BITESIZE | The Small Daily Habits That Reduce Stress, Fix Your Focus and Build Resilience | Dr Tara Swart #633

We are living in the middle of a stress epidemic – the World Health Organization calls stress ‘the health epidemic of the twenty-first century’. Chronic stress can have a huge impact on physical and emotional health. In fact, 80-90% of what a doctor sees on any given day is somehow related to stress. But what can we do about it? Feel Better Live More Bitesize is my weekly podcast for your mind, body, and heart. Each week I’ll be featuring inspirational stories and practical tips from some of my former guests. Today’s clip is from episode 416 of the podcast with Dr Tara Swart – neuroscientist, former medical doctor & psychiatrist, lecturer at MIT, executive coach, and author of the best-selling book ‘The Source’. Many of us don’t realise the profound impact that chronic unmanaged stress can have on our physical health, even if we’re eating well and getting plenty of movement each day. In this clip, Tara shares some of the most effective ways to manage stress, and some of the simple practices she implements herself. Thanks to our sponsor ⁠⁠⁠https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/416 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 0:41Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 1:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. 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 416 of the podcast with neuroscientist, executive coach, and author Dr Tara Swart. In this clip Tara shares some of the most effective ways to manage stress and she shares some of the simple practices she implements herself.

• 2:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  I genuinely believe that a lot of us don't even realise how stressed we are.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 2:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  Many doctors, including myself, say that 80 to 90% of what we see in any given day is in some way related to stress, right?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  As a neuroscientist, I would say that's where the stress piece really lands for me. Because your brain's perception of what is going on is going to have this cascade effect on the rest of your body. So if you perceive, basically your brain perceives that there's a threat to your survival, then it's going to signal for your cortisol levels to rise, so your adrenal glands will release more cortisol. That goes around in the blood, it crosses the blood-brain barrier, and the receptors in the brain can see that you're on high alert all the time. And so that process is pro-inflammatory. So that has all sorts of knock-on effects on your cardiovascular system, your immunity,

• 2:59Speaker 01

  your gastrointestinal system. And it's very dehydrating, so that can show up on your skin and your hair, your scalp. And the other thing is that, as a very ancient survival mechanism, that encourages storage of fat in the abdominal fat cells. So basically, you would have very dry skin, frizzy hair, a bigger belly that you can't shift, sleep disturbance, probably some kind of digestive problems, and it's all, what's behind all of that is stress.

• 3:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. I've seen firsthand how many people this impacts. Physical health, mental health, emotional health, the whole shebang when we're chronically stressed. Stress's impact on our physical health, I think, is profound, and I don't think the public know enough about it. And frankly, I don't think our profession knows enough about it.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  No. Because it's behind whatever inflammatory marker you're seeing, it's almost like it's hidden. So even if we...

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Understand that a certain disease is kind of like underpinned by inflammation. We're still not necessarily taking that step back and saying, what are the stress factors in your life? We're much more likely as a profession of doctors to say, keep a food diary, you know, how much exercise do you do? How do you sleep? And keep focusing on those physical things. And I think, I think that's a problem, but I also think some of the things that we learnt during the pandemic, whether it was just the benefits of being in nature more, or whether it was understanding mental health better.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  I think is opening the door to the medical profession and, you know, and educating the population about stress and how big an impact it has on all of those other things. So you could take two people, let's say you and I, and we could have the same job like we've actually had in the NHS as junior doctors. And one of us could burn out and the other one doesn't. Why is that? So partly, there are things that you can do to build your mental resilience, to build your resilience to stress. So if you have those tools and practices, if you've been doing them for years or you, or you incorporate them now, that can help you to withstand stress. But the other thing is that there's clearly different thresholds for different people

• 5:27Speaker 01

  of what causes them to actually burn out. So, you know, let's say you get, someone gets divorced. Some, someone might find it a difficult experience, but, you know, get through it, move on, and somebody else might completely break down. So basically, two things. One is that we each have our own starting point or threshold. And two, we can do things to build that up. And I really found that actually in the pandemic, around the time that we last, you know, we spoke on the podcast, is that because I had been practising yoga and meditation and, you know, walking in nature and.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Bathing with salts and, you know, just all the thing journaling. Because I'd been doing those things for so long, I could really immediately draw on the help that I can get from those things.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  But, you know, a message that I kept putting out there is that even if you've never done these things before, if you start now, it will help you. So there's two main ways to offload stress from your system. One is physical exercise, which sweats out the cortisol from your body. And the other one is speaking out loud or possibly journaling as well. But I think speaking, you know, speaking with someone, because then you've got that sort of social connection piece. But instead of ruminating on your thoughts, if you actually get them out of your brain body system, that reduces your cortisol levels too.

• 7:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Look, the truth is, Tara, this is something I've realised is an issue in my own life over the last few years, because my best mates are still the mates I made at university.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  And they live hundreds of miles away from me. And so literally four weekends ago, we got together, went to Wales for a weekend.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 7:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it was a very different weekend from how we might have done it in our twenties. We went walking in the hills.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it was amazing. It was just three of us, actually. But I think we really opened up and shared things with each other that I don't think we, we have done in ages. And I think we all felt lighter when we left and, you know, drove home and returned home to our families.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  You know, being with people that you trust, that you've got such a long history with, that you can share things with, that maybe you find that some of the issues that you're facing in life, you're not alone in them. You know, there's just so much benefit from that.

• 8:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Are you open to sharing what you do on a daily basis to keep yourself in check with yourself?

• 8:06Speaker 01

  So as soon as I wake up in the morning, before I start to have, start to think things like, oh, what's the time and, you know, what do I have to do today? I immediately give gratitude for my pillowcase, my pillow, my mattress, my mattress topper and my bedding. So I, so I'm, I'm intentionally pushing myself towards that oxytocin state rather than the cortisol state. As soon as I'm aware that I become awake, I then do deep breathing whilst I'm still in bed. And I really feel into like all the directions that I'm breathing in and I just see like, is there any tension somewhere or?

• 8:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  So you're tuning into your body immediately?

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Immediately. Yeah.

• 8:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're not allowing yourself, I guess, often into the emails, the social media, the news where, you know, you suddenly, you've lost touch with your body and you write into your brain and your thoughts, right?

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I, I don't have my phone in my bedroom. So I, and it's several floors down. So it's quite a while till I can get to my phone.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  And yeah, I got, I got an old fashioned alarm clock because I just didn't want to like have to, you know, that's people's biggest excuse, isn't it? I use my phone as my alarm clock.

• 9:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  So gratitude.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Breathing.

• 9:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Breathing.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then?

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Then I get up and I, I take my probiotic first thing because I have to give a 10 minute gap before I can eat or drink anything. And then I will look at my phone.

• 9:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  But what I love about that is what you have just said you do as a neuroscientist, former doctor, coach, right? With all your knowledge and experience of helping people, you have built into your life.

• 9:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  A practice, dare I say, a ritual each morning whereby within minutes, it's not much, that gratitude is not much, that breathing is not much. And you know, 10, 15 minutes later, you're on your phone, right? That's very achievable for people.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And but I'll add that because I have that 10 minute gap until I can drink my cup of tea, that's why I look at my phone because I'm kind of waiting. But my making my cup of tea, whether it's regular tea or matcha tea, whether I'm using mushroom powders or not, that is a ritual for me. That is like a sacred moment, like the phone has is left behind. And I do that almost like a form of meditation.

• 10:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  I like, I like rituals.

• 10:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  What is a ritual?

• 10:41Speaker 01

  A ritual is something that you do intentionally. So it's not just a routine. It's something that you do regularly, but you do it very intentionally. And I, so I try to bring rituals into my life so that I've got, it's like a patchwork quilt. There's moments of mindfulness throughout my day. And that to me is one of them. And also then, when I drink the cup of tea, I savor it like so much like so that, you know, that's, okay, I've looked at my phone for a few minutes, but I've got another pause there. And, you know, then I'll go and get like ready for the day.

• 11:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. What it really speaks to to me is that you have spent time getting to know yourself.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So you know what works for you.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  We've been talking a lot about stress, right? And the damaging effects of too much stress. One of the antidotes is nature, right?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Nature is the palette that we have existed in since the beginning of time. And so we all feel a sense of beauty when we're in nature. And, you know, we know that when we're in nature, our blood pressure goes down, our heart rate goes down. There are certain trees that secrete chemicals called phytonsides that boost the natural killer cells in our immune system. So there's a lot of good stuff going on when we're in nature.

• 12:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  We all feel good when we're in the forest or in nature.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. Generally speaking, it's it's hard wide into us, isn't it?

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  For a number of reasons. The difficulty there, of course, is that the world is becoming more and more urbanised.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  So even just having more plants in your house is, you know, has the effect that I mentioned of the trees in the forest? Yeah, it is harder if you're living in an, you know, an urban environment, but there are amazing parks in most cities.

• 12:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  So trying to get to them, but even just, you know, noticing the trees that you can see in the skyline kind of thing, or a body of water.

• 12:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it makes a difference. I've I've seen research on fractals, which are these, of course, as you know, these geometric shapes that we only get in nature, that when a human eye sees a fractal, you lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 12:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. So I think that's one of the, one of the many reasons why nature is so powerful.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  We've covered a lot. To finish off, though, simple question. In all of your experience, doctor, neuroscientist, coach, lecturer, whatever it might be, what are some of the most impactful changes and lifestyle choices that people can bring into their lives that will improve the quality of them immediately?

• 13:30Speaker 01

  So the year that was a game changer for me was the year that I decided to add in two or three micro habits per quarter. So I started the year and I identified three things that I was going to do. And also knowing that some quarters, one of those was just going to fall by the wayside and not actually get incorporated. But what it meant was, because they were such easy things, that by the end of, you know, by the end of March, I was like, okay, like, what else can I do? So another three. And it meant that by the end of the year, I looked back and I had 10 things I was now doing without question that had not been habits the year before. So.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  I'm going to start with some really simple, basic ones because I think it's always worth repeating these. Things like drinking enough water. I mean, just going from being in a slightly dehydrated state to being in a properly hydrated state all the time will make you feel different. Getting enough sleep and going to bed and waking up at regular times has been shown to be really important. But then I'd like to slightly switch and say that the more recent research on the benefits to your mental health, your health and longevity of spending time in nature and having really positive, meaningful social connections and having a purpose that transcends yourself, these are the three

• 14:53Speaker 01

  things that I'm more focused on now, having kind of, you know, got the basics mostly right.

• 14:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  I love it. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my Bite-Sized Friday email. It'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 of 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.

• 15:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can sign up for it free of charge at drchattage.com/fridayfive. 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.