BITESIZE | 5 Simple Daily Habits to Reduce Stress & Avoid Burnout | Dr Rangan Chatterjee #593

0:00Today's Bite Size episode is sponsored by AG1, a daily health drink that has been in my own life for over seven years. So, why might you consider bringing AG1 into your life? Well, there are many reasons, such as enhanced gut health and support for your immune system. But one of the main reasons, I would say, is to help you with your energy levels. Now AG1 contains a blend of different nutrients including B vitamins, vitamin C and magnesium which can help reduce tiredness and fatigue and give you a boost in energy. And unlike caffeine, these nutrients actually work with your body's natural energy systems and don't have a negative impact on your sleep.

0:47Right now, during the month of May, AG1 is offering my listeners a brilliant deal. Your first month's subscription will be only£59, saving you£20 off the regular price. On top of that, you'll get a free welcome kit, a shaker bottle, a scoop, five travel packs and a bottle of vitamin D3 and K2 drops. You can see all details at drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 329 of the podcast, which was a solo episode that I recorded all about the rising issue of burnout.

1:40In that episode, I outlined the seven signs that may indicate you're on the road to burnout, and I shared 10 practical tools to help. Researchers found that a staggering 88 % of the UK workforce has experienced a degree of burnout since 2020. In this clip, I walk you through five of those simple habits you can think about introducing into your life that can quickly start to help. Burnout is very, very common these days. And I've got to be honest, it's getting more and more common as the pressures from work, from society start to mount up. And I've seen this. I've experienced it myself. I've seen it in so many patients.

2:31But what I do know is that you can take some very simple steps that will make a big difference because these are the steps I've taken in my own life before and these are the steps I've helped my patients take in their lives and all of the things I'm going to recommend are simple to do and they're completely free. So the first step I want you to focus on as part of this 10-step action plan is to do something that you love every day. Now, what a lot of people don't realize is that regularly doing things that you love makes you more resilient to stress. But at the same time, being chronically stressed, particularly work-related stress, means that you find it harder to gain pleasure in everyday things.

3:22So one way around this is for five minutes a day, right? If you could do more, great, but even five minutes a day will make a difference. Five minutes a day, you're doing something for you, not for your boss, not for your work colleagues, not for your partner, not for your children. This is for you. This could be reading a book, okay? Could be listening to some tunes or some music that you really like. It could even be going onto YouTube and watching your favorite comedian for a few minutes, right? It's so, so powerful. If you give yourself a daily dose of pleasure, you will find that little by little, day after day, you are going to start to feel more resilient, more engaged with life.

4:08It's going to have such a powerful impact. For me, what do I do? There's all kinds of things I love doing. I love reading. I love listening to music, but I love playing my guitar. And so often in the evenings, especially if it's been a stressful day, I'd sit with my guitar for a few minutes and sing. And it makes all the difference. If I go for a week or two without doing this, I can absolutely feel it. So what's it going to be for you? What is that thing that you can do each day for only five minutes, but something that you're really, really going to enjoy? The second step to start introducing into your life is about learning how to say no.

4:45now this is easy to say a lot harder to do in practice it's something many of us struggle with I've struggled with this for much of my life right we have to be able to say no and often we're doing things that are helping other people but it's coming at the cost of ourselves now listen I get it it's nice to be there for other people it's good to do things for other people but if it's happening all the time and it's coming at the cost of your physical, mental and emotional well-being, I think it's time to ask yourself some questions. What's going on? Now, the truth is that for many of us, the reason we struggle to say no is because we're people pleasers.

5:30Often we don't feel good enough in who we are. Often this started in childhood. We feel that in order to be liked and loved, we have to do things for other people's approval. And if we're not careful, that continues into adulthood. We put our own needs last and everyone else's needs first. And as I say, this often comes from insecurity. We don't feel good enough in ourselves. We feel that we need that other person's validation in order to feel good. But this is toxic and it is very, very problematic. So you're not going to change this overnight. Again, simply being aware that you may have some people-pleasing tendencies, which is getting in the way of your ability to say no, is really, really powerful.

6:21Another thing you may find helpful when thinking about saying no is weighing up the consequences of your decision on both sides. Now, a lot of the time we just look at things from one side. Okay, I've been asked to give a meeting or let's say give a presentation at a weekend and we might think this is a great opportunity for us. Okay, this is wonderful. But when you say yes to something, you're also saying no to something else. And what you're saying no to, you often don't think about. You just think about the pros of what you're saying yes to. Oh, if I do this, it will help me with my job. My boss will like me.

7:05Look, how does that play out in my own life? I get asked to speak at events a lot these days. And I used to say yes to a lot of them. I wanted to help. I wanted to go there. I wanted to speak to people, help empower them with information. But I realized a lot of the time this is happening at weekends. and, you know, I'm married. I've got two young children. They're at school in the week. Over the past few years, I've realized if I say yes to a weekend speaking invitation, I'm saying no to time with my children. I'm saying no to time with my wife. And again, look, we're all different. We've all got different pressures and different requirements with our work.

7:47Sometimes taking that weekend invitation is going to be the right choice, right? But for me, at this stage in my life now, at this stage in my career, I've decided that I will not do weekend speaking engagements or I won't regularly do them at least. It would take something really, really special for me to decide, yes, I'm going to do that. And so for me, I now have a rule. I don't speak at weekends. And that has simplified my life. If a weekend invitation comes in, it's almost certainly no. See, another thing you can think about here is make your default decision, at least in your brain, no. When you get asked to do things that are outwith what you are required to do, make no the default and then say to yourself, can I make a case for this to be a yes?

8:37It's just slightly tweaking things and perhaps that's a strategy you may find useful. The other thing to say about setting boundaries and saying no is that if you've never been able to do it before, it's going to feel hard at first, right? You're not going to feel comfortable doing it. But what I really ask you to do is think clearly about why you're saying no and then try and be honest. Don't try and over explain. Just be really clear to the point, explain your reasons and you may be surprised at how well received they are. Maybe two years ago now, I got an invitation in July by a friend of mine to speak in August.

9:28And at that time, I had decided that I'd been working too much. I'd been neglecting some of the important things in my life. And I decided in August, I'm not going to work. In August, I'm taking time off. I'm going to spend time with my family. Again, I appreciate not everyone has the luxury of being able to do that. At that time, I did. And the speaking invitation came in. Now, the only reason I even considered it, because this lady who invited me was a friend of mine. But I thought about it, and then I very clearly said to her, hey, listen, thank you so much for the invitation. It sounds wonderful, but I'm not taking on any work in August.

10:10I'm spending it with my family. I'm really sorry. If you'd like me to promote your event for you, I'm happy to do that, but I can't take part. And you know what? At that time, I was a bit nervous about telling her. I was wondering, what is she going to think of me? And she didn't think anything bad of me. In fact, she really respected that I was honest and told her the truth. And it also felt good for me. I feel I didn't lie. I didn't tell a white lie. I didn't make up some excuse. No, I just told her the truth. And actually, I find more and more, being able to say no in a truthful, authentic way is a really, really good skill to acquire.

10:50And it's something you can work on and get better at with practice. The third thing I want you to focus on is your sleep. I want you to start prioritizing your sleep. And we've heard already, haven't we, that when we're on the road to burnout, out, we often stay up later. We don't want to go to bed. Often we feel tired and wired, but that actually makes the problem worse the following day. So if you can actually get a little bit more sleep, I'm not talking about eight hours of unbroken sleep every night, that may not be achievable just yet for you. Even if you can get 15 more minutes a day, 20 more minutes a day, that will literally start to make a difference immediately.

11:33Because when you sleep better, everything in your life is better. Your physical health, your mental health, and your emotional health. And one thing I just want to say, if you are that person who, I don't know, let's say at 10pm, you are thinking, yeah, you know what? One more episode of this box set. You are making a trade in that moment that you may not know you're making. You're basically saying, I'm going to stay for an extra hour to watch this episode. But because of the impact that's going to have on my sleep, I'm basically saying tomorrow I'm going to be less creative. I'm going to be less able to solve problems.

12:16I'm going to have lower energy. I'm going to crave more sugar and more caffeine. We know that sleep deprivation means that you're going to have less empathy the following day. So you're literally making a trade in that moment that you are prepared to sacrifice all of those things for that one hour box set. And I get it, I've been there before, but I'm just trying to make you more aware of just how important that sleep is. There's all kinds of things I could say about sleep, but let me just walk you through some of the commonest things that I see and the commonest things that you can do that will start to make a difference.

12:53And remember, you don't have to do them all, but the more of them that you can do, the better. Number one, when you wake up in the morning, try and expose yourself to natural light. If it's a cloudy day, you really want 20 to 30 minutes of natural light outside if you can. On a sunny day, you might get away with five to 10 minutes because that helps to set your body's circadian rhythm and that's going to help you sleep better that night. It's a really important point. People are thinking about their evening routine when they're thinking about sleep, but a good night's sleep starts in the morning.

13:28Second thing, caffeine. I get it. Many of us enjoy a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. I love my coffee, right? I'm not saying give it up. But the problem is in burnout is that you get stuck in a vicious cycle where because you feel tired all the time, you're using more caffeine to keep you going, which in turn is making it harder for you to sleep at night. So I always say, enjoy your caffeine in the morning. Now, look, the truth is we all have different sensitivities to caffeine. It depends on our genetics. It also depends on how much stress is going on in our lives. And if you're on the road to burnout, by definition, you've already got a lot of stress in your life.

14:11Your stress load is very, very high. And I have found time and time again that with people like this, with patients like this, you've got to be really careful with your caffeine intake. So I would say enjoy your caffeine, but keep it to the morning. The third thing I want to say about sleep is if you're going to fall into a deep, relaxing, restorative slumber, you have to start winding down about one hour before bed. One of the big problems these days is that our devices are our work devices and our pleasure devices. You know, you may have a laptop or a tablet and you may do all your work on it, but you also do all your chilling out on it in the evening.

14:58And what a lot of us don't realize is that our brain is an associative organ, right? It associates certain things and certain places with certain activities. So if, for example, you are used to doing emails on your bed, on your laptop, your brain starts to associate your bedroom with work and emails. And that's one of the big reasons why people really struggle to switch off and fall asleep, because their brain has been conditioned for a certain activity in a certain environment. So that's one thing to pay attention to. You know, can you change your environment? I appreciate not everyone has space, but if you aren't working from home, are you able to work outside your bedroom?

15:43This is something that not enough people think about, but it makes a really big difference. The other thing to focus on in that one hour before bed is sending your brain a signal that you're no longer working. This is basically campfire time, right? If we think about us, you know, tens of thousands of years ago, hundreds of thousands of years ago, the evening is campfire time. It's for storytelling. It's a fun, laughter, dancing, connecting. So if you are not giving your brain that signal, if you're still on your emails after dinner, you just got to be really careful. What signal are you sending your brain?

16:25So one thing that I find helpful and many of my patients find helpful is you have a cutoff time in the evening. Maybe you want to set an alarm. We used to the idea that we set an alarm in the morning, but maybe you should set an alarm in the evening. Let's say you want to go to your bedroom to fall asleep at 10. Maybe you set an alarm at 9pm or even 8.30pm and that's a signal to shut the laptop. Don't look at emails anymore. And then you can do some more relaxing activities like, I don't know, have a bath, read a book, you know, talk to your partner. If you do want to watch television, and I understand the temptation, find something relaxing to watch.

17:08Now, if you're watching the news just before you go to bed, whether on TV or online, and you can't sleep, is it really that much of a surprise? The news is, by its very definition these days, negative. All news channels are competing with other news channels. So you're going to see negative stories. If that's what you are infusing into your brain and mind in the minutes or hour before bed, it's no surprise really that your mind's going to be racing and you're going to be thinking about the worst possible outcomes. So pay attention to what are you consuming. If you want to watch something. Watch something uplifting, relaxing that makes you feel good.

17:54The fourth thing I want you to focus on as part of this 10-step action plan is to define the end of your work day. Now, this is a really, really important step that I actually think you can start to implement immediately. Our to-do lists are never done these days because of modern technology, because of the way that we work, there's always something else to do. Always. Let's say you miraculously clear all the new emails in your inbox, right? I don't know if that's possible, but let's say you manage to do that. The minute you finish, and let's say you go off somewhere for a walk or, you know, make yourself a cup of tea, there's a very good chance that other emails have started to arrive.

18:41You can't control that. Emails are always going to come in. This is just one example, right? so you can constantly be working and I've seen this in so many patients they don't put up boundaries so therefore they're still working after dinner right you couldn't do this 20-30 years ago you'd have had to have stopped and switched off spent time if you've got a family with your family if you don't spent time doing something enjoyable for yourself but now you don't have to do that. You can keep plugging away. And of course, you keep doing this month after month, year after year, this is going to put you on the road to burnout.

19:19So a really helpful tip here is to say, what does done look like today? This is actually something that I discuss in a wonderful conversation I had on my podcast with Greg McKeown, who I've already mentioned, and he's written these great books, Essentialism and Effortless. And Greg's got another phrase that I really, really like. If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will. In fact, I like that phrase so much, I've got it up on the wall in my house. And that's what this tip really is about. You've got to define what done means for you. Maybe it's at 5pm I'm going to stop working, or maybe it's, I've got these 10 tasks to do today, but once I've done these six important ones, if that's the end of the day, that's the end of the day.

20:11If you don't do it, nobody is going to do it for you. It's about setting boundaries. It's about taking a moment to go, no, this is important today. Everything's not important. You may think it is, but it isn't. So why not at the start of each day, define, if I get these things done today, that's good enough. and this is something that's really simple but really really effective. The fifth step to start introducing into your life is movement. One of the problems when people are on the road to burnout or even when they've got all-out burnout is that they don't move. You know I've already mentioned that one of the signs of burnout is when we start to neglect our self-care and because people feel lacking in motivation, low in energy, they're procrastinating, they can't make decisions, they end up not moving their bodies.

21:10They often think, oh, I don't have energy to move. And the interesting thing about movement is that it will change your state, guaranteed. Sometimes if we're feeling stressed and agitated and anxious, getting out there and moving our body, let's say with a walk or even two minutes of skipping or jumping jacks will calm everything down. You'll burn off that stress. But it also works the other way. If you're feeling low energy, if you're struggling with motivation, sometimes movement will give you energy. Just think, think about the last time you couldn't be bothered going to the gym or perhaps you procrastinated for an hour.

21:54Shall I go for a walk? Shall I not go for a walk? Oh, it's raining. Not sure I've got time. But then you actually went. How did you feel afterwards? Did you regret it? Or did you afterwards feel, wow, man, I'm so glad I went. I don't think anybody has ever regretted going for a walk. We always feel better afterwards. So this is all about making sure you're moving your body every day. Even a 10 or 15 minute walk will make a big difference. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email.

22:40It's called the Friday Five and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it free of charge at drchatterjee.com forward slash Friday Five. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.