Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: How To Escape The Prison Of Your Mind & Reinvent Your Life In 2025

29:05But here's the problem, Lewis. How many people can do dry January? Quite a lot. How many people can quit sugar in January? Quite a lot. How many people do that and then they actually make long-term changes? The number's a lot less, right? Often by the end of February, most people are back to where they were in Descendo. And here's, let's make it really obvious. If you've got a lot of stress in your life and alcohol is your way of dealing with the stress, right? Because it's an effective way of managing stress, at least in the short term. You can white knuckle it for a few weeks and stop drinking, but you're going to return back to your previous behaviors unless one of two things happens.

29:49Number one, either the stress in your life goes down. If the stress in your life goes down, great, you may need less alcohol. If the stress in your life doesn't go down, if you don't find an alternative behavior to manage that stress, like something else to relieve the stress, maybe the gym or something else, you're going to go back to the alcohol. So let's relate that to what you were asking about relationships. If you're having conflict in your relationships, it doesn't feel good. It's a huge source of stress that. That emotional stress, you will neutralize. You have to neutralize it in some way, right?

30:30And this is something I think people really don't get. And it's one of the big themes in this book is that emotional stress is not neutral. You're having conflict with your partner. What do we often do? We don't feel good. We go to sugar. We go to alcohol. hole. We spend three hours scrolling Instagram trying to find some kind of inspiration. Those things are a downstream consequence of the emotional stress that's going on because of your relationship issues. And that's why if we can repair our relationships, learn how to communicate better, be open, be honest, not give accusations, but share how we're feeling.

31:12And if we can successfully manage conflicts, you will naturally find your behavior start to improve. And I think this is the missing piece in behavior change. We don't think about the root cause of our behaviors. We just want to change the behavior, which is why it usually doesn't last in the long term. Wow. And when you were treating patients, how much would you say were people's symptoms related to relationship conflicts in their life, whether it be with their parents or their boss or a friend or whatever it might be, a family member or something, how much of it was once they started to have the courage to speak up or once they were able to break themselves free of a situation in their relationship or create a boundary in their life or whatever it might be, create new alignment with that person, how much of the patients you saw had emotional pain that flared up in the symptoms of their body?

32:11that once they started to make the emotional changes and the boundaries, the alignment in relationships, those symptoms went away. So many. Really? Yeah, yeah. Honestly, there's at least three or four cases in this book where I outline patients I've seen. Let me give you two examples. Okay, so a few years ago, and tell me if this is directly answering your question or not, Lewis, but a few years ago, I saw this lady. I'm going to guess 45 to 50 years old. I can't remember her exact age. And she had high blood pressure. And she'd seen previous doctors and they were trying to treat it. She didn't like the medications.

32:51She was getting side effects. She started to see me. And I think that high blood pressure doesn't just happen. It's a response to other things, right? To events in life. Yeah. You know, it's hypertension. It's too much tension. It's not a genetic thing, huh? I think in most cases it's not. There can be a genetic predisposition. But you can override that. You can usually override it. And if we just think about it through the lens of the stress response, okay, let's just take a, I'll come back to your question, but let's just look at it from a slightly different angle. We know that stress is responsible for maybe 80 to 90 % of what we see as doctors in some way.

33:32Come on, really? Yeah, in some way because chronic stress affects every single organ system in the body. Can I explain why? Yes. Okay. So wait, say this again. 80 to 90 % of what a doctor sees in any given day is in some way related to stress. That is crazy. Yeah. That was in an editorial in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 2013. That's where that was published, right? And what's remarkable about that is once you understand that and you understand the stress response, you can see it everywhere. So we have to understand what is the stress response? What is it there for?

34:05Well, the stress response is fundamentally there to keep us safe. so let's take a trip down like our evolutionary history let's imagine 200 000 years ago we're hanging out in our hunter-gatherer tribe we're getting on with our day we're doing our stuff okay we're in a nice state of relaxation we're just getting along with our we're just getting on with life and then let's say in the corner of your eye you see a wild predator starting to approach the camp okay in an instant your stress response kicks into gear because that's what it's there to do. Now, what happens when your stress response kicks into gear?

34:41All kinds of things happen. Your blood sugar starts to go up so that we can deliver more glucose to your brain. Your blood pressure starts to go up so more oxygen can go around your body. Your amygdala, which is the emotional part of your brain where all these emotional reactions come from, that goes on high alert. So you're hypervigilant for all the threat around you. Okay. Your blood becomes more prone to clotting. Why? Because if that predator was to cut you and attack you instead of bleeding to death, it's going to clot and that's going to save your life, right? These are appropriate responses.

35:18To stress. To stress when you're in danger. The problem we have in the modern world in which we live is that our stress response is no longer been activated by wild predators. It's been activated by the state of our daily lives, our email inboxes, the three social media channels we're trying to keep up to date with, the news headlines, the fact that we may have moved away from family for career opportunities, but then we're trying to bring up kids by ourself and look after elderly parents by ourself. These all are stressors on the body. And so those short-term things which help you when you really are in danger, they become really problematic of their day in, day out.

36:00So if you're getting chronically stressed by the state of your life, which many people are, okay, we know chronic stress is through the roof these days, right? Your blood sugar going up for 30 minutes is not a problem. If it's going up every single day, it's going to cause you to be tired, weight gain around the middle, and ultimately type 2 diabetes. If your blood pressure goes up for half an hour to help you deliver more oxygen around your body, or it goes up in your spinning class, that's not a problem. But if that's happening day in, day out to the state of your life, that high blood pressure is what causes heart attacks and stress.

36:39Do you get what I'm saying? It works in the short term. It's problematic in the long term. What about what I said about the amygdala? Right? The emotional part of our brain. if there's a lion that's approaching you you want that to be on high alert right you want to be hyper vigilant if you're walking back to your car on friday night in downtown la and you think someone's following you you want to be on high alert and hyper vigilant but if that's happening to the state of your daily life well that's what we call anxiety right so the stress response can affect everything in your body. And so this lady who I saw, who had high blood pressure, I helped to change her diet.

37:24I helped to change her lifestyle, but it wasn't budging. And I always believe that there is a root cause for everything. And my job is to help my patient find a root cause for them. And we were chatting. I was getting to know her over a few weeks and months. I really spent a lot of time on my patients. I like to get to know them and find out about their lives. And then it became clear to me that there was an issue that she wasn't dealing with, right? She had got divorced a few years ago because her ex-husband had cheated on her and she couldn't let it go. She was so wound up talking about it. She basically couldn't forgive him.

38:04She held onto this resentment, Lewis. She's like, no, well, it was his fault. My life is bad because of what happened. He did this to me. And over time, I built up trust with her and I said, hey, listen, I understand that this must have been really, really difficult. But that was in the past. And you're allowing that past event now to affect your future and your present. I want to help you try and let go of what happened. Because I believe that you holding on to this resentment might be contributing to your high blood pressure. and there's actually research on this. Professor Fred Luskin from Stanford, you should have him on your show.

38:47He's great. He's done all the research. It's the Stanford Forgiveness Project. His stuff is fantastic. And he has shown that when people forgive, your blood pressure can go down. Your anxiety can go down. Your depression can go down. Forgiveness has been shown to improve the quality of your relationships, improve your self-esteem. So I helped her. She didn't want to see a therapist. I went through various things with her and various exercises. And over a period of a few months, she learned to let go, right? And forgive her ex-husband. And at Hand on Heart, her blood pressure came down. Crazy. Right.

39:24So this is one of the biggest - So there's no drug you had to give her. I didn't have to give her any drugs. She didn't have to change her diet. She didn't have to, it was just an internal reflection and either opening her mind or opening her heart to the ability to forgive. Yeah, and trying to help her in the sand, it doesn't mean what her ex-husband did was okay. I'm not saying it was okay or it was good. I'm saying you're allowing that. And I say that with compassion. I get it's difficult. Like it can't be nice to have been cheated on by your husband. I get that. But what I helped to see, and it took me a bit of time, but I like trying, like I really try and talk to my patients with an open heart and I think they trust me and I helped to realize that it wasn't helping it anymore.

40:14It was a one-off event and Lewis, I remember when you last came on my show, right, when your last book was out, we spoke about forgiveness. I actually write a little bit about that in my new book because you said something to me that I've never forgotten and I'm sure many of your listeners know your history and what happened to you as a little boy and the trauma you faced. And you said to me on my podcast, you said words to this effect, yes, I had to forgive the person who perpetrated the trauma on you. But you said, I also had to forgive myself for allowing that pain to affect you for like 25 years.

40:56And that stopped me in my tracks. I was like, oh, wow. Lewis didn't only have to forgive well i shouldn't say had to no one has to do anything yeah you chose and i'm sure it was really difficult and i'm sure it is difficult from time to time but you had to move on and then forgive yourself and people don't realize how important forgiveness is yeah like i really believe it that people are walking around with resentment and they're holding grudges on people and you know i've i spoke about stress before but we can think about stress in two different ways Lewis, there's the external stress, right?

41:34From our workload. Oh, my boss needs me to do these 10 activities. I don't have time. I've got to rush around. There's traffic. I understand that there is external stress, but I would argue that most of our stress is internally generated by how we interpret things. Yeah. How we interpret things. and once you understand that, that's when your life changes for the better. When you realize that most events in life are neutral, what determines that impact on us is the perspective we take on that event. That's when your life really starts to change and that's when my life changed. Yeah and going back to one of the first things you talked about, learning how to trust yourself.

42:18Like get the wisdom and the knowledge and, you know, learn from experts and science and research and examples. But at the end of the day, you got to listen to what you need based on the experts or what's available out there. You've got to take action on what your intuition is telling you or what your body or your mind, your heart is telling you. And I don't think you can fully trust yourself unless you learn to forgive yourself. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I would, I want to say this, if anyone's listening right now or watching and they're pushing back right because i've realized that on my instagram you know i try and share this kind of helpful information with people like you do and whenever i bring up forgiveness it's amazing to see the response some people love it and other people push back yeah yeah i had dr romany on i don't know if you know dr yeah yeah i've had her on mine as well and she says maybe you don't forgive like the per the narcissist who's like just taken years of your life, right?

43:15And she's like, it gives me peace not to forgive. And that was the first time I'd heard that. And maybe there's something to like forgiving when you feel ready and not forcing forgiveness. For sure. If you're feeling frustrated or maybe it's helping you actually create a boundary for that season of life, okay. And however you need to forgive in your mind or whatever that looks like. But for her, forgiveness of someone who's kind of taken a lot of years from her life, she said, maybe you don't forgive in her mind. Yeah. And I've heard Dr. Romani say that. And I think Dr. Romani is great. And she's helping so many people.

43:53And I have a huge amount of respect for people and their views and their opinions. I can only share what I've seen with patients and what I've experienced myself. and I think we misunderstand forgiveness. I think some people think that forgiveness means saying that that was okay. It doesn't mean that. It's saying that I'm no longer going to allow that to have a hold on me. It's totally different. And like there's so much I want to say on forgiveness, Lewis, because I feel that I feel so light and free these days because I've learned to forgive. Let me ask you this question. As a medical doctor and a researcher, what is the science of forgiveness?

44:40What actually happens to the mind, the heart, and the body when you forgive? What is that crossover of like, I have a grudge on myself or someone else, and then I choose in a moment, and it integrates in my body, and I forgive? It's a stressor. It's a stressor. When we think about stress and the stress response, we are conditioned to think about external stresses, but holding on to resentment is an internal stressor, right? So you're still activating your stress response by feeling it could have been different. They shouldn't have done that. That person has wronged me, right? When you change your relationship with that past event, which has happened, it's no longer happening right it happened in the past but by keeping it active within you it is causing you internal stress by you not being able to let go i passionately believe that the happiest people are those who can move on and let go now some people louis will say that some things are unforgivable and you may be better placed to answer this than me based upon your experience.

45:49But we both had a very powerful lady on our shows, Edith Eager. Yeah. Okay. I'm coming up to 500 episodes of my show. And people ask me, as they probably do to you, which is the most impactful episode, right? And I can't really answer that because it's like picking a favorite child. Like I've had so many that have had a profound impact on me. But if I had to choose, the one episode that rises to the top is the first conversation I had with Edith Eger. She's amazing. Yeah, because here's the situation. Let's relate this to forgiveness, right? Why did that? I literally was not the same person after that conversation as I was before.

46:29I remember afterwards I felt I've changed. I have changed in those two hours. And why was that? So for people who don't know who Edith is, let me just briefly summarize. When I spoke to her, she was 93 years old. When she was 16 years old, growing up in Eastern Europe, her family gets a knock on the door. That's a day where she's excited about going on a date that evening with her boyfriend. What dress am I going to wear tonight? They get a knock on the door, they're put on a train, and they go to Auschwitz concentration camp. Mm-hmm. Within two hours of getting to Auschwitz concentration camp, both of her parents are murdered.

47:10And I remember one of the first things Edith said to me was, I never forgot the last thing my mom said to me, which is, Edith, nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your life. Powerful. Right? And so the same day that her parents are murdered, she's a 16-year-old girl. They know that she's a dancer. She got asked to dance for the senior prison guards. And she said to me, Rangan, listen, when I was dancing in Auschwitz, I wasn't in Auschwitz. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful blue dress on. There was a full house. There was an orchestra playing.

47:53And I thought, wow, this is incredible, right? She's reframing her experience in. Wow. And then she said to me, Lewis, whilst I was in Auschwitz, I started to see the prisoners. Sorry, I started to see the prison guards as prisoners. They weren't free in their mind, right? I'm free in my mind. They're not living their life. And the final, she said so much to me, right? But the thing that she finished off with, which I think about on most days, she said, Rangan, listen, I've lived in Auschwitz and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind.

48:39Now, when she can say that, having lived through, that inspires me. If I'm ever struggling with something in my life, I go, hey, Rangan, you know what? Edith could reframe events in Auschwitz. I think you can reframe events here. Yeah, yeah. And actually, I think I asked her, or I've heard her say this, is it possible to forgive Hitler? And I think she's forgiven Hitler. Because I think this is where the misunderstanding with forgiveness really triggers people. She's not saying what he did was right in any shape or form. She's simply saying, I'm no longer going to allow what he did to affect me.

49:21Yes. And it's a big difference. Yeah. I know it can feel hard. I have my own way of dealing with forgiveness, which I'll share. But can I just tell you one more case that I wrote about? Because I think it really speaks powerfully to this. And I think you'll be interested, Lewis. I can't remember which chapter I start with this story. But this is one of the saddest cases in my career for me, personally, again, it was a lady, I think late 40s or early 50s, who lived a really healthy lifestyle. She was careful with her diet. She moved her body regularly. She went to sleep on time every night. She had the good lifestyle.

50:04She had no genetic history of cancer in her family, to my knowledge. She got diagnosed with ovarian cancer in her late 40s. which is really serious. And she died sometime afterwards, okay? I remember, because I'd been seeing her for years, I can remember this so well.

50:31When she was, I think, 20 years old, she was in a new marriage. They had a young baby and her husband cheating on her. And they ended up getting divorced. she could never move on from that right she couldn't talk about it her family and friends knew that you can't bring up his name and it'll affect her so much yeah so this is like 25 years on she's still holding on to what happened when she was 20 now listen i have compassion for that i understand that must be awful but what i tried to help her with for a few years i tried to say hey listen this is before the diagnosis she was my patient for a while i was like listen i don't think this is helping you like i understand that happens but i don't think this is helping you at some point i think this will like have an impact on your health now look i can't say for sure that her holding on to that contributed to her cancer i can't say that i can't say that that I would be going one step too far.

51:36But what can I say? If you look at the scientific research, there is ample research showing us that people who struggle to forgive and let go, people who hold on to resentment, have an increased risk of things like autoimmune disease and cancer, right? That is there in the research. There's multiple research papers showing this. Gavill Latte talks about this. He's detailed all the research in his book, The Myth and Normal. Now, let me be really clear, Lewis, of what I'm saying, I'm not putting blame on anyone. Like, I don't blame people, Lewis. My goal is to come from my heart and to help people.

52:13The reason I share this information, even though I know people will be pushing back and saying, what are you saying? That she did it to herself. No, I'm not saying that. If we don't understand, Lewis, the role that our emotions play in our health, we're not motivated to do anything about it, right? It's easy to go, no, I'll just keep eating an organic whole food diet. I'll be going to the gym. I have seven hours of sleep a night and my life will be good. I'm like, hey, listen, I'm all for eating well, moving well, sleeping well. I'm all for that. That is very, very important. But don't neglect your inner emotional world.

52:52Right. Right. That can play a role. And so for that lady to be really clear, I cannot say that her resentment and her inability to move on caused her cancer. I can't say that. But listen, cancer, like all chronic diseases, is multifactorial. There's never just one thing. There's genetics, there's your environmental exposures, there's pollution, there's your social status, there's food, there's movement, there's sleep, there's stress, but there's also your emotions. So I think we can say, based upon the research and what clinicians like me have seen, you see certain patterns when you've been practicing for enough years.

53:35And I have seen this pattern before in certain chronic conditions. And so I honestly, I share that because I want to help people. I'm simply saying, if you're holding onto resentment, at some point when you're ready, yeah, feel the resentment, feel the anger, feel the frustration, but don't stay there. If you need help, get help. If you can access a therapist to help you, get a therapist. But if you can't, there is still plenty that you can do. It sounds like you don't want to stuff the emotions, but you don't want to stay in the emotions. You got to learn to let it out in some healthy, cautious way, hopefully not hurting someone else in the process of your anger or resentment or frustration or whatever it might be.

54:21But you can't stay there also. So you can't spiritually bypass the emotion and just say, that didn't affect me. If it did, let it out and don't stay there. Don't keep reliving the trauma for years to come. I think one of the things we see these days, because there's a growing awareness now of our emotions, as many, you talk about it on your show all the time, there's many people talking about this in public. I think what's happened is that for some people, they go to oh I get it now this is why I'm the way I am this is because of my mom or my dad this is how I was brought up and they stay there and then they start to blame their parents and I think that's unhelpful maybe you have to go through that but you can't stay there at some point you have to come out the other side and go okay I've now learned why I have these triggers and reactions.

55:15Now let me move to the next part where I process them and move on. And I tell you, a very simple technique that's helped me, Larissa, I don't know if it will help others, but it certainly has helped me, is a few years ago, I chose to take on the belief. And again, I use those words carefully. I chose, I don't have to take on this belief, but I've chosen to take on this belief in life. I believe that every single person is doing the best that they can. based upon their experiences. And so let me just elaborate on that a little bit because it can be quite triggering for people that. I choose to believe that if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them.

55:57Why? Because if I was that person with their parents and the bullying they had as a child and the friends and the influences they had when they were growing up and the toxic boss they had when they were 17 or whatever it might be, if I had their life, I'd probably be thinking and acting in exactly the same way as them. Now, it doesn't mean I'm saying that what they're doing is right. I'm not saying that. But once you adopt that approach to life, like you can feel this inner calm, Lewis, because your initial way of interacting with life is with compassion. It's trying to understand why is this person behaving that way?

56:37Now, it doesn't mean it's easy. And it doesn't mean that what they're doing is not abhorrent or wrong. But I choose to take that approach to life. And it's really, really helped me because now my first instinct, if someone's attacking me online, if something's happening, if someone disagrees with me, my first instinct now, because I've trained it for years is, oh, I wonder why they think so differently to me. And you just don't generate all this internal stress that affects people in the first place. And once you start interacting with life like that, I think forgiveness becomes a lot easier it because then you're like oh if i was that person i'd be doing the same as them oh their dad cheated they grew up seeing that it doesn't make it right but i think it makes it easier and again do you know when i learned that the most right have you heard of john mcavoy i'm thinking john mcelroy the tennis player no no so john john mcavoy i i had a wonderful conversation with him on my podcast about five years ago, Lewis.

57:41You would love talking to him, I promise you. He used to be one of Britain's most wanted criminals. Wow. Right? So he was locked up in Europe's highest security prison with two life sentences, right? With all the terrorists, he was locked up there. And he got out. He got out. Wow. And he's like, he's one of the loveliest people I know, right? I would leave him alone with my children, right? I think he's the most wonderful person. But I spoke to him for two hours and he went through his life story with me. And he told me about his upbringing, that his dad wasn't around and that the only male figures in his life were armed robbers.

58:21And they came round, they had fancy clothes and they drove nice cars and they had a code of conduct. They treated women well. Like they had their own code of conduct. And I remember there was so much in that conversation because he's now a free man, inspiring kids all around the world to get into physical activity. It's an incredible story. But I remember when he left my house after recording on the podcast, my mind was blown. And I saw my wife in the kitchen. I said, babe, you know what? If I was John, if I had lived John's life, I think I'd be in jail right now. Like I genuinely thought if I had his childhood, I would be in prison.

59:03Or dead. Or dead. And it really helps me understand that, look, we all see the world differently. It's very easy to judge. And I get it. Some things are horrible and really traumatic. And you're going to probably need help to process that. But I'm saying there is a cost of not processing that. So let me go back to what you said about Dr. Armani, who I really admire and respect. Yeah, she's great. I don't have the experience that she has with narcissistic individuals. I don't. So she has every reason to believe what she believes. My belief, based on my 23 years of clinical experience, of what I've seen with patients, what I've seen in the research, and what I've experienced myself, is that if you can learn the art of letting go of the past and moving on, maybe you don't like the term forgiveness yes so i think that can be triggering for some people because they feel it's like i'm forgiving that person for what they did i don't mean we don't forgive it but let it go and move on let go and move on is how i describe it in in this book right yeah i think you do not realize the lightness in your being that exists on the other side i mean louis why don't you i mean if you don't mind like i'd love to know from you like you have acknowledged publicly on many occasions how you struggle with this for years, but you have moved through that.

1:00:26How's that been for you when you weren't able to forgive? And now, would you say that you can forgive now? Yeah. And I mean, the difference is freedom, it's peace. I think you're a prisoner of the past when you don't forgive. And there's a reward for that as well. Like you get to be righteous. You get to be justice. You get to be right and them wrong. You get to be, you get validation from people having sympathy for you and understanding and understanding how something is not okay. And that was horrible what that person did and all these different things. You get rewards, but I just feel like the reward of forgiveness and setting yourself free is far greater than any other reward you could get by holding your grudge.

1:01:11Exactly. And holding a grudge and being angry at someone or an event or the government or the world or the weather, whatever, for ruining something in your life or hurting something in your life or causing a disruption in your life. And however drastic or small it might be, holding a grudge onto that, that's a cost. There's a big cost. There's a big price you'll pay. There's a big price you'll pay. But you're validated in society for holding it. As you say, like if you hold on and you go, yeah they shouldn't have posted that post they're wrong your friends will often support you yeah they shouldn't have done it but what we don't and i used to be that person so i'm not judging i just know what it's like to not live like that anymore right chapter five in this book is called take less offense and i say many of us have an over reliance on being right and i make the case in that book if i talk about the george floyd death right that's how i opened that chapter And I kind of explain how it affected me and then what I chose to share on social media and how I got attacked for it.

1:02:16Because if you remember when the George Floyd death made headline news around the world, it was during COVID. We were in lockdowns. I was in the UK. We were in a lockdown. And this event happened. Horrible event. Tragic event, just to be really clear. And it brought up all kinds of feelings for me. Now, I'm a Brit, right? I was born and brought up in the UK. I've got Indian immigrant parents. I'm not American, right? I haven't lived in America and know the history of this country, right? So I understand that, right? I have to say this is, I'm just watching it from the outside. But nonetheless, whatever the narrative was at the time brought up things for me.

1:03:00And I wanted to share my view on social media, right? Like you, I have a large platform. And I felt like I wanted to contribute to this public voice. I don't always comment on public things. In fact, it's quite rare for me, but I felt like I wanted to. I thought about some of the things that my family had experienced when they came to the UK. And I also thought about something my wife told me when she was a little girl and living in the north of England. She can still remember one afternoon when a local nationalist party threw a brick through their window and told them to get out. And she was just watching TV, I think, and suddenly a brick smashes the window and comes in.

1:03:37That is traumatic. That is really scary. So two or three days after George Floyd's death, I shared a well-thought-out post on Instagram. I explained my perspective, and I also shared the impact that racism can have and some of the things that came up for me. And I shared that example of what happened to my wife.

1:04:03And there was a small section who started to take offense at what I said and were attacking me and saying, you shouldn't be commenting. saying this is not your place, this is a black issue, this is not an Asian issue. And initially I was like, oh, have I done something wrong here? Like I was trying to put out a really careful, kind, considered post to try and contribute to this big public conversation. Initially, I thought I did something wrong. And then I meditated on it, Lewis. I thought about it and I thought, wait a minute, I've not signed up to any code of conduct that determines how I can or cannot react to the death of an individual 3 ,000 miles away.

1:04:40I'm perfectly entitled to share my truth the way I see it. And I kind of feel that many of us these days are walking around taking offense to everything. And it comes at a cost, right? Because people need to understand, as I've learned to understand over the last few years, is that nothing is inherently offensive. something happens someone shares something if something was inherently offensive every single person would get offended the fact that every single person is not getting offended means it's not that thing that is offensive it's something within you that's being activated by that external event and once you understand that because i think most of the world don't understand that They think an event happens, I have every right to take offense to that.

1:05:32Now, people have got every right to do whatever they want. I'm not trying to change what people do. People can decide what they do. I'm trying to make the case in that chat so that there is an impact. If you are someone who feels that you're wronged in your life everywhere and everything's against you and everything's offensive, you've got to understand that that is coming at a cost to you. You are generating emotional stress in your body that is not neutral. Maybe the reason you can't make change that lasts in your life, right? It's because you're walking around getting offended at everyone. And if you really think about it, we're living in a world of 8 billion people, Lewis.

1:06:168 billion people are not going to share the same view as you. And to think that they will is almost a little bit arrogant. the question is why do you need people to share the same view as you like one thing that's been transformative in my marriage lewis is when i let go of the need to be right i'm like i don't need to be right i don't need to win this argument with my wife for a while she's got her view i've got my view it's cool yeah is it better to be right or be happy exactly well i i i would say one of the most important things you can do in life for your inner well-being, which will impact your physical well-being.

1:06:55And that's the thing that's interesting. That's why as a doctor, I wrote this book because this inner world impacts our physical health. And I still don't think we realize it enough, but there was a cost. There's a cost to thinking the world is against you. And that, you know, you can choose to not take offense. You can choose to look at, let's take social media is a prime example. Someone posts something that you don't like and you don't agree with. You could take a pause there and instead of criticizing or reacting straight away and going, that person has no right and you're entitled to do that, but it has a cost, you can train yourself to go, oh, why does that person have such a different worldview to me?

1:07:41What has gone on in their life that has led to them having that? What might I be able to understand here? And I call it in that chatter, adopting a learner mindset, right? In every situation in life, what can I learn here? Yes. Not how can I be right and prove my point? What can I learn here? I've applied that on my own life. Like, as you know, the cost of having a public profile these days is you have a lot of opinions about your ability and whether you're a great podcast host or a rubbish podcast host or a, do you know what I mean? We have opinions about us because of the way the world is these days.

1:08:16And I think learning how to deal with criticism, again, is one of the most important things we can do. Like I used to really struggle with criticism. Like I'd want to push it away. Now I don't, Lewis. Now I've learned to create that gap between stimulus and response. And anyone can learn to do that. You just need to practice. It's a skill that you can get better at. So if someone is criticizing me now, I go through, well, I do a couple of things. If I'm feeling triggered, I know myself well enough now to go, ah, wrong, and this is not the time. Okay? You need to ground yourself, calm down before you start thinking about this.

1:08:57Because at the moment, you're stressed out when you're emotional. And that's very rare these days, but that would happen in the past. and when i'm calm i go wow is there any truth here and sometimes i'll be like that's interesting yeah maybe i could have praised my post differently maybe i can learn something and next time i post about this topic i can improve yeah it's really freeing then you're learning and if i think that there's no truth to that then i'm like oh actually it looks as though that guy's having a bad day and they're taking out their bad day on me. And then I open my heart and I go, wow, that can't be a nice feeling for that person.

1:09:35They're taking out their inner pain on me. I'm okay with that. They don't know me and I'm okay with that. Do you know what I mean? And it's why I'm so passionate, Lewis, about this because I didn't used to be like this. I didn't. And then when I didn't, I found making change that lasts difficult because it's in conflict with who I was. But when you can cultivate this inner calm, and everyone can, your relationships will be better. Your contentment will be better. You'll feel happier. And I'm telling you, having been a doctor for 23 years, your health will be better as well. It sounds to me like a lot of these habits you're talking about, when people can implement them, they will have less stress in their life.

1:10:26And what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong, is that chronic stress is related to 70, 80 % of most disease. Is that accurate? Let me phrase it slightly differently. 80 to 90 % of what we see as doctors is in some way related to stress. It doesn't mean it's the only cause, but stress is playing a role. And so if that's the case, if we can learn to navigate stress with more ease and not let it consume us chronically, maybe it's going to come, but then only a little bit a day, not every minute of the day for years. What are the top ways then to eliminate chronic stress so that it doesn't consume us and make us sick?

1:11:16Yeah. So there's multiple ways that you can tackle stress, right? Because there are external stresses and internal stresses. So let's just break it down systematically for people so they can actually take action after this episode, right? And actually start to make changes. So, okay, let's take an example that I've seen patients talk to me about for years, okay? And maybe you can relate to this. They've been good, in inverted commas, with their behaviors all day, and they're eating well, and they're resisting temptation for the sweets and whatever it might be. But at 8.30 p.m. on their sofa, they're watching TV, and they feel like having ice cream.

1:11:58Can you relate to that? Sure. Yeah, it's very, very common. And people would say, Rangan, like, I don't get it. Like, I know sugar's bad for me, or this amount of sugar that I'm eating, too much is not helping me, but I can't stop eating ice cream in the evenings. So I created this little exercise called the three Fs, which I would use with patients that I write about to help people understand their relationship with stress and with sugar. Okay. So the first F is feel, right? So, and Lewis, you can maybe try this in your own life, but next time you find yourself in the evening on the sofa craving ice cream, I want you to have a pause.

1:12:45Before you get the ice cream, just have a pause. I go, what am I feeling here? Is this really physical hunger or is this emotional hunger? Right? It's a very simple question, but often we don't take that pause. Feels like physical hunger. Okay, fine. So let's say it's physical hunger. But it's a, yeah, it's not though. But it might be, it might be, and you might want it and there's nothing wrong with it now and again, right? So it's not, body's craving sugar. Yeah. But the more you ask yourself these questions, the more you start to trust yourself, right? So the first F is feel. What am I feeling?

1:13:19I actually, I don't know. I had a really big dinner. I'm not that hungry, but I just had a row with my partner or I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't seen anyone or been out for a walk. This is a treat to myself because all day I'll be doing things for other people. Okay. Then go ahead and eat it, right? Go ahead and eat it. Next time it happens, do the first F and then go to the second F. So the first F is feel. What am my feeling? The second F is how does food feed the feeling? The second F is feed. Okay. So you've identified, let's say you've identified that you're stressed. You've had a ride with your partner, you're stressed.

1:13:55And you've identified that when I feel stressed, ice cream makes me feel better because it does, at least in the short term. Temporarily, yeah. Right. Then you go, and so you're drawing that connection. Oh, wow. I'm having ice cream because I go to it when I'm feeling this stress. Okay, great. Now you have a degree of self-awareness that you may not have had before. And even simply having that awareness changes your relationship with that event. There's good research on this, but it really does. Even being aware of what's driving your behavior changes your relationship with that trigger, right?

1:14:35And then the third F, which you can do the next time, is find. Okay, now that I know what I'm feeling, the first F, right? Now that I know how food feeds that feeling, the second F, now the third F is find. Can I find an alternative behavior to feed that feeling? Okay, so, oh, I'm feeling stressed because I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't had any time to myself and ice cream is going to make me feel better okay what else could i do oh well i love yoga i could do 10 minutes of yoga or i could go and run a bath yeah and i could i could soak in a bath with a candle on for 15 minutes so you're still dealing with that feeling but maybe in a more helpful way and you can apply that 3f exercise to most things in life alcohol too much time on social media whatever it is it's a very simple exercise.

1:15:31You know, my whole thing is I love to talk about the big ideas, but then I want to make it really practical for people so that they can actually apply that. So I think for many people, they're going to go, that's quite a useful exercise for me, right? So that's one way that we can think about stress. I could talk to you about all kinds of stress reduction practices like yoga, like journaling, I think breathwork is one of the best, right? We overuse the word hack, I think, these days, but breathing and changing the way we breathe, I think, really does qualify as a hack. So a lot of people don't realize that the way they breathe is information for their body, okay?

1:16:14So I don't know if you saw this study, Lewis, or not, but It was from UCLA, actually, that 80 % of office workers change the way that they breathe when looking at email. But they don't know they're doing it. So here's the thing, right? You're engaging a task. Maybe there's loads of emails and you're on deadlines and you're rushing through them and you're focused. The way you breathe will often start to change. So what will happen? You'll breathe a little bit faster. You'll breathe more from your chest than your diaphragm and your breathing will be a bit more shallow Okay, so what does that do?

1:16:52That sends a signal to your brain that there's danger around me It always comes back to the stress response, right? Your breathing signals is telling your brain There's danger and then that encourages you to stay breathing in that way So you're literally sending stress signals back to your body from your brain because your brain thinks you're in danger so if you can then be aware of that and consciously change the way that you breathe and there's all kinds of techniques one of my favorites is what i call the three four five breath when you breathe in for three you hold for four and you breathe out for five okay very simple breath that i've been teaching my patients for years and essentially anytime your out breath is longer than your in breath you help to switch off the stress part of your nervous system and you activate the relaxation parking nervous system, right?

1:17:44Very simple. One, three, four, five breath will take you 12 seconds. Five of them will take you a minute and you will literally change your state because if you slow your breathing down, you then send calm signals up to your brain and then they send calm signals back to your body. So I have a, you know, first thing I do each morning is a bit of meditation and breath work before I actually have my coffee. That's the first thing I do. and I do it as preemptive, right? So I do it to ground me in the morning, but I also learn about the breath so that if I get stressed in the day, I can just take a step back and do like two or three minutes of three, four, five breathing and it really helps me.

1:18:23So it's one of many techniques that can help manage stress. Another one that people don't talk about enough that I've written about is touch. like consensual affectionate touch is one of the best ways to lower your stress yeah right so we've got in our skin something called ct afferent nerve fibers it's so interesting nerve fibers nerve fibers and these nerve fibers are optimally stimulated check this out at three to five centimeters per second right okay so that's a stroking rate of three to five centimeters per second. Now, here's the thing. No one's measuring their stroking rate, but this is how humans naturally stroke, right?

1:19:08So a mother stroking her baby will stroke at that rate. We're doing that. Yeah. And there's some research from the University of Liverpool that I've interviewed this professor on my show, Professor Francis McGlone. He has shown that when we stimulate those CT afro nerve fibers with this kind of light affectionate stroking it sends a signal to the deepest most primitive part of our brain and levels of the stress hormone cortisol go down wow right so you can do this yourself you can do this yourself but it's better if someone it's better with a partner it can be done with a pet right as well like so some people like taking your cat's paw and i rub it on you or just no but you get like there's benefits both ways like even if you stroke someone else you also get benefits and what's really interesting if you dive into that research i was gonna say i was gonna get my cat tonight and just to stroke you but yeah but look i'd never had pets ah yeah but people who do have pets oh it is so it's calming no it's calming when my cat i was making the joke of like taking my cat's paw and rubbing it on my skin as if she was petting me and the cat but that but actually when my cat lays on my chest and she purrs, it's so calming for my nervous system.

1:20:22It's just like, and she just kind of smiles at you a little bit and just rubbing her and almost giving her peace. She's purring into you. I don't know. It's just like a very calming. It's almost meditative when you're stroking someone, you know, on their, on their arm or you're engaging in that with a pet, it's like very calming. Yeah. And, and, and what's really interesting is that the research on these nerve fibers show that not only do we have them here on our forearms, right, in our arms, where we can stroke, you know, someone else like our partner or our child or whoever it might be, we also have a high concentration on our upper back.

1:21:01This is fascinating, Lewis, because why would there be a high concentration on our upper back? Like, it's not as if we're going to like stroke ourselves on our upper back. And these scientists think it just shows us how dependent as humans we are on other people. They're there to receive love and affection from others. Wow. Right. Which is really interesting when you think about it, like how we're made. Why would evolution put these nerve fibers there? Well, also probably like primitively, if you're hugging someone, maybe you're grabbing the back of their shoulders and you're like, we've generated that over time.

1:21:35Yeah. So we don't know any of these things for sure. We have to speculate, but it's really interesting. So you mentioned to me, you know, how can you manage stress? And there's a million in different ways. Okay. I mentioned two things, breathwork, which people have heard about. I think affectionate touch people haven't heard about so much, but that is still what I would call dealing with the external stressor. Still got to go inside. I think the best way is, this is what I've done, Lewis, right? I started this practice a few years ago. I would do it in the evening. If I ever get triggered, emotionally triggered, like something's happened and I'm feeling bothered.

1:22:19And I couldn't do it in the moment back then, right? I wasn't... Emotionally evolved. Emotionally evolved enough, emotionally literate enough to do it in the moment. I can do it in the moment now. I couldn't back then, but it's a skill that you can get better at if you practice. and this skill is free, right? You don't have to buy anything. You can just make a commitment to yourself that you are sick of being triggered by everything and you want to understand what is going on inside you that is driving these things. It will change your life once you start addressing these internal triggers. I'm telling you with 100 % certainty.

1:22:53Yes, you might need a therapist to help you, but even if you can't access a therapist because of availability or cost, you can still do so much that will help you, right? So what I would do is in the evening, usually in a journal, I'd go, when was I triggered today? Ah, okay, that happened. That comment or the driver on the way to work. And then I'd go, why did that trigger you? What was it bringing up inside of you? And over time, you learn so much about yourself, Lewis. You learn, oh, that was to do with my upbringing. Or, oh, that triggered me because, I don't know. like I have a belief that all drivers should stay in their lane and not come out and cut people up or whatever it might be.

1:23:38Like you start to learn about yourself or, you know, I write about, this is, this is like, I don't think I've shared this before. I, I, I use an example in one of the chapters in the book about, um, criticism and how in my family growing up, like an Indian family, people can be quite direct. So I remember when I went to university in Edinburgh. So I grew up in the Northwest of England. I went to university. And I'd probably been enjoying a bit too much of the good life. You know, away from home, drinking, eating late night kebabs, partying, whatever it might be. And I came home either a weekend or for the holidays.

1:24:25And my mom once said to me, like, what are you doing? Like, you're fat now. What have you been doing? now i want to be really clear here because that can be a very triggering statement for people in my family the way i was brought up my mom said that from a place of love like i know that i know that's not the case in every family i know that but in my family it's there's this great book by this belgian psychologist called batch and mosquito called between us and she talks about I cultures and we cultures and you know very broadly speaking you can you could say west and east like the more individualistic cultures like let's say America or the UK are more me cultures and I cultures whereas Asian cultures are a bit more sort of we orientated right so how I am is a reflection of the entire family which has pros and cons yeah yeah that's pros on to both.

1:25:26Nothing's like all good or all bad. There's benefits and there's downsides. And the truth is, I had put a bit of weight on, right? So my mum saying that to me, because I knew her, and because she very rarely said that to me, I was like, oh, I need to take some action here. Yeah. Right? Now, here's the thing. I also know that in some families, that can be an abusive thing, or a husband could say that to their wife in an abusive way. So I'm not saying that that holds true for everyone but the point i'm trying to make is and this actually did happen to me a few years ago someone criticized my weight on social media i've never shared that before like it's someone quite prominent started to use a video of me and said look at his nose look at his shut up really yeah i'm not kidding you oh man now but here's the thing lewis and kind of posted it online and say look at him he's getting bigger yeah he was trying to look the thing is he wasn't having a go at me he was trying to illustrate a point and he said there's this prominent doctor in the uk look at his images three years ago oh man yeah oh man or you can go wait a minute thank you for the feedback i didn't i didn't get involved i only knew about it because some of my followers said hey have you seen this but more internally thank you for the feedback and maybe i do need to look at some of this an older version of me yeah which would have been a victim to the world might have got really triggered and initially i was like oh this is weird and then I calmed down and I was like, does he have a point?

1:26:55Yeah, I could see what he's saying actually. I could see what he's saying, right? And I know to some people, they will get caught up in an argument that that person has no right to say anything about another person's appearance. And I'm not disputing that that is, you know, it may well be a more polite thing to not do that. But I believe that you can get to a state where you don't take things personally. And so for me, I was looking at it going, does he have a point? I can kind of see what he's saying a little bit, you know? And the truth is, I was really stressed at the time. You know, my dad, no, my mom was really sick.

1:27:32And so when you're stressed, you're not sleeping well, you're not eating as well. And whatever the reason is, right? But I was like, hey, yeah, maybe I can just pay a bit more attention. what I'm saying is that a more victim approach to life is look I appreciate this is a punchy example that not everyone's going to agree with me on but it's very easy to get caught up in the narrative that person has no right to talk about me in that way and then get your friends around yeah that guy's an idiot he shouldn't be talking about you and of course I don't think it's the best thing to be talking about other people's appearance or wait on one I certainly wouldn't do it.

1:28:09I don't think it's how I want to interact with the world. But for me, I was like, don't start telling you these disempowering stories. It doesn't matter. It's one person's opinion. Is there any truth there? Can I learn from something? Can I not? I honestly believe, Lewis, that the reason most people can't make change that lasts, going back to the title of the book, is because we haven't addressed some of these internal drivers. My third book was on habit formation and I went through the rules of habit formation and I still stand by that. There are certain things that you can do that make it more likely those habits will stick, but I still believe that that's superficial.

1:28:49Because when you get to a point where you've created and cultivated an inner calm, you naturally make better choices. Does that make sense? 100%. 100%. And that's a lot of things you talk about in the book, make change that lasts nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back and there's a lot more in here that I want people to dive into um so we'll leave people with that right now if they can go get the book but a lot of big praise from some amazing people so make sure you guys pick up a copy beautiful images in here as well which is works for my uh my brain to be able to see the images and relate it to the habits so I really love that um this has been powerful, Rangan.

1:29:30I appreciate you for being here. And I want to acknowledge you for having the courage to follow your path and your truth. And I wouldn't say leave behind, but upgrade where you're at from being in the medical world for 23 years. And you just said you recently stopped practicing in that discipline. What's the main reason behind that? The main reason why I have stop practicing, and I don't know how long it will be for, is because I want to live the life that I try and promote, right? I like to walk the walk. And so there's a chapter in Make Change at Last, I think it's chapter seven, which is about busyness and this idea that busyness is not success.

1:30:16And I make the case that the reason why so many of us are overly busy in society. It's because we want to feel valued. We want to feel important. We used to get that value from our tribes, but many of us now are living these quite disconnected lives. And so we want to feel, it's a human need to feel that we're of value. So often we'll do that through our work at the expense of other things in our life. So why have I, maybe temporarily, maybe for good, I don't know yet. Why have I stopped practicing? Well, a couple of reasons. One is I feel that over 23 years, I've seen tens of thousands of patients having shared what I've learned on TV shows, in my now sixth book, on my podcast.

1:31:08I have created a course with the Royal College of GPs called Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine. We've trained over 4 ,000 healthcare professionals around the world now in the principles that I talk about in my books. And so we're having a huge impact on the way medical physicians are now practicing. We've had cardiologists, psychiatrists, pharmacists, nurses, physios from all over the world train on this course that I co-created and are using those tools to help people. And I can't do everything. I can't see patients, write books, record an episode of my weekly podcast, attend to my relationship with my wife, have a great relationship with my children.

1:31:52I also look after my elderly mom. My mom's done me well for a few years. I live five minutes away. I'm heavily involved with her care. And I don't want to be overly busy. And I've been thinking about it for two or three years, but you know why I didn't do it earlier, Lewis? Because it was a fear of what people might think. Are you a real doctor? And then I thought that's that whole external validation piece. Like I don't have to do things that other people want me to do. I've developed it myself. That's correct. I'm totally a real doctor. I've got decades of experience. I'm now a professor at Chester Medical School of Health Communication Education.

1:32:32I'm helping medical students there learn these principles. I feel I moved into this phase of my career now where I want to share and teach people what I have learned to help them practice. So many doctors, So many junior doctors say, can you teach me? Can you teach me? We don't learn this stuff, but you seem to have this unique insight into human health. And I wouldn't say I've got a unique insight, but I do see the human body a certain way. And I kind of feel I've had some pretty awesome results with patients over the years with some quite what would be called untreatable conditions because I really try and get to the root cause.

1:33:11And so I want to teach now. I want to share the knowledge that I've learned with people and I don't want to be burnt out. Yeah. And so I decided, okay, what would my life feel like if I don't practice for a little while? And I miss it because my favorite thing was seeing patients. But like you, Lewis, you know, I speak to a large volume of people each week on my podcast, right? And I do my podcast my way, right? I spend a day, a day and a half preparing for each guest because I like doing that. I do a deep dive and then I go along with these guests. And I am inundated with DMs on a daily basis.

1:33:55People saying, oh, that episode or your third book helped me cure my depression. You've helped me with my anxiety. You've helped my mother put her type 2 diabetes into remission. I've now got rid of my fibromyalgia pains which I've had to take, whatever it might be, I get this every single day. And I have such gratitude that I do a job that helps people. And I've realized that if 80 to 90 % of what we see is driven by our collective modern lifestyles, I can have more impact teaching people about how to change their lifestyles through these mediums. And here's the funny thing, Lewis, in the UK, there's probably a few thousand doctors at least that I know about who prescribe my podcast to their patient or elsewhere right so they they have a 10-minute consultation with a patient and they might suggest a few things say hey listen if you're interested in this why don't you listen to episode 420 of Dr.

1:34:52Jassy's podcast and then in four weeks when you come back we'll discuss it and how it applies for you so I feel I'm doing a public service I feel I'm being a doctor through my books, through my podcast, through my newsletter, whatever it might be, I'm helping people improve their lives with their health problems. But after 23 years, I've realized I don't necessarily need to do that one-on-one with my patients. 100%. Yeah, 100%. I remember I had Ali Abdaal on a number of years ago, and he was holding on to like, I'm still doing, I don't know, 10 hours a month of, you know, medical practice, because I'm afraid if I let it go fully, people won't take me seriously as a YouTuber and as an author and things like that.

1:35:40And I really just kind of challenged him on that. And I go, what would it look like? And he eventually on his own decided to leave the practice and not be practicing medicine, I guess, or not have any patients. And he realized it was just a fear, like he was able to grow even more. He was able to do more of the things that he wanted to and not hold on to something that he once wanted to, but no longer wanted to anymore. But I still, and that's powerful. And I know Ali's story. I'm still a doctor. I'm still a GMC registered doctor. I'm a professor at Chester Medical School. I've just decided at this stage in my life.

1:36:17And there's other factors that influence this. You know, I, you know, and I share a lot of this in the book about, it's a very personal book. I've opened up and shared things that a few years ago, I would have been too nervous to share it publicly, right? About how I make certain decisions, certain mistakes I might have made in my life. But I've been very influenced by thinking about the regrets of the dying. You know, the book by Bronnie Ware, The Five Regrets of the Dying? Yeah, me too, right? Yeah, she's great. She's great. And for people who don't know, Bronnie was a palliative care nurse for a few years.

1:36:51And she noticed that these guys, at the end of their life, they all said the same things. And they said things like, I wish I'd worked less. I wish I spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. These things are really powerful because I hear that and I go, I don't want to wait till my deathbed to learn those truths. I want to learn those truths now and apply them in my life so that I don't have those deathbed regrets. And do you mind if I share a little quick exercise that I think will really help people with this?

1:37:34Would that be okay? Sure. It's called Write Your Own Happy Ending. And it's an exercise that I write about because I always try and make these things really practical for people. And it's in two parts. The first part is, and you can try now, Luz, if you want, We can maybe try it on you if you're game. Fast forward now to the end of your life. Imagine you're on your deathbeds, right? This is the last day. And now on your deathbed, you're looking back on your life. What are three things you will want to have done with your life? For me personally, raise a beautiful family. Stay healthy and strong all the way to the end.

1:38:18and pursue every dream in my heart that I feel I was meant to pursue. Yeah, I love that. Beautiful references, right? Okay, so that's the first part. And if people are struggling, you don't have to get this perfect. You can keep reiterating on this. So you write down on your deathbed, this is what I ideally want to have looked back and reflected on. Okay, now you zoom back into the present and go, okay, what are three weekly happiness habits that I can implement in my life that guarantee I'm going to get the happy ending that I just wrote down I wanted? And so for me, for example, when I last did this exercise, on my deathbed, I'm looking back, I'm thinking, okay, I will want to have spent quality time with my friends and family.

1:39:06I will want to have spent I will want to have had time To pursue my passions Like what's in my heart And the third thing is I will want to have done things That contribute to the well-being of other people Right, that's my deathbed answer That's the happy ending I want So now I come back to the present And I go, well what are three weekly happiness habits And I literally have them written down on my fridge Lewis, okay And I'll tell you what I have written down I want five meals a week with my wife and kids where I'm fully present and not distracted by work. That's great. Right. It doesn't mean that's the right answer for anyone else.

1:39:43But for me, in the context of my life, that helps me know that I'm prioritizing my family. Right. So I write that down. The second thing I have on my happiness habit list is if I've had time to go for a long run or I've had time to play my guitar and write a song or sing. I know I've had time to pursue my passions and then the third thing is if I release a weekly episode of my podcast which I'll be doing for seven years then I know at the end of my life I'll have contributed to the well-being of others it's a very very simple exercise Lewis but if you've never done it it's extremely powerful because it brings into sharp focus what is truly important in life yes and we're all living these busy lives where we've got lots of things competing for our attention.

1:40:30Too many people wait for all their to-do lists to be done before they focus on the important things in life. And I'm saying that will never happen. If you're waiting for your to-do list to be done before you do the important things in life, you're going to be one of those people on your deathbed with those regrets. So that exercise helps me go, actually, my family are the most important thing to me. How can I make sure I had time for my family each week? How can I make sure I had time for my passion? And listen, it doesn't mean that every week's perfect, Lewis. One week, I might only do three meals, but I don't go down the guilt and shame route anymore.

1:41:07I go, ah, that's interesting. That's three. If that continues, you're going to start fracturing those relationships. So next week I might be fed up to six or seven. And it's just a very simple way that helps you refocus on what's important in life. Yeah, that's beautiful, man. We all need those exercises to start practicing for sure. And I think life goes by very quickly. I'm 41, but it's like when I think back in the last five years, it was like a snap. You were here essentially five years ago in LA. That is not... Yeah, yeah. March 2020, right? Almost five years ago. Yeah. It's like a snap. Yeah.

1:41:47is gone. And, you know, in five years, hopefully we see each other before then, but in five years, it's going to go like this. And we want to be able to look back and say, was I doing those main core things on a consistent basis that give me closer to an end of life, peace, gratitude for how I showed up that I lived that life that I wanted. And I think it's a great time that you're sharing this where this will be out at the at the new year season for people to have that reflection am i taking those weekly actions that are getting me closer to the life i want to live now and something that i will be happy that i did in the future as well yeah and that exercise right that exercise if people do that at new year i promise you that the way you interact with your life will start to change your behaviors will naturally start to get better if you think that this new year, somehow miraculously, your life is going to be different from every other new year because you want it more this year.

1:42:52No, it isn't. The reason in my view that most New Year's resolutions fail, Lewis, is because they come from an energy of lack rather than an energy of fullness. It's the energy behind the behavior that's most important. If you feel bad in your life and you're full of guilt and shame and you're trying to overcome that with your willpower and your motivation, I'm telling you, because I've had it before and I've seen it in thousands of patients, those changes will not be long lasting. That guilt and shame will drag you back. But once you do these exercises and the exercises that are in Make Change at Last, and they're all simple, free exercises, right?

1:43:32You don't have to buy stuff. Once you have the book, you don't have to buy stuff. I really feel strongly about that because I've worked, Lewis, in practices where there've been some really deprived communities I've worked with. Like I was once in a practice in Oldham in the north of Manchester for seven years. These guys had hard lives, a lot of immigrants, a lot of single parents, a lot of struggle. And I believe that each and every single one of us has the right to good quality health information. And honestly, like people say that wellness is for the wealthy and the affluent and the middle class, I don't buy it.

1:44:07Like it really isn't. And I've always made it a priority throughout my career to try and make sure that the advice I'm giving works for everyone, including the people who are struggling the most in society. Like it really does make a difference. And I'm really proud that everything in this book is free. That's great, man. I love it. I want people to get the book, Make Change That Last. Make sure you get a copy. You get a copy for a friend. Powerful stuff here. And also you have an amazing podcast that people can subscribe to. We'll have that all linked up. But the main site is drchatterjee.com.

1:44:43Is that correct? Yeah. That's the main website. And then the main social channel for me is Instagram at drchatterjee. Dr. Chatterjee on Instagram, YouTube, the podcast, the book, everything is linked up at drchatterjee.com. Yeah. I can get everything. Exactly. Okay. Awesome. Final question for you. This has been powerful, and I appreciate being here. What's your definition of greatness? Greatness is when you're able to live your life with an open heart rather than a closed heart. Greatness is someone who aspires to live their life with an open heart rather than a closed heart. I really believe that everything in life either comes from love or it comes from fear.

1:45:26Everything, all of our behaviors, all our interactions. and once you tune into that and realize that actually oh you're feeling angry envious jealousy whatever it might be the root cause of that is fear whereas if the root cause becomes joy sorry if the root cause becomes love then there's empathy there's kindness there's compassion these are things that we can all cultivate so what i'm trying to do in my life to be a great human being to be a great dad and a great husband and hopefully a great human, it really is very simple. I'm trying to come at life with an open heart rather than a close one.

1:46:05All right, thanks for being here, man. Appreciate it. That's how I'm going to be, Lewis. I appreciate it, man. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up.

1:46:42Make sure you're following and stay tuned to the next episode on The School of Greatness. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.

1:47:21I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.