Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work

these days people are struggling with fatigue they don't have energy they're struggling with motivation they can't sleep they're feeling chronically stressed this is affecting their physical health their weight the way that they feel about themselves we have to understand that these modern lives and the way in which we're leading them is resulting in us being sick I don't care how bad you think your life is I absolutely believe in you because I've seen people in the darkest places change their life time and time again so I know it's possible for each and every individual if

you make changes in four key areas of your life you can have a profound impact on so many different aspects of your health and those four things are what I call the four pillars y food movements sleep stop that is something that everybody needs to hear if you don't change now when will [Music] you hey it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robins podcast I am so excited that you're listening to this episode I mean first of all it's always an honor to be able to spend time with you and be together and

if you're a new listener I just want to take a moment and welcome you to the Mel Robins podcast family I am so glad that you're here and because you made the time to listen to this particular episode here's what I know I know you're the type of person who truly values your health and you value the health and happiness of the people that you care about and if you're listening because somebody shared this with you how awesome is that I mean that means that you have people around you who care about you and so

that's so cool they want you to feel more energized happy and healthy in your life and that means you're in the right place so good job hit and plan this episode because today you have an appointment with Europe's number one doctor Dr rangan chattergy Dr chattergy is a British physician he's a best-selling author a medical expert for the BBC and host of Europe's number one Health and Wellness podcast and he's also the author of the brand new best-selling book make change that lasts and if you're watching on YouTube you can see that I have taged

this book because it is full of gems we are going to be unpacking today he is taking 20 years of clinical experience and Distilling it into the four steps you need to take to feel better to live better and to take back control of your health so please help me welcome the amazing Dr chatterie to the Mel Robbins podcast I am so excited for this conversation Dr chatterie I cannot thank you enough for traveling 3,000 miles to sit down and be here with me and the person that is with us right now it's my pleasure

M I'm a huge fan of what you do the way you're impacting people all over the world so I can't wait for this conversation well you know what I love about you as a doctor as a bestselling author you have this obsession with making things that feel overwhelming as simple as it can be and I'm so excited for you to really share this gift that you have of taking the overwhelming topic of living a healthier and a happier life and truly simplifying it for me and for the person that is listening and that's going to

share this with somebody it's not as hard as we think it is Mel you know when we think about improving Our lives our health our happiness our relationships those things aren't quite as separate as we often think I I think those three things are all absolutely interl and my entire career yes with my patience but over the past 10 years with my public platform whether it's with my books or my podcast I'm always trying to think about simplification how can you translate this idea for a busy person who doesn't feel as though they've got time

who feels that health is too confusing and they feel it's too complicated how can I get get through to that individual that's what I've really enjoyed doing my entire career as a doct but I also enjoy doing it through media platforms like this one well I can't wait to learn from you today and I would love to start by having you talk directly to the person that's listening and explain what could they experience if they really take to heart everything you're about to pour into us the research your experience as a physician everything that you've

learned in researching and writing six books what could change about your life I think people are going to find that they have more energy more focus more motivation better physical health better mental health happiness inner calm better relationships because actually the key principles the key ingredients to all of these things they're really not as complicated as people think really yeah they in my view cuz already the list Dr chattergy I'm like oh my God that's a lot I don't even know if I can remember all this so like it's really not that compli yeah well

well through this conversation hopefully people will learn it's yes I'm not saying change is easy y but it can be simple right if you understand the key ingredients to change and you start applying them into your daily life and I'm a busy guy like I'm a dad I've got two children I help care for my elderly mother who lives 5 minutes away from me I have a busy job I know what it's like to feel busy and feel as if you don't have time to do the things that you want to do but there is

always a way to make time I've done it for years with my patients and I hope to show your audience smell on this program today that they can also do it well I'm excited because here's what I know the person that is listening right now whether they've taken you and me on a walk with them or we're sitting in the car with them or at their house or at work or the person that received this conversation from a friend they actually found the time because they care about their health and I'm sure as you're listening

you probably feel the same way I do which is I'm so even though I sit down with you know World rown experts like you I'm like wait a minute should I do keto am I supposed to fast like am I exercising am I weight training am I sleeping am I meditating do I get my morning light in and it becomes so overwhelming that I think it's easy to start and then feel dis discouraged and so maybe where we should start is as a doctor what are just the most common health struggles that you hear over

and over from your patients and from your Global audience I think these days people are struggling with fatigue they don't have energy they're struggling with motivation they can't sleep they're feeling chronically stressed this is affecting their physical health their weight the way that they feel about themselves it's also impacting their mental Al well-being how they see themselves how they see the world around them but what a lot of people don't realize m is that the health landscape in the United States in the UK and frankly most countries around the world has dramatically changed over the

past 20 or 30 years okay we used to see what I call acute problems okay so 30 40 years ago the medical system was really well set up for the problems that people came in with so you'd come in and say Hey doctor I've got a cough um I've got a fever I'm bringing up a lot of sputum and the doctor would see you for 10 or 15 minutes examine you give you a diagnosis give you a pill and say take this three times a day for seven days and hey Presto seven days later your

problem's gone away right I call that a zpack right you know like I'm like I need antibiotics doc yeah and it work beautifully well for those kinds of problems but today m 8 to 90% of what we as medical doctors see is in some way related to our Collective modern Lifestyles okay now let me be really clear I am not putting blame on anyone the person who's listening right now I am not putting blame on you okay I understand that life is tough that people feel stressed they don't have the energy I do understand all

those things at the same time we have to understand that these modern lives and the way in which we're leading them is is resulting in us being sick okay and so I was very much trained the model where you try and diagnose a patient when they come in and give them a treatment which is usually a pharmaceutical treatment right now that can have value but what a lot of people still don't realize is that if you make changes in four key areas of your life you can have a profound impact on so many different aspects

of your health and those four things are what call the four pillars yep food movements sleep and relaxation so let me just make sure the person got exactly what you said so you're saying that the landscape of health and medicine has changed dramatically in the last 20 years and that you used to 20 years ago have a situation where people would come in with an acute illness or problem or Health Challenge you address it we're good we're back on track what you're seeing now is the impact of how we are living and the stress that

we are feeling and the foods that we're consuming and that as a medical doctor and in the current health system we're not actually addressing the root cause or potentially addressing four more simple things that are within our control that would have a positive impact on you and your life no matter what you're facing so like if the person listening has a cancer diagnosis if the person listening is dealing with a metabolic disorder or uh early onset of diabetes these four pillars that you're talking about are still things that as a medical doctor you're like let's

just start here in addition to everything else well not being a medical doctor for over 23 years I've seen tens of thousands of patients and I just cannot emphasize this enough ask yourself which of these four pillars do I need the most work in food movement sleep or relaxation and no matter what it is that you're dealing with right now you're going to ask us let's just talk about food movement sleep and relaxation yeah now Mel there's a key Point here okay so when we talk about our lifestyle we often talk about it through the

lens of prevention okay yeah yeah you know it's important to pay attention to all LIF we want to prevent getting sick in the future now I agree with that but what people forget or they miss or they don't understand is that lifestyle can be part of the treatment as well hold on I got to make sure that we highlight that so your lifestyle on some of the changes you can make starting today can be part of the treatment for any health issue and it's part of the road map for you feeling better lowering your stress

and being healthier Yeah you mentioned a few uh different um conditions there you even mentioned cancer right yes let's be really clear on this I'm not saying that it's only lifestyle right you may be under an oncologist and be undergoing treatment but even if you are paying attention to your lifestyle is going to help you manage the process of going undergoing that treatment okay I love this because you're based basically saying that food movement sleep and rest are medicine 100% they're 100% medicine the problem is we're not taught to look at medicine in that way

okay but I've been using those four pillars as medicine for many many years and well I had a great Fortune to do this on a big scale back in 2015 okay so back in 2015 I got my own bbc1 Prime time series called doctor in the house and I basically lived alongside families for four to 6 weeks who were sick they were already sick they already had a diagnosis they were already under doctors and on medication and in every single case I either help them reverse their condition or significantly improve it using lifestyle so and

I'll tell you what happened there was a lady with type 2 diabetes I helped to put that into mission in just 30 days what using food movement sleep and rest using these four pillars okay I helped a lady with panic attacks reduce them by 80% in just 6 weeks I had a lady with menopausal symptoms who didn't want to take hormones and we vastly reduced them in just 6 weeks using these four pillars fibromyalgia irritable bow syndrome I did all of that on Prime Time television to show people that actually it's not about blame this

is the key thing here when you mention lifestyle some people will you know get defensive go what are you saying I did this to myself no no I'm not saying that what I'm saying is that your health is a combination of a number of factors yes your genetics for sure that plays a role but also the way you're living your life and often you haven't been intentional about the way you're living your life so you end up at some point with a set of symptoms but it doesn't mean that the only Sol solution for those

symptoms is a pharmaceutical drug it may be it may be part of the solution but a lot of the time you can actually reverse these problems if you change your lifestyle and for me the simplest way I managed to help my patients with that is through the lens of these four pillars I love that because I can remember this food movement sleep and rest and it's almost like a simple checklist so let's go through each one of the four pillars what do you mean by food how do we turn it into health how do we

turn it into medicine how do we use it to help us be healthier even as you're saying like actually reverse some of the symptoms or health things that we're challenged with yeah so one of the things I've got to make really clear is that there's no one right diet for every single person I don't want to hear that I want you to make this very simple Dr ja I I I will make it simple at the same time now I think when we believe there is one true diet all should be eating I don't think

it simplifies it for us I think it complicates it and the reason it complicates it and one of the biggest problems in health and wellness today is the confusion that exists I feel it I especially feel it around what exactly to eat you know what I mean like as like as a woman versus a man now that my 50s versus my 30s I need certain amount of protein what kind of protein like should I be fasting should I not be fasting should I have electrolytes like you see what I'm saying so when I about simplification

if you overly simplify you end up confusing people so I want to simplify as as far as I possibly can but then I also want to give the listener a bit of responsibility got it the the most important principle when it comes to food is as much as you possibly can have minimally processed foods as close to its natural form as possible and so what does that mean like if you explain that to an eight-year-old what does that mean I say listen let's think about one ingredient Foods okay so foods that don't have a barcode

because they naturally are one ingredient so an avocado doesn't have an ingredient list it's one ingredient right a piece of fruit doesn't have an ingredient list right and so for a lot of my patients for years Mel I've been asking them to look at food labels okay and people are shocked at what happens when they look at food labels that's the starting point I think for everyone is as as much as you can because when you start eating more and more minimally processed food your hunger signals will naturally start to take care of themselves so

if you're having lots of highy processed food and potato chips and the you know the modern food environment basically people are hungry all the time why are we hungry all the time if we're like eating mac and cheese and you know fish and chips or like chicken nuggets or we're just kind of doing dinner out of a box or we're ordering it to go why does that make us hung because Place Havoc with our hormones it plays havoc with our blood sugar so a lot of the things we're eating these days will Spike our blood

sugar very quickly which also means it's going to come down very quickly so let's say for example you start the day with a bowl of sugary cereal which is really really common okay now depending on which one you eat but most of them pretty much fall into this category you're eating it and you feel full afterwards and your blood sugar has started to go up pretty rapidly maybe after about 2 2 hours it hits it its peak y then it starts to crash okay and then when it starts to crash it's not just a hunger

issue it's a stress issue okay right what do you mean by that what I mean by that is let's say you have your um your bowl of sugary cereal at 7:00 in the morning yep and you think yeah that's going to last me till lunchtime and then at 9:30 or 10:00 whilst you're at the office you're like why am I so hungry like I've already eaten I'm like cruising through the kitchen there's a desperation it's not like just a bit of hunger that you can deal with it's no I need to eat something people go

for an extra coffee the vending machine whatever it might be it's often because their blood sugar has started to drop rapidly now when your blood sugar drops rapidly think about it through an evolutionary lens that was a threat to survival a few hundred thousand years ago right if your blood sugar is dropping rapidly right you don't just feel hungry it elevates stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol so it really is a stressor on the body that makes sense so if instead of that for example you had some eggs and some avocado these these kind of

one ingredient Foods you'll find that it's it's less likely to happen yes sometimes your blood sugar will still go up but it's a bit more gentle well you know what's interesting about everything that you're saying is you say sugary cereal and I think the mistake that I used to make for years is I would think about the actual like Captain Crunch or the stuff that is marketed typ to kids that even in the marketing you know it is sugary yeah but when I started to do as you're saying like flip it over and there's 32

grams of sugar in a bowl of cereal and you're like what and so it's kind of hidden in there and I think that's also part of the thing that I didn't realize and a lot of us don't realize and I love that you're not blaming us because we fall for the marketing and then we don't look at the actual ingredient list I had a patient once um he was in his early 40s and he came in to see me and he had a bit of weight around his belly he was struggling in the day with

his mood and he said doc you know I always feel like eating and there was all kinds of things going on but in essence he was starting his day with sugary cereal okay and I could track his day and his mood and his energy and his fatigue and his focus and I thought I'm pretty certain that the way he starts his day is impacting the rest of his day and he doesn't realize this okay so we did an experiment I said okay you've been starting your your days for years with this sugary bowl of cereal

and you've read the marketing you think it's healthy would you be interested in doing something that I call eat dinner for breakfast and he said what do you mean I said what do you have for dinner he goes well you know I like a good uh good dinner so he was pescatarian male and he would eat salmon and roasted vegetables in the evenings I said okay could you make extra in the evening and then have the leftovers for breakfast he goes well yeah I could do that I haven't done that before I said this is

just an experiment and this is a big princip of my entire approach mail I sort of I offer them to my patients as experiments not as prescriptions what I want to do is Inspire that patient to go Hey listen you know what it feels like to start your day like this right what does it feel like for you when you start your day with something else so then for the next week he literally did this and you know it would be often in the morning he'd have salmon and roasted vegetables like sweet potatoes and Brussels

sprouts whatever he just one ingredient one ingredient Foods the salmon protein which is satiating okay can keep you full for longer and he came in to see me a few weeks say so he goes Dr I feel like completely different person right I'm better at work now I have more concentration more Focus I'm not actually hungry till 2: p.m. right and this is the thing people don't realize about Hunger people think they're not eating enough the sun is you eating the wrong thing which is making you hungry so literally that one change for him taught

him how important it was to start his day with these one ingredient Foods and then what's so important about that male is that he is paying attention to how he feels so then what happens later is that he wants to continue doing that not because I asked him to no because something else has happened he has felt the difference and that's always been my Approach you can take alcohol right yeah or caffeine the sort of things people are always struggling with right my job with a patient has never ever been to tell them you must

give up alcohol or you must give up smoking or whatever it might be my job has always been to show that person what impact it's having and so I think one of the reasons I've always had really good compliance with my patients is I don't talk down to them I seen them as equal partners and I say Hey listen I think this is what's going on why don't you experiment this way and see how that feels does does that all make sense M oh my not only does it Mak sense you've actually handed the power

back to us and you have also activated this internal drive to want to feel better and I would love for you to share your framework around Cravings because you have this 3F framework when it comes to craving one of the reasons that people struggle Mal to make changes that last is because too often they try and change the behavior without understanding the role that behavior plays in their life so let's talk about that through the lens of sugar but you could just as easily apply that around alcohol or three hours Doom scrolling Instagram in the

evening whatever it might be okay so let's let's take a typical scenario that I've seen thousands of times in my practice and maybe you've experienced before M I don't I've not been to your house so I don't know if you've experienced this but a lot of people when they're trying to reset their relationship with sugar find that they could be really good in the day yes yes but somehow at 900 p.m. on the sofa with Netflix on they're like I really feel like ice cream that's where I just screw it all up Dr chattergy I

can be so good all day and it and and then I'm like why didn't I go to bed earlier if I had just gone to bed at 8:30 and started reading I wouldn't have eaten half a bag of this salty buttery popcorn yeah it's it's so important and there there's a couple of things to say that first of all the is is an associative organ right so we associate certain behaviors in certain locations right so if you've got a habit for 10 years of having ice cream on the sofa whilst watching TV yeah yeah you're

right had you gone to bed or moved to a different location in your house if you have the room you'll probably find that the behavior naturally starts to change because it often is associated with that particular location right I don't know if you've experienced that before of course many people have but the 3F framework does something really powerful for people it helps them understand why do I keep on doing this okay because so let me go through those three FS okay the three FS are feel feed and find okay feel feed and find walk people

through it okay so for the person listening right now who thinks that this applies to them I want them to imagine that they're on their sofa in the evening and they feel the urge for ice cream okay I want you to take a pause just for a few seconds before you go and open the fridge and that spoon's in your mouth take a pause you know we're standing in front of the fridge with the thing at the SP thing is I've been there before myself so I'm not doing this from a point of lecturing or

judging right I've been there and I know that you can change your life you can absolutely change your behaviors if you know why the behavior is there okay so you take a pause and before you eat it you say what am I feeling that's the first f is this physical hunger or is this emotional hunger oh yeah you know what I had a full meal one hour ago I'm actually not hungry how do you know the difference though cuz I I I'm a good talker so I can be like I think I'm actually hungry I

think I need a little well you know the difference by practicing okay you don't know the difference by suddenly doing it once and going oh no no I really am hungry no it's it's all these things we need to develop the skill by turning inwards okay okay so we have to ask ourselves regularly it's not as hard as you think I've done this with thousands of patients okay the most important thing is when you you create that pause So you you're literally creating a little gap between the stimulus the desire for ice cream and the

response okay so you actually said what AM my feeling and you might go yeah well I you know I shouldn't really be hungry because I had a huge meal I'm a little stressed I had a r with my partner the children's bedtime took too long I've been on Zoom calls all day and I feel a bit yucky this is a bit of time for me okay no problem you now have done the most important thing M which is you're starting to develop this selfawareness y of why you're going to that baby then go and eat

it I don't have a problem with someone eating it as long as they've done the first F okay now the next time you're on the server at 9:00 p.m. I want you to go to the second F so you go through the first up again what am I feeling what am I feeling yeah the second of is feeds how does food feed that feeling ah okay I feel stressed when I have ice cream in the short term at least I feel less stressed oh that's why I'm going to ice cream I'm not actually hungry okay

so she start to build up that awareness oh I've been on Zoom calls all day I feel a bit lonely I've not had any con connection with another human being today I feel a bit less lonely when I have some ice cream okay and you start to build up that self-awareness and if you want to go and have it sure go ahead and have it the next time you come you go through the first two FS so first F feel second F feed then you go to the third F find now that I know the

feeling now that I know how sugar feeds the feeling can I now find an alternative Behavior to feed that same feeling okay so what what does that look like oh I feel stressed sugar helps me feel less stressed well what else could I do to make me feel less stressed oh I love yoga okay well I like yoga maybe I can put YouTube on and do a 10-minute yoga sequence from YouTube maybe you're feeling lonely because you've been on Zoom calls all day or maybe your family are away or you're in a hotel room right

okay well instead of going to suger to feed the loneliness maybe you can phone a friend maybe you can phone one of your parents if you're lucky enough to have one of them still alive right if you have not had any time to yourself all day and sugar your little treat to yourself I think that's a big one for a lot of us especially if you're like constantly stressed you're caring for other people yeah what what else can you do well you could run yourself a bath and nourish yourself in a different way so this

3F framework can be applied to sugar to alcohol to social media to online pornography frankly to anything about because it does something very powerful it creates a gap between the stimulus and the response and then you do the most important thing which is is you start to understand yourself better now this is why we're so confused in the world at the moment with health information right we keep thinking that there's an expert out there who knows what's right for me the person who's eating too much sugar in the evening right let's say you're trying to

stop ice cream in the evening uh on your sofa yep Mel you don't need another book on sugar right cuz I'm probably going to put it down anyway and go get the popcorn and ice cream but most people who trying to cut back sugar aloh they don't need another book telling them oh Sugar's going to affect your teeth it's going to put on weights you're going to have low energy it's going to increase your risk of diabetes no I would say in the world today we have so many Health podcasts so many Health books so

many online articles we've got more information than ever before yet despite that our physical health is getting worse our mental health is getting worse so the case I'm making this new book mail is that we don't need more external knowledge necessarily we need more internal knowledge more self-awareness more insight that's how you change your life for good right you listen to experts like youil or me but then you put it through your own filter and go does this work for me is this the right approach for me and that's what I found to be the

most useful thing throughout my entire career mail the patients who've changed their life for good somewhere along the line mine it stopped being my plan and it became their plan oh I love that it's such a key Point M people will often ask me well are each of those three FS as important as the other no they're not the most important f is the first F feel what am I feeling I would say that's 80 to 90% of it when you break the loop of this patterning of sofa I want some ice cream open the

freezer spoon in my mouth right we've all been there m right with that first I literally since I've been in your house and I've met your wife and your kids I can see you standing in your kitchen and imagine your wife coming in and being what are you doing you know you what on another note like we don't have that stuff in the house yes because one of my principles that I've been sharing with patients for years is try not to use up your willpower in the house okay you have to use up your will

power as soon as you step out the front door these days right so in the UK if you want to buy a coffee you have to walk past the pastries the pan of chakas the you know the biscuits whatever it might be I have a rule that if I don't want to eat it I don't bring it into the house that makes it much easier and I think it's a great rule for many people to think about but I that that first F mail where you just start to understand yourself I've seen it with patients

it starts to change everything you may not change it straight away but I tell you within a week you're coming there you're on the Sur you're thinking wait a minute I don't need this I know what's going on here and you feel the sense of control yeah well in I I've read your new book recently um the let them Theory and I love it and in that book you write a lot about control okay this this base human need that we want to feel in control why the 3fs works so well and why listening to

lots of external advice and not owning the advice for yourself becomes problematic because you feel out of control yes right when you can't decide between a low carb diet a plant-based diet a keto diet a paleo diet when you try them and you feel it doesn't work for you but it worked for your best friends right or the people that are telling you to do it online yeah you never think well you rarely think that the diet was the failure you think you're the failure stop that is something that everybody needs to hear yeah you

don't think the diet was the failure you think you're the failure yeah and that leads to guilt shame regret that leads and reinforces these feelings that I'm not good enough okay I can't get the right plan for me and sometimes I would argue that some people are better of having not started that diet then having started it failed and then feeling even worse than before that even started I'm having this huge Epiphany um Dr chattery that I can't tell you how many times I've started keto or I've tried to manage more protein or I you

know I've tried pescatarian or I've tried like I've just been chasing one fad and one diet and one thing that I hear on the outside and it's not to say that those changes don't work but I'm realizing for the very first time listening to you right now that the key ingredient in all of those situations where I tried something and I felt like it failed for me or I I couldn't stick to it I don't have the willpower this is too complicated is that I didn't have the most important ingredient that you're talking about right

now which is part of the first pillar of food which is feel I wasn't saying to myself how is this making me feel and I can tell you that I recently did this kind of like five-day protocol that I was just looking for some sort of reset to do and it was this 5day intermittent you know you're eating while you're doing it fasting protocol they send you a kit and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done but the interesting thing that was different is that I was very much paying attention to how

do would I feel every day as I was doing it and as I started to notice that my mood got better I wasn't as hungry I felt sharper in focus it has made a change stick because of what you're talking about which is you know when you start focusing on this first pillar of your health really trying this as an experiment and then going how does this feel for me that's the piece that actually will make it work it's the biggest piece right it's not just doing it it's doing it and then going oh yeah

I'm noticing now that I'm feeling different so let's say someone listens to your podcast smell on mind right and one week they hear an expert talking about the benefits of a plant-based diet yep and the next week they hear another Well credentialed expert talk about the benefits of a ketogenic diet and the problem is people get confused right because they're like yes I'm only going to listen to experts oh but here's the problem with that you can have well credentialed experts from really good institutions saying two different things right so how do you navigate that

conflict and that confusion the way you navigate It Is by starting to trust yourself right and so I say to people when that's happened on my show before I said okay both of them have got credentials both of them have got research to back at what they're saying and case studies they could both be right for different people so why don't you try one diet for four weeks and as you're trying it pay attention what's your energy like what's your sleep like what's your focus like what's your guts like what are your bows like what

is your bloating like okay and you pay attention then for another four weeks you try the other one's diets and you pay attention to those same things you will very quickly realize actually you know what I think at this stage in my life because that's the other thing things can change throughout your life at this stage in my life I think this is probably the right approach for me and it's lifechanging for people because it gives them the power like you write in your book mail it's about control right yes well you know this gives

you a sense of control totally and what I love about this and I'll just add this from my own experien is I've always felt this pulled to want to be vegetarian or plant-based and when I have tried it I have felt so low energy and it has been a chore to get in the protein that I'm realizing as you're talking that's why I've never done it it's because I realize that I actually feel better on a different type of eating program and getting more lean protein from sources other than plant-based foods and I have a

question though before we move on to this second pillar of movement um how long do I need to try something in the food pillar or a change in my diet and really paying attention to how am I feeling because I would imagine you change anything whether it's your yeah reading labels one ingredient less sugar that you will go through a withdrawal period it will feel worse before it feels better so what's your recommendation in the food pillar for how long you would recommend us trying this thing going how do I feel I I would say

a minimum of three weeks okay I would say three to four weeks generally speaking is the kind of time you want to be trying something for it's enough time for your taste buds to start adapting to the new flavors it's what people don't realize you know if you're used to having a lot of sugary foods for a few days you know you're going to really miss them you're going to go through withdraw you have to go through that and come out the other side a key Point M I want to make is that I'm not

saying ignore external experts right I'm not saying that you didn't say that I'm saying that Something's Happened in society now with all this information where we put all of our faith in external experts at the expense of our self okay and I'm saying we need to bring up our own inner expertise as well yes listen to the external experts but also know that hey you know what my life is unique I've got unique pressures unique stresses what works for someone else may not work for me so again I don't mean to confuse the issue you're

not actually you're simplifying it you're doing exactly what you said and it is very clear to me food is medicine food is part of your plan and a required part of the pillar for you to feel less stressed to have more energy to be happier to be healthier and you're the expert and so take the things that you feel called to try that you know are true for or you trust and and do it for three weeks and see how you feel it's like fasting M fasting becomes this really controversial topic right should I fast

should I not fast is fasting better for men is it better you know is it not so good for women people are getting confused right but even the fundamental premise is fasting good or bad it's the wrong question what's the right question the right question is for who and in which context okay the two most important questions we can ask ourselves whenever we're hearing advice okay for some people fasting is a GameChanger if you have been carrying excess weight for a while if you have type two diabetes if you've been ingesting excess calories for you

know 10 plus years a form of fasting that suits you and your life may be game-changing yes if on the other hand you're underweight you have an eating disorder which you are suffering from or recovering from well fasting might not be the best solution for you but these days online we want to say is it good or bad it's like well it's neither it can be amazing but it's an option that you may want to play around with I cannot wait to jump into how you're going to simplify movement as the second pillar for our

health one of the things that I've seen is that you have a five minute strength training program that you do every day and I hugged you when you came in and I'll tell you you're pretty jacked compared to when I saw you last time so what is this five minute strength training thing that you do Dr chattery this is one of the most important things I do each day and not only for my health I would say it's also one of the most important things I do for my happiness and my relationships remember at the

start mail I said that health happiness and relationships are not as separate as people might think okay so what do I do and I think it's a useful way of helping people understand the key principles of habit formation so for over 5 years now I've been doing several things each morning but one thing that I rarely Miss on is a five minute strength workout okay so what does this look like okay I I go to bed early and I wake up early that's just what works for me right but I wake up around 5:00 again

I'm not saying anyone else has to it's what works for me my wife doesn't want to get out of bed till 7 or half 7 right so we have found what works for us okay so I come downstairs and I I do happen to meditate that's the first thing I tend to do but that's not relevant for this part of our conversation I go into my kitchen and one thing I do is I love to make coffee okay so I weigh out my coffee I and I pour the water in Into The French Press and

I put a timer on for five minutes in those five minutes Ma I don't go on email I don't go on Instagram I don't go on the news what I do in those five minutes is I have a strength workout in my kitchen in my pajamas what do you do well I do a variety of things it started off being body weight i' do some press UPS some Cal raises some squats I just do a little circuit in my kitchen and then I get the gorgeous reward of a hot cup of coffee just the way

I like it wait so you literally do squats you do push-ups you do calf raises so you're going up on your tippy toes yeah there's a there's a video on YouTube that I've wor off my five minute kitchen workouts these days I do a couple of other things I have a kettle bell and a dumbbell in my kitchen so sometimes I'll do some kettle bell swings sometimes I'll do some bicep curls whatever I feel like but the point is I do that 5 minute strength workout every day I even did it this morning in my

hotel room here in Boston MA okay and I'll explain why it's so important it's what I would call my Keystone habit okay it's a habit that when I do it it makes it infinitely more likely I'm going to do other healthy choices in my day right every single day mail we're all asking ourselves two questions can I trust myself can I rely on myself what my 5 minute kitchen workout does for me every single morning is it shows me that no matter how busy my work is no matter what my wife needs from me what

my children need from me what my elderly mother needs from me I still found 5 minutes for myself it shows me I can trust myself I can rely on myself now people might go you know strength worker every day do do not vary it up no I don't vary it up right especially when I started no do we vary up toothbrushing no right I I hope Mel every single person listening right now brushes their teeth for 2 minutes in the morning and 2 minutes in the evening well you know what's interesting about brushing your teeth

and I'm glad you just brought it up is I just saw somebody else talking about it I can't remember who it is and it's a fabulous example that if you go and don't brush your teeth today you'll have bad breath you'll notice but most people around you won't notice but if you go day after day week after week month after month year after year for five years and you never brush your teeth like some of them are going to fall out yeah you're going to have like snaggle tooth mouth like you're going to be horrible

like it's and it's an illustration of something we know intellectually that the compounding nature of doing something every day actually builds in the negative or the positive dramatically and your five minute workout in the kitchen that I think is just genius first of all you already taught us that the brain is an associative machine meaning it Associates certain places and times of day with certain things and so you're using that to your advantage you also have set yourself up for Success because you now have a kab ball right there in the kitchen you have also

set yourself up with a stacking of this so that you start the coffee maker which something you're going to do regardless of how you feel doesn't matter how tired you are whether or not you don't want to you're going to do it and while the coffee you don't care that you're not in the latest workout clothes you don't need a fancy gym there you are at 5:05 in the morning in your pajamas doing push-ups on your kitchen floor while your coffee is brewing and it's an illustration of the daily toothbrushing 100% And with toothbrushing the

key point I want to make is that we don't apply those principles when it comes to changing our health right we make it so difficult and complicated that's a theme throughout this conversation M how do we keep it simple if your audience ma if the person listening to this episode right now if you take nothing else from this conversation but this idea that you're going to find one five minute action and you're going to do it at the same time every day try it for the next seven days I guarantee like I literally guarantee cuz

I've seen this tens of thousands of times not only will you feel better you will change the way you experience life you will change the way you view yourself because you build up this momentum you build up self-esteem you you become someone who can do what they say they're going to do right I had a patient again I I'm going to bring this and make this really real because I imagine there'll be people listening well who think I'm busy like I'm a nurse I'm a teacher um I don't have time no no you do have

time right I had a patient 40 8-year-old guy this maybe 10 years ago M and he came in to see me with three common complaints okay he's a little bit overweight yep okay and he and he was pointing to his tummy as he came in he had a bit of low mood and he had low energy okay okay there's many things that can cause these things I think the person listening is like I know six people like that right now so please send them this conversation because you haven't been able to get them to take

this seriously Dr chattery can so I spent a bit of time talking to him now trying to understand his life and his lifestyle and there was quite a few things there and I said to him Hey listen there's a few things in your lifestyle that I've identified that I think could be responsible for all three of these things are you interested and be helping you change some of them yep so I always asked permission with my patients right I don't just give them advice say are you interested he said yeah that'd be great so I

went through all kinds of options he wasn't biting any them he's like nah I don't think that's to me I don't think that's to me when I said strength training his eyes lit up now okay so I'm meeting him where he's at he's like yeah dog you know I used to do that at school as a teenager I haven't done it in years I've got busy with adult life basically yep I said I think strength training is going to really help you I think it's going to help you with your weights your energy and your

moods he said right great I want to do it what shall I do 45 minutes three times a week in the gym I said yeah that would be fantastic great you he goes right I'm going to do it I said okay here's an appointment for 4 weeks time you go and do that come back in four weeks and we'll figure out how you're doing okay so he goes away and I'm feeling pleased I think okay cool he's going to go and do that four weeks later Mel he comes back into my office and he walks

in and his body language is a bit off he's not making eye contact with me I said hey how was the gym you know it made a difference he said hey Doc listen um I'm not been yet okay work's been really busy um the Gym's quite expensive it's not really on my way to or from work I've not actually gone yet oh so now he feels terrible he feels terrible and I remember that case so well well because it was one of the most instrumental moments in my career I never thought in that moment he's

not done what I've asked him to do I thought rongan you've clearly not given G him advice that he feels is relevant in the context of his life so in that moment I took my jacket off okay and I said right can I teach you some body weight exercises right here right now he said sure So I literally got down on the floor in my office and I was teaching him press UPS squats car phrases I was modifying them for his ability level yeah and I said what do you think can you do that he

goes yeah that's okay I said okay what I want you to do is I want to do this for 5 minutes twice a week in your kitchen and he looked at me he said what 10 minutes a week is that it I said yeah can you do that go that's easy I said okay great you go and do that I'll see you in four weeks okay so he goes off four weeks later he comes back he's almost dancing into the room okay he comes to see me with a big smile on his face I said

hey how you doing he said doc you ask me to do five minutes twice a week it was so easy I enjoyed it so much that I now do 10 minutes every evening whilst my dinner's getting ready in the kitchen so I do 10 minutes right that changed his life M because when I asked him or when he felt he had to do 45 minutes three times a week in the gym he did zero right when he felt he only had to do 10 minutes a week he's now doing 10 minutes a day that's 70

minutes of strength training that led to what I call the ripple effect over the next few weeks he starts to go for a walk at lunchtime he starts to cook a little bit better for himself he starts to prioritize his bedtime i s a few years ago M this is maybe five years after we started he's now meditating each day if I had brought up meditation to him 10 years ago he would have laughed me out of the room right small changes done consistently lead to Big outcomes I've seen it time and time again and

what I love about what you're teaching us and I'm sure I speak for you as you're listening to Dr chattergy too right now is that first of all I'm like okay how can I get you to be my doctor because I would like a doctor that takes their coat off and then shows me how to do five minute interventions but it all comes back to this simple principle there are four pillars we've unpacked food and the importance of how you feel and experimenting and one ingredient stuff now you have simplified movement and you have made

the case that just introducing five minutes of movement whether it's a walk or something in your kitchen how that changes the course of your life and how you've seen it happen in your patience honestly if if your audience take literally nothing else from this conversation I want them to take this find a five minute action something you've thought about before something you you feel drawn to I don't care what it is journaling meditation yoga pull-ups star jumps doesn't matter if 5 minutes feels too much make it one minute right but start somewhere and do it

for at least seven days and if you don't feel differently about your life sure ignore everything I have to say well you and I both know of course you're going to feel different I know they are going to feel different of course but you have to do it inspiration without action does not lead to change this is what I see these days M People listen to your show they listen to my show they um see a positive Instagram post and a really inspirational Meme and they heart it they think they've done something they haven't done

anything right they moved their thumb about half a millimeter on their phone that's great don't get me wrong but you need to take the inspiration and figure out well how am I going to take action in my life and you just gave us the actual only way it gets done because most most of us make a mistake in that moment where we hurt this video about health and we say okay I'm going to go to the gym three times a week for 45 minutes and then you don't because it's hard to do that and it's

actually more complicated than you think to find the time to get the clothes to get into the gym to figure out what the workout is and what you're saying is there's a totally different way to go from inspiration to action make it as easy as hell make it 5 minutes long find a tri figure like making coffee that you don't even think about and set up the environment with one simple thing so that you have the things you need right there and try it for seven days and you'll be shocked yeah you will be shocked

and and what people don't realize because I've seen it with so many patients is they underestimate Simplicity right I go to the gym sometimes right I'll lift things at other times but some weeks I don't but I never miss my 5 minute morning action it say promise I made to myself and why do I think that helps your health your happiness and your relationships because when you make that commitment to yourself when you make that promise and you keep it m you do something so powerful right it builds you up inside you become a human

being who knows your selfworth and you take that to your relationships you take it to your work you take it to every other aspect of your life well I can't wait until you teach us how to make the third pillar which is sleep something that's easy using these principles because as a medical doctor and literally being Europe's doctor and the tens of thousands of patients that you've treated it is really sad and troubling how many people are not getting enough sleep yeah how they're having trouble falling asleep staying asleep not dropping into deep sleep and

so can you share with us how you say a good night sleep starts in the morning and what we need to do to make this easy when people think about sleep the first thing they go to is what are they doing before they go to bed now whilst that is important what we don't realize is that a good night sleep starts first thing in the morning how you start your morning off now if you're able to get natural lights first in the morning it's f fantastic for your over wellbeing it helps set your Cadian Rhythm

this is your biological clock every single cell in your body has a clock okay and one of the key drivers of that clock is exposure to light okay so if you expose yourself to Bright natural light ideally but I appreciate also that you know depending on where you live in the world certainly in the UK at the moment you're not getting bright natural lights in the morning so yes you know put all the lights on at home get them as bright as you possibly can that actually helps you sleep better in the evening there's some

studies which show us that if you meditate or practice mindfulness first in the morning that can also help you sleep better at night okay so there's many ways that I want people to think about sleep but what you do first thing in the morning can absolutely impact uh your sleep in the evening now why should people care about sleep okay it's not just about energy yes energy is of course something that we all want right we want the energy to do the things that we want to do in life but here's what happens when you

sleep deprived your mood goes down you're less empathetic you're less compassionate you find it harder to resist temptation if you sleep 5 and 1 half hours each night compared to 7 and a half hours each night one study showed on average you're eating 22% more the following day in terms of calories okay so think about that 5 days of extreme sleep deprivation will lead to a whole extra one day's worth of calories going through your mouth okay so I've helped M some patients lose weight in a sustainable way not by focusing on their diet by

focusing on their sleep this goes back Mel to what I said right at the start think about these four pillars and ask yourself which one of these four pillars do I need the most work in right too often we focus on our favorite pillar if your diet is 85% good moving it from 85% to 90% whilst you're already sleeping 5 hours a night ain't going to move the needle if you can bring up your sleep from 5 hours to even 5 and 1 half hours again it's not about perfection it's not about either 8 hours

or nothing if you can actually get 20 minutes more 30 minutes more there will be a physiological difference in your body ma the following day and so it's important for your physical health your mental well-being life feels different when you've had a good night sleep okay so in terms of what people can do yeah I mentioned first thing in the morning okay get light exposure and and I we have so many people around the world that write in when they hear about light exposure in the morning that say well I have to leave for work

before the sun's even up so how do you do that if it's raining or or you have a job where you're already starting work and the sun hasn't risen yeah so it doesn't always have to be the sun to be clear you still get a lot of natural light on an overcast day or on a cloudy day okay but yes I appreciate we all have different work schedules so if you can't do that you know put the lights on in your house if you want you can go on Amazon you can buy like these bright

Lux lights they're not that expensive you can have those on in your house right do what you can if you can't do it first thing in the morning maybe at 10:00 a.m. when you have a little coffee break at work can you take your coffee and go to the balcony or go out the front door and be outside and get some of that light into your eyes okay there's many ways and let's be honest Mel something you may not be able to correct and that's okay yes right fine there are other ways to improve your

sleep you know we can talk about five or 10 different tips you probably not going to be able to do them all well let's talk about that how can someone create an evening routine that leads to better sleep if they're doing this stuff in the morning that's easy yeah the most important thing about an evening routine when it comes to sleep is the fact that you need a routine right you have kids Mel right they're older than mine I have kids right I'm guessing and again I don't know this I'm not met your children right

but I'm guessing when your kids were young what you didn't do before bed was put all the lights up as loud as possible get the music blaring give them loads of sugar and then try and get them to sleep no we did not do that we had a whole routine right we as adults are no different right with Children what do we do we di the lights we lower our tone um we might read them a story we create the environment that is conducive to winding down yes one of the most toxic things about the

modern world is this separation between work life and home life has vanished with emails with social media with whatever it is we can still be working in our bedroom in bed and then somehow wonder why we can't fall a seat 10 minutes later when we've just had a stress or work email I think the most important thing for many people and certainly it has been for me is 1 hour before bed I make a mental switch in my heads I'm now on wind down time okay so for me and again I want to be clear

M everyone's got a unique life right so what works for me may not work for someone else but what I do 1 hour before bed as I make sure my laptop's closed I will not do a work email in the 1 hour before bed borrowing an exceptional situation okay let's be honest sometimes stuff is going on that you want to handle but by and large I won't do that I have educated my family over the last years and it was hard at first but everyone understands now that in the evening past you know 1 hour

before bed I don't want to talk about finances I don't want to talk about household items my mom my brother who live nearby they now know if it's something to do with Mom's care unless it's urgent I don't want to know about it in the one hour before beds okay so by educating the world around me I have a wind down for that one hour what do I do I'll try to be off my screens I'm usually pretty good I'm not perfect you know for me if I bring my phone into my bedroom I'll look

at it so I live in a house so what my wife and I try and do is we make a commitment to each other that we're going to leave our phones in the kitchen to charge this is just like food you basically said I if I don't want to eat it I don't have it in the house if you don't want to look at your phone in the bedroom then you don't have it in the bedroom you're just making it easy you're following your well you're following your principles you make it easy yeah just cuz

I write about this stuff and talk about it on my podcast each week doesn't mean I'm any less human than anyone else I I can't resist looking at that phone well you know I will tell you something as I'm sitting here listening to you and I'm nodding along and I'm thinking I have to do this five minute thing I have to do this five minute thing because I have completely fallen off the entire category of movement because I have been in the middle of this crazy book launch and all this travel and I've been too

tired and things have been so chaotic and I and I haven't been able to do my normal thing and you're reminding me that there is still always five minutes there is still always something you can do and you're also reminding me that this very important principle I'm not failing the routine that I do in my normal schedule is failing me right now and that's a liberating way to look at this why do you need the fourth pillar relax if we've already got the third pillar of sleep because it's subtly different relax is speaking to the

issue of stress okay so we know that 80 to 90% of what comes in to a doctor these days is in some way related to stress so 80 to 90% of the health issues the ailments the symptoms that people are struggling with is related to stress yeah and if few years ago the World Health Organization had on their homepage that stress is the health epidemic of the 21st century well we actually had Dr adidi narar on the show and she said that sh in her research that stress is the single consistent cause of illness as

well like if you look at the clustering of things of cause it it's always present and it's the one thing that is in your control in terms of your ability to mitigate against it so when you say relaxation you're also talking about the importance of destressing and finding times to relax like what do you mean by that I do and also these four pillars they all feed each other right you know because a lack of sleep is a stressor on the body yes eating lots of junk food that's causing inflammation in your body is a

stressor on the body not moving at all is a stressor on the body but what people will find is when you start looking at your life through this framework of these four pillars you can start wherever you want it will start to make a difference in the others they all start to feed each other and when I'm talking about stress and when I talk to my patients about stress I help them understand what stress actually is Dr chattery what is stress stress is basically your body's response when it wants to keep you safe okay when

it thinks you're in danger in essence so I always explain this to my patient smell I say listen what is the stress response imagine it's 100,000 years ago and you're in your Hunter gather community in your tribe doing your thing okay and then whilst you're doing your thing you notice a wild Predator approaching the camp in an instant your stress response kicks into gear there several things happen in your body when that happens okay what happens your blood sugar starts to go up so it can deliver more glucose to your brain your blood pressure starts

to go up so more oxygen can go around your body and get to your brain okay your blood becomes more prone to clotting why oh if that lion or that Predator was to cut you instead of bleeding to death your blood's going to clot which is going to save your life okay you're a mdal right your emot brain goes on to high alert why because you want it to be on high alert you want to be vigilant you want to hear every pin prick these are all appropriate responses when you really are in physical danger

the problem today Mel is that so many of us are having our stress responses activated not to Wild Predators by email but to the state of our daily lives our email inboxes our to-do lists the three social media accounts we're trying to keep up to date with the news headlines in a very similar way our stress response has been activated so those four things I mentioned helpful in the short term problematic in the long term so blood glucose going up to help you run away brilliant if that's happening day in day out that will cause

weight gain fatigue and type 2 diabetes so are you also saying though that if we're eating a ton of processed foods and a ton of sugar that or and we're not getting sleep and we're not moving our bodies that the lack of those things also creates that physiological condition in our body it's not just stress is a massive massive issue that we don't think about enough and a lot of people don't realize this key key Point M that I have only realized in the last few years which is this idea that we see the world

through the state of our nervous system h right so if you're chronically stressed and I would bet Mel that a lot of your audience even if they're on a walk right now and listening to me and you talk a lot of them would probably identify as being chronically stressed some of the recent studies I've seen is that up to 80% of people in the United States are in a medical state of chronic stress yes so think about the point of the stress response okay it's when we think there's danger so what happens your focus comes

inward you're not compassionate you're not looking to cooperate with people you're looking for threat you're looking for problems right okay another way people can often understand this is this idea that if you've had a weekend off where you've properly rested okay and you've switched off and maybe you gone for a walk in nature you can read an email on a Monday morning and interpret it a certain way you could read that same email on a Friday afternoon when you've had a busy work week and you are interpreting it completely differently it's same email but you

are looking at it differently because of the state of your nervous system wow right and it's you know I thought about this the last few days Mel I don't know how this lands for you but I was thinking about me and you know I'm away from home at the moment so when you're away you can often think big picture I think what is it you're doing rongan you know with your podcasts with your books on the face of it it seems like what I'm talking about is health but I've realized that's not my end goal

M right why why does Health matter why does happiness matter I think what I'm trying to do actually at its core is create or contribute to a more compassionate world if you're healthier if you can lower your stress response you're a kind of person you have more empathy well that's a world I want to be part of creating I want my children to grow up in a world where there isn't all this division where actually people are nice to each other that's who we are as humans I'm sure of it me too that's what drives

me Mel this stuff seems like it's about health I don't think it is health is the mechanism to get to compassion for me and connection and connection and peace and peace when you're well slept when you understand where stress lives in your life and you do a few simple things that we can talk about like a a breathing practice or a journaling practice okay simple things that don't cost much money that's what I'm always talking about in my books and my podcasts most of the things I write about and talk about are free of charge

people say health and wellness you need money for it no I push back against that right yes I get it to buy healthy food in certain parts of the world yes your income matters for sure but there are lots and lots of things that we can do that do not cost any money at all that will absolutely change our state or will lower our stress levels so what are some of your favorite simple things that you do or that you recommend to your patients that do help you reset from this I'm in an attack mode

state to I can breathe I think the most important daily practice for anyone in 2025 is a daily practice of solitude I believe that with all my heart M what does that mean especially given that people feel lonely already yeah so Solitude is different from loneliness okay Solitude is the intentional practice of spending a bit time with yourself because what happens today Mel is that so many people they're waking up they smartphone is their alarm they're picking up their phone they're reacting to the world around them they're consuming emails toxic content online social media news

and what a lot of people don't realize is that is that their thoughts their feelings and their actions are often Downstream from the content they're consuming so what can that Solitude be okay it could be a walk for 10 minutes where you don't have anything in your ears where you're just allowing your thoughts and feelings to come up it could be journaling it could be breath work it could be any anything you want I'll give you some of my favorites okay I'll give you one that you have already explained us I I would say that

the act of making your coffee and doing your movement on your own for yourself by yourself is exactly that exactly they all Link in with each other the pillars aren't as separate as we might think they're a useful framework to look at our life and see where we're going to make change but once you start in in any one of them you'll realize how they all feed each other right breath work the most powerful way and the quickest way to change your internal State and therefore your stress levels is through a practice of breath work

now one of my favorite practices is what I call the 34 five breath I've been using it with my patience for years great why don't you walk us through and they love it you breathe in for three okay let's do it okay let's do it okay okay so breathe in for three okay hold for four one two three four now breathe out for five 1 2 3 4 five okay now before I go any further how do you feel after doing that my shoulders dropped I felt myself settle I almost felt like there's a downshift

yeah I felt it I felt it in myself as well that's just one breath okay the three four five breath one breath takes 12 seconds five of them takes one minute H when you're out breath is longer than your in breath you help to switch off the stress part of your nervous system and activates the relaxation part of your nervous system okay so the 3 four five breath is just a very simple method I've created to help my patients there are so many other amazing breath work practices out there I'm not saying you have to

do this one but the principle is that it will really help you calm lower your stress be more present it shows you how interconnected the body is so I would say something like the 345 breath is a really really simple tool that you can use preemptively in the morning as part of a routine a morning routine or when you're getting stressed out in the day you have a meeting with your boss and know let's say a disagreement with your husband yep you can actually just take a time out do 3 four five breathing for just

30 seconds a minute and you'll be much better able to engage once you've done it I believe you I believe you you know I love that your approach to health Dr chattergy over the years has really evolved to a much more profound connection to living a meaningful life and I know you I've read your six books I listen to your podcast I follow your work so I also know that your father's life had a very IM big impact on you could you just share a little bit about how your father's story has informed and influenced

your approach and your mission and why this matters so much to you yeah dad came to the UK in 1962 from India and Dad's um not been here now for almost 11 years and it's almost the classic immigrant story okay he came to the UK in search of a better life a better life for his immediate family in the UK and his family back home in America but this is what my Dad's life was like my dad was a doctor he was a consultant at Manchester War infirmary but for 30 years my dad only slept

three nights a week it is actually really hard for me to even imagine that now you know as a father myself thinking through to what my dad did and how he lived I I don't really understand how he was able to do it but I think when you have a strong passion and a mission it's amazing what you can achieve so I've really evolved my view on my dad's Liv but in essence when my dad became 57 he suddenly became sick with the autoimmune condition Lupus his kidneys failed and he was chained to a dialysis

machine for 15 years three times a week at the local hospital until dad died in 2013 now I move back to where I grew up which is where I live now which you know you've been there when you came on to my podcast m a few years ago um I live in the same town that I grew up in and I moved back to help my mom and my brother look after my dad when my dad died in 2013 it was like a juggernaut explosion in my life like it is for many people it's the

first time I had to really confront death I had to confront death as a doctor with patients for many years but it's different that's my job when I was with my dad who I used to care for and see three times a day I had this big hole in my life and really it was only after my dad died that I started to ask myself the big existential questions SM about well whose life am I really leading is it my life is it someone else's life so I've been on a real Journey since my dad

died I've made changes in how I live my life based on what my dad did so I'll explain one of the changes is you know I rarely saw my dad growing up because he was working he was providing right and I used to say Mel I used to say that I think my dad made a mistake I used to say that I think my dad Mook success for happiness which is I think what many people do in the world these days but I've actually evolved my view m now I think it's unfair of me to

make that judgment on my dad's if my dad was still alive today the one question I would have for him and I've thought about this a lot I would say to Dad Dad was it worth it because he might say to me Mel he might say you know we might say oh he was chronically stressed he was sleep deprived that's why he got lupus he shouldn't have worked so hard and on through one angle I actually believe that male but the other way I look at life now is my dad might say hey son yeah

it was worth it you know I came to the UK to give you and your brother a great start in life and I did that look at you now look how many people's lives you're impacting around the world look how many books you've written look how many people listen to your podcast each week yeah I'd do that again and it's a really different way of looking at life M like I've I've learned over the years that you can frame anything in life that stress is not just external it's internal as well it's how we look

at these neutral events right I can look at my dad's death in a very negative way and go um I can't believe my dad's not here poor me you know you know might have lost my dad a young age and I used to do that M but it doesn't help me I've experienced the grief but now coming up to 11 years on you know how I see my dad's death now I see my dad's death as a gift it's a gift that he gave me the things I've learned through my dad's death all the things

I share in these books particularly this new one yes you write a lot about this I would not have known this stuff had I not gone through the grief of losing my dads right so now and you can call the spiritual if you want and I'm okay with that you know I know as medical doctors maybe we not meant to talk like that but I would say these days I I do feel really spiritual I actually feel that through dad's death I have learned some of the most powerful lessons of my entire life so now

I choose to look at it as a gift that my dad gave to me one of the things that you write about it's on page 28 on your new bestselling book make change that lasts is you write about this period in your life and I have so many friends and the person listening maybe in a position in their life where they're in the caregiver role whether that's because you work as a first responder or a nurse in a hospital or you're a teacher or you have aging parents and you just shared with us that you

moved home when your dad became ill and you helped your brother and your mom and you write about your Reflections about caregiving and I want to read what you wrote and then have you speak to it a little bit this is on page 20 28 and 29 you say you know when I look back now to the time I used to care for Dad I don't regret a thing however on reflection my belief that his well-being was entirely my responsibility wasn't helpful the truth was he had a loving family and a brilliant team of medical

professionals all available to him but for whatever reason I generated a myth for myself to live by that said I could only be happy if I personally met his every need that myth trapped me it was the cause of a great deal of pain in my body and mind as well as to my wife who had to deal with my regular absences and my significantly increased loads of stress if I had been able to hear my body's signals I would have realized much earlier that something was wrong if I knew then what I know now

I would have meditated on the issue realized that this damaging myth that I was responsible for him and meeting his every need that was holding me down and I would have empowered myself to make changes I would love to have you speak to that realization and what you want the person listening to know who is in a role where you're the caregiver and the stress is overwhelming and you do feel the responsibility because a lot of people say the words well if if I'm not here nobody else is so what would you say Dr chattery

based on your life experience caring for your father and that myth first of all M if there is someone who is listening right now who is in that role I get it I know how difficult it is I know how stressful it can feel I know how it can feel that there's no way out and you have no time for yourself I was there I was there for a long long time but those words that you just read out Mel it's really quite emotional listening to them because now I can reflect back and to put

it in real context in the months and years leading up to dad's death this is what my life used to look like I would wake up I I live I lived 5 minutes away from my mom and dads I'd wake at about 5 I'd go round to Mom and Dad's I'd help get Dad up I'd help get him shaved and ready um and that could take all kinds of time depending on what was going on and how well he was i' then come home try and see my wife and my young baby boy then I

drive to work as a primary care doctor and be busy in the day I try sometimes on lunch if one of the home visits was near my parents house I try and nip in and just to check how dad was doing I then go back to work on the way back from work after a long day seeing patience again I'd go I'd often end up coming back home feeling really really stressed my wife had already put my son to beds I was chronically stressed if I think about it now the impact on my marriage on

those early years as a father you know I don't believe in regrets I really don't uh I believe regrets in many ways are a form of perfectionism um but I believe I can learn from the past and I can learn from those mistakes not even mistakes I can learn from those experiences and go if I was in the same situation again MH and I have been in a similar situation over the last years cuz my mom has become more and more unwell I'm very different now looking after my mom my mom's like 84 85 how

are you different it's not my identity that I'm the only person who is going to be here and responsible for everything right with my dad I made it my identity it was who I was my dad being well was a reflection of who I was as a human being right I would do everything if Dad wasn't well I'd done something wrong I was going to go and fix it that creates so much inner torture when you see yourself like that and as you know you just read out no one expected that like that's a story

I created inside my own head was it real I think a lot of caregivers do yeah that it's all on me this is my identity if they're not doing well it's my fault if I'm not here no one's here it's not dissimilar in some ways I mean when I when I read the let them Theory one of the things I find really powerful about it is the separation between me and the other person but in a in a really beautiful way not a separation that I don't care in in in your book mail you write

about how it's okay for other people to feel their emotions and feel disappointed and you know you can apply the same principle here M where if the cost and this was the cost if the cost of looking after my dad meant that it was going to impact my ability to be a good father and a good husband that's a cost I wasn't aware that I was paying but now I know now to be really clear I have a great relationship with my kids I'm happily married it's just past 17 years recently okay things are great

but I've learned from that and now with my mom who I love just as much as my dad I'm not falling into the same traps well what I love about the fact that you as a doctor and as a son shared that you made it your identity you drove yourself into the ground that didn't help your father it didn't help you it didn't help your mother and that we've talked a lot about small changes yeah and maybe the small change that somebody could make is if you're able to see that this doesn't have to be

your identity it's just one of the things that you are taking care of because you really are the kind of person that values taking care of somebody else it's part of your values but it doesn't Define you that maybe that allows you to claim another 5 to 10% of your time back and say it's okay if they have a bad day yeah it's okay if they're struggling right now it's okay if they're alone for 20 minutes this is this is so key male you you exactly and that's why I brought out your book right because

it's a it's a key theme that I got from that book that I think totally applies here I couldn't tolerate something you know me or someone not being there for my dad to meet his every needs right but it's ridiculous it's utterly ridiculous right I would argue that I care just as much for my mother as I did for my father but in a completely different way I practice self-care I will do these things to my own uh health I will also the truth be known like if for what whatever reason I can't do something

I'm not going to kill myself like I used to to get it done I'm like actually you know what on balance it's okay I can't meet every need for my mom anymore okay it's okay if sometimes she wants me round and I can't be there that's okay right and it's okay to come around and see her disappointed okay that's okay and the funny thing is I would almost argue that I'm carrying for my moment a much better way when I'm round out I'm not tired I've got the energy I've given myself 5 minutes each day

and then there's another powerful story at the start of chapter 1 where you know I talk about my dad's funeral mail and I remember I had back pain for years chronic back pain and I saw this amazing muscular skill expert who helped it like 70 80% for sure but it was there was still this niggling tightness and I can still remember M 2013 I'm at my dad's funeral I'm in my best suit you know we've just had the ceremony and I can still remember being at Manchester crematorium watching the body go into the flames and

the tightness of my right back just vanished and I second guessed myself said did that just happen I know that happen right and what I've realized because I've read for years about how the body stores emotions course but that's the first time I truly got it I got it I was like oh my God the weight the pressure that I put on myself that I'm the one who's responsible for my dad's well-being even though it was Dad who was sleep deprived for 30 years chronically stressed you know didn't take his holidays somehow it's my responsibility

that was giving me back ache it's absolutely crazy M to realize that I needed to see my dad's Flesh and Blood being burned for my body for my subconscious to finally realize oh it's not on you anymore that back pain was the weight of expectation I put on myself to look after him so for the person listening and all of the people that they're about to share this with who are just the Relentless demands of being a caregiver what is the one thing that they could shift right now to reclaim a little space for themselves

without feeling like you're giving up on someone else there's two things okay there's not one thing there's two things one of them is what we've already spoken about and it's the cliche of putting on your oxygen Mass first okay if you do a five minute action for yourself each day I promise you you will be better able to look after whoever you have to look after in your life when you think you don't have any time for yourself that it's all on that person and frankly take this away from being a caregiver for a sick

elderly parent what about mothers or an autistic child yeah like my practice was full of uh well many people for years right but I saw a lot of mothers who literally never gave themselves any time everything was for their partner their parents their children like they did nothing for themselves they didn't feel that they could and actually one of the biggest I would teach a lot of my patients throughout the years was that I gave them well I didn't teach them this I shared with them how important it was and a lot of them would

come back to me say hey dog you know what you've done for me you given me permission to relax you given me permission to look after myself even if you've got the most tax and Care job in the world I promise you have five minutes for yourself each day right you have five minutes to nourish yourself that will make you a better carer it will make you kind it it will make you healthier and it will really do something quite special to how you view yourself so that's the first thing I'd say the second thing

I'd say and it goes back to why I believe a daily practice of solitude is the most important thing if you sit with yourself each day whether it's a three four five breath or you just frankly sit in silence with your cup of coffee and you're not scrolling Emil at the same time you will start to feel things in your body right so Mel What would was going on for years with me that I never knew because I was too busy and I didn't have Solitude was when my stress load is building up I start

to feel tightness in my right upper back when I was so busy I never paid attention now because I have a daily practice of solitude when I feel that tightness on my right back it's like an early warning signal when I feel that pressure coming up M I'm like oh what's going on in my life oh there's a difficult conversation I need to have with my wife I've taken on too much at work maybe I need to really switch off this weekend whatever it might be it's an early warning signal to tell me that I

need to take aversive action and at the moment Mel people are not doing this in the UK 88% of people are thought to have experienced some degree of burnout in the past two years I mean that is a really damning indictment of the state of modern society and what I'm trying to say for the person listening right now is that one of the ways that you will improve every aspect of your life is with a daily practice of solitude start listening to yourself feel where the tightness is and your tummy your back your neck right

and then start asking yourself what is this telling me and you will start to develop this inner trust in yourself you will start to pick up problems before they start to arise I love it Dr chattery what do you think the most powerful lesson is that you've learned after being in medical practice for over 23 years and working with patients and writing best-selling books and having one of the top health podcasts in the world what is one of the most powerful lessons you've learned about how anybody can create lasting change I was saying M with

all of my heart the thing that I've learned the most that I'm most passionate about it's this idea that anyone can change their lives it doesn't matter how dark you think your life is at the moment it doesn't matter if you feel stuck lost unmotivated I have seen patients who are suicidal transformed their life and it started with a five minut action no word of for life it started with a five minute action because here's the reality if you've got deep and dark depression and you're having suicidal thoughts any change feels too hard because when

you're suicidal and you feel like there's nothing there for you and to be really clear there are many factors that contribute here okay I'm not trying to at all trivialize this in any way at all you're not but a five minute action done consistently does something so powerful to self-esteem to the way you view yourself to your motivation to your belief that you can make change so what do I believe more than anything anyone listening ma to this show right now or watching on YouTube I don't care how bad you think your life is I

absolutely believe in you because I've seen people in the darkest places change their life time and time again so I know it's possible for each and every individual Dr chattery what are your parting words my parting words are think about your life okay think about where you are at the moment is this the life you want okay is this the life that you dreamt of when you were 15 if it's not I'm not here to say that you can achieve all of the dreams you had as a child I'm not here to say that but

what I am here to say is that you can improve things it is not as difficult as you think if you're not happy with the state of your life if you're not happy with where you are what you're doing the energy you have at the moment you got to make a change it's not as hard as you think but if you don't change now when will you Dr chatter I am in awe of your ability to make what is so overwhelming so simple so profound so urgent and I think most importantly available and hopeful to

me and to the person listening because that very last piece that you said I have come to believe the same thing that it's not a matter of somebody not having the will it's that they have a belief that it's not going to matter yeah and if you know the simple things you can do but you do not believe it's going to matter you will never do them but what you successfully did today and what you do in all of your work is that you show up for us and explain the complicated in a way that

makes it not just simple and easy but you make me and the person listening believe that it's worth trying yeah and that's a gift thank you for sharing your gifts and your passion and your wisdom with me and with the person listening today my pleasure M thank you so much for having me on your show my God I just love you I love you I love you I love you and I want to tell you um whomever you share this with because I'm sure you had a bunch of people in your life that you were

thinking about as Dr chattery was pouring into us today there is no doubt that this time that your loved ones are going to get to spend with Dr chattergy Life altering absolutely life-altering so if you're concerned if you care about if you just love people in your life please send this to them because it's hard to get through to the people that we care about but I have a feeling that Dr chattery is going to be able to work his magic and in case no one else tells you I wanted to be sure to tell

you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to change your life and so does Dr chatterie so take everything just learn today and actually do it because your life will change if you do you're going to feel better you're going to see the results you're going to experience hope and I so want that for you you deserve that all righty I'll talk to you in a few days I'll be waiting in the very next episode to welcome you in the second you H play I'll see you there

and for you here on YouTube with me thank you thank you thank you for watching all the way to the end didn't you love Dr chatterie he is so awesome I'm so glad that you got to experience him and I'm thrilled for everybody in your life that you're going to share this with and one more thing because I know you're the kind of person that loves supporting people that support you my goal is that 50% of the people that watch this channel are subscribers and I'm so close to achieving it and so one way you

could support me and do that because I support you every day here by showing up on YouTube is just hit subscribe it's how you can tell me and the team that you love these videos and you love having access to these world-renowned experts for free so so thank you for doing it it really makes a difference to me and the team I appreciate you and I know you're thinking Mel okay awesome I subscribed now what's the next video well I want you to watch this one next because if you love this video you're definitely going

to love this one and I'm going to be waiting to welcome you into it the moment you hit play I'll see you there