way of helping you make change, right? What might I do differently tomorrow? Well, that could be, well, you know what, I did put down this morning that I wanted to be patient, but when my colleagues sent me that email at 4pm that it really pissed me off, I sent a quick reply that I'm actually regretting a bit now. Anyone ever done that? No? Okay.
A few nods, two people have done it, okay. But the point is we all do that, we're all human, right? We all make mistakes. So this is not about perfection, it's about assessing the intention in the morning. This is who I want to be today. And then in the evening, you can either reflect to go, yeah, you know, I'm quite proud actually. I could have been triggered by my boss when I received that email.
But I chose not to. I chose to act with patience and compassion or whatever it might be. And if you didn't, it promised you tomorrow, you know, I'm going to, when that situation happens again, I'm not going to react like that. And here's the thing, Mimi. This is deceptively simple because if you do that for 30 days, right,
you're not gonna be a different person. It's inconceivable that your behaviors in the world won't change. Inconceivable, because you become your own coach. Think about any sports star out there, any golfer, tennis player, footballer, they've all got coaches, right? They've got coaches to help them realize what they can't see themselves. So for example, I don't know, golf, right?
Someone's gonna say to a golfer, the coach might say, hey, listen, you know, when you're under pressure in the final few holes, you actually start to shorten your backswing. And that's why you start messing up your shots. So the player then knows, okay, great, all right, next time I'm in the final three holes and it's tense, I'll make sure that I don't shorten my backswing, that I go the full length or whatever it might be. Journaling helps you become your own coach.
If you never step outside of your life to reflect on it, you're not going to make change. If you wake up each day and just do the same as you did the day before, of course your life hasn't changed. Of course you still feel stuck.
And I'm so passionate that behavior change is not as hard as we think it is. We make it difficult. We over-complicate it. We allow ourselves to get distracted by arguing experts on social media. Don't. I do not get involved with that stuff.
I just find it really, really unhelpful. It doesn't help the public who are viewing health care professionals fight with each other online and disagree on stuff. It's not the person who I want to be. And I don't think it helps anyone.
Right? So you can set the intention of who you want to be and be that person. And that's how things do start to change. So, I mean, there's many ways you can change these kind of subconscious beliefs. But I think I hope that's something that they can take. Something applicable that any one of us can start doing today. That makes sense for everyone. Yeah. You become your own coach. If you're lucky enough to have someone, you know, the truth is most of us, if we do have a partner,
I say this with caution because my wife is in the audience, but we often don't want to hear advice from our partner. We might hear it differently from someone else, right? And that's okay. We're all quite different like that.
You know, for those of you who've got happy mind, happy life, my last book, there's a chapter called Take a Daily Holiday. If you remember that one, for those of you who've read it. And the whole point is, is that you've got to step outside off your life to reflect on it. If you're living in your life the whole time, you just, you won't make change. You won't make sustainable change. One more thing I just want to say maybe related to one of your earlier questions is,
Why I think routines and rituals are really, really important is it's not just the benefit of the routine or the ritual. It's also thinking about, if I wasn't doing this, what would I be doing? It's unlikely that it's something neutral, right? What I mean by that is, let's say you're not doing your 10-minute morning meditation.
which is fine, right? If you don't do that, and that's the thing that you've agreed that you're gonna do, and instead of that, you're scrolling Instagram,
It's not a neutral position, right? So some of you may have heard me talk about micro stress doses before, right? And if you haven't, let me just briefly summarize. A micro stress dose is a little dose of stress that in isolation, you can handle just fine. The problem is, is when these micro stress doses add up one on top of the other, and they get you closer and closer to your stress threshold.
When you get to your stress threshold, that's when things go wrong in your life. That's when you're reactive, that's when your back goes, your neck goes into spasm, that's when you send that email that you wish you'd never sent, right? You think the email you received from your boss at 4 p.m. was the problem. It wasn't. The problem was that you'd been accumulating micro stress doses from the morning. So by the time you got that email, you were right at your threshold.
If you had done things in the day to keep you away from your threshold, you wouldn't have reacted in that manner, because you wouldn't have been near the stress threshold. So bring that back to routines. If you're not doing something nourishing in the morning, and we can talk about the time factor, because some people say, well, I don't have time. We can deal with that.
It's, those things keep you away. If you get up and look at Instagram and TikTok and emails and stuff, whilst you're still in bed. And you know what, I do that on occasion, right?
And I'm not perfect. These things are very hard to resist. But you're starting to bring yourself closer and closer to your stress threshold, which means it takes less stress in the day to tip you over. Why routines and rituals, whether it's in the morning or in the evening, are so beneficial, is that they keep you away. You're not accumulating micro stress doses. In fact, you're going the other way. You're giving yourself more buffer room.
It's not neutral, it's not only the benefit of these things, it's what you're not also doing. I still have an answer to your first question about what is my morning routine. I think I've spoken about my thought, is anyone even interested in what my own morning routine is? You can quickly walk us through your morning routine, because I think we have about five minutes before the break, and I still love to hear if there's some things that I can pick up for myself.
My framework for morning routine is the three Ms, mindfulness, movement, and mindset. If anyone ever asks me how to create a morning routine, I say, listen, if you have time, those three Ms are a fantastic way of creating a routine. If you don't have time, just pick one of those Ms and do it. That's still better than not doing anything. The first and mindfulness, well, that's any form of mindfulness practice you like.
It could be meditation. It could be breath work. It could be drinking a cup of coffee or tea. There I say it, without also looking at your phone.
Just literally tasting. If you've never done that, challenge you. It's a totally different experience. You actually taste the coffee more. You taste the tea more. You actually need less. We know there's some research in terms of mindfulness. When you distract yourself when you eat with a television on or looking at your emails, you could well eat more, not only at that meal, but at all subsequent meals for the rest of the day.
Right, so mindfulness is huge. Paying attention to what you're doing is huge, which is one of the benefits of routines. Or certainly rituals, you're very rarely doing a morning ritual, mindlessly. So the first M, mindfulness, pick a practice, that could be five minutes of meditation on your favorite app. Second M, movement. So I do 10 minutes of meditation, first thing in the morning. That's what I do for that first M. Second M,
Okay, so I'm in my pajamas. I walk from my living room into my kitchen and I make my coffee, I weigh it out, I put it in the French press, I put a timer on for five minutes, because that's how I like my coffee. In those five minutes, I do a strength workout in my pajamas, right? That's important. I don't have to get changed. I made it so easy that it's impossible for me to say I don't have time. The third M for me,
And you've got to remember, I've now got the beautiful reward of my morning cup of coffee. It's mindset. And at the moment, I do generally, I actually write in the three question journal every morning. I go through these questions, which literally takes me under five minutes. And if I have more time, I'll then read something uplifting for the next 15, 20 minutes. Now, look, I have to make choices in my life to give me time for this.
And I don't think, you know, if I think about 10, 11 years ago when my dad was alive and I used to be heavily involved with dad's care, would I have had time for this stuff? I don't know if I'm honest. So God's honest truth, I don't actually know now. Reflecting back.
But I've made time in my life for this, so I'm the person who doesn't know the latest thing and what's on Netflix. I don't know all of that stuff in the media. I'm not interested. I go to bed early. It works to me so that I can wake up and have this time before my wife and kids get up. It's important to me. It may not be for you, and that's completely OK.
And for those of you who think you don't have time for a 3M morning routine, I had one patient who was a single mother who did it in five minutes. She said to you, I know Tom, I said, have you got a five minutes ago? I've got a five minutes. Let's create one together. One minute or three, four, five breathing she would do. Two minutes of her favorite yoga poses and two minutes of affirmations.
She did that every day for five minutes, changed her life, calmer, more present, and her eczema symptoms went down by 60 to 70%, and I'm convinced that was because stress was a big driver for her eczema. I think vanished completely, but it went down significantly. Unmanaged stress affects every single organ system of the body, it affects your skin, it affects your gut, it affects your blood sugar, right?
We don't think of that. Remember what I said before? Emotional stress is not neutral. You will have to do something to neutralize it. So that's kind of how my morning looks. I love it. And I love the framework of the 3Ms, because like you said, if you don't have enough time, you can just choose one, but do something. I think doing something is better than doing nothing. So I really appreciate you sharing that.
And again, remember, it's a sense of control that it gives you, which I think is really, really important. In terms of evening, I do actually answer these questions in bed at night, but the big thing I've been experimenting with, have I said this on the podcast where you say, I don't think so. For the last four weeks, I've been switching off my phone at 6.30pm.
Admirable. Now, hold on a minute. Let me explain that. I've seen a few gasps at the moment. OK. So the first thing to say is I do have a landline. OK. You know, I feel like sometimes I'm totally old. I still listen to CDs. I still have a landline. But I think there's something to be said for it. So only a few people have my landline number, my close family, some of my close friends.
Right? So in the modern world, for me, it allows me to switch that phone off and I'm just much more present and calm and I sleep better. Now, I also recognize that some of you may not have that luxury, let's say. You may go, I can't do that for whatever reason. My kids are a little bit older, they go out on the evenings, I need to be comfortable. Fine, no worries. We've all got to do what works for us, but for me,
But that has been game-changing. Now, to be fair, I go to bed at about half-eight tonight. I go to bed early. This is a very late night for me. For me, what I said before, use yourself as data, play around with stuff, and then don't look for external expertise to tell you if that's the right thing for you. Trust yourself. You know what the right thing is for you.
And if there's one message I think I'm going to be banging on about for next year or two, it's this, right? Routine, rituals, a practice of solitude each day. And I think journaling is a great one to do. You will cultivate insight. You will cultivate self-awareness. You're going to realize why you can't give up sugar. You're going, wow, you know what? I'm always having sugar at this point before that Thursday meeting at work.
I'm always, when I haven't spent enough time going out in the day, when I've just been on Zoom calls all day, I always end up having half a bottle of wine in the evening. You can go on as many sugar detoxers or alcohol detoxers as you want for 30 days. In most cases, I honestly don't think it will change a thing for you. It might give you an insight as to what your life can be like without it.
But all behaviors in your life, every single one serves a role. And far too often we try and change the behavior without understanding the role it plays in our life. Understand the role it plays in your life, and suddenly it gets a lot easier. Now people go, okay, sure. Now that I'm aware, Dr. Chaju, what do I do? Do not neglect, do not underestimate how important awareness is.
As soon as you are aware of something, you change your relationship to it. I promise you, as soon as you're aware of it, as soon as you know, oh man, when the kid's bedtime has gone on too long, when I've had a row with my partner and I'm sitting in front of the sofa at 9pm watching Telly and I want to have ice cream, right? You're not hungry.
You're unlikely to be physically hungry, but you are emotionally hungry. And as you go through the process of understanding that, you will change. And again, without sounding like a broken record, that's why I believe we all need a practice of solitude each day, which helps you develop and cultivate self-awareness. Journaling is a very, very effective way to do it, but there are other ways.
If you want to meditate, do that. Do both. One of the things I didn't share about my own morning routine is that, and again, maybe this can come up in the Q&A if there's time where people are interested, but you can develop self-awareness through your body and through your mind.
Right, so sometimes practices like breathwork or meditation or body scans help you tune into your body. Okay, where do I hold tightness? Where is there a restriction? Which is really, really useful. And what I found for me is that I love finishing off my morning routine with journaling because in my 10 minute meditation, I get so many insights about my life that I then get to crystallize into my journal.
So for me, it works really well, but you've got to also remember I've been working on my own morning routine for many years now. I didn't just wake out of bed one day and thought, yeah, I'm going to have a 40 minute morning routine today. No chance. What I've done is I started off with five minutes. That five minutes became 10 minutes. It became 15 minutes. And then I forget to do it for a few weeks. And then I realized through the practice of self awareness,
Oh, I'm a better human being when I do my morning routine. When I think I don't have time in the morning, because it's a busy day at work today, and I've got emails to do. I bet just crack on now. I always regret it later.
because I'm not as productive, I'm not as calm. So actually, although you think you may not have those 10 or 15 minutes first in the morning, those 10 or 15 minutes will pay you back immeasurably, but you've got to trust yourself to do it. Does that all make sense?
Absolutely. And I'm a huge advocate of morning routines and night routines as well. It has truly changed my life. And I noticed the difference when I skip a day or two in the way I feel, in the way I react, like you said. So really appreciate you sharing all of this. Can I just say one more thing, maybe? Right. I think you're trying to get us off to the break. But for anyone who's got kids, if anyone got kids in here, right? So many of you are thinking,
But that's all grey, but I've got kids going around the house in the morning and I can't have that piece of calm, right? Who says you need to have peace and calm? I used to think this. I used to get really frustrated when I was trying to meditate in the morning and one of my kids got up.
And I could hear them coming down the stairs, and that daddy, daddy, right? And part of me was like, oh man, I just wanted a bit of time to sort my head out first. And you know, when it really changed to me, it's I thought, okay, bring it on, no problem. And I can still remember when my daughter was a bit younger, she'd come down looking for daddy and say, oh, darling, I'm just doing my morning routine, just meditate, just come and sit with me. So she'd just come and sit there, or she'd read or do a puzzle, and I would just keep going.
If you're waiting for the perfect time for this gorgeous routine where the candle's there and there's calm around, you know what? It ain't going to happen. Right? Well, you may be lucky enough. And if you, if you, if that's you, great. For me, that ain't going to happen. Right? So I've learned to embrace that. And I tell you what, if you can meditate while your kids are around, that's a pretty good skill you're developing. And so I just want to say this. I think it's really important to put these things out on the open. We, we love.
to put obstacles up in the way. We love to say, you know, that's all right for you guys, but that doesn't work for me. If that is you, try medicines for a morning, and when your kids come and bother you, just smile and meditate anyway. Not only will that help you, just think about the example you're setting to your kids. I'm not saying ignore them, right? Just to be really clear, I don't ignore my daughter. I look at her, I interact with her, and I tell her what I'm doing.
Kids don't do what they hear you say to do. They do what they see you doing. Right? So just think about the example you're setting for your children and what they're going to do when they're older. It's much more likely they engage in these health promoting routines if they see their parents doing it. Lead by example. Yeah. Thank you, Dr. Rangan.
really hope you enjoyed that live recording. As always, do have a think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life. And also, as I mentioned in the intro, if you did enjoy this bonus episode, I really think that you are going to love my upcoming book, make change that lasts.
Remember, if you can support the publication of the book by pre-ordering it now, you will get exclusive access to a free one-hour video masterclass that I have recorded and a free worksheet containing 10 powerful questions that you can start asking yourself immediately to develop your own insight and self-awareness. I think you will find this video and worksheet really, really helpful. And in many ways, well, that's a bit of a primer.
So get you ready to hit the ground running when you have the book in your hands in just a few weeks. You can see your details about this pre-order offer at DrChatterjee.com forward slash make change or just click on the link in the episode notes in your podcast app.
And if you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family, or leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more.
