634 Reverse Disease and Reclaim Your Health with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

“WE’RE APPLYING 20TH CENTURY THINKING TO 21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS.” If you wake up in the morning and find that your tire is low, what do you do? You go with the quick fix and fill it up with air. What if you go to your car the next day and find it’s low. Do you fill it up again, and again, and again for days, weeks, months? Of course not. You find the root of the problem. You find the nail, or whatever is causing the problem, to have it removed and have it fixed permanently. So why aren’t you doing it with your health? Most of us go to the doctor and get a prescription for pills to fix our chronic problems. We just keep going for the quick fix instead of addressing the root of it. I can’t say every medical condition is this way, but in many cases ongoing problems like depression and diabetes needs to have the root problem examined. Chances are you just need to shift your lifestyle. And that doesn’t mean a drastic change to your life. You can start small. To explain much more than I can, I sat down with the UK's leading doctor, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee. Dr. Chatterjee is a medical doctor who decided to rethink the way we do medicine. He’s decided that physicians need to be more holistic in their approach to treating patients and help their lifestyle as opposed to just giving them a quick fix. He has become the star of the hit BBC series Doctor in the House where he analyzes every aspect of people’s lives to help with their illness. Dr. Chatterjee has made it his goal to simplify the way the average person thinks about healthcare. He’s divided health into four easy pillars that allow anyone with a chronic disease to retake control of their lives. Learn the root cause of most chronic diseases, how to let technology empower us, and the key indicator of how well you will age, on Episode 634. Some Questions I Ask: Why are people not the best they can be? (5:38) You said a disease is an illusion, why is that? (10:16) What’s usually the root cause of people’s chronic disease? (21:17) It’s important to build muscle mass? (33:48) How come medical school isn’t teaching the two most important things to change someone’s health? (39:24) Is there anything in your health that’s lacking? (50:00) When’s the last time you meditated? (52:03) Are you doing a digital detox at night? (54:11) What’s your biggest fear as a human? (1:01:32) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why people eat so much fast food (9:02) The boy that made Rangan reevaluate the medical industry (14:03) Rangan’s first pillar of health (23:54) What the world was like before technology (28:54) Rangan’s new medical course (42:31) What Med schools should be looking for (48:26) The next thing Rangan needs to work on (53:17) Plus much, much more Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 634 with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee.

• 0:06Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Jim Rohn said, "Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live." We only get one body, one life in one body. And if we aren't taking care of it holistically, on every aspect of the body, in terms of how we can optimize our physical health, mental, emotional health, our stress levels, getting enough sleep, eating the right foods, if we're not constantly being mindful of these things, then we are going to be destructive in our body. And it's going to affect our performance and our relationships, our life, our finance. All these areas of our life are going to be affected if we don't have our health. And Dr. Rangan Chatterjee is regarded as one of the most influential doctors

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  in the UK, and wants to change how medicine will be practiced in years to come. He is known for finding the root cause of people's problems. And he highlighted his methods in the groundbreaking BBC television show, Doctor in the House, which has been shown in over 70 countries around the world. He is the author of the international bestseller, The Four Pillar Plan, which already became one of the top 10 selling health titles in the past five years. And he hosts the podcast, Feel Better Live More. And it's also featured on BBC News channels. He's done TED Talks. This guy's all over the place. And what we talk about today are how chronic disease is actually an illusion.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  So if you think you have chronic disease, it's actually an illusion. And what the root cause of most chronic disease actually is, why relaxing is the first pillar of good health and why so many of us are never relaxed. And you'll see what I'm talking about here in a second. Also, how to use technology in a way that empowers us instead of enslaves us. And what the key indicator is of how well you will age. My friends, you will love this one. Make sure to share it with your friends. LewisHowes.com/634. Take a screenshot on your phone right now and tag me on Instagram and let me know what you're thinking along the way. We've got a big shout out for the fan of the week.

• 2:39Lewis Howes?

  This is from Luke Bloomquist, who said, "School of Greatness has quickly become a regular must-listen podcast for me. The guest topics and content is absolutely high quality and I love that the podcast not only entertains but enlightens." Absolute top-notch stuff. Thank you so much. If you're not listening, you're missing out. So that's right, if this is your first episode here, make sure to subscribe right now, leave us a review, let me know what you think for your chance to be shouted out as the fan of the week. All right, let's get into this one. I'm super excited. It's all about how do we reverse disease and reclaim your health with the one, the only Dr.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  Rangan Chatterjee. Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got Dr. Rangan Chatterjee in the house. Good to see you, my friend.

• 3:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Thanks for having me, Lewis.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  Nice to meet you today. You've had a big success in the UK and all over the world with a show that you have called Doctor in the House, which I've never seen, but I hear is incredible. And you actually moved in with people for four to six weeks to help them transform their lifestyles, is that right?

• 3:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah. Well, transform their health, whatever their health problem is, I'm there to help them.

• 3:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  But as you say, Lewis, the majority of the time, it is a lifestyle issue.

• 3:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It's mostly changing their emotions, their habits, their routines. Is that what I'm hearing?

• 4:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, absolutely. But I'm not putting blame on people. I just want to make that really clear. I'm not saying that people are doing it to themselves, right? I think everyone genuinely, I think everyone's trying to be as healthy as they can.

• 4:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:12Rangan Chatterjee?

  Within the context of their own life, within their job patterns and their beliefs and things. And I always start out with that, that who wants to be overweight, right? Who wants to feel tired? I don't think anyone does.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  No one.

• 4:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? So I start with that premise that everyone wants to be the best they can. And then I kind of try and figure out what is the obstacle there?

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  Why are people not the best they can be?

• 4:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 4:37Lewis Howes?

  Why is that? Why do you think we allow ourselves to go down and gain a hundred pounds? Or attract disease or feel low energy? Why do we allow ourselves to do that?

• 4:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't think we're necessarily consciously allowing ourselves to do that. I think there's two factors for me. The first factor is knowledge is important, right? I think we have over complicated health in a huge way. And I think when we can simplify the messages to people, I think we've got a shot. But I don't think that's everything. I think there's a lot of emotional baggage that many of us carry, which we use, you know, sugar or food or our lifestyle choices, whether it's we stay up late and we we binge on Netflix. We don't go to sleep, right? To compensate for other things in our life. And I don't think I've really, you know, I've been practicing now for seventeen years. I've been seeing patients for.

• 5:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't think I really got this maybe six, seven years ago. I really don't. I think as I get more experience in my own life as a father, as a husband, you know, as a more experienced doctor, you kind of learn more things. You kind of go, it's not that simple, actually. You know, it's not quite as straightforward as giving people the information. You've got to inspire them. You've got to connect in a way that it means something to them. And, you know, a lot of doctors say that actually patients don't do what we tell them to do. Right? I don't buy it. And the reason I don't buy it is everybody wants to feel as good as they can.

• 6:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? My job is, and the job of any healthcare professional, and you can expand it out beyond healthcare, right? Is can you communicate effectively with the person in front of you? Can you do it in a way that it resonates, like deeply resonates? Because when you do that, right, people want to make the change.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 6:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  I genuinely believe that.

• 6:28Lewis Howes?

  When you just tell people, you need to do this. You just need to do these things and you'll get better. It's not as important as, you know what? Your son who's six right now? It's really depending on you to be healthy. And this is gonna help you live a longer life so you can see him go to school and marry someone and see your grandkids having more meaning behind it, is that right?

• 6:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Absolutely, and something's just come into my head. The very first day ever that I filmed the show Doctor in the House, right? I was probably a bit nervous, there's a camera on me and I'm like, I know this is gonna go out on prime time. And there was a family there, a few weight issues in the family. And I diagnosed the lady with type 2 diabetes on the first day, she didn't know she had it. And on the very first day, I said to them, hey guys, look, what would you usually eat? Okay, I remember the guy said to me, he's, well, he turned around, he said to the family, hey guys, what are you having? Just the usual? They said, yeah, just the usual, please dad. He goes, come on doc, come with me. So I went in his car with him. We drive fifteen minutes out of town to a drive-through McDonald's.

• 7:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  He spends about sixty, sixty-five dollars there on, you know, just for four people.

• 7:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that on the way there, he turned around to me and said, hey doc, you know, this is really embarrassing actually, you know. I know this stuff isn't good for us, but we do this five nights a week.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Why? Cause it feels good? Like it, the idea of it feels good, or it's comfort food, or tastes good?

• 7:57Rangan Chatterjee?

  If I'm honest, at the time, I don't think I knew. At the time, I'd say, okay, that's interesting. And that would just mull over in my head. And I kinda would try and figure out, they know that this is not good for them. They've got weight problems, they're not feeling very good, you know, wanna, you know, thinking about maybe moving jobs because they can't really perform the way they wanna perform. This chap had lost his job as a fireman. And he used to be really proud to be a fireman, he wanted to get back into active service. Yet he was still doing this and it is, it's emotional. It wasn't just information, information was important, right? And yes, I did educate them.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  Right. But they knew that wasn't good for them.

• 8:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 8:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right. And then we, you know, you look around and you look around, certainly particularly in this country, right? You see it all around the world, but the amount of people who are struggling with their health, right? It's not just as simple as saying you've got to do better. I honestly don't think it is because I used to think it is. But you've got to tap into it. Once people have got that respect for themselves, that and the understanding of what their meaning is, what their purpose is, I find that they do start making those changes. You know, you can call me an eternal optimist if you want, but I really do believe that.

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You say that disease is an illusion. Why is that?

• 9:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  The reason I think disease is an illusion is basically the way we think about disease, right? Whether we're talking about type two diabetes, whether we're talking about depression or whatever chronic disease you want to talk about. I think there's a, there's a perception in society that it's a thing. Once you cross that threshold, once you've met the criteria for the diagnosis, you've now got this thing, you've got this label, right? And I didn't realize till a few years ago, actually, that, you know, let's take depression for example, right? Depression is the name that we give to a collection of symptoms. Right?

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  There's no blood test that says, oh, you now have depression. You don't, right? I'm not trivializing this. This is a serious problem, right? In the UK, right? One in four people are going to get a mental health problem in any given year. Think about that for a minute. Twenty five percent of the population.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  Why? Why does this?

• 10:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Why? And this is the point of all my work, right, is that

• 10:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  collectively, the way that we are living our modern lifestyles is having a negative impact on the way that many of us are feeling.

• 10:24Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 10:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  For me, it's that simple, right? It's not about blame. It's not about saying you are doing this to yourself. It's about this whole mismatch between the way that modern Western society is set up now.

• 10:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Compared to our genetic and our evolutionary heritage.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Being in nature.

• 10:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  Being in nature.

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's healing and therapeutic. And I just went to Hawaii for four and a half days and left my phone in L A and my computer here. And had zero connection to a device. And you're, it's amazing how the body heals so quickly from any stress or tightness or tension or overwhelm or depression feeling or whatever it may be, you start to heal naturally.

• 11:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  And if we literally just said, you know, one day a week, we're not going to be on our phone. Or one night a week, we're not going to be on our phone, we're going to be in nature. I think our health would drastically improve.

• 11:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  There's one of the chats in my book is literally called that, the screen free Sabbath. Embrace one day a week, you know, for one, one day a week, try and go off your screens completely.

• 11:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  But then I'm also a realist and I say,

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hey, look, if one day sounds too scary.

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  Do an evening.

• 11:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  Do an evening. Start with one hour.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Don't have it on during lunch or dinner. Don't take your phone out when you're.

• 11:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, that's a rule in my family. In my house, there's no phones or electronics around the table when we're eating.

• 11:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  It winds me up. You know, you say that in February this year, I, I'd just been traveling around the country, doing a lot of speaking gigs, I've been promoting my book in the U K, right? And I was feeling burnt out and I, I remember phoning my wife and I said, babe, I need a holiday, right? I don't care where we go, I just want to, I want heat, I want relaxation. And we booked a last minute holiday to Dubai. And I went with my two young kids and my wife. And I got to the hotel, right? And nowhere to fly. My laptop and my phone went in the hotel safe. And it stayed there all week.

• 12:19Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 12:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it's a different experience, you know, I was connecting. I don't think we realize the, the, the noise that this creates in our mind. Every single day, just how many times we look at them, just the studies now showing that if we were communicating now and we had our smartphones on the table there, we would have a less meaningful conversation. Right. Just from having it there, even if it wasn't. Being aware of it. Just being aware, you know, what's going on there, you know, am I missing an email? Is something coming in? It's like a buzz or a light gonna flash. Yeah, a patient story that I talk about in my book, but I think, can I share it with you? This is a few years back, right? And this is before I'd had the kind of personal experiences with my own family and my son

• 13:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  that forced me to confront some realities about my medical training. And I was in a busy Monday afternoon, what we call a surgery, right? I had lots, I had three or four patients waiting outside. You were, you were doing surgeries or? I used to be trained as a specialist. I was doing kidney medicine. Yeah. But I was getting very frustrated about how specialized we're becoming in medicine. And I kind of feel sometimes we're missing the big picture. Yeah. So I changed. A holistic approach as opposed to just treating the symptom, you gotta treat the whole, right? You gotta treat the whole and we are missing that in medicine. You just treat one area, it's not gonna, it's still gonna come back. It's still gonna come back. Yeah. Yeah, and that's kind of what my whole approach is about is looking at this 360 degree approach to health, right? But some of this is intuitive, right?

• 13:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  So it was in this clinic, let's call it a clinic, right? It was a busy, busy Monday afternoon clinic, I'm already running behind and this 16 year old boy called Devon walks in through the door with his mother. And I see the letter that's there on the file and basically on the Saturday, this guy had tried to harm himself, tried to cut his wrists. He ended up in the ER. Right. And he was evaluated there and basically they had discharged him, they thought he was safe to discharge, but it was a letter to say, you know, can we see Dr. Chastity and can I please start an antidepressant for him? So he was there to pick up his prescription. And you were supposed to give them to him. I was supposed to give it to him, right? That would have been the easiest thing in the world to do, right? I would have, would have taken a few minutes, I would be running on time, I'd get back

• 14:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  to my next patient and I could keep going on the kind of treadmill of my day, right? But I thought, wait a minute, you know, I know this family, they seem pretty well, well balanced. I've never picked anything up before that there's an issue here. Why put a 16 year old boy from a seemingly well rounded, well balanced family end up in ER? I've got to know more, right? So I I spent a bit of time, I tried to figure out what was going on. I couldn't quite get to the bottom of it. And I said, hey, guys, look, would you mind coming back tomorrow at the end of my morning clinic? And I'll spend a bit longer with you. I said, okay. So they came back the next day, right? It was a Tuesday morning and end of the clinic. And we spent about fifteen, twenty minutes chatting. And I thought, I I think your use of social media in my head might be negatively impacting your mental health, right?

• 15:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  Did I have a study to prove it? No. But I thought, I said to him, I said, Devin, look, I think the way you're using social media, right? Might be contributing. I didn't say it was the cause, right? I said, it might be a factor. Are you interested in reducing that? He goes, well, don't do you want to think it's going to help? I said, Devin, look, I can commit to you that I'm going to try and help you, right? But shall we give it a try? So I said to him, you know, we come up with this deal. And for one hour in the morning, he gets up and he doesn't go on his phone, right? He comes about seven days later and say, hey, Devin, how are you doing? Now, you said, hey, don't, you know, I don't know, I'm, you know, I'm still not great. But I feel less up and down in the day. I'm sleeping better. Don't get me wrong, right?

• 16:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  He wasn't suddenly cured, right? I'm not saying that, but he was starting to show a sign of improvement. I said, Devin, can we extend that out a little bit? He goes, all right. So we move it up over the next few weeks to two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening before bed, where he doesn't go on his smartphone, right? And he keeps coming back and he's consistently starting to improve bit by bit. I think, okay, this is interesting. Again, I didn't have any training for this, right? I was just trying to figure it out, how to kind of help this guy. I was also then doing a bit of reading, right? And I was reading about how our diets can in fact can can impact on mental health. So he comes in and I say, hey, Devin, what are you eating? I eat, you know, typical. Candy, McDonald's. Typical teenager, right? Sixteen year old, processed junk food.

• 16:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I drew him a little picture. I said, hey, Devin, did you know that actually when your blood sugar is going up and down throughout the day because of what you're eating? That's not just a blood sugar problem. That's not just a energy problem. When your blood sugar is falling rapidly, like two hours after you've eaten, let's say, a bagel, right, that's an alarm sign, or it can be an alarm sign to your body, and your stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, can also go up and that can impact your mood. It's like, really? Like, yeah, so I drew it out for him, so he got it. He said, well, what can I do? I said, hey, well, Devon, look, why don't I help you understand how you can stabilize your blood sugar throughout the day with a bit more sort of protein and healthy fat so he would take with him, things like nuts with him to snack on.

• 17:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, and bit by bit, he's, you know, he came back and said, I'm starting to feel better. And then I didn't see him for ages. And I come into my surgery one day in my clinic, right? And there's a letter waiting for me. And it's his mother, and he said, Dear Doc Stratus, I just want to thank you. Devon is like a different boy. He is happy at school. He's engaging with his friends, he's, he's joining clubs at the weekends. I just want to thank you. And in that moment then, I just thought, you know, I know the science now of what went on there, but I didn't need to know it back then. I just thought, this is a sixteen year old boy, right? Who could have been labeled with depression, right, at sixteen. Right, given medication.

• 18:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  Put on an antidepressant, and, you know, that was five years ago at least, right? He would have still, he could easily have been on that medication. Still today, five years later, I know he's still doing well, right? And I'm not saying that works in every single case. Right. But what I am trying to say is that, back to the original question, is why do I say disease is an illusion? We could have said, you have depression. Right, that is just something you have got. And here's your treatment for it. And I'm saying for him, right? His lifestyle choices that he often didn't realize he was making, he didn't realize the impact. He's made some quick changes in his lifestyle, right? And he's transformed his health.

• 18:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  So he, you know, arguably no longer has depression. Right. Right? Doesn't mean he can't slip back again in the future. This is what I mean by disease as an illusion. I feel that's my job as a doctor, you know, I'm privileged to be able to tap into what's going on and that boy, if there's a fork in the road, right, he could have gone down one path.

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  What does that do to your psyche if you know, oh, hey, I've got depression. That's why I'm like this, you know, there's nothing I can do, right? And again, I'm

• 19:26Lewis Howes?

  Speaking of victim of this, yeah.

• 19:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'd like to be a respectful and compassionate guy, you know, I'm not saying there aren't people out there who don't benefit from this stuff or from medication. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it's too easy to say you've got something and give a pill. And I, I think eighty percent of the time, we don't need to do that.

• 19:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  And on my show, I managed to make something like, a condition like type two diabetes, in inverted commas, disappear after thirty days, right? I helped a lady with fibromyalgia pains who'd been under doctors for ten years be pain free after six weeks, right? A thirty year history of back pain.

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  Gone and, and an opiate and a sleeping pill addiction, or certainly a dependency.

• 20:08Lewis Howes?

  Pain reliever, yeah, yeah.

• 20:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Gone. When we actually identify what's the root cause of this and

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  What's usually the root cause for most people? Is it emotional attachment that they're holding on to? Is it what they're eating and their lifestyle choices? Is it trauma that they face that they're holding on to? What is it usually? Or do you see a pattern?

• 20:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's a combination.

• 20:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Things, right? I certainly would say that I think there is an emotional pattern in pretty much every case. You know, again, yeah, I, I really do. And I, again, this is

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  Any case of disease, essentially.

• 20:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  No, sorry. I'm, I'm not saying in any case of disease. I'm saying in this sort of, look, I think I need to really be clear. I'm talking about chronic disease as opposed to acute disease, right? So an acute problem like a pneumonia.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 20:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? You've got a pneumonia.

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? You've got

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  You gotta clear it up.

• 20:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Very simply, you've got the overgrowth of a bug in your lung, right? We identify that bug, or we give you a treatment, an antibiotic, that kills that bug, and then you don't have that disease anymore, right?

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Rangan Chatterjee?

  Okay, I get that, right? That's, that's an acute problem.

• 21:12Lewis Howes?

  So you still prescribe medication to things like that?

• 21:15Rangan Chatterjee?

  Absolutely, right? But a chronic disease, so let's take type 2 diabetes is so common and widespread. Let's just think about that for a minute. That happens when you pass an arbitrary point on a scale. Right? So here in the US, your HbA1c, which is your average marker of, it's a blood test which says your average blood sugar for the last three months. Right? If you're 6.5 or above, you, you, we say you've got type 2 diabetes. If you're 6 to 6.5, you have something called prediabetes.

• 21:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  No, so here it's 5.7, right? But the point is,

• 21:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  if it's just below that at 5.6, we say you don't have anything.

• 21:51Lewis Howes?

  You're fine.

• 21:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  You're fine. But you're not fine. This is a continuum.

• 21:54Lewis Howes?

  Very close.

• 21:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Very close, right? And so what I'm just trying to get the point across is that something doesn't magically change when you go up point one and you're now in, you know,

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  prediabetes already.

• 22:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, this has been building up for 10 years, and I want us to be picking this up one year in saying, hey, look, you don't have prediabetes yet, but you're gonna get it within a few years.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:19Rangan Chatterjee?

  And my approach really, Louis, is about four key areas of health, right? I, I find that what I do with most people comes down to what I call the four pillars of health. That's what I did on the show, that's why I outlined in my book. Because I think when we can simplify health down, people get it.

• 22:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? And I cover connection, and I cover emotional health, but I do it under the umbrella of relax, right?

• 22:44Lewis Howes?

  Relax?

• 22:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yes, okay, so just to back up, my four pillars of health.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  That's the first pillar, relax.

• 22:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and there's a reason I started with relax, because

• 22:52Lewis Howes?

  When we are tight and stressed, that's when we cause dis-ease, right?

• 22:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  Absolutely.

• 22:57Lewis Howes?

  The more tight we are for the longer amount of years, we build something up in the body that has symptoms, negative symptoms, right?

• 23:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and can dictate our, our choices. You're feeling stressed, you're not having any time to yourself, right? You will find it harder to make healthy food choices.

• 23:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  You will find it harder to have the motivation to work out and get your body moving. You

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  And when the brain is a roller coaster,

• 23:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  you're causing dis-ease, dysfunction in your body, right?

• 23:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  Absolutely, and you know, It's interesting, the publisher first said, you know, we should start with food. And I said, no, no, no, I wanna, look, everyone will expect me to start with food.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? We undervalue relaxation.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  Peace of mind.

• 23:38Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, we undervalue relaxation in a society. We prioritize, and when we talk about health, everyone's talking about food and movement, right? Don't get me wrong, they're important, but I give equal priority to food, movement, sleep, and relaxation. And I think that's what makes my approach a little bit different, is that I say, look, you don't need the perfect diet, you don't need the perfect workout regime, right? You need to do enough in each pillar. And I think that's what leads to the changes that not only work in two weeks, they're still gonna be working in two months, in six months, in 12 months, in two years. You know, we can all go on a crash 10-day diet, I feel better, right? All of us can do that, I could do that.

• 24:23Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  But will that change my behavior? I'm not so sure.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and as an athlete, you know, we always talk about being in the zone, being in the flow, and the only way to get in the flow is to be relaxed. Because if you're playing basketball or football and you're running tight like this, intense, you're not gonna be able to flow at any moment and move and be agile, so you must be able to be relaxed.

• 24:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  In order to achieve peak results in your sport.

• 24:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so how, I totally agree, and it actually reminds me of a story that I talk about in the fourth chapter in Relax, it's, I say, we all need a daily practice of stillness, and I define what that is, right? And in that chapter, I talk about flow state, and I talk about athletes, and I talk about Tiger Woods, actually. And I always remember, as a kid growing up, I would just idolize that guy and think, God, he's just amazing what he's doing, and he's getting all kinds of people interested in the sport just for his brilliance at the time. And I remember, a lot of people used to criticize him, and I remember an interview he said once, you know, on a Sunday on the back nine.

• 25:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  I can't hear the crowds. I I I I don't know all that emotional commotion that's going on. I'm in the zone. He's in flow state, right? He is literally just in the moment and and zoned in. But you know who else is in flow state? My five year old daughter or my seven year old son, when they're coloring a book.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? Or playing, building Lego blocks. They're in flow state.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 25:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? I could talk to them and they're not being rude and ignoring me. They're just completely immersed in the moment. And we can learn from those kids. And that's the thing about technology, right? It takes us out. We start to get distracted. I love tech, right?

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  The whole relaxed pillar, you know, a big feature of that is how do we use technology in a way that it empowers us and it helps us rather than enslaves us?

• 26:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I think for many of us, unfortunately, technology is like a.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  We're slaves. We're slaves to it. And it was a year and a half ago when I realized, I thought to myself, has there ever been a day in the last fifteen years since I had my cell phone? I got my cell phone when I was seventeen. And I was like, have I ever had a day where I didn't have my cell phone on me? And I couldn't think of a moment, one day where I didn't have it on me. And I was like, that's kind of a crime. Like, I feel like that's a really bad sign that I'm addicted to something if I do it every single day for fifteen years.

• 26:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  And it's, you know, I started sleeping with it right next to my head, on my, you know, next to my, at my desk, whatever, to my bed. And I was just like, and I was always checking it. And I was like, something's got to change. And that's when I took my first trip without it and I left it here. And it was so relaxing and relieving to to not be chained to a technology. And then I did it again recently, and it was again, another reminder, like, I want to do this at least once a year for a week.

• 27:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 27:17Lewis Howes?

  And do these Sabbaths, like you talk about, one day a week. Even just going out to dinner without it, leaving it home. You know, like going to the movie and not taking it with you. Like, whenever you go out, one night a week, two nights a week, just leave it at home. And I feel like it's so freeing to just fully connect.

• 27:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's like a holiday. It's like, you feel.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  You feel like you've had a holiday, just three hours without your your phone.

• 27:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  It all comes down and.

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think what's crazy for me, Lewis, is that in twenty eighteen. You know, we have to talk to people. I feel as a, as a medical doctor, I need to write twenty five percent of my entire book on relaxation. Because I think if you go back twenty years, right? And again, maybe it's a romantic viewpoint of the world before, but let's say you're standard family, right? People come home from work. You have dinner together. You have dinner together, right? And then after dinner, if you've got kids, you might put them to bed, right? If you don't, I think people would maybe go sit on the sofa and put the TV on, right? There wouldn't be the option of can I keep working on my business? Can I catch up on my work emails so my day is easier tomorrow? I don't, you, you didn't even have that opportunity.

• 28:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  So I think relaxation almost, it would be there, it would naturally be, be there in the evenings. I think because we've got this amazing technology where we can literally talk to someone with a video five thousand miles away, which is incredible, right? But it also means that if we, if we're not careful, it's gonna take over us. And I, I actually think we're the generation now, we're gonna, technology, social media is pretty new. I don't know, how old is Facebook? Twelve? Twelve years. Twelve years, right? Twelve, I think. Okay. Think about something which, what, over one billion people on the planet have, or I can't remember the latest figure. Two billion. Two billion. Two billion people. Right? It's just incredible. Crazy. Did not exist twelve years ago. Yeah.

• 29:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  And so I think we actually need, almost like, you know, we talk about something, you know, good sleep hygiene rules to help you sleep. I think we need good technology rules. What are some good practices around technology that are gonna help us? No one's getting rid of tech, nor should we get rid of tech, you know, it's here to stay. Create boundaries for yourself, yeah. Yeah, in the sleep portion of the book, one of my recommendations is what I call a no tech ninety before bed. You know, the whole idea, can you? Switch off all modern tech ninety minutes before bed. Even TV or you mean? No, I don't include TV in that and I explain why. Yeah, and also I think, you know, there's two factors with the technology. One is the blue light that we get from it. So one of our sleep hormones is called melatonin. We get that when it gets dark, right?

• 29:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Blue light, we only see in nature in the morning or maybe in the early afternoon. We don't see it in in the evenings. But when you've got that phone next to your face, that is blue light. That is telling your body it's daytime. That's the sun, time to wake up, right? But, you know, the TV is typically a lot further away from you than your phone. You know, our phones are like here, right? Aren't they? And so I think TV is okay. But again, if you're gonna watch a violent thriller before you go to bed, you know. Watch out. Watch out. Have some bad dreams and some bad sleep. Yeah, so so one factor is the blue light, but the other factor is that emotional commotion. Zooming, yeah, exactly. I had a patient recently, he's like a forty two year old busy executive, right?

• 30:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  He has had three and a half years sleep a night for about twenty five years, right? He's tried everything, like literally everything. He's been to the sleep clinic, he's been investigated. He doesn't have a, what we call a primary sleep disorder. And here's the thing about sleep that I think a lot of the public and maybe a lot of my profession don't realize is that in my, you know, seventeen years of experience of seeing patients, people who struggle with their sleep, the majority of them are doing something in their daily lifestyle, right? That they don't realize is affecting their ability to sleep at night. So it's not about giving them something to take, it's about. Right. Identifying what's going on in their lifestyle.

• 31:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  And this guy, three and a half hours sleep a night, I'm not kidding you, within five weeks, he was sleeping seven hours a night. Wow. Because food impacts your sleep. Absolutely, sugar. Sugar impacts your sleep, but he was like a complete workaholic. He would literally after dinner, he'd be back on the computer. He felt he had to be on call till ten thirty, eleven o'clock. It's hard to slow down in that. It's hard to slow down and he couldn't do a no tech ninety. So you know what? We started off with a no tech twenty. Yeah. Right? And he started to feel the benefits and then he wanted to make the changes. Right, so this is the whole point about my approach with like Devon, that sixteen year old boy. I wanna set the bar so low with people that they feel that they can do it.

• 32:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Then when you do that, you feel good, you feel motivated, you feel, yeah, yeah, I can do that. A prime example would be, I've got this thing called a five minute kitchen workout in my, in my movement pillar, it probably one of my favorite suggestions is the five minute kitchen workout. And, you know, where did this come from, right? This comes from this whole idea that a few years ago, I kind of realized that strength training, now I know you're an athlete, but strength training is very much undervalued again in society. You know, and, you know, once we hit thirty, you know, we start losing muscle mass each year. And our muscle mass is one of the biggest predictors of how well we're gonna be as we age. Really? Yeah, absolutely. And some people call it the number one predictor of how well you're gonna be is your muscle mass. So it's important to build muscle mass?

• 32:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, particularly after the age of thirty. So arguably, you know, we associate working out with teenagers and twenties, something that's trying to look buff and good in the gym, right? And look good when they go out. Arguably, it's more important as you get older is to train your strength. What does it help with? It helps predict the longevity of your life. Longevity and how well you're going to age is one of the strongest determinants. Because why? Because what's the reason why? Well, okay, so we think of muscle as dumb muscle, right? It's just that if we were gonna shift this table, right? And push it or lift it, we need our muscle. It just serves a mechanical function. In the last few years, we've realized muscle is probably the forgotten organ. It's an active organ. It regulates hormones in your body. It burns fat, right?

• 33:32Rangan Chatterjee?

  It burns fat, it sends out immune system messages called cytokines to other parts of the body, right? It's not just dumb muscle. It's, it helps with all kinds of things. And, you know, we neglect it. Wow. And as a doctor, and I think I used to give this advice to people, say, you know, strength training is really important, you know, you've got to join a gym. They come back a few weeks later, I said, how are you getting on with that? Doc, you know, I've not a time, you know, I can't afford the gym and work's too busy. And again, I never thought, Lewis, I never thought, you know, these guys aren't doing what I told them. I thought, okay, the advice I'm giving them is not resonating. It's not connecting with them in a way that they feel that they can do it. I've got to do a better job, right?

• 34:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  So in that moment, it was with a patient, I came up with this five minute kitchen workout. Now, look, there's plenty of other great workouts out there. I'm not claiming to have, if you've got another one you like doing, do it, right? This is not saying I've come up with some unique approach, right? But all my tools are to do with what I've seen work with people, with real people, with busy lives, busy jobs, busy families. So I, I would say, okay, look, there are these five exercises. I'd get my jacket off, right? I'd hit the deck and I would teach them how to do it. So like a press up, for example, a press up on the floor, it's actually a pretty tricky exercise, right? It's a bit easy to do on the desk, but I've got 70 year old patients who can do it against the wall. Right. Right? You can do it against the wall.

• 35:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  So I would teach these people how to do these like five minute kitchen workouts. And, you know, when people, if you said to someone, have you got 45 minutes three times a week to workout? They may say no, but then they don't go and do it. If I say, hey, if you've got five minutes twice a week, is that all you want, doc? I'm like, yeah, yeah, five minutes twice a week. So I start there and recently, and I talk about this in the book, I got this couple in their 60s who came to see me recently. I thought they would benefit and they were skeptical. I'm telling you, they were really skeptical, but I didn't take no for an answer. I still had the jacket on, I was still against the wall, teaching them how to do it. And they said, all right, doc, we'll give you a go. So they, they went home and I gave them a follow up in four weeks and they came back and said, how are you guys getting on?

• 35:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  Oh my God, we love it. We're doing it. We started off in the kitchen and now they do it six times a week. Wow. Upstairs, right, as their evening bath is running on their upstairs landing, they're knocking out this five minute kitchen workout and actually often it's 10 minutes. Right. So from them doing zero strength training, they're now doing. Six times a week, ten minutes upstairs, right? But I only said they had to do ten minutes a week, right? Because they feel good, they start to get the benefits. And I've got countless stories like that, but you can, anybody can do it, any ability level. But people like the gym, I love the gym, right? Great, but there's a lot of people out there that if we say you've got to go to a gym to stay fit, that's an obstacle.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well, I'm just never gonna fit then.

• 36:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Never gonna do it, so I'm all about.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  Simple ways to do it, yeah.

• 36:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Simple ways to do it, that's my whole approach, man.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like to me that there are two things that medical school does not do, that if they did, the world would be mostly healed or way better off. One is teaching doctors about nutrition and lifestyle and understanding about not treating the actual symptom, but actually treating the root cause of the actions that people are taking, the thoughts, the beliefs behind all this. And number two, teaching doctors how to effectively understand and relate from their point of view and communicate, like you said, in a way so that they can start taking these actions. How come in medical school, they're not teaching what arguably

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  sounds like to me the two most important things to change people's health?

• 37:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, very, very good point. Obviously, there's two factors there. I think the first thing we've got to recognize is that these modern healthcare systems, obviously, look, I'm born and brought up in the UK, right? So that's my bias, but I don't, I've come out to America a lot and I don't think it's dissimilar here. These healthcare systems were set up in a different era, right? They were set up in an era where what people went to see their doctor with was an acute problem. You'd go with a pneumonia, with a chest infection.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  Fix it.

• 37:56Rangan Chatterjee?

  Fix it, right? So the whole system of these ten, fifteen minute appointments, right? Was set up in that era because modern medicine.

• 38:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  Worked in that era, it responded well to that. You go in with your problem, you get your diagnosis, you get your pill for that ill and you take it for seven days or whatever and the problem goes. Right? The problem is, is that the health landscape of the entire Western world, but arguably the whole world now, has changed dramatically, whereas the bulk of what we are seeing, right, is in some way related to our modern lifestyles. I don't think healthcare systems have kept up. I don't think medical school has kept up. And I think it's almost like we're trying to hold on to the way it's always been without recognizing, look outside that window, it is different out there, right? The world has changed. Even technology, we spoke a lot about technology, that's only what fifteen, sixteen years old, or social media at twelve years

• 38:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  old, let's say Facebook at least. Surely we need to understand these tools of how social media might impact our health.

• 38:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  We don't need to wait for the big ten year study. We've lost a bit of common sense. You know, I feel I can make a statement like how to make disease disappear, right? It's a pretty bold statement, right? What I mean by that is, is just to really try and challenge people's perception of what disease is. I get it, some diseases do need proper, proper medical treatment. I don't dispute that, right? Modern medicine has given me fifteen years of my father that I would not have got without life-saving, modern medical treatment. So I'm all for modern medicine, but we shouldn't apply, that works for acute disease, we shouldn't apply that same sledgehammer approach to these chronic diseases that actually have got lifestyle as a root cause. Last year, I was thinking, okay, I'm showing these great

• 39:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  results with these families on television. You know, so in the UK, about five million people watch each show. And I kind of thought, well, if one percent of people who watch this make a change in their life, well, it just affected fifty thousand people. If ten percent do, that's half a million people. And now that show's gone to seventy different countries around the world, I think, okay, this is great. But how do I really create change? I can keep talking about the lifestyle nutrition thing about doctors, or I can do something about it. So I spent six months creating a new course, the very first course in the UK called Prescribing Lifestyle Medicine, that has been accredited by the Royal College of GPs. And I just found that in January. That's cool. Yeah, we had nearly 200 docs attend.

• 40:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  95% of people said they would highly recommend it to their colleagues. So we're really, really pleased that we're actually now, because those 200 healthcare professionals and docs, they can go back into their world and they can help all their patients, right? And we weren't teaching them. And here's the point that people miss, Lewis, right? It's not even about teaching in-depth nutrition, although I think that would be a good idea. We still have a position in society, whether warranted or not, people often come to check with their doctor, what's the real deal here? I think for many years, people would have been better off going to see a really good personal trainer or a really good nutritionist, than come to see a medical doctor for something like type 2 diabetes. And I don't say that with any pride, right?

• 41:10Rangan Chatterjee?

  I say that I've met some fantastic other healthcare professionals who've got really great knowledge, who can help their patients. But if we don't know at least the broad base of this stuff, we're going to say, oh, no, that's not right. You know, you've got to take this medication, right? So I think what we taught is a new framework. How do you plot? How do you see that patient with all their symptoms? And then very quickly, within a few minutes, because ultimately, that's where the healthcare system is at the moment, right? Yeah, I'd love if all doctors had an hour with their patient. But I also recognize that that's not going to happen for a while. So we've come up with this framework where within 10 minutes, right? People can come up with an understanding of what's going on and give them a lifestyle prescription.

• 41:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it's based around these four pillars, actually, that I talk about in the book. It's that simple that the idea is taking off. I could have made it six pillars, seven pillars, eight pillars. But I tried to, as I said, the whole social connection piece, the whole emotional health piece, I bring up under the whole relaxation piece, such as eat a meal round a table, one meal a day, in company if you can, round a table. With no devices. With no devices. Right, this sounds like soft medicine. Hey, I'm telling you. Soft medicine works. I'm telling you, I didn't know until I did Doctor in the House and I go with these families. That is not common. What was happening in probably every dining room in the UK and I'm guessing around in the US thirty, forty years ago.

• 42:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  Now, we have knocked out our dining rooms, right? We don't have tables, we've got widescreen TVs, right? And one family, I have many families, but one family, right? I was with, they never sat down and ate together. I watched them eat their meals. Everyone's on their devices, you know, people around the living room, some people are watching TV, some people are on Facebook while eating. Just by saying, hey, guys, once a day, do you think when you guys are together, you can maybe have no device and sit around together? They're like, yeah, sure, what's the big deal? I tell you, they told me, like, on screen, this is transformative.

• 43:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  They start to connect, they start to connect with the people around them.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  Talk about the things that are upsetting them, talk about the things that they're proud of. Yeah. Have communication.

• 43:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, absolutely. And just to go back to your second point about medical schools, right? So I think, yeah, we, our training needs to update to reflect the 21st century. I think we're stuck in the 20th century. I think we're applying 20th century thinking to 21st century problems. But communication, we finish off that day with a role play. And I say, look, let's take Brian for example, right? Brian's coming in, he's got a new diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. This can roll two ways, right? What tends to happen is now, you know, yeah, come in. Oh, hi, Brian, how you doing? Um, look, your blood results have come back. You've got a condition called type 2 diabetes now. You know, this is going to increase your risk of a heart attack, of a stroke. Sometimes it could cause blindness as well.

• 44:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  Some people end up on kidney dialysis. Don't worry, we've got some great medications that can help you, right? And we go through that. Then as Brian's walking out, hey, if you can lose a bit of weight as well, you know, that'd be really helpful. Right, that's what's happening at the moment. Contrast that with, hey, Brian, come in. Hey, Brian, look, I've got some news for you, okay? You know those blood tests you did last week? Well, things have come up. Okay, what's happened, doc? Well, you've got a condition called type 2 diabetes. Do you know what that is? Is it something to do with blood sugar? So, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's something to do with blood sugar. But let me explain to you what that is, right? This has been building up in your body for about ten years.

• 44:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 44:47Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? This has not just happened overnight.

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because, yeah, yeah, my own dad's got it. Yeah, your dad's got it. It doesn't mean you're gonna get it. Would you like me to explain to you what you might be able to do to certainly stop the progression and maybe start reversing this? What, is there anything I can do, doc? Yeah, yeah, there's plenty. Are you interested? Yeah, yeah, tell me. And so then I take these four pillars, I, yeah, I'm in the book, and we go through them and we go, okay, let's choose one place to start. Let's say the five minute kitchen workout, for example, right? Look, I won't go to the whole thing, right, Lewis? But can you see the difference?

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah.

• 45:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right? That person's gonna go out on consultation one thinking, oh, my God, I've got this problem, it's serious. I've got the medication. And then, yeah, also an afterthought is I can do a bit with my own lifestyle.

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  But the medication's gonna help.

• 45:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  But the medication, but the doc was talking about the medication first. So really, that's the, in their head, it's like, yeah, I've got the medication now, that's gonna sort me out. I'll keep doing what I'm doing, right?

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  But the second guy, Brian's gonna go a different way this time. I'm gonna go, wow, there's stuff that I can do about this. And he's gonna help me. He's gonna help show me what I can do about this. I know this sounds trivial, right? But this is generally what is happening out there. And the, the next question, Lewis, is can you teach communication skills? I think you can to a certain degree. But I think instead of looking for straight A students in med school, I think we should be assessing is, has this person got empathy? Has this person got an ability to communicate? But I think, honestly, the number one skill of any healthcare professional is not how much science and knowledge they know, it's can they communicate?

• 46:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. If you can't communicate what you know, then it's kind of worthless.

• 46:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's worthless. It doesn't matter how much you know up here. If you can't make it relevant.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  For the person.

• 46:36Lewis Howes?

  You can't get results.

• 46:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can't get results. And you've got to use different language.

• 46:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  With different people. If they're living on a council estate or a high rise and they're on social service benefits or social security benefits, right? You may need to communicate these ideas in a different way with them. Than somebody who is the CEO of a big company and can afford a personal trainer three times a week. Yeah. Right, because they both deserve the right to good quality, healthy information. They both deserve the right to be healthy. Right, I feel really strongly about that. You know, we know if you live in a poor area, you have worse health outcomes. It's the same here as it is in the UK. Yeah. Right, and I, I want to try and change that. And I'm really proud that the recommendations I make

• 47:26Rangan Chatterjee?

  on my show and the recommendations I make in this book, Lewis, that you've gone in front of you, right? The majority of them are free. Yeah, yeah. And health can be that simple. Yeah. Is there anything in your health that's lacking? Yeah.

• 47:42Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think there's a certain irony of

• 47:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  of trying to go around the UK, trying to travel around the world to spread your message to empower as many people as possible to be the architects of their own health. But in the process, you often sacrifice your own health. Now, if we take this four pillar approach, because I would love this four pillar approach to take off. I'd love every person listening to this right now, Lewis, to think about their own health and go, which of these four pillars do I need the most work in? Yeah, relaxing, eating, moving and sleeping. Yeah, because most of us intuitively know, I say start there, pick one small thing and start there. If your diet is already good enough, you know what? Are you getting enough sleep then? Yeah, don't stress about that little bit of sugary you have each week when you meet your friends.

• 48:30Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right, your diet is probably good enough. You're gonna get more bang for your buck by switching off your phone an hour before bed and getting more sleep. Yeah. If I apply that to myself on that four pillar approach, I'm struggling with relax. Really? At the moment, I'm really, I'm struggling to switch off. I'm in the middle of, I've created this brand new course for doctors. I'm trying to run, see my patients. I love my wife and my two young children. I want to spend time with them. I'm traveling around the world to promote this book that I genuinely believe, I know from the feedback in the UK, that it is transforming the health of tens of thousands of people. I'm getting that feedback. Which is the most incredible thing, you know, these guys aren't having to go on my waiting list and come and see me in clinic. These guys can just read these tools, apply them and change their health.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  They're feeling better, yeah.

• 49:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  They're feeling better, right? I've got people coming off medications, but if I apply it to myself, if I lose, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'm gonna commit to you.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Right?

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  What are you gonna do with it, relax?

• 49:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  I am gonna commit to the daily practice of stillness, okay? I'm going to make sure.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  Pretty small.

• 49:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm gonna commit to five minutes of meditation a day for the next seven days. I'm gonna shake your hand and say, I'm gonna do that.

• 49:40Lewis Howes?

  Like seven days, when was the last time you meditated?

• 49:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  The last time I meditated was six weeks ago.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  Maybe, and it was just a one-off.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Five minutes a day.

• 49:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Five minutes a day.

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  Seven days.

• 49:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, feel free to meet me, Batman.

• 49:56Lewis Howes?

  Check in with you.

• 49:58Rangan Chatterjee?

  But, yeah, I think the reason I'm choosing that one is because that's one I struggle with. It'd be easy for me to talk about gratitude and use that one, but when I'm at home, I do that. I've got this little game that I play with my kids every night at the dinner table. It's, I learned, do you know Charles Poliquin, the strength coach? Have you heard of him?

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  I've heard of him, yes.

• 50:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  I learned it from him, actually. He told me he does this with his daughter. And during our dinner, we go around the table and we have to say, what have I done today to make somebody else happy? What has somebody else done today to make me happy? And what have I learned today? And if I'm honest, I thought, oh, this is gonna be really, really good for the kids, you know, so we're gonna help them. This is pretty good for mom and dad as well, actually.

• 50:41Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 50:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  So it would be a cop-out for me to say, I'm gonna do that one, because I already do it, so.

• 50:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I'm gonna try and do this, and I'll let you know if I get on.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  Try?

• 50:49Rangan Chatterjee?

  I am going to do this.

• 50:51Lewis Howes?

  Five minutes a day.

• 50:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Five minutes a day.

• 50:53Lewis Howes?

  Just seven days.

• 50:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  Seven days.

• 50:54Lewis Howes?

  See how that feels?

• 50:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  What's the next thing for you? Are you moving enough? Are you doing strength training?

• 50:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, so I'm here in LA, okay, I'm staying with a mutual friend of ours. Well, I went for a workout with him this morning, actually.

• 51:04Lewis Howes?

  It's good.

• 51:05Rangan Chatterjee?

  I don't wanna sound as though I am perfect. I'm not, you know, I've got a busy life, like a lot of people. But my dad passed away just over for almost five years ago to the day. That was, along with my son's illness, one of the most significant shifts in the way I think about things. And I do prioritize my health. So I'm pretty dialed in with my food most of the time. My movement, I kind of prioritize sleep.

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  So, but it was a long process.

• 51:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:34Rangan Chatterjee?

  Five years ago, we were having this interview. I wouldn't, I was struggling. So.

• 51:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  You know, I think if I can commit to that, that will actually give me so many health benefits.

• 51:44Lewis Howes?

  I bet it would. Yeah. And you're doing digital detox at night or 20 minutes before bed or?

• 51:50Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I'm pretty good at that. When I'm at home, it's always harder when you're traveling because of jet lag and this kind of thing. But I do switch off in the evenings, you know, I've got a slot, you know, come eight thirty or nine o'clock. I'm out. You won't get me on my phone. You won't be able to, I won't be looking at emails. I'm winding down. I'm creating my bedtime routine.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:08Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because I know that when I then sleep well, I perform much better. I'm a, I'm a calmer person.

• 52:15Lewis Howes?

  There's some people that talk about sleep and say, don't sleep. Sleep is for those who are weak and, you know, just stay up and work harder and to get results. But really, if you want to perform at a high level, you've got to be able to allow your body to recover, your mind, your muscles. And if you don't, you're going to be very deprived of energy. If you don't have energy every single day, you're not going to be able to perform. So that's why sleep is going to become more important for me. And I've been getting up at five thirty AM. I'm not a morning person at all, but I started three weeks ago getting up at five thirty to see what it'd be like to start conditioning myself to hopefully go to bed earlier because I was getting up right there. And I'm lifting and working out at six AM.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  And it was hard the first week to break the habit of going to bed before midnight. I'm usually like at twelve thirty, one o'clock, one thirty.

• 53:04Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  Fall asleep type of guy. I've always been that way. It's just hard for me to fall asleep. But when you train really hard at five thirty, six AM. You're tired at night and you move your body and you sweat and you're lifting and you're pushing your your muscles. You are tired and you know, ten o'clock rolls around and I'm like, ready to pass out. And it feels so good to go to bed at ten thirty and wake up at five thirty, ready to go.

• 53:27Rangan Chatterjee?

  This is how I shifted my pattern a few years ago. I would have told you back in my college days, right? I would tell him a night owl.

• 53:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I'm no longer. I feel sleepy at nine thirty, but I get up at five thirty.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  And that's my new pattern. And I I tell you, in in September last year, I was in Iceland lecturing at this medical conference with a guy from California called Dr. Sachinander Panda. And he's done some incredible research. I think he's one of Time Magazine's top fifty scientists. And we went out for dinner. And I said to him, I said, you know, people talk about night owls and larks, but what happens really, you know, when we remove modern living? And we get out into nature, how did this work on an evolutionary level? He goes, it's interesting you say that. And he's like, when we take people out of the lab, we put them, we take them camping, right? Away from their devices, you're just back out in nature. Actually, this big thing of night owls and larks, it all gets compressed. Everyone's got roughly the same bedtime.

• 54:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Maybe it's half an hour, forty minutes different, but it's not this. Maybe you can stay up or you could have stayed up till twelve thirty because you're growing your business, you're on your screen, the blue light.

• 54:32Lewis Howes?

  Drinking coffee or whatever.

• 54:33Rangan Chatterjee?

  Coffee, yeah, but once you take out the the kind of the lifestyle choices, actually, what is your natural bedtime? So I, as you say, it's hard at first, but you've got to, you've got to give these things a chance to bed in and and see.

• 54:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's funny. Whenever I used to go camping as a kid, I remember feeling that same way, but you're like, you know, you're making the fire, you're putting the logs together, you're like hiking. And then it's dark at six thirty or seven or whatever. And then around ten o'clock, you know, it's like these stars are beautiful and everyone's starting to to slow down. And you're like, let me get my sleeping bag and fall asleep. You're not thinking of like, oh, I'm gonna be up till three AM. No, you're you're tired.

• 55:11Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 55:11Lewis Howes?

  You're in nature, you're not connected to your devices, like you said.

• 55:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly. And I think, what what does that mean? Because people might listen to this and go, yeah, that's great, but I don't live in nature, right? I don't camp, you know, I've I'm busy.

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think what it means is, look, use nature, use that evolutionary idea as your template. And try and figure out what is it that you can do to mimic that as much as possible.

• 55:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you don't have to be perfect. You won't be perfect. It's too damn hard.

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  Do your best, yeah.

• 55:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  Do your best. And, you know, the approach I take, you've got these four pillars. Like, there's five suggestions in each one, not prescriptions. I never, as a doctor, I never told anyone what to do, right? I think as a human being, you've just got to empower them with information and give them a helping hand. But, like, for example, I've never told a patient to give up, that they, they need to give up smoking. And that might surprise you. And the reason is, is because if I have explained, and I'm confident that they've understood me, that what smoking is doing to their body, but they turn around and say, hey, doc, you know, I get it. But I get so much enjoyment out of it.

• 56:16Lewis Howes?

  It's a good feel good, it's a good habit, yeah.

• 56:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think, who am I as a human being? Well, what right do I have in that moment to say, no, you must give it up? That's the approach I've always taken. And I think that's one of the reasons I get good compliance with my patients is, in this book, right, there's twenty chapters. Each chapter is a possible solution. It's a suggestion I make. Nobody's gonna do all twenty, right? I say, do a little bit in each one. Some people will do well if they just do two things in each one of those pillars. I'm not expecting perfection. It's not about the perfect diet, the perfect gym routine.

• 56:51Lewis Howes?

  And that's exhausting, too.

• 56:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's exhausting.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Perfect diet for years, it's really hard to do.

• 56:55Rangan Chatterjee?

  And you're gonna stress yourself out by going out. You'll never be able to go out with your friends. It's always gonna, you know.

• 57:00Lewis Howes?

  You'll create your own disease by doing that.

• 57:02Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, it's about balance across all four. The other thing is, if, if you don't like one of the suggestions I make, don't do it. I don't want you to do them all. If that doesn't resonate with you, if you don't think, yeah, I can do that in my life, in my, in my family setting, and the, in context of my shift patterns at work. Right? Do you know what? Say, don't do it. Move on to another chapter. Find one that you want, find one that jumps up the page to you.

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  And I think, I don't know, Lewis, you've had a lot of authors on this, right? I think that's what makes this approach a little bit different. It's like, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just trying to offer you real achievable solutions that I have seen work.

• 57:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Over the last seventeen years.

• 57:40Lewis Howes?

  You talk about medicine being an art and a science, and this is part of that, I'm, I'm assuming, is like, figuring out what works for you and taking on a few things and adding something else at a different stage of your life. It's, it's an art.

• 57:53Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm not a scientist.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:54Rangan Chatterjee?

  People say, no, you're a doctor, you are a scientist. So, hey, hold on a minute. I'm a doctor. My job is to try my best to help the person in front of me in as harmless a way as possible. No study in the published research tells me exactly what I do with that patient. It guides me, but it doesn't tell me. I'm not a slave to research. And what I mean by that is, in my profession, we talk about evidence-based medicine. People misunderstand evidence-based medicine. Evidence-based medicine is the combination of three things. The research evidence, patient preference, and clinical expertise. It's where those three things meet in the middle, that's evidence-based medicine.

• 58:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  If it was just research evidence, right?

• 58:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:41Rangan Chatterjee?

  You could teach a monkey to be a doctor. Just follow this protocol and everyone will get better.

• 58:46Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 58:46Rangan Chatterjee?

  You know what? We're more complex than that. There is an art in knowing how to apply the science that you know with that person in front of you, right? And that's why I'm passionate that medicine is art and science. Some people say that's controversial, right? I'm happy to stand head to head with anyone and go through that. Because I'm there in the trenches, seeing patients. And you know what? Research is great, but it's not everything.

• 59:10Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. Yeah. What's your biggest fear as a human? Not as a doctor, but as a human.

• 59:17Rangan Chatterjee?

  My biggest fear is not being

• 59:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  as good a dad as I want to be, the best.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Honestly, the thing I think about is, am I being the best dad that I can to my children?

• 59:35Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think that?

• 59:39Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because I think I've got,

• 59:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  I'm on this mission to try and help as many people as possible. I'm, I travel a lot, I go around a lot, uh, the country or travel internationally in lecture to get this message out there. And I think, am I spending enough time, like quality time with the children? Can I justify this because it's for the greater good? Does that negate me not spending enough time with my children? I'm probably really harsh on myself, in fact, Lewis, because I think I'm a good dad. You know, I certainly prioritize time on my kids. I'm very hands-on when I'm there. You know, I'm here in L A doing this with you. My kids are on vacation at the moment, so they're at home. Without daddy.

• 1:00:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:22Rangan Chatterjee?

  And it's probably my issue, it's my own personal baggage, I guess. I guess you probably might be expecting a different answer. I don't know where that came from, but you put me on the spot. That's what, that's what comes out, man.

• 1:00:33Lewis Howes?

  What do you think would make you the best dad you could possibly be?

• 1:00:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think the first thing is, like, when I'm here now with you is to be present and be focused and actually not think about what's going on at home. Just go, no, I'm here. I'm spreading an important message. Be present with this. Don't feel guilty because it doesn't serve me being here. It doesn't serve them. But I think the thing which I'm really trying to do at the moment, Lewis, is when I am home, is spending quality time with them. And what I mean by that is time without my device. I'm making a conscious effort now to either switch my phone off or put it upstairs and actually be with the kids and do something with them and be present with them. Because I tell you, if you can do that for one hour a day,

• 1:01:23Rangan Chatterjee?

  that is worth ten hours being there with them when you're constantly distracted and you're not with them. It, it is amazing. It's incredible. And, and I remember reading in, um, I think it was in the Tim Ferriss book, Tools of Titans. I think he, there's a chapter with Seth Godin. And he talks about this idea of spending two hours a day without a screen with your child. And he was pretty harsh in it. I think he said something like, you haven't got time for that. You know, you've got to really seriously question things. And I thought that was a bit of a harsh truth, actually. And, um, again, I'm being harsh to myself, Lewis, right? Because I think I am a hands-on dad. I think I do spend quality time with them. But I've really shifted to me keeping my devices away.

• 1:02:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  Because I think I get distracted, like all of us, when the device is there. And hey, I tell you what, man, kids call you out on it. They know.

• 1:02:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  And, you know, my daughter.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  Get off your phone, dad. Yeah.

• 1:02:16Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, no, it's, actually, sometimes I'm, I'm quite good at not going on it. I don't want them to see me going on it, but my daughter will say. Daddy, you're not listening to me.

• 1:02:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  And hey, I tell you what, when you're being called out, and this is when she was four, when you're being called out by your four-year-old daughter, that hits you hard and you go, okay, all right, she's right. So, um, yeah, I think phone-free time every day with your children, I think it's golden, man.

• 1:02:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's powerful. Hmm. This is called the three truths, a question I ask everyone at the end. So imagine this is your last day, many years from now, and you choose the day you want to leave this earth. It's your final day, you've done everything you want to do, but you have to take everything with you that you've created, all your books, all your work, all your messages. You have to take it with you as you go. But you get to write down on a piece of paper your final thoughts, your three truths. The biggest lessons that you want to leave behind to the world, to humanity, to your friends. These three truths that only thing people would have to remember you by is this. What would you say are your three truths?

• 1:03:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  This is sort of thing that would constantly change depending on your age. And, you know, if I come back in five years, I'd probably say something different. But right here, right now, I said, number one, treat every single person you meet with compassion and respect. I think number two, don't take yourself too seriously. I think the final one,

• 1:03:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  probably reflective of our conversation, is don't mistake electronic transactional communication for real-life, meaningful, human connection.

• 1:03:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  The electronic world is not the real world. I said prioritize real human connection.

• 1:04:05Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, those are great, yeah. I want to acknowledge you for a moment for your evolution as a doctor, because you went into this profession with A certain type of teaching and training that got you only so far. And then you decided that you wanted to learn more to help actually heal people from the inside out as opposed to just prescribing something for a temporary benefit. And your ability to be with people for weeks at a time and sacrifice to learn about lifestyle and different approach to humanity and the health of all of us is really inspiring. So I want to acknowledge you for constantly showing up and putting out things that everyone

• 1:04:48Lewis Howes?

  can take on these simple ideas and start practicing. It doesn't matter how rich or poor you are or where you live in the world. We can all do certain things to help make disease disappear. So I want to acknowledge you for all that.

• 1:04:59Rangan Chatterjee?

  Thanks, man. I really appreciate that, Lewis. I just want to, you know, from me back to you, just, I live five and a half thousand miles away from you, but you know, I'm on the train to London often, listening to your podcast, the stuff that, the magic you're creating here is traveling around the world and is having an impact on, you know, people all over. So I just want to thank you for that. It's incredible.

• 1:05:20Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it, man. Appreciate you. If you guys haven't got the book yet, make sure to get the book. It's called How to Make Disease Disappear. Go check it out. You can get it right now, online, bookstores, all the places that you can go. Where can they follow you online specifically or your website or social media?

• 1:05:36Rangan Chatterjee?

  My website's DrChatterjee.com, but I'm, I'm spending a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram, which is at DrChatterjeeDR, C-H-A-T-T-E-R-J-E-E.

• 1:05:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:05:48Rangan Chatterjee?

  And Twitter is at DrChatterjeeUK, but I think Instagram and Facebook is probably where I'm at, yeah.

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. At DrChatterjee. Awesome. Let us know what you guys thought of this. Let us know the idea you liked the most from this episode and tweet DrChatterjee and myself and let us know what you think. Final question for you is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:06:07Rangan Chatterjee?

  I think my definition of greatness is...

• 1:06:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  It's probably a little bit to do with the three truths I gave you, really. It's, there's over seven billion people on this planet, right? And everyone genuinely is equal or should be. So for me, someone who is truly great is somebody who treats every single person

• 1:06:35Rangan Chatterjee?

  that they communicate with, that they connect with, with deep compassion and respect. That for me is what it truly means to be great.

• 1:06:45Rangan Chatterjee?

  Dr. Chatterjee, thank you so much. Thanks, Chris.

• 1:06:52Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. If you gained some valuable wisdom today about how to reverse disease and reclaim your health with Dr. Chatterjee, make sure to share it with your friends. LewisHowes.com/634. Take a screenshot on your phone right now, post it on your Instagram story, tag me on Instagram, @lewishowes, post it on Twitter. We've got the full video interview back at the show notes. It's going to be posted on my social media, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Feel free to reshare any of that stuff and let me know what you think as well. Leave us a review. If this is your first time here, click the subscribe button so you can get notified every time we have a new podcast come out. That's every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we release new, powerful insights and episodes

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  to help you unlock the greatness that's always been inside of you because it's always been there, don't you ever forget it. And to reflect on this for a moment, guys, if you're not setting up the habits and routines to optimize your life, I mean, gamify your health, really, just create a lifestyle eating plan. Don't go on different diets where you're constantly up and down. Just create a lifestyle change where this becomes the go-to that you have throughout your life. It's going to take some time. It might take a month or two or three months to figure it all out and figure out what works for you. And you may have to adjust things over time as you evolve in your body and in your lifestyle. But really set yourself up to win.

• 1:08:22Lewis Howes?

  Getting up at 5:30 a.m., which I don't want to do. I want to sleep until noon if I could. Really, I love sleep. But going to bed earlier and getting up earlier has been a game changer for me. And it gets me started. It gets me knowing I completed something positive for my body and for my health in the morning early. That way, when 7:00 a.m. comes around, I've already completed something really challenging for my health. It makes me want to eat better throughout the day. It makes me want to go to bed earlier so I can sleep more. All these things add up and will help you in your life. So make sure to start doing these things to set yourself up to win. If you enjoyed this, again, share with your friends. As Jim Rohn said, "Take care of your body.

• 1:09:06Lewis Howes?

  It's the only place you have to live." I love you so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.