Speaker 1: Or behaviors either come from the energy of love or
Speaker 1: the energy of fear. The more powerful question is not
Speaker 1: which expert should I trust? It's why do I no
Speaker 1: longer trust myself? A UK based physician, over a million
Speaker 1: people listen to his podcast every week.
Speaker 2: Doctor Rung and Chatterjay, you say that when you went
Speaker 2: to medical school, fifty percent of what you were learning
Speaker 2: was going to be wrong at some point.
Speaker 1: We just don't know which fifty percent.
Speaker 2: What would you say is the number one advice for
Speaker 2: someone who says I want to break a bad habit,
Speaker 2: it just can't happen.
Speaker 1: The number one health and wellness podcast.
Speaker 2: Jay said, Jay Sheidy, Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose.
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that you come back every week to
Speaker 2: become a happier, healthier and more healed. Today's guests is
Speaker 2: one of your favorites. Doctor Rung and Strategy a UK
Speaker 2: based physician, an author, wellness expert and podcast host known
Speaker 2: for empowering people to take control of their health through
Speaker 2: simple lifestyle changes to rethink it. His sixth and latest book,
Speaker 2: Make Change That Last, offers a personalized approach to simple
Speaker 2: nine strategies for lasting change in daily life to unlock
Speaker 2: long lasting health and happiness. This I truly believe is
Speaker 2: Rongan's best book yet, and that's saying a lot. He's
Speaker 2: had some incredible books out of the last few years.
Speaker 2: Go and grab your copy right now. You won't regret
Speaker 2: it and make these nine strategies a part of your
Speaker 2: daily life. Welcome to On Purpose, Doctor Rungan, chat with
Speaker 2: you Rung And it's great to have you.
Speaker 1: Back, Jay. I love coming on your show. You're such
Speaker 1: a wonderful host, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Speaker 2: No, it's so great to have you here. Always wrong, Like,
Speaker 2: I really enjoy our conversations. I enjoy our interactions offline
Speaker 2: as much as I do online. And I remember when
Speaker 2: you were talking about this book with me, when you
Speaker 2: were first I think, putting it together, and there was
Speaker 2: this excitement and then that you had in this look
Speaker 2: in your eye where it was like this was the
Speaker 2: first time it was like a medical doctor was writing
Speaker 2: somewhat of a philosophical spiritual book. Yeah, but with a
Speaker 2: scientific lens. And I think it's come together brilliantly. So
Speaker 2: congrats on trying to mesh those things together. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thanks, It's the book that my heart wanted to write.
Speaker 1: I would say, more than anything I've ever done before,
Speaker 1: this has come out to me. It had to come
Speaker 1: out of me. And I'm in that funny position, Jay,
Speaker 1: where I feel that I've already had the success through
Speaker 1: writing the book. Yes, I hope it lends with people,
Speaker 1: but even if it doesn't, like I've won by writing it,
Speaker 1: and it's been a really authentic process. And frankly, it's
Speaker 1: about something I'm super passionate about, which is helping people
Speaker 1: make change that last. I think the title says it all.
Speaker 1: We can all make change, but often it's only for
Speaker 1: a few weeks or a few months. How many people
Speaker 1: can make change that truly lasts, How many people can
Speaker 1: truly transform their lives for good? It's not as many
Speaker 1: as we would like. And this book is my attempt
Speaker 1: to help people solve that problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's brilliant, I mean, talking about change. I want
Speaker 2: to go back to something you say in the book.
Speaker 2: So you say that when you went to medical school,
Speaker 2: fifty percent of what you were learning was going to
Speaker 2: be wrong at some point, you just didn't know which
Speaker 2: fifty percent, And so I wanted to ask you, what's
Speaker 2: something that you learned at medical school that today you
Speaker 2: believe to be untrue and you've discovered new truths about well.
Speaker 1: We were actually taught that. It was a professor at
Speaker 1: Adamram Medical School. He said to us. I can remember
Speaker 1: being in the anatomy lecture theater and he said, guys,
Speaker 1: fifty percent of what you learn is going to turn
Speaker 1: out to be wrong. We just don't know which fifty percent.
Speaker 1: And I think that has huge relevance for all of us. Actually,
Speaker 1: and I come to that shortly. But in terms of
Speaker 1: one thing that I learned that I now believe not
Speaker 1: to be true, I'd almost flip it the other way,
Speaker 1: in the sense that I was never taught how much
Speaker 1: our lifestyle can impact our health. I was taught that actually,
Speaker 1: people come in to see you and they have a
Speaker 1: set of problems. We need to hear what those problems are,
Speaker 1: collect them, give them a label, and then give them
Speaker 1: a pharmacuis good treatment. Whereas the more I practice medicine,
Speaker 1: and I've been a dotsor for twenty three years now,
Speaker 1: I realize, Wow, that only helps us for a small
Speaker 1: fraction of people. And if you flip it, it's like, no,
Speaker 1: our lifestyles, the way we eat the way we move,
Speaker 1: the way we sleep, but also the way that we
Speaker 1: think and the way we approach adversity. Those things all
Speaker 1: combined together to create our health. And Jane, I think
Speaker 1: you'll resonate with this. One of the things I've realized
Speaker 1: over the past couple of years of really reflecting on
Speaker 1: the way we're trained in Western medicine. And this is
Speaker 1: not me saying I'm anti Western medicine. I think Western
Speaker 1: medicine is exceptionally good at many things, but unfortunately for
Speaker 1: most of the things we now see, the chronic lifestyle
Speaker 1: driven illness, it's just not as helpful. Right, and fundamentally,
Speaker 1: Western medicine teaches us that things go wrong in the body. Right,
Speaker 1: we get taught to diagnose disease and treat disease. We
Speaker 1: don't get taught how to create health. How do you
Speaker 1: create vitality? What are the factors in someone's life that
Speaker 1: allows them to live their best life? And you know,
Speaker 1: with our culture, with our Indian backgrounds, are you eating
Speaker 1: medicine for many years has been talking about this. Traditional
Speaker 1: Chinese medicine has been talking about this. So for me,
Speaker 1: it's not a battle of Eastern medicine versus Western medicine,
Speaker 1: it's what is the best of Western, what is the
Speaker 1: best of Eastern? How do we blend them together? And
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that I've done that throughout my
Speaker 1: career and hopefully in this book give people a real
Speaker 1: practical toolkit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that and that definitely resonates. And I wanted one
Speaker 2: thing that caught my eye when I was reading the book.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you, why have you never told
Speaker 2: a patient to quit smoking, to just quit smoking? Why
Speaker 2: have you never said that.
Speaker 1: I've never told a patient that they must give up smoking,
Speaker 1: Because I don't think that's my role. And I think
Speaker 1: this is where we go wrong in medicine and frankly
Speaker 1: in any relationship, because what is the relationship I have
Speaker 1: in my patient? Says a doctor patient relationship? But this
Speaker 1: principle kind of works parent, child, husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend.
Speaker 1: These are just human relationships. Nobody wants to be told
Speaker 1: what to do by somebody else. At some point, if
Speaker 1: you're going to make transformative change, it's got to come
Speaker 1: from within. So one of the things that I've always
Speaker 1: rebelled against in my career as a doctor is this
Speaker 1: rather paternalistic approach that we get taught in medical school
Speaker 1: that doctor knows best. Patient comes in, you tell me
Speaker 1: what the issue is. Then I'll tell you what's wrong
Speaker 1: with you and what you need to do. Some people
Speaker 1: may be able to make that approach work. I couldn't,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you why I couldn't. If a patient
Speaker 1: comes in and asks for my opinion, that's very important.
Speaker 1: One thing I've tried to change in my life over
Speaker 1: the past few years is never to give unsolicited advice. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if the patient's in in front of me and says,
Speaker 1: dotr chatity, listen, I'm not feeling good. What impact is
Speaker 1: smoking having on my health? I feel that my role
Speaker 1: as a fellow human being is to explain to them
Speaker 1: what impact I think smoking is having on their health. Now,
Speaker 1: if at the end of that conversation, if I'm confident
Speaker 1: that they've understood me and that they retained the information,
Speaker 1: and they say, hey, dot strategy, I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 1: But I get so much enjoyment out of smoking that
Speaker 1: I'm prepared to put it with the consequences. I don't
Speaker 1: feel that's my job to change their minds. I feel
Speaker 1: it's a deep respect that I have for my patients.
Speaker 1: If they understand it, I want to do it. I'm
Speaker 1: okay with that. And I'll tell you, Jay, what I've
Speaker 1: learned over the years is that by taking that approach,
Speaker 1: I feel I've had really good compliance with my patients,
Speaker 1: like really good compliance. Like a lot of doctors will say.
Speaker 1: I have this course called Prescribing Life, some medisan that
Speaker 1: I created with the Royal College of GPS with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, with a colleague, and we have trained
Speaker 1: thousands of healthcare professionals around the world. And the principles
Speaker 1: that I talk about in this book and my previous books,
Speaker 1: and one of the things people would say to me
Speaker 1: doctors would say, hey, actually listen, I get all this,
Speaker 1: but patients don't listen to what we tell them. And
Speaker 1: even the way that they phrase that is really interesting
Speaker 1: to me. I don't tell my patients what to do.
Speaker 1: It's not my role. I want to connect with my patients.
Speaker 1: I want to then educate and empower them, but I
Speaker 1: always want to connect first. So going back to your
Speaker 1: initial question, why do I Why have I never told
Speaker 1: a patient that they must give up spoking? It's my
Speaker 1: role to do that. And here's what happens when you
Speaker 1: treat people like an equal. You don't look down at them,
Speaker 1: you don't think that you know better than them. What
Speaker 1: will often happen. They may say I want to smoke, right,
Speaker 1: I understand, but I enjoy this. They'll come back two
Speaker 1: months later they'll be like, hey, dot's chash. You know
Speaker 1: I said I wanted to keep smoking because I enjoy
Speaker 1: it so much. Actually, I've been thinking, can you help
Speaker 1: me start to change that? But often, if you say
Speaker 1: you must give up smoking, it's going to give you cancer,
Speaker 1: it's going to increase your risk of heart attacks. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that works in the long term. You
Speaker 1: make short term change. But as for the title of
Speaker 1: this book, you don't make change that lasts. And that principle, frankly,
Speaker 1: as I say, applies far beyond the dots of patient relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I love hearing that because I think
Speaker 2: there's such a humanity to it. And also a big
Speaker 2: part of making change that lasts is someone making change
Speaker 2: for themselves exactly. They really believe that this change will
Speaker 2: help them be a better parent, a better professional, a
Speaker 2: better person, a better functioning human. And if I feel
Speaker 2: pressured into making change, or if I feel pushed into
Speaker 2: making change, then chances are I'm going to fall right
Speaker 2: back into that habit. So if someone does come up
Speaker 2: to you and say, doctor, chatatejy, how do I break
Speaker 2: a bad habit? What would you say? Is the number
Speaker 2: one advice for someone who says I want to break
Speaker 2: a bad habit? It just can't happen. It's just never happened.
Speaker 1: There's many ways of tackling bad habits, but if you're
Speaker 1: asking me for the number one tip, it would be
Speaker 1: related to our environments. Right, So we don't realize how
Speaker 1: much our environment influences our behavior. I feel that being
Speaker 1: here in La I've been here for a week now.
Speaker 1: The people I've been hanging out with over the past
Speaker 1: week are really into health and wellness. Right, So everyone
Speaker 1: around me who I'm in for acting with, wants to
Speaker 1: eat well, they want to go to bed early, they
Speaker 1: want to look after themselves. So even though I'm away
Speaker 1: from home, when I'm in this exciting city, I naturally respond. Right.
Speaker 1: It's been really telling for me, and it really gave
Speaker 1: me an insight as to that if you live in
Speaker 1: an environment where your family, where your friends, where the
Speaker 1: things you have in your house are encouraging, unhelpful, behaviors.
Speaker 1: You're going to be struggling, right, You're going to be
Speaker 1: constantly fighting your environment. So what does that mean for
Speaker 1: an individual who's trying to say to me, I want
Speaker 1: to eat less sugar, for example, which is very common
Speaker 1: right especially at New Year. I have said to my
Speaker 1: patients for years, if you don't want to eat it,
Speaker 1: don't bring it into your house. Don't exercise willpower in
Speaker 1: your house, because you have to exercise it as soon
Speaker 1: as you walk out the front door. Now, that's been very,
Speaker 1: very helpful for so many of my patients, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of what I do in my own life. Even
Speaker 1: though I really understand my internal triggers these days, which
Speaker 1: I think is really important. I just don't make life
Speaker 1: more difficult for myself than I need to. That I
Speaker 1: won't bring into my house the potato chips, the chocolates,
Speaker 1: the biscuits, whatever it might be, because I know I'm
Speaker 1: human just like everyone else. At some point, I'll come
Speaker 1: back stressed and tired, and I want to open the
Speaker 1: cupboard and see what's there? Nothing wrong with that. If
Speaker 1: people are doing that, I don't want them to feel
Speaker 1: guilt or shame, but I think they need to understand
Speaker 1: that if you have it there, it's going to be
Speaker 1: harder for you. Now, related to that example, I have
Speaker 1: an exercise, Joe, that I'd love to share with your audience,
Speaker 1: if that's okay.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: As a doctor. Many people will say, dots Chashi, I
Speaker 1: know that excess sugar is not helping me, but I
Speaker 1: can't stop. Right. I'm really good in the day, but
Speaker 1: at nine pm, do you do you recognize this? Jay?
Speaker 1: I used to. I worked really hard at this. Yes,
Speaker 1: I It's really common. Right, That's why people have been
Speaker 1: you know, in adverts Icma is good during the day,
Speaker 1: but at I their kids are in bed, or they're
Speaker 1: sitting on the sofa, there's a box set on. I
Speaker 1: really feel like ice cream. So I have this exercise
Speaker 1: that I created for my patients so that it has
Speaker 1: been so helpful that I've used with myself. Called the
Speaker 1: three f's. Okay. The three f's are feel, feed, and find. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if someone's listening Jay, and they have this issue,
Speaker 1: which I suspect will be quite a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I would say, Okay, you're sitting on your sofa, you're
Speaker 1: craving the ice cream. Okay, just take a pause, just
Speaker 1: for a second. Take a pause and ask yourself the
Speaker 1: first F feel what are my feeling? Is it physical
Speaker 1: hunger or is it emotional hunger? Okay, ah, well you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm actually not basically hungry. I had a
Speaker 1: huge meal one hour ago. Oh, I feel a bit stressed,
Speaker 1: I feel a bit lonely, whatever it might be. Then
Speaker 1: go ahead and have it. Okay. I just want you
Speaker 1: to start building in some self awareness, which is the
Speaker 1: missing piece in behavior change with people. If you ask
Speaker 1: me the big thing that we're missing. The next time
Speaker 1: you're on the sofa and you're you can do this
Speaker 1: all in one go if you want, but you know
Speaker 1: some people find it difficult. So the next time you're
Speaker 1: on the sofa, I would say, do the first F again,
Speaker 1: what am I feeling? Then go to the second F,
Speaker 1: which is feed. How does food feed that feeling? Ah? Oh,
Speaker 1: I was feeling stressed. When I have I scream, at
Speaker 1: least in the short term, I feel less stressed. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: Now you're developing a bit of an understanding as to
Speaker 1: why I'm engaging with this behavior. Okay, great, If you
Speaker 1: want to eat it, go ahead and eat it with
Speaker 1: no gilt and no shame, Go and enjoy it, and
Speaker 1: then the next time go through this f's what am
Speaker 1: I feeling? How does food feed the feeling? Which is
Speaker 1: the second F? And then the third F is fine?
Speaker 1: Now that I know what the feeling is, Now that
Speaker 1: I know how food feeds that feeling, can I find
Speaker 1: an alternative behavior to feed that feeling? So it could be, Oh,
Speaker 1: I feel stressed, That's why I go to sugar. What
Speaker 1: else could I do instead of sugar? Oh? I really
Speaker 1: like yoga. Maybe I'll go on YouTube and do a
Speaker 1: term minute yoga sequence. Maybe you feel lonely. You've been
Speaker 1: on zoom calls all day, you haven't seen your friends
Speaker 1: or your partner, and it's a bit of a treat
Speaker 1: to yourself in the evening. That's very common. You know,
Speaker 1: people aren't hungry, but they just it's in a little
Speaker 1: treat to themselves. Okay, how else could you nourish yourself? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: maybe I could run myself a bath and have a
Speaker 1: ten to fifty minute bath to myself. Maybe I'm feeling lonely,
Speaker 1: I could phone a friend or a parent or whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. Every single behavior we engage with serves
Speaker 1: a role in our life. You'll only change your behavior
Speaker 1: in the long term if you understand the role it's playing.
Speaker 1: So that is it's a very simple exercise. I've described
Speaker 1: it through the lens of shit, okay, but the truth
Speaker 1: is you can apply that to anything. You can apply
Speaker 1: that to alcohol, three hours, doom, scrolling on Instagram, online pornography,
Speaker 1: online shopping, whatever you want. It's a simple exercise, which
Speaker 1: are my favorite kinds of exercises that can be very
Speaker 1: very powerful once you start engaging with it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's spot on.
Speaker 2: I think if you think about it, we're constantly chasing
Speaker 2: a feeling, an emotional fix, and we usually turn to physical,
Speaker 2: tangible things that we think are going to make us
Speaker 2: feel that way. Right, as you said, like, really, what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do is lower stress, and I've just
Speaker 2: created the mechanism to think, if I want to lower stress,
Speaker 2: I need to indulge in ice cream. And that's the
Speaker 2: connection we've made. Whereas, like you're saying, there's so many
Speaker 2: other ways and actually could be a natural source of sugar.
Speaker 2: It could be a low sugar product if that's what
Speaker 2: you're after. It could be as you said, a yoga session,
Speaker 2: breath work, whatever, it may be.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: What I find though, is that when you first try
Speaker 2: and make that change, it literally feels like you're fighting
Speaker 2: against yourself, right. It almost feels like there's this internal battle.
Speaker 2: And I'm at the point now, having worked on some
Speaker 2: of these things for a while, I'm at a point
Speaker 2: now where I believe my taste buds have actually changed exactly.
Speaker 2: The feeling and the desire is evolved, and I'm able
Speaker 2: to deal with it in a healthier way.
Speaker 1: But there's that middle part where you feel like you're
Speaker 1: just like, come on, I've got to give in.
Speaker 2: I've got to give in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you said two key words there for me, and
Speaker 1: these are the two missing words I think in behavior change,
Speaker 1: internal struggle. This is really what I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: across to people. Every single behavior is downstream, usually from
Speaker 1: something inside you. And we're living in a world where
Speaker 1: we want to consume more and more information, get more
Speaker 1: and more knowledge, which is helpful up to a point.
Speaker 1: Now I'll come back to that point. So I think
Speaker 1: it's a really important one. I just want to that's
Speaker 1: what you said about it feeling difficult. Out of those
Speaker 1: three f's, the most important F is the first one.
Speaker 1: Why because it suddenly just breaks you out of your
Speaker 1: repetitive cycle. I feel stressed, I want so my scream,
Speaker 1: I go to the freezer, and before I know it,
Speaker 1: I've had half the tub. That is very, very common.
Speaker 1: You think that's who you are. It's not who you are,
Speaker 1: it's who you've become, and you can unbecome it if
Speaker 1: you start to do that first F. It is simply
Speaker 1: the knowledge that I can take a pause. There is
Speaker 1: a gap between the stimulus and the response when you
Speaker 1: are repeating your behavior's day to day, when they become habits,
Speaker 1: whether good habits or unhealthy habits, there's no gap. There's
Speaker 1: a feeling, there's a stimulus, and there's a response, usually
Speaker 1: an unhealthy response in this current climate right for many people,
Speaker 1: So that first F creates a gap. Now often say yes,
Speaker 1: not's actually but you know and now that I'm aware,
Speaker 1: so what what can I do? I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: Ninety percent of change in my experience is that first
Speaker 1: F is understanding, Oh, this is why I'm going to it. Sure,
Speaker 1: it may take a few weeks, it may take a
Speaker 1: few months to really work on that relationship and start
Speaker 1: to tweak it, because how long did it take you
Speaker 1: to develop this relationship. Maybe you've been using sugar to
Speaker 1: manage stress for twenty years. You're not going to change
Speaker 1: that in one week in January just because you wake
Speaker 1: up thinking I want to make this year the best
Speaker 1: year of my life, You're not going to It is
Speaker 1: a process of change. But what people miss Jay, for
Speaker 1: me is that that process where you learn what this
Speaker 1: behavior is doing for you. You struggle, you sometimes can't make
Speaker 1: the change that you want, other times you can. That
Speaker 1: process is where the gold is. That's when you're learning
Speaker 1: about yourself. That's you get the mastery about yourself. Oh
Speaker 1: I always when I have a row with my partner,
Speaker 1: I don't feel good, so yeah, I want sugar. Or
Speaker 1: when I'm alone or I'm traveling for work and I'm
Speaker 1: away from my wife and my kids, that's when i
Speaker 1: just want to spend three hours on Instagram because I'm
Speaker 1: looking for connection. That's where the gold lies. And for me, Jay,
Speaker 1: the most important chatter in this book is chapter one,
Speaker 1: which is called trust Yourself. And I don't think we're
Speaker 1: talking about this enough in the health and wellness space.
Speaker 1: People are getting confused. Right, you must get this on
Speaker 1: your show, like I do on my podcast, right, this
Speaker 1: idea that despite our best efforts at trying to navigate
Speaker 1: the complexity. What I often find, Jay, is people will
Speaker 1: say to me, not often, but it happens enough that
Speaker 1: I know that this is an issue. Chat You know,
Speaker 1: two months ago, you had this credential expert from Harvard's
Speaker 1: and they said this diet is really good, like a
Speaker 1: Keith to jendera is really good for mental health. And
Speaker 1: they sound really trustworthy. They've got all the credentials, and
Speaker 1: they've quoted four or five research studies to back up
Speaker 1: what they think, and I thought, okay, amazing. And then
Speaker 1: last week you spoke to another doctor, also well credentialed,
Speaker 1: who said, no, a vegan diet or a whole food
Speaker 1: plan basedite is best for mental health, and presented five
Speaker 1: studies to support what they have to say. People would
Speaker 1: contact me and say, Chatty, I'm really confused. Right, both
Speaker 1: of those experts they sound great, They've all got research
Speaker 1: to back up what they're saying. I don't know which
Speaker 1: experts to trust. And Jay, what I've realized is that's
Speaker 1: the wrong question. The more helpful question, the more powerful question,
Speaker 1: is not which experts should I trust? It's why do
Speaker 1: I no longer trust myself? Yeah? That is the magic
Speaker 1: to behavior change. You have to start tuning into the
Speaker 1: signals your body is giving you. Using that example, I
Speaker 1: would say to someone, hey, I tell you what, why
Speaker 1: do you have to choose which one's right? Maybe they're
Speaker 1: both right for certain people, but they're not right for anyone. Right,
Speaker 1: So I would say, Okay, try this expert started for
Speaker 1: four weeks, and whilst you're trying its, pay attention. Pay
Speaker 1: attention to what's going on. What's your energy like, what's
Speaker 1: your vitality, how are your relationships, how's your sleep, how's
Speaker 1: your focus, how's your concentration? Pay attention. I go, okay,
Speaker 1: I try that for four weeks. Now, let me try
Speaker 1: this other person's start for four weeks, and again, pay attention.
Speaker 1: I promise if you start paying attention, you'll very quickly
Speaker 1: find out what is the right diet for you at
Speaker 1: that moment in your life. And I feel that we're
Speaker 1: not talking about this enough. We're still we've we've got
Speaker 1: to appoint Jay where we've outsourced our own inner expertise
Speaker 1: to external experts. I'm not saying ignore external experts. Right,
Speaker 1: you have some great experts on your show each week.
Speaker 1: I have some great experts on my podcast each week.
Speaker 1: But you should listen to their advice and put it
Speaker 1: through your own filter, and then you figure out what
Speaker 1: works for you. And honestly, if you say, what is
Speaker 1: the key thing you've learned in twenty three years of
Speaker 1: seeing patients, I've seen tens of thousands of patients. I've
Speaker 1: learned many things, But I would say no one approach
Speaker 1: works for everyone. It just doesn't. And when we try
Speaker 1: and make it work for everyone, it's a problem because
Speaker 1: people feel like failures. Right. People feel, oh, I'm following
Speaker 1: the experts advice. I'm doing what they said to do.
Speaker 1: It's not working. There must be something wrong with me.
Speaker 1: They start to feel guilty, they start to feel like
Speaker 1: they're a loser, they start to have shame. Those things
Speaker 1: never lead to long term behavior change. And you know
Speaker 1: the other thing, Jay, I've learned and I love your
Speaker 1: view on this because I think it probably resonates with
Speaker 1: the way you see the world. I think we focus
Speaker 1: too much on the behavior. For me, it's the energy
Speaker 1: behind the behavior that's the most important thing. You need
Speaker 1: to go what's behind the behavior. And I've realized that
Speaker 1: in life, all behaviors either come from the energy of
Speaker 1: love or the energy of fear. If it's coming from
Speaker 1: the energy of fear, so guilt, shame, I'm not good enough,
Speaker 1: those changes will not last in the long term. I've
Speaker 1: been doing this a long time. I have seen it.
Speaker 1: It lasts for January, it lasts for a few months.
Speaker 1: It doesn't lead to long term transformation because your behaviors
Speaker 1: are in conflicts with the way that you see yourself.
Speaker 1: If it's coming from an energy of love, that I
Speaker 1: like who I am, I want to improve my life,
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be compassionate to myself, those changes.
Speaker 1: It can be the same behaviors, working out, eating well,
Speaker 1: going to bed on time, getting it whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: It can be the same behavior. But if the energy
Speaker 1: behind it is from the energy of love, that's when
Speaker 1: the changes start to become long term, and I really
Speaker 1: get I don't get frustrated. Nothing frustraights anymore. Really, if
Speaker 1: I'm completely honest, because I've been doing the inner work
Speaker 1: for many years, I just I can stay quite detached
Speaker 1: from things. I just see them for what they are.
Speaker 1: But as a doctor, I guess I believe we made
Speaker 1: behavior change so difficult, Jay, I don't even say it's
Speaker 1: hard anyone. I'll tell you why. I don't say that.
Speaker 1: I used to say, you know, I know it can
Speaker 1: feel hard. I know it's hard as a way trying
Speaker 1: to empathize with people. But if we say, if we
Speaker 1: constantly say, oh, it's difficult, Oh it's going to be hard,
Speaker 1: we're prejudging the experience for people. Sure it may feel challenging,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't always have to. And I've experienced that myself.
Speaker 1: So five years ago, Jay, I would have a very hard,
Speaker 1: very harsh, inner voice. So on January the first, I
Speaker 1: would be very much I'm going to meditate this year,
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes a day, and I do it for
Speaker 1: fourteen days and I feel like I'm rocking. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a I've got meditation down this year that I
Speaker 1: miss a day that the self taught would start. Man,
Speaker 1: you couldn't do it, You couldn't do it wrong? And
Speaker 1: could you you know you're a loser whatever. I used
Speaker 1: to have a really harsh, negative voice not that long ago,
Speaker 1: but I have completely changed it through all the things
Speaker 1: that I share in this book. Right, I've completely changed it.
Speaker 1: Back then, behavior change felt difficult because it was in
Speaker 1: conflict with how I saw myself. Now that I liked myself.
Speaker 1: Dare I say, talking to a fellow brit that I
Speaker 1: love myself? Right? Can you imagine in the UK saying
Speaker 1: that you know? I do, though not in a narcissistic way.
Speaker 1: But I like who I am. I think I'm a
Speaker 1: nice guy. I'm kind, I'm compassionate, I help people. I'm
Speaker 1: no longer competitive, as I've talked to you about on
Speaker 1: a previous episode on your show, like, I just want
Speaker 1: to raise people up when you feel like that, and
Speaker 1: everyone can feel like that if they know which leads
Speaker 1: to turn. But hate you change becomes so much easier
Speaker 1: because you're not trying to fight yourself. Does that what
Speaker 1: make sense?
Speaker 2: It makes a lot of sense. I mean two things
Speaker 2: came to mind as you were speaking. The first was
Speaker 2: you can't change something you hate. You can only change
Speaker 2: something you love, and that includes yourself. Because if you
Speaker 2: hate something, how much energy will you give it, how
Speaker 2: much focus will you give it, how much direction will
Speaker 2: you give it? Whereas when you love something, you'll be
Speaker 2: present with it, You'll be right there with it. And
Speaker 2: I feel we're trying to hate ourselves into change, And
Speaker 2: you're so right. I remember years ago as well, like
Speaker 2: having a very very harsh negative in a voice, and
Speaker 2: it did all the things you said. I would shame myself,
Speaker 2: I would guilt myself, I would judge myself, and none
Speaker 2: of that helped me change. If anything, it took longer
Speaker 2: for me to get back to where I wanted to
Speaker 2: get to, because when you fall off after fourteen days
Speaker 2: of meditation, now, when you're judging and guilting and shaming yourself,
Speaker 2: you feel like you can't do the thing unless you
Speaker 2: can be perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you go to more unhelpful behaviors. And
Speaker 1: in some ways, I've realized you you would have been
Speaker 1: better off never doing those fourteen days in the first place,
Speaker 1: because you feel like a failure. And you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Someone once asked me about, what are your non negotiables wronging.
Speaker 1: I've realized, Jaye, I no longer have any, because a
Speaker 1: non negotiable to me feels like a harsh rule. So
Speaker 1: let's use that through the lens of this meditation practice.
Speaker 1: Where I tried for fourteen days, I miss one day.
Speaker 1: I beat myself up. Now, yeah, I meditate most mornings,
Speaker 1: but not every morning, and if I miss, I'm like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure I didn't do it today. Oh I'm a better person.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit calmer when I do. And I say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I must make sure I do that tomorrow. It's a
Speaker 1: very different relationship. That energy behind the behavior is completely different.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't like you, j One. I want to
Speaker 1: get practical for people. So I have these three questions
Speaker 1: I ask myself every morning. But one of those questions
Speaker 1: I think really applies here. So you teach an audience
Speaker 1: Jay on a consistent basis about living an intentional life,
Speaker 1: a purposeful life, right, And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't realize how powerful the mornings are. We all
Speaker 1: have a morning routine, whether we think we do or not.
Speaker 1: The question is are we intentional about it? Have we
Speaker 1: thought about the consequences of how we start each day?
Speaker 1: Because somebody say, oh, they're not for me. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a bit cliche, this idea of a morning routine,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. And I'm like, no, no, you've
Speaker 1: got a routine. You just made it a thought about it.
Speaker 1: So what I've learned Shay over the years is that
Speaker 1: so many of our thoughts our feelings. Our behaviors are
Speaker 1: downstream from the content we consume. So if you wake
Speaker 1: up and the first thing you do is going on
Speaker 1: to your phone and go on the news and see
Speaker 1: the negativity that the news is telling us from all
Speaker 1: over the world. You go onto your work emails and
Speaker 1: see the backlog that you didn't complete, or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. You go into social media and get caught
Speaker 1: up in an argument or whatever it might be. Does
Speaker 1: it really surprise you that half an hour later you
Speaker 1: may be a little reactive with your kids or your partner,
Speaker 1: or you may feel a little negative about the state
Speaker 1: of the world. When you look at it like that,
Speaker 1: I think it's quite obvious if that's what you're inputting
Speaker 1: into your brain. Think about it as software. That's what
Speaker 1: you're inputting in. Of course, the outputs straight after that.
Speaker 1: For many people it's going to be negative as well.
Speaker 1: If you have a more intentional start to your day
Speaker 1: with a bit more positivity, don't I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: toxic positive. Is your fake positivity just intentionally going Whether
Speaker 1: it's gratitude. I mean, one of the questions that I
Speaker 1: ask is a gratitude question. What is one thing I
Speaker 1: deeply appreciate about my life. It helps shift your mindset
Speaker 1: and where you're going to place your attention. But where
Speaker 1: I finish my morning routine is with this what I
Speaker 1: considered to be a very powerful question, What quality would
Speaker 1: I like to showcase to the world today. It's a
Speaker 1: simple question, but it's very very powerful because it forces you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me rephrase that. I don't even like using the
Speaker 1: word force anymore. It feels a bit of an aggressive word, right,
Speaker 1: It doesn't. It feels like it's coming from the energy
Speaker 1: of fear rather than the energy of love. I have
Speaker 1: the opportunity each morning with that question to set the
Speaker 1: intention of how I wish to show up. So often
Speaker 1: it will be I wish to showcase the quality of
Speaker 1: patience today or compassion, and you write it down. I
Speaker 1: write it down in my journal and I think about it.
Speaker 1: What would it look like today to show the quality
Speaker 1: of patience or compassion? Ah? You know, if I get
Speaker 1: caught up in a a in a traffic I'm not
Speaker 1: going to stop rating people. I'm just gonna smile and
Speaker 1: be kind. If I get an email I maybe don't like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to just take a break and naturally not
Speaker 1: respond In the moment. If my wife says this to
Speaker 1: me or whatever about the dishes or whatever, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to go, hey, it's cool.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Maybe she's having a bad day and I'm just going
Speaker 1: to smile and be compassionate. It sounds too simple to work.
Speaker 1: This is transformed. It really works now just by sending
Speaker 1: the intention. It doesn't mean that you're going to be perfect.
Speaker 1: So I have a couple of questions I asked myself
Speaker 1: in the evening, which helps balance this What went well
Speaker 1: today and what can I do differently tomorrow? So what
Speaker 1: went well today could be again it's a form of gratitude.
Speaker 1: It could be that, you know what, I had a
Speaker 1: really busy day, I didn't take a lunch break, I
Speaker 1: got home late, but I still found twenty minutes to
Speaker 1: make my family a home cooked meal instead of ordering
Speaker 1: takeout or whatever. It might be. Okay, you're just going
Speaker 1: because we have a negativity bias. Instead of focusing on
Speaker 1: all the things that you didn't get done and the
Speaker 1: stress in your day and what you know, how you
Speaker 1: behaved or whatever, you're putting attention on what you did do,
Speaker 1: which I think is very powerful. But then the second
Speaker 1: part of that question, Jay, is really interesting. What can
Speaker 1: I do differently tomorrow? So it could be that you say,
Speaker 1: you know what, This morning I said I was going
Speaker 1: to be showed the world the quality of compassion. But
Speaker 1: at lunchtime or at four pm, I was really tired.
Speaker 1: I didn't like the email that my colleagues sent me,
Speaker 1: and I quickly sent an annoyed email back. Okay, no
Speaker 1: worries again. We're looking for love, not fear. So you
Speaker 1: can say, Ah, what I can do differently tomorrow is
Speaker 1: I can try harder tomorrow if that same situation arrives,
Speaker 1: I'm going to respond differently. And I tell you sure,
Speaker 1: doing this will one day may not do much. You
Speaker 1: do that for seven days or dare I say even
Speaker 1: thirty days, the way you experience the world will be
Speaker 1: completely different. You will have made this small, like one
Speaker 1: degree shift each day that in the moment doesn't feel
Speaker 1: like anything. Thirty days later, you will be like a
Speaker 1: different person. I've been doing this, sub Jay for maybe
Speaker 1: five years now, and like I was sharing with you
Speaker 1: before the mices were rolling, I've never felt this good,
Speaker 1: Like I have this deep sense of peace these days
Speaker 1: and inner calm, and I've worked at it some of
Speaker 1: the things I've shared already, many things I haven't shared
Speaker 1: that I put in this book. This is available to everyone, Jay.
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe that I have seen throughout my career
Speaker 1: people in the darkest of places, suicidal patients who through
Speaker 1: these kind of practices, have managed to completely turn their
Speaker 1: lives around. It is possible to everyone. But I think
Speaker 1: we're going about change a lot of the time in
Speaker 1: the wrong places. Right. We talk about creating healthy habits.
Speaker 1: It's important, and I've written a book about that in
Speaker 1: the past, and I know the rules of healthy habit form,
Speaker 1: you know, make it easy stick on the new behavior
Speaker 1: onto an existing habit. Those things are very, very helpful,
Speaker 1: but they still don't get to the roots. And my
Speaker 1: attempt with this book is to help people go no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there are things that you don't know that are driving
Speaker 1: you in your life. A lot of people don't realize, Jay,
Speaker 1: that their behaviors are driven by their beliefs. So if
Speaker 1: you believe that somebody out there knows what is best
Speaker 1: for you more than you, that is going to dictate
Speaker 1: your behaviors. Your belief is that someone else knows better,
Speaker 1: so you're going to be every few months looking for
Speaker 1: a new expert to follow. Every January, you're going to
Speaker 1: buy a new health book to say, oh, you need
Speaker 1: to go on a thirty day sugar details, you need
Speaker 1: to cut out alcohol, you used to cut it, ultra
Speaker 1: processed foods. These things are all well and good. But
Speaker 1: I submit to you, Jay, that many people there, I
Speaker 1: say it, most people who are listening to shows like
Speaker 1: yours or mine kind of already know that excess sugar
Speaker 1: is not helping them, or excess alcohol is not helping them.
Speaker 1: I don't think they need more external knowledge of oh
Speaker 1: alcohol will do this to your liver, or sugar will
Speaker 1: do this to people know that they need more internal knowledge.
Speaker 1: They need insights, intuition, and in my view, the way
Speaker 1: you develop that is with some intentional time each day,
Speaker 1: these questions, meditation, journaling. If you're constantly in your life,
Speaker 1: you never step out of it to reflect on it.
Speaker 1: It's not about the behavior, it's about the energy behind
Speaker 1: the behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it resonates very strongly with me. And to kind
Speaker 2: of encapsulate what you're saying, what I'm hearing, and what
Speaker 2: I've found to be true is that if you really
Speaker 2: want to make a change, it comes down to your
Speaker 2: most repeated thought, your most repeated words, and your most
Speaker 2: repeated actions. And what you find is you already have
Speaker 2: a most repeated thought, I'm not good enough, I can't
Speaker 2: do it, that life's not for me. And this goes
Speaker 2: back to your point, that's what your beliefs are. Your
Speaker 2: beliefs suggest your most repeated thoughts, and now it feels
Speaker 2: like that's who you are, and then naturally those become
Speaker 2: your words. So when someone says to you, like, oh,
Speaker 2: how's that new habit going, or you know, how's the
Speaker 2: workout going or whatever, you go, oh, you know, I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't keep up exactly, and now you keep repeating.
Speaker 2: Then everyone you meet you go, oh, yeah, I gave
Speaker 2: up after seven days. And now that's your language, and
Speaker 2: then that naturally leads on to your actions. And so
Speaker 2: what you're talking about, which I really appreciate because it
Speaker 2: is harder to talk about which is what is the root.
Speaker 2: But for all of us, anyone who's had a lasting change,
Speaker 2: it's been a root issue that's been solved always.
Speaker 1: And this is why I'm so passionate Jay about this idea.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been in this health and wellness space
Speaker 1: publicly for ten years now and for all the best
Speaker 1: benefits of this increase in information, and of course there
Speaker 1: are many like people are better educated now than ever
Speaker 1: before about health and wellness and what we can do.
Speaker 1: But we have to confronts a very uncomfortable truth, which is,
Speaker 1: despite all of this increasing information, people are getting physically
Speaker 1: and mentally more sick. So I was trying to solve
Speaker 1: this problem. I was trying to go I don't want
Speaker 1: to just write another book with more information on what
Speaker 1: you should do. I want to help people understand why
Speaker 1: they are doing it, and again talking to root causes
Speaker 1: and maybe feeding back to what you've just said. This
Speaker 1: I think is the most undertaught aspect. This is the
Speaker 1: most underappreciated aspects of health. For me, let me make
Speaker 1: it really practical for people. Many of us are trying
Speaker 1: to change our behaviors. And I know I've used sugar
Speaker 1: and alcohol a few times just because I think they're
Speaker 1: quite common and quite relatable for people. People don't understand
Speaker 1: that the way they interact with other people directly affects
Speaker 1: that behavior. So for example, you're driving to work in
Speaker 1: the morning and there's a bit of traffic and someone
Speaker 1: cuts in front of you. Okay, we've all seen it,
Speaker 1: maybe we've experienced it where we start to create all
Speaker 1: this mental noise. Oh my god, stupid driver. They shouldn't
Speaker 1: have done that. They need their eyes checked, whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. And we think that we're entitled to do that,
Speaker 1: and we are right. I'm not here to change anyone, right,
Speaker 1: You've got to change yourself. You're entitled to react like that.
Speaker 1: Just know that there's a consequence. One of the themes
Speaker 1: that underpins every chapter in this book is that emotional
Speaker 1: stress is not neutral. So we think about physical stress,
Speaker 1: but we don't think about emotional stress. So a driver
Speaker 1: cuts in front of you. There are many ways to
Speaker 1: react to that situation. If you take a disempowering narrative
Speaker 1: and create all of this anger and stress and noise
Speaker 1: in your head, you've generated emotional stress. You will need
Speaker 1: to neut that emotional stress in some way or another. Now,
Speaker 1: you could do it in a healthy way by going
Speaker 1: for a walk or going to the gym. Usually what
Speaker 1: people do when it gets to the office is they
Speaker 1: need an extra coffee, They need to go to the
Speaker 1: vending machine and get some sugar. They need an extra drink.
Speaker 1: After work, and then they think, Oh, I'm drinking too
Speaker 1: much in the evening or I'm eating too much sugar.
Speaker 1: I need to change that. But they don't realize that
Speaker 1: actually the way they dealt with that driver on the
Speaker 1: road that day, because it's not just that, that's the
Speaker 1: pattern they use for everything in their life. I say
Speaker 1: this with an open heart. We almost make ourselves a
Speaker 1: victim to life. We think that the way we feel
Speaker 1: is down to the way other people treat us. And
Speaker 1: I understand that we like other people to treat us well.
Speaker 1: But you can cultivate the skill of not having your
Speaker 1: inner state as dependent on the world around you. So
Speaker 1: you can develop the skill, and I share how to
Speaker 1: in this book. With practice, you can basically go, Wow,
Speaker 1: what other story could I create here? Oh, maybe that
Speaker 1: mother has had a sick child up all night with
Speaker 1: earache and they're just rushing. Maybe she's on her last
Speaker 1: warning with her boss, and actually, if she's late one
Speaker 1: more time, she's going to lose her job, and that's
Speaker 1: how she feeds her family. Right, the truth doesn't matter
Speaker 1: for your inner well being, It really doesn't. And you
Speaker 1: can choose to start looking at the world this way
Speaker 1: and what you will find. Yes, it might feel challenging
Speaker 1: at first, so you have to consciously think about it,
Speaker 1: maybe not in the moment, maybe in the evening. And
Speaker 1: I'll share a practice that can help people with that.
Speaker 1: But over time it becomes your default. Whereas now you know,
Speaker 1: I've been in LA traffic this week. I've heard you
Speaker 1: guys talk about it all the time. Oh, I've experienced it.
Speaker 1: I'm running late for some interviews. I'm just totally cheating.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can't do anything about this. Nothing I
Speaker 1: can do. You can train that response. And I think
Speaker 1: last time I came on your podcast, Jay, I think
Speaker 1: I shared the story of Edith Eager, the ninety three
Speaker 1: year old lady who was in Auschwitz when she was sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I shared the powerful narratives she would use in
Speaker 1: her mind to reframe her existence there. And I won't
Speaker 1: tell that story again, but I'll remind people of the
Speaker 1: final thing that Edith Eager told me when she came
Speaker 1: on my podcast. She said to me, Dr Chaschi, I
Speaker 1: have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the
Speaker 1: greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison
Speaker 1: you create inside your own mind. And the penny dropped
Speaker 1: for me Jay in that conversation. Literally, I thought, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's what we're all doing. We're interacting with the world
Speaker 1: with other people, were creating these disempowering narratives, were making
Speaker 1: ourselves a victim to the world around us, without realizing
Speaker 1: that we have the power to shape the narrative on
Speaker 1: every single situation. Most situations in life. You could even
Speaker 1: say all, but that gets a bit triggering for people.
Speaker 1: So I say most situations in life are neutral. It's
Speaker 1: the perspective we take on that situation that determines its impact.
Speaker 1: You want to change your behaviors. If you're someone who
Speaker 1: has been trying to make changes in January for the
Speaker 1: last ten years, and you keep buying a new book,
Speaker 1: and you keep trying a new detox pan and whatever,
Speaker 1: and you're still ending up where you were the year before,
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself the question, am I taking
Speaker 1: the right approach? Is there something I'm missing? Is it
Speaker 1: more external information I need or more internal information?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I really appreciate the direction of getting people
Speaker 2: to trust themselves. I mean I've seen that time and
Speaker 2: time again. I remember a couple of months ago, I
Speaker 2: was trying a really high protein diet the amount that's recommended,
Speaker 2: and I just it didn't work for me. It just
Speaker 2: didn't work for me, Like trying to eat my body
Speaker 2: weight in protein was far too much for me personally,
Speaker 2: and I didn't feel good. I was feeling more tired,
Speaker 2: I was feeling actually more bloated. I was. It just
Speaker 2: didn't work. And it was like, well, this is all
Speaker 2: the studies say this, all the research says.
Speaker 1: Even within those studies that are done right, we think
Speaker 1: the studies show this when you look into most scientific studies. Right,
Speaker 1: let me try and make it super simple to understand
Speaker 1: for people. Let's say there was a study done where
Speaker 1: one hundred people were put on one diet and one
Speaker 1: hundred people put on another diet, which one is better?
Speaker 1: And then on balance we'll say, oh, this one, this
Speaker 1: one statistically was better, But it doesn't mean that one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of the people were better on that one.
Speaker 1: There would have been some people who were better on
Speaker 1: the other one, but overall we say that one. What
Speaker 1: we're saying is that that one works for the most
Speaker 1: people in that study. It doesn't mean it will for you.
Speaker 1: And this is where I think the differences between researchers
Speaker 1: and clinicians. You know, I I feel one thing I'm
Speaker 1: really good at, and again I don't say this with
Speaker 1: any arrogance. I feel I'm really good at connecting with
Speaker 1: my patients and I've managed to help them make transformative change,
Speaker 1: many of them throughout their careers. And i've, as you know,
Speaker 1: I even showcase what I do on BBC one and
Speaker 1: back in twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen, where families who
Speaker 1: were sick were under GPS, were under specialists with type
Speaker 1: two diabetes, panic atats, fibromalgia, menopausal symptoms, irristol bound syndrome.
Speaker 1: I either helped everyone fully reverse their conditions or get
Speaker 1: them significantly better, like eighty percent better in just six weeks,
Speaker 1: using nutrition, lifestyle and mindset. That's not blaming people. It's
Speaker 1: showing people, educating them that, oh, the way you do
Speaker 1: things matters. How you live each day, the choices you make,
Speaker 1: the way you taught to each other. Right, these things
Speaker 1: really play a role. And Jay, I often think, you know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this on the plane over to
Speaker 1: LA this time wrong and why do you have such
Speaker 1: a I don't know if I can call it a
Speaker 1: unique perspective on health, but it's not the normal perspective.
Speaker 1: I would say that most medical dots that would you
Speaker 1: agree with that? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Mostly yeah, compared to most absolutely.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the reasons why, and there's
Speaker 1: many reasons, including my cultural upbringing probably similar to yours,
Speaker 1: where we grow up with this more holistic approach, these
Speaker 1: ideas that food is medicine, all those kind of ideas.
Speaker 1: But I think my filming that BBC documentary series over
Speaker 1: two or three years, I think it gave me an
Speaker 1: insight that very few doctors ever get. Even if you're
Speaker 1: a disenchanted doctor and you think ten minutes is not enough,
Speaker 1: which it isn't, and you figure out a way to
Speaker 1: spend one hour with your patients. What I learned on
Speaker 1: filming that series when I would live alongside families for
Speaker 1: four to six weeks, sometimes i'd stay overnight in their house. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got to see stuff that people rarely get to see.
Speaker 1: I got to see, oh, wow, they've got these symptoms.
Speaker 1: But I'm noticing how the husband and wife are talking
Speaker 1: to each other in the evening. Oh, I wonder how
Speaker 1: that relationship is impacting their fiscal health. And I would
Speaker 1: do this with all kinds of families in all different
Speaker 1: areas of the UK. So it gave me a rather
Speaker 1: unique insight where this idea is that literally ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of what happens to your health. I know this
Speaker 1: sounds worthly obvious. It's outside the doctor surgery. It's how
Speaker 1: you live your life, it's how you approach adversity, and
Speaker 1: so I think it's kind of given me this rather
Speaker 1: unique view. I think my twenty three years of clinical
Speaker 1: practice has also taught me that there's no one white approach.
Speaker 1: So you, as you say, you can hear all the
Speaker 1: experts online you want telling you about the high protein
Speaker 1: that you need, and you could keep trying it, or
Speaker 1: you go, wait, well, you know what, I don't think
Speaker 1: that's all right approach for me at this point in
Speaker 1: my life. And that secondary bit is another key piece.
Speaker 1: It might be later, but right now for the state
Speaker 1: of your life and your health, it's not work with
Speaker 1: you and we need to learn to trust ourselves more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I like that edition as well. What's your take.
Speaker 2: We've talked a lot about self awareness and the importance
Speaker 2: of it. Obviously right now everyone's getting really excited about
Speaker 2: fitness trackers. What's your take on them?
Speaker 1: There's a section on this actually in the book, because
Speaker 1: I think it's a really important thing to think about.
Speaker 1: So I currently have one on. I've been slow to
Speaker 1: adopt fitness trackers, and i'll tell you why. A key
Speaker 1: theme in this book is about reliance and that we're
Speaker 1: overly reliant on things outside of ourselves, on people treating
Speaker 1: us well, on all kinds of things, expert knowledge, whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, and we need to become what I
Speaker 1: say in the book is minimally reliant, not zero reliance,
Speaker 1: but less reliance. I think trackers, health trackers, fitness trackers
Speaker 1: can be good and they can also be bad. It
Speaker 1: depends on who you are. So we've got all these,
Speaker 1: you know, new fitness trackers, but let's talk about another
Speaker 1: kind of tracker that's been around for a while. A
Speaker 1: blood pressure monitor, right, They've been around for thirty forty
Speaker 1: years something like that. That's a form of health tracker.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not as high tech as some of these
Speaker 1: new ones, but it's a form of health tracker. And
Speaker 1: what I would notice Jay in my practice for years,
Speaker 1: is that many people would say, dot cha, Actually, should
Speaker 1: I buy one from the pharmacy and use it at home?
Speaker 1: And Initially I would say, yeah, great idea, Then you
Speaker 1: can check what your blood pressure's doing. And then what
Speaker 1: I noticed is that, oh wow, maybe fifty percent of
Speaker 1: people this is a rough guess, it's not a scientific study.
Speaker 1: Half of my patients would use regular blood pressure checks
Speaker 1: at home to empower them, right, So they'd be like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, okay, it's going a bit high. Now what's
Speaker 1: going on? And they'd use it in a very helpful
Speaker 1: way to get to know themselves better and make positive changes.
Speaker 1: The other half, I think it was harmful for them.
Speaker 1: They would get stressed out, they would check it four
Speaker 1: times a day, they would get health anxiety, and that
Speaker 1: would paralyze them. So I thought, wow, it's not the
Speaker 1: tracker itself that's the issue. It's our relationship to the tracker.
Speaker 1: That's the theme throughout this conversation. It's our relationship to it.
Speaker 1: So if you're someone who can look at that tracker,
Speaker 1: whether it's an Apple watch or a whoop band or
Speaker 1: an or or whatever, you know, whatever, you've got a garment.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're able to use it to help
Speaker 1: you get to know yourself better and it helps you
Speaker 1: make positive changes, I think they can be very very helpful.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm on a two month experiment at the
Speaker 1: moment with this one that I've got on, and it's
Speaker 1: really helping me understand myself bad at Oh this is
Speaker 1: what my heart rate variability is like when I eat
Speaker 1: a bit later at night, or you know, when I've
Speaker 1: been on a transatlantic flight. Whatever. I'm like, I'm learning
Speaker 1: about myself. I'm getting a deeper understanding of myself through this. Now.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be very helpful. But some people have
Speaker 1: got a very unhealthy relationship with them. They're obsessed with them.
Speaker 1: If the battery's not working, they start to stress out. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to exist. And the truth is
Speaker 1: there are some scientific studies which show us that they
Speaker 1: can be problematic. So there was one study which I
Speaker 1: write about in the book, where in essence, a simplified
Speaker 1: way of describing it is, they took these groups of
Speaker 1: people and put them in the lab. One group were
Speaker 1: only allowed to sleep for five hours. The other group
Speaker 1: were allowed to sleep for eight towers right, but there's
Speaker 1: no clocks anywhere. And then they told the group who
Speaker 1: slept for five hours that they slept for eight hours,
Speaker 1: and the group that slept for eight towers that they'd
Speaker 1: only sat for five hours, and that impacts it that
Speaker 1: energy love us through the day and impacted their physiology. Right.
Speaker 1: So that's a really powerful study. And there's many more
Speaker 1: like that, which all that does for me. Again, let's
Speaker 1: not get let's not use that study to disempower us.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. What does that show? It shows that some
Speaker 1: people can have an unhealthy relationship with these devices. Some
Speaker 1: people can have a helpful one. And if I think
Speaker 1: about that through the lens of me and my wife, right,
Speaker 1: I love getting data. I can be very detached from it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't affect me. If I see a low readiness
Speaker 1: score in the morning, I can be detached from that
Speaker 1: and go wow, I can still perform even with that. Right,
Speaker 1: I will often not check for days, right or once
Speaker 1: a day, once every two days, I'll go on and
Speaker 1: check my data. I don't want to become dependent or reliant.
Speaker 1: That's the key. So I can't tell you, Jay, are
Speaker 1: these good or bad? It depends on who you are
Speaker 1: and what's your relationship to that device. Yeah, and only
Speaker 1: you will be able to answer that question for yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great answer. It's a great answer. And
Speaker 2: I fully agree. I think it goes back to what
Speaker 2: the common theme is. As you said, it's our interpretation
Speaker 2: of the event, of the data, of the information. And
Speaker 2: I guess, then, going back to what you said earlier,
Speaker 2: your only non negotiable has become being kinder to yourself,
Speaker 2: Like that is your non negotiable, Like the ability to
Speaker 2: always turn towards not judging, not shaming, not guilty, but
Speaker 2: giving yourself that space and grace to just operate and
Speaker 2: think it through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny that words are interesting, aren't they. I
Speaker 1: guess the word non negotiable for me these days, maybe
Speaker 1: because I used to have such a negative voice in
Speaker 1: my head. I kind of feel that everything's negotiable in life, right,
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Let's take an example violence. Right.
Speaker 1: I could say that I'm a calm person and I
Speaker 1: would never be violent, right, But hold on, there's always
Speaker 1: a situation in life that might challenge that. What if
Speaker 1: I was on a street with my two beautiful children
Speaker 1: and someone was trying to attack me or tack them,
Speaker 1: would I turn to violence to protect them?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I would. I wouldn't intentionally want to do that,
Speaker 1: So I could say that being kind and compassionate and
Speaker 1: nonviolent is a non negotiable or I could be a
Speaker 1: bit more realistic and go, well, I think in ninety
Speaker 1: nine point nine percent of situations in life, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be kind and compassionate, or I'm going to certainly
Speaker 1: have the intention to be. But I can foresee a
Speaker 1: situation whereby yeah, maybe I would turn to violence. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I think it's that complexity
Speaker 1: and you wance. So for me, if I say it's
Speaker 1: a non negotiable, again, it may for someone else they
Speaker 1: may like the term, but for me it's not so
Speaker 1: program me with this harsh task master, I must always
Speaker 1: do this. I can never I can never fall from this.
Speaker 1: So for me, I personally don't use that term, but
Speaker 1: I totally welcome other people like if they want to
Speaker 1: use that term. I think it's completely fine, and I
Speaker 1: think it's all highly highly individual. We have to find
Speaker 1: what works for us. I don't believe anymore that anything
Speaker 1: for me is non negotiable. I think I set an
Speaker 1: intention about how I want to live, but always knowing
Speaker 1: that the situation could change. Now, Jay, I'm here in
Speaker 1: La right maybe two weeks after the election, and it's
Speaker 1: remarkable for me to see, certainly online the division right.
Speaker 1: And I remember maybe six or nine months ago, when
Speaker 1: your current US Surgeon General, Vivic Mersey, was in London.
Speaker 1: He came on my podcast. We had a wonderful conversation,
Speaker 1: and he said to me, back then, one in six
Speaker 1: Americans are currently not talking to a family member because
Speaker 1: of their political views. And I suspect that's even higher
Speaker 1: now from what I can tell now, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to wade into politics here. I'm trying to take a
Speaker 1: step back and go to me. And I'm not American, right,
Speaker 1: so I acknowledge that to put that out there, to me,
Speaker 1: it seems like madness. There's a chapter in this book
Speaker 1: called take Less Offense, which is an over reliance on
Speaker 1: being right, our need to be right. And I explained
Speaker 1: in that chap so that nothing in life is inherently offensive.
Speaker 1: If it was, we'd all get offended to the same thing.
Speaker 1: If it was that thing that was offensive, all of
Speaker 1: us would find it offensive. If we don't all find
Speaker 1: something offensive, it means that thing isn't offensive. There's something
Speaker 1: inside of us that's been activated or being triggered. So
Speaker 1: that whole chapter is about helping people understand that you
Speaker 1: don't need to take offense to everything. You can choose
Speaker 1: not to. You can choose to go wow, Why has
Speaker 1: that person got a different view to me? Why does
Speaker 1: that person see the wills so differently from me? You know,
Speaker 1: I think I might have shared this last time I
Speaker 1: was on your show, Jay, but that one of the
Speaker 1: phrases that has been transformative for me is if I
Speaker 1: was that other person, I'd be behaving in exacta the
Speaker 1: same way as them. And what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is if I was that other person, with their parents,
Speaker 1: with their childhood, with the bullying they experienced, with the
Speaker 1: friends they had at school, with the first boss who
Speaker 1: bullied them, on the workplace, whatever it might be, if
Speaker 1: I had their life, I would probably see the world
Speaker 1: in the same way as them, and I probably act
Speaker 1: in the same way as them. Now, this doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I'm saying this excuse is poor behavior. No, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that. What I'm saying is, instead of jumping to
Speaker 1: judgment of other people, which I think is a toxic behavior,
Speaker 1: I think it's a behavior that won't help you make change.
Speaker 1: I used to be judgmental, and not anymore. You can
Speaker 1: change this. We said before, how our behaviors are driven
Speaker 1: by our beliefs. None of us came out of our
Speaker 1: mother's womb with these beliefs, right, we didn't. We developed
Speaker 1: them based upon what we experienced throughout our life. It's
Speaker 1: a much lighter way of interacting with the world when
Speaker 1: you go, wow, why do they think in the way
Speaker 1: that they do? Now, you don't have to choose that
Speaker 1: approach to life. But if you're someone who's walking around
Speaker 1: taking offense to everything, okay, and I say this, I
Speaker 1: promise you. I say this with compassion. Jay. If there's
Speaker 1: anyone listening who's thinks that they're a person who's constantly
Speaker 1: berating the drivers on the freeway, taking offense to everything
Speaker 1: they see on social media, my invitation to that individual is, Hey,
Speaker 1: that approach to life may not be serving you. You
Speaker 1: may have an over reliance on being right. And in
Speaker 1: that chapter I make the case that actually thinking that
Speaker 1: everyone in the world is going to see the world
Speaker 1: in the same way as us in a world of
Speaker 1: eight billion people is actually quite an arrogant way to think.
Speaker 1: And I'm not judging when I say that I used
Speaker 1: to think like this, Jay, Right, So I'm why I
Speaker 1: share that is because I want people to know. I
Speaker 1: know what that feels like, and I know you can
Speaker 1: change that. If you choose to not take offense and
Speaker 1: interact with compassion, why does that person think the way
Speaker 1: in which they do. You will naturally make better choices
Speaker 1: because you're not generating that emotional stress you go on
Speaker 1: Instagram or Twitter or x and find a comment really
Speaker 1: irritating or someone's viewpoint really offensive and starts to get
Speaker 1: involved with them. Of course you can do that. That
Speaker 1: might be why you struggle to reduce your alcohol intake
Speaker 1: or your sugar intake, because you're getting addicted to that noise,
Speaker 1: that emotional stress. And let's relate that back to what
Speaker 1: I said about Edith Eager before. This lady who survived
Speaker 1: Auschwitz and at ninety three is full of compassion and
Speaker 1: forgiveness and even said that she's forgiven Hitler right. Let
Speaker 1: that land for a minute. It doesn't mean that what
Speaker 1: Hitler did was right. She's not saying that. What she's
Speaker 1: saying is I'm no longer going to allow what he
Speaker 1: did to affect me and my life and how I interact.
Speaker 1: There's a big difference people get. There's a whole sectional
Speaker 1: forgiveness in the book. People really misunderstand forgiveness. They think
Speaker 1: it means that I'm saying that that was right and
Speaker 1: it was okay. It's not that at all. One of
Speaker 1: the daily practices I did after my conversation with Edith,
Speaker 1: which is still probably one of the most powerful episodes
Speaker 1: I've ever had in my podcast, is every evening, because,
Speaker 1: as I say, you often can't do it in the moment.
Speaker 1: Every evening. Once my kids were in bed, when they
Speaker 1: were a bit younger, I sit down and I'd ask myself, wrongan,
Speaker 1: where did you get emotionally triggered today? When did an
Speaker 1: email piss you off? Right? When did you react to
Speaker 1: someone whilst you were driving? And instead of putting the
Speaker 1: blame on the other person, on something outside of myself,
Speaker 1: I asked myself a question, what is it within me
Speaker 1: that's been activated by that external action? Why did that
Speaker 1: email bother me? Oh? It reminds me of something my
Speaker 1: parents said to me when I was a kid. Oh,
Speaker 1: it reminds me of the boss I had a few
Speaker 1: years ago. Oh, it's highlighted in an insecurity like criticism. Right,
Speaker 1: we both exist in the public domain. We have to
Speaker 1: you know, we get positive comments, we also get negative comments. Right,
Speaker 1: That is just part and parcel of life. Not everyone
Speaker 1: is going to like how I put across my messages.
Speaker 1: That's okay, they don't have to. Some people will say
Speaker 1: I'm the greatest podcast host on the planet. Some people
Speaker 1: say I'm the worst, and I talk over my guests
Speaker 1: and whatever. Do you know what? They're both right for them? Right?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? It's really important. So
Speaker 1: what I've learned about criticism, because criticism generally doesn't bother
Speaker 1: me anymore, because I've learned to be emotionally detached. I've
Speaker 1: come to the realization, Shay, that criticism only bothers us
Speaker 1: to the degree we believe it about ourselves. I don't
Speaker 1: know your relationship with criticism, but certainly for me, I realized, Oh,
Speaker 1: the reason that bothers me is because it triggers an
Speaker 1: internal insecurity. Now I can get annoyed at the person
Speaker 1: delivering the criticism or and maybe it's out of order,
Speaker 1: maybe they shouldn't. But I'm not sure how much that
Speaker 1: helps you. You can't control whether someone is or is
Speaker 1: not going to criticize you. What I can control and
Speaker 1: what I can work on is my internal state? Oh
Speaker 1: I'm insecure about that. Let me write down why? Let
Speaker 1: me think about that. Maybe if you have access to
Speaker 1: a therapist, sure, go and see one. Talk about it.
Speaker 1: That is the secret to long term change, Jay. It's
Speaker 1: not looking outside for the answers. It's going what is
Speaker 1: going on inside of me? That exercise Like, if people
Speaker 1: take nothing else from this conversation, Jay, I would say
Speaker 1: that is one of the most powerful things you can do.
Speaker 1: It will take you maybe five minutes every evening. And
Speaker 1: you don't realize. People do not realize how quickly their
Speaker 1: lives will start to change when they take full responsibility
Speaker 1: for their reactions. You're no get dependent on everyone around
Speaker 1: you acting a certain way to feel good. You become
Speaker 1: like a master in yourself. Like in martial arts, we
Speaker 1: want to be black belts. This is your way of
Speaker 1: becoming a black belt in yourself and I love it.
Speaker 1: And going back to what I said before about the
Speaker 1: process of change, if you commit to doing this, you
Speaker 1: will learn so much about yourself. You will learn why
Speaker 1: certain things trigger you, why you go to sugar, why
Speaker 1: you go to alcohol, why you can't stop scrolling Instagram
Speaker 1: for four hours every evening, you will learn about yourself.
Speaker 1: And I promise you that is much more powerful than
Speaker 1: any expert ever telling you that. And I say that
Speaker 1: as a so called expert myself.
Speaker 2: Make change that last Rangan. It's been really a jury
Speaker 2: talking to you today. I mean, the thing that's staying
Speaker 2: with me and resonating with me most deeply about what
Speaker 2: you shared is this idea of taking accountability, taking responsibility
Speaker 2: for ourselves, for our feelings, for our health. I think
Speaker 2: it's very easy to say I did this because this
Speaker 2: person told me. Oh, I feel this way because that
Speaker 2: person did that to me. Oh that person's diet didn't work.
Speaker 2: And you're so right. We've been trying to outsource our health,
Speaker 2: our emotional health, our physical health. And I love the
Speaker 2: ownership and the empowerment that you're offering everyone through this
Speaker 2: book because that's really what's missing. That's really what the
Speaker 2: struggle is, is that we haven't taken ownership of our
Speaker 2: own life. And that's what I feel you're encouraging us
Speaker 2: to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really am, because Jay, not only have I
Speaker 1: experienced it myself, because what I say at the of
Speaker 1: the end of the introduction is I say effortless change
Speaker 1: actually is available to you. Once you work on this stuff,
Speaker 1: change doesn't become as hard as you think. I think
Speaker 1: the reason we think it's so hard is because we're
Speaker 1: going about it in the wrong way. And I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly we spoke up this beforehand. I think,
Speaker 1: I think what I've stumbled across through my career and
Speaker 1: through my own lived experience are I think some universal
Speaker 1: human truths, right. I think for me at least, what's
Speaker 1: exciting about this book for people is that you're going
Speaker 1: to learn concepts that you're not used to learning about
Speaker 1: from a medical doctor. There's like elements of philosophy, spirituality, yes,
Speaker 1: physical health, and habit formation. It's all there. And I
Speaker 1: think from the bottom of my heart that this is
Speaker 1: the most important book I've ever written. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to have the most impact on people. You're very
Speaker 1: kind enough to give a quote for the book. But
Speaker 1: remember one of the first people outside my team to
Speaker 1: have read it was Dr Gable Matte and Gable read
Speaker 1: every single word and he sent me the most wonderful
Speaker 1: email and he goes wrong and this is just wonderful.
Speaker 1: This is your most insightful book. Get this can help
Speaker 1: so many people and coming from someone I really respect that.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I was so touched. I was so touched, And so
Speaker 1: I think this is the only journey that's worth taking,
Speaker 1: is understand your inner world. Stop relying on those external
Speaker 1: experts so much. I'm not saying ignore, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: ignore the science. I'm not saying ignore external experts. I
Speaker 1: think we've gone too far. It's all about what does
Speaker 1: the experts say now. I'm like, no, let's just bring
Speaker 1: it back. It's too head focused and not enough heart focus.
Speaker 1: So let's just wind it back. Let's use our head,
Speaker 1: but let's also use our hearts. I love that.
Speaker 2: Ever on the book, it's called Make Change That last
Speaker 2: nine simple ways to break free from the habits that
Speaker 2: hold you back. Go and grab your copy right now
Speaker 2: and run. And thank you so much for always coming
Speaker 2: with so much energy, enthusiasm and counterintuitive thinking, which I
Speaker 2: think is going to benefit a lot of people and
Speaker 2: start their new year just right. So thank you so much,
Speaker 2: my friend. It's great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Jay, Thanks for having me back on your show. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Amazing. If you love this episode, you'll enjoy my interview
Speaker 2: with doctor Daniel Ahman on how to change your life
Speaker 2: by changing your brain.
Speaker 3: If we want a healthy mind, it actually starts with
Speaker 3: a healthy brain. You know, I've had the blessing or
Speaker 3: the curse to scan over a thousand convicted felons and
Speaker 3: over one hundred murderers, and their brains
Speaker 2: Are very damaged,