Doctors Secret: How to HEAL Anxiety & Depression Lower Blood Sugar for Good! Dr Rangan Chatterjee

I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison inside your own mind when people forgive your blood pressure can go down your anxiety can go down your depression can go down right forgiveness is we CH to improve the quality of your relationships wow I passionately believe that that the happiest people are those who can move on and let go rengan chaty is one of the most influential doctors in the UK physician and host of the most listened to health podcast in Europe Dr R chatter when my dad died in

2013 it was the first time where I had to start asking myself questions about who am I like whose life am I leading is this my life or is this somebody else's life prior to that moment I'm not sure how much I trusted myself really it's part of life I don't see health happiness and relationships as separate I think they're all part of the same thing and if you improve one of them you improve all of them and that's what's always driven me as a doctor can I just tell you one more case that I

wrote about because I think it really speaks powerly to this one of the saddest cases in my career for me [Music] personally hey guys LS hows here today is going to be a big episode because Dr Ronin chattery shared with me that 80 to 90% of what doctors see is related to stress and how unresolved emotional stress actually manifests as physical symptoms or illness in the body and that blew me away that 80 to 90% of the things that doctors see are related to anxiety and stress related disease and illness he's going to walk through

all these different things of how you can heal yourself in this episode today if you're enjoying this make sure to like this video and share this with a friend subscribe to our YouTube channel as well and if you feel any type of stress or anxiety around money my new book make money easy is coming out very soon make sure to pre order it the link will be in the description below this will help you create Financial Freedom and free yourself from anxiety and stress related money problems so those issues don't manifest in your body as

well so excited for this episode make sure to subscribe leave a like let's dive in welcome back everyone to the school of greatness we have the inspiring Dr rangan chattergy in the house my man so good to see you and welcome back to the show Good to see L I'm excited to come back on new studio new studio new life and that's what we're talking about today which is around your book make changes that last nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back from a life that really you people have

been struggling from or or dealing with some type of blockage in their life and as we are shooting this and starting out into a brand new year 2025 there's a lot of things in the last half decade that have been blocking people and you have been a medical doctor for 23 years you're one of the most well-known famous medical doctors in the UK you've got a massive show you've treated people for a long time but you just stopped your practice which you just told me after 23 years yeah what have you noticed in 23 years

of being a medical doctor and now leaving the medical world and transcending by doing different strategies to set yourself free to create peace what have you noticed in the last 23 years that's been holding people back really over this last half a decade and we'll start with that what I've noticed leis is that every single patient who I've ever seen throughout my entire career they've come in for a reason they've come in because they want to get well I know that sounds obvious but I don't think we think about that enough like people why would

they take half a day off work to go and sit in a waiting room in a doctor's surgery about a symptom that sometimes might appear to be quite trivial I've never thought why is that person wasting my time many doctors do say why are they coming in with this I've always thought why is this person on this particular day ended up in my practice what has been going on in their life and for how long that means today they're here in front of me wanting help MH and what I've realized over 23 years is that

everyone can feel happier and healthier than they currently are like everyone wants to make change that lasts anybody can make change for a few weeks for a few months but what most people are really looking for a changes that actually last true transformation in their life and I believe that that is available to all of us if we know what to look at so you said what is holding us back well I believe there's many things in modern society that are holding us back but chapter one in this book is called trust yourself okay and

I believe one of the things that is holding us back is that we are overly reliant on Experts now let me be clear what I mean by that L because I'm a so-called expert right I have a medical degree I've got my specialist qualifications my primary care qualifications I have an Immunology degree I'm a professor at Chester medical school like bestelling author pod all these things so I have all these things but I will still say that I don't know what is right for every single individual like I can't do I know some principles and

I think what's happened today in this era of information overloads there's so much health information out there I mean you talk to health experts I talk sorts of Health experts there's books there's blogs there's there's podcasts there's everything and people are getting confused right I often get on my Instagram people will say hey do strategy a few months ago you spoke to this expert and they said this kind of diet was the best diet for health and they have all the credentials yes and then last week you spoke to this expert and they said this

diet is best for human health and they both had research to back it up Dr Chancey tell me what to do I'm confused which expert should I trust but Le I think that's the wrong question I don't think we should be asking which expert should I trust I think the real question the more powerful question is why do I no longer trust myself and I am an expert but I give people principles and I feel that what we need to get back to is our intuition is our inner world I contend that most people Lewis

know when they're on the right diet for them because they can feel it if they're paying attention so I say listen to experts I'm not saying don't listen to experts I'm saying listen to what they have to say and instead of trying to decide which expert is right I feel the the advice should be which experts advice is right for me at this moment in time and we're not doing that and this is why I think people are getting confused because they they've given up their own inner expertise to external experts and they can all

be right both experts can be right for different people and they can both be wrong for you exactly and this is where my many years of clinical practice comes in because I've seen tens of thousands of patients leis and the truth is I've seen some patients thrive on a whole food plant-based diet but I seen others who didn't do so well on that diet and they thrived on a low carb diet I've seen others thrive on a Paleo diet and so what I've learned is that there's no one perfect diet for every single individual and

I think when I say it it sounds quite obvious but I think many people they're still waiting for an expert to tell them what's best for their life and I think that's a problem with all the credentials that you have with all of the years of experience with the tens of thousands of patients or clients that you've treated with all the knowledge you have when was the time that you trust yourself the least even with all the credibility and the the the education and the tools and the success what was the time that you had

the least amount of trust in yourself it's a great question and it's making me think I think it was before my dad died in 2013 I think my dad dying was such a big moment for me like it would be for anyone right but I used to care for my dad I'd moved back to the northwest of England because my dad was sick with lupus he had an autoimmune disease he was on dialysis for 15 years and I moved back from Edinburgh where I went to study and practice I moved back to help my mom

and my brother look after my dad's and when my dad died in 1 it was the first time where I had to start asking myself questions about who am I like whose life am I leading is this my life or is this somebody else's life and I think that prior to that moment of my dad dying I'm not sure how much I trust in myself really yeah I think I was looking for what's the evidence saying what's the external evidence saying what are people saying like I was very much driven by EX internal validation back

then I I wanted people to like me I I changed who I was to be accepted by other people so you say when did you trust yourself the least that's a great question I've never been asked that before right it's making me think I don't think I even knew what it meant to trust myself back then but when I started dating my now wife back in 2007 and I write about this in chapter 3 the book we just called be yourself right I I write about when I first met vid and we were dating and

we'd go out for dinner and you know be like you know what are you going to order what are you going and I would often say hey babe listen you can't decide why don't you order two dishes that you want um and I'll have the one that you don't want and on the face of it I thought I was being kind and compassionate you know I I really like this girl hey you can't choose don't worry about it because that's how I was raised right don't make a fuss you know do what everyone you know

do what you need to do to keep the peace around you and a few days in I didn't realize that vid was getting frustrated and I didn't get why she was getting frustrated and she basically she she wanted a man who knew his own mind she didn't want a man who was just trying to appease her and it was quite a powerful lesson for me back then I mean I found it difficult because I didn't know what I was doing wrong but since my dad died and I've gone on this inner journey to explore myself

and why I feel certain ways and why certain things used to trigger me I realized that I was a people pleas for much of my life and so when you asked me the question Louis when did you trust yourself the least it was back then because I didn't know what myself was I didn't know what I wanted everything I did was about what the people around me wanted but that is something that it is possible to change I changed it you've done massive changes in your life you know in terms of what happened in your

childhood and where you are today I'm not a people pleaser anymore like I do know how to listen to my body now I do know how to trust myself and I think there's a wider point there isn't Le which is many people they might hear me and you talk about trusting yourself but they don't know what that means because they've spent their whole lives changing who they are to be accepted by other people yeah and that's why I think sometimes we we're looking for external advice to teach us what what should I do how should

I live how should I eat and I'm not saying don't listen I'm saying listen put it through your own filter and that's why I believe that for most of us the most important practice for our health and happiness is a daily practice of solitude and I really believe that because without that Solitude where you're not getting inputs from the outside and you're actually star to listen to your body's own signals you're going to struggle to know what your body's telling you you're going to struggle to trust yourself and it's you really made me think man

you really made me think yeah when was the last time that when when did I trust myself the least yeah it was uh it was pre 2013 and I would say it was for most of my life when you trust yourself the most what are you doing and what are you not doing when I trust myself the most I'm living life in alignment with my values so my last workot was on happiness Lewis and in that book I share how happiness is a skill it's a skill that we can all get better at if we

know what to work on and in that book I created a model for happiness and I say the three key ingredients for happiness are contentment control and alignment and Alignment is when your inner values and your external action start to match up when the person who you really are inside and the person who you are being out there in the world are one and the same I'm really aligned these days yeah as I get the impression you are yeah and I think it's much easier to trust yourself the more aligned you are right now it's

a vicious cycle because you know you kind of need to trust yourself to start living in alignment and the more alignment you can live in the more you start to trust yourself so I think it works both ways but for me it's when I've got a regular routine in my life when I'm going to bed at the same time every night when I'm sleeping well and for me it comes down to whether I can for the first half hour of my day not go online not go on my phone and have a little morning routine

and ritual which I do have and I have done for many years and that ritual that I have every morning it sets me up it's my time before my wife gets up before my kids get up what I send to myself I ground and I pay attention to how I'm feeling and what my body is saying and if people did that every single day even five minutes if they don't have time five minutes a day where you know let's say you like coffee and you have a sip you have a cup of coffee in the

morning can you do that and not also look at Instagram and not also check your emails and just start to pay attention and very quickly you will start to learn things about yourself and then you become less dependent on all these external voices Hey listen I'm a podcaster like you Lis I love listening to podcasts I love making podcasts but at the same time for me it's very important to have time where I'm not listening and I'm listening to myself and not external experts does that all make sense yeah of course yeah well when you

talk about happiness though you say contentment control and Alignment what does control mean with happiness yeah so let me be a bit clearer okay so contentment are what are the things that you can do in your life that give you that sense of peace and calm and contentment that's what the contentment arm of uh the we sort of ingredient model is I mentioned alignment and then control control is an interesting word this is not about controlling the world the world is fundamentally uncontrollable and if we try and control the world we're going to really struggle

but this is about a sense of control one of the things that you can do in your life that give you a sense of control we know from the scientific research leou that people who have a strong sense of control the healthier the they have better relationships they earn more money right a sense of control that's really important and arguably Lis I think it's never been more important because if we look around today the news headlines what's going on in social media the the toxicity the division that exists or we think that exists in society

I think regularly doing things that give us a sense of control is one of the most important things you can do right so that little morning ritual I do every day that grounds me and it means even if the news headlines are toxic that day or I have loads of emails or the you know things are going to go wrong in life right that's just the way it is it grounds Me And It Centers me so I'm better able to face the friction and the problems that may exist in life if I have that sense

of control so I think it's really important and I think that's one of the most powerful things that morning routines and rituals give people is a sense of control in a fundamentally uncontrollable World 100% you if people are trying to change their life there's a a stat out there that says studies show that 88% of people who set New Year's resolutions fail within the first couple of weeks I'll probably relate that to anyone setting any goal at any time in life it's like okay I'm going to lose the weight I'm going to start doing this

daily I'm going to do whatever A lot of people seem to fail pretty quickly after they realize how hard it is is to make lasting change you're talking about the habits of lasting change it just seems like it's so hard to reinvent yourself from an old way of being that is doing things for years and all of a sudden change it into becoming someone new there's a quote you have that says the reason most people are unable to make changes that last for good is because they never actually address the underlying reasons behind their habits

in the first place this means that any change they try and make are ultimately in conflict with the state of the lives and the person they believe themselves to be and as a medical doctor for 23 years someone who studied this for a long time I I'm assuming the goal of a doctor is to get to the root cause or some doctors is to find the root cause how did you learn to apply that to life to making lasting change not just to towards uh a disease or medical condition that's that people were having and

how can people do that in life the way I've learned to apply it is when I realize that people coming to a a doctor's surgery for help are just people right all of us are looking for help in our lives all of us are looking to transform Our Lives to have more peace to have more contentment so going back to what I said earlier right I've always wondered why is this person ended up in my practice today yes right why they ended up today why did they not come in 3 weeks ago why did they

not come in three months ago assuming that there were problems there something had shifted so much in their life that they thought okay now I need help right but what I've learned over the years and I think one of the reasons I've learned this is because I've had some quite unique experiences as a doctor which I'll explain in just a minute but I believe that actually like this change that we're all looking for when I was able to help my patients make changes it wasn't just their health that got better they also became happier they

became more contented their relationships got better so I don't see as health as separate from life like it's part of life I don't see health happiness and relationships as separate I think they're all part of the same thing and if you improve one of them you improve all of them and that's what's always driven me as a doctor so yes you've you've alluded to something that's really uh important that not all doctors look for root causes because we're not taught to no TR to treat the symptom we really are and I we hear this on

podcasts right but people I still don't think understand how we're trained we are trying to hear what a patient has going on with them and all these symptoms and we're trying to recognize patterns oh that set of symptoms means depression that set of symptoms means the immune disease lupus that set of symptoms means migraine and basically we're taught to make the diagnosis once we can make the diagnosis then we consult the treatment and the treatment usually is a pharmaceutical drug oh it's a migraine let me give you a migraine drug oh it's an autoimmune disease

let me give you an autoimmune drug you know whatever it might be but I quickly realize when did you realize that Doubt's not the best way to go about healing I've always had a slight contentment throughout my career in the early days that we were just suppressing symptoms it never made sense to me I thought why am I just giving this person like a a drug a Band-Aid a Band-Aids and I tell you one of the most powerful days to me is I was in general Practice in the UK I'd seen maybe 45 patients that

day it was a busy busy day you know we would have 10 minutes appointments so it's a quick tell me why you're feeling when the assess open up your tongue and say ah something okay you have this here's antibiotic here's this drug here's whatever yeah and for whatever reason at the end of the day I sat back I was exhausted I looked at my clinic list and I said rangan how many people have you really helped today like really helped and I went through the list and hand on heart L this I thought I've really

helped 20% of people like really helped them the other 80% yeah I was kind to you I was courteous I did my job but I don't feel I really helped them I felt that I just put a Band-Aid on their symptom or I just referred them off for a test I was doing my best within that system but it didn't feel right to me I thought I can't practice like this for the next 40 years there must be something more I can do and and you probably didn't go into medicine to live that life you

probably said I want to help people heal yeah like truly heal what is the root cause and then I had quite a an incredible experience in 2015 been in 2017 I you know this is part of this journey my dad dies in 2013 I'm on this journey of trying to find out who I am I come to America to lots of conferences to learn things that I think we're not taught at Medical School like I want to learn more tools to help my patients I started applying them with my patients root cause stuff root cause

stuff like root cause stuff and I love it I think this is why I went into medicine like this is properly helping people and then I got the opportunity to make my own sort of uh Prime Time shows for bbc1 television where I had a series for a few years called doctor in the house and that series now has been seen in 70 countries around the world I think some of the episodes are still on YouTube but essentially there were people who were sick they were under doctors they were on pills and I went to

live alongside them for four to six weeks wow and it's still the proudest thing I've done in my career leis I helped a lady put her type two diabetes into remission in just 30 days that was back in 2014 I helped a lady with panic attacks reduced them by 70 to 80% in just 6 weeks um I think 48y year old lady with severe menopausal symptoms who didn't want hormones that was her choice I in six weeks helped to virtually eliminate all of her symptoms and the list goes on but all of it was done

with nutrition lifestyle and mindset right I didn't use any drugs and I feel that show was groundbreaking what it shows and I've often wondered Louis why do I have this view of the human body why do I write about relationships and in this new book I write about life but your relationship to life is going to change your health because I don't see these things as separate because when I was filming that series I got to see see stuff with these families that you would never see in practice I was staying with them like some

overnight in their house which is pretty remarkable right in the UK specifically yeah right so I was there and I would see things like oh how how is a husband and a wife interacting with each other oh there's some stress there yeah like even if I had more time in my consultation room they may never tell me that information so I got to see how every single input in their life is impacting their symptoms you can't separate Health from the rest of your life it's one and the same and I think in medicine we try

and separate it but you can't and so I saw this stuff and I I saw how they view the world how they deal with conflict um what kind of foods they're eating what time do they go to bed how do they talk to each other oh these things are all important and so I got a real window into people's lives but I think is given me quite a unique view that most doctors don't get how many physical symptoms or diseases do you think arise from relationship and lifestyle challenges not nutrition related but more relationship deficiencies

I can't give you a percentage right because I haven't done a study where I can give you an accurate percentage so what can I say I can say that I believe it's a lot more common than people think right if you have relationship conflicts in your life and many people do in some level I'm not saying you're ready for a divorce necessarily but if there's conflict and I was going to say a close relationship but frankly any relationship it does impact your health it manifest in your body 100% And there's an obvious way to make

it and a less obvious way to make that case Okay the obvious way is listen one of the reasons as you've already pointed out that I I write about one of the reasons we can't make change at last is because we haven't we we try and change the behavior without understanding the role the behavior plays in our life okay I think it's such a it's such an obvious point but we don't think about it we go straight to the behavior okay in January we go straight to alcohol I want to reduce how much alcohol I'm

having all how much sugar I'm having but here's the problem leis how many people can do dry January quite a lot how many people can quit sugar in January quite a lot how many people do that and then they actually make long-term changes the numbers a lot less right Often by the end of February most people are back to where they were in desend and here's let's make it really obvious if you've got a lot of stress in your life and alcohol is your way of dealing with the stress right because it's a it's an

effective way of managing stress at least in the short term you can White Knuckle it for a few weeks and stop drinking but you're going to return back to your previous behaviors unless one of two things happens number one either the stress in your life goes down if the stress in your life goes down great you may need less alcohol if the stress in your life doesn't go down if you don't find an alternative Behavior to manage that stress but something else to relieve the stress maybe the gym or something else you're going to go

back to the alcohol so let's relate that to what you were asking about relationships if you're having conflict in your relationships it doesn't feel good it's a huge source of stress that that emotional stress you will neutralize you have to neutralize it in some way right and this is something I think people really don't get and it's one of the big themes in this book is that emotional stress is not neutral you're having conf with your partner what do we often do we don't feel good we go to Sugar we go to alcohol we spend

three hours scrolling Instagram trying to find some kind of inspiration those things are a downstream consequence of the emotional stress that's going on because of your relationship issues and that's why if we can repair our relationships learn how to communicate better you know be open be honest not give out accusations but share how we're feeling and if we can successfully manage conflicts you will naturally find your behavior start to improve and I think this is the missing piece and behavior change we don't think about the root cause of our behaviors we just want to change

the behavior which is why it usually doesn't last in the long term wow and when you were treating patients how much would you say were people's symptoms related to relationship conflicts in their life whether it be with their parents or their boss or a friend or whatever it might be a family member or something how much of it was once they started to have the courage to speak up or once they were able to break themselves free of a a situation in their relationship or create a boundary in their life or whatever it might be

create new alignment with that person how much of of the patients you saw had emotional pain that full led up in the symptoms on their body that once they started to make the emotional changes in the boundaries the alignment in relationships those symptoms went away so many really yeah yeah honestly there there's at least three or four cases in this book where I outlin patients I've seen let me give you two examples okay so a few years ago and tell me if this is directly answering your question or not lose but a few years ago

I saw this lady I'm going to guess 45 to 50 years old I can't remember her exact age and she had high blood pressure and she seen previous doctors and they were trying to treat it she didn't like the medications she was getting side effects she started to see me and I was I think that high blood pressure doesn't just happen it's a response to other things right to events in life yeah you know it's a you know it's hypertension it's too much tension it's not a genetic thing huh it's not I think in most

cases it's not there there there there can be a genetic predisposition but but you can override that you can usually override it you can and and if we just think about it through the lens of the stress response okay let's just take a I'll come back to your question but let's just look at it from a slightly different angle we know that stress is responsible for maybe 80 to 90% of what we see as doctors in some way come on really yeah in some way because chronic stress affects every single organ system in the body

can I explain why yes okay so say this down again 80 to 90% of what a doctor sees in any given day is in some way related to stress that is crazy yeah that was in an editorial in in Jama the Journal of the American Medical Association back in 2013 that's where that was published right and what's remarkable about that is once you understand that and you understand the stress response you can see it everywhere so we have to understand what is the stress response what is it there for well the stress response is fundamentally

there to keep us safe so let's take a tri trip down like our evolutionary history let's imagine 200,000 years ago we're hanging out in our hunter gather a tribe we're getting on with our day we're doing our stuff okay we're in a nice state of relaxation we're just do getting along with our you we're just getting on with life and then let's say in the corner of your eye you see a wild Predator starting to approach the camp okay in an instant your stress response kicks into gear because that's what it's there to do now

what happens when your stress response kicks and gear all kinds of things happen your blood sugar starts to go up so that we can deliver more glucose to your brain your blood pressure starts to go up so more oxygen can go around your body your amydala which is the emotional part of your brain where all these emotional reactions come from that goes on high alerts so you're hyper vigilant for all the threat around you okay your blood becomes more PR to clotting why because if that pred was to cut you and attack you instead of

bleeding to death it's going to CL and that's going to save your life right these are appropriate responses to stress to stress when you're in danger the problem we have in the modern world in which we live is that our stress response has no longer been activated by wild Predators it's been activated by the state of our daily lives our email inboxes the three social media channels we're trying to keep up to date with the news headlines the fact that we may have moved away from family for career opportunities but then we're trying to bring

up kids by ourself and look after elderly parents by ourself but these all are stresses on the body and so those short-term things which help you when you really are in danger they become really problematic of their day in day out so if you're getting chronically stressed by the state of your life which many people are okay we know chronic stress is through the roof these days right your blood sugar going up for 30 minutes is not a problem if it's going up every single day it's going to cause you to be tired weight gain

around the middle and ultimately type two diabetes if your blood pressure goes up for half an hour to help you deliver more oxygen around your body or it goes up in your spinning class that's not a problem but if that's happening day in day out to the state of your life that high blood pressure is what causes heart attacks and you get what I'm saying it it works in the short term it's problematic in the long term what about what I said about the amydala right the emotional part of our brain if there's a lion

that's approaching you you want that to be on high alert right you want to be hypervigilant if you're walking back to your car on Friday night in Downtown LA and you think someone's following you you want to be on high alert and hypervigilant but if that's happening to the state of your daily life well that's what we call anxiety right so the stress response can affect everything in your body and so this lady who I saw who had high blood pressure I helped to change your diet I helped to change your lifestyle but it wasn't

budging and I always believe that there is a root cause for everything and my job is to help my patient find a root cause for them and we were chatting I was getting to know her over a few uh weeks and months I I really spend a lot of time on my patients I like to get to know them and find out about their lives and then it became clear to me that there was an issue that she wasn't dealing with right she had got divorced a few years ago because her ex-husband had chea on

her and she couldn't let it go she was so wound up talking about it she basically couldn't forgive him she held on to this resentment leis she's like no well it was his fault my life is bad because of what happened he did this to me and over time I built up trust with her and I said Hey listen I understand that this must have been really really difficult but that was in the past and you're allowing that past event now to affect your future and your present I want to help you try and let

go of what happened because I believe that you holding on to this resentment might be contributing to your high blood pressure and there's actually research on this professor Fred lusin from Stanford you should have him on your show he's great he's done all the research it's the Stanford forgiveness projects his stuff is fantastic and he has shown that when people forgive your blood pressure can go down wow your anxiety can go down your depression can go down right forgiveness has been Chown to approve the quality of your relationships improve your self-esteem so I helped her

she didn't want to see a therapist I went through various things with her and various exercises and over a period of a few months she learned to let go right and forgive her ex-husband and hand on heart Lewis her blood pressure came down crazy right so this is one of the biggest so there's no drug you had to give her there give any drugs she didn't have to change her diet she didn't have to it was just an internal reflection and either opening her mind or opening her heart to the ability to forgive yeah and

trying to help her understand that it doesn't mean what her ex-husband did was okay I'm not saying it was okay or it was good I'm saying you're you're allowing that and I say that with compassion I get it's difficult like it can't be nice to have been cheated on by your husband I get that but what I helped to see and it took me a bit of time but I like trying like I really try and TS my patients with an Open Hearts and I think they trust me and I helped her realize that it

wasn't helping it anymore it was a one-off event and L I remember when you last came on my show right when your last book was out we spoke about forgiveness I actually write a little bit about that in my new book because you said something to me that I've never forgotten and I'm sure many of your listeners know your history and what happened to you as a little boy and the trauma you faced and you said to me in on my podcast you said words to this effect yes I had to forgive the person who

perpetrated the trauma on you but you said I also had to forgive myself for allowing that pain to affect you for like 25 years and that stopped me in my tracks I was like oh wow Lewis didn't only have to forgive well I shouldn't say had to no one has to do anything but you chose and I'm sure it was really difficult and I'm sure it is difficult from time to time but you had to move on and then forgive yourself and people don't realize how important forgiveness is yeah like I really believe it that

people are walking around with resentment and they're holding grudges on people and you know i' I spoke about stress before but we can think about stress in two different ways leis there's the external stress right from our workload oh my boss needs me to do these 10 activities I I don't have time I've got to rush around there's traffic I understand that there is external stress but I would argue that most of our stress is internally generated by how we interpret things yeah how we interpret things and once you understand that that's when your life

changes for the better when you realize that most events in life are neutral what determines that impact on us is the perspective we take on that EV that's when your life really starts to change and that's when my life changed yeah and going back to one of the first things you talked about learning how to trust yourself like get the wisdom and the knowledge and you know learn from experts and science and research and examples but at the end of the day you got to listen to what you need based on the experts or what's

available out there you've got to take action on what your intuition is telling you or what your body or your mind your heart is telling you and I don't think you can fully trust yourself unless you learn to forgive yourself yeah 100% And and I would I I want to say leis if anyone's listening right now or watching and they're pushing back right because I've realized that on my Instagram you know I try and share this kind of helpful information with people like you do and whenever I bring up forgiveness it's amazing to see the

response some people love it and other people push back Hearts yeah I had Dr Romney on I don't know if you know Dr Romy yeah yeah yeah I've had on mine as well and she says maybe you don't forgive like the per the narcissist who's like just taken years of your life right and she's like it gives me peace not to forgive that was the first time I'd heard that and maybe there's something to like forgiving when you feel ready and not forcing forgiveness for sure if you're feeling frustrated or maybe it's helping you actually

create a boundary For That season of life okay and however you need to forgive in your mind or whatever that looks like but for her forgiveness of someone who's kind of taken a lot of years from her life she said maybe you don't forgive in her mind yeah and and I've heard Dr Romani say that and I think Dr Romani is great and she's helping so many people and I have a huge amount of respect for people and their views and their opinions I can only share what I've seen with patients and what I've experienced

myself and I think we misunderstand forgiveness I think some people think that forgiveness means saying that that was okay it doesn't mean that it's saying that I'm no longer going to allow that to have a hold on me it's totally different and like there's so much I want to say on forgiveness through is because I feel that I feel so light and free these days because I've learned to forget let me ask you this question as a medical doctor and a researcher what is the science of forgiveness what actually happens to the mind the heart

and the body when you forgive what is that crossover of like I have a I have a grudge on myself or someone else and then I choose in a moment and it integrates in my body and I forgive it's a stressor it's a stressor that when we think about stress and the stress response we are conditioned to think about external stresses but holding on to resentment is an internal stressor right so you're still activating your stress response by feeling it could have been different they shouldn't have done that that person has wronged me right when

you change your relationship with that past event which has happened it's no longer happening right it happened in the past but by keeping it active within you it is causing you internal stress by you not being able to let go I passionately believe that that the happiest people are those who can move on and let go now some people leis will say that some things are unforgivable and you may be better placed to answer this than me based upon your experience but we've both had a very powerful lady on our shows Edith EA yeah okay

I'm coming up to 500 episodes of my show and people ask me as they probably do to you which is the most impactful episode right and I can't really answer that because it's like picking a favorite child like I've had so many many that have had a profound impact on me but if I had to choose the one episode that rises to the top is the first conversation I had with EA she's amazing yeah because here's the situation let's relate this to forgiveness right why did that I literally was not the same person after that

conversation as I was before I remember I I afterwards I felt I've changed I have changed in those two hours and why was that so for people who don't know who Edith is let me just Briefly summarize when I spoke to her she was 993 years old when she was 16 years old growing up in Eastern Europe her family gets a knock on the door that's a day where she's excited about going on a date that evening with her boyfriend what dress am I going to wear tonight they're going to knock on the door they're

put on a train and they go to ast's concentration camp mhm within two hours of getting to ast's concentration camp both of her parents are murdered and I remember one of the first things Ed said to me was I never forgot the Las thing my mom said to me which is Edith nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your mind powerful right and so the same day that her parents are murdered she's a 16-year-old girl they know that she's a dancer she got asked to dance for the senior prison guards

and she said to me rongan listen when I was dancing in AST I wasn't in alitz in my mind I was in Budapest opera house I had a beautiful blue dress on there was a full house there was an orchestra playing and I thought wow this is incredible right she's reframing her experience in wow and then she said to me Louis whilst I was in alitz I started to see the prisoners sorry I started to see the prison Gods as prisoners they weren't free in their mind right I'm free in my mind they're not living

their life and the final she said so much to me right but the thing that she finished off with which I think about on most days she said rongan listen I've lived in Ashwin and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind m now when she can say that having lived through that inspires me if I'm ever struggling with something in my life I go hey rongan you know what Edith could reframe events in alwiz I think you can reframe events here yeah

and actually I think I asked her or I've heard her say this is it possible to forgive Hitler and I think she's forgiven Hitler because I think this is where the the misunderstanding with forgiveness really triggers people she's not saying what he did was right in any shape or form she's simply saying I'm no longer going to allow what he did to affect me yes and it's a big difference yeah and I know it can feel hard I have my own way of dealing with forgiveness which I'll share but can I just tell you one

more case that I wrote about because I think it really speaks perly to this and I think you'll be interested Le I can't Which chapter I start with this story but this is one of the saddest cases in my career for me personally again it was a lady I think late 40s or early 50s who lived a really healthy lifestyle okay she was careful with her diet she moved her body regularly she went to sleep on time every night she she had the good lifestyle she had no genetic uh history of cancer in her family

to my knowledge but she got diagnosed with ovarian cancer um like in the in her late 40s which is really serious and she died sometime afterwards okay I remember because I've been seeing her for years I I can remember this so well when she was I think 20 years old she was in a a new marriage they had a young baby and her husband cheating on her and they ended up getting divorced she could never move on from that right she couldn't talk about it her family and friends knew that you can't bring up his

name it'll affect her so much yeah so this is like 25 years on she's still holding on to what happened when she was 20 now listen I have compassion for that I understand that must be awful but what I tried to help her with for a few years I I tried to say Hey listen this is before the diagnosis she was my patient for a while I was like listen I don't think this is helping you like I understand that happens but I don't think this is helping you at some point I think this will

like have an impact on your health now look I can't say for sure that her holding on to that contributed to her cancer I can't say that I can't say that that would I would be going one step too far but what can I say if you look at the scientific research there is ample research showing us that people who struggle to forgive and let go people who hold on to resentment have an increased risk of things like autoimmune disease and cancer right that is there in the research there's multiple research papers showing this Gabel

matate talks about this he's detailed all the research in his book than theod normal now let me be really clear L of what I'm saying I'm not putting blame on anyone like I don't blame people leis my goal is to come from my heart and to help people the reason I share this information even though I know people will be pushing back and saying what are you saying but she did it to herself no I'm not saying that if we don't understand leis the role that our emotions play in our health we're not motivated to

do anything about it right it's easy to go no I'll just keep eating an organic whole food diet I'll be going to the gym I have 7 hours of sleep at night and my life will be good I'm like Hey listen I'm all for eating well moving well sleeping well I'm all for that that is very very important but don't neglect your inner emotional weth right right that can play a role and so for that lady to be really clear I cannot say that her resentment and her inability to move on caused her cancer I

can't say that but listen cancer like all chronic diseases is multifactorial there's never just one thing there's genetics there's your environmental exposures there's pollution there's your social status there's food there's movement there's sleep there's stress but there's also your emotions so I think we can say based upon the research and what clinicians like me have seen you see certain patterns when you've been practicing for enough years no and I have seen this pattern before in certain in chronic conditions and so I I I honestly I share that because I want to help people I'm simply

saying if you're holding on to resentment at some point when you're ready yeah feel the resentment feel the anger feel the frustration but don't stay there if you need help get help if you can access a therapist to help you get get a therapist but if you can't there is still plenty that you can do it sounds like you can't you don't want to stuff the emotions but you don't want to stay in the emotions you got to learn to let it out in some healthy conscious way hopefully not hurting someone else in the process

of your anger or resentment or frustration or whatever it might be but you can't stay there also so you can't spiritually BOS the emotion just say that didn't affect me if it did let it out and don't stay there you don't don't keep reliving the trauma for years to come I I think one of the things we see these days because there's a growing awareness now of our emotions as many you talk about it on your show all the time there's many people talking about this in public I think what's happened is that for some

people they go to oh I I get it now this is why I'm the way I am this is because of my mom or my dad this is how I was brought up and they stay there and then they start to blame their parents and I think that's unhelpful maybe you have to go through that but you can't stay there at some point you have to come out the other side and go okay I've now learned why I have these triggers and reactions now let me move to the next part where I process them and

move on and I tell you a very simple technique that's helped me Lisa I don't know if it will help others but it certainly has helped me is a few years ago I chose to take on the belief and again I use those words carefully I chose I don't have to take on this belief but I've chosen to take on this belief in life I believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their experiences and so let me just elaborate on that a little bit because it can be quite

triggering for people that I choose to believe that if I was that other person I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them why because if I was that person with their parents and the bullying they had as a child and the friends and the influences they had when they were growing up and the toxic boss they had when they were 17 or whatever it might be if I had their life I'd probably be thinking and acting exactly the same way as them now it doesn't mean I'm saying that what they're doing is right

I'm not saying that but once you adopt that approach to life like you can feel this inner calm Lewis because your initial way of interacting with life is with compassion is trying to understand why is this person behaving that way now it's it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean that what they're doing is not abhorent or wrong but I choose to take that approach to life and it's really really helped me because now my first instinct if someone's attacking me online if something's happening if someone disagrees with me my first instinct now because

I've trained it for years is oh I wonder why they think so differently to me and you just don't generate all this internal stress that affects people in the first place and why you startop interacting with wife like that I think forgiveness becomes a lot easier because then you're like oh if I was that person I'd be doing the same as them oh their dad cheated they grew up seeing that it doesn't make it right but I think it makes it easy and again do you know when I learned that the most right have you

heard of John makoy I'm thinking John maoy the tennis player no no so John John McAvoy I I wonderful conversation with him on my podcast about 5 years ago with you'd love you would love talking to him I promise you he used to be one of Britain's most wanted criminals wow right so he was locked up in Europe's highest security prison with two ey sentences right with all the terrorists he was locked out there and he got out he got out wow and he's like he's one of the loveliest people I know right I would

leave him alone with my children right I think he's the most Wonder ful person but I spoke to him for two hours and he went through his life story with me and he told me about his upbringing that his dad wasn't around and that the only male figures in his life were armed robbers and they came round they had fancy clothes and they drove nice cars and they had a code of conduct they treated women well like they had their own code of conduct and I remember there was so much in that conversation cuz he's

now a free man inspiring kids all around the world to get into physical activity it's an incredible story but I remember when he left my house after recording on the podcast oh my mind was blown and I saw my wife in the kitchen I said babe you know what if I was John if I had lived Jon's life I think I'd be in jail right now like I genuinely thought if I had his childhood I would be in prison or dead or dead and it really it really helps me understand that look we all see

the world differently it's very easy to judge and I get it some things are horrible and really traumatic and you're going to probably need help to process that but I'm saying there is a cost of not processing that so let me go back to what you said about Dr romanii Who I really admire and respect yeah she's great I don't have the experience that she has with narcissistic individuals I don't so I you know she has every reason to believe what she believes my belief based on my 23 years of clinical experience of what I've

seen with patients what I've seen in the research and what I've experienced myself is that if you can learn the art of letting go of the past and moving on maybe you don't like the term forgiveness yes so I think that can be triggering for some people because they feel it's like I'm forgiving that person for what they did I don't mean we don't forgive it but let it go and move on let go and move on is how I describe it in in this book right I think you do not realize the lightess in

your being that exists on the other I mean this one you I mean if you don't mind like I'd love to know from you like you have acknowledged publicly on many occasions how you struggle with this for years but you have moved through that how's that been for you when you weren't able to forgive and now would you say that you can forgive now yeah and I mean the difference is freedom it's peace I think you're a prisoner of the past when you don't forgive and there's there's um there's a reward for that as well

like you get to be righteous you get to be Justice you get to be right and them wrong you get to be you get validation from people having sympathy for you and understanding and understanding how something is not okay and that was horrible what that person did and all these different things you get rewards but I just feel like the reward of forgiveness and setting yourself free is far greater than any other reward you could get by holding a grudge exactly and holding a grudge and being angry at someone or an event or the government

or the world or the weather whatever for ruining something in your life or hurting something in your life or causing A disruption in your life and however drastic or small it might be holding a grudge onto that that's a cost there's a big cost there's a big price you'll pay there's a big price you'll pay but you're validated in society for holding it as you say like if you hold on you go yeah they shouldn't have posted that post they're wrong your friends will often support you yeah they shouldn't have done it but what we

don't and I used to be that person so I'm not judging I just know what it's like to not live like that anymore right chapter five in this book is called take less offense and I say many of us have an overreliance on being right and I I make the case in that book if I talk about the George Floy death right that's how I open that you know and I kind of explain how it affected me and then what I chose to share on social media and how I got attacked for it because if

you remember when the George Floyd death made headline news around the world it was during Co it was we were in lockdowns I was in the UK we were in a lockdown and this event happened horrible event tragic event just to be really clear and it brought up all kinds of feelings for me now I'm a Brit right I I was born and brought up in the UK I've got Indian immigrant parents I'm not American right I haven't lived in America and know the history of this country right so I understand that right I I

have to say this is I I'm just watching it from the outside but nonetheless whatever the narrative was at the time brought up things for me and I wanted to share my view on social media right like you have a large platform and I I thought I felt like I wanted to contribute to this public voice I don't always comment on public things if fact it's quite rare for me but I felt like I wanted to I thought about some of the things that my family had experience when they came to the UK and I

also thought about something my wife told me when she was a little girl in living in the north of England she can still remember one afternoon when a local nationalist party threw a brick through their window and told them to get out and she was just watching TV I think and there suddenly a brick smashes the window and comes in that is TR atic that is really scary so two or 3 days after George Floyd's death I shared a well-thought out post on Instagram I explained my perspective and I also shared the impact that racism

can have and some of the things that came up for me and I shared that example of what happened to my wife and there was a small section who started to take offense of at what I said and were attacking me and saying you shouldn't be commenting this is not your place this is a black issue this is not an Asian issue and initially I was like oh have I done something wrong here like I was trying to put out a really careful kind considered post to try and contribute to this big public conversation initially

I thought I did something wrong and then I meditated on it leou I thought about it and I thought wait a minute I've not signed up to any code of conduct that determines how I can or cannot react to the death of an individual 3,000 miles away I'm perfectly entitled to share my truth the way I see it and I kind of feel that many of us these days are walking around taking offense to everything yes and it comes at a cost right because people need to understand as I've learned to understand over the last

years is that nothing is inherently offensive something happens someone shares something if something was inherent offensive every single person would get offended the fact that every single person is not getting offended means it's not that thing that is offensive it's something within you that's being activated by that external event yes and once you understand that because I think most of the world don't understand that they think an event happens I have every right to take offense to that now people have got every right to do whatever they want I'm not trying to change what people

do people can decide what they do I'm trying to make the case in that chap that there is an impact if you are someone who feels that you're wronged in your life everywhere and everything's against you and everything's offensive you got to understand that that is coming at a cost to you you are generating emotional stress in your body that is not neutral maybe the reason you can't make change that lasts in your life right it's because you're walking around getting offended at everyone yeah and if you really think about it we're living in a

world of 8 billion people leis 8 billion people are not going to share the same view as you and to think that they will is almost a little bit arrogant the question is why do you need people to share the same view as you like one thing that's been transformative in my marriage leis is when I let go of the need to be right I'm like I don't need to be right I don't need to win this argument with for while she's got her view I've got my view it's cool yeah is it better to

be right or be happy exactly well I I I I would say one of the most important things you can do in life for your inner well-being which will impact your physical well-being and that's the thing that interesting that's why as a doctor I write this book because this inner World impacts our physical health and I still don't think we realize it enough but there was a cost there's a cost to thinking the world is against you and that you know you can choose to not take offense you can choose to look at let's let's

take social media as a prime example someone posts something that you don't like and you don't agree with you could take a pause there and instead of criticizing or reacting straight away and going that person has no right and you're entitled to do that but it has a cost you can train yourself to go why does that person have such a different worldview to me what has gone on in their life that has led to them having that what might I be able to understand here and I call it in that chapter adopting a learner

mindset right in every situation in life what can I learn here yes not how can I be right and prove my point what can I learn here I've applied that on my own life like as you know the cost of having a public profile these days is you have a lot of opinions about your ability and whether you're a great podcast host or a rubbish podcast host or do you know what I mean we have opinions about us because of the way the world is these days and I think learning how to deal with criticism

again is one of the most important things we can do like I used to really struggle with criticism like I'd want to push it away now I don't leis now I've learned to create that gap between stimulus and response and anyone can learn to do that you just need to practice it's a skill that you can get better at so if someone is criticizing me now I go through what I do a couple things if I'm feeling triggered I know myself well enough now to go ah rongan this is not the time okay you need

to ground yourself calm down before you start thinking about this because at the moment you're you're stressed out when you're emotional and that's very rare these Stakes but that would happen in the past and when I'm calm I go wow is there any truth here and sometimes I'll be like that's interesting yeah maybe I could have praised my post differently maybe I can learn something and next time I post about this topic I can improve yeah and it's really freeing then you're learning and if I think that there's no truth to that then I'm like

oh actually it looks as though that guy's having a bad day and they're taking out their bad day on me and then I open my heart I go wow that can't be a nice feeling for that person they're taking out their inner pain on me I'm okay with that they don't know me and I'm okay with that do you know what I mean and it's why I'm so passionate leis about this is because I didn't used to be like this I didn't and then when I didn't I found making change that lasts difficult because it's

in conflict with who I was but when you can cultivate this inner con and everyone can your relationships will be better your your contentment will be better you'll feel happier and I'm telling you having been a doctor for 23 years your health will be better as well it sounds to me like a lot of these habits you're talking about when people can Implement them they will have less stress in their life and what I'm hearing you say correct me if I'm wrong is that chronic stress is related to 70 80% of most disease is that

is that accurate let me phrase it slightly differently yeah 80 to 90% of what we see as doctors is in some way related to stress it doesn't mean it's the only cause sure sure but stress is playing a role and so if that's the case if we can learn to navigate stress with more ease and not let it consume us chronically maybe it's going to come but then only a little bit a day not every minute of the day for years what are the top ways then to eliminate chronic stress so that it doesn't consume

us and make us sick yeah so there's there's multiple ways that you can tackle stress right because there are external stresses and internal stresses so let's just break it down systematically for people so they can actually take action after this episode right and actually start to make changes so okay let's take an example that I've I've seen patients talk to me about for years okay and maybe you can relate to this they've been good in inverted Comm with their behaviors all day and they're eating well and they're um they're uh resisting temptation for the sweets

and whatever it might be but at 8:30 p.m. on their sofa they're watching TV and they feel like having ice cream can you relate to that sure yeah it's very very common and people would say rongan like like I don't get it like I know Sugar's bad for me or this amount of sugar that I'm eating too much is not helping me but I can't stop eating ice cream in the evenings so I created this little exercise called the three FS which I would use with patients that I write about to help people understand their

relationship with stress and with sugar okay so the first f is feel right so and Lou you can maybe try this in your own life but next time you find yourself in the evening on the sofa craving ice cream I want you to have a pause before you get the ice cream just have a pause and go what am I feeling here is this really physical hunger or is this emotional hunger right it's a very simple question but often we don't take that pause feels like physical hunger okay fine so let's say it's physical hunger

but it's a yeah it's not though but it might be it might be and you might want it and there's something wrong with it now and again right so it's not body's craving sugar yeah but the more you ask yourself these questions the more you start to trust yourself right so the first step is feel what am I feeling um I actually I don't know I had a really big dinner I'm not that hungry but I just had a ra with my partner or I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't seen anyone

or been out for a walk this is a treat to myself because all day I'll be doing things for other people okay then go ahead and eat it right go ahead and eat it next time it happens do the do the first F and then go to the second F so the first f is feel what am I feeling the second f is how does food feed the feeling the second f is feed okay so you've identifi let's say you've identified that you're stressed you've had a ride with your partner you're stressed and you've identified

that when I feel stressed ice cream makes me feel better because it does at least in the short temporarily yeah right then you go and so you're you're drawing that connection oh wow I'm having ice scream because I go to it when I'm feeling this stress okay great now you have a degree of self-awareness that you may not have had before and even Simply Having that awareness changes your relationship with that events but there's good research on this but it really does even being aware of what's driving your TR what's driving your behavior changes your

relationship with that trigger right and then the third F which you can do the next time is find okay now that I know what I'm feeling the first F right now that I know how food feeds that feeling the second F now the third f is fine can I find an alternative Behavior to feed that feeling okay so oh I'm feeling stressed because I've been on Zoom calls all day and I haven't had any time to myself and ice cream is going to make me feel better okay what else could I do oh well I

love yoga I could do 10 minutes of yoga or I could go and run a bath yeah and I could I could soak in a bath with a candle on for 15 minutes so you're still dealing with that feeling but maybe in a more helpful way and you can apply that 3F exercise to most things in life alcohol too much time on social media whatever it is it's a very simple exercise you know my whole thing is I love to talk about the big ideas but then I want to make it really practical for people

so that they can actually apply that so I think for many people they're going to go that's quite a useful exercise for me right so that's one way that we can think about stress I could talk to you about um all kinds of stress reduction practices like yoga like journaling I think breath work is one of the best right we overuse the word hack I think these days but breathing and changing the way we breathe I think really does qualify as the hack so a lot of people don't realize that the way they breathe is

information for their body okay so I don't know if you saw this study leis or not but it was from UCLA actually that 80% of office workers changed the way that they breathe when looking at email but they don't know they're doing it so here's the thing right you'll you you're you're engag in a task maybe there's loads of emails and you're on deadlines and you're rushing through them and you're focused the way you breathe will often start to change so what will happen you'll breathe a little bit faster you'll breathe more from your chest

than your diaphragm and your breathing will be a bit more shallow okay so what does that do that sends a signal to your brain that there's danger around me it always comes back to the stress response right your breathing signals is telling your brain there's danger and then that encourages you to stay breathing in that way so you're literally sending stress signals back to your body from your brain because your brain thinks you're in danger so if you can then be aware of that and consciously change the way that you breathe and there's all kinds

of techniques one of my favorites is what I call the three four five breath when you breathe in for three you hold for four and you breathe out for five okay very simple breath that I've been teach my patients for years and essentially anytime your out breath is longer than your in breath you help to switch off the stress part of your nervous system and you activate the relaxation part of your nervous system right very simple one three four five breath will take you 12 seconds five of them will take you a minute and you

will literally change your state because if you slow you're breathing down you then send calm signals up to your brain and then they send calm signals back to your body so I have a you know first thing I do each morning is a bit of meditation and breath work before I actually have my coffee that's the first thing I do and I do it as preemptive right so I do it to ground me in the morning but I also learn about the breath so if I get stressed in the day I can just take a

step back and do like two or three minutes or three four five breathing and it really helps me so it's one of many techniques that can help manage stress another one that people don't talk about enough that I've written about is touch like consensual affectionate touch is one of the best ways to lower your stress right so we've got in our skin something called CT afren nerve fibers it's so interesting nerve fibers nerve fibers and these nerve fibers are optimally stimulated check this out at 3 to 5 cm/ Second okay so that's a stroking rate

of 3 to 5 cm per second now here's the thing no one's measuring their stroking rate but this is how humans naturally stroke right so a mother stroking her baby will stroke at that rate we're doing that yeah and there's some research from the University of Liverpool and I've interviewed this professor on my show Professor Francis mclone he has shown that when we stimulate those CT afron nerve fibers with this kind of light affectionate stroking it sends a signal to the deepest most primitive part of our brain and levels of the stress hormone cortisol go

down wow right so can you do this yourself too you can do this yourself but it's better someone better with a pet it can be done with a pet right as well like some some people like taking your cat's pod like rubbing it on you or just no but you get like there benefits both ways like even if you stroke someone else you also get benefits and what's really interesting if you dive into that research say I was going to get my cat tonight and just to strokey but yeah but like I've never had pets

yeah but people who do have pets me it's caling no call me when my cat I was making the joke of like taking my cat's paw and rubbing it on my skin as if she was petting me in the cat but that but actually when my cat lays on my chest and she purrs it's so calming for my nervous system it's just like and she just kind of smiles at you a little bit and just rubbing her and almost giving her peace she's purring into you I don't know it's just like a very calming it's

almost meditative when you're stroking someone you know on their on their arm or you're engaging in that with a pet it's like very Cal yeah and and and what's really interesting is that the research on these nerve fibers show that not only do we have them here on our forearms right and our arms where we can stroke you know someone else like our partner or our child or whoever it might be we also have a high concentration on our upper back and this is fascinating leis because why would there be a high concentration on our

upper back like it's long as if we're going to like stroke ourselves on our upper back and these scientists think it just shows us how dependent as humans we are on other people they're there to receive love and affection from others wow right which is really interesting when you think about it like how we're made why would Evolution put these nerve fibers there well also probably like primitively if you're hugging someone maybe you're grabbing the back of their shoulders and you've like regenerated that over time yeah so we don't know any of these things for

sure we have to speculate but it's really interesting so you mentioned to me you know how can you manage stress and there's a million different ways okay I mentioned two things breath work which people have heard about I think affectionate touch people haven't heard about so much but that is still what I would call dealing with the external stress still got to go inside I think the best way is this is what I've done leis right I started this practice this a few years ago I would doing the evening if I ever get triggered emotionally

triggered like something's happened and I'm feeling bothered and I couldn't do it in a moment back then right I wasn't uh emotionally evolved emotionally evolved enough emotionally literate enough to do it in the moment I can do it in the moment now I couldn't back then but it's a skill that you can get better at if you practice and this skill is free right you don't to buy anything you can just make a commitment to yourself that you are sick of being triggered by everything and you want to understand what is going on inside you

that is driving these things it will change your life once you start addressing these internal triggers I'm telling you with 100% certainty yes you might need a therapist to help you but even if you can't access a therapist because of availability or cost you can still do so much that will help you right so what I would do is in the evening usually in a journal I'd go when was I trigger today ah okay that happened that comment or the driver on the way to work and then I'd go why did that trigger you what

was it bringing up inside of you and over time you learn so much about yourself leis you learn oh oh that was to do with my upbringing or oh that trigger me because I don't know like I have a belief that all drivers should stay in their Lane and not come out and cut people up or whatever it might be like you start to learn about yourself or you know I write about this is this is like I don't think I've shared this before I I I used an example in one of the chapters in

the book about um criticism and how in my family growing up like an Indian families you can be people can be quite direct so I remember when I went to University in Edinburgh so I grew up in the northwest of England I went to University and I'd probably been enjoying a bit too much of the good life you know away from home drinking late night kebabs partying whatever it might be and I came home either a weekend or for the holidays and my mom once said to me like what are you doing like you're fat

now what have you been doing now I want to be really clear here because that can be a very triggering statement for people in my family the way I was brought up my mom said that from a place of love like I know that I know that's not the case in every family I know that but in my family it's there's this great book by this um Belgian psychologist called batch and mosquito called between us and she talks about I cultures and we cultures and you know very broadly speaking you can you could say West

and East like the more individualistic cultures like let's say America or the UK are more me cultures and ey cultures whereas Asian cultures are a bit more sort of we orientated right so how I am is a reflection of the entire family which has pros and cons yeah yeah that's pros and cons are both nothing's like all good or all bad there's there's benefits and there's downsides and the truth is I had put a bit of weight art right so my mom's saying that to me because I knew her and because she very rarely said

that to me I was like oh I need to take some action here yeah right now here's the thing I also know that in some families that can be an abusive thing or a husband could say that to their wife in an abusive way so I'm not saying that that holds true for everyone but the point I'm trying to make is and this actually did happen to me a few years ago someone criticize my weight on social media I've never shared that before like it it's someone quite prominent s to use a video of me

and said look at his nose look at his shut up really yeah I'm not kidding you oh man now but here's the thing leis and kind of posted it online and say look at him he's getting bigger yeah he was trying to like the thing is he wasn't having a go with me he was trying to illustrate a point and he said there's this prominent doctor in the UK look at his images three years ago look yeah oh man or you can go wait a minut thank you for the feedback I didn't I didn't get

involved I only knew about it cuz some of my follower said hey have you seen this but more internally thank you for the feedback and maybe I do need to look at some of this an older version of me yeah which would have been a victim to the world might have got really triggered and initially I was like oh this is weird and then I calmed down and I was like does he have a point yeah I could see what he's saying actually I can see what he's saying right and I noticed some people they

they will get caught up in an argument that that person has no right to say anything about another person's opin and I'm not disputing that that is you know it may well be a more polite thing to not do that but I believe that you can get to a state where you don't take things personally and so for me I was looking at it going does he have a point I can kind of see what he's saying a little bit you know and the truth is I was really stressed at the time you know my

my dad no my mom was really sick and so when you're stressed you're not sleeping well you're not eating as well and whatever the reason is right but I was like hey yeah maybe I can just pay a bit more attention what I'm saying is that a more victim approach to life is look I appreciate this is a Punchy example that not everyone's going to agree with me on but it's very easy to get caught up in the narrative that person has no right to talk about me in that way and then get your friends

around yeah that guy's an idiot he shouldn't be talking about you and of course I don't think it's the best thing to to be talking about other people's appearance are waai online I certainly wouldn't do it I don't think it's how I want to interact with the world but for me I was like don't start telling you these disempowering stories it doesn't matter it's one person's opinion is there any truth there can I learn from something yeah can I not I honestly believe L that the reason most people can't make change that lasts going back

to the title of the book is because we haven't addressed some of these internal drivers but I've WR my third book was on habit formation and I went through the rules of habit formation and I still stand by that there are certain things that you can do that make it more likely those habits will stick but I still believe that that's superficial because when you get to a point where you've created and cultivated and inner calm you naturally make better choices yes does that make sense 100% 100% And that's a lot of the things you

talk about in the book make change that lasts nine simple ways to break free from the habits that hold you back and there's a lot more in here that I want people to dive into um so we'll lead people with that right now so we can go get the book but a lot of big praise from some amazing people so make sure you guys pick up a copy beautiful images in here as well which is works for my uh my brain to be able to see the images and related to the habits so I really

love that um this has been powerful rang and I appreciate you for being here and I want to acknowledge you for having the courage to follow your path path and your truth and and I wouldn't say leave behind but upgrade where you're at from being in the medical world for 23 years and you just said you recently stopped practicing in that discipline what's the main reason behind that the main reason why I have stopped practicing and I don't know how long it will be for is because I want to live the life that I try

and promote right I like to walk the walk and so there's a chapter in M change at last I think it's chapter seven which is about busyness and this idea that busyness is not success and I make the case that the reason why so many of us are overly busy in society it's because we want to feel valued we want to feel important where we used to get that value from our tribes but many of us now we're living these quite disconnect lives and so we want to feel it's a human need to feel that

we're of value so often we'll do that through our work at the expense of other things in our life so why have I maybe temporarily maybe for good I don't know yet why have I stopped practicing well couple of reasons one is I feel that over 23 years I've seen tens of thousands of patients have having shared what I've learned on TV shows in my now six book on my podcast I have created a course with the Royal College of GPS called prescribing lifestyle medicine we've trained over 4,000 Healthcare professionals around the world now and

the principles that I talk about in my books and so we're having a huge impact on the way medical Physicians are now practicing we've had cardiologists psychiatrists pharmacists nurses physios from all over the world train on this course that I co-created and in using those tools to help people and I realiz I can't do everything I can't see patience write books record an episode of my weekly podcast attend to my relationship with my wife have a great relationship with my children I also look after my elderly Mom right my mom's don't me well for a

few years I live five minutes away I'm heavily involved with her care and I don't want to be overly busy and I've been thinking about it for two or three years but you know why I didn't do it earlier leis because it was a fear of what people might think are you a real doctor right and then I thought that's that whole external validation piece like I don't have to do things that other people want me to do I have to validate myself that's correct I'm totally a real doctor I've got Decades of experience I'm

now a professor at Chester medical school of health communication and education I'm helping medical students there learn these principles I feel like I moved into this phase of my career now where I want to share and teach people what I have learned to help them practice so many doctors so many Junior doctors say can you teach me can you teach me we don't learn this stuff but you seem to have this unique insight into human health and I wouldn't say I've got a unique Insight but I I do see the human body a certain way

and I I kind of feel I've had some pretty awesome results with patients over the years with some quite what would be called treatable conditions because I I really try and get to the root cause and so I want to teach now I want to share the knowledge that I've learned with people and I don't want to be burnt out yeah and so I decided okay what would my life feel like if I don't practice for a little while and I miss it because my favorite thing was seeing patients but like you leis you know

I speak to a large volume of people week of my podcast right and I do my podcast my way right I spend a day a day in a half preparing for each guest because I like doing that I do a deep dive and then I go along with these guests and I am inundated with DMS on a daily basis people saying oh that episode or your third book help me cure my depression you've helped me with my anxiety you've helped my mother put her T to diabetes into amission I now got rid of my fibromyalgia

pains which I've had to T whatever it might be I get this every single day and I have such gratitude that I I do a job that helps people and I've realized that if 80 to 90% of what we see is driven by our Collective modern Lifestyles I can have more impact teaching people about how to change their LIF styles through these mediums and here's the funny thing leis in the UK there's probably a few thousand doctors at least that I know about who prescribe my podcast to their patient or store right so they they

have a 10-minute consultation with a patient and they might suggest a few things say Hey listen if you're interested in this why don't you listen to episode 420 of do jy's podcast and then in four weeks when you come back we'll discuss it and how it applies for you so I feel I'm doing a public service I feel I'm being a doctor through my books through my podcast through my newsletter whatever it might be I'm helping people improve their lives with their health problems but after 23 years I've realized I don't necessarily need to do

that one-on-one with my patients just do 100% yeah 100% I remember I had Ali abdal on a number of years ago and he was holding on to like I'm still doing I don't know 10 hours a month of you know Medical Practice because I'm afraid if I let it go fully people won't take me seriously as a YouTuber and as an author and things like that and I really just kind of challenged him on that and I go what would it look like and he eventually on his own decided to leave the practice and not

be practicing medicine I guess or not have any patience and he realized it was just a fear like he was able to grow even more he was able to do more the things that he wanted to and not hold on to something that he once wanted to but no longer yeah wanted to anymore but I still and that's powerful I know Ali's story I'm still a doctor I'm still a GMC registered doctor I'm a professor at Chester medical school I've just decided at this stage in my life and there's other factors that influence this you

know I I you know and I share a lot of this in the book about it's a very personal book I've I've opened up and shared things that a few years ago I would have been too nervous to share publicly right about how I make certain decisions certain mistakes I may have made in my life but I've been very influenced by thinking about the regrets of the dying you know the book by bronny we the fire regrets of the on yeah yeah me too right yeah she's great she's great and for people who don't know

bronnie was a Pala of care nurse for a few years and she noticed that these guys at the end of their life they all said the same things and they said things like I wish I'd work less I wish I spent more time with my friends and family I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected of me I wish I'd allow myself to be happy right these things are really powerful because I hear that and I go I don't want to wait till my deathbeds to learn those truths I

want to learn those truths now and apply them in my life so that I don't have those deathbed regrets and do you mind if I share a little quick exercise that I think will really help people with this would that be okay it's called write your own happy ending and it's an exercise that I write about because I I always try and make these things really practical for people and it's in two parts the first part is and you can try now loose if you want we can maybe try it on you if you game

fast forward now to the end of your life imagine you're on your deathbeds right this is the last day and now on your deathbed you're looking back on your life what are three things you will want to have done with your life for me personally um raise a beautiful family stay healthy and strong all the way to the end and pursue every dream in my heart that I feel I was meant to pursue yeah I love that beautiful anwers right okay so that's the first part and if people are struggling you don't have to get

this perfect you can keep reiterating on this but okay so you write down on your Deathbed this is what I ideally want to have looked back and reflected on okay now you zoom back into the present and go okay what are three weekly happiness habits that I can Implement in my life that guarantee I'm going to get the happy ending that I just wrote down I wanted and so for me for example when I last did this exercise on my deathbed I'm looking back I'm thinking okay I will want to have spent quality time with

my friends and family I will want to have spent uh I will want to have had time to pursue my passions like what's in my heart and the third thing is I will want to have done things that contribute to the well-being of other people right that's my deathbed answer that's the happy ending I want so now I come back to the present and I go well what a three-weekly happiness happens and I literally have them written down on my fridge leis okay and I'll tell you what I have written down I want five me

a week with my wife and kids where I'm fully present and not distracted by work that's great right it doesn't mean that's the right answer for anyone else but for me in the context of my life that helps me know that I'm prioritizing my family right so I write that down the second thing I have on my happiness habit list is if I've had time to go for a long run or I've had time to play my guitar and write a song or sing I know I've had time to pursue my passions and then the

third thing is if I release a weekly episode of my podcast which I've been doing for seven years then I know at the end of my life I contribute to the wellbeing of others it's a very very simple exercise Louis but if you've never done it it's extremely powerful because it brings into sharp Focus what is truly important in life yes and we're all living these busy lives where we've got lots of things competing for our attention too many people wait for all their to-do list to be done before they f focus on the important

things in life and I'm saying that will never happen if you're waiting for your to-do list to be done before you do the important things in life you're going to be one of those people on your deathbed with those regrets so that exercise helps me go actually my family the most important thing to me how can I make sure I had time for my family each week how can I make sure I had time for my passion and listen it doesn't mean that every week's perfect leis one week I might only do three meals but

I don't go down the guilt and shame route anymore I go Ah that's interesting that's three if that continues you're going to start fracturing those relationships so next week I might beef for up to six or seven and it's just a very simple way that helps you refocus on what's important in life yeah that's beautiful man we all need those exercises start practicing for sure and I think life goes by very quickly you know I'm 41 I always for my I'm 41 but it's like when I think back in the last five years it was

like a snap you were here essentially five years ago in La I is not Yeah March 20120 right almost five years ago yeah it's like it's snapped yeah it's gone and you know in five years hopefully we see each other before then but in five years it's going to go like this and we want to be able to look back and say was I doing those main core things on a consistent basis that give me closer to an end of life peace gratitude for how I showed up that I lived that life that I wanted

and I think it's a great time that you're sharing this where this will be out at the at the New Year season for people to have that reflection am I taking those weekly actions that are getting me closer to the life I want to live now and something that I will be happy that I did in the future as well yeah and that exercise right that exercise if people do that at New Year I promise you that the way you interact with your life will start to change your behaviors will naturally start to get better

if you think that this new year somehow miraculously your life is going to be different from every other New Year because you want it more this year no it isn't right the reason in my view that most New Year's resolutions fail leis is because they come from an energy of lack rather than an energy of fullness it's the energy behind the behavior that's most important and if you feel bad in your life and you're full of guilt and shame and you try to overcome that with your willower and your motivation I'm telling you because I've

had it before and I've seen it in thousands of patients those changes will not be longlasting that guilt and shame will drag you back but once you do these exercises and the exercises that are make change at last and they're all simple free exercises right you don't have to buy stuff watch out the book you don't have to buy stuff I really feel strongly about that because I've worked leis in practices where there have been some really deprived communities I've worked with like I was once in a practice in oldum in the north of Manchester

for seven years these guys had hard lives a lot of immigrants a lot of single parents a lot of struggle and I believe that each and every single one of us has the right to good quality health information and honestly like people say that Wellness is for the wealthy and the affluent in the middle class I don't buy it like it really isn't and I've always made it a priority throughout my career to try and make sure that the advice I'm giving works for everyone including the people who are struggling the most in society like

it really does make a difference and I'm really proud that everything in this book is free that's great man I love it I want people to get the book make change that last make sure you get a copy get a copy for a friend powerful stuff here here um and also you have an amazing podcast that people can subscribe to we'll have that all linked up but the main site is Dr chatter.com is that correct that's the main website and then the main social channel for me is Instagram at Dr chattery Dr chattery on Instagram

YouTube podcast the book everything is linked up at dry.com you can get everything exactly okay awesome final question for you this has been powerful wrang and I appreciate being here what's your definition of greatness greatness is when you're able to live your life with an open heart rather than a closed heart greatness is someone who aspires to live their life with an open heart rather than a closed heart I really believe that everything in life either comes from love or it comes from Fear everything all of our behaviors all our interactions and once you tune

into that and realize that actually oh you're feeling angry envious jealousy whatever it might be the root cause of that is fear whereas if the root cause becomes Joy sorry the root cause becomes love then there's empathy there's kindness there's compassion these are things that we can all cultivate so what I'm trying to do in my life to be a great human being to be a great dad and a great husband and a hopefully a great human it really is very simple I'm trying to come at life with an open heart rather than a close

one all good thanks for being here man appreciate it that's L I appreciate it man thank you so much for being here I hope you got some value from this episode as much as I did if you did please do me a favor and click the like button right now if you like this it's going to help share it out into the YouTube world even more for us please click that like button and leave a comment below on your biggest takeaway or if you have any questions that you want me to follow up with also

subscribe to our Channel because when you do you help us book even bigger guests and I want you to have the best information out there in the world because that's what the school of greatness is all about so make sure to subscribe right now like this video share a comment below on your biggest takeaway and also I've got some big news a new book if you're looking to create Financial Freedom in your life and you want more abundance and you want a richer life then make sure to check out my new book make money easy

I think you're going to love this and it's all about creating Financial fre Freedom the link is below in the description or you can go to makemoney ebook.com and check it out people will feel your energy people will find your profile at the right time and feel called to to match with you all of that comes from your vibration I I talk about products on a shelf right so one of the things that we talk about in our company is that the energy of the founders