Speaker 1: Pushkin. The world is certainly facing a ton of happiness challenges,
Speaker 1: but whenever I feel downhearted at the sheer scale of
Speaker 1: the problems we need to tackle, I remember all the
Speaker 1: people working hard to put things right. These days, there
Speaker 1: are so many people in government, in medicine, in academia
Speaker 1: and in the media trying to draw attention to the
Speaker 1: importance of well being that they can easily fill a
Speaker 1: whole conference center. The World Happiness Summit WAHA SUE for short,
Speaker 1: has been bringing experts together since twenty sixteen to meet,
Speaker 1: swap ideas and give talks to the public. This year's
Speaker 1: summit was in London and I went along so I
Speaker 1: could record a live episode of this show with a
Speaker 1: total rock star of the British happiness community. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the WAHASU Live version of The.
Speaker 2: Happiness Lab.
Speaker 1: I am. I'm super excited to introduce my guest, Doctor
Speaker 1: Rungan Chatterjee. Doctor Chatterjee is professor of health education and communication,
Speaker 1: the host of the Feel Better, Live More podcast, which
Speaker 1: is the most listened to health podcast in Europe. He's
Speaker 1: also the author of five best selling books, including his
Speaker 1: most recent, Happy Mind, Happy Life Tends Simple Ways to
Speaker 1: Feel Great every day, and today we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about why medical doctors need to pay even more
Speaker 1: attention to happiness.
Speaker 2: Will how's the audience.
Speaker 1: Are you all interested in medical doctors paying more attention
Speaker 1: to happiness? Yes, so, Rangan, You've long been an advocate
Speaker 1: of the importance of all kinds of healthy practices, but lately,
Speaker 1: in your most recent book, you've been making a claim
Speaker 1: that medical professionals also have to pay attention to something else,
Speaker 1: something that historically doctors haven't paid much attention to, which
Speaker 1: is people's happiness. Why is a happy life important for
Speaker 1: a healthy life?
Speaker 3: So I've been practicing that for over two decades. Okay,
Speaker 3: So during that time, I've seen tens of thousands of patients,
Speaker 3: and it's very clear to me, and it's very clear
Speaker 3: in the research that about eighty to ninety percent for
Speaker 3: what a doctor like me it's going to see in
Speaker 3: any given day is in some way related to our
Speaker 3: collective modern lifestyles. Now, let me be really clear with that.
Speaker 3: I am not putting blame on anybody. Okay, modern life
Speaker 3: is tough, it's very stressful, and so if you start
Speaker 3: off with the belief and the view that eighty to
Speaker 3: ninety percent of our medical problems are in some way
Speaker 3: related to the way we're living our lives. The next
Speaker 3: logical step is to go, okay, well, we need to
Speaker 3: educate our patients on what those things are that they
Speaker 3: can then change food movements, sleep, stress reduction, the things
Speaker 3: that I call the four pillars of health. And for
Speaker 3: many years I've been talking about that in public and
Speaker 3: I think that's incredibly useful. But for thelast few years
Speaker 3: I've been wondering, is that really the root cause or
Speaker 3: is it something even higher than that? And that's what
Speaker 3: led me to happiness, because I realized that actually, for
Speaker 3: many people, their lifestyle behaviors they weren't necessarily the root cause.
Speaker 3: They were a cause of sorts, but they were a
Speaker 3: downstream consequence of their moods, of the way they approached
Speaker 3: the world, of the state of their lives, of their happiness.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, I think most people will in choously understand that
Speaker 3: happier people will naturally.
Speaker 2: Make better lifestyle choices.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're not going to dive headfirst into a tub
Speaker 3: of ice cream in the evening. Generally speaking, if you
Speaker 3: feel pretty content with life, usually for most people, that's
Speaker 3: a way of managing stress or internal discomfort or loneliness.
Speaker 3: So I found that we can tell patients about these
Speaker 3: lifestyle choices, but if those lifestyle choices are their way
Speaker 3: of coping with the stress in their life, they're never
Speaker 3: going to change the behavior unless I helped them change
Speaker 3: their stress, for example. So that's one way of answering
Speaker 3: your question. But actually, if you go into the research,
Speaker 3: there seems to be this link between happiness and health
Speaker 3: that goes beyond these lifestyle behaviors. And actually, Laurie, when
Speaker 3: you came onto my podcast maybe two or three years ago,
Speaker 3: you shared with me a really powerful study that made
Speaker 3: a real impact on me, which was that study where
Speaker 3: I think it was a psychologist who did it, when
Speaker 3: they took people into a laboratory and they injected rhinovirus
Speaker 3: up their nostrils. Pretty pleasant study, right. Rhinovirus is the
Speaker 3: bug that causes the common colds. Now, what was interesting
Speaker 3: about this study is that they could see quite clearly
Speaker 3: an association between your mood and whether you got sick
Speaker 3: from the virus. So basically, as Laurie told me on
Speaker 3: my show, the group who were in the not so
Speaker 3: positive mood agree, right, got sick three times as much, right,
Speaker 3: So that's pretty remarkable. So why does a doctor then
Speaker 3: need to know that? Well, if we're not thinking about
Speaker 3: mood and well being and happiness, Well, that study is
Speaker 3: showing a pretty compelling association between your immune system function
Speaker 3: and your happiness. So more and more I've been led
Speaker 3: down to the belief that actually we need as doctors
Speaker 3: to be talking about happiness a because it directly affects
Speaker 3: your lifestyle choices, but beyond that, independently of that, and
Speaker 3: there's more research to support that happiness is associated with
Speaker 3: better health.
Speaker 1: And so as we think about happiness being associated with
Speaker 1: better health, I think is the nerds that we are.
Speaker 1: We also have to think about our definition of happiness,
Speaker 1: and there are lots of different definitions of happiness out
Speaker 1: there in the literature. You use a sort of three
Speaker 1: prong of coach in your book, which I really quite like.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about this sort of three parts
Speaker 1: of happiness as you think of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it took me over six months to try
Speaker 3: and figure out what I call the code to happiness. Now,
Speaker 3: of course many people have got their models for approaching happiness.
Speaker 3: For me, as a doctor, I'm always thinking about what's practical.
Speaker 3: We can talk about big ideas, but how does that
Speaker 3: busy person with a busy life actually put this into practice.
Speaker 3: So I was trying to develop a model that really
Speaker 3: underpins its idea that happiness is a skill. Happiness is
Speaker 3: a skill that you can get better at if you
Speaker 3: know how to cultivate it. And so the best way
Speaker 3: I could explain it to people was with the core
Speaker 3: happiness stool. So it's basically a three legged stool, and
Speaker 3: each of the legs is an ingredient of happiness. So
Speaker 3: each one in isolation is going to help, but each
Speaker 3: one in isolation is not enough in and off itself.
Speaker 3: So the three legged stool of happiness, the way I
Speaker 3: see it, is composed of alignment, contentment, and control. So
Speaker 3: alignment is basically about when the person you are inside
Speaker 3: and the person who you are being out there in
Speaker 3: the world are one and the same.
Speaker 2: Okay, So when you're.
Speaker 3: Inner values and your external action start to line up
Speaker 3: more and more, that's alignment. The next leg is contentment.
Speaker 3: So what are those things in life that give you
Speaker 3: a sense of peace, a sense of calm, and in
Speaker 3: a sense of contentment. That's the leg of contentments. And
Speaker 3: the final leg, which I think is even more important
Speaker 3: today if we think about the state of the world
Speaker 3: and what we might be exposed to if we go
Speaker 3: online or look at the news, for example. The third
Speaker 3: leg of the stool is control. Now I thought long
Speaker 3: and hard about this word, because it's not about controlling
Speaker 3: the world. It's about giving yourself a sense of control.
Speaker 3: And it's actually such different. What are the things you
Speaker 3: can do in life that give you that sense of control.
Speaker 3: We know from the research that people who have a
Speaker 3: strong sense of control over their lives, the happier, the healthier,
Speaker 3: They do better at work, they earn more money, they
Speaker 3: have better social relationships. So for me, the whole book
Speaker 3: is basically about practical things that work on one, two,
Speaker 3: or three of those legs off the stool. So you're
Speaker 3: not directly working on happiness. You're doing something, hopefully each
Speaker 3: day that works on alignment, contentment, and control. And the
Speaker 3: side effects of that is you're going to feel happier
Speaker 3: more often, and I think most people want to feel
Speaker 3: happier more often.
Speaker 1: One of the things I love about your book is
Speaker 1: that you don't just start with this definition of happiness.
Speaker 1: You really try to come up with these ten practical
Speaker 1: domains in which people can apply different strategies to start
Speaker 1: getting happier. And one of the ones that you start
Speaker 1: with is trying to get past what you call the
Speaker 1: want brain. What is the want brain?
Speaker 2: And how do we get run?
Speaker 3: And I can just say, the reason why everything I
Speaker 3: do is so practical focused is if you think about
Speaker 3: my life, you know, for many years it's been seeing patients.
Speaker 3: So I can't just say to them, hey, look there's
Speaker 3: a strong link between happiness and health. Okay, that was
Speaker 3: going to help in your immune sysfunction. I see you
Speaker 3: in a month's time. No, I mean I have to
Speaker 3: be able to tell them and explain something. But then
Speaker 3: I have to for me. I feel I have to
Speaker 3: give them something that they can go and develop and
Speaker 3: cultivate and start to feel it for themselves. So that's
Speaker 3: why I'm always so practically focused. But the one brain okay,
Speaker 3: so the one brain is that part of your brain
Speaker 3: that evolved a long time again, many thousands of years ago,
Speaker 3: that makes you think you have to compete, there is
Speaker 3: limited resources. I have to get what's mine. It convinces
Speaker 3: you that a promotion, a better salary, a nicer phone,
Speaker 3: a piece of chocolate, although you may disagree with that,
Speaker 3: but it convinces you that that's going to make you happier.
Speaker 3: And actually, for most of those things, it's actually a myth.
Speaker 3: And we know that because there's a lot of research
Speaker 3: showing us that there's some research where they phone people
Speaker 3: up at various parts of the day after they've engaged
Speaker 3: in certain activities, and we find that actually when people
Speaker 3: have just brought something online, or they've had a bit
Speaker 3: of chocolates, or you know, they're getting seduced by the
Speaker 3: modern myth of success, which often means in the workplace
Speaker 3: that people feel less motivated, they feel less confident, and
Speaker 3: they feel depressed.
Speaker 2: But the one brain.
Speaker 3: Is very, very powerful, and I think we're living in
Speaker 3: a time where society and culture very much prioritizes the
Speaker 3: one brain. So many of us get sucked into this
Speaker 3: trap that more work, more promotion, more Instagram followers, more
Speaker 3: whatever is going to make us happy. And by and large,
Speaker 3: in most cases, if you identify that with your happiness,
Speaker 3: it's going to be a disappointment. And I can tell
Speaker 3: you I started the book with very I think it's
Speaker 3: a very powerful story of my dad. So my dad's
Speaker 3: came to the UK in nineteen sixty two from India
Speaker 3: for a better life, and Dad faced all kinds of
Speaker 3: discrimination and all kinds of things that many immigrant families
Speaker 3: at that time will have experienced. But basically, for thirty years,
Speaker 3: my dad worked four nights a week, right, so he
Speaker 3: worked in the day as a consultant medical doctor at
Speaker 3: manster Warm Infirmary. But Dad would come home every night,
Speaker 3: he would shave, he'd have his dinner and then a
Speaker 3: car would pick him up at seven pm and Dad
Speaker 3: would be out doing gp house course all night. He'd
Speaker 3: come back at seven am shave, Mum had give him
Speaker 3: breakfast and he'd drive for thirty minutes back into Manchester
Speaker 3: and work all day. So for thirty years, my dad
Speaker 3: only slept for three nights a week, right. And at
Speaker 3: fifty seven, my dad gets loopus, he gets chronic kidney
Speaker 3: failure and he's on a dalist machine for fifteen years.
Speaker 3: And my dad died almost eleven years ago now. And
Speaker 3: I'm convinced that this wants brain, that this belief that
Speaker 3: success and more money is going to make you happier
Speaker 3: and the people around you happier. I'm convinced that's why
Speaker 3: my dad got sick and that's why he's no longer here.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's such a powerful story. Of course, the
Speaker 1: problem is it's so hard to shut off the want
Speaker 1: brain from the basic physical wants of like ooh chocolate
Speaker 1: to ooh promotion, ooh more money. What are some strategies
Speaker 1: we can use to tackle the want brain. You have
Speaker 1: an exercise that I think we might even be able
Speaker 1: to try out quickly here with this audience.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I mean one of my favorite exercises is
Speaker 3: in chapter one of the book. It's called your Own
Speaker 3: Happy Ending, and it's so simple. But I think if
Speaker 3: you take nothing else from our conversation, but just do
Speaker 3: this exercise and maybe share it with someone in your
Speaker 3: family or someone who's sitting next to you later on,
Speaker 3: I honestly believe it will change the trajectory of the
Speaker 3: next few weeks and months of your life. And it's
Speaker 3: so so simple, right, So the first stage is and yes,
Speaker 3: as Laurie says, try and imagine it and do it now.
Speaker 3: If you can imagine you're on your deathbeds right now,
Speaker 3: look back on your life and ask yourself, what are
Speaker 3: three things you will want to have done or spent
Speaker 3: time on what does he think about that?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: And then the second part of the exercise is you
Speaker 3: bring it into the present day and go, Okay, what's
Speaker 3: three happiness habits do I need to do each week
Speaker 3: that will give me the happy ending I've just defined
Speaker 3: I want. It is deceptively simple, right, So for me,
Speaker 3: at the end of my life, I will want to
Speaker 3: have spent quality time with my family and friends. Like
Speaker 3: everyone else, I will want to have done something that
Speaker 3: impacts the people around me in a positive way. And
Speaker 3: I will want to have spent time or have had
Speaker 3: time to pursue things that I'm passionate about. So for me,
Speaker 3: my three weekly happiness habits are and these are written
Speaker 3: up on my fridge at home, so I see them
Speaker 3: every day, just on a piece of paper, nothing fancy,
Speaker 3: very low tech, scrap piece of paper and a pencil.
Speaker 2: Right, I specify.
Speaker 3: I want five meals a week with my wife and
Speaker 3: my two kids where I'm completely undistracted.
Speaker 2: Okay, may not work for you. That works for me.
Speaker 3: I need to record one episode in my podcast each week,
Speaker 3: which I've been doing for six and a half years,
Speaker 3: because I know that will have an impact on the
Speaker 3: world around me. And if I've had time each week
Speaker 3: to either go for long walk in nature, play my guitar,
Speaker 3: write some songs, play snooker with my son, whatever it
Speaker 3: might be, I know I've had time to pursue my passions. Now,
Speaker 3: why that's such a powerful exercise. It doesn't necessarily remove
Speaker 3: the want brain, Right, It doesn't mean I don't also
Speaker 3: get seduced into these belief systems that the culture will
Speaker 3: kind of feed in.
Speaker 2: But it means that.
Speaker 3: I'm intentionally focusing on the things that are important every
Speaker 3: single week. Now, those things don't take long. Right, It
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that my email inbox won't overflow, and I
Speaker 3: might get stressed about that. But the problem today, in
Speaker 3: my view, is that we fit in the important things
Speaker 3: when everything else is done. But the problem is today
Speaker 3: everything else is never done. There's always something else. There's
Speaker 3: always another email to answer, another person to get back to,
Speaker 3: another WhatsApp message group to reply to. Right, And so
Speaker 3: if you don't intentionally put in your diary the things
Speaker 3: that are important for your happiness, I think your happiness
Speaker 3: is going to wither away. And it's a simple exercise,
Speaker 3: but it's very very effective. I do it myself and
Speaker 3: I've done it for years with my patients and they
Speaker 3: really really like it.
Speaker 1: I think it's so powerful too, because what this exercise
Speaker 1: causes you to realize is that, like, you're never going
Speaker 1: to have time to get everything done, Like you're going
Speaker 1: to have a bunch of balls in the air, and
Speaker 1: a lot of those balls are going to fall. But
Speaker 1: the key is to make sure the right balls fall.
Speaker 1: And our instinct is never that we let the email
Speaker 1: ball fall, because it's like you know, pinging in our
Speaker 1: phones in our pockets. But this sort of forces us
Speaker 1: to say, there's a reason I'm not entering my email,
Speaker 1: and it's because I'm having dinner with my kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I often i'm the worst person, or one
Speaker 3: of the worst people in the world at getting back
Speaker 3: to emails. But you know what, I've made peace with that.
Speaker 3: I'm okay with that because me not getting back to
Speaker 3: emails generally means I'm spending time with my children and
Speaker 3: my wife, and so I've got very clear that that's important.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing about that deathbed exercise.
Speaker 3: Right, we all think we're different, and we all have
Speaker 3: individual likes and needs and wants, and yes, of course
Speaker 3: there's variability but on one level, we're not that different.
Speaker 3: You know, palliative care nurses who have sat with dying people,
Speaker 3: like Bronnie Ware, who wrote the book The Five Regrets
Speaker 3: of the Dying, who I had a beautiful conversation with
Speaker 3: last year when she was in London.
Speaker 2: On my podcast.
Speaker 3: She explains that after eight years of sitting with dying people,
Speaker 3: what are the things that they say? And they all
Speaker 3: say the same things. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
Speaker 3: I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family.
Speaker 3: I wish I'd lived my life and not the life
Speaker 3: that other people expected of me. So for me, these
Speaker 3: things aren't just cute Instagram memes which go viral, right,
Speaker 3: They don't have to be. We can convert it into action,
Speaker 3: We can use it as a way of thinking. I
Speaker 3: don't want to wait until my death bed to learn
Speaker 3: what's important, right, And it's the thing I didn't mention
Speaker 3: my dad. One thing I will say, though, just to
Speaker 3: which I think is really important. And I've reflected on
Speaker 3: this since I wrote the book and shared the story
Speaker 3: of my dad's One thing I can't say is that
Speaker 3: he made the wrong choices. And I'll tell you why
Speaker 3: I can't say that. If my dad was here today,
Speaker 3: one of the questions I'd love to ask him is Dad,
Speaker 3: was it worth it? Because you know what, for him,
Speaker 3: coming from India where he didn't feel there was much opportunity,
Speaker 3: he may go to me, and I suspect he would actually.
Speaker 3: And this is where my view has evolved since I
Speaker 3: wrote A Happy Mind, Happy Life. I think my dad
Speaker 3: was a lie. Today he may say, hey, son, listen,
Speaker 3: it was totally worth it. I'd do it all again
Speaker 3: because look how I've set you up with a great education.
Speaker 2: Look what impact you're having on the world. Look what
Speaker 2: your brother's doing.
Speaker 3: And I'm now sort of seeing the other side and
Speaker 3: going actually, for him, maybe it was worth it.
Speaker 1: But the key and the beauty of this exercises you
Speaker 1: can figure out what's worth it for you, which is
Speaker 1: so powerful. So in our second tip from your book,
Speaker 1: we're going to explore a practice that you find most important.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately we have run out of time, and that
Speaker 1: means that all of you can only figure out Ronan's
Speaker 1: second most important thing. If you listen to the Happiness Pod,
Speaker 1: can we get a big round of a plaza? That's right,
Speaker 1: Runkan and I only had about twenty minutes on stage
Speaker 1: and then we had to make way for some other
Speaker 1: great speakers.
Speaker 2: But kindly the.
Speaker 1: World Happiness Summit folks set us up in an empty
Speaker 1: auditorium next door so we could continue our conversation, which
Speaker 1: is coming up right after this quick break. So we're
Speaker 1: now done our conversation at Wahasu in front of that big,
Speaker 1: amazing audience, and now we are in a different auditorium
Speaker 1: That might sound a little bit echoey because there's nobody
Speaker 1: in here. We're sitting out here looking at like one
Speaker 1: hundred emptyc which is a little strange.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and we were just getting going were we
Speaker 3: I know, like there was a real energy in there
Speaker 3: in the room, and now we've got to recreate that
Speaker 3: for the second time.
Speaker 1: But which is a good way to jump to your
Speaker 1: second tip that we were just about to talk about before,
Speaker 1: which is this idea that we need to treat ourselves
Speaker 1: with kindness and treat ourself with respect even when the
Speaker 1: situation like this one might be a little bit tricky.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons I loved your book so
Speaker 1: much is that you're really candid about the fact that
Speaker 1: this is something that you have struggled with yourself a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting, Laurie that you know I mentioned the
Speaker 3: three legs of the stool, and I mentioned alignments and
Speaker 3: the importance of living in a way that is aligned
Speaker 3: with who we really are. And for this book, actually
Speaker 3: it's the most vulnerable I've ever been, to the point
Speaker 3: where my wife, who never reads any of my books
Speaker 3: until the final stage, is when she read it she
Speaker 3: actually said, Hey, wrong, going to be sure you want
Speaker 3: to put all of this in your book. And I
Speaker 3: think I'd be on this happiness journey myself, and I
Speaker 3: feel that it is important as long as I'm comfortable
Speaker 3: with it which I am to share the things or
Speaker 3: some of the things that maybe I previously wouldn't have shared,
Speaker 3: because it's kind of who I am. It's led to
Speaker 3: who I am today. And I think that negative inner
Speaker 3: voice is one of those things. I think I've had
Speaker 3: a pretty vicious inner voice for much of my life.
Speaker 3: I never felt good enough growing up. You know, there's
Speaker 3: two signs to every story. There's definitely not about blame.
Speaker 3: But this is actually not that uncommon in immigrant families,
Speaker 3: certainly here in the UK.
Speaker 2: I would say I can only speak for that.
Speaker 3: But if I came home from school when I was
Speaker 3: six or seven with nineteen out of twenty, it was
Speaker 3: never well done. It was always what did you get wrong?
Speaker 3: Why didn't you get twenty? If I ever came back
Speaker 3: and I was second in the class, Mum and Dad
Speaker 3: would always ask, well, who came top? How many points
Speaker 3: lower were you? How can you come top next time?
Speaker 3: And I didn't realize until about ten years ago what
Speaker 3: an impact that has had on me on my life,
Speaker 3: because I never felt full the love for.
Speaker 2: Who I was. Now.
Speaker 3: I'm not blaming my parents. They were doing the best
Speaker 3: that they could and for them, as immigrants to the UK,
Speaker 3: their belief system is we face a lot of struggle
Speaker 3: and discrimination. If my child can be a straight A
Speaker 3: student and get a really good job like a doctor
Speaker 3: or a lawyer, they're not going to have any problems.
Speaker 3: The problem is that little Wrongan developed the belief at
Speaker 3: a young age that I'm not good enough unless i'm
Speaker 3: number one. And for all my success, and we spoke
Speaker 3: about the want brain earlier, I've had more success than
Speaker 3: I could have dreamt off as a child, But that
Speaker 3: success is not why I'm sitting with you here today, Laurie,
Speaker 3: as happy and contented as I've ever been. In fact,
Speaker 3: that success has taught me that success doesn't make you happy.
Speaker 3: For me, at least, it didn't make me happy. What
Speaker 3: makes me happy is when I live in harmony with
Speaker 3: who I am, want to have a meaningful relationship with
Speaker 3: my wife, When I get time each week to spend
Speaker 3: quality time with my children. You know, I live five
Speaker 3: minutes away from my mother. I help to look after
Speaker 3: and care for her. These are things that actually make
Speaker 3: me happy. So how does that fit in with being
Speaker 3: kind to yourself? Well, when you don't feel like you're
Speaker 3: good enough, you will develop certain traits to compensate. So
Speaker 3: I have been very competitive for much of my life.
Speaker 3: A lot of my best friends will tell you wrong,
Speaker 3: as one of the most competitive people I know. But
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm not anymore because that competitiveness was
Speaker 3: an adaptation. If you only feel that, you get love
Speaker 3: when you're top of the tree, while developing the behavior
Speaker 3: trait of competitiveness is a genius adaptation because it drives
Speaker 3: you to do more and to achieve more. But as
Speaker 3: I've made peace with my upbringing, I've done a lot
Speaker 3: of you know, for once of a better term in
Speaker 3: a work, and I I feel very at peace with
Speaker 3: who I am. I like the person who I am today,
Speaker 3: so I no longer need the trait of competitiveness. So
Speaker 3: I believe that you can actually change a huge part
Speaker 3: of who you are, not everything, if you go in
Speaker 3: and do the work, maybe with a healthcare professional or
Speaker 3: a therapist. And today my inner voice is really really kind,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't. And it's really important for happiness, Laurie,
Speaker 3: because not just happening, but health too, right, Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: really important for happiness and health.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So, Kristin Neff has done a lot of research Professor
Speaker 3: Kristen nev on self compassion, and her research has shown
Speaker 3: a really strong link between self compassion and physical health.
Speaker 3: There's other research that shows that people who are more
Speaker 3: compassionate to themselves not only they kind it to others,
Speaker 3: but their immune system works better, they age more slowly,
Speaker 3: and they're better able to stick to healthy lifestyle habits.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So self compassion is massive, and we don't realize that
Speaker 3: if we call ourselves a loser. And I used to
Speaker 3: like if I wasn't doing well, i'd I mean, I
Speaker 3: share this in the book it's in fact, this is
Speaker 3: one of the stories. My wife said, are you sure
Speaker 3: you want to share this? I can remember at university
Speaker 3: in Edinburgh and medical school if on a Sunday afternoon
Speaker 3: we were at a local pool hall, just me and
Speaker 3: my buddy's, you know, playing pool. If I was losing. Now,
Speaker 3: I consider myself a decent player. If I was ever
Speaker 3: losing to one of my friends, sometimes i'd go into
Speaker 3: the restroom. I'd look at myself in the mirror, give
Speaker 3: myself a lot of slap and say, come on, you'd
Speaker 3: lose it, get yourself sorted right.
Speaker 2: That's what I would do.
Speaker 1: And you're not like a competitive billiards player. This is
Speaker 1: like you and your maids.
Speaker 3: I'm not a professional, right, And it would often motivate
Speaker 3: me to go back and sort my game out, and
Speaker 3: usually I would then go on to win. But when
Speaker 3: writing this book, what I realized, Laurie is that I
Speaker 3: didn't enjoy winning. The pain of losing is what I
Speaker 3: was trying to avoid, so I didn't feel it relates.
Speaker 2: To when i'd won. I was relieved that I hadn't lost.
Speaker 2: And that's pretty dark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but this is a general feature of
Speaker 1: the want brain, right, Like, when the want brain gets
Speaker 1: what it wants, it's usually not very happy or as
Speaker 1: happy as you thought. It's usually not satisfied. You just
Speaker 1: like want something else immediately. And the pressure that that
Speaker 1: can put on our mindset and our self talk is
Speaker 1: just incredible. And so so I'm curious kind of how
Speaker 1: you got out of this sort of really self critical voice.
Speaker 1: But I also want you to talk about the specific
Speaker 1: practice you recommend in the book, because as usual you
Speaker 1: have this like incredibly straightforward, practical kind of strategy that
Speaker 1: folks can engage in. And so talk maybe about kind
Speaker 1: of how you got out of things, but then also
Speaker 1: what you recommend.
Speaker 2: For your educatients.
Speaker 3: And I think it's important just to say that when
Speaker 3: you call yourself a loser in your head, that is
Speaker 3: not neutral. It's not just something you're saying to yourself.
Speaker 3: When I suppose to Professor Kristen Neff on my podcast,
Speaker 3: she said to me that, and she showed me research
Speaker 3: that when you talk negatively to yourself, you elevate levels
Speaker 3: of the stress hormone cortisol. So you are literally stressing
Speaker 3: yourself out with that negative self talk. And I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't realize that they think, Oh,
Speaker 3: I'm just saying it to myself. It doesn't matter. No,
Speaker 3: it absolutely matters, because that's the start of all kinds
Speaker 3: of negative emotions like guilt and shame, and all kinds
Speaker 3: of things which spiral and lead us to make poor choices.
Speaker 1: In our life and negative health consequences.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite bits of Nef's research is that
Speaker 1: she looks at people who are more self compassionate versus
Speaker 1: less and their level of healthy eating, and she finds
Speaker 1: that people who are more self compassionate can make healthier
Speaker 1: choices in terms of what they're eating. And the cortisol
Speaker 1: story makes total sense there. Right, if you're flooding your
Speaker 1: brain with cortisol, you're like, I need snack food, I
Speaker 1: need like comfort food.
Speaker 2: I feel that.
Speaker 3: And what I found is that lifestyle change for me
Speaker 3: these days is a lot easier than it used to
Speaker 3: be because I'm not trying to overcome something because I'm
Speaker 3: kind to myself these days and compassionate to myself. Well,
Speaker 3: a compassionate person someone who truly likes themselves and likes
Speaker 3: to be compassionate to themselves, then probably not going to
Speaker 3: binge eat sugar as much right, And I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that to be critical to anyone, but we have to
Speaker 3: understand that self compassion is a critical ingredient for health
Speaker 3: and happiness. So how have I done it? Well, there's
Speaker 3: been a combination of different ways. Yes, I have done
Speaker 3: a bit of therapy, something called IFS Internal Family Systems,
Speaker 3: which for me was incredibly helpful. But I know that
Speaker 3: therapy is not either available or accessible to everybody for
Speaker 3: all kinds of issues. Cost you know what you have
Speaker 3: available to you in your area, and I don't think
Speaker 3: you necessarily need it. You can do a lot even
Speaker 3: without it. And so just being aware and catching yourself
Speaker 3: when you have a negative voice, I think is really useful.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: Having children has been really, really helpful because what a
Speaker 3: lot of parents I think need to hear is that
Speaker 3: if you have a negative voice that you say out
Speaker 3: loud in front of your children, oh stupid me, Oh
Speaker 3: I can't do anything right? Well, what voice do you
Speaker 3: think they're going to develop? So for me, having children
Speaker 3: was a really it was a huge motivating factor to
Speaker 3: catch myself and not do it in front of the children.
Speaker 2: Doesn't mean it's good to do it away.
Speaker 3: From them, but Initially I didn't want to do it
Speaker 3: in front of them because I didn't want them to
Speaker 3: pick it up. For much of my life until the
Speaker 3: last five or six years, I don't think I was
Speaker 3: that happy.
Speaker 2: I think I.
Speaker 3: Thought more, I need to compete, I need to do better.
Speaker 3: That's going to make me happy. But I got all
Speaker 3: that and it didn't. That's when I stopped looking outside
Speaker 3: and I started to turn the ship around to look
Speaker 3: internally and go, ah, you need to do some work here,
Speaker 3: that's what's going to make you happy. So one of
Speaker 3: the practices in the book that I really like, that
Speaker 3: it's really practical for people, is to write themselves a
Speaker 3: love letter.
Speaker 2: Now to a British.
Speaker 3: Audience, I'm not sure there's anything more uncomfortable than say
Speaker 3: something like that. Maybe it goes down easier in America.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think not unfortunately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But the point of it is, can you fact,
Speaker 3: let's make it easy. Can you write down on a
Speaker 3: piece of paper or in your journal five things you
Speaker 3: like about yourself?
Speaker 1: And one of the things I love about the suggestion
Speaker 1: in your book is you say, if you can't think
Speaker 1: of those five things, pretend you're your best friend. Pretend
Speaker 1: you're your dog. Pretend you're someone who really cares about you.
Speaker 1: What would they say about you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretend you're that teacher who you had in high
Speaker 3: school that was awesome for you. What would they say
Speaker 3: about you? Start there, because you're opening the door to
Speaker 3: self compassion.
Speaker 2: It can be that easy. Now.
Speaker 3: If you can't do five, but you can only think
Speaker 3: of one, start with one, right, and maybe over the
Speaker 3: next few days, see if you can build up to
Speaker 3: two or three, and look, what does the research say.
Speaker 3: There are some really good research showing that for seven
Speaker 3: days in a row, if you write yourself a compassionate letter,
Speaker 3: a love letter, let's say, right, or just a letter
Speaker 3: wait you say nice things about yourself. Three months later,
Speaker 3: those researchers can still measure improvements in your happiness and
Speaker 3: your subjective well being.
Speaker 2: I mean this stuff.
Speaker 3: What I love about it is it simple, it doesn't
Speaker 3: cost any money, and it can have a real impact. Now, Laurie,
Speaker 3: if anyone who's listening to this right now is pushing
Speaker 3: back a little bit and going, I'm not writing.
Speaker 2: Myself a love lad set, I would say, Okay, I
Speaker 2: hear you.
Speaker 3: But if you're pushing back, it's probably a very good
Speaker 3: sign that self compassion is something you need to work on.
Speaker 3: And I would just say, like with anything, start small, and.
Speaker 1: This is you know, something that you obviously, as a
Speaker 1: medical doctor know really well. We assume like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: fixing our traits. If I'm self critical, I'll just be
Speaker 1: self critical forever. But like our brains have neuroplasticity, right,
Speaker 1: you know what fires together, wires together. Right. The more
Speaker 1: you do these activities, the more likely it is that
Speaker 1: it's going to become a habit that you can pick up.
Speaker 1: So this, this writing, this love letter might seem kind
Speaker 1: of cheesy in your journal some random Thursday night, you
Speaker 1: do that every night, but then naturally when you're playing pool,
Speaker 1: it will just be the talk that you bring up.
Speaker 3: It just becomes more of a happy you bring up
Speaker 3: some really interesting First of all, what I've realized in
Speaker 3: life is that we get good at what we practice.
Speaker 3: If you practice stress every day, you get pretty good
Speaker 3: at feeling stressed. If you practice negative self talk every day,
Speaker 3: you get really good at talking.
Speaker 2: Down to yourself.
Speaker 3: If you practice self compassion every day, or gratitude every day,
Speaker 3: you get really good.
Speaker 2: At those things.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting just to tie up the loop with
Speaker 3: having children. I remember a few years ago I was
Speaker 3: actually playing pool or snooker with my son, who at
Speaker 3: the time was about eight or nine, and I remember
Speaker 3: this really well.
Speaker 2: I fell into.
Speaker 3: An old pattern, not as bad as it was at university,
Speaker 3: but not quite as compassionate as I would have liked
Speaker 3: to have been.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't that bad. I think.
Speaker 3: I think I missed a shot and I said something like, oh,
Speaker 3: you could have done better. You should have made that shot.
Speaker 3: And my son said to me, Daddy, don't talk to
Speaker 3: yourself like that. And it was so powerful because it
Speaker 3: helped catch me. And that wasn't that bad. Honestly, competitor,
Speaker 3: I like about it. That was good, but I thought,
Speaker 3: this is awesome, Like I hope my wife and I
Speaker 3: have brought him up in such a way that he
Speaker 3: is compassionate to himself. And he's heard me say something.
Speaker 3: He said, that's not nice, Daddy, don't talk to yourself
Speaker 3: like that. And it was a really special moment for me,
Speaker 3: a for me, but also for what I hope that
Speaker 3: I'm teaching him.
Speaker 1: Rungan is so open and honest about how he's had
Speaker 1: to change many of his habits to improve his happiness.
Speaker 1: But there's one strategy above all others that he credits
Speaker 1: with making his daily life better. You'll share what that
Speaker 1: is when the Happiness lab returns in a moment. I
Speaker 1: often say that social interaction is the key to happiness,
Speaker 1: but you and I both know that people can kind
Speaker 1: of suck. They can make us angry or even make
Speaker 1: us feel disappointed. Doctor Runken Chatterjee says the biggest breakthrough
Speaker 1: in his happiness journey was to change how he dealt
Speaker 1: with these tricky interactions. It can be done, he says,
Speaker 1: by exercising our friction. So what exactly does that involve?
Speaker 3: So we're social animals, right, It's very hard, I think,
Speaker 3: for us to be happy if our interactions with the
Speaker 3: world around us and the people around us are problematic,
Speaker 3: and a lot of the time we feel that we
Speaker 3: have to be a victim to the way the people
Speaker 3: around us act if they're not nice, or they criticize me,
Speaker 3: or they say certain things. While I have every right
Speaker 3: to feel down and depressed and unhappy, and that's what
Speaker 3: I used to think, but I've realized there is another option.
Speaker 3: The way you interact with people, the way you interact
Speaker 3: with the world. It comes down to you. You can
Speaker 3: interpret various situations and a multitude of different ways, and
Speaker 3: once you understand that, you empower yourself. So, just as
Speaker 3: you can go to the physical gym and do bicep
Speaker 3: curls or make your biceps bigger, will seeking out friction
Speaker 3: for me is working out of the social gym. You're
Speaker 3: using social friction with the world around you to make
Speaker 3: your social muscle stronger. So how does this play out
Speaker 3: for me? Well, any time something happens in my life
Speaker 3: that I don't like or I'm getting frustrated by, I think, well,
Speaker 3: what other story could I write here? Okay, instead of
Speaker 3: being a victim to this situation, how can I empower
Speaker 3: myself here? So let's say I'm driving somewhere and someone
Speaker 3: cuts me up on the road. Instead of saying that
Speaker 3: guy shouldn't be driving, they shouldn't have got their driving license,
Speaker 3: they need their eyes checked, I could have been hurt.
Speaker 3: Whatever story you want to create here, you're entitled to
Speaker 3: make whatever story you want. But if you have that
Speaker 3: sort of outlook, you're not going to be happy because
Speaker 3: you're going to generate emotional stress. You're not going to
Speaker 3: feel good, and that emotional stress will have to be
Speaker 3: neutralized at some point, and often we neutralize it with sugar,
Speaker 3: with more caffeine, with alcohol, with whatever, you know, our
Speaker 3: habit of choices. But we generated that emotional stress by
Speaker 3: the way we reacted. And once you want to sound
Speaker 3: that you don't need to react like that, you open
Speaker 3: up a new possibility of living. This is exactly what
Speaker 3: I've done, and when I really got this Lorry. Honestly,
Speaker 3: the conversation, out of all conversations I've had in my podcast,
Speaker 3: which is four hundred plus now, the one conversation I'd
Speaker 3: always come back to is the conversation I had with
Speaker 3: Edith Eager, who when I spoke to was a ninety
Speaker 3: three year old lady. When she was sixteen, she got
Speaker 3: put on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. Within two
Speaker 3: hours of getting there, both of her parents were murdered.
Speaker 3: Later that afternoon, she was asked to dance in front
Speaker 3: of the senior prison guards. So she's in a concentration account.
Speaker 3: The parents have just been murdered, she's sixteen years old.
Speaker 3: She has to dance for the entertainment of the senior
Speaker 3: prison guards. And there's many things I remember from that conversation.
Speaker 3: But she said to me, when I had to dance
Speaker 3: for them, I wasn't in Auschwitz.
Speaker 2: In my mind. I was in Budapest opera house.
Speaker 3: I had a beautiful blue dress on the orchestra was playing,
Speaker 3: there was a full house. I remember Laurie thinking, you
Speaker 3: were able to do that in Alschwitz. Then in the conversation,
Speaker 3: she said, when I was in Auschwitz, I started to
Speaker 3: see the prison guards as the prisoners. They weren't free
Speaker 3: in their mind. In my mind I was free, and
Speaker 3: there was lots more. But at the end, this is
Speaker 3: the thing she said to me that I think about.
Speaker 3: I would say on most days, said wrongin I have
Speaker 3: lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you that the
Speaker 3: greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison
Speaker 3: you create inside your own mind. That phrase has changed
Speaker 3: my life because I realize that we all create these
Speaker 3: mental prisons every day by the way we interact. So
Speaker 3: that person who cuts me up on the road, instead
Speaker 3: of me being a victim to that situation, it's training
Speaker 3: myself to go, oh, I wonder what's going on in
Speaker 3: that person's life. Maybe that's a dad whose daughter was
Speaker 3: up last night with earache and they're exhausted and they
Speaker 3: think they're going to be late for work, and if
Speaker 3: they're late for work, they're going to get fired. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe they genuinely didn't see me. Whatever story you want.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing, Laurie that I've realized, and you
Speaker 3: know you're a psychologist. I'm interesting in your perspective on this.
Speaker 3: All situations I've realized have multiple realities. And I often
Speaker 3: talk to people about this through the lens of a
Speaker 3: couple's relationship. I say to people, let's say you're a
Speaker 3: husband and wife and you have a disagreement. Don't know
Speaker 3: if you ever know what that feels like, you know
Speaker 3: for people who experienced that, right, I say, Okay, well,
Speaker 3: you've had a disagreement stroke argument. What actually happens, Well,
Speaker 3: it kind of depends who you ask. If you ask
Speaker 3: the husband, he may give you a certain narrative and
Speaker 3: story about the situation that may be completely different to
Speaker 3: what his wife says, and they can both be right
Speaker 3: for them. There was this really great study on some
Speaker 3: psychologists where they found football fans and after the match,
Speaker 3: they showed them the same incident. Right, so they're saying,
Speaker 3: calmly watching the same incident, depending on which team you
Speaker 3: supported would determine what you think happened in that incident.
Speaker 3: And so the reason for me sharing that is you
Speaker 3: realize that every situation has multiple stories that you can
Speaker 3: create about it. Or what I say in the book
Speaker 3: is create the story that empowers you, not the story
Speaker 3: that makes you a victim. So this can be a
Speaker 3: very simple practice that people do in the evening or
Speaker 3: once a week. You reflect, where did I get really
Speaker 3: frustrated by someone and make them like a really bad person.
Speaker 2: And one of the.
Speaker 3: Tools I recommend is just saying what stories you need
Speaker 3: to create to make that person a hero. And here's
Speaker 3: the truth of the situation the way I see it, Lorrie,
Speaker 3: the truth of what actually happens for your happiness, it
Speaker 3: doesn't really matter for your happiness, it doesn't matter. And
Speaker 3: when you can let go of the need to be
Speaker 3: right and the need to know that person does have
Speaker 3: a driving license and they should have known that I
Speaker 3: was here, you never know. And I've been doing this
Speaker 3: for over five years now. I've been slowly using every
Speaker 3: bit of social friction in my life. In the evening,
Speaker 3: I'd reflect and go okay, wrong, And what's a different
Speaker 3: story that you can right here and yes. And at
Speaker 3: first it was an effort, like when you first learn
Speaker 3: to drive a car, if you're learning to drive a
Speaker 3: manual or what you guys call the stick I think
Speaker 3: stick share, yes, stake shift yet right, it's conscious you're thinking,
Speaker 3: this is the clutch, this is the accelerator. But what
Speaker 3: over time it's automatic. So now, genuinely speaking, most of
Speaker 3: the time, unless I'm on the really high levels of
Speaker 3: stress and or I'm sleep deprived, I will naturally write
Speaker 3: a happiness story. And it means that you feel good
Speaker 3: because you lead with compassion and curiosity. What's going on
Speaker 3: in that person's life? Does that all make sense?
Speaker 2: No? Totally.
Speaker 1: And I think when you do that, you do a
Speaker 1: couple of things. First, you end up often changing the
Speaker 1: other person's behavior. I imagine somebody cuts you off and
Speaker 1: you get to interact with them after. If you scream
Speaker 1: at them and stuff, you are going to turn them
Speaker 1: into a jerk. But if you say, are you okay?
Speaker 1: Like what happened? Like, if you just show it, like
Speaker 1: a tiny iota of compassion, often that will change someone's behavior.
Speaker 1: They will become the hero. They'll kind of want to
Speaker 1: behave in the way that you want. But another reason
Speaker 1: I just love this technique so much is that when
Speaker 1: you realize not just that these kind of construles are
Speaker 1: these ways of thinking about people, these sort of hero
Speaker 1: stories matter for your happiness, but when you also realize
Speaker 1: that you can get better at it, that this is
Speaker 1: a social gym and you can train, you can actually,
Speaker 1: in a funny way, become excited about these moments of
Speaker 1: social free one hundred percent where you're like, oh, somebody
Speaker 1: cut me off. This is a wonderful These are my
Speaker 1: reps today, Like I'm going to get extra reps. This
Speaker 1: is like leg day for social And.
Speaker 3: What does this do if we think about the core
Speaker 3: happiness stool that I mentioned right, the starts, alignment, contentment,
Speaker 3: of control. Well, this does several things, but particularly this
Speaker 3: speaks to the control elements. If you feel that the
Speaker 3: social world is out of control, that people are acting
Speaker 3: in these sort of ways and you are basically just
Speaker 3: like a puppet on a string, that if someone acts badly,
Speaker 3: you're going to have a bad day. Just think about
Speaker 3: that for a minute. You're putting your happiness in the
Speaker 3: hands of other people. Now I get it. Of course,
Speaker 3: we want people to interact nicely with us, but you
Speaker 3: can't rely on that if you want to be happy.
Speaker 3: And you know another phrase which might help people here
Speaker 3: if they're struggling to write a hero story for the
Speaker 3: other person. This phrase literally is change my life. I
Speaker 3: think it's very powerful. If I was that other person,
Speaker 3: I'd be acting in exactly the same way as them.
Speaker 3: And when you really really get that phrase, what I'm
Speaker 3: saying is if I was that other person and I
Speaker 3: had their childhoods and the bullying they experience, and the
Speaker 3: parents they had, and the first boss at sixteen who
Speaker 3: was toxic and took advantage to be whatever it might be,
Speaker 3: if I had their life, I would see the world
Speaker 3: the way that they see it, and I would be
Speaker 3: acting in the way that they're currently acting.
Speaker 2: Now. I choose to.
Speaker 3: Go out in the world every day believing that everyone
Speaker 3: is doing the best that they can, and if I
Speaker 3: were them, I'd be acting in exactly the same way.
Speaker 3: For me, it's been a transformative practice because it means
Speaker 3: that you know what you're curious, You understand. You're thinking,
Speaker 3: why does that person think differently to me? Why is
Speaker 3: that person being rude in that situation? What has gone
Speaker 3: on in their life. It doesn't mean you have to
Speaker 3: accept poor behavior. Just to be really clear, but by
Speaker 3: not getting emotionally triggered, you feel better. You feel calmer
Speaker 3: and in control. And let's say it's your boss who
Speaker 3: send you a email that you don't like and you
Speaker 3: think is inappropriate. If you get emotionally triggered, you may
Speaker 3: fire one back that you regret, You may have an
Speaker 3: unproductive interaction with your boss because you're so emotionally triggered
Speaker 3: by it. But if you receive that email and you think, hmm,
Speaker 3: that's out of character for my boss, what's going on
Speaker 3: in his or her life? Oh, you know, maybe he's
Speaker 3: having marital problems, maybe he's worried about his or her job,
Speaker 3: whatever it might be, you just calm everything down and
Speaker 3: then if you do have the torture boss, you're better
Speaker 3: able to make changes because you've not been emotionally triggered.
Speaker 3: So that chapter, honestly is one of my favorite chapters
Speaker 3: in the book because I would say it's had the
Speaker 3: most impact on me. I realize how much I picked
Speaker 3: up from my parents, how much I thought that my
Speaker 3: feelings were because of the people around me, and I
Speaker 3: didn't quite really Actually, I've got a lot more agency
Speaker 3: here than I previously thought, and.
Speaker 1: So I can see this just in interacting with you.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to ask the question anyway. Has kind
Speaker 1: of recognizing the agency you have to change your happiness
Speaker 1: really changed your overall sense of joy and well being.
Speaker 1: It seems like it just interacting with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look on honestly, and again, I would have been
Speaker 3: too insecure to say this in the past because of
Speaker 3: how it might make people feel. But I also understand
Speaker 3: that how people feel is up to them. It's not
Speaker 3: that much to do with me. So I'm going to
Speaker 3: share something with you that if people feel bad about it,
Speaker 3: it says I think more about them.
Speaker 2: And I say that with an open heart. Lorry.
Speaker 3: I'm not blaming or criticizing anyone. I'm forty six years old.
Speaker 3: I've never felt happier and more content with who I
Speaker 3: am than I do today, and it's been like this
Speaker 3: for a couple of years now. I think writing this
Speaker 3: book on happiness has really helped me. You know, what
Speaker 3: do authors do. We often write the books that we
Speaker 3: need for ourselves.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: That was absolutely the case with me. I was on
Speaker 3: that journey and writing it. Yes, I know it's helped
Speaker 3: a lot of people, but it's also helped me. And
Speaker 3: what I'm passionate about, what I've always been passionate about,
Speaker 3: is we make health, we make happiness so complicated we
Speaker 3: really don't need to. Like I do, think it's our
Speaker 3: birthright to be happy. I think if you look at
Speaker 3: a young child, a two or three year olds, they're
Speaker 3: in the moments they're playing with their toys or their siblings.
Speaker 2: That happiness, that presence. I think it is something.
Speaker 3: That all of us can get, but we need to
Speaker 3: know what to work on. That's why I created this
Speaker 3: model of the three legged store, because I think it's
Speaker 3: rather than thinking what can I do to be happy?
Speaker 3: I think, well, what we need to do is what
Speaker 3: can I do to improve my alignment? What can I
Speaker 3: do to improve my contentment? What can I do that
Speaker 3: gives me a sense of control? And if I can
Speaker 3: do those things regularly, I'm going to be happier more often.
Speaker 1: Cool to hear how much it's changed your life, But
Speaker 1: I'm curious, given your status as a doctor in the
Speaker 1: UK and so on, like, do you think that more
Speaker 1: books like this are conld change the medical field? That
Speaker 1: is not just you, but really like the way we
Speaker 1: think about physical health is going to incorporate happiness even more.
Speaker 3: I'm an optimist, okay, so I believe it will. And yes,
Speaker 3: I get contacted a lot by the public, but I've
Speaker 3: had hundreds, if not thousands of messages from medical doctors saying, wow,
Speaker 3: I had no idea about this stuff. Firstly, it's helping
Speaker 3: me with my own health and happiness, and it's also
Speaker 3: given me a tool kit to start introducing these conversations
Speaker 3: with my patients when appropriate. So I am optimistic. That's
Speaker 3: one of the reasons for writing the book. And there
Speaker 3: is a course that I teach to doctors called Prescribing
Speaker 3: Life Style Medicine, and we trained several thousand healthcare professionals now,
Speaker 3: and some of these concepts I'm bringing into the course
Speaker 3: because I think it's important, yes for patients, but also.
Speaker 2: For the doctors themselves. Right.
Speaker 3: I shared a very person sorry about my dad before,
Speaker 3: and that may seem extreme, you know, only sleeping three
Speaker 3: nights a week for thirty years, and yes, it is
Speaker 3: quite an extreme situation. But there is a version of
Speaker 3: that that I have seen regularly with so many patients,
Speaker 3: and that version is I'm working too hard I'm doing
Speaker 3: too much. I'm chasing this fictional idea of success. I
Speaker 3: already have enough. I've already got enough to feed my family.
Speaker 3: But I'm so used to pushing for the next thing
Speaker 3: that I keep going and I'm making myself sick. So
Speaker 3: that right, your own happy ending exercise. I think it's
Speaker 3: a damn good one for doctors to do on themselves,
Speaker 3: and I have used it with patients also because it
Speaker 3: helps them realize, oh, maybe I don't need to go
Speaker 3: for that promotion. Maybe I'm all right where I am.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I want to have this teacher who was a patient
Speaker 3: of mine, and I remember that he did this exercise
Speaker 3: and then he came in a few weeks later to say, Doc,
Speaker 3: I've got it. I'm not going for the promotion. I said, okay, great,
Speaker 3: he said yeah. I realized, like I quite like my
Speaker 3: current position, Like I earn enough, I can pay the mortgage,
Speaker 3: I get to spend time with my kids every weekend.
Speaker 3: If I take the promotion, yes, I'll get paid a
Speaker 3: little bit more, but actually I'll have to say extra
Speaker 3: evenings in the week at school and I'll be in
Speaker 3: at weekends. And I thought, awesome, Wow, I wish I'd
Speaker 3: been able to make those decisions at that age. So,
Speaker 3: you know, I think it can help patients, But in
Speaker 3: terms of the medical profession, I think that it is inevitable.
Speaker 3: At some point doctors will have to start understanding happiness
Speaker 3: and the skill of happiness better for themselves and for
Speaker 3: their patients because what we're doing is currently not working.
Speaker 2: Doctors are stressed out.
Speaker 3: There's record rates to burnout, there's record rates of people
Speaker 3: leaving the profession. There was a study in the UK
Speaker 3: recently that says eighty eight percent of the UK workforce
Speaker 3: has experienced a form of burnout in the past two years.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether that's stat is truly reflexive of
Speaker 3: every workplace, but even if it isn't.
Speaker 2: It's still pretty it's still pretty bad.
Speaker 3: What does it say about as a society. So you know,
Speaker 3: when answer to your question, yes, I do see there's
Speaker 3: a movement now with more doctors being interested. You know,
Speaker 3: We've just been on stage at the Happiness Summits and
Speaker 3: there's been several doctors who've come up to me and
Speaker 3: spoken and saying, I'm using your book with my patients already,
Speaker 3: and I have been. It's making a real difference. So yes,
Speaker 3: I'm an optimist, but I do think the medical profession
Speaker 3: is starting to change. I wish it would change a
Speaker 3: bit sooner, a bit quicker, but I think it's going
Speaker 3: to happen.
Speaker 1: Ringan, thank you so much for coming on the show,
Speaker 1: and thank you so much for the great work that
Speaker 1: you're doing.
Speaker 2: Well, Laurie.
Speaker 3: It's been an honor to come on your wonderful podcast,
Speaker 3: and you literally are a trailblazer in the world of happiness,
Speaker 3: and you've inspired a lot of my work over the year.
Speaker 2: So you're with these an honest to meet you in
Speaker 2: person to come on the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Yeah, yeah, our great audience standing ovation. Doctor
Speaker 1: Rungin Chatterjee was just one of the inspiring people I
Speaker 1: met at the World Happiness Summit. I also spent a
Speaker 1: bunch of time with the events founder, Karen Guggenheim, and
Speaker 1: I got to hear how a painful bereavement kick started
Speaker 1: her mission to improve global happiness.
Speaker 4: My husband caught the flu, which developed into a pneumonia,
Speaker 4: and within ten days he was gone, Okay, well I'm done.
Speaker 4: And I don't think that I was suicidal at all
Speaker 4: in that regard, but I think we can be a
Speaker 4: live dead, just being numb to life.
Speaker 1: That's all to come next time on a happiness lab
Speaker 1: with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,