How To Build Better Habits, Break Free From Expert Overload & Create Lasting Change with Dr Rangan Chatterjee#497

We're living in an era where we're bombarded with information and expert opinions from every direction. As a result, many of us have become overly reliant on external expertise, constantly searching for the 'right' answer about how to eat, move, and live. What I've noticed in my two decades as a medical doctor is that this can actually prevent us from tuning into our own inner expertise and create lasting change. In this special BONUS podcast episode, I share some powerful insights from a live event that took place in London earlier this year about why knowledge alone isn't enough to create lasting change in our lives and how we can become our own experts. The truth is, most of us already know what we should be doing to improve our health - we know too much sugar isn't good for us, we know movement is important, and we know we should probably spend less time on our phones. But knowledge isn't enough. What's missing is self-awareness and insight into why we make the choices we do. In this episode, you'll discover: My simple 3M framework for daily routines, helping you create lasting change even if you only have 5 minutes to spare How to develop your own intuition. Why starting your day mindfully prevents 'micro-stress doses' from accumulating, leading to better mood and healthier choices throughout your day A powerful journaling practice that builds self-awareness, helping you understand your choices and create sustainable change How to maintain transformative routines in a busy household, setting an example that inspires those around you One of the key messages I want you to take away from this episode is that you can change who you are at any time - you're not destined to be the person you were yesterday. Through practices like journaling, you can develop a deeper understanding of yourself, as well as the insight needed to make lasting changes. And for those who feel they don't have time for elaborate routines - and I know many of us feel this way - I explain why even small actions, done consistently, can be transformative. You don't need perfect conditions to start, and in fact, maintaining these practices even in a busy household can set a powerful example for those around you. I truly hope you find this episode helpful and that it gives you practical tools you can implement immediately. If you know someone who could benefit from listening, please share it with them, too. Pre-Order Make Change That Lasts for access to my exclusive video masterclass and 10 question worksheet https://drchatterjee.com/makechange Find out about the Three Question Journal at https://drchatterjee.com/journal Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/497 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. 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.

• 0:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hey guys, how are you doing? I hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast, Feel Better Live More. Today's episode is a bonus recording of a live event that took place earlier this year on Thursday, the 29th of February in London to celebrate the publication of the journal I created and published in collaboration with Intelligent Change, the three-question journal. Now, think back to February earlier this year. What was going on in your life? How are you feeling? Were there some changes back then that you really wanted to make?

• 0:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  And how did that go? Have things moved forward in a positive way? Or have things stayed the same? I know for me back then, I was deep into the final stages of writing my sixth book, Make Change That Lasts, that comes out in just a few weeks. And I think the fact that I was so immersed in writing at that time is reflected in the content of this conversation. One of the key themes I talk about is this idea that we are now living in an era where we're constantly bombarded with information and expert opinions.

• 1:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  And as a result, many of us have become overly reliant on external expertise and less trusting of ourselves. Now, my contention is that you already know enough to improve the quality of your life. It's not necessarily more external knowledge that you need, but more inner knowledge. And in this special live recording, you will hear me explore a number of different topics relating to this theme. I talk about the importance of routines and rituals, the value of repetition each day, the hidden cost of micro-stress doses, a powerful journaling practice that you can

• 2:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  start doing immediately, and I talk about the importance of a mindful and intentional approach to life. At its core, this is really a conversation about making positive changes in your life that actually last.

• 2:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, if you enjoy listening to this bonus conversation, I am certain that you will enjoy reading my upcoming book, Make Change That Lasts: Nine Simple Ways to Break Free From The Habits That Hold You Back, which comes out on January 2nd and is available to preorder right now. Now, you might be thinking, why on earth should I preorder this book? Well, I can just get it when it comes out. Well, preorders are actually crucially important for authors. They basically signal to the retailers that people want this kind of content. And so, when a book has a lot of preorders, the retailers order in more copies of the book

• 3:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  and give the book more visibility in the shops, which of course helps the message within the book reach more people. So, if you think you are going to get this book when it comes out on January 2nd, I would love you to support the publication by preordering if you are able to. And if you do preorder the book, you will get exclusive access to a free one-hour video masterclass that I have recorded and a free worksheet containing 10 powerful questions that you can start asking yourself immediately to develop your own insight and self-awareness.

• 3:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  In the free video, I go through why I decided to write this book. I explain the differences between this book and my previous five. I explain why I believe this to be the most important book that I have ever written. I go through practical exercises, and I also walk you through these 10 powerful questions that you can start answering in your free worksheet alongside the video. Now, if that sounds of interest, and I really hope it does, you can see all details about this exclusive preorder offer at drchattsey.com/makechange or click on the link in the episode notes in your podcast app.

• 4:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, on to today's brand-new episode, myself, live in conversation with Intelligent Change co-founder, Mimi Icon.

• 4:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  How are you doing?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  I'm great. Please sit down.

• 4:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  Sounds like you've been warming the crowd up.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  A little bit. I'm so excited we're doing this and so grateful that, you know, I get to share a stage with you. It's such an honor.

• 5:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  Well, thank you for helping put on this event. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous venue. And yeah, I feel very grateful that there's 700 people who've come out on a dark, rainy, winter London night. It's not like this up north, you know. It was sunny this morning when I left. So that's why I live up north. The weather's better, so.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Dr. Rangan, I met you last year at the Intelligent Change Summit. And from the first moment we met, I was so deeply inspired, not just by the knowledge that you have, which I think is wonderful and we all learn so much about you, but your sheer presence and that you truly embody your values in the way that you live your life. So I want to give you a proper introduction as well. You're one of the most influential doctors in the UK, but I would say arguably in the world. You are a bestselling author, a podcast host, an incredible podcast that we all love listening to, and also a TV presenter and also a musician.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  There's so many things you do, multi-talented, really. And like I said earlier, what I truly love about you is the human that you are, the kindness that you emanate and all the knowledge that you so generously share with your audience. So I'm really grateful and excited to have a conversation with you today.

• 6:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Thank you, very kind words, thank you.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  So obviously, we're all here to learn from you, the expert, the doctor, you know, because if the doctor says to do something, we all listen, right? So what I really love about your approach, though, is that you're not a conventional doctor and everything you share is essentially free and we can all implement in our lives. I'd love to start with routines because obviously morning routine, night routine, those are things we can all implement in our daily lives and it costs us nothing. Can you tell me more about your morning routine and then perhaps your night routine as well? And just like walk me through it. What are some steps that we can all learn from and maybe also add to ours?

• 7:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, thanks, Mimi. So if I just back up for a minute, I will definitely share those things. You said something there in the introduction about expertise. And this is something I'm probably more passionate about today than I ever have been before. And I spent the last few months writing about this. So this is something I write a lot about in my next book, which doesn't come out till the end of the year. But the first chapter is about becoming your own expert. Because we're living in an era where we're surrounded by

• 7:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  information everywhere, right? We have experts dispensing information to us all the time in the media, on social media. And the problem I've seen over the last few years is that you say, for example, "Oh, a doctor is an expert. I'm only going to listen to a doctor for this advice." That's great. But the problem is, is that online, let's say, you're going to hear 10 doctors who may have 10 different opinions.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I think it gets really confusing to people. And I think we have actually become a society that is now overly reliant on expertise outside ourselves. And what we need to do is get back in touch with our own expertise. I think one of the reasons my approach has resonated with so many over the past years is because I don't really feel it's my job to tell anyone else what to do, or how they should live their life. What I've always tried to do is share information for people that if they think it's relevant, and if they try it, and experiment, and use themselves as data, I want them to start

• 9:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  figuring out what's the right approach for them. So I've always struggled with giving generic prescriptions, actually. It's something, I know there's a few people from Penguin here tonight, something I've always struggled with in my books, right? I never wanted to give the 30-day plan, because I don't believe everyone needs the same plan. And I'll give you a prime example of where I see this playing out. And this totally relates back to routine and ritual, and why I think, let's say, a practice like journaling is so important, is because...

• 9:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, I don't want to start off in a controversial area.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Just go for it.

• 9:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  But hey, sorry, let's talk about diet, right, for a minute. So you may feel that you know what is the right diet for you.

• 10:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  But it doesn't mean that's the right diet for everyone else.

• 10:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, and it's something, I really push back against this idea that there's one perfect diet for every individual. So for example, when people will say, "Dr. Chancy, I don't know who to listen to. That doctor who I really like said that I need to be on a whole food, plant-based diet. And that other doctor said a low-carb diet is best for me." I don't know which expert to believe.

• 10:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  The question for me isn't which expert should I believe? It's why do I not trust myself? Right? Because no expert actually does know what the right diet is for you. Some people will thrive on a low-carb diet at that point in their life. That of course can be plant-based, just to be really clear. Other people will thrive on a whole food, plant-based diet, or a vegan diet, but not everyone. Right? And when I speak, I'm speaking, you know, as things stand today, I've been a practicing medical doctor for 22 and a half years. I've seen tens of thousands of patients. And where my expertise and insights come from is from my patients. It's just not true that everyone needs the same diet.

• 11:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  So how does that circle back to routine and ritual? And a morning routine, let's say, or journaling?

• 11:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Knowledge is not enough.

• 11:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  I want to say that again, so it's really, really important. Knowledge is not enough. What do I mean by that?

• 11:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  Pretty much all of you in here know that too much sugar is probably not helping you in your life. Is that fair to say?

• 11:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  You know that. How many of you think you might on occasion be consuming too much sugar? Okay, three people in this audience, amazing. Okay, a few more, four people. Okay, I suspect it might be a smidgen more than that. Right? It's not that you don't know the information. Right, in the first lockdown in 2020, I was consuming a ton of sugar.

• 12:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'd already written three books by that point. That's not that I didn't know the downsides of it.

• 12:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  But this is a really important point. Right? Knowledge is great, but it's not enough in and of itself. What you also need is insight. You need self-awareness. Right, how do you develop that? You develop that with routines and rituals and stepping outside your life to reflect on your life. That's why I'm such a fan of a practice like journaling or meditation or breathwork, something where you stop. You stop consuming from the outside and you start to tap in to your own inner wisdom and your own inner expertise. Because once you start doing that regularly, you start to trust yourself more. When you trust yourself more, right?

• 13:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  You start to make better decisions and they're decisions that come from you. Right? I think it's really important. I really feel strongly we become the society where we're waiting for other experts to tell us what to do. And I think it's a problem. I think it's a real problem. So that's a long way round.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  I absolutely love that. I really want to go a little deeper on cultivating that trust because I think many, many people struggle with cultivating the trust within to know what are the right things to eat or

• 13:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  how can they live their life in the right way.

• 13:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's interesting, Mimi. I had a chat about two years ago with a lady called Vanessa Van Edwards on my podcast. She's a, like a body language expert. And one of the things she said to me, she said, whenever you meet someone else... Another human being, you're asking yourself two questions. Can I trust them? Can I rely on them? Right? But here's the thing. You're not just asking... You're not just asking those questions when you meet other people. You're asking those same two questions of yourself every single day. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself? And why I'm such a fan of small routines?

• 14:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Like a morning routine? It's because you show yourself every day, that no matter how busy you are, no matter how many after-school clubs the kids have got, no matter how busy your work is, that you still created five minutes to do something for yourself. That is more valuable than anything else you could do, because you show yourself each day with a five-minute practice, that I can trust myself, I can rely on myself. So one of the things I often say to patients is, okay, you don't know where to start. Make one small promise to yourself each day, and keep it.

• 15:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Literally, if that's all you take from today, make one small promise to yourself, and keep it. It will transform who you are and how you show up in the world. Because what happens is that you can't kid yourself. You need to give yourself evidence every day that you actually care about yourself, that you've made time for yourself. I get it. People are busy. Right? I totally get that. And that's why I've always worked hard to try and make sure, hey, sure, listen, at this stage in my life, I actually do have a 45-minute morning routine. Right? I almost feel nervous about sharing that, because I don't want that to put people off. Because the natural reaction for people is,

• 15:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  oh, all right for you, but you don't understand my life. You're right, I don't understand your life. But I can tell you what, I have been pretty busy at stages in my life, and I still haven't met a patient to date who didn't have five minutes for themselves each day. And this is one of the big problems when we're trying to improve our life, is that we make it too big.

• 16:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, we set, I'm not saying don't set your goals high. But you can actually set them too high, at least in the short term. Right, and so you don't follow through on what you're doing. So I think if all you do, for example, I mean, one of the questions in the three-question journal is what's the most important thing you have to do today? Right, I can pretty much guarantee for any of you who are not familiar with this journal, or not familiar with my work, and you're not sure where to start, you just think, I'm here tonight because I'm, you know what, life isn't where I want it to be. Right, but I, you know, but I feel I could be getting something more out of life. I challenge you.

• 17:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, if you answer that question every morning, and I guarantee it'll take you less than two minutes to answer that question, what's the most important thing I have to do today? You answer that question and you do it for the next seven days. If you don't feel any better, and you're not making better decisions in your life, you know what, scrap it, say that guy was talking utter nonsense. Right, I don't want you to believe me, I want you to believe yourself, but you've got to do it. Right, so many people, and listen, I release a podcast every week, and I know there's a lot of information there. But it's also, sometimes I think about that content, I think, you know, some people are sometimes getting confused with too much information.

• 17:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, oh, now I want to do that, I want to do that, I want to do that, I get like that, I want to do everything, I want to be a musician, I want to be a great dad, I want to learn martial arts, and I think I can do everything. But I've realised that I've got to make choices, I've got to make decisions, I can't do everything. And so

• 18:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  rituals and routines, I think, are really, really important to help you do this, to help you show up yourself. And it's really interesting, I just had a thought, we're in a church, right, we're in a beautiful church. Do you all agree it's a beautiful church? Yeah, what a nice, warm, intimate setting for an event like this.

• 18:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think religion used to give people these rituals. They used to be there within culture. You know, the Jewish Sabbath, for example, that 24 hours where people switch off. They don't answer the phone, they don't take cars, it's family time. You know, when most of us were kids, yeah, shops were closed on Sundays. But there was natural downtime in the week. But we're now living in this time where everything's on all the time. And it's a problem. So I think, you know, again, this is not pro or anti-religion. Like, can I say that in here? Like, that's not my point.

• 19:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  My point is, is that you have to find a way of showing up for yourself each day. You cannot expect your life to change, your relationships to change, your health to change, your happiness to change, how you feel about yourself to change. If you just get up every day, scroll Instagram and TikTok, look at the news, feel negative about the state of the world, and then spend the rest of the day consuming sugar and caffeine to, I haven't seen your life, I promise, right? To counteract the emotional tension that you've created by what you did first thing in the morning. You know, you can listen to as many podcasts as you want, read as many books as you want. Nothing's going to change unless you take action.

• 19:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that's why I think routines, and, you know, I'm going to use the word ritual. I prefer the word ritual because for me, a ritual is a routine with meaning. Right? I mean, there's all kinds of complex definitions out there, but for me...

• 20:11Speaker 01

  I prefer that word too.

• 20:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I mean, look, I like routine as well, but like, you can take coffee, right? You can make coffee, or you can make coffee.

• 20:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Like, you can just shove it in, the coffee, put the kettle in, slurp it down while you're answering your emails. Sure, you're making coffee and you're drinking coffee. Or you could grind the coffee beans if that's your thing. You could weigh the coffee. You know, you could make it a special part of your morning. And the impact of that is going to be completely different. So...

• 20:49Speaker 01

  I think the word ritual almost implies that there is sort of an element of mindfulness while you're doing the element or the exercise or whatever it is that you're doing. Yeah.

• 21:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm interested, because I wasn't here for this bit, Mimi.

• 21:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Have you guys all done these questions? Or this question? Okay, so I love this, right? Because who isn't trying to at least change one behaviour in their life? How many of you shared with the person next to you why you think you're struggling with bringing that behaviour into your life?

• 21:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  One person shared, amazing. Did more of you share, perhaps? Yeah, okay. And I'm interested, did anyone shout out their answers? Do you know what people put down?

• 21:37Speaker 01

  They haven't, but I'd love to hear if anybody feels extra courageous tonight.

• 21:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  Does anyone feel that they can share? Because I'm really interested as to why... Yeah, sure.

• 21:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  You struggle with mindful eating, and do you know why you struggle?

• 21:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Got it. So the lady was saying that she struggles with mindful eating, and she thinks one of the reasons is because she works in the NHS. She feels that she's very, very busy.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  You have incredible hearing, by the way. I don't know how you heard all of that.

• 22:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  And she's trying to cram everything in, right? So first of all, I totally understand that. So, again, I'm not directing this necessarily to you, but to everyone, I would submit that you probably have five minutes for a routine. And what that routine will do... But let's look at this a different way, right? Because I really want to get this idea across to people.

• 22:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  A lot of the time, your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions are downstream of the content you're consuming. Right? So, let's imagine two quite extreme scenarios. Well, I don't think they're that extreme, actually, but someone wakes up, the phone's next to their bed, okay? They pick it up, they're scrolling social media, scrolling the news, which of course is not that pleasant if you're looking at the news at the moment. You get up late because you spent so much time there. You're feeling really negative about the world.

• 23:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Is there any surprise that your mood might be slightly off? That your interactions with your children might not be as present as you might want them to be? That you're not as present and focused at work compared to if for 10 or 15 minutes, you didn't look at your screen? Let's say you meditated, you did some breath work, maybe you wrote in this journal or another journal to just start to get in touch with yourself. Is it, does it really take a lot to convince you that how you feel later on in the day, how you interact with the people around you even 10 or 15 minutes later

• 24:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  is going to be different? It's up.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Dr. Rangan, actually, I have a question.

• 24:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  Please.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Because I know a lot of people are listening now and they're like, great, you know, you're kind of selling them on the idea. But personally, I love to know the science behind why these things work and why I should practice them.

• 24:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  For example, obviously, we're a big advocate of gratitude and I've done a lot of research on the science behind that. But in terms of anything else that you're practicing, let's say doing the workouts in the morning, what is the science that if you do a little workout for five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever you can afford to do, that this is going to positively impact the rest of your day?

• 24:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I mean, like...

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that really makes a big difference.

• 24:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Well, okay, so whether it's a workout or journaling or gratitude, right? All of them have got their own science behind it. But again, just going upstream for a moment. What routines do and rituals do is they give you a sense of control. And that's really important. Because all the evidence on on control and a sense of control is pretty overwhelming in what it does for us humans, right? It can improve our mood. It can reduce symptoms of anxiety. It can reduce symptoms of depression. You're healthier, you're happier, you have better social relationships. Okay, you actually do better at work and also earn more money if you have a sense

• 25:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  of control in your life. And the word sense is really, really important. You can't control your life, right? The world is fundamentally uncontrollable. So you're not looking to control external events. You're trying to give yourself a sense of control because it grounds you and it means everything else in the day gets easier. Right, so gratitude, okay? Well, depending on which study you're looking at and which country and how long they studied it for, gratitude has been shown to reduce anxiety, depression, improve insomnia, improve productivity by to 25% at work. Right, gratitude is incredible.

• 26:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  And some studies on gratitude have shown that if you do a week of gratitude, three months later, you're still seeing the benefits in your life. Right, so why is gratitude so important? Well, your brain has a negativity bias, right? We all do. And you probably know this already, but that's what's kept us alive for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. You know, it's almost a cliche to say now, but you had to know whether that sound in a bush was a predator or the wind, right? And you were handsomely rewarded.

• 26:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  If you thought it was a predator when it wasn't, i.e. you lived. Right? So you're hardwired to look for the negatives. Right? Psychologists tell us that we take in maybe nine bits of negative information for every one bit of positive. Right? So if you do nothing else, that's going to be your default. So if we've already got a negativity bias, and then we think, oh, do you know what? I'm going to get up and start looking at the news. You're basically, for the rest of the day, you're fighting against that first decision that you made.

• 27:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it's a big, big problem. Exercise, you mentioned, right? You know, exercise at any time of the day is going to be helpful for you, but exercise helps change your mood. It helps to change nerve cells and neuronal connections in your hippocampus, the memory center of your brain. It can help with cognition, with focus, helps reduce anxiety, depression, so many things. But again, I know you asked me the question on the science, Mimi, but I'm going to come back to what I said at the start.

• 28:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  In a head-based society, in a thought-based society, we love hearing all about the science. You know, we could just consume science all day and think we're doing something. You've not done anything. You've just got more knowledge. Knowledge is not enough. You have to take action. And I would argue that the science, sure, for the people who are interested, it's very important. But if you know bugger all about the science, but you get up each day and you spend 20 minutes moving your body and writing in a journal, you're going to do a million times better than someone who knows all the scientific research.

• 28:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  We think more knowledge is what we need. Every single one of you who has walked in here tonight, if you're familiar with anything I have ever put out on social media, on my podcast and my books, which I presume many of you are, you already know enough to improve your life. You don't have a knowledge deficiency. You probably have an action deficiency.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  So powerful. So powerful, Dr. Rangan. Thank you for sharing that. I'm wondering if it makes sense to change up a routine or do the same thing every single day. Like, is there a value in, let's say, when it comes to journal, to filling out the same three, four, you know, six questions every day? Or should we change it up? Like, what is the benefit when it comes to, let's say, specifically journaling to have to answer the same questions on daily basis?

• 29:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so... Again, there's two ways of answering this. The first way, I guess the simpler way of answering it is in a world of infinite choice, if you have to decide every day what you're going to do, that's a recipe for procrastination. You know? The amount of patients who've, over the years, come in and said to me, "Doc, you know, I don't know whether I should do yoga or pilates or go running or, you know, whatever that list might be." And of course, I spend time trying to figure out which one speaks to that individual patient.

• 30:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  But I've really more and more come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. Pick one and do it. Right? Seriously, and I have fallen into this trap. So I'm not sitting up here looking down on anyone, right? I have fallen into that trap before. So I'm a fan of a morning routine, let's say, where you do the same thing every day. Because I think it makes it easier. You start to habituate it. And I think I said this on, maybe, the book tour for my third book, Field Best in Five, a few years ago. I don't think I've said it for a little while. But let's just think about that, you know, shifting it up through the lens of brushing your teeth.

• 31:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't think anyone in here brushes their teeth on Monday. And on Tuesday night, it's like, you know what? I brushed teeth last night. I'm just gonna rinse my mouth tonight, Wednesday. I think I'm just gonna floss tonight. No, you know that tooth brushing is good for you. It's gonna help your teeth stay in good health. You do it every day. Four minutes, two minutes in the morning, two minutes in the evening. Four minutes every day, pretty much for your entire life. That's why your teeth stay in good shape. Okay, of course, there's other factors as well, but you see the point I'm trying to make. Many of you will have heard me say that I do a five-minute strength workout every morning while my coffee's brewing. I still do that. I've been doing it for maybe five years now. Okay, I don't vary it up. I don't think, "I'll do it today.

• 32:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm gonna do something else. I'm just gonna stretch or whatever." No, because it's thought. It gets me out of creating a habit. Now, yeah, is there a case for varying it up and doing something else? Sure. Okay, but that's not what I'm doing in my morning routine. My morning routine isn't about making sure I hit my cardio and my strength and all my other parameters. No, it's my equivalent of tooth brushing. It's about making sure that no matter what happens, because I drink coffee and it's gonna happen every morning, about half-five in my kitchen. I don't, the fact that I do a workout whilst it's brewing means I don't think about it now. I don't ask myself a question, "God, can I be bothered today or shall I do something else?"

• 32:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  I just do it, just like I brush my teeth. So I think that's a really important thing. So I don't think it helps you to be trying to vary it up every day. The other thing to say is, is that I think, I mean, this is a much bigger idea for people, I think, which is that I have spoken for many years that the way we're living our collective modern lives is causing many of us to be ill, right? And I stand by that. But where I've evolved my view, a few years ago, my first book, The Four-Pillar Plan,

• 33:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  I made the case that food, movement, sleep, and relaxation, the four, I think, four of the most important pillars of health, these are the things that not only have the most impact on our health, but we have a fair degree of control over. And I would encourage people to look at those four pillars and try and balance them and make small changes in each of them.

• 33:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  But back then, I would have said that that's the root cause of most people who are not feeling great, right? Not everyone, but most people. My view has evolved since then, where it is still a root cause, but it is not the most root cause. You can actually go higher upstream. And you can now start to think about your habits and your unhealthy behaviours as symptoms. They're symptoms of the problem, they're not the cause. Right, so if you're not following me, please just bear with me, because I think it's a really important idea. I don't think I've spoken about that much yet.

• 34:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  It goes back to this idea that knowledge is not enough, right? Why would you overconsume sugar when you know the damage it may well be doing to you? It doesn't make any sense, does it? Yet we still do it. It's because we haven't developed the insight and awareness of why we're turning to sugar. And so what often happens, and this would definitely happen if you look at the news first thing, unless you're really grounded, is that the negativity that goes into your brain, you start to create emotional stress and internal tension, right? That you may or may not be aware of.

• 35:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  But that emotional stress that you've created by the way you interact with the world is not neutral. It will have to be neutralised in some way or another. And how do most of us neutralise it? We go to these common behaviours: sugar, alcohol, caffeine, shopping, pornography, whatever it might be. These are downstream problems in the vast majority of cases of the fact that you are trying to relieve an internal discomfort that you're feeling. And I'm convinced this is the main reason why people cannot make transformative lifestyle

• 35:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  change that lasts. It's because they don't realise they're creating internal tension by the way they're interacting with the world. This is basically, you drive here tonight, right? And it's raining outside and you're queuing up and you think someone's barging in front of you and you think, you know, I'm sure it happened somewhere. You're all a nice crowd, but someone must have felt a bit frustrated or someone nicked your seat, right? You don't realise by the way you interact with that moment, you've got the opportunity to either be really calm after it, or to create internal stress. Tell you, I can't believe that. They definitely saw me. They definitely saw me, but they just ignored

• 36:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  me and went forward, right? Whatever it might be. That's the start. Because once that domino falls, you're then playing catch up, right? You will have to neutralise that stress in some way or another. That's why I'm a fan of journaling. That's why I'm a fan of routines, because it allows you to self-reflect on your life, right? Why are the questions there? Someone sent me a DM on Instagram the other day and said, can I just ask, I haven't got the journal yet, but are the questions the same every day? Or are they different on each day? And I thought long and hard about this when I was creating this. They're the same every day. And there's a very good reason for that. We love to distract ourselves. We

• 37:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  love to get bored and go, oh, you know, there must be something else now. I've done yoga for a little while. Let me try pilates. Let me try something else. The answer's somewhere else. You answer these three questions every day, right? If you have to, let's say the question I've already mentioned. What's the most important thing you have to do today? Ask yourself that question every day for 28 days. You will develop an insight, an awareness of yourself that you will not get from anywhere else. You'll start to discover what truly is important to you, right? You say your family's important to you, but every day, what you pop down is a work deadline. No judgment, right? It's not about judgment.

• 38:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's about a compassionate way of analyzing yourself and go, "Wow, am I really living how I want to live?" So the reason they're the same each day is the, as I write in the journal, the magic lies in the repetition. You can't escape yourself. You can't distract yourself with a new question. The same question forces you to go deeper. It forces you to get to know yourself better. And that's why the questions are exactly the same every day. So you can't hide. Does that make sense?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I'm wondering if there's anything else you can recommend in regards to breaking through, you know, limiting beliefs? Because oftentimes, even, let's say, somebody received a journal today. They want to start this habit. They do it for three days. And then they fall into the trap of maybe not feeling good enough or just not feeling like they deserve to have a better life. I find that oftentimes what's blocking us from losing weight or exercising or being more open to love or anything, like having a healthier lifestyle, is those limiting beliefs that are quite subconscious. Sometimes we don't know how to reprogram the subconscious mind.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  So what are some tips or things we can all do today to reprogram the subconscious mind? Is there anything simple and easy we can do every day?

• 39:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I mean, so...

• 39:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  We can get lost in thoughts so much, right? We can overthink things. And then, you know, I had a, just before I came up, I bumped into a chap I'd never met before called Sam. And Sam shared with me

• 39:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  just how much of an impact the podcasts and the books have had on him over the past 12 months. He basically shared how 12 months ago, he was in a really dark place with, I don't want to say too much, but negative thoughts and like really struggling with mental health. It feels like a completely different person today. And first of all, Sam, wherever you are, huge congratulations. It was such an inspiring story to hear. So wherever Sam is, please, in fact, let's give Sam a round of applause. I think what he's done is pretty incredible.

• 40:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  There he is. That's it, that's Sam. What a mate. It really was inspiring to hear that. And change is possible, right? You can absolutely reprogram these subconscious beliefs through taking action. So one way I like to help people do that, there's many ways. And of course, therapy with a trained healthcare professional can be really, really beneficial. Okay. But I will say on that, there's a lot we can do ourselves as well. And sometimes I think it's almost like, oh, we can't move on because we have to get therapy. No, right? Therapy is great. I've had therapy. It's absolutely fantastic.

• 41:01Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's been transformative. At the same time, for many people, they cannot access it because of cost or availability. So I don't want to, at that point, not be able to help someone move on in their life if they can't access that. Right? So the third morning question in the three question journal is, what is the quality I want to showcase to the world today? I know I say they're all my favorite questions because they are, which is why they're in it. But it's such a powerful question because so often we think the person who we are right now is the person who we have to remain. It's not.

• 41:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can change anytime you like.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 41:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  If you want to. Right? I absolutely believe that. You're not destined to be the person you were yesterday. So much of our personality, I really, really believe can be changed because I know because I've done it myself. So many aspects of myself, like I used to be hyper competitive. I'm not because that came from a feeling of inadequacy and not feeling good enough. Now that I feel adequate and good enough, and dare I say it in front of a British audience, I quite like myself. Right? And I don't think I did for much of my life. Behavior change is a piece of cake because you're no longer fighting this internal discomfort.

• 42:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Like I like how I live my life. I like.

• 42:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  You know, the person who I am, or the person who I try to be. I'm less bothered today by other people's opinions than I ever have been in my life. It doesn't mean I don't care. I passionately care. But also respect that everyone's got the right to their opinion. They've got the right to think I'm the worst podcast host on the planet. They absolutely have that right. Just as someone else has got the right to think I'm the best. I'm actually neither, you know? To one individual, they probably, who loves my podcast, I may be the best host for them. To that other person, they may find me, as people will tell me, the most irritating host on the planet, right? I'm okay with that, because they're right in their head for them. Right, coming back to that question.

• 43:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Who do you want to be in the world essentially, right? I want to show the quality, let's say, what did I put this morning? I put down patience today. I want to show the quality of patience to the world today. Right, by setting the intention first thing in the morning, right? I'm being prompted in the day to act with patience. If someone barges in front of me, I'm much more likely to be patient and calm by setting that intention in the morning. Doesn't mean I'm perfect, and I am always gonna be. But that's why the evening questions are really important. Because one of the questions is, what went well today? And one of the questions is, what can I do differently tomorrow?

• 44:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Well, that's a very compassionate way of helping you make change, right? What might I do differently tomorrow? Well, that could be, well, you know what? I did put down this morning that I wanted to be patient. But when my colleague sent me that email at 4:00 PM, that it really pissed me off, I sent a quick reply that I'm actually regretting a bit now. Anyone ever done that? No? Okay.

• 44:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Few nods, two people have done it, okay. But the point is, we all do that, we're all human, right? We all make mistakes. So this is not about perfection, it's about setting the intention in the morning, "This is who I want to be today." And in the evening, you can either reflect and go, "Yeah, you know what, I'm quite proud, actually, I could have been triggered by my boss when I received that email, but I chose not to. I chose to act with patience and compassion, or whatever it might be. And if you didn't, it prompts you tomorrow, you know, I'm gonna, when that situation happens again, I'm not gonna react like that." And here's the thing, Mimi,

• 45:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  this is deceptively simple, because if you do that for 30 days, right? You are gonna be a different person. It's inconceivable that your behaviours in the world won't change. Inconceivable, because you become your own coach. Right? Think about any sports star out there, any golfer, tennis player, footballer, they've all got coaches, right? They've got coaches to help them realise what they can't see themselves. So for example, I don't know, golf, right? Someone's gonna say to a golfer, the coach might say, "Hey, listen, you know, when you're under pressure in the final few holes,

• 45:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  you actually start to shorten your backswing, and that's why you start messing up your shots." And so the player then knows, "Okay, great, all right, next time, I'm in the final three holes and it's tense, I'll make sure that I don't shorten my backswing, that I go the full length," or whatever it might be. Journaling helps you become your own coach. If you never step outside of your life to reflect on it, you're not gonna make change. If you wake up each day and just do the same as you did the day before, of course your life hasn't changed. Of course you still feel stuck.

• 46:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I'm so passionate that behaviour change is not as hard as we think it is. We make it difficult, we overcomplicate it, we allow ourselves to get distracted by arguing experts on social media. Right? Don't.

• 46:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  I do not get involved with that stuff. I just find it really, really unhelpful. It doesn't help the public who are viewing healthcare professionals fight with each other online and disagree on stuff. I just, it's not the person who I want to be. And I don't think it helps anyone. Right? So you can set the intention of who you want to be and be that person. And that's how things do start to change. So, I mean, there's many ways you can change these kind of subconscious beliefs. But I think, I hope that's something for people that they can take.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Something applicable that any one of us can start doing today.

• 47:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  Does that make sense for everyone? Yeah? You become your own coach. If you're lucky enough to have someone, you know, the truth is, most of us, if we do have a partner, and I say this with caution, because my wife is in the audience, but we often don't want to hear advice from our partner. We might hear it differently from someone else. Right? And that's okay, you know, we're all quite different like that. But, you know, for those of you who've got Happy Mind, Happy Life, my last book, there's a chapter called "Take a Daily Holiday", if you remember that one, for those of you who've read it.

• 48:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  And the whole point is, is that you've got to step outside of your life to reflect on it. If you're living in your life the whole time, you just, you won't make change, you won't make sustainable change. One more thing I just want to say maybe related to one of your earlier questions is, why I think routines and rituals are really, really important is, it's not just the benefit of the routine or the ritual.

• 48:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's also thinking about, if I wasn't doing this, what would I be doing? And it's unlikely that it's something neutral, right? What I mean by that is, let's say you're not doing your 10-minute morning meditation, which is fine, right? If you don't do that, and that's the thing that you've agreed that you're gonna do, and instead of that, you're scrolling Instagram, it's not a neutral position, right? So some of you may have heard me talk about micro-stress doses before, right? And if you haven't, let me just briefly summarize. A micro-stress dose is a little dose of stress that in isolation,

• 49:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  you can handle just fine. The problem is, is when these micro-stress doses add up, one on top of the other, and they get you closer and closer to your stress threshold. When you get to your stress threshold, that's when things go wrong in your life. That's when you're reactive. That's when your back goes, your neck goes into spasm. That's when you send that email that you wish you'd never sent, right? You think the email you received from your boss at 4:00 PM was the problem. It wasn't. The problem was that you'd been accumulating micro-stress doses from the morning. So by the time you got that email, you were right at your threshold. If you had done things in the day

• 50:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  to keep you away from your threshold, you wouldn't have reacted in that manner because you wouldn't have been near the stress threshold. So bring that back to routines, right? If you're not doing something nourishing in the morning, like, and we can talk about the time factor because some people say, "Well, I don't have time." Okay, we can deal with that. It's, those things keep you away. If you get up and look at Instagram and TikTok and emails and stuff whilst you're still in bed, and you know what? I do that on occasion, right? And I'm not perfect. These things are very hard to resist. But you're starting to bring yourself closer and closer to your stress threshold, which means it takes less stress in the day

• 50:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  to tip you over. Why routines and rituals, whether it's in the morning or in the evening, are so beneficial? Is that they keep you away. You're not accumulating micro-stress doses. In fact, you're going the other way. You're giving yourself more buffer room. Right, it's not neutral, it's not only the benefit of these things, it's what you're not also doing. I still haven't answered your first question about what is my morning routine? I mean, I think I've spoken about it on my podcast. Is anyone even interested in what my own morning routine is?

• 51:16Speaker 01

  You can quickly walk us through your morning routine, because I think we have about five minutes before the break. And I would still love to hear if there are some things that I can pick up for myself.

• 51:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  My framework for morning routine is the three Ms, okay? Mindfulness, movement, and mindset. If anyone ever asks me how to create a morning routine, I say, listen, if you have time, those three Ms are a fantastic way of creating a routine. If you don't have time, just pick one of those Ms and do it. That's still better than not doing anything. The first M, mindfulness. Well, that's any form of mindfulness practice you like. It could be meditation, it could be breathwork, it could be drinking a cup of coffee or tea,

• 52:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  dare I say it, without also looking at your phone.

• 52:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Just literally tasting. If you've never done that, I challenge you, it's a totally different experience. You actually taste the coffee more, you taste the tea more. You actually need less. And we know this from research in terms of mindfulness. So like, when you distract yourself when you eat with the television on or looking at your emails, you could well eat more, not only at that meal, but at all subsequent meals for the rest of the day. Right, so mindfulness is huge. Like, paying attention to what you're doing is huge, which is one of the benefits of routines, or certainly rituals. You're very rarely doing a morning ritual mindlessly. Okay, so the first M, mindfulness. Pick a practice, that could be five minutes of meditation on your favorite app.

• 52:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Second M, movement. Okay, so I do 10 minutes of meditation first thing in the morning. Okay, that's what I do for that first M. Second M. Okay, so I'm in my pyjamas. I walk from my living room into my kitchen and I make my coffee. I weigh it out, I put it in the French press. I put a timer on for five minutes because that's how I like my coffee. In those five minutes, I do a strength workout in my pyjamas. Right, that's important. I don't have to get changed. I made it so easy that it's impossible for me to say I don't have time. The third M for me, and you've got to remember, I've now got the beautiful reward of my morning cup of coffee,

• 53:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  is mindset. And at the moment, I do journal, I actually write in a three-question journal every morning. I go through these questions, which literally takes me under five minutes. And if I have more time, I'll then read something uplifting for the next 15, 20 minutes. Now, look, I have to make choices in my life to give me time for this. And I don't think, you know, if I think back to 10, 11 years ago when my dad was alive and I used to be heavily involved with dad's care, would I have had time for this stuff? I don't know if I'm honest. So God's honest truth, I don't actually know now, reflecting back. But I've made time in my life for this. So I, you know, I am the person who doesn't know the latest thing, what's on Netflix.

• 54:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't know all of that stuff in the media. I just, I'm not interested. I go to bed early. It works for me so that I can wake up and have this time before my wife and kids get up. It's important to me. It may not be for you and that's completely okay. Right, and for those of you think you don't have time for a 3M morning routine, I had one patient who was a single mother who did it in five minutes. Right, she said she had no time. I said, have you got five minutes? She goes, I've got five minutes. I said, okay, let's create one together. One minute of three, four, five breathing she would do. Two minutes of her favorite yoga poses and two minutes of affirmations.

• 55:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, she did that every day for five minutes, changed her life. Calmer, more present. And her eczema symptoms went down by 60 to 70%. And I'm convinced that was because stress was a big driver for eczema. It didn't vanish completely, but it went down significantly.

• 55:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  Unmanaged stress affects every single organ system of the body. It affects your skin, it affects your gut, it affects your blood sugar, right? We don't think of that. Remember what I said before, emotional stress is not neutral. You will have to do something to neutralize it. So that's kind of how my morning looks.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  I love it, and I love the framework of the three Ms. Because like you said, if you don't have enough time, you can just choose one, but do something. I think doing something is better than doing nothing. So I really appreciate you sharing that.

• 55:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  And again, remember, it's a sense of control that it gives you, which I think is really, really important. In terms of evening, I do actually answer these questions in bed at night. But the big thing I've been experimenting with, have I said this on the podcast before? I don't think so. For the last four weeks, I've been switching off my phone at 6:30 PM.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Admirable.

• 56:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, hold on a minute, let me explain. I've seen a few gasps at the moment, okay? So first thing to say is I do have a landline, okay? You know, I feel like sometimes I'm totally old school. I still listen to CDs, I still have a landline. But I think there's something to be said for it. So only a few people have my landline number. My close family and some of my close friends, right? So in the modern world, for me, it allows me to switch that phone off and I'm just much more present and calm and I sleep better. Now, I also recognize that some of you may not have that luxury, let's say.

• 57:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  You may go, I can't do that for whatever reason. My kids are a bit older, they go out in the evenings, I need to be contactable. Fine, no worries. We've all got to do what works for us. But for me, that has been game changing, right? Now, to be fair, I go to bed at about half eight to nine. I go to bed early, this is a very late night for me, okay?

• 57:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  But for me, it's what I said before, use yourself as data. Play around with stuff and then don't look for external expertise to tell you if that's the right thing for you. Trust yourself. You know what the right thing is for you. And if there's one message I think I'm going to be banging on about for the next year or two, it's this, right? Routines, rituals, a practice of solitude each day. And I think journaling is a great one to do. You will cultivate insight, you will cultivate self-awareness. You're going to realise why you can't give up sugar. You're going to go, wow, you know what?

• 58:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm always having sugar at this point, before that Thursday meeting at work. Okay? I'm always, when I haven't spent enough time going out in the day, when I've just been on Zoom calls all day, I always end up having half a bottle of wine in the evening. You can go on as many sugar detoxers or alcohol detoxers as you want for 30 days. In most cases, I honestly don't think it will change a thing for you. It might give you an insight as to what your life can be like without it. But all behaviours in your life, every single one serves a role. And far too often, we try and change the behaviour without understanding the role it plays in our life.

• 58:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  Understand the role it plays in your life and suddenly it gets a lot easier. Now, people go, okay, sure, now that I'm aware, Dr Chatu, what do I do? Do not neglect, do not underestimate how important awareness is. As soon as you are aware of something, you change your relationship to it. I promise you, as soon as you're aware of it, as soon as you know, oh man, when the kids bedtime has gone on too long, when I've had a row with my partner and I'm sitting in front of the sofa at 9pm watching telly and I want to have ice cream, right? You're not hungry.

• 59:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  You know, you're unlikely to be physically hungry, but you are emotionally hungry. And as you go through the process of understanding that, you will change.

• 59:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  And again, without sounding like a broken record, that's why I believe we all need a practice of solitude each day, which helps you develop and cultivate self-awareness. Journaling is a very, very effective way to do it, but there are other ways. Right? If you want to meditate, do that. Do both. You know, one of the things I didn't share about my own morning routine is that, and again, maybe this can come up in the Q and A at this time where people are interested, but you can develop self-awareness through your body and through your mind. Right? So sometimes practices like breathwork or meditation or body scans help you tune into

• 1:00:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  your body. Okay? Where do I hold tightness? Where is there a restriction, which is really, really useful? And what I found for me is that I love finishing off my morning routine with journaling because in my 10-minute meditation, I get so many insights about my life that I then get to crystallize into my journal. So for me, it works really well, but you've got to also remember, I've been working on my own morning routine for many years now. I didn't just wake out of bed one day and thought, "Yeah, I'm gonna have a 40-minute morning routine today." No chance. What I've done is I started off with five minutes. That five minutes became 10 minutes. It became 15 minutes. And then I forget to do it for a few weeks.

• 1:01:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  And then I realized through the practice of self-awareness, "Oh, I'm a better human being when I do my morning routine." When I think I don't have time in the morning, because it's a busy day at work today and I've got emails to do, I bet just crack on now.

• 1:01:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  I always regress it later, because I'm not as productive, I'm not as calm. So actually, although you think you may not have those 10 or 15 minutes first thing in the morning, those 10 or 15 minutes will pay you back immeasurably, but you've got to trust yourself to do it.

• 1:02:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Did that all make sense?

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and I'm a huge advocate of morning routines and night routines as well. It has truly changed my life and I noticed the difference when I skip a day or two in the way I feel, in the way I react, like you said, so really appreciate you sharing all these tips.

• 1:02:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  Can I just say one more thing, Mimi?

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:02:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, I know you're trying to get us off to the break, but for anyone who's got kids, has anyone got kids in here, right? So then if you're thinking,

• 1:02:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  but that's all great, but you know, I've got kids going around the house in the morning and I can't have that peace of calm, right? Who says you need to have peace and calm?

• 1:02:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  I used to think this, I used to get really frustrated when I was trying to meditate in the morning and one of my kids got up, right? And I could hear them coming down the stairs and that daddy, daddy, right? And a part of me was like, oh man, I just wanted a bit of time to sort my head out first. And you know when it really changed for me is I thought, okay, bring it on, no problem. And I can still remember when my daughter was a bit younger, she'd come down looking for daddy and say, oh darling, I'm just doing my morning routine, just meditating, just come and sit with me. So she'd just come and sit there, or she'd read or do a puzzle, and I would just keep going.

• 1:03:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  If you're waiting for the perfect time for this gorgeous routine, where there's candles there and there's calm around, you know what? It ain't gonna happen, right? Well, you may be lucky enough, and if you, if you, if that's you, great. For me, that ain't gonna happen, right? So I've learned to embrace that, and I tell you what, if you can meditate while your kids are around, that's a pretty good skill you're developing. And so I just want to say this, I think it's really important to put these things out on the open. We, we love to put obstacles up in the way. We love to say, you know, that's all right for you guys, but that doesn't work for me. If that is you, try meditating tomorrow morning, and when your kids come and bother you,

• 1:03:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  just smile and meditate anyway. Not only will that help you, just think about the example you're setting to your kids. I'm not saying ignore them, right? Just to be really clear, I don't ignore my daughter. I look at her, I interact with her, and I tell her what I'm doing. Kids don't do what they hear you say to do, they do what they see you doing. Right? So just think about the example you're setting for your children and what they're going to do when they're older. It's much more likely they engage in these health promoting routines if they see their parents doing it.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Lead by example.

• 1:04:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Thank you, Dr. Rangan.

• 1:04:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Really hope you enjoyed that live recording. As always, do have a think about one thing that you can take away and start applying into your own life. And also, as I mentioned in the intro, if you did enjoy this bonus episode, I really think that you are going to love my upcoming book, Make Change That Lasts. Remember, if you can support the publication of the book by pre-ordering it now, you will get exclusive access to a free one-hour video masterclass that I have recorded and a free worksheet containing 10 powerful questions that you can start asking yourself immediately to develop your own insight and self-awareness.

• 1:05:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think you will find this video and worksheet really, really helpful. And in many ways, it will act as a bit of a primer to get you ready to hit the ground running when you have the book in your hands in just a few weeks. You can see all details about this pre-order offer at drchatterjee.com/makechange or just click on the link in the episode notes in your podcast app. And if you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family or leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week.

• 1:06:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  And always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you've lived more.