BITESIZE | Reduce Stress, Improve Your Sleep & Transform Your Life: 3 Questions To Ask Yourself Each Evening | Dr Rangan Chatterjee #492

Journalling regularly can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It has also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long term habits, improve the quality of our relationships and, ultimately, help us lead more mindful and intentional lives. 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 413 of the podcast which was a solo episode where I outlined the transformative power of journalling. In the full episode I shared how you can get started really easily by asking yourself 3 powerful questions in the morning and 3 in the evening. I’ve recommended a journalling practice to thousands of my patients over the years, but I’ve also seen the positive impact it has had on my own life as well. In this clip, I walk you through 3 questions that you can ask yourself each evening. They are deceptively simple and answering them will take less than 5 minutes, but doing so can prove transformative. Thanks to our sponsor https://www.drinkag1.com/livemore 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. If you want to take a look at ‘The 3 Question Journal’ go to https://drchatterjee.com/journal Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/413 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 413 of the podcast, which was a solo episode where I outlined the transformative power of journaling. In the full episode, I shared how you can get started really easily by asking yourself three powerful questions in the morning and three in the evening. As you may know, I've been recommending journaling to many of my patients over the years, but

• 2:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  have also experienced the positive impact it has had on my own life as well. So in this clip, I walk you through three questions that you can ask yourself every evening. They are decidedly simple and answering them will take you less than five minutes, but doing so can prove transformative.

• 2:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  So many people struggle with their sleep. The practice of journaling is one of the most effective practices at changing this. There was a paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, which found that journaling before bed decreased cognitive stimulus, rumination and worry, allowing you to fall asleep faster. There's a lot of science behind the benefits of journaling. Okay, there was a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, which found that participants who journaled at the end of each day had a 25% increase in performance compared to the control group who didn't journal.

• 3:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  The researchers concluded, "Our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning." I think that's key. When we reflect, when we're continually reflecting and assessing how our day went and how we want things to change, we start to learn, we start to deeply learn things about ourselves. Just like an athlete who's got a coach who watches them perform and says, "You know what? That was good. That wasn't so good. Next time, improve this." That's how the athlete gets better. That's what journaling does for us. It helps us improve whatever aspects of our life we want to improve through that process of self-reflection.

• 3:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  So the first question to ask yourself each evening is, "What went well today?" This is a really powerful question. Remember, your brain, my brain, all of our brains have a negativity bias. Humans have this negativity bias. That negativity bias is what has kept you alive for so many years. Right, for most of our days on this planet, humans needed to be fine-tuned to the negative. You had to know whether that noise that you heard was just a rustling of leaves in the bush or a predator about to attack.

• 4:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, if you got it wrong, if you thought it was a predator, but it was actually the wind, okay, no problem. But if you got it the other way... Well, that could be the end. Right, so you're primed for the negative. In fact, psychologists find that humans take in nine bits of negative information for every positive bit. So you are basically hardwired and programmed for that negativity. So it's very, very easy to get to the end of the day thinking you had a bad day, thinking nothing went well. You focus on all the things you didn't get done, the emails you still have to do, the fact that you didn't get to the shops, or whatever it might be. That's really common. We all know what that feels like.

• 5:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  This question starts to change that. There is almost always something that went well in that day. It could be that your colleague

• 5:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  made you a cup of tea.

• 5:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  It could be that someone let you out as you were trying to turn into the main road with your car. They paused to let you go.

• 5:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  It could be something big, like you got a promotion, or you finished a project that you've been working on for a while. It could be all these things. Or it could be something really, really simple, but really significant, like, "I was really busy today, I was really tired when I got home, but despite that, I took 20 minutes out to cook my family a healthy home-cooked meal."

• 6:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  By answering this question each day, you remind yourself of at least one thing that went well that day, and that starts to change how you feel about yourself. It also helps remind you on a daily basis that things are going well each day. Because without that question, it's very easy to think that everything's bad. And I've seen with my patients, that question is transformative, especially when you combine it with the second question, "What can I do differently tomorrow?" Put these two questions together, they're really, really powerful. You learn about something you did well, and then you go, "Here's an area I can improve." So it could be, for example, that the second question, "What can I do differently tomorrow?", you may say,

• 6:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  I was really, really tired today. I stayed up late last night. I was super stressed after work. I didn't want to go to bed. I was up watching my box set really, really late. I'd say when I woke up this morning, I was exhausted. I couldn't focus. I was a bit reactive with the people around me. I had too much coffee, too much sugar, all because I was sleep deprived last night. Tonight, I'm gonna make sure I actually go to bed on time. I'm not gonna stay up late because I've seen the consequence of when I do that. Life's not perfect. We're all human. We don't get it right all the time. That's okay. The problem is though, we can start to beat ourselves up. We can start to get negative.

• 7:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  We can start to think that we can't make changes. But these two questions together are very, very powerful because they help you change in a very, very compassionate way. You are being kind to yourself. What went well today? What can I do differently tomorrow? So it could be that you say, you know what? Today, I didn't get out for that walk. I know how good I feel when I put my phone down and go for that 20 minute walk at lunchtime. I know that I'm more productive in the afternoon. I'm better focused. I feel good because I know I'm doing something for my health and I sleep better that night, whatever it might be. So you put down tomorrow, I'm gonna make sure I go for my lunchtime walk.

• 8:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  It allows you to compassionately keep assessing yourself, but also making change. That helps you become self-aware. And that's the most important skill you can ever develop. Self-awareness is important for whatever you want to achieve in life. And what's really interesting about self-awareness is that most people will tell you they are incredibly self-aware.

• 8:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  But the research suggests that that's not quite the case. There's some powerful research showing us that only 10 to 15% of us really have a high degree of self-awareness. That means the majority of us, up to 90% of us, are not that self-aware. If you start regularly journaling, you'll be able to catch the patterns. You'll be able to go, ah, you know, when I have a stressful day at work and I'm not feeling good in myself, my go-to at that point is sugar.

• 9:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's self-awareness. Right, that's the self-awareness that journaling is going to give you. And that's why I think journaling is so powerful. So have a think about them. Have a think about those questions. What would stop you from asking yourself those two questions in the evening?

• 9:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  It just takes a few minutes.

• 9:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  The third question I'd encourage you to ask yourself in the evening is, what did I do for someone else today? And again, it's a very, very powerful question. Many people who are struggling with their mental wellbeing become very inward-focused. Everything is about us and our life and why we're struggling. But one of the quickest ways to take you out of that is to do things for other people, take yourself outwards. And it may be that you try and answer that question and go, you know what, I didn't do anything today.

• 10:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  I was just caught up in my own world with my own work, with my problems. Okay, no problem. These journaling questions, these prompts are there to help you in a compassionate way. But if you genuinely think you've done nothing for anyone else, that's okay. You put it down and you're prompted to do something the following day. Because if you don't, you're going to have to answer that same question again and say, I didn't do anything for anyone. But the truth is, very few people haven't done something for someone else. Again, the more you do it, the better you get. You think broadly. Oh, you know, I was driving today to drop my kids off at school and I let that car out at the main junction.

• 11:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  I didn't have to do it. I did that. The postman came around and I said, "Thank you for the delivery they brought around." I went to the supermarket and there was an elderly man who was struggling with his shopping and I helped him to his car with it. Once you start looking for these opportunities in your life, you will find that they are there. And as I say, if you genuinely think you don't do things for other people, simply asking yourself this question will prompt you to do that. And there is just so much research behind kindness, behind doing things for other people. Individuals who are other-focused experience greater happiness.

• 11:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  One study suggested that practicing kindness may have more of a positive effect on our health and happiness than diet and exercise. And that's really powerful. Why might that be? Well, when we do things for other people, we feel good. We feel good about ourselves. We are social animals. We're designed to be with and around other people. When we're doing something that brings us closer to them, we send ourselves a signal that the world is good. It's a safe place. You know, I've got a tribe around me. And therefore, you're much more likely to make better choices because you feel good about who you are. It's really, really powerful.

• 12:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  There was a Japanese study that found that simply counting your own acts of kindness each week makes you happier. Well, that's what this question's doing for you. If every night you're saying to yourself, "What did I do for someone else today?", you're reminding yourself constantly that you do things for other people each day. And if you do get a journal, you can actually flip back through your journal and go, "Wow, man, I've done something every day this week for someone else." And that sends yourself a signal that you're a good person, you're a caring person. And that's really, really important. So please do not underestimate the power of these questions.

• 13:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  After over two decades of clinical practice, having seen tens of thousands of patients, I genuinely believe that the reason people struggle in their life is because they're reacting. They're not living an intentional life. They're not choosing how they want to be in the world. So they allow the world and the people around them to dictate the way they're going to be. That's why journaling will change your life. That's why journaling will transform the way you experience things because you're taking charge. You become the driver of your life rather than a passive passenger. I want to reiterate something.

• 13:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  I have come up with what I consider to be the three best questions that you can ask yourself each morning and the three best questions you can ask yourself each evening. And how have I come up with those questions? Yes, I've looked at what the research, what the scientific research says, what it supports. But I've also combined that with what I've seen with patients. What are the questions over the years that have really moved the needle, that have actually made a difference? Because science is great, but we have to be able to convert that science into people's busy lives. If we can't, it doesn't really matter what the research says.

• 14:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  So these questions have been tried and tested in the lives of thousands of my patients. They've been tried and tested in my life. I know they work and I know if you give them a shot, they're going to work for you. If you start asking yourself these three questions, you will start to get to know yourself better, you will start to feel better, you'll have more energy, more clarity, more focused, your mental wellbeing will improve. You're going to make better decisions, you're going to interact in a much better way with the other people in your life, you're going to feel better about yourself. And really, these questions are, they're about living an intentional life.

• 15:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's why for me, it's a keystone habit. It transforms the way I think, transforms the way that I show up.

• 15:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  And ultimately, it transforms the way I experience life. So think about where you're going to put it in your day. Start small and watch your life start to change. Hope you enjoyed that bite sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite sized Friday email. 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.

• 16:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  The goal is for it to be a small, yet powerful dose of feel good to get you ready for the weekend. You can sign up for it free of charge at drchattity.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 conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.