START DOING THIS To Completely Change Your HEALTH In 2022! | Dr. Rangan Chatterjee

What is the root cause of why this patient is sitting here in front of me? What's been going on in their life for the last few weeks, months, years, which means they're sitting in front of me today with this problem.

It turns out our health and our well-being is determined by the quality of our thoughts, the quality of our mind, the quality of our ability to engage with our life in ways that create a sense of well-being and happiness instead of disconnection and disease. and yes, we have to fix the brain in order to fix the mind. And that's a lot of the work we both have done about how do we create health through restoring the body's optimal functioning systems. That's what functional medicine is. But once you've done that, and I've written a whole book about it called the UltraMind Solution, which is how to fix your broken brain by fixing your body first, then comes the question of how do you build a happy life? How do you look at your mind in a way that allows you to engage with life be fully present, meet the people in your life with joy and equanimity, and to do the things in your life you want to do. And that is a really tough question. So our mindset and our mind determines so much of what happens with our health and everything else in our life. So what are the start with? Start with like the three ways that people can practice happiness on a daily basis. And then we're going to get into like why the heck you wrote this book in the first place.

Yeah, look, I mean, you mentioned happiness, right? Maybe we can get to that shortly. What do I mean when I say happiness? Because you can say the word happiness, Mark, to 10 different people, and they may have 10 different interpretations of what that means, right? So, I have a term in the book called core happiness, which is the sort of happiness I think every single one of us wants in our life. Now, the image of happiness that's presented to us by society and advertising It's that billboard image of the smiling couple with their kids on a beach with the ocean behind them. And we think that's happening.

Kind of like the ones in your book.

Yeah, kind of like the nice images in the book. But I think it can be misleading because we spend all our time trying to work hard, trying to earn more money, trying to acquire more things so that we can lead what we think is this happy life. You know, that billboard image is a pleasurable experience. It can form part of a happy life, but I do not think that is what happiness is.

So.

I wrote the book because there is a very strong link between happiness and health. We can definitely get to that. But when I say happiness, I mean core happiness and core happiness, I want people to think of as a three-legged stool, right? Just as you can work on your muscle strength by going to the gym each day and lifting weights, you know, if you consistently lift weights, you're going to get stronger. I've created this core happiness model for people. So I say, if you work on the three legs of this stool regularly with simple things that don't take long, that don't cost any money, you are also going to become happier. So the three legs of this core happiness stool are alignment, contentment, and control. Now, when I say alignment, I mean when the person who you really are inside and the person who you are actually being out there in the world are one and the same, that's alignment. It's when your inner values and your external actions start to match up. Contentment is the second leg. What are those things that you can do day to day that give you that feeling of calm and peace and contentment? But the third leg is very, very important. It's control. Now, control can often be another term that can be misinterpreted. I'm not talking about controlling external events because the the last two years have shown us whatever we want to happen in the world, the world is going to do what the world is going to do, right? This is not about controlling external events. This is not about controlling what other people do. This is about a sense of control. What are the things you can do in your life that give you a sense of control? Because the research shows us people with a sense of control over their lives, they have more motivation, they have higher levels of success, they live longer. they're healthier and they're happier. So this model, basically, it's actually very simple. I've been talking about it for the last few months in the UK. People really, really like it because it's very practical. And you can look at various things in your life and go, which leg of the stool are they working on? If you're strengthening that leg of the stool, you're going to be strengthening your happiness. But it also helps people figure out why certain things, when they do them, they think they're making them feel good, but ultimately they're actually weakening those legs and therefore weakening their happiness. So that's the kind of overarching model. And we can get into some practical things if you want, but I thought at the start it's probably worth explaining what exactly do I mean by happiness?

You know, it's really around your thinking, right? How do you fix your thinking?

Yeah.

To create happiness. Because two people can have exactly the same experience and have very different responses to that experience. And it reminds me of a quote from Viktor Frankl who was a victim of a concentration camp and who was in Auschwitz, which you can imagine would be the most hopeless, horrible, possible scenario to be in. And he wrote a book called Man's Search for Meaning in which he said, you know, between stimulus and response, there's a choice. And in that choice lies our freedom. In other words, we can't control our external circumstances. We can't control the stimulus, but we can control our response, our way of thinking about it, feeling about it, interacting with it. You know, I always joke, you know, if James Bond has a gun to his head, it's one experience for him. If Woody Allen has a gun to his head, it's the same gun, very different internal experience and interpretation. So it's often the interpretation and meaning we give to our lives that causes the discomfort and the unhappiness. And that's so important to understand that we literally have that power power. But it's really all of our conditioning and our fears and our beliefs and our traumas that create a set of filters for the world that inhibit us from actually having a direct experience of what is.

Yeah, no, for sure, Mark. I couldn't agree more. In fact, that quote is there at the back of my studio. My daughter wrote it out for me when she was seven years old. It's one of the most important quotes in my life because it's that understanding that in every single situation in life, we have a choice in what story we put onto it. And it's that story we put onto it that determines the effect it has on us. This is very important for our physical health. But just to finish off or just to follow up on that thread there with Viter Frankel, one of the most powerful conversations, Mark, I've ever had in my life was on my podcast about two years ago with this wonderful lady called Dr. Edith Eger. Now, when I spoke to her, she was 93 years old, right? Wow. When she was 16, she grew up in Eastern Europe. She got a knock on the door. and with no warning, her parents, her and her sister got put on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. Yeah.

Right?

Within two hours of getting there, both of her parents were murdered, right?

Wow.

And I tell you, there's a few things from that conversation that are imprinted into my soul. Number one, she said later that day, after my parents were killed, I was asked to dance for the senior prison guards. And I never forgot, Dr. Chasteky, the last thing that my mum said to me. My mother said to me, Edie, nobody can ever take from you the contents that you put inside your mind. So she said to me, when I was dancing, I was not dancing in Auschwitz. In my mind, I was dancing in Budapest Opera House. I had a beautiful dress on. There was an orchestra playing. There was a full house. In my mind, that's what I was dancing in. And Mark, I thought, okay, that's pretty incredible. Then she said, In the following years whilst in Auschwitz, she started to see the prison guards as the prisoners. She said they weren't living their life. In my mind, I was free. I thought that was pretty incredible, Mark. And then the final thing she said to me, which I think about pretty much every day, she said, Rongen, I can tell you this. Listen, I have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you that the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own mind.

Absolutely.

And this is what we do, Mark, every day. Your patients, my patients, ourselves potentially, we create this mental turmoil with the way we interpret things. And one of the chapters in the book, it is my favorite chapter, chapter five, it is called Seek Out Friction. And I would say, this is probably the thing that has had the biggest impact on my happiness but also my physical health over the past few years. It's this understanding that in every situation I can choose a different response. So seek out friction means look for social friction in your life, right? And use it as a teacher. So, you know, if someone cuts you up in the road, right? Instead of going, oh, I can't believe they did that. They shouldn't be driving. They should they should get their eyes checked.

Right.

What we don't realize is that creates emotional tension in our body. That emotional stress is not neutral. It leads to what I call junk unk happiness habits, which you can maybe we can touch on later, but you don't have to take that response. You can actually, in the book, one of my tips is to say, make that other person a hero. What story do you need to create in your mind to make that person a hero? Ah, maybe that person is running late for his job and, you know, he's scared he's going to lose it and he won't be able to pay his mortgage. Maybe it's a mother whose daughter was up last night with earache. You know what? What I've learned, Mark, is for your happiness, the truth of the situation actually doesn't matter. What matters is the story you put on top of it.

Yeah.

I mean, that's what Gabor Mate says. Trauma isn't what happens to you. It's the meaning you make from what happens to you. And I think we have awful things that do happen to people, and certainly they've happened to me, but it's how you transmute those and how you think about them in the prisons of your own mind. You're right. The greatest prisons we have are our own minds, and they keep us from Happiness.

Yeah.

And what I'd say is a really, really practical thing that people can do, right? The first really super practical thing I'm going to talk about is every day if you can, but even once a week, look for some friction in your life, social friction, right? I call it working out on the social gym instead of the physical gym. Work out in the social gym. Maybe there was an email from your boss that really bothered you and you were like, I can't believe my boss sent that to me. I've worked in this company for five years. They should know that I know how to do my job. understand that you are creating a disempowering narrative and that is creating tension and stress in your body that you will need a junk happiness habit like sugar or alcohol or, you know, too much time on social media or staying up late on box sets, whatever. You will need to neutralize that in some way. Instead, practice rewriting that story. Think about what else can you say? Oh, you know, what might be going on in my boss's life? Maybe my boss is under pressure. Maybe my boss has a sick child. As I say, I said the truth for your happiness doesn't matter. And Mark, for some people, that's quite a controversial statement.

Yeah, for sure.

But I want to let me make it really practical for people. Most people listening know the feeling of being in a relationship when there is a disagreement or an argument. And if anyone listening or watching does not know that feeling, try and imagine what it might be like. I'm pretty sure all of us- if.

That'S you, I want to meet you and have a conversation. Yeah, exactly.

So let's think about it. a couple having a fight or a heated disagreement. Well, let's think about this. What actually happened in that situation? Well, it kind of depends, Mark, who you ask. If you ask one partner, they'll give you one report of that situation. And if you walk around the side of the table to the other partner and ask them, they may well give you a completely different report of the same situation. Right? So one thing happened. two different realities. So what does that teach us? It teaches us, well, hold on. There are multiple realities in any given situation. Psychologists did a study here in the UK, Mark, right? They took soccer fans, right, from two different teams, and they showed them the same incident from a game, and they asked both sets of fans what happened. Now, remarkably, both different sets of fans reported seeing something. completely different from the same incidents. So, the point I'm trying to make is every situation has multiple realities. You can train yourself to choose a story that empowers you rather than enslaves you. I think if you can do this, because I've been doing this for about five years now, I used to really struggle. My internal state used to really be affected by the actions of other people. If people treated me nicely and in a certain way, Yeah, I felt great. If they didn't, I wouldn't feel so good. I'd create disempowering narratives. I'd probably go and use sugar to soothe how I felt a little bit, although I didn't realize it at the time, right? And I do this pretty much every day. It takes me a few minutes each day, sometimes in the evening. When did I get triggered today? What new story can I rewrite there? How can I make that other person a hero? And I promise with time, It starts to become automatic. So these days, I find relatively rarely do I get triggered, Mark. And if I do, it's an opportunity for me to learn something about myself. Why has it tapped on an insecurity? Am I sleep deprived at the moment and working too hard? And so I'm overly emotional. And Mark, you know, why are we talking about this kind of stuff on a health podcast, right? Well, I'll tell you why. Because why did I write Happy Mind, Happy Life? Right? Because like you, and you've been a huge inspiration to me, like you, I'm always trying to think what is the root cause of why this patient is sitting here in front of me? You know, what's been going on in their life for the last few weeks, the last few months, the last few years, which means they're sitting in front of me today with this problem. And for many years, like you, I've been talking about lifestyle, Mark, you've been doing it for way longer than I have. And I've said in the media on multiple occasions over the last six or seven years that 80 to 90% of what we see as doctors is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. And I stand by that. But for the last few years, there's been this idea niggling away in the back of my mind, which is, is it lifestyle? Is that the upstream driver? Or could there be something that's even more important? Because some people, they'll buy one of your books, Mark, right? Or they'll go on one of your plants, and they'll change their diet and their lifestyle for four weeks or eight weeks, and they'll feel fantastic.

Right?

But a few of them will end up after a few months back to where they were before, right? It's not knowledge wasn't the problem. They got the knowledge, they felt better, but they flipped back and I thought, okay, what's going on there?

Right?

That's one thing I was thinking about. And the other thing I was thinking about is many of my patients were changing their lifestyle. They had some really good lifestyle habits, but they were allowing the actions of other people to overly affect how they felt, which would lead them to a lot of poor lifestyle choices. And so I decided to investigate, go into the research, and it's very clear from the research that there is a factor that arguably is even more upstream from lifestyle, and that's our happiness. People who are happy in their lives and with their lives are healthier. People who think about their lives in a certain way, who train themselves to think differently, They are healthy. And there's a lot of studies which show this. There was one beautiful study. They looked at these nuns throughout the course of their career, sorry, their lifetimes. And what was amazing about these nuns was that actually they had the same lifestyle, right? So one reason why health is linked to happiness, Mark, is because people who are happier, more content with their life, naturally make better lifestyle choices. I think that's quite obvious. who feel pretty good, actually they have less need to have a bottle of wine every evening. They have less need to dive into a tub of Ben and Jerry's in the evening if they're content because a lot of the time we use that to soothe stress. But this nuns study shows a second reason, right? Over the course of their lives, these nuns had the same lifestyle, but the researchers could see the earlier on in their life when they tracked them, the happier nuns lived significantly longer and they were significantly healthier. Lifestyle is the same, but those were the positive emotions actually were happening. And then, you know, more recently we see in laboratories where psychologists take, sorry, researchers take people in and they inject them with rhinovirus up their nostril, which, as you know, Mark, is the virus that causes the common cold. They could determine with statistical significance who would get sick depending on their mood state. So the not so positive mood category, that's my, you know, that's me trying to be kind in how I talk about this, right? They got sick three times as often as the other group, right? So everywhere we look in the research and so for me, it was like, okay, Rangan, well, how can I make this practical and relevant to my patients? Because I think this happiness piece, I think the way that we think our thoughts, I think this is a missing piece in health that not enough people are talking about.

For sure. I mean, so much comes up when you're talking. The number of things that struck me, sort of reminded me of a book that was a huge influence on me when I was in college 40 years ago called Mind is Healer, Mind is Slayer. by Ken Pelletier, who's still out there doing this work, believe it or not. Just recounting the science and the stories back then. And then there's of course, Bernie Siegel and Love Medicine Miracles, where he talked about the power of love and connection and our thinking to actually cure cancer. And he was an oncologic surgeon and saw case after case where this was true. And then there are incredible amounts of data from the NIH and others on the whole field of psychoneuroimmunology, which Candace Pert put forth in her book, Molecules of Emotion. So literally our body, every cell, our immune system, our microbiome, our gut are listening to our thoughts. They're eavesdropping on our thoughts. And those thoughts are transmuted into biochemical signals, into changes in gene expression, into changes in inflammation and changes in hormones that have real biological impact on our bodies. And it is both daunting to think about that because it means like we actually have to regulate our minds, which is not something we learn how to do. I mean, we thought, you know, exercise, eat right, sleep, okay, I can do all that. But training the brain, training the mind, mastering the mind, that's something that's fine, very difficult for most people. That's what the Buddha was teaching. How do we disconnect from the ordinary stories, our ordinary mind, which creates distinction, the separation, division, disconnection that's driven by our ego. And how do we enter into a state of connection?

Yeah.

And, and harmony with our experience. And, you know, I just, and you mentioned a couple of things about triggers. And I think that's a beautiful frame. If, if you have a trigger, if something comes up where you feel in your body and your gut and your stomach and your heart, if you feel some physiologic change in you, in your state, in response to something external. That's a gift. That means something is going on that gives you an opportunity to look at what that is. Now, it could be something objectional, objectionable or real that you need to be dealing with, like, you know, somebody's got a gun to your head, or it could be just an imagined threat that's not actually real that you're making up and interpreting that on the world.

Yeah.

And, you know, we have tremendous power to control. Another story that I think I just wanted to relay, which was when I was a medical student, I went to Nepal and I went and spent a bunch of time with Tibetan doctors who'd escaped from Tibet and from the Chinese gulags. And one of them was a Tibetan doctor and I sat with him all day and he was just the happiest, sweetest guy. And I'm like, tell me, what was it like? You spent 22 years in a Chinese gulag in a prison in China where they stripped away everything that was familiar to you. You couldn't practice your tradition, nothing. he says, what was the most difficult part of that? He says, well, it was the days I thought I might lose compassion for my Chinese jailers. I was like, oh, wow, that's a lot. You know, like, I, I think so. It really, it really is not an easy task for us as humans because we don't have the rituals, the rights, the, the constructs, the ways of thinking about how to do this. We've had guests on the podcast like Byron Katie, who talks about really being able to look at your thoughts differently, to ask if they're true, to navigate to different interpretations of the meaning we put on things. And unless we train our brain, unless we master our minds, unless we take hold of them, they basically run the show. And we don't want our little self running the show except if we're in danger, which is not true for most of us most of the time.

Yeah, really powerful Mark. And again, you know, you mentioned Dr. Gabor Mate before. In his last book, he detailed a lot of the research showing that people who struggle to forgive, people who are chronically angry, people who hold on to resentment and can't let go, he showed he detailed a lot of research showing a very strong association with the development of all kinds of chronic illness, like autoimmune disease, all kinds of other chronic disease, which, again, I'm not putting blame on people. I know we've got to be very sensitive when talking about this topic, right? But I think the research is very compelling that our emotions, our thoughts, you know, I had a patient once, Mark, that I wrote about a couple of books ago, who I was struggling with her to get her blood pressure down. She had, you know, she had high blood pressure. We were making all kinds of lifestyle changes, all sorts of things. She was making a good go of things, but I couldn't get it down. And I, you know, I would notice the way she would talk regularly. I started to dive a bit deeper, and it was very clear to me that she was struggling to let go. She could not forgive her ex-husband for cheating on her. Now, look, first of all, I understand that. I have compassion for that. For sure. She found it very hard, but this was years afterwards. She was still really, really angry and frustrated. I explained to her that I don't think this is helping you. This is not really helping you with your blood pressure. Don't forgive for your ex-husband, forgive for yourself. And I went through some exercises with her. And I'm not kidding you, Mark, within a few months of doing these forgiveness exercises, her blood pressure started to come down and normalised. I didn't make any more lifestyle changes with her. Again, the point, this is why I wrote the book, is because I feel this is a missing piece in health Mark that, you know, a lot of people are simply not talking about enough. Our emotions, our thoughts, holding on to anger. You mentioned compassion there.

Right?

It was a very powerful story you mentioned. And I mentioned before, one of the most practical and powerful things I do is I look for social friction each day and I use it as a teacher. And I mentioned one thing people can try and do is make that person a hero. Now, for some people, they go, no, I can't do that in every case. I'm like, okay, fine. The other phrase that I often use, which I've used on myself, is a phrase that I've discussed on my podcast many times, which is if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them. And if you really understand that phrase and really sit with it, it basically means if I was that other person with their childhood, with the bullying they had when they were a kid, with their parents, with the toxic first boss that they had when they were 17. You know, if I were them, I'd probably be acting in exactly the same way as them. And, yeah, again, my podcast has taught me so much. Or I spoke to a guy called John McAvoy. Right, this is just an incredible story, Mark. But John McAvoy, 10 years ago to this day, he was locked up in the maximum security prison in Europe, in Belmarsh. He was locked up with the 77 bombers. He was on Britain's most wanted criminals. He's one of the most incredible people I've met, right? Because when he was in jail, something happened. He was there, he thought it was him against the system. He committed crimes, he committed armed robbery. And one night he saw on the television his best friend got killed in a car chase in Holland. And literally overnight he decided to change the story on his life. He realized that everything in his mind was just a lie. He's created this fictional narrative that's resulted in him being in prison. He changed the narrative. And within a few years through the power of sport and exercise, he was a free man. He's now a free man in inspiring people all over the world to get active. Now, what's really interesting for that story. The first time he came on my show, I spoke to him for about two hours and 40 minutes. It was the most compelling story I've ever heard. When he was a kid, right? His dad died before he was born. All the male role models in his life were criminals. They were arm robbers. That's all he saw. They all drove nice cars, wore nice shoes. They all treated women with respect. that was his model of the world. And, you know, the truth is, at the end of that conversation, when John left the house, I remember saying to my wife, Mark, I said, Hey, babe, you know, if I was John, if I had his upbringing, I'm certain I'd be locked up in jail right now. I was that convinced. And why this phrase is so powerful, because it helps you lead with compassion. When you're struggling with the actions of someone else, and I use this whenever I do struggle, I go, wrong. And if you were that person, you'd be acting in exactly the same way. It doesn't make it right, right? It doesn't mean you have to put up with behavior that's not acceptable, but you take the emotional sting out of it, which number one has impacts for your physical health and all your lifestyle choices or behaviors later that day. But number two, it also helps you make better decisions, right? Because a lot of people don't realize you can think of your brain in, you know, this is, this is an over simplistic explanation of the brain, but you can think of it in two parts. The logical, rational part of the brain at the front, and the emotional part of the brain in the middle towards the back. And both of these parts of the brain are always vying for top spot. To make good decisions, you want your rational brain online and your prefrontal cortex. But if you get really triggered and are feeling really stressed and emotional, I can't believe they acted like that or are treating me like this, you basically take your prefrontal cortex offline and your emotions start to rule the roost. So, you know, this is so powerful. Yes, it helps you feel better. You'll make better decisions, but it's also going to help you with your physical health.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's amazing. I mean, I, someone said to me that resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Yeah, but it's not. What can I say on that? Right. Because a lot of people, they'll hear that go, yeah, okay, that's. Fine, but I've got the situation in my life where it's really tricky. I get it. Some situations are hard. But the key message in this book with all the practical tips, right, is that these are trainable skills. Happiness is a trainable skill, right? It's not something that just happens.

Tell us about that. How do you train for happiness? We do not have to train for a marathon. We know how to, you know, train for losing weight. We know how to train for a tennis match, how do you train for happiness?

Yeah, this is why I created this core happiness model, which underpins the entire book. Every single practical intervention comes back to that. Are you working on one of these three legs, alignment, contentment, or control? So let's take alignment, for example, right? So alignment, how do we work on our alignment? Well, there's many practical exercises we can do, but a really simple one that I like, which I I hope your audience find useful is, in fact, Mark, I can try it on you now if you're up for giving it a go. You basically, the exercise comes in two parts, right? Part number one is, in fact, can I put this question to you to answer Mark? Because I think that would be really useful.

Okay.

What are three things that you could do this week that if you did them consistently week after week would make you truly happy?

I mean, I do a lot of them, actually.

Yeah.

So, you can be things that you do.

One of the things that's really important to me is I have a group of men friends that we've been friends for 30, 40 years, most of us. And we meet every week for two hours on Zoom. And it's such a nourishing, deeply connected time for talking, getting known, being seen, laughing, helping each other through challenging moments, celebrating each other when it's time to be celebrated. And that contributes so much to my happiness.

Okay.

I think the other thing that I think really contributes to my happiness is similar. It's really staying connected and involved with my community of friends. And the third is being in service. When I'm outside of myself, doing things that are not for me, but helping others, I generally feel way happier.

Yeah.

So, thank you for sharing that. So, that's the first part of the exercise. You define three, what I call happiness habits. The second part of the exercise is now it's called Write yout Happy Ending. So, now imagine, Mark, you're on your deathbed, right? You're lying there and you're looking back on your life. What are three things you will want to have done with your life?

That I had been done or that.

That three things that you hope, like when you're there, you're looking back and going, yeah, I've done these three things.

I've done those two things.

Yeah.

Love more, laugh more, dance more.

Okay. So I love that. So now, and now then the next part is you bring those two things together. It's like if you do those three happiness habits weekly, will you get the happiness ending that you And you said, Love more, right? That's relationships, right? It's having more connected relationships. And the first two happiness habits for you were all around relationships, right? Which is really, really powerful. I'm sure on your deathbed, you'll want to have made a contribution to the world, which of course you have done in spades. But again, that's on your happiness habits. And why this is a powerful exercise, Mark, anyone listening or watching this right now can do that in their own life. And I'd really encourage them to either pause, or do it afterwards, just write it down. Write it down because here's the thing a lot of people say on their deathbeds. Well, we know what people are going to say on their deathbed, Mark, because palliative care nurses tell us all the time, right? Bronnie told us in her book, you know, five regrets of the dying. What do people consistently say? I wish I'd worked less. I wish I spent more time with my friends and family. I wish I'd allowed myself to be happy. And then the one which gets me every time, Mark, is this one. I wish I'd lived my life and not the life that other people expected off me.

Right?

Yes. And this is such a powerful exercise because we know what we're going to say. And then if a lot of people go, yeah, I want to. I want my death. I want to have spent really quality time with my friends and family. And then they look at their day-to-day week-to-week life and go, wait a minute, I'm so busy. I'm so busy trying to acquire more things, get. a promotion, get more money, do more stuff, right? That I have no time for those friends and family. And again, this is not an exercise about beating yourself up. It's about bringing intention to your life and going, you know, the truth is not, this was me a few years ago. I was neglecting my friends. I was so busy with work, I wasn't seeing my friends as much. I probably wasn't seeing my wife and kids as much as I wanted to. And I made changes because I realized, wait a minute, you're going to get to your deathbed and you're going to have, you know, the things that truly bring you happy. So again, you said, what are some of these practical ways that we can start to work and train happiness? Well, for that alignment leg, I'd ask people to do that one exercise and just write it down. For me, Mark, it's very simple. On my deathbed, I've done this quite a few times now. I want to, again, have spent quality time with my friends and family. I want to have had time to engage in my passions. And three, I want to have contributed to improving the lives of other people. So for me on a weekly basis, if I record an episode of my podcast, I know I'm helping improve the wellbeing of others. If I have time to play my guitar or go for a run, I know I'm having time for my passions. And I've got it written down on my fridge mark, five undistracted meals with my wife and kids each week. So that amazing. I've actually specified it. So I know if I do that week after week, and I'm not perfect, Some weeks I'm traveling, I don't get to do it, but then I'll reset the week after. I know I'm going to get that happy ending that I want. So when I say happiness is a trainable skill, that's us dealing with the alignment leg of the stool. We mentioned seeking out friction before, right? How you can turn triggers into learning opportunities. Well, that hits contentment and control, right? If you are really triggered by the actions of someone else, you don't feel content, and you feel out of control. If you learn using the tools that we've already mentioned, if you learn to reframe that, you know, I've mentioned all the benefits for your physical health, how you feel, the choices you're going to make, you are also going to be working, you're going to feel more content, and you're going to feel more in control. So you're directly working on these legs of the stool.

Right.

What about that third leg, control, right? What gives you a sense of control? And Mark, this is something that people struggle with at the moment because They say, when the book came out in the UK a couple of months ago, and on my first live speaking event about it, this lady asked me in the Q&A afterwards, she says, How can I even think about feeling happy and content at the moment when there's all this heartache going on in the world? And I watched the news. And this is something that a lot of people think. But actually, I think there's a misunderstanding here. you can still work on your happiness. You can still care about the lives of other people, but not overly allow it to affect your inner well-being. It's a trainable skill. So, this is where control comes in. What kind of things can you do that give you a sense of control? So, for me, Mark, we've spoken about this when I've been on your show before. I have a morning routine every day, right? And as I get older, it becomes even more and more important to me.

Right?

And I create a life, I create a situation around my life where I can actually do 30-40 minutes now in the morning because it's become that important to me. And I know not everyone can, so even five minutes will make a difference. But if I go through my morning routine- and what is it? It's breath work, it's movement, and then it's mindset. So, you know, reading something positive and sort of spiritually uplifting, you know, it's these three M's that I've mentioned before, you know, mindfulness, movement and mindset. For mindfulness, I do some breath work for five minutes. Movement while my coffee brews, I do a five minute body weight workout. And then the really important part is mindset. Of course, we've been talking about that a lot throughout this conversation. I sit there, I've got four or five books kicking around like Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning or Edith Eager's the Gift. And I sit and read them, I read a chapter and it just sets me up. And what it does, it gives me a sense of control. So even if I have 100 emails to answer, Even if I've got a crazy workday, even if there's really toxic stuff on the news, I know that I've done something that gives me a sense of control. And because what's the alternative, Mark? The alternative is to go, I cannot be happy unless the world around me is a certain way and people around me act in this way. That's a very disempowering place to be in.

That's dangerous.

And I've lived in that place for much of my life, Mark. That's the truth. why I'm so passionate about this. This all started for me when my dad died just over nine years ago. I helped to care for dad for years. He had lupus. He was on dialysis for 15 years. And when my dad died, it forced me to ask myself all these existential questions. Who am I? What kind of life am I leading? Am I living my own life or someone else's life? And as part of that journey, Mark, I realized actually that I can take control of my thoughts. I don't have to wait for other people around me to behave in a certain way in order for me to be happy. And I actually genuinely can care deeply for other people, but I can have some, like, my mum's very elderly now. She's very immobile. I help care for her with my brother. And here's the thing, Mark, 10 years ago, if mum was having a bad day and feeling really bad and she was struggling, I would let that affect me. I'd have a crap day as well. I'd feel really bad. It would affect my relationship with my wife, my kids. I have trained this and developed the skill where if mum's having a bad day, I can be compassionate, I can help her, but it doesn't ruin my day. I can still maintain my inner sense of calm and all the tips in the book. There's so many practical tips that are all free of charge. They're going to help people do the same thing. And that's why I'm so passionate about it because I used to be that guy who needed the world around me to be a certain way. And now I don't. I honestly have never felt this good, mate. Honestly, I've never felt this good.

It's so great. It's so great. I mean, so many of us without even being aware of it are at the effect of our lives instead of the cause of our lives. And it's just automatic. It's sort of how we're programmed. And in a way, we do have the power to change that. It's not easy. We need to change it. And I often say to my friends, you know, if you were to say to your friends what you say to yourself in your head, you wouldn't have any friends. If you don't say to your partner, your wife, what you think to yourself about yourself in your head, you wouldn't be with a partner.

Yeah.

So how do you. So really the question is, how do we deal with that inner asshole? and how do we get rid of that in our? Now, I, I've struggled a long time to deal with that, and I, and I worked really hard at it, and I, I think I've mostly overcome, or at least put that little guy in a corner against the wall, you know, with a time out, because it, it rules our lives. And, and so it's one of those habits that we're often unaware of. And I, I did an exercise about a year ago that really helped me, which was to literally write down what I call my inner dialogue every day, my lower self. What was I saying to myself? What was I thinking about my life? Where was I undermining my own success and happiness? Where was I having a pity party? Where was I feeling hopeless? Where were the moments in my head that were taking me out of being happy and fulfilled? And then how would I talk back to those and fix it so that I actually was speaking to those parts from my higher self. And that was a very powerful, insightful thing because it's kind of embarrassing to write it down.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, but writing it.

Down brings it out of the darkness into the light.

Right.

So how can people do this? Well, that's the first step. The first step is awareness. You have to be aware that you're doing this, you know, and I think, you know, right at the start of this. this sort of section where we're talking about our inner voice again. Right. There's a, there's chapter three. The book is called treat yourself with respect. It's all about the inner voice, what it does and how you can change it. A lot of people don't realize when they call themselves a loser or when they beat themselves up in their mind, that has a real physiological impact on the body.

Totally.

Right. So Professor Kristen Neff, who I spoke to, I think you, maybe you spoke to on your show as well. I spoke to her a couple of years ago. She's one of the world's leading in this area. She's been researching self-compassion for maybe 20 years now. And she shared with me on my podcast, she said, Rangan, when you talk negatively to yourself in your head, you literally activate your body's stress response. You raise levels of the hormone cortisol. I was like, that's incredible. We think it's neutral. We think we can eat well, move our bodies, sleep nicely, and still talk to ourselves negatively in our heads without an impact. And we can't, right? So it creates tension and stress. And if we bring it back to the core happiness tool for a moment, what do you do? You actually weaken all three legs of the core happiness tool when you talk down to yourself. You don't feel in control. In fact, you feel out of control. You don't feel content. And you're certainly not acting in alignment with who you are because no one really wants to be the kind of person who calls himself an idiot or a loser, right? So it has really toxic effects. So step one is awareness. Then there's all kinds of exercises people can do to try and help them with this, right? You know, some people find this really hard. So if I was to say to the listeners, Mark, to write down now five things that they like about themselves, a lot of people will really struggle with that. They'll kind of move away. They'll find it really uncomfortable. But if you're moving away from that, that is a very good sign that this is something you need to be out, that you will get a lot of benefit from working on. So, you know, there are all kinds of exercise where you could write yourself a letter. How would your friend write you a letter? What are the qualities they would say you have? You know, and let me tell you about this patient, Mark, just because I just came to mind, right? I think I wrote about her in the book, this 48 year old lady I saw a few years ago. and she came in to see me. She'd been to lots of other doctors prior to coming to see me. She had abdominal pain, bloating, and bilateral upper arm pain. She was really, really struggling. She'd read loads of blogs online. She had really changed her lifestyle. She was eating well, she was moving regularly, and she came to see me and I noticed the way she would talk to herself. I noticed herself talking. I thought, wow, what's going on here? And as I got to know her and I was asking her questions, it became very clear that she ended up, she said to me, Dr. Chassy, I always end up in relationships with older men. They're usually married and they always treat me really badly. This is a pattern in her life, right? And I was thinking, okay, all of these symptoms, she's changed her lifestyle. She's not getting better. What's going on here? What are we missing? And yes, I did other tests, but The crux of this story is I felt her inner voice and the way she was talking to herself was one of the problems here. And as I started to get to know her better, it was very clear, right? She basically said to me in one consultation, when she was a kid, she perceived her older sister to have got more attention than her. Right. And that was it. She basically had learned to take less attention. She didn't feel she was worthy of proper attention and people treating her well because of her childhood conditioning. And I was saying that conditioning may well have served you as a child to get you through, but it's no longer serving you. And I'm sure this is contributing to the way you're talking to yourself, the way you feel about yourself and the fact that you're ending up in these kind of toxic relationships. I recommended she see a therapist. She didn't want to, right? She didn't want to, she didn't have a trust. She, for whatever reason, so I went through some of these self-compassion exercises with her. And Mark, honestly, within months, she was starting to feel better. Six months later, right? Six months later, she ended up getting into a relationship with a guy of her age who treated her really well. And three months after that, all her symptoms had gone, right? Completely gone. And they've not come back since. And again, this is a missing link in health. Our emotions, the way we talk to ourself, it's another pillar that people need to work on. So, you know, self-compassion, there's many ways you can do it. I mentioned a couple. There's also something called the mirror exercise that I write about in the book, which is, can you look in the mirror and stare at yourself with a compassionate gaze? and many people can't, Mark.

Right?

You look and you'll want to look away. You can't look at yourself lovingly, tenderly, like you might do your partner or your child. And again, you can train yourself to do this. There's lots of guidance in the book that are going to help people do this. But again, you know, you and me both, Mark, are, are interested in holistic Health. What are all the various factors that play into the health and happiness of the person in front of us? And that inner voice is absolutely key.

It's so important and I think that's the hardest thing to master. But it can be done. It's like- Can be done. I remember when I was 50, I couldn't do 10 push-ups. And now, I can do almost 100 without stopping. And I'm more than 10 years older.

Sorry, Mike, I just can't change. We can change. And another motivator might be for people, as it was for me, if you don't change this, not only will it affect you, what do you think your children are going to pick up?

Right?

This is so common. We, we, we have this negative. Oh, you're such a loser. I can't believe you did that. Oh, man, you should know better. You know, if your kids are watching you do that over and over again, what do you think they're going to pick up? And I tell you, Mark, a really beautiful thing happened maybe about a year ago now when I talk about all these concepts in the book I talk about with my kids, you know, my son's 12 at the moment, my daughter's nine. I say they help me write these books because as I'm writing them, I talk about them over breakfast with them and they go, oh, Daddy, have you thought about this? I'm like, no, I haven't. That's a really good suggestion. And we talk about this inner voice, about always being kind to ourselves, always talking to ourselves as well as we would, you know, our friend or, you know, our partner or whatever. And I'm pretty good with it now. I I really wasn't. You know, I share a lot of my own life in the book. It's the most personal book I've written. I talk about how you know, what I would honestly say to myself if I was ever losing a game of pool at university, I would be vicious to myself. I'd go to the toilet, I'd slap myself on the face to come out and motivate myself to win. You know, it was pretty toxic. And I outlined in the book where it all came from for me. But I've got over that. I've done these exercises. I've moved through. Well, usually I'm pretty good, but about a year ago, I was playing snooker with my son, and I was pretty tired. And I missed a shot. And I didn't do what I used to do, Mark, but I said something like, I can't remember, it was something very relatively trivial, like, oh, that was a silly shot, you know. Oh, you could have done better with that. Something trivial. My son, who was only, I think, 11 or 10 at the time, he said, Daddy, don't talk to yourself like that. That's not very kind, is it? And I've got to say, Mark, I was really pleased because I thought, number one, he's helping me. catch myself, I go, yeah, that's a good point, thank you. And then the second thing was, you know, I was thinking, hopefully I'm teaching my kids at a young age that actually the way you taught yourself matters. So I really relish that. And again, I think that's an important piece because sometimes we don't want to change for ourselves or we haven't got the motivation to. I'm like, if you don't want to change for yourself, maybe change for your kids because actually if you've got a negative inner voice and they hear you, say that out loud a lot of the time, guess what they're going to pick up.

Yeah, it's so true. I mean, we, we model for our kids, but, you know, I remind me of a quote from my Ram Dass who said, you know, we should practice non-judgmental and that's the key. Loving also key self-awareness so non-judgmental loving self-awareness which means we're all going to have moments where our minds do things that we don't want them to do. But we actually have the potential to just take a pause and step outside of ourselves and actually use our higher self to kind of navigate that time and space. It's not easy, but it is one of the least talked about things when it comes to health, which is how do we master our minds? And I've spent decades working on it. It's not easy, trust me. And thankfully, there are a lot of ways that are now emerging for people to actually start to access that. And I've written a lot about how do we fix our brain so we can start to have a healthy mind. But, you know, once you sort of, for example, let's say you, you know, you're sick and you have some horrible illness, you get rid of the illness, then you, then you need to kind of get your best self back in shape. You know, when I, I was sick five years ago or six years ago with mold and I lost 30 pounds and I had autoimmune disease and colitis and I was basically a skeleton with no muscles and weak and couldn't do anything. once I got rid of the problems, I had to literally work to build myself back up. And I think this is what we need to think about with our minds. We also need to think about how do we train our minds in a way that creates happiness. And this is what your book, Happy Mind, Happy Life, the new science of mental well-being does so well. It really provides us with very practical, very specific strategies, tools, insights to actually help us get a little bit happier.

Yeah.

I mean, thanks, Mark. I mean, I, I've got to say, you know, I've not written as many books as you yet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're younger. But I'm younger. I'm younger.

And I got 20 years on you, I think.

This is, this is the fifth one I've written, and I've got to say, for me, it's without question the best book I've written to date, and it's, I, I'm proud of my previous four, for sure. They're still helping lots of people around the world, but this one I really feel is. For me, it's certainly a bit special. I've been, you know, I've opened up in a way, Mark, I've never opened up before. I've shared insecurities about my life, things that I've struggled with, things in my childhood that happened that made me think a certain way and think that I needed to be successful to be loved. You know, I honestly took on the idea as a kid, Mark, that I was only loved if I was top of the class or I got good grades. Like, honestly, you know, and I didn't blame my parents. My parents were amazing. They had a lot of struggle. They were immigrants from India to the UK. They had a lot of struggle and they didn't want me and my brother to have the same struggle. So they wanted me to excel at school. So if I came back home with 19 out of 20, they were like, why didn't you get 20? If I got 99%, it's like, well, why didn't you get 100%? What did you get wrong? Now, they did it because they wanted the best for me. The problem is when I was a kid, Mark, I took on the idea that actually I'm only enough. I'm only loved if I've got top marks and I'm top dog. I can tell you I've lived much of my life like that. It's a very lonely place to be. You have all kinds of compensatory behaviors and habits on the back of that. And as I've kind of healed that part within me, as I now know that I am enough in who I am, I like the person I look in the mirror. I see in the mirror now in a way that I probably didn't for much of my life. and that's why it's really interesting, you know, where I'm talking to you, what, two months after this book has come out in the UK, right? And I'll tell you, you know, a couple of things on that, and I'd love to see your perspective on this. When you did that happiness exercise before about the three things that you could do this week that would make you happy and the three things you want on your deathbed, not nothing there was writing New York Times best sellers, right?

No, definitely not.

No, but even though you've written, what, 10 plus or however many, and, you know, I'm sure you're.

17 now.

Right? Incredible. So I think that's really interesting, right? Because a lot of people will look to someone like you or me and go, oh, you're really successful. I want what you've got. But actually, we all kind of want the same things at their core. And this is the first bookmark, right? It's really interesting. One of my friends phoned me the week before it came out and said, Hey, look, you must be really excited. You think you hope he's going to do really well. And I said, you, know what? Honestly, I really feel I'm at that stage in my life now because of all the tools in the book that I've been practicing for a few years. I said, look, I know this is a great book. Like I said that with no arrogance, I know this book will help anyone who reads it. But whether this book does well or not is no reflection of who I am. If no one buys the book, if it doesn't sell any copies, and it tanks, I'm still a great person. I'm still the great husband. I'm still the great dad. It has no effect on my self-worth. And I genuinely, Mark, felt I'd got to that place. And the irony is, the irony, Mark, and this is, I guess, spiritual and how you want to look at it, the irony is this book has been the most successful out of any of the books that I've written. They've all done well. This one is just blowing up in the UK. And I also remember when I got the call from my publisher, right, the week after the book came out, and my, my publisher sent me a text, said, hey, can you, can you give us a call? And I was like, this is, this is weird. I never get a text like this. And I phoned it. She said, wrong. I just want to share with you. We just found out you're going to be number one on the Sunday Times paperback list this weekend. Huge. Congratulations.

Yeah.

And I gotta tell you, Mark, the.

Wrong end of five years ago would have jumped through the roof, right?

Yeah.

I didn't. Honestly, I'm not exactly. I didn't. I've been there. I know exactly what you're talking about. It was quiet contentment. It was like, okay, great. Thanks for letting me know. My daughter still needed her sports kit washing for the next day. My wife was out, I still need to get the kids their dinner. Genuinely, and I think I needed to get to this point because so much of my self-worth in the past has been around external validation. It felt really good to, in that moment of high level of success, I didn't feel much. I don't want people to misinterpret that saying I'm not proud or I didn't feel content. Yeah, I did. But it didn't artificially elevate my ego in a way that it might have done 10, 15 years ago. But when you get to this sort of point, you feel more content and the praise doesn't go to your head, but the criticism doesn't bring you down either. You're just a lot more equal than, you know, I just thought very hopefully useful for that to share for people because it is possible to get on the other side of this stuff.

That's a beautiful story. You know, one of the things I think is important talk about people might be thinking about is, well, that all sounds good, positive mindset, but isn't that a little bit just sort of not honest and integrity? I mean, bad stuff does happen. And you talk in the book about this concept of toxic positivity and how we sort of, you know, really often don't allow for the, the deeper things that are part of life, which is grief and loss and How do we integrate all those things into this model of happiness?

Yeah, I think it's a great question. And again, this comes down to that alignment leg of the core happiness store, that first leg. So this approach is not about being positive all the time. It really isn't. In fact, you can be sad and still be working on your core happiness. Let me explain. Let's say you mentioned grief. Let's say someone close to you has died recently or maybe longer, maybe not so recently. And you're really struggling with that. If you put on a brave face and don't acknowledge to yourself how you're really feeling, say, yeah, I'm fine, you know, life goes on, I've moved on, things are okay. What if you say that and try and convince yourself? I think that can be problematic because actually you're not living in alignment, right? the person who you are inside at that moment is you feel sad, you miss someone, but you're trying to act in a way that's not in accordance with that. Whereas if you're lucky enough to have someone like a friend, a close friend, or a community or a colleague who you can really open up to and say, Hey, look, you know, I know it was 10 months ago, but I'm really struggling. Like, I just want to open a bottle of wine and drown my sorrows. I really miss that person. You know, I want to cry, you know, I see people around me getting over things and moving on, but I can't do that yet. If you are truly honest with how you're feeling and you have a safe place to actually share that, you are working on that alignment leg of the core happiness tool. You are actually strengthening your happiness, even though it sounds counterintuitive. You're certainly strengthening your core happiness because you're living in alignment.

Right?

So that's one way that people can think about this. There's also a chapter in the book, chapter eight called have Massless Conversations. and have what? Have maskless conversations. So these are conversations where you can literally take off these figurative masks and actually be yourself. You know, you're not trying to impress anyone, but you can actually share how you feel without fear of judgment or criticism. And typically, this is done with our close friends or maybe our family. Or maybe, you know, it's going to be different for everyone. But those conversations are so powerful, Mark. They're so, so powerful. Because when we truly open up, we get to know ourselves better. You know, often we, we're so good at disguising who we are to the world around us. We end up disguising ourselves to ourself. And so having masterless conversations, having time regularly where you can open up. You mentioned Mark before, what do you do once a week, two hours with these men friends, these male friends of yours? I imagine, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, I imagine these are maskless conversations. I imagine you guys share- For sure.

For sure.

That you may not share with your patients or you may not share on Instagram, but you share it with these guys, right?

For sure.

And what does that do for you?

It just makes me feel so deeply seen, known, and at peace and understood, which is all we really humans want, is to have somebody know us and see us and understand us for who we really are, not judge us and just love us for it.

Yeah.

And again, as you're doing that, you'll be working on all three of those legs of the core happiness door. You'll be feeling more aligned afterwards because you'll know yourself better afterwards. So it's easier to act in accordance with who you really are through those conversations. You'll feel more content afterwards because often when we hide parts of ourselves, because we're scared, we're ashamed of what people might think, we don't feel content, we don't feel in control, And, you know, Mark, it's interesting just to, you know, vulnerability opening up, being able to share. You know, the truth is, I couldn't five years ago have written this book. I couldn't have shared those insecurities. I would have been scared of judgment. I would have been scared of what people think. What would they say about me? I'm a medical doctor. I can't say that. But as I've gone through this process, I've gone, no, we're all imperfect humans. doing the best we can. We've all got insecurities, we've all got these things inside us. And I think it's powerful when we open up. It's interesting, Mark, you've met my wife several times, right?

Yeah.

She's very helpful with my book. She never reads them until the very final stages. She won't, even if I'm begging her to, said, Please, can you read this chapter and see if it makes sense? She'll be like, no, I'm going to read it at the end. And she always reads it at the end. and she gives really, really good feedback and makes a few final changes before it goes off to print. And this time, Mark, when she was getting it, this is August, I think she called me, said, hey, wrong. And listen, are you sure you want someone to send the book? I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, look, some of this is really personal, like, about your life and things you've struggled with. Are you sure? And I said, yeah, you know what? I feel ready. I'm, I'm happy. I've got nothing to hide, actually. I feel lighter sharing this stuff. And the book's been out for two months in the UK, and people are resonating so much, Mark, because everyone at their core, we're the same. We've got insecurities, we've got personal perceived failings, the things we struggle about. And particularly now with social media, we see, you know, perfectionist presentation. We think everyone's got what we don't. And I think when people in the public eye share, I think it's very powerful because people go, oh, wow. I thought that guy was really successful, but he struggles with the same stuff that I struggle with. If you love that last video, you're.

Gonna love the next one. Check it out here. If you're standing on a tack, it takes a lot of aspirin to make it feel better. You got to get rid of the tack, whether it's mercury or whatever it is. And the second rule is, if you're standing on two tacks, taking one of them out is not going to make you 50 better. You have to find all the tacks. So it turns out I had.