Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: #1 Way to Break a Bad Habit & Why 50% of What Doctors Learn in Medical School Turns Out Wrong

simple lifestyle changes to rethink it. His sixth and latest book, Make Change That Last, offers a personalized approach to simple nine strategies for lasting change in daily life to unlock long lasting health and happiness. This I truly believe is Rongan's best book yet, and that's saying a lot. He's had some incredible books out of the last few years. Go and grab your copy right now. You won't regret it and make these nine strategies a part of your

daily life. Welcome to On Purpose, Doctor Rungan, chat with you Rung And it's great to have you.

scientific lens. And I think it's come together brilliantly. So congrats on trying to mesh those things together. Yeah.

make change that last. I think the title says it all. We can all make change, but often it's only for a few weeks or a few months. How many people can make change that truly lasts, How many people can truly transform their lives for good? It's not as many as we would like. And this book is my attempt to help people solve that problem.

and I come to that shortly. But in terms of one thing that I learned that I now believe not to be true, I'd almost flip it the other way, in the sense that I was never taught how much our lifestyle can impact our health. I was taught that actually, people come in to see you and they have a set of problems. We need to hear what those problems are, collect them, give them a label, and then give them

a pharmacuis good treatment. Whereas the more I practice medicine, and I've been a dotsor for twenty three years now, I realize, Wow, that only helps us for a small fraction of people. And if you flip it, it's like, no, our lifestyles, the way we eat the way we move, the way we sleep, but also the way that we think and the way we approach adversity. Those things all combined together to create our health. And Jane, I think

you'll resonate with this. One of the things I've realized over the past couple of years of really reflecting on the way we're trained in Western medicine. And this is not me saying I'm anti Western medicine. I think Western medicine is exceptionally good at many things, but unfortunately for most of the things we now see, the chronic lifestyle driven illness, it's just not as helpful. Right, and fundamentally, Western medicine teaches us that things go wrong in the body. Right,

we get taught to diagnose disease and treat disease. We don't get taught how to create health. How do you create vitality? What are the factors in someone's life that allows them to live their best life? And you know, with our culture, with our Indian backgrounds, are you eating medicine for many years has been talking about this. Traditional

Chinese medicine has been talking about this. So for me, it's not a battle of Eastern medicine versus Western medicine, it's what is the best of Western, what is the best of Eastern? How do we blend them together? And I'd like to think that I've done that throughout my career and hopefully in this book give people a real practical toolkit.

what to do by somebody else. At some point, if you're going to make transformative change, it's got to come from within. So one of the things that I've always rebelled against in my career as a doctor is this rather paternalistic approach that we get taught in medical school that doctor knows best. Patient comes in, you tell me what the issue is. Then I'll tell you what's wrong with you and what you need to do. Some people may be able to make that approach work. I couldn't,

and I'll tell you why I couldn't. If a patient comes in and asks for my opinion, that's very important. One thing I've tried to change in my life over the past few years is never to give unsolicited advice. Right. So, if the patient's in in front of me and says, dotr chatity, listen, I'm not feeling good. What impact is smoking having on my health? I feel that my role as a fellow human being is to explain to them

what impact I think smoking is having on their health. Now, if at the end of that conversation, if I'm confident that they've understood me and that they retained the information, and they say, hey, dot strategy, I understand what you're saying. But I get so much enjoyment out of smoking that I'm prepared to put it with the consequences. I don't feel that's my job to change their minds. I feel it's a deep respect that I have for my patients. If they understand it, I want to do it. I'm

okay with that. And I'll tell you, Jay, what I've learned over the years is that by taking that approach, I feel I've had really good compliance with my patients, like really good compliance. Like a lot of doctors will say. I have this course called Prescribing Life, some medisan that I created with the Royal College of GPS with a friend of mine, with a colleague, and we have trained

thousands of healthcare professionals around the world. And the principles that I talk about in this book and my previous books, and one of the things people would say to me doctors would say, hey, actually listen, I get all this, but patients don't listen to what we tell them. And even the way that they phrase that is really interesting to me. I don't tell my patients what to do. It's not my role. I want to connect with my patients. I want to then educate and empower them, but I

always want to connect first. So going back to your initial question, why do I Why have I never told a patient that they must give up spoking? It's my role to do that. And here's what happens when you treat people like an equal. You don't look down at them, you don't think that you know better than them. What will often happen. They may say I want to smoke, right, I understand, but I enjoy this. They'll come back two

months later they'll be like, hey, dot's chash. You know I said I wanted to keep smoking because I enjoy it so much. Actually, I've been thinking, can you help me start to change that? But often, if you say you must give up smoking, it's going to give you cancer, it's going to increase your risk of heart attacks. I just don't think that works in the long term. You make short term change. But as for the title of

this book, you don't make change that lasts. And that principle, frankly, as I say, applies far beyond the dots of patient relationship.

back into that habit. So if someone does come up to you and say, doctor, chatatejy, how do I break a bad habit? What would you say? Is the number one advice for someone who says I want to break a bad habit? It just can't happen. It's just never happened.

want to look after themselves. So even though I'm away from home, when I'm in this exciting city, I naturally respond. Right. It's been really telling for me, and it really gave me an insight as to that if you live in an environment where your family, where your friends, where the things you have in your house are encouraging, unhelpful, behaviors. You're going to be struggling, right, You're going to be

constantly fighting your environment. So what does that mean for an individual who's trying to say to me, I want to eat less sugar, for example, which is very common right especially at New Year. I have said to my patients for years, if you don't want to eat it, don't bring it into your house. Don't exercise willpower in your house, because you have to exercise it as soon as you walk out the front door. Now, that's been very, very helpful for so many of my patients, and it's

kind of what I do in my own life. Even though I really understand my internal triggers these days, which I think is really important. I just don't make life more difficult for myself than I need to. That I won't bring into my house the potato chips, the chocolates, the biscuits, whatever it might be, because I know I'm human just like everyone else. At some point, I'll come back stressed and tired, and I want to open the

cupboard and see what's there? Nothing wrong with that. If people are doing that, I don't want them to feel guilt or shame, but I think they need to understand that if you have it there, it's going to be harder for you. Now, related to that example, I have an exercise, Joe, that I'd love to share with your audience, if that's okay.

really feel like ice cream. So I have this exercise that I created for my patients so that it has been so helpful that I've used with myself. Called the three f's. Okay. The three f's are feel, feed, and find. Okay. So if someone's listening Jay, and they have this issue, which I suspect will be quite a lot of people, I would say, Okay, you're sitting on your sofa, you're craving the ice cream. Okay, just take a pause, just for a second. Take a pause and ask yourself the

first F feel what are my feeling? Is it physical hunger or is it emotional hunger? Okay, ah, well you know what, I'm actually not basically hungry. I had a huge meal one hour ago. Oh, I feel a bit stressed, I feel a bit lonely, whatever it might be. Then go ahead and have it. Okay. I just want you to start building in some self awareness, which is the missing piece in behavior change with people. If you ask

me the big thing that we're missing. The next time you're on the sofa and you're you can do this all in one go if you want, but you know some people find it difficult. So the next time you're on the sofa, I would say, do the first F again, what am I feeling? Then go to the second F, which is feed. How does food feed that feeling? Ah? Oh, I was feeling stressed. When I have I scream, at least in the short term, I feel less stressed. Okay, cool.

Now you're developing a bit of an understanding as to why I'm engaging with this behavior. Okay, great, If you want to eat it, go ahead and eat it with no gilt and no shame, Go and enjoy it, and then the next time go through this f's what am I feeling? How does food feed the feeling? Which is the second F? And then the third F is fine? Now that I know what the feeling is, Now that I know how food feeds that feeling, can I find an alternative behavior to feed that feeling? So it could be, Oh,

I feel stressed, That's why I go to sugar. What else could I do instead of sugar? Oh? I really like yoga. Maybe I'll go on YouTube and do a term minute yoga sequence. Maybe you feel lonely. You've been on zoom calls all day, you haven't seen your friends or your partner, and it's a bit of a treat to yourself in the evening. That's very common. You know, people aren't hungry, but they just it's in a little

treat to themselves. Okay, how else could you nourish yourself? Oh? Well, maybe I could run myself a bath and have a ten to fifty minute bath to myself. Maybe I'm feeling lonely, I could phone a friend or a parent or whatever it might be. Every single behavior we engage with serves a role in our life. You'll only change your behavior in the long term if you understand the role it's playing. So that is it's a very simple exercise. I've described it through the lens of shit, okay, but the truth

is you can apply that to anything. You can apply that to alcohol, three hours, doom, scrolling on Instagram, online pornography, online shopping, whatever you want. It's a simple exercise, which are my favorite kinds of exercises that can be very very powerful once you start engaging with it. Yeah, I think it's spot on.

connection we've made. Whereas, like you're saying, there's so many other ways and actually could be a natural source of sugar. It could be a low sugar product if that's what you're after. It could be as you said, a yoga session, breath work, whatever, it may be.

what you said about it feeling difficult. Out of those three f's, the most important F is the first one. Why because it suddenly just breaks you out of your repetitive cycle. I feel stressed, I want so my scream, I go to the freezer, and before I know it, I've had half the tub. That is very, very common. You think that's who you are. It's not who you are, it's who you've become, and you can unbecome it if you start to do that first F. It is simply

the knowledge that I can take a pause. There is a gap between the stimulus and the response when you are repeating your behavior's day to day, when they become habits, whether good habits or unhealthy habits, there's no gap. There's a feeling, there's a stimulus, and there's a response, usually an unhealthy response in this current climate right for many people, So that first F creates a gap. Now often say yes, not's actually but you know and now that I'm aware,

so what what can I do? I'm like, wait a minute. Ninety percent of change in my experience is that first F is understanding, Oh, this is why I'm going to it. Sure, it may take a few weeks, it may take a few months to really work on that relationship and start to tweak it, because how long did it take you to develop this relationship. Maybe you've been using sugar to

manage stress for twenty years. You're not going to change that in one week in January just because you wake up thinking I want to make this year the best year of my life, You're not going to It is a process of change. But what people miss Jay, for me is that that process where you learn what this behavior is doing for you. You struggle, you sometimes can't make the change that you want, other times you can. That process is where the gold is. That's when you're learning

about yourself. That's you get the mastery about yourself. Oh I always when I have a row with my partner, I don't feel good, so yeah, I want sugar. Or when I'm alone or I'm traveling for work and I'm away from my wife and my kids, that's when i just want to spend three hours on Instagram because I'm looking for connection. That's where the gold lies. And for me, Jay, the most important chatter in this book is chapter one,

which is called trust Yourself. And I don't think we're talking about this enough in the health and wellness space. People are getting confused. Right, you must get this on your show, like I do on my podcast, right, this idea that despite our best efforts at trying to navigate the complexity. What I often find, Jay, is people will say to me, not often, but it happens enough that

I know that this is an issue. Chat You know, two months ago, you had this credential expert from Harvard's and they said this diet is really good, like a Keith to jendera is really good for mental health. And they sound really trustworthy. They've got all the credentials, and they've quoted four or five research studies to back up

what they think, and I thought, okay, amazing. And then last week you spoke to another doctor, also well credentialed, who said, no, a vegan diet or a whole food plan basedite is best for mental health, and presented five studies to support what they have to say. People would contact me and say, Chatty, I'm really confused. Right, both of those experts they sound great, They've all got research to back up what they're saying. I don't know which

experts to trust. And Jay, what I've realized is that's the wrong question. The more helpful question, the more powerful question, is not which experts should I trust? It's why do I no longer trust myself? Yeah? That is the magic to behavior change. You have to start tuning into the signals your body is giving you. Using that example, I would say to someone, hey, I tell you what, why do you have to choose which one's right? Maybe they're

both right for certain people, but they're not right for anyone. Right, So I would say, Okay, try this expert started for four weeks, and whilst you're trying its, pay attention. Pay attention to what's going on. What's your energy like, what's your vitality, how are your relationships, how's your sleep, how's your focus, how's your concentration? Pay attention. I go, okay, I try that for four weeks. Now, let me try this other person's start for four weeks, and again, pay attention.

I promise if you start paying attention, you'll very quickly find out what is the right diet for you at that moment in your life. And I feel that we're not talking about this enough. We're still we've we've got to appoint Jay where we've outsourced our own inner expertise to external experts. I'm not saying ignore external experts. Right, you have some great experts on your show each week. I have some great experts on my podcast each week.

But you should listen to their advice and put it through your own filter, and then you figure out what works for you. And honestly, if you say, what is the key thing you've learned in twenty three years of seeing patients, I've seen tens of thousands of patients. I've learned many things, But I would say no one approach works for everyone. It just doesn't. And when we try and make it work for everyone, it's a problem because people feel like failures. Right. People feel, oh, I'm following

the experts advice. I'm doing what they said to do. It's not working. There must be something wrong with me. They start to feel guilty, they start to feel like they're a loser, they start to have shame. Those things never lead to long term behavior change. And you know the other thing, Jay, I've learned and I love your view on this because I think it probably resonates with the way you see the world. I think we focus too much on the behavior. For me, it's the energy

behind the behavior that's the most important thing. You need to go what's behind the behavior. And I've realized that in life, all behaviors either come from the energy of love or the energy of fear. If it's coming from the energy of fear, so guilt, shame, I'm not good enough, those changes will not last in the long term. I've been doing this a long time. I have seen it. It lasts for January, it lasts for a few months.

It doesn't lead to long term transformation because your behaviors are in conflicts with the way that you see yourself. If it's coming from an energy of love, that I like who I am, I want to improve my life, that I'm going to be compassionate to myself, those changes. It can be the same behaviors, working out, eating well, going to bed on time, getting it whatever it might be.

It can be the same behavior. But if the energy behind it is from the energy of love, that's when the changes start to become long term, and I really get I don't get frustrated. Nothing frustraights anymore. Really, if I'm completely honest, because I've been doing the inner work for many years, I just I can stay quite detached from things. I just see them for what they are. But as a doctor, I guess I believe we made behavior change so difficult, Jay, I don't even say it's

hard anyone. I'll tell you why. I don't say that. I used to say, you know, I know it can feel hard. I know it's hard as a way trying to empathize with people. But if we say, if we constantly say, oh, it's difficult, Oh it's going to be hard, we're prejudging the experience for people. Sure it may feel challenging, but it doesn't always have to. And I've experienced that myself. So five years ago, Jay, I would have a very hard,

very harsh, inner voice. So on January the first, I would be very much I'm going to meditate this year, like twenty minutes a day, and I do it for fourteen days and I feel like I'm rocking. Yeah, this is a I've got meditation down this year that I miss a day that the self taught would start. Man, you couldn't do it, You couldn't do it wrong? And

could you you know you're a loser whatever. I used to have a really harsh, negative voice not that long ago, but I have completely changed it through all the things that I share in this book. Right, I've completely changed it. Back then, behavior change felt difficult because it was in conflict with how I saw myself. Now that I liked myself. Dare I say, talking to a fellow brit that I love myself? Right? Can you imagine in the UK saying that you know? I do, though not in a narcissistic way.

But I like who I am. I think I'm a nice guy. I'm kind, I'm compassionate, I help people. I'm no longer competitive, as I've talked to you about on a previous episode on your show, like, I just want to raise people up when you feel like that, and everyone can feel like that if they know which leads to turn. But hate you change becomes so much easier because you're not trying to fight yourself. Does that what make sense?

you're so right. I remember years ago as well, like having a very very harsh negative in a voice, and it did all the things you said. I would shame myself, I would guilt myself, I would judge myself, and none of that helped me change. If anything, it took longer for me to get back to where I wanted to get to, because when you fall off after fourteen days of meditation, now, when you're judging and guilting and shaming yourself, you feel like you can't do the thing unless you can be perfect.

Where I tried for fourteen days, I miss one day. I beat myself up. Now, yeah, I meditate most mornings, but not every morning, and if I miss, I'm like, okay, yeah, sure I didn't do it today. Oh I'm a better person. I'm a bit calmer when I do. And I say, yeah, I must make sure I do that tomorrow. It's a very different relationship. That energy behind the behavior is completely different. So I wasn't like you, j One. I want to get practical for people. So I have these three questions

I ask myself every morning. But one of those questions I think really applies here. So you teach an audience Jay on a consistent basis about living an intentional life, a purposeful life, right, And I think a lot of people don't realize how powerful the mornings are. We all have a morning routine, whether we think we do or not. The question is are we intentional about it? Have we thought about the consequences of how we start each day?

Because somebody say, oh, they're not for me. You know, it's a bit cliche, this idea of a morning routine, whatever it might be. And I'm like, no, no, you've got a routine. You just made it a thought about it. So what I've learned Shay over the years is that so many of our thoughts our feelings. Our behaviors are

downstream from the content we consume. So if you wake up and the first thing you do is going on to your phone and go on the news and see the negativity that the news is telling us from all over the world. You go onto your work emails and see the backlog that you didn't complete, or whatever it might be. You go into social media and get caught

up in an argument or whatever it might be. Does it really surprise you that half an hour later you may be a little reactive with your kids or your partner, or you may feel a little negative about the state of the world. When you look at it like that, I think it's quite obvious if that's what you're inputting into your brain. Think about it as software. That's what you're inputting in. Of course, the outputs straight after that. For many people it's going to be negative as well.

If you have a more intentional start to your day with a bit more positivity, don't I'm not talking about toxic positive. Is your fake positivity just intentionally going Whether it's gratitude. I mean, one of the questions that I ask is a gratitude question. What is one thing I deeply appreciate about my life. It helps shift your mindset

and where you're going to place your attention. But where I finish my morning routine is with this what I considered to be a very powerful question, What quality would I like to showcase to the world today. It's a simple question, but it's very very powerful because it forces you. Yeah, let me rephrase that. I don't even like using the word force anymore. It feels a bit of an aggressive word, right, It doesn't. It feels like it's coming from the energy

of fear rather than the energy of love. I have the opportunity each morning with that question to set the intention of how I wish to show up. So often it will be I wish to showcase the quality of patience today or compassion, and you write it down. I write it down in my journal and I think about it. What would it look like today to show the quality of patience or compassion? Ah? You know, if I get caught up in a a in a traffic I'm not going to stop rating people. I'm just gonna smile and

be kind. If I get an email I maybe don't like, I'm going to just take a break and naturally not respond In the moment. If my wife says this to me or whatever about the dishes or whatever, I'm just going to go, hey, it's cool.

It could be that, you know what, I had a really busy day, I didn't take a lunch break, I got home late, but I still found twenty minutes to make my family a home cooked meal instead of ordering takeout or whatever. It might be. Okay, you're just going because we have a negativity bias. Instead of focusing on all the things that you didn't get done and the stress in your day and what you know, how you behaved or whatever, you're putting attention on what you did do,

which I think is very powerful. But then the second part of that question, Jay, is really interesting. What can I do differently tomorrow? So it could be that you say, you know what, This morning I said I was going to be showed the world the quality of compassion. But at lunchtime or at four pm, I was really tired. I didn't like the email that my colleagues sent me, and I quickly sent an annoyed email back. Okay, no

worries again. We're looking for love, not fear. So you can say, Ah, what I can do differently tomorrow is I can try harder tomorrow if that same situation arrives, I'm going to respond differently. And I tell you sure, doing this will one day may not do much. You do that for seven days or dare I say even thirty days, the way you experience the world will be completely different. You will have made this small, like one degree shift each day that in the moment doesn't feel

like anything. Thirty days later, you will be like a different person. I've been doing this, sub Jay for maybe five years now, and like I was sharing with you before the mices were rolling, I've never felt this good, Like I have this deep sense of peace these days and inner calm, and I've worked at it some of the things I've shared already, many things I haven't shared that I put in this book. This is available to everyone, Jay.

I absolutely believe that I have seen throughout my career people in the darkest of places, suicidal patients who through these kind of practices, have managed to completely turn their lives around. It is possible to everyone. But I think we're going about change a lot of the time in the wrong places. Right. We talk about creating healthy habits.

It's important, and I've written a book about that in the past, and I know the rules of healthy habit form, you know, make it easy stick on the new behavior onto an existing habit. Those things are very, very helpful, but they still don't get to the roots. And my attempt with this book is to help people go no, no, no, there are things that you don't know that are driving you in your life. A lot of people don't realize, Jay,

that their behaviors are driven by their beliefs. So if you believe that somebody out there knows what is best for you more than you, that is going to dictate your behaviors. Your belief is that someone else knows better, so you're going to be every few months looking for a new expert to follow. Every January, you're going to buy a new health book to say, oh, you need to go on a thirty day sugar details, you need to cut out alcohol, you used to cut it, ultra

processed foods. These things are all well and good. But I submit to you, Jay, that many people there, I say it, most people who are listening to shows like yours or mine kind of already know that excess sugar is not helping them, or excess alcohol is not helping them. I don't think they need more external knowledge of oh alcohol will do this to your liver, or sugar will do this to people know that they need more internal knowledge.

They need insights, intuition, and in my view, the way you develop that is with some intentional time each day, these questions, meditation, journaling. If you're constantly in your life, you never step out of it to reflect on it. It's not about the behavior, it's about the energy behind the behavior.

back to your point, that's what your beliefs are. Your beliefs suggest your most repeated thoughts, and now it feels like that's who you are, and then naturally those become your words. So when someone says to you, like, oh, how's that new habit going, or you know, how's the workout going or whatever, you go, oh, you know, I can't. I can't keep up exactly, and now you keep repeating. Then everyone you meet you go, oh, yeah, I gave up after seven days. And now that's your language, and

then that naturally leads on to your actions. And so what you're talking about, which I really appreciate because it is harder to talk about which is what is the root. But for all of us, anyone who's had a lasting change, it's been a root issue that's been solved always.

and mentally more sick. So I was trying to solve this problem. I was trying to go I don't want to just write another book with more information on what you should do. I want to help people understand why they are doing it, and again talking to root causes and maybe feeding back to what you've just said. This I think is the most undertaught aspect. This is the most underappreciated aspects of health. For me, let me make it really practical for people. Many of us are trying

to change our behaviors. And I know I've used sugar and alcohol a few times just because I think they're quite common and quite relatable for people. People don't understand that the way they interact with other people directly affects that behavior. So for example, you're driving to work in the morning and there's a bit of traffic and someone cuts in front of you. Okay, we've all seen it, maybe we've experienced it where we start to create all

this mental noise. Oh my god, stupid driver. They shouldn't have done that. They need their eyes checked, whatever it might be. And we think that we're entitled to do that, and we are right. I'm not here to change anyone, right, You've got to change yourself. You're entitled to react like that. Just know that there's a consequence. One of the themes that underpins every chapter in this book is that emotional stress is not neutral. So we think about physical stress,

but we don't think about emotional stress. So a driver cuts in front of you. There are many ways to react to that situation. If you take a disempowering narrative and create all of this anger and stress and noise in your head, you've generated emotional stress. You will need to neut that emotional stress in some way or another. Now, you could do it in a healthy way by going

for a walk or going to the gym. Usually what people do when it gets to the office is they need an extra coffee, They need to go to the vending machine and get some sugar. They need an extra drink. After work, and then they think, Oh, I'm drinking too much in the evening or I'm eating too much sugar. I need to change that. But they don't realize that actually the way they dealt with that driver on the road that day, because it's not just that, that's the

pattern they use for everything in their life. I say this with an open heart. We almost make ourselves a victim to life. We think that the way we feel is down to the way other people treat us. And I understand that we like other people to treat us well. But you can cultivate the skill of not having your inner state as dependent on the world around you. So you can develop the skill, and I share how to in this book. With practice, you can basically go, Wow,

what other story could I create here? Oh, maybe that mother has had a sick child up all night with earache and they're just rushing. Maybe she's on her last warning with her boss, and actually, if she's late one more time, she's going to lose her job, and that's how she feeds her family. Right, the truth doesn't matter for your inner well being, It really doesn't. And you can choose to start looking at the world this way

and what you will find. Yes, it might feel challenging at first, so you have to consciously think about it, maybe not in the moment, maybe in the evening. And I'll share a practice that can help people with that. But over time it becomes your default. Whereas now you know, I've been in LA traffic this week. I've heard you guys talk about it all the time. Oh, I've experienced it. I'm running late for some interviews. I'm just totally cheating. I'm like, I can't do anything about this. Nothing I

can do. You can train that response. And I think last time I came on your podcast, Jay, I think I shared the story of Edith Eager, the ninety three year old lady who was in Auschwitz when she was sixteen, and I shared the powerful narratives she would use in her mind to reframe her existence there. And I won't tell that story again, but I'll remind people of the final thing that Edith Eager told me when she came

on my podcast. She said to me, Dr Chaschi, I have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind. And the penny dropped for me Jay in that conversation. Literally, I thought, that's it.

That's what we're all doing. We're interacting with the world with other people, were creating these disempowering narratives, were making ourselves a victim to the world around us, without realizing that we have the power to shape the narrative on every single situation. Most situations in life. You could even say all, but that gets a bit triggering for people. So I say most situations in life are neutral. It's the perspective we take on that situation that determines its impact.

You want to change your behaviors. If you're someone who has been trying to make changes in January for the last ten years, and you keep buying a new book, and you keep trying a new detox pan and whatever, and you're still ending up where you were the year before, you have to ask yourself the question, am I taking the right approach? Is there something I'm missing? Is it more external information I need or more internal information?

didn't work. And it was like, well, this is all the studies say this, all the research says.

There would have been some people who were better on the other one, but overall we say that one. What we're saying is that that one works for the most people in that study. It doesn't mean it will for you. And this is where I think the differences between researchers and clinicians. You know, I I feel one thing I'm really good at, and again I don't say this with any arrogance. I feel I'm really good at connecting with my patients and I've managed to help them make transformative change,

many of them throughout their careers. And i've, as you know, I even showcase what I do on BBC one and back in twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen, where families who were sick were under GPS, were under specialists with type two diabetes, panic atats, fibromalgia, menopausal symptoms, irristol bound syndrome. I either helped everyone fully reverse their conditions or get them significantly better, like eighty percent better in just six weeks,

using nutrition, lifestyle and mindset. That's not blaming people. It's showing people, educating them that, oh, the way you do things matters. How you live each day, the choices you make, the way you taught to each other. Right, these things really play a role. And Jay, I often think, you know, I was thinking about this on the plane over to LA this time wrong and why do you have such a I don't know if I can call it a unique perspective on health, but it's not the normal perspective.

I would say that most medical dots that would you agree with that? Yeah?

spend one hour with your patients. What I learned on filming that series when I would live alongside families for four to six weeks, sometimes i'd stay overnight in their house. Okay, I got to see stuff that people rarely get to see. I got to see, oh, wow, they've got these symptoms. But I'm noticing how the husband and wife are talking to each other in the evening. Oh, I wonder how

that relationship is impacting their fiscal health. And I would do this with all kinds of families in all different areas of the UK. So it gave me a rather unique insight where this idea is that literally ninety nine percent of what happens to your health. I know this sounds worthly obvious. It's outside the doctor surgery. It's how you live your life, it's how you approach adversity, and so I think it's kind of given me this rather

unique view. I think my twenty three years of clinical practice has also taught me that there's no one white approach. So you, as you say, you can hear all the experts online you want telling you about the high protein that you need, and you could keep trying it, or you go, wait, well, you know what, I don't think that's all right approach for me at this point in my life. And that secondary bit is another key piece.

It might be later, but right now for the state of your life and your health, it's not work with you and we need to learn to trust ourselves more.

but less reliance. I think trackers, health trackers, fitness trackers can be good and they can also be bad. It depends on who you are. So we've got all these, you know, new fitness trackers, but let's talk about another kind of tracker that's been around for a while. A blood pressure monitor, right, They've been around for thirty forty years something like that. That's a form of health tracker. Maybe it's not as high tech as some of these

new ones, but it's a form of health tracker. And what I would notice Jay in my practice for years, is that many people would say, dot cha, Actually, should I buy one from the pharmacy and use it at home? And Initially I would say, yeah, great idea, Then you can check what your blood pressure's doing. And then what I noticed is that, oh wow, maybe fifty percent of people this is a rough guess, it's not a scientific study.

Half of my patients would use regular blood pressure checks at home to empower them, right, So they'd be like, oh wow, okay, it's going a bit high. Now what's going on? And they'd use it in a very helpful way to get to know themselves better and make positive changes. The other half, I think it was harmful for them. They would get stressed out, they would check it four times a day, they would get health anxiety, and that would paralyze them. So I thought, wow, it's not the

tracker itself that's the issue. It's our relationship to the tracker. That's the theme throughout this conversation. It's our relationship to it. So if you're someone who can look at that tracker, whether it's an Apple watch or a whoop band or an or or whatever, you know, whatever, you've got a garment. You know, if you're able to use it to help you get to know yourself better and it helps you make positive changes, I think they can be very very helpful.

In fact, I'm on a two month experiment at the moment with this one that I've got on, and it's really helping me understand myself bad at Oh this is what my heart rate variability is like when I eat a bit later at night, or you know, when I've been on a transatlantic flight. Whatever. I'm like, I'm learning about myself. I'm getting a deeper understanding of myself through this. Now. I think it'd be very helpful. But some people have

got a very unhealthy relationship with them. They're obsessed with them. If the battery's not working, they start to stress out. Oh, I don't know how to exist. And the truth is there are some scientific studies which show us that they can be problematic. So there was one study which I write about in the book, where in essence, a simplified way of describing it is, they took these groups of people and put them in the lab. One group were

only allowed to sleep for five hours. The other group were allowed to sleep for eight towers right, but there's no clocks anywhere. And then they told the group who slept for five hours that they slept for eight hours, and the group that slept for eight towers that they'd only sat for five hours, and that impacts it that energy love us through the day and impacted their physiology. Right. So that's a really powerful study. And there's many more

like that, which all that does for me. Again, let's not get let's not use that study to disempower us. That's interesting. What does that show? It shows that some people can have an unhealthy relationship with these devices. Some people can have a helpful one. And if I think about that through the lens of me and my wife, right, I love getting data. I can be very detached from it. It doesn't affect me. If I see a low readiness score in the morning, I can be detached from that

and go wow, I can still perform even with that. Right, I will often not check for days, right or once a day, once every two days, I'll go on and check my data. I don't want to become dependent or reliant. That's the key. So I can't tell you, Jay, are these good or bad? It depends on who you are and what's your relationship to that device. Yeah, and only you will be able to answer that question for yourself.

of the event, of the data, of the information. And I guess, then, going back to what you said earlier, your only non negotiable has become being kinder to yourself, Like that is your non negotiable, Like the ability to always turn towards not judging, not shaming, not guilty, but giving yourself that space and grace to just operate and think it through.

a situation in life that might challenge that. What if I was on a street with my two beautiful children and someone was trying to attack me or tack them, would I turn to violence to protect them?

and you wance. So for me, if I say it's a non negotiable, again, it may for someone else they may like the term, but for me it's not so program me with this harsh task master, I must always do this. I can never I can never fall from this. So for me, I personally don't use that term, but I totally welcome other people like if they want to use that term. I think it's completely fine, and I think it's all highly highly individual. We have to find

what works for us. I don't believe anymore that anything for me is non negotiable. I think I set an intention about how I want to live, but always knowing that the situation could change. Now, Jay, I'm here in La right maybe two weeks after the election, and it's remarkable for me to see, certainly online the division right. And I remember maybe six or nine months ago, when your current US Surgeon General, Vivic Mersey, was in London.

He came on my podcast. We had a wonderful conversation, and he said to me, back then, one in six Americans are currently not talking to a family member because of their political views. And I suspect that's even higher now from what I can tell now, I'm not trying to wade into politics here. I'm trying to take a step back and go to me. And I'm not American, right, so I acknowledge that to put that out there, to me,

it seems like madness. There's a chapter in this book called take Less Offense, which is an over reliance on being right, our need to be right. And I explained in that chap so that nothing in life is inherently offensive. If it was, we'd all get offended to the same thing. If it was that thing that was offensive, all of us would find it offensive. If we don't all find something offensive, it means that thing isn't offensive. There's something

inside of us that's been activated or being triggered. So that whole chapter is about helping people understand that you don't need to take offense to everything. You can choose not to. You can choose to go wow, Why has that person got a different view to me? Why does

that person see the wills so differently from me? You know, I think I might have shared this last time I was on your show, Jay, but that one of the phrases that has been transformative for me is if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exacta the

same way as them. And what I mean by that is if I was that other person, with their parents, with their childhood, with the bullying they experienced, with the friends they had at school, with the first boss who bullied them, on the workplace, whatever it might be, if I had their life, I would probably see the world in the same way as them, and I probably act in the same way as them. Now, this doesn't mean I'm saying this excuse is poor behavior. No, I'm not

saying that. What I'm saying is, instead of jumping to judgment of other people, which I think is a toxic behavior, I think it's a behavior that won't help you make change. I used to be judgmental, and not anymore. You can change this. We said before, how our behaviors are driven by our beliefs. None of us came out of our mother's womb with these beliefs, right, we didn't. We developed

them based upon what we experienced throughout our life. It's a much lighter way of interacting with the world when you go, wow, why do they think in the way that they do? Now, you don't have to choose that approach to life. But if you're someone who's walking around taking offense to everything, okay, and I say this, I

promise you. I say this with compassion. Jay. If there's anyone listening who's thinks that they're a person who's constantly berating the drivers on the freeway, taking offense to everything they see on social media, my invitation to that individual is, Hey, that approach to life may not be serving you. You

may have an over reliance on being right. And in that chapter I make the case that actually thinking that everyone in the world is going to see the world in the same way as us in a world of eight billion people is actually quite an arrogant way to think. And I'm not judging when I say that I used to think like this, Jay, Right, So I'm why I share that is because I want people to know. I know what that feels like, and I know you can

change that. If you choose to not take offense and interact with compassion, why does that person think the way in which they do. You will naturally make better choices because you're not generating that emotional stress you go on Instagram or Twitter or x and find a comment really irritating or someone's viewpoint really offensive and starts to get

involved with them. Of course you can do that. That might be why you struggle to reduce your alcohol intake or your sugar intake, because you're getting addicted to that noise, that emotional stress. And let's relate that back to what I said about Edith Eager before. This lady who survived Auschwitz and at ninety three is full of compassion and forgiveness and even said that she's forgiven Hitler right. Let that land for a minute. It doesn't mean that what

Hitler did was right. She's not saying that. What she's saying is I'm no longer going to allow what he did to affect me and my life and how I interact. There's a big difference people get. There's a whole sectional forgiveness in the book. People really misunderstand forgiveness. They think it means that I'm saying that that was right and

it was okay. It's not that at all. One of the daily practices I did after my conversation with Edith, which is still probably one of the most powerful episodes I've ever had in my podcast, is every evening, because, as I say, you often can't do it in the moment. Every evening. Once my kids were in bed, when they were a bit younger, I sit down and I'd ask myself, wrongan, where did you get emotionally triggered today? When did an email piss you off? Right? When did you react to

someone whilst you were driving? And instead of putting the blame on the other person, on something outside of myself, I asked myself a question, what is it within me that's been activated by that external action? Why did that email bother me? Oh? It reminds me of something my parents said to me when I was a kid. Oh, it reminds me of the boss I had a few years ago. Oh, it's highlighted in an insecurity like criticism. Right, we both exist in the public domain. We have to

you know, we get positive comments, we also get negative comments. Right, That is just part and parcel of life. Not everyone is going to like how I put across my messages. That's okay, they don't have to. Some people will say I'm the greatest podcast host on the planet. Some people say I'm the worst, and I talk over my guests and whatever. Do you know what? They're both right for them? Right?

Do you know what I mean? It's really important. So what I've learned about criticism, because criticism generally doesn't bother me anymore, because I've learned to be emotionally detached. I've come to the realization, Shay, that criticism only bothers us to the degree we believe it about ourselves. I don't know your relationship with criticism, but certainly for me, I realized, Oh, the reason that bothers me is because it triggers an

internal insecurity. Now I can get annoyed at the person delivering the criticism or and maybe it's out of order, maybe they shouldn't. But I'm not sure how much that helps you. You can't control whether someone is or is not going to criticize you. What I can control and what I can work on is my internal state? Oh I'm insecure about that. Let me write down why? Let me think about that. Maybe if you have access to a therapist, sure, go and see one. Talk about it.

That is the secret to long term change, Jay. It's not looking outside for the answers. It's going what is going on inside of me? That exercise Like, if people take nothing else from this conversation, Jay, I would say that is one of the most powerful things you can do. It will take you maybe five minutes every evening. And you don't realize. People do not realize how quickly their lives will start to change when they take full responsibility

for their reactions. You're no get dependent on everyone around you acting a certain way to feel good. You become like a master in yourself. Like in martial arts, we want to be black belts. This is your way of becoming a black belt in yourself and I love it. And going back to what I said before about the process of change, if you commit to doing this, you

will learn so much about yourself. You will learn why certain things trigger you, why you go to sugar, why you go to alcohol, why you can't stop scrolling Instagram for four hours every evening, you will learn about yourself. And I promise you that is much more powerful than any expert ever telling you that. And I say that as a so called expert myself.

And you're so right. We've been trying to outsource our health, our emotional health, our physical health. And I love the ownership and the empowerment that you're offering everyone through this book because that's really what's missing. That's really what the struggle is, is that we haven't taken ownership of our own life. And that's what I feel you're encouraging us to do.

I mean, certainly we spoke up this beforehand. I think, I think what I've stumbled across through my career and through my own lived experience are I think some universal human truths, right. I think for me at least, what's exciting about this book for people is that you're going to learn concepts that you're not used to learning about from a medical doctor. There's like elements of philosophy, spirituality, yes,

physical health, and habit formation. It's all there. And I think from the bottom of my heart that this is the most important book I've ever written. I think it's going to have the most impact on people. You're very kind enough to give a quote for the book. But remember one of the first people outside my team to have read it was Dr Gable Matte and Gable read every single word and he sent me the most wonderful email and he goes wrong and this is just wonderful.

This is your most insightful book. Get this can help so many people and coming from someone I really respect that. I love it.

but let's also use our hearts. I love that.