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Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
BITESIZE | How to Reinvent Your Life This Summer: 5 Simple Habits That Really Work | Dr Rangan Chatterjee #570
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The summer months have a different flavour and feel to the other months of the year; there’s something different about our energy, motivation and willpower. And, if we can harness those differences, we have a golden opportunity to make meaningful changes in our life.
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Today's bite sized episode is sponsored by the brand new formulation of AG1, the daily health drink that has been in my own life for over six years now. Some of the upgrades in the new formula include more magnesium, which supports muscle function and the ability of our nervous systems to relax. And it also now contains five instead of two strains of bacteria to reflect the latest advancements in microbiome science. It also contains key nutrients in bioavailable forms the body can easily and readily utilize, maximizing their potential benefits. AG1 makes it simple to be the best version of you over 70 ingredients, one scoop once a day for less than a cup of coffee. And right now AG1 are giving my audience a special summer offer worth £58 which is almost US$80. You will get 10 free travel packs and an awesome welcome kit with your first subscription. To take advantage go to drinkag1.comlivemore welcome to Feel Better Live More bite size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 468 of the podcast, which was a solo episode from myself, all about the summer months and how we can embrace this particular season to make meaningful changes in our life. There's something different about our energy and motivation during this time of year, and in this clip I share five simple but powerful ideas that you can consider introducing that could help you make the most of the season ahead. So first tip Change up your morning routine. Okay, you may or may not think you have a morning routine, but all of us do. We all have a routine that we do now. We're not always intentional about it, but we absolutely have a routine. So your routine could be that you are lying in, you're scrolling in bed, you're looking at the news headlines, you're getting up late and then you're rushing around until you get to work. Or your routine could be more intentional where you get up and are doing some proactive things for your health like meditation or journaling or exercise or whatever it might be. Whatever your current routine is, I want you to think about changing it up in the summer. And in particular, what I've seen work really really well is to get up a bit earlier than usual and get outside. Now of course this will depend where you live here in the UK at the moment it's getting light at about 4:30 in the morning. Okay, I'm not saying you have to get up at 4:30, but if you're living somewhere where it gets light earlier, this is the perfect Time of year to take advantage of that. Okay, Set an alarm, get up, maybe even before coffee or tea or whatever drink you like to have in the morning. Get outside, embrace the morning lights and maybe go for a 15 or 20 minute walk more if you can. But even 10 or 15 minutes can make a really big difference. Now why does it make such a big difference? The first thing it does is set your body's circadian rhythm. Okay? Your circadian rhythm influences so many systems in your body. Getting natural light first thing in the morning sets a timer for certain hormones in your body which will help you sleep in the evening. Okay? A lot of people don't think about that when it comes to sleep. They're concentrating on what they do just before bed. But actually what you do first thing in the morning influences your ability to sleep at night. Okay? So you're getting that natural light exposure which helps your circadian biology. So that's really, really important. Number two, if you're going outside for a walk in natural light, at that time, you're getting movement in. We know that simply walking will improve your mood, will improve your insulin sensitivity, will improve your focus. It's also a bit of solitude for you if you do this by yourself. Solitude is a really important daily practice, I think arguably the most important practice for our health and our happiness because it allows us to reflect on our lives. Often we're stuck in our lives and we never step outside with solitude to think about how is our life going? How could I change things? Am I nourishing my relationships? Am I nourishing my health, et cetera, et cetera. You need a practice of solitude to be able to do that. And I think a 15 minute walk every morning gives you that natural light. It gives you your movement and it gives you a daily practice of solitude. Now, I had a patient a few years ago who thought that they were a night owl. They never wanted to get up before 7:00am they, they said they were always tired in the morning. And I persuaded her in the summer months to get up at 5am and go for a 30 minute walk every morning. I said, try it for at least seven days and see what happens. The change was remarkable. She found it hard at first. Definitely the alarm went off. She didn't want to get up, but she committed to it. Not only to me, she committed to herself that this was the behavior she was going to do. And she found within days her body clock was starting to align. Within a few days, she was starting to get up just before her alarm. She was getting that natural light in the morning, she was getting that time to herself. And this lady found that when she came back, she was much more present with her children. She felt that she was ahead of the day. She felt it much easier to engage in other helpful behaviors for the rest of the day. And it all started with that 30 minute walk at 5am So I want you to think about that. You may already be doing that, but if you are not doing that already, and perhaps you find it hard to do that in the autumn months, in the winter. And I get it is hard. Embrace the season, embrace the fact that it is light at that time. Your body wants to be up in that light. You may have to push through for a few days, but I honestly would recommend you try it for at least seven days and I'm pretty sure you're going to feel better. The second thing I want you to think about is a social media detox. Okay? We hear all the time about social media and how it's controlling our lives, or it certainly is for many of us. But many of us feel that we can't do much about it or it's difficult. You know, we're tired, we're stressed. In the evenings, we just like to go on Instagram and scroll for a few hours. I get it. What I want you to consider in the summer months, and this is something that I've been doing now for maybe five years, is take a real break from social media in those summer months. Now, I want to acknowledge that not everyone is going to be able to do this. Okay? You might have a job where you need to be on it. I get that. You may have a business where you're the only one running it and you have to be on it. If that applies to you, sure, it may be more challenging, but for many of us, we just keep doing in the summer what we've done in every other season. And I want you to really embrace the change in the season. I think we respond as human beings to these changes in rhythm. Okay. I do think in the winter months when it gets certainly here in the UK it can be dark at 8am and dark at 4pm Again, you know, you want to hibernate, you don't want to be as active. That's natural at that time of year. Think about what animals do at that time of year. But in the summer months it's very, very different. And I think we really need to lean into those differences. The modern world makes it hard for us to do that. We have the same work times the Same schedules. But I want you to think about what can you do differently in the summer months than you do for the rest of the year. And I think a social media detox is one of those things. Okay, what might that look like? First of all, it depends on your relationship with social media. But I think so many of us are simply not aware of how much our thoughts are influenced by the world around us. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that many people don't really know what they think anymore. They're so used to getting up in the morning, picking up their phone and consuming. Okay, so we're having very little time to be present with our own thoughts. That's why tip number one, the morning walk. And I forgot to say that morning walk without a phone. If you can, or even if you have a phone with you, don't look at it. You want to be with your own thoughts. Allow your innermost thoughts to come up and process them. Once you start consuming material from the outside world, you've kind of lost that opportunity. Your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviors are often downstream from the content you're consuming. Right? So what I would recommend, if you can get on your smartphone, if you've got one, and delete your social media apps. We know that if you make a behavior difficult, we do it less. If you make a behavior easy, we do it more. I mean, that applies to anything. It applies to Netflix, to exercise and movement. If you have to go to the gym that's 10 minutes away to do your workout, you're less likely to do it than if you can do a five minute workout every day in your kitchen, in your own clothes. Okay. All the human behavior research supports us. Make it easy, you'll do it. Make it hard, you won't. So if you delete those social media apps from your phone. Yes, for the first few days. Cause I do this every year. You pick up that phone and you sort of, you feel that urge. You haven't quite got used to it yet. You're wanting to press and see cause you're used to doing it. But within, I would say within three days, that urge has gone. And before you know it, you feel a lot calmer, you feel more relaxed, you feel more in tune with your own feelings and your own thoughts. I really would encourage you to do it. For me, it's been life changing, but many people I've shared this with on Instagram over the past years and they do it as well, and they say, oh my God, I didn't realize how Good. I could feel when I was off social media and the key about deleting off your phone is you make it harder to go on. Now, technically you could go on your laptop and go onto that social media platform, but you're probably not going to do it as often. And again, if you've got people in your family, let's say a partner who can do it with you. But that could be really powerful. It is something that has really changed the way I experience my summers each year. And once it gets to April or May, I'm actually starting to look forward to my social media detox, which typically I start in the middle of July. As I say I get not everyone can do it again. It's just an idea I want to share with you. I've experienced the benefits, people have reported back to me the benefits and I just want you to at least give it a try to see if you also experience those benefits again. I tend to do it for four, maybe six weeks now, but I started off doing it for just one week, so maybe just start there one week without any social media. Tip number three, can you do all of your movement and exercise outdoors? Okay, remember, everything here is about embracing the change in the season. Again, this is something I do. It's something I've been recommending to patients for years. It's how can you make things feel a bit different? So for me, I always want to be outside at this time of year, even if it's cloudy, as it often is in the uk. So I will leave a skipping rope outside, outside my office, outside my kitchen, and several times in the day I'll just go there and I'll skip. Okay, now I get Many people love the gym. If you love the gym, I'm not necessarily saying stop doing it, but could you change it up? What kind of movements and exercises that you do in the gym could you do outside? You know, being outside is very, very good for our health. As I mentioned in tip one, it's good for your circadian biology, it's good for your sleep. But we know that the more time we spend outside, the better able we are to deal with stress. The, the better our sleep quality, the better our moods. We have evolved outside over tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years and so many of us spend our days indoors. Now I get it. In the winter, it's tricky. It could be cold, it could be rainy, it could be snowing. You may not be motivated to go outside. But in the summer, depending on where you live in the world, it's Very, very different. So I want you to lean into that. Can you do your movements outdoors? Skipping is a great one. I mentioned walking. Instead of walking on a treadmill or running on a treadmill, can you do it outside? Okay. Instead of biking at the gym, can you get on your bike and go out onto a trail? Right. Or a local forest or a local park? Swimming. Instead of swimming inside, do you have access to some open water? If it's safe to do. So if you're equipped to do that, really, it's about embracing the season and getting as much movement in as you can outdoors. It could be a nice challenge. You say to yourself, you know, maybe for one month over the summer, can I do all of my movement outdoors? If so, what would you do? You can do weights outdoors. You can do kettlebells outdoors. You know, in my garden, I've got kettlebells and dumbbells that live outside. And again, throughout the day, I'll go out, I'll do 10 minutes here and 10 minutes there, and I love it. It makes me feel so much more alive than being indoors in a gym under artificial lighting. So, again, embrace the season. See if you can do all of your movement outdoors. The fourth tip is to give yourself a mini challenge. Okay. I think this is a really great thing to do in the summer. Motivation and willpower tends to be higher at this time of year. Why? The weather tends to be better. There's more light. Okay? When light is out there, we are wired to be awake. That's one of the reasons why light in the evening, especially artificial light, can keep us up for longer and disrupt our circadian rhythms and disrupt our sleep. Right. So your motivation is high. Let's implement changes at this time of year. I've always found this with patients over the last two decades. Honestly, I. I found January at New Year, it's not the best time for people to make changes, particularly in a country like the uk it's cold, it's dark, it's wet, it's rainy. It's not really the kind of environment that's gonna stimulate us to make these big lifestyle changes. And I think it's one of the reasons why so many New Year's resolutions fail. Cause it's the wrong time of year. But the springtime and the summertime is completely different. Motivation tends to be higher. So. So why don't you set yourself a mini challenge? Okay. What could that look like? Well, of course, it's gonna depend on your own preferences, your own passions, the things that you want. Here are some Ideas, though, that might get you thinking. It could be that you've never run a 5k before. Okay. In the UK we have something called parkrun. These community 5ks every Saturday. Depending on where you are in the world, there may be something like that. But even if there isn't, you may go by the end of the summer, by the end of August, let's say I want to have completed 5K, ideally running, but maybe I have to walk a bit as well. It doesn't really matter whether you achieve the challenge or not. The challenge gives you a sense of urgency, it gives you direction in what you do. And I'm a huge fan of mini challenges. I think far too often we give ourselves these big, huge things to do, like running a marathon. Hey, nothing wrong with that. If you want to do that, that's great. But I think we forget about many challenges and I think they can be really, really helpful. So it could be that you want to run a 5K. It may be that you want to bike or cycle 5k. It could be that you're doing some lengths in your local pool. And I know I said to do all your movement outdoors, but maybe you want to stay in your pool. You don't feel confident doing open water swimming or maybe you don't have that option available to you. Yes, do a lot of your movement outdoors, but maybe a mini challenge could be to swim 20 lengths by the end of the summer or 30 lengths. You know, maybe all you can do now is five lengths. Okay, no problem. Set out a program, go. Okay, five lengths this week, every day or four times a week. Next week I'll move up to seven. And bit by bit, it won't take long before you get to 20. It could be that you want to camp. You've never done camping, right? That could be your challenge. Okay, I'm a bit scared. I don't know what to do, but I think it'll be really good for me. I think I'll enjoy it. Go on YouTube, have a look. Look at some videos, ask your friends, put a date in your diary, get some friends together, go for one night. Okay, that's a mini challenge. It could be that you think about, I don't know, doing something in your garden, putting out a vegetable patch, you know, carving out some space, clearing out the weeds. Give yourself a mini challenge. And here's the important point. Whether you do it or not, I don't think it matters. Sure, it's great to complete a challenge. We feel good about ourselves. We said we were going to do and we do it. But here's the thing. If you set yourself that challenge for 20 lengths and you currently can only do five and you get to 18 lengths, that's not failure, that's huge progress, Right? And you only made that progress because you gave yourself that challenge. Right? So use these as ideas. Maybe they resonate with you, maybe they don't, but use them as a jumping off point to set your own mini challenge. What I'm currently doing, I'm going to go away with my family for a few weeks this summer. I travel with a skipping rope. I do this every summer. I. And I think this summer I'll set myself a goal of getting up to maybe 1,000 skips a day. Okay, but that sounds a lot. Maybe it'll be 500 skips a day. But the point is, when I start, if I've not been doing it after about 50 or 60, I feel it. You can feel tired and breathless. So what I'll do is I'll do 50. A few hours later, I'll do another 50. A few hours later, I'll do another 50 and I'll slowly build up. I did this two summers ago in Greece when we were there for a few weeks. We had a wonderful holiday. And by the end of it, I was doing 1,000 skips a day. And I felt great. I felt strong, I felt my physique was improving, I had more energy, more focus. Now, that wouldn't have happened unless I set the mini challenge. It gave me a sense of urgency. It gave me something to try and do each day and. And it didn't take away from my holiday at all. Now, the reason why it doesn't matter if you get there or not, as I mentioned, with those 18 lengths versus 20 lengths, A, you've done something. But B, even if you fail, right, it's not really failure, it's learning. You've learned so much about yourself. You've learned what you're good at, what you're not so good at. You've learned about your motivation. You've learned about, did I manage to do it every day? Did I? Did I not? You know, all these learnings happen when we push ourselves outside our comfort zone. And whether we get there or not, we still learn something. So I hope that has sparked off some ideas of your own and inspired you to choose a mini challenge that you can do this summer. Fifth and final tip. What do you spend most of your year reading? Right. I read mostly nonfiction books or all throughout the year. A, I'm a doctor B I'm interested in nonfiction and C I release weekly episodes on this podcast, which means I end up reading about two books a week to prepare for each of my guests. So what I started doing is in my summer break I don't take non fiction books. I try and lean into fictional books, which stimulates a different part of me. So again, going back to what I said at the start, it's just about trying to embrace the season and do something different. So that's what I do. I embrace fiction in the summer and nonfiction the rest of the year. What's it gonna be for you? A Do you read? If not, I'd encourage you to get into reading over the summer. It's a fantastic habit. It's good for us on so many levels and I honestly think that reading is one of the highest returns on your investment of time because it's hard writing books. Okay. I've just completed my sixth book and the amount of work that goes into books is profound because you have to condense compress all of your ideas into a coherent narrative. When you're actually reading a well written book, you are acquiring a lot of knowledge, wisdom and information. Okay. So reading is a great habit to do. And what I want to encourage you to do this summer is change up your reading habits. Read a different type of book. Hope you enjoyed that Bite Sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my Bite sized Friday email. It's called the Friday five and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. Social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good. To get you ready for the weekend, you can sign up for it free of charge@drchatterjee.com Friday 5 I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.