How To Make Disease Disappear | Rich Roll Podcast

[Music] so you started a podcast as well I sold it in January if a penguin helped me launch it because they you know I've and I did it without much thought mm-hmm the first six episodes and then Apple picks it up they start promoting it sort of was number one on iTunes in the UK for about two we again I appreciate it just launched so these things are all skewed metrics yeah well they kind of overly overly inflate in the early days so that people can discover it I mean I think it's good so that's seem really well sand most episodes goes to number one on health that's great and so I've I'd love it home Absalon is the best cuz you have conversations and I've done so much work on the BBC where they just edit everything and ultimately what ends up coming out is a filtered version of what you actually said right and I think well I can talk to anyone I want about anything I you know whoever as long as you want to yes so I'm good I'm just trying to figure out how to there was no master plan it just happened but now I realize I enjoy it so I'm trying to figure out okay how do i how do I build a structure and a system around this right which is tricky yeah I'm happy to talk to you about that I mean I'm always trying to figure out that equation as well because once you start to get into it you realize like oh well this is actually there's quite a bit that goes into it to do it well and it takes a lot of work yeah well what it's done for it yeah it's given us focus you know I kind of at least every Wednesday now way news that it goes out social post goes out you know it's show notes go now sure knows and didn't exist at first people can say I said show notes okay I'm barely getting this out but my PA now is sort of trying to do that as well so I kind of feel it's growing and feel it's something I feel I really want to own it and actually personalize it a bit more so I'm looking forward to it yeah yeah well you figure out what it wants to be in the doing of it you know yeah I love the title feel better live more I love it and it kind of encompasses me and what I'm about but I think I can make more off it and we're gonna do some live events around it you know penguin it delighted with and I son a two-book deal with them so we'll do some some live events around the UK to start with right um looking forward see I know you've done a few of those and a couple of them but that's great I mean III know you're kind of in town doing some press around the new book and all of that and you just came from KTLA so I watched the head a couple minutes ago where you arrived and it's that classic thing it's like you're there for three minutes you know and it's like you can just spit out like okay here are the four pillars and then you're out right you're right you can't really get into it but that's like you know yeah it's different yeah but I came out for the feel good summit really you know Mark's business partner drew yeah I think you know John Andrew I really like sure he feels he's kind of he's one of the guys I think in my entire life who I've met who seems to be woody in touch with who he is he seems to me if I get that impression anyway sort of and I wish I was come away from it interactions for them feeling like a better person feeling like I know what I've got to do I kind of really enjoy he invites me out to come and speak and Marta to be fair and you know once I knew I was coming then I thought okay let me let me try you know I got a few things if I can you know if I'm gonna have time away from the family and my wife and my kids I'm trying to I'm not here for a vacation right basically even you know I went on a bird in Venice having said that with a buddy yes yeah which is good fun so I woke up this morning feeling super lousy on the verge of getting sick and I almost never ever get sick like it's almost never and if I do when it starts to come on like it like it like it was this morning I can usually kick it in a day but it made me sort of knowing that I was gonna speak to you today I was like alright well where am I in the four pillars you know and it's like okay well my diet is pretty good movement I'm probably moving too much of anything relaxation I'm completely failing in that and sleep I probably get myself a b-minus c-plus right now like it's a great little cheat sheet for taking inventory of where you're at and it's like I know I'm overextended right now my adrenals are fried I'm exhausted from travel it's no shock that I wake up and and feel lousy so here I have the good doctor to diagnose me have we started by the way yeah we started oh my god I realize we're rocking oh my god no idea we don't start it we're just chatting okay yeah what I mean I think before pillar framework for me is it's just something I can apply you can apply my patients can apply it's just a simple way of looking at your own health or writing and figuring out which one of these four areas do I need the most work in you know because I think most of us intuitively know you know most of us it kind of got a pretty good idea actually you know my diets pretty good you know but I'm not sleeping so well and and I love it because people get confused and bombarded with health and health information all the time now you get on the internet there's a million blogs out there often the same conflicting things people get paralyzed you know they get they get they just don't know what to do with this information half my job as a doll so when people come in is to say okay guys you're confused okay let me try and simplify this down for you and I know there's a deceptive simplicity to those four pillars but I think I really feel it's deceptively simple because I've seen how life-changing it can be when people apply those in their own life and it takes the pressure off people it's not about a perfect diet it's not about you know the perfect gym routine it's about doing enough in each area and I I'd like to think it takes the pressure off people anyway that's yeah well I think I mean just for people that are listening when we're talking about the the four pillars we have relaxation sleep movement and food right and what's great about the book is that it really is super accessible and it's like this is not you know you don't have to like stretch and try to adhere to some kind of protocol that only few people are gonna actually able going to be able to master like this is like basic stuff but I think you know when I'm reading it I'm like okay I get that get that I get that this is like top level things but it's that gap between the information and the action where I think most people stumbles like okay yeah I know I need to get a good night's sleep most nights I don't though right yeah well that's a huge issue I mean that's that's one of the big issues in health you know there's all this great information out there this great public health messages often and people aren't following them why are people not following around I've got many thoughts on that but specifically the approach I take with these four pillars particularly when I was writing the book is how can I make it accessible to people how can I write it in such a way how can I pepper it with real-life case studies from my practice that hopefully people can relate to and see how just making some simple changes and those four key areas can have such a profound effects and you know we can all have a fantastic outcome when we do a 10-day diet of some sort right when we exclude everything from our diets we can feel better in 10 days okay many of us can do that but I'm interested and what changes can I help someone with that is going to work for them today in the short term that's also going to work for them in one month in six months in twelve months and how can I help them build in this lifestyle change mm-hmm over a period of time and that really has come from my practical experience you know what what I put out in the book is literally nearly 20 years of experience of seeing patients and and it's not just what the science says the science is important to me but you know what's even more important to me it's actually what works and we're life you know what will a busy mother do who feels that they've got no time to look after themselves and they're just running around just doing doing doing for their kids maybe for their partner maybe for their elderly parents they just go go go right I'm interested in how can i connect with her so that she feels yeah you know I can do that and I know that's why I've tried to make all their recommendations simple and achievable and so one of the one of the one of the most fun things than me that I've had fed back to me since the book came out is that people feel that as they're reading it that I want to do that I can make that change you know and that that makes me excited because I'm not telling people to go on a punishing diets I'm not telling people to go on a grueling workout regime you know I'm I'm recommending some very simple things and why I think simple is important because we like as human beings we'd like to feel good right if we if I set the bar low and we meet that it feels good you know I've done what the doc right he's creating a you create an emotional engagement with that process where that where the patient feels empowered yeah it could be a prime example of that is in the move pillar okay so just in case people aren't familiar there's four pillars and it's there's a quarter on each of them in in the book in the mood pillow I have got all kinds of recommendations but one of my favorites is something to do with strength training so I think strength training is very much undervalued in society you know we don't think about it enough and you know your lean muscle mass it independently prediction or mortality it absolutely determines for in a huge pot how we're gonna be as we get older and a few years ago I was in my practice and I've read all the research on it and I thought you know I'm gonna tell my patients about strength training I remember this guy came in and I said you know it's really important for your blood sugar balance but also for your overall health that we did a bit of strength training and he goes what does that mean doctor said well you know you really maybe do some resistance at the gym maybe 30 40 minutes three times a week guess all right okay here you know I'll try it came back maybe four weeks six weeks later and I said how are you getting on I said you know what doc you know I really want to but you know works busy the gyms not on the way back from work you know I just not got around to it I thought in that instant I thought well what's going on here you know I didn't think why is he not doing what I said I always thought I'm not giving him advice in a way that he feels is applicable to him in the context of his life and in that moment I came up with this this five minute kitchen workout basically which is okay I need to make it accessible for him and I thought you took my jacket off and I was literally teaching him five moves that he could do and I said I literally want five minutes twice a week and that was the star for him and literally he loved that and he he's now doing you know two hours of strength training a week but you start off with that I think it's super digestible see but I did a couple in their 60s recently the same thing there was so skeptical rich you know they come over at the consultation of me they can really you know that's what I need to do and I said guys I tell you what I'm gonna see you back in four weeks please try and do these five exercises in your kitchen right you don't need to join a gym no to change you don't - Barney equipment's right they went away just a couple in their 60s and they came out for we say sir and I said how you guys doing said that's Jesse with love it's changed our lives you know we start adopting in the kitchen but now we do every night for 10 minutes on our upstairs landing as we run on evening bath and I learn from my patients I I loved reading the science but you know getting people better in real life doesn't come from reading scientific papers there is a difference - how do you convert that into into real actionable information for people and that's what I'm passionate about that's what you know I you know you see all these wars on social media about what the new science says and what the science says and I read them all right but I thought we just divides people we confuse people on what they should be doing and and I've tried to come up with a with a with a program and a philosophy in this book where it's as relevant to let's say a vegan as it is to a meat-eater it is as well event to someone in a low socioeconomic neighborhood to the CEO of her top company sorry if it's someone who's a CEO of a company you know earning lots of money because I'd work to some of the poorest areas in the UK I spent seven years in a place called Oldham you know a lot of people on Social Security and I thought these guys have the right to the same quality health information you get out here in California right and that's what when I was writing the book I thought I want these suggestions that I make to work for everyone I want to bring people together you know I want to bring the low carb people with the low fat people I want to bring them together go look what's the commonality here what can we all focus on and that's a wheel that's something I feel very passionate about and and most of the recommendations I make in fact there's 20 recommendations not that everyone has to do the more I say you'd absolutely don't have to do the more you don't if you don't like one of them don't do them you know I'm really trying to allow people to personalize it but 19 out of the 20 are completely free right you can't you can't make an argument that they cost money the one that you can make an argument for is when I say unprocess your diets you know you can argue that depending on where you live depending on your income level you may struggle to eat an unprocessed diet potentially in certain parts of the country without a bit of money okay you didn't also in the book sort of provide a road map for how to do that cost effectively I do yeah and I think I think you know one of the observation I've spent a lot of time thinking about this subject of you know our respective silos especially in the diet world and what you see on social media and the bickering and the conflicting science and you know I'm always thinking like well what is the best way to to navigate this and communicate to the audience in a way that will be the most positively impactful and I spent a lot of time thinking about how to bring people together like yourself and it's tricky you know when people get very entrenched in their ideologies and you know somebody used part of the plant-based camp I see it on all sides and everybody's guilty of it at various times and it's not helping anyone what it's doing is paralyzing the average well-intentioned consumer who's just trying to get actionable advice to improve their lives maybe 10% yeah I totally agree and you know you say we're all guilty of this from time to time I think I'd get a bit older a bit more experienced I think actually you know what why does one group have to be right why can't many different groups be right for different people and you know we don't often know thing about the context of someone's life or that cultural beliefs or how they've grown up and I always as a practicing physician I just bring it back to my conversation and I think okay what am I seeing what do I keep saying and I've seen the rouse is if you talk about diet for example which again we I think we overly focus on it and what I mean by that is I think food is very very important but food is much more than fat versus carbs right but your good health is much more than just food and my own personal bias is that when I change my diet right my health starts improve right but that's my personal bias because I've had many patients who that wasn't the route they wanted to take some of them like I've got with so many patients who've got mental health problems they didn't want to change her diet even though I knew that would help improve their their the way they felt about themselves and their well-being they started getting more physically active first and then that made them feel better so then they wanted to change their diets and that's that that has almost been pivotal in this four pillar approach which is okay guys you choose why you want to start I don't mind if you want to start with food right start bad but if you don't want to start there that's okay as well and you know I want to make this you know did this book came out a few months ago in the UK right and it's doing incredibly well and I think the reason it is doing so well is because I've really tried hearten to not talk down to people not to tell people what to do nobody wants to be told what to do and I don't you know it surprises people but as it as a doctor I have never sit still in nearly 20 years of practice I still never told a patient of mine so that they have to give up smoking and what I mean by that is I feel that my job as a doctor is to have an honest conversation with them if they come into my consultation room and if they ask me my job is to tell them what that is doing for their health and their well-being if at the end of that conversation the man or the woman says to me hey Doc I get it I hear what you're saying but you know what I get so much enjoyment out of that I mean it's not gonna quit I feel as a human being I feel what right do I have to say to him no you must give it up you know and actually I think one of the reasons why I tend to get really good compliance with my patients it's because I do treat them like partners I treat them like adults even if that smoking conversation is just setting the scene for six months down the line or 12 months on the line when they've thought about it reflector we've done a bit of other work and they come back hey you know what I might be ready for it now and so I think you know I think that side of things is really really important yeah finding the the psychological button that's gonna activate the person and everybody has something different there's a different way in with every individual so you almost have to really take like an inventory of someone when they come into your office to try to determine what is the thing that that I can talk about with this person that's gonna catalyze change in them yeah and you know what the hardest thing for me rich was I know how to do that one-on-one with the patient you know all right I'd like to think I do you know it's it's I think the biggest skill of the healthcare professional is actually how do you instructs communicate with your patient I think that is the number-one thing that actually leads to good outcomes I don't care how many papers and how many signs things you've read if you don't know how to make it personal and relatable to that person in front of you doesn't matter really doesn't matter but the system is not set up to encourage that and that's one thing I want to explore with you and I want to get into the four pillars and all of that but I think maybe it would be good to kind of contextualise all of this by by establishing the lay of the land right now in terms of what is going on with chronic lifestyle disease in North America and the developed world because the statistics and this you know specifically some of the numbers that you use in your book they're just appalling but beyond upholding that are unsustainable for every single health care system on nancial level but on it on a human level on it just a on a moral level you know chronic disease is affecting so many families and it's causing pain disability heartache premature death you know i-i've got a record before us saying eighty percent of what I see as a medical doctor in my practice is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles okay I'm not putting blame on people right because I get it it can be tricky okay but I'm saying collectively the way we're living our lifestyles is having a negative impact on the way that we feel and look there in the book there's some us statistics but I'll give you a UK statistic that is frankly alarming right and this is from 2012 okay that in 2012 so what six years ago one report suggested that the UK was paying twenty billion pounds so that is about twenty seven twenty eight billion dollars always three million dollars on the direct and indirect costs of type two diabetes it's insane touchy diabetes is a fully preventable in in most cases it is a preventable condition it is a lifestyle environments or driven condition and we're saying we're going to effectively if we don't do anything different we're gonna allow it to bankrupt our healthcare systems I find it incredibly incredibly sad yeah I'm looking at your book right now one in ten Americans currently has type 2 diabetes between 1990 and 2013 rates of this disease shot up by an incredible 71 percent in the US one of the most dramatic increases of any nation it costs us two hundred and forty five billion dollars a year half of all American adults currently suffer from a chronic disease with one in four people suffering from two or more chronic diseases by a wide margin now the deadliest problem facing America it's true it's unbelievable it's the this is for America this is not just a health problem this is an economic problem you know I think the US are gonna struggle to be a well-functioning economy a global power you know whatever you want to call it with this way of Contin sees because it people don't often think about is this chronic disease as affecting their whole bodies it's affecting the way that their brain operates as affecting their abilities to be productive in the workplace productive and happy and interact with their with their families with their work colleagues and that's the other thing you know I see a lot of the disharmony I see in relationships and Families often it comes down to you know I'm not the only thing but often a key part of that is that people don't feel good in themselves that without their functioning day to day sub-optimally mmm they're not functioning at peak performance so they are you know they're having little rouse and little little problems with their partners with their kids were their work colleagues and often that's because they're putting junk in the mouth right which is affecting their brain and their mood they're sort of only having five hours sleep a night which is you know you know trashing their brain in the morning when in terms of you know you know yourself or certainly I know as a father you know if I am it's that well my ability to deal with the stresses at home and you know let things just a lie you know well when the kids are doing something it's much reduced I have a slightly yeah it's not even close yeah so a lot of these things are happening because we're not looking after our health and you know I think when we say chronic disease I think it's what's always worth explaining that we're talking about things like yes type-2 diabetes yes high blood pressure yes heart disease and stroke yes Alzheimer's disease but we're also talking about things like mental health problems mm-hmm you know the latest statistic in the UK right which comes from the mind charity is that one in four people in the UK are gonna have a mental health problem and any given year I just find it an incredible statistic and you know we're still looking for this pharmaceutical model of care to try and fix these problems I could tell you it's just simply and in a lot of cases it is not working and them and hearing is the crux of the matter 4050 years ago what we were seeing as medical doctors responded very well to the magic bullet you know you come in right you've got it let's say you've got a chest infection or pneumonia right you've got the overgrowth of a bug it's causing you this problem come and see the dot sir they identify and give you a pill to deserve for that bug and they know we're in a week or maybe 10 days you're better right we could talk about the knock-on consequences of that but that's a separate story but that worked 40 50 years ago the bulk of what we see now does not respond to this you know one pill for every L model there's multiple things that are going on and you it's not just one suggestion you've got to make you've got to tackle multiple things in one's lifestyle if you're gonna get a results and you know those four pillars could have been five six seven I could have excited that it Out's bright Frank's got six Frank's go say yes yeah you guys can battle it out like is it four or six yeah exactly and the reality is is they're the clash always is is how can you communicate complex health information simplistically no not not a patronizing fashion but in a way that actually people feel okay I get it I can do that and I'd nearly won't survive you know but I thought no I'm just gonna stick to for like so I think connection a community yeah that was one of Frank's I think and and I actually wondered that especially since you know you talk about this or the Blue Zones and the diet part and that's such a key component of longevity from those studies yeah oh absolutely I mean I the connection piece I put in the relaxed pillar so one of my recommendations is you know to eat one reclaim your dining table right right and it's to sit around at least once a day if possible to have a meal with someone else if you can and I bring in into in that chapter white community is so important and that really is what I hang it off in the book because you're white I could have made a fifth pillar all about it but I also think there's something in keeping it simple simple enough that people think I get it I can do that today I need to wait till January next year to start this big program this feels pretty achievable and and I can tell you rich where did that reclaim your dining table come from because people might go yeah well house I can help with my health I'm boards I made a TV documentaries for BBC television where I went and lived with an alongside families to help them with their health problems and I was very fortunate evert I feel very humbled to have had that experience to be invited into people's homes and actually actually see in real life what they do not what they tell me in the consultation room but what they actually do in real life and so many the families I stayed with didn't sit and eat together you know forget about what they're eating for a minutes you know one of the kids is maybe on the sofa scrolling there their Facebook whilst they re saying you know mum might be watching television but also doing her emails and while she's eating dad's in another room the son somewhere else and I saw that and I thought what was the norm I'm sure it was a normally us just as in the UK maybe 40 years ago that every dining table every room every house would have a dining table now when knocking the mounts we're making room for big widescreen televisions and all this sort of stuff and I made the recommendation to so many of those families hey guys look you know we're not going to change what you eat but I wonder if you guys could manage once a day where you sit together only as a family and I saw their profound benefits yes they were eating less because they were eating more mindfully and they were connecting whilst they were eating but there was this couple who lovely middle-aged couple and and I came back out for a few days and I said how how you guys doing with that and and the husband said to me said it's incredible you know I'm I feel like I'm really connecting with my wife I'm we're sitting we never used to sit around and without devices and have our meal but I'm asking her about her day I'm learning things that happens his wife said the same thing and they feel closer and more intimacy that just from making that that suggestion and I learned I didn't I didn't learn that in my consultation room had I not gone and stayed with those families I wouldn't have seen that something that I thought was well asipi normal is frankly not normal and right right right right yeah it's becoming you know it's gone the way of the dodo you know it's sort of thought of as as antiquarian and quaint and you know at this point but there's so much truth than what you just said but I think the first hurdle is really getting people to understand on a very basic elementary fundamental level that they have control over their health that the decisions that they make about how they're living their life our to our day-to-day have profound implications in terms of whether they're gonna succumb to disease or live vibrantly and I think for a lot of people that's revelatory and new that's brand-new even the way I was taught at medical school really didn't then empower us you know didn't empower me as a medical doctor with that information because back then we thought our genes were our destiny right that's kind of what we thought was going to happen then was we've got as we do the Human Genome Project we get more and more we understand that you saw to do with our genes what what cards have we been doubts when we come out of the womb but the last 10 years has changed all of that you know and again the statistics vary depending on who you read but you know there seems to be a bit of consensus now that about 10% of our health outcomes for most of us is down to our genes 90% of it is down to our environment and our lifestyle and that's incredibly empowering so I think there is a generation out there who think and have been trained to believe that it's you know on my father had type 2 diabetes of course I'm gonna hurt RBC's it's nothing I can do you know and in some way that plays into the whole emotional piece which is you know what I'm gonna keep making these choices because it doesn't matter you no matter that god air I'm gonna get it so I might as well enjoy my life rights or that's the perception and that's the key message I've tried whenever I speak whenever I teach doctors whenever I talk to the public I'm always trying to say guys we've got the control you know we've got more control than we think up but just to be clear there are some genetic conditions that are related to you know like even even outside us for example we know that there is under 1% of Alzheimer's is due to your genes when some people are born with something that means it's very likely they're going to get okay but that is not the vast majority of us and I think even that message it's like a revelation for people and even if I could you know help the incredible you know people like yourself and other doctors and other other people you trying to spread this message around the world if if all we do is get that message out there that's a great starting point because here's the other thing right is that one of the things that frustrates me about the infighting on social media and on the internet about a lot of these things is that many people are kind of saying similar things right so let's give you one extreme viewpoint here no what I won't call it an extreme viewpoint but just to sort of paint the picture obviously there is a lot of animosity between certain groups whether it's a vegan plant-based versus low carbon you know animal products you know for an example but both groups right are saying now that actually we can reverse a lot of these chronic diseases you know both groups will say we can reverse type 2 diabetes we can reduce our chances of getting outsiders by adopting our dietary pattern right right so I trying to try to sift through that and sit just outside it and look at it and go okay so compared to ten years ago when very few people were saying that we could reverse a condition like type 2 diabetes oh yeah I was crazy making yeah and now we've got this coming out from people who may have a different viewpoint on how the best way to do that is right but with that they're all saying we can reverse the stuff mm-hmm that I think is a revelation I think we use a focus on that go okay great so I don't necessarily need to be on medication for the rest of my life I might be able to do something about this and I find that exciting and I think that's the message we need to get to people and then then help them make small changes so why do people find it so hard so many reasons for that you know there's a lot of emotional reasons behind that as well but I think if we can make it seem accessible to them if they feel you know I can do that like one recommendations as 15 minutes of me time a day most people Oh 15 minutes you know and it's incredible because that it's like a domino effect you you start it off simple you get people get away I can do that I think I can manage 15 minutes right and then that domino falls you start to feel the benefits and then the other dominoes start to come in line but dr. Chatterjee you don't understand my life I get up at 4:30 in the morning I got four kids I got to get him dressed into school and then I work two jobs and by the time I get home at 10:30 11 o'clock at night and I gotta try to make a little bit of food for my kids and I'm just exhausted I get it I understand so what do you think you can manage can we start with five minutes mm-hmm do you think you can find five minutes in your day and that's the approach I take you know these are just suggestions it's not prescriptions these are saying look I think 50 minutes is a great starting point but if all you can manage is five minutes right and even that fictional lady who you know we just spoke about I bet you she can manage five minutes somewhere in her day you know and that's not me being judgmental at all I'm just saying I've I've got patients like that and I what I try to one-on-one is find the way and find what is it that they do where can I get a bit of traction here what can I start them with I've made a deal with a patient before that err gonna do two minutes meditation a day right so I can't do it I don't they said I can't meditate I can't you know I'm not gonna have time you know doesn't fit with my lifestyle I said okay you brush your teeth for two minutes in the morning okay why do you do two minutes in the morning so I've always done that I said yeah you even crane that and a habit even if you're busy you know that don't brush your teeth for two minutes in the morning two minutes an evening okay goes yeah that's why we're doing I said well how about then do you think you can manage two minutes of meditation yeah two minutes sure and and we made a deal I said okay I tell you what let's make a commitment now that you're gonna do that she goes away she starts doing that you know within about two or three months you did 20 minutes a day mm-hmm so I very much you know this comes from real life experience rich this is you know I I when I look back on my career and I it I think early on in my career I Whitney had it we are disconnect with you know it's you know very prestigious medical school I qualified as a specialist and I moved to general practice because I was always searching for something in medicine that resonated with me when I was working in kidney medicine I thought I don't want to spend my whole career just looking at kidneys everything I always intuitively knew everything was connected and I felt that we were getting to super specialized in medicine so I moved much of my much my dad's you become from a line of doctors you know he's a Indian doctor came over to the UK you know they may value the specialist right his son GP his son had qualified this especially I've done all the hard work to get there I said dad you know I think I'm gonna change I'm gonna I'm gonna be agent become a journalist it's wide you want to have and I've always now now that I get it now that I understand what I love doing with patients I can look back now and go that's why I was slightly frustrated I didn't get that deep enjoyment out of my job that I do today because I just fobs giving pills out with yes well you're a people guy too right like I can tell that you're somebody who enjoys basically like figuring out what makes other people tick and that's such a huge part of practicing medicine that I think we lost touch with that is now slowly starting to come back we're seeing this you know influx this rise of functional integrative medicine doctors like yourself it's become you know it's becoming a thing and yet it's still very much a small sliver in comparison to the way most people are practicing medicine and the way that most patients experience their healthcare practitioners and it's it's very sad is it very sad because this is you know this is affecting people's lives you know it's people are dying early there that day-to-day lives are being hindered because you know we're not evolving with the times the health landscape of the developed world and actually the develop as well is changed so the way we practice medicine also has to change but it hasn't and and therein lies one of the big problems and you know I say you know I've created I was going to so frustrated with this I thought okay you know I can keep talking about out I can keep going on BBC television and talking about this being a problem but how we gonna start fixing there so with a colleague of mine I create a brand new course called prescribing lifestyle medicine that was the first prescribing last medicine course to be accredited by the world College of GPs so that's great yeah and I we taught 200 docs in the UK back in January we run it again in April and why that accreditation was important because it gave it a bit of validity it gave it to other Doc's who were like that yeah I kind of I'm reading all the stuff on the internet I'm interested but you know having the CPD points there for people to come right legitimizes it legitimized it and you know it took you know we spent six months working up this course you know we're trying to go in one day but it's my way of trying to say look yes I've showcased on television that type 2 diabetes fibromyalgia you know can be reversed in many cases panic anxieties has can become can come down by 70% by making lifestyle changes autoimmune diseases like all sorts of things I feel like you know I've helped showcase that to a mainstream audience on BBC one and and in countries all over the world there these conditions can often be reversed but certainly dramatically improved right by making these changes to these four key areas and I thought well that's great but if the public are watching that then they go to their own doctor for help in that but the doctor doesn't know what to do with that that's where we got a problem so I thought as a medical doctor maybe I can sit I can I can be part of the solution by helping to educate a new a new generation of doctors in what is possible and what I we end the course with a me and my colleague we we do a role play right and people love the role play because what we do is we on stage we sort of go through how a consultation might roll when someone comes in with type 2 diabetes and the first one is what typically happens which is you know someone knocks on the door I'm the dog I'm looking at my computer you know I'm typing away the guy comes in I barely make eye contact I'll say hey Barry look you know you we've got some news for you Barry and you know pretty whirring both assaults have come through you've been diagnosed with a condition called type 2 diabetes type 2 diabetes you know it puts you increased risk of heart disease you know stroke Alzheimer's you know you may start getting nerve damage with me you know some people need to amputate their legs but don't worry we've got a great medication for that you know so we're gonna start you on that today within it you know we're gonna start in something called metformin today normally within it within six months twelve months we'll put you on a second pill sometimes we'll need to progress to insulin injections but don't worry we'll be keeping a regular eye on you and as Barry is walking out in shell-shocked hey and if you can lose a bit of weight as well and go to the gym that'd be great okay come if that is even said if that is even said but even if it is said like that what does the patient walk out with they walk out with okay I've got the condition it's serious okay but the doc said is elusive yeah so two drugs he can give me yeah he only met your lifestyle that's not really that important because you spent the whole time talking about about drugs so I say to people if we prioritize lifestyle the patient will prioritize lifestyle if we prioritize drugs they'll prioritize drugs that's and and so you compare that with Barry coming in and me saying hey Barry look you know you know those blood tests you've recently done actually a few things that have shown up and they're you know have a conversation you say Barry look your blood Sugar's a little bit high and you've actually in the range now what we would call type 2 diabetes you know what that is I don't know well you explain what it is you say hey Barry look here's the thing you will have been doing things in your lifestyle possibly without realizing it for a good 10 years now that has led you up this continuum so that you now actually have a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes would you like me to help you understand what those things are how we can change them and then hopefully if we're lucky we can start turning this thing around yeah hey Doc strategy I'd love to yeah well you know let's talk again I don't want to labor the point but the whole dynamic is different berry goes out of that consultation with some actionable steps thinking hey you know there's something I can do about this empowered yeah but that comes to our skill as a clinician and also our willingness to prioritize that but in fairness there also has to be systemic changes to the way the entire system is is set up I mean look you know doctors are well-intentioned they want to help people they'll actually they want to be healers that's why they get into it but when the system is constructed such that they have five or ten minutes with each person it's it's it's it's set up to fail in that way so like I love the fact that you created this this program but you know it needs to be across the board in the medical schools like from the very beginning doctors need to be trained in all of this stuff and systemic changes have to be made that allow for that kind of bandwidth with each patient so that that person can leave with that sense of empowerment rate you're absolutely right and you know ultimately this is not just gonna be the doctor you know this is arguably you know we need to collaborate more with nutrition professionals with health coaches you know but what I'm what I say to people is people say to me sometimes why do dogs need this training you know why can't dogs just refer to the right people and there's a fundamental misunderstanding of what our job is you see because if we don't know right okay we've so we can't talk to diabetes and let's say obesity right these are things which are obviously for many people relate it to our lifestyle okay so so arguably we might refer here okay what about conditions like mental health problems right what about something like migraines which affects cause huge disability you know huge morbidity across the population what about these problems where we don't automatically think that lifestyle has a role well I know full well and I've seen that you can absolutely make a huge impact with these patients with lifestyle changes unless we get the training we're never ever gonna meet even referring these guys to health coaches or lifestyle professional to help them yeah you wouldn't even know - do you even know to do that's you know I I gave it a lecture it was in Bristol in the UK in January where for the world College of GPs on on wellbeing for doctors cuz burnout in physicians is a huge problem and I said to these guys at the start I said how many of you with a patient who comes in with a mental health problem like depression how many of you talk about food with those patients and you know but 5% at the room put the hand up then I presented some of the science behind it including you know there's a beautiful trial from February 2017 called the smiles trial in Australia very small okay but it was some randomized control trial that people who followed a modified Mediterranean diet these are all patients of with depression moderate or severe depression they were already on therapy nothing of that none of that was changed but one group went on a modified Mediterranean diet for 12 weeks the other group had some sort of talking a social therapy and the end of 12 weeks there were statistically significant remission rates in the group who went on a modified Mediterranean diets now there was only 67 participants but that adds to the weight of evidence it is already building and I said guys look how many of you now are gonna have this conversation with your mental health patients and pretty much everyone put their hand up because but you know something that seems so obvious to me is not mainstream knowledge amongst these professionals so yes the training needs to help that you know this training needs to be compulsory in medical schools are absolutely agree as Sibylla said when we put on this course they you know because everyone's you know a social media expert these days is like you know this is not enough you know you need to get into medical schools I agree with all that but you got to start somewhere else start yeah gotta start somewhere you got to give this movement credibility the mental health piece is is so huge and I think you know I'm interested in your experience like if you when you start talking about treating mental illness or things like depression through lifestyle alterations people get nervous yeah right because we're just used to thinking of it a little bit differently than we think about physical health but it is so Villa tating for so many people and it kind of lurks in the shadows and you know my experience is in working with lots of people and being part of the recovery community for many years is that even when you're amongst people who are very high-functioning who seem like they have everything together if you can get them in a safe environment where they have an inkling a slight willingness to be vulnerable and you just poke them ever so slightly you'd be amazed at what comes out we're all dealing on some level with all kinds of stressors and anxieties that are really indicia of our times like how we live our lives now is so antithetical to the natural rhythms of you know how we evolved yeah I mean absolutely and you know there's this theory about sickness behavior which is if we think about the body and our stress response system okay and well let's say in Paleolithic times that we had come down with an infection okay so we're where our immune system goes on high alert so produces all kinds of inflammatory markers to help us fight that infection but what it also does is make us die it makes us sleepy and makes us withdraw we don't take pleasure from things and it almost sends us back to the back of the cave in the dark so we can just rest and recuperate you know whilst the body is attacking what it needs to attack and a lot of people speculate and that actually is very similar to what's going on with mental health problems it's potentially an appropriate or an inappropriate response well it's something that was an appropriate response in a different environment but as the environment has changed our 21st century living that response is actually doing us harm now but it but it served this very well in the past and I kind of like that because it really helps me understand why does our body have all these mechanisms at play why why things suddenly start to go wrong with all these different systems in our body and what's changes the environments but the other great point you bring out rich is that you know life style you know was I got to a mental health you know that's a and and what I would say to that is and I've got me very key very careful to caveat is is that any chronic disease even type 2 diabetes but let's talk about mental health there are multiple factors that play a role it ain't just one thing so yeah you may have huge emotional trauma at the knees dealing with right but it doesn't mean you can't also get an improvement from optimizing your lifestyle and it's it's not necessarily one or the other we're always looking for what is it is it emotional or is it physical or maybe it's a combination and I talk a lot in in my birkin in my sort of work that I do as for the thresholds right we've all got an individual threshold so the way I trying to explain is if if if we're born in perfect health let's say we start down here in perfect health we can deal with multiple insults up to a point so let's say you know I don't know we had a ton of antibiotics as a baby okay we didn't enjoy our school you know we got bullied at school we need to poor diet we don't workout we worked too hard we got very very close to our threshold then something happens you know you have a bereavement in the family or your girlfriend breaks up with you and that tips you over your threshold that's when you get sick and we think oh it was the last thing that we need to fix no it's you want your posture once you cross your threshold you need to start again it's like in life you've got one ball two ball two juggling three four right you're just about keep everything going that someone throws a fifth ball then everything falls down and so my approach is about making multiple changes and so no on the on the last series a doctor in the house there was a lady white who had a significantly traumatic emotional event when she was 19 right you know ended up in intensive care in a coma she woke up she was scared out of her mind since that she had really bad panic and anxiety attacks okay which is crippling her life and she applied to be on the show because she was desperate she had tried counseling she tried antidepressants and nothing was working I didn't know if I was gonna be able to help or not but I thought okay what's going on here her diet was appalling you know she was compensating with the way she felt with junk food and processed food you know she was up late on her screens all this kind of stuff right and again she was very skeptical when I suggested that we would start by changing her diet you know there was a huge resistance well you know you're saying I'm I've done this to myself with a food on me I don't know no I'm not saying that I'm saying that something significant happened when you were 19 but you have you know because of the way you felt you put loads and loads of layers onto that as well and lots of compensated behaviors around that let's just start you've tried counseling you tried antidepressants okay let's take a different approach so we started with her diets and it was just incredible by at the end of six weeks her symptoms had gone down by 70 percent not miraculous reversal but her quality of life had improved immeasurably and I feel and towards the end we then got her to a talking therapist but she was in a much better state that she can now access that and deal with that and you know we we've got it sorry so labor the point but you've got to do multiple things in multiple areas and that's why this is not a book about food this is why it's a book about yeah there are many great books on food I'm not against that right but I think what that stuff is out there right what can I contribute I want to I want to show people that the quality of your sleep is as important as a food that you put in your mouth and I didn't know that five years ago and you may be skeptical of that potentially but you know when you look at the research of what sleep deprivation does to us you know I I have help patients reverse or suddenly put their type 2 diabetes into a mission yeah there's something in the book about insulin resistant the impact of poor sleep on insulin resistance which I I did not know how significant that was it was curtly it's crazy it's huge and was a study recently done where they sleep deprived a healthy group of people it's down to four to five hours a night which is not dissimilar to what a lot of the pollution a lot of people and a lot of people will swear that they're fine with that a lot of II will sweat okay with that but here's the thing a lot of the time so there's two points there when you say people say they're okay with that if we go back to my threshold analogy okay they may find that that sleep deprivation in the they may not have any symptoms yet they may be getting away with it right but they may be moving up towards their threshold so they that sleep deprivation may be okay day to day they may perceive it as being okay but then when when the stress goes up at work when something happens that they're not expecting when they lose their job or their mother gets sick suddenly they're that much closer and they tip over and that's why I think you know we were all we we exist on a continuum of health you know when you get diagnosed with type 2 diabetes that started 10 years ago right of course when you get diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease that started 30 years ago right so we need as a system we need to better help people identify when they're moving up that curve when they're not at diagnosis stage but they're moving up that curve but the thing with sleep deprivation and I've got patients who come to see me who's they have changed their diets they've read the blogs why they've whether it's plant base whether it's another approach they've read all that and they've changed that and I come in and I see them and their blood Sugar's still aren't coming down I think your diets pretty good you know and then some of them super stress and they're not sleeping and there was one particular case 52 you're a guy you know busy you know high performer executive his diet was fantastic but he was getting so frustrated that he couldn't get his sugar down anymore and when I started to say look we need to think about switching off your computer one hour before bats we need to do five minutes of meditation a day right just to get you started his you know six months later his blood sugar starts coming down you know because it's not always diets and that really is the you know I'm not trying to say oh it's not important it is clearly very very it's just not all diet it ain't all time and I think that's what get when you get into these silos and these arguments you know this sort of implicit message is it is all diet right and yeah diets huge it's super important but beyond that there's so many things you could be the most perfect raw vegan fruitarian whatever but if you're bananas and you argue with people all day long and you're an [ __ ] and you don't sleep at night and you're staring at your phone all day long like you're not a healthy person yeah you're not and if we go back to sleep for a second that study where they deprive people's a four to five hours a night for I think six nights okay they had a 40% reduction in that capability to manage that blood sugar the end of that some of them would have been diagnosed as pre-diabetic right just from sleep deprivation Wow and I think we've got to stop bringing this into the equation because you mentioned the blue zones I talked about the blue zones and I find them fascinating because we can learn so much and then that when you know I know you've had down on the show before and you know I had the privilege of meeting Michelle Palmer who's the Belgian researcher who I think along with Dan helps her sort of coined the term and do all that work I met him in Guernsey last year which is just incredible experience for I'll tell you about actually Beth when we look at them and we try and look at the perfect diets I understand the rationale behind that but we're looking at a populations who are reaching well they're also pretty physically at they're physically active everyday they're sleeping well they've got low levels of stress and they've got a strong sense of community right so when we look at them it's a lifestyle it's the whole piece put together and when we compare in the west where we are under slept what overly stressed were physically inactive and where a lot of us are eating highly processed junk food right that's just a recipe for trouble and we can't I don't think just take one aspect to the Blue Zones we have to look at it all and go you know let's let's try and optimize as many of these as we can and the other the other thing I sort of Lutzer sort of try and get across is I get it life is tricky for some people you make work shifts right you may find it hard right so maybe if your sleep pillar ain't going very well maybe need to optimize the food pillar and the movement pillar and the relaxation pillar you know you can get to your you can lower your threshold in many different ways and I think the Blues are a prime example of people lowering their thresholds you know in keeping themselves very resilient because that's the thing lowing keeping yourself away from that threshold doesn't just mean you're gonna feel better you've got more resilient so when life does Chuck you its curveballs and that will happen nothing stays static everything's always changing you're more resilient to fight ends yeah and I think you know it's only getting crazier I mean with these you know devices in our pockets it's becoming harder and harder to to detach to disconnect and you know what's gonna happen 10 20 years from now it's gonna be almost impossible to unplug at all and the pace of life just continues to to get rapid ER and rapid ER and you know there's no there's no like you actually have to work to be bored now there's just no there's no reason to ever be bored again we can be over stimulated during every minute of every waking hour we we've lost the art of stillness we've lost that ability to just sit there and let our mind wander and actually that's been a lot the creativity happens you know your your default mode Network your dmn in your brain which is where a lot of these creative ideas come from that goes into overdrive when we're not focusing on a task when we're just sitting there you know just watching the world go by or maybe when you're going for a run I I'm gonna bet that you get a lot of your great ideas when you're out running oh yeah absolutely rather than when you'll only time or I can just be by myself in my thoughts in nature yeah cuz you're not trying to sit here figuring it out got this problem I can't I can't get to the bottom of this you probably got for everyone right I've got the solution right or when I am grinding it out and trying to figure it out I'm like let's see what's happening on Twitter I'm gonna stare at my phone now I obviously gave a talk to Apple in London on wellbeing for their employees and you know it could be you know privileged to feel very humble to go in there and talk to them and I actually spoke some about tech and I said I feel I felt like I was in the Lions Den talking about tech and some other problems but also how what a great opportunity they've got because so many people use their products they can actually shape the world well you know they if it's and I think they do take some of these things responsibly you can actually really shape what people do but what was interesting I spoke about my four pillars for them so try and improve their well-being and at the end of the talk this chap came up to me he must have been in his mid-twenties right he said hey you know Dulce I found that really were the interesting but can I ask you something I said yeah sure far away it's like if I switch my phone off an hour before bed what am I gonna do which he was serious man yeah I'm not kidding this is it this is a Kanak panic he was deadly serious and I thought that I learn a lot that I thought wow as she for some people they're so embedded to this they genuinely don't know what they're gonna do without it and I thought you know I've got two young kids seven and well know now eight eight and five years old and I I'm worried about this you know as a father there's always something to worry about as a parents and I think what making a do very soon everyone in my son's class is gonna have a phone and he's gonna be like daddy can I have one and he already asked it for his birthday recently and you know I looked at he's thought you know I'm not getting that with that you know I know what the answer is but I I worry because I don't want to make my children social outcasts yeah I really struggle with knowing some of the problems I yeah it's a legit salad JIT concern I mean I'm older than you but you know I didn't grow up with you know I didn't start using a computer until I was in college and that was still many years prior to the internet so you know myself and to some extent yourself like were the last generation of people to know what it's like to be without all of these things there will never be another generation of humans who never lived through you know what it's like to not be on the Internet and so it is tricky you know as a parent myself to try to find that that balance because on some level we have to accept the fact that that these devices are part of what it means to be fluent in the language of our times so it's not about like no you can't have it it's about creating responsible habits around which is difficult when you're talking about a device that has the addictive potency of heroin I mean you've just hit the nail on the head it's not about demonizing these devices and tell this technology's fantastic it's it's utterly life-changing you know we can we're having like what we're doing right now do right now you know or you know we could have done this let's say over Skype right we could have been 5,000 miles away from each other having a conversation because of this technology which is utterly incredible and I think what we have to just remember is that this is a new technology right we haven't quite yet figured out as a human race how do we use it in a way that it really helps us and serves us rather than enslaves us and just as we've got like sleep hygiene rules I think we need technology hygiene rules we needs you know what a good practice rules you know do we need a better tech free time every day i absolutely believe we need a better tech free time every day but here's the thing if you've got that device near you it's very very hard because they are addictive you know and I you know one of the sort of recommendations I make is you know can you have a screen free Sabbath can you have one day a week without a screen completely now I get it people are gonna almost be having palpitations at before what am I gonna do yeah so I say what if you can't do a whole day try with it try an hour start there I tell you on a Sunday morning right if I go with my wife or my two kids to the to the local park right if I go and my phones in my pocket right it goes something like this kids are playing rawlins right saying before you know it I'm just he there on the climbing he's got a cheek a little look you know what's going on an Instagram what's you know and then for you yeah where are the kids you know that's something like that that's somebody abducted them yeah but before you know it you're into this work because it's powerful it's engaging if I make the decision I'm leaving my phone at home I've completely different experience I'm present I'm mindful I'm paying attention to what's going on and my kids know you're not a panicky and feeling naked yeah no I love it but I've got used to it yeah I've got used to it and and ultimately my kids basically my daughter she'll call me out if I'm in the room with her somewhere and I'm distracted on my furniture that daddy not listening to me are you I say that's like a dagger in the heart for me and I might okay yeah I'm just gonna put my phone off in another room and so I as a father one thing I think it's really important it's something I really try and adhere to is spend at least one hour a day with my kids when I'm around you know without my phone anywhere in sight and not even on because I just that's my strategy again I'm not saying everyone has to do this I'm just saying I'm trying to figure it out I'm as addicted to this technology as anyone elses I'm trying to figure out a way what I can still get the best of it without harming myself and also my relationship with my kids in the process yeah well when you figure it out let me know it's hard right it's hot it's really hard you know I I mean it's like an AI like I make my living through this you know through through this ecosystem so it's even more difficult for me to create because I can just make a justification well this is what you know I need to be doing I need to be I got a promote the latest podcast and you know as somebody who's a recovering alcoholic like it just pings every part of my brain that like wants to use and check out and get that little brush but what's the dip you say you know you can add it to alcohol but let's talk about food for a minute people will often say yeah I could eat well for a short pretty time that I've fallen off the wagon I couldn't do it you know I've and and it's the same thing with these phones it's what I'm not expecting perfection from people know a it's not my right to expect perfection from anyone but I'm not that's not what I'm I'm trying to suggest and what I what I do with patients what I do with when I speak to the public or or in the book I I mean what I'm trying to do is empower people with information say look guys this is what's going on right this is gonna be having impacts on you here are some strategies that you might want to adopt why do you suck it and see why don't you try this you like this one you don't like this one fine you've tried it that doesn't work for you try this one I mean one thing I will say is one of the most life-changing things people can do okay is takeoff notifications right and I'm deadly serious you don't need you know that's the way you can start taking control of that technology and go I don't need to be notified every single time someone likes my Instagram post or my latest Facebook article or someone's just retweeted me I don't need to be notified every time you know so all my notifications are off my email inbox is on manual refresh so I can look at my phone I could have 20 emails waiting for me I don't know I have to go into the app and I have to you know refresh the screen right and then I see and you know that's a small step that I think most people can manage and I would say to people listening this who attempted to do something I'd say start there just stop there that's one thing I have done and that was life-changing all the notifications on my phone are off the one thing where it gets me into trouble though is when you take notifications off your text messages because there's an expectation when someone texts you that that you prompts an immediate response you come from well I don't know maybe it's it's self-generated in my own mind but I've trained now like I just I I basically unless it's really pertinent I don't respond to text matches messages right away so that people who text me don't then develop that expectation but I don't know if you've noticed this like texting has now become like email it's like it's almost like my I used to just not get that many texts but now I get so many texts that it's like the same thing but then I don't think to check my texts because I don't have that little number on there I don't know when I have new ones yeah it's you know I can also grayscale your phone too which i think is it great what's that you know familiar with you there's a setting where you can go in and take and remove all the color and so it's just black and white screen and there's something about the way that everything is colored in a specific way there's a lot of money in science that's gone into you know creating that compulsive addictive response and color has a big role in that so there's been studies done that when you grayscale your phone that that it really tempers that compulsivity yeah there's a guy called Tristan Harris he's doing like a lot of Reese search in this right now doing the podcast rounds and super fascinating super interesting yeah you know communications changing as an ad saying like text messages are becoming a bit more like emails and it's very hard now to it's very hard to put those boundaries in now you know I I try my best to guard my number my phone number with my life you know because that then means people have got access to me got a Sunday on a Saturday you know when I'm on family time and those boundaries have just got blurred now and it's funny you know I also think that we we've lost an element of respect on other people's time and their boundaries not because we're meaning to but I give an example recently somebody who's got my number added me to a whatsapp group off like 15 people 14 of which don't have my number and when it first happened I was you know come on I'm on this whatsapp group now and these 14 people who don't have my number have now got my number so they can contact me personally in a way that they couldn't do before and again I'm not it's nothing about ego or anything like that it's just more I'm really trying to try to guard my own personal time my private space and I feel that's been taken away from me now and the person who did it didn't do that with any malice right we haven't really written the etiquette rules exactly and that's what I think is is going to be written over the next few years and now is what is what is the right s kit like as you say there's an expectation of the text message you should be responding so you're helping to educate your community or friends people who have access to you via your text you're helping to just educate them a little bit go hey you know when you text me I'll get back to you but it won't be quick mm-hmm and I think we all have to do that you know Tim Ferriss wrote in his in the 4-hour workweek you know about that's when I learned about the emails about police setting the expectation when someone said she'd you know this email gets checked twice a week or once a day you know I did that for a while then I took it off and you know I'm always experimenting but it's about changing the expectation rights yeah he was he was he already showed me found in it it said that he had like 8000 unread emails or something like that and I was like do you read them and then mark them unread he's like no I've never looked at them and I did an experiment when I was in as I told you before the podcast just got back from Italy I did an experiment where I had a colleague of mine my assistant handle all my emails while I was gone I'd never like turned over my entire email box to somebody else and gone away for like two weeks and not looked at it and that was a that was definitely a learning experience it was a great but it was like for a minute there I felt very weird you know almost like naked yeah yeah yeah that's your thing and and I think the key is you say is it we don't know the rules yet we're all trying to figure this out we're in the infancy of the most powerful technology that we've ever created yeah we're trying to find our way and we're worse were we're stumbling without the you know the tools yet yeah I mean this is such such a huge impact on us I don't think we even realize you know how big this isn't but I'd go as far as saying that this arguably our stress component in our lives and the way we use our technology for many of my patients is arguably more important than the food that they're putting in their mouth right it is to be on the entire time to wake up and go first thing on that on that phone and the noise that comes in from that constantly throughout the day and often it's still going on when we're in bed at night lying there still checking everything no downtime that is having a huge consequence on the way many of us feel and you know I actually I think I start a book with a story about the 16 year old boy who I saw maybe six years ago it's this chap called Devon and this was in a typical conventional medical practice you know in our National Health Service I have 10-minute appointments and it was a Monday afternoon surgery okay we call them surgeries they're just clinics basically okay among the afternoon clinic I had about three or four people in the waiting room I was already running a little bit late and this sixteen-year-old boy walks in with his mother I open up the file and I see there's a letter basically on the Saturday this got ended up in the ER because he tried to Harmon self and there was a letter there from the ER doctor saying hey dr. Shashi look this is what's happened we assessed him he was safe to discharge but could you please start one antidepressants so he's that he's with his mom I sort of know the family anyway because I've been looking after a period of time and I thought okay what's going on err why is a 16 year old boy from a seemingly well-balanced family that I've never really detected any issues with before why is he ended up harming himself in the ER Department on the Saturday I just can't stop on an antidepressant I need to figure out what's going on here I just couldn't do it so I spent maybe 10 20 minutes with them and I thought I need a bit more time there said guys look are you able to come in tomorrow morning at the end of my morning clinic and I spend a bit longer with you I said yes sure so they came in the following day at the end of that I thought I can as many factors at play here the one thing really worries me which is his use of social media and his smartphone and I said to him I said look Devin would you be interested in reducing and me helping you reduce your usage is that gonna help I said well look I don't know but I think I don't think it's helping your current mental state would you be willing to give it a go and he was a you know that low app and he said yeah sure if you think it's gonna help so we agreed for the first week that just for one hour before bad he'd switch off his phone and he won't go on the internet he comes about seven days later and I said to him you know how you doing he said well you know dogs chassis um I'm still not great but I feel less up and down in the day I was sleeping better I just you know I've got a bit more energy things aren't quite as bad as they were I said okay so you've already seen that that's having a little bit of an impact what if we increase that a little bit more and over the next few weeks we increase up to two weeks two hours in the evening before bed and two hours in the morning where he doesn't go on his phone mmm-hmm okay he's starting to feel better not cured or anything but significantly better then I thought okay we tackle that he's getting that better then I also then went into his diets said hey what are you eating it was a typical teenage diet lots of highly processed sugary junk food snack King all throughout the day and I said hey Devin did you realize that actually that food that you weeds can have an impact on your mood so really I said look what happens when you have this food right that we simply some like you know when you're eating this food you're this high sugar foods you're getting a blood sugar roller coaster so what happens you're having that in the morning before school mid-morning your Sugar's crashing fast that's not just an energy poem that's not just a sugar problem that is also a mood problem because when it crashes that your stress response goes up in your body adrenaline cortisol go up right this will have an impact on your mood hormones you're saying are you kidding me I know this is what this is this will be playing a role here so because he understood why I was asking to make the changes it wasn't just me saying you've got to change your diet I drew out a little graph for him I explained to him he goes okay that makes sense show me right so I explained what he might be able to do you know take some nuts with him for those snacks to keep his blood sugar stable throughout the day those kind of things it wasn't a perfect diet he didn't go full-on Mediterranean right he just made enough changes and then he started to improve again bit by bit he's getting better and then I stopped seeing him suddenly he doesn't come in as much I'm getting on with my busy practice and then I come in about six months later and there's a letter um you know as part of my mail and go through I open this letter and it's from Devin's mom and he says dear daddy I just want to thank you you've completely changed Devin's life he he's happy at school he's interacting with his friends he's joining local clubs at the weekends he's just you know he's just a joy to be around I just want to say thank you I've learned so much from that case which cuz I thought wow yes I think there are emotional issues as well but simply by tackling two of those four pillars right the relaxed pillar where I helped him reduce the social media hues by helping him understand what was going on I helped him improve his diet by maybe 20 30 percent it's not full-on right he started to be empowered enough to see how that impacted his lights on so this is a 16 year old boy he was at he was at a fork in the road what he could go down one path I'm on my antidepressants I've got two right the still label I've got no doubt he would have been put on a repeat prescription he could still have been on that five years later but at that moment he took another path he now has empowered himself you know really helped him to understand how the environments or choices he makes impacts his mental health and I very much hope that that's going to keep him in good stead going forward because if things get tough in the future he will know actually there with them things I might be able to do which it going to help me and really this what I'm saying this for proach is deceptively simple right we think you know where's the real medicine where's where's the cool stuff right this is the cool stuff if you get this stuff for riots everything gets better yeah if you're lucky you can reverse your disease but you can certainly improve the way you feel pretty much everybody can improve the way they feel you know whether you've got a disease or not if you're just someone who's who wakes up tired every day and needs sugar and coffee to get you through each day these principles are gonna help you mm-hmm if you got type 2 diabetes is gonna help you it doesn't matter cuz he's a universe I can't invent the principles of good health but the same principles that existed under my god come out with a new car separate book and say hey guys I've got the secret right I don't it's the secret no one wants to tell you that you've never heard before yeah I mean I think the most powerful thing in all of it is getting the lights to go on in the patient like by making you know like a lot of the book is about like look let's just these baby steps right and if you can just get a patient to implement one or two of those the lights go on they start to make that connection between how they're living and how they're feeling and then they're invested and then you're basically catalyzing that person's journey for the rest of their life they're gonna go off and you know continue to grow and explore and refine and change and do all of that you know on their own with guidance of course from people like yourself but it's that empowerment piece that I think is so important and I think it's a fundamental paradigm shift in the doctor-patient relationship from one of you know the traditional paradigm of like I'm the expert you're going to do what I tell you and there's no we're not we're not in a partnership here like you know I'm the authority to okay let's sit down and have a chat and like we're we were a team here and what can we do together where it does it fosters that sense of self determinant ISM yes upon a shape it's got to be a partnership between doctor and patient because those days of that paternalistic relationship they're over they're gone I mean there's still a certain generation who expects that they're still I mean yeah most of it is that way still most of it's that we're the rarity still I think I've always been slightly odd in the head because I've never seen it like that I've always kind of wanted to have that punch at that conversation I've always but it didn't start that way for you like we didn't even tell the story about how you got into all this yeah and so well you know it's interesting that because I reflect back now on my career and you're right it didn't start that way but on some level it did so you know to put it in perspective is I qualify for a writer at medical school and I thought I've got all the skills now I need to get out there and make people better great so I've trained for let's go for make dad proud yeah exactly you know and family proud and all this kind of stuff that you know I grew up with and I I woke up and I'm you know doing acute medicine and then within a couple of years I'm you know leading the cardiac arrest team and the hospital and doing all this all the kind of cool acute stuff that you think being a doctor is all about but actually I reflect back and I think even then I don't think I was deeply satisfied I you know I saw how powerful modern medicine can be for a keep promise people walking in through the door sick and you give them whatever you need to give them and suddenly they're transform just incredible so you know witty question at the time you don't even know you're saying hey we go so med school really early and in the UK we don't do a degree we first so you know what I qualified as a doctor I must have been 21 I'd say no really wow that's way earlier something like that maybe 22 you know and I I think now I think I didn't even have the life experience be able to understand what people were going through but the point is I I was you know I was okay my career was going fine and I was doing my specialist exams and I thought yeah okay fine I'm gonna figure this out and you know and you've alluded to you know my my personal story which is that's you know I had already made the move to general practice because I was I really felt that we were just missing the big picture and we were just getting so down rabbit holes in one area without seeing how everything is connected and I was working general practice and you know we just had a first child you know my my wife had breast fed him for the first six months as per the guidelines and as well you know we thought we doing the best thing and I'm not saying we won't do the best thing but we were you know we're pretty healthwatches family and we went on holidays of farms and the Christmas holidays and you man okay I can still remember it so vividly that we were staying in my my friend's chalet in a place called chemin e in France and they weren't there yet we were just there and my son hadn't been well throughout the day he had a bit of a cold and for some reason my wife didn't put him down in his in his cots which is in the basement didn't feel why it's a you know maternal intuition whatever you want to call it she didn't do that and then I remember that she was sitting was a big open plans you know living room and kitchen and she was sitting there and I think I had the kettle on and she just called out something and said you know wrong and he's stopped moving come you know he just shouted out I just came over he put my son at his arms had gone back he was rigid and he just stopped and you know I thought he was choking I I thought maybe he was choking on his mucus and his flame and you know my sort of my medical training was sort of like okay so I turned him over I try to clear his airway who's not breathing is it's not breathing it's just you know I frankly I try to clear his airway nothing was happening and in that moment I wasn't a highly qualified doctor I was a I was a scared dad and I froze right I was just standing there what's going on I've got to figure this out on my wife I said look we just got to get to the hospital so we rush into the car you know I almost kill us all because we own this little slope and car skids because I'm just so panicked we end up in the hospital which isn't very far and you could see when we got there that the doctors are worried because you know for people who don't know a six-month-old child can have a convulsion it's called a febrile convulsion if they've got a fever with it that is not actually that worrying that can happen in that age he had no fever so you could see the doctors were really panicked too sir okay what's going on here why is he got no fever because that's that's the common calls mmm you know they were sticking a net a line in his neck you know all kinds of stuff that he had to be blue lighted down the mountain to the big mountain hospital cuz we were in a little resort but they get him breathing the kind of breathing they gave him diazepam to get him going you know and stop all that sand I wasn't allowed in the ambulance so I had to follow it in a car and I was just panicked what the hell was going on we no one knew they took blood from him he had two lumbar punctures you know we thought we've been a losing battle oohed Lee so scared I feel as later the daughter comes into the room and he says you know those shattered we know you know he's you know we know what's happened as a well what's happening said he's got a very low level of calcium and because of that low level of calcium he's had a convulsion so what we call a hypocalcemic convulsion okay fine they didn't know why at that point they just said okay this is the cause so it's put it in perspective the the normal calcium level on that particular test is 2.2 to 2.6 even if we see it at 1.9 we consider that very low his was 0.97 so his was tanked you know barely compatible with functioning that's why he had his convulsion so they gave him an intravenous calcium infusion you know this what modern medicine does best right fix that a key problem but then what happens I think about an hour or two later I can't even remember the time you know it's all a bit of a blur but he said you know we we now know why he has no vitamin D in his body is very very low so because he has no vitamin D his calcium has dropped low so to cut a long story short and I'm sorry to have labor at the point it's just it gets quite emotional when I think back and I'm you know I still can't clear that that out of my heads terrifying and in a nutshell this is a fully preventable problem right my son nearly died from a preventable vitamin deficiency and his dad as a highly qualified specialist general practitioner immunology on his degree you know all this kind of stuff all these labels right wish I had I wasn't able to prevent that happening in my son but how would you even know I mean if he's breastfeeding you would be you would presume that he's because ultimately you know I now know that and again people are gonna listen to go what why weren't you putting in more vitamin D maybe and the reality is is that you know that is just not at that time and even now it wasn't that common knowledge that a lot of kids need vitamin D you know particularly in the modern worlds you know there are regularly there are guidelines that all children need vitamin D drops you know and he wasn't getting of buds I've got to say about four or five weeks before this happened I was doing some reading I was coming across this in my own process and I you know I thought oh my son should be on vitamin D so what I did is I I found my wife from work and I emailed her a protocol I said hey babe can you just make an appointment can you see the doctor and just ask cuz we get told it's drilled into us as medical doctors in the UK we're not to make decisions on our own family it's considered bad practice you consider too close and so I thought I can't me to do the right thing so she printed it off she went to see her GP and the GP said you know and she knew he knew that I was a doctor and he said to my wife you could have just printed made this up on word that this is not this is rubbish you don't need to do anything you know you're doing the best and so she phoned me and said this is what's going on at me do a bit more research and says let me know because I I wasn't confident enough to make that call myself right where's now with hindsight I should have just done it myself bought the drops over the counter and ahem but I didn't what and you know I've gone through years of trying to figure out why I didn't do that and you know having a lot of guilt attached to that which is a separate issue but I mean quite an important one because that guilt see what happens he's in a hospital he nearly dies modern medicine saves him but then I thought I'm reading about vitamin D I think well this is a critical critical vitamins for your immune system develop this is a critical vitamin for his burnstead abouts he was diagnosed with rickets as well mmm right a Victorian illness that he's now gotten a 21st century and actually it on a sidenote in the UK rickets is on the whites which is just incredible Wow not have thought that I didn't think anybody got rickets anymore we're going up in the UK every year I don't know the u.s. stats but it's going up and and you know what happened in that moment was that I thought well maybe this is the reason he's got eczema maybe cuz you know cause eczema in some ways related to your immune system having an element of dysfunction in it and instead of just putting creams on to suppress the symptoms aside well maybe this is why he's got it so I I felt so guilty about this that I said why I'm gonna figure out how to get my son back to optimal health as if this has never happened and that was my drive right I became obsessed I'd be reading I'd be going on the Internet be reading about vitamin D and nutrition and as you stopped reading you start to come across I Celtic had come across a whole ton of science that frankly I had never seen before that I thought why do I not know about this right that's the shocking thing why do I not know about this I learn more I thought right I'm gonna figure this out I spent a ton of money of my own money I started going out so America start coming on conferences on courses with the goal to get him better right and I've got to say I'm very very thankful that my son is thriving he's eight now he's happy he has no skin problems he's doing well he's sporty he's you know I really feel that everything I've learned has helped me get him back to full health okay so that was a it wasn't just the instance of going to the emergency room and treating it if this was something that that required treatment over a prolonged period of time to get him well but if it's how you look at it modern medicine would say well he had a problem he had a convulsion oK we've identified that and fixed it you discharged now good to go okay but we but we're not looking at what are the implications how long was he low in that vitamin for how much of impact has that had on the development of his immune system right right and which that kills me Ziva think about that you know what that might have potentially done already and what I know is that if you think about that threshold concept even if there has been you know an impact from that which no doubt that there that has I feel that I'm helping him optimize everything else that is possible so you kind of mean that that is just gonna have less of an impact but here's the key by the science I learned from trying to get him better yes I helped him then as a family we start applying it in our lives why then I start applying it with my patients and I for the first time I meant career I felt I was excited I thought I'm getting people better I'm getting them off their medication I'm actually understanding what the root cause of their problem is and how to get to it and it changed my career and I you know it's it's you know in some ways rich if this had never happened to my son would I be doing what I'm doing yeah it's that classic thing of you know the worst thing that happens to you is the silver lining that that you know creates something beautiful out of it I mean silver lining for me it was a silver lining for him you know I don't know but I'd be alright I'm started to do now is I'm I'm really working hard on myself to let go of that guilt because actually that guilt I think it's served its purpose and I think now that that guilt is hindering my ability to be as good a good a father as I could be yeah you can't keep punishing yourself and wear the hair shirt yeah and he doesn't want that either he doesn't want to start to be guilty you know and it's me it was that transformative experience you know and I kind of jerk are you suggest about to myself I thought okay because of that I've learned this I'm helping my patients now then I get this BBC one show this primetime show which goes out to five million people a week in the UK and then you know 70 countries around the world where I can showcase this so to millions of people around the globe how no matter what your condition is we can improve it with these lifestyle recommendations and I thought you know maybe that's his gift to the world maybe he in some ways that's what was required to give me this drive to do what I do yeah that's cool yeah so Wow my head's gone but no no no it's it's it's it's an amazing story and I'm sure he's gonna be fine hey he is gonna be fine he's he's incredible in the context of your practice and all these people that you treat and see like what is the well two questions really but the first being like what is the the number one thing that people struggle with the most and I know you don't want to like sort of parse the differences between these four pillars because of this you know delicate interplay between all of them but you know where where are people going wrong the most what's the most chronic persistent condition or stumbling block that people face in your experience yeah what is the most well I think that the most common stumbling block you're right I mean I I think you gotta take those four pillars individually because in different people it's gonna be a different one but if I had to really pick one and this is different from if I did come on the show five years ago I didn't know you doing the podcast well if he's a killer worse yes if I was here five years ago I would've given you a different answer back then I would've told you it was food but now I'd say it's stress mmm you know I think the majority of people I see I just stressed out busy they just got their brains full of stuff they just that this there's no quiet there's no stillness there's no there's no respite from the noise and I'm finding more and more I'm going there a lot earlier than I used to so I'd say that's probably the big one for me that's the one that I struggle with the most hey me too you know Anna yeah as somebody who's driven and as an athlete like I just you know my whole frame of mind is push push push I can do more I can make it better and I just dig myself into a hole which is why I wake up woke up this morning feeling so great you know but it's about saying you can do more yeah and do it all right but you just gotta you've got to have a stop point you gotta just you gotta schedule in these stop points where because these days it's not matter what you do your work has never done there is always something else you can be doing so I look I'd rather romantically look back to time 15 20 years ago and I I imagine that people words and I'm sure I'm overly you know I'm sure it wasn't quite like this but I kind of imagined their you know let's say a working couple would come back and they might sort of have dinner with their children let's say for argument's sake and some point the children would go off to bed and then it would be like okay let's let's chill out together let's maybe put the television on let's let's watch something together you know there wasn't the ability to go right that's done now I can get on with more work now I can actually open up my work emails now I can catch up with what I'm not done yet now I can get ahead for tomorrow I don't think for certainly for the largest part of our revolution we didn't have that possibility no when you went home you were home your home work was at work you're home now are you chill and he could reach you and nobody would would unless there was some crazy emergency yeah exactly so because we've got the ability to do these things we always feel we can do more so yeah that's never gonna go you to-do list is never gonna be done is it you if you think you're never gonna take it all off and you're done now that ain't happening there's always something else a there's always an email to get back to there's always your Facebook to check there's always a DM just got an Instagram that you could get back see you know it's endless now all that what's up drew you've been attitude you've got a responsive right well we all have like twenty inboxes yeah you know and people can't get you on one to get you on another one so he's just got this constant bombardment so I think that stress peace and a lot of people don't realize that that is a big risk factor for disease but that will even negate you that will even stop you from losing weight people can't get the heads around that but so many particularly I've got to say women okay and that's because I'm going from my experience I'm not saying this affects women more than men what I am saying is in my clinical experience I've seen a lot of women suffer hugely with stress and you know a lot of them are you know witty caring they don't they don't put themselves first they put their children first they put their partner first they put their parents first they they do everything for other people they've got no time for themselves and what happens is because they're wired the whole time that cortisol levels which are primary stress response hormone those levels are high that persistently raised but if they are persistently raised it means your body thinks it's under attack so it holds on to weight and I've helped women get rid of menopausal symptoms I've helped them get rid of their weight problems when they've jumped from diet to diet for years and they keep hitting a plateau and they think what's the right diet you know this is the wrong diet for me what's the next book ID my was what's the perfect diet and I say hey this ain't a diet tree bottom all of these pretty good diets your mind never switches off and just by some simple stress management techniques the weight starts coming off or the menopausal symptoms start getting bad SS stress impacts everything and you know I see my price as I saw it when I did doctor in the house I saw it in people's lives and you know what I mentioned people sit back and let's say a couple sitting watching television in the evening there's another issue there which is now let's if we play that a scenario out let's say the couple do want to watch something together right actually is very common now for people to be on their own devices because we can personalize everything so I don't need to watch my wife's watching I can watch my favorite show she can watch hers so the whole rod our own personal experiences on our on our own yeah so we're together in the same room but we're not together together over now having actually that plays out in other areas so you know many people come and see their doctor about you know their sex life or a lack of intimacy and these kind of things and the classic cliché now is as a husband or wife or who either you know partners - partners are in bed together right but they're both on their own devices so that they're occupying the same physical space yet actually they're in their own world their own emails and their own Facebook messages their own Netflix shows and that opportunity for intimacy that is going as well and you know as a dancer these things come up into my prizes every day people are complaining about this and again this technology is so great on so many levels but if we don't we don't rein it in it's so facing all aspects of our life yeah yeah it's crazy to think that but it's so true I mean you know sort of what you're saying on some level is like your device is making you fat yeah that's the way to get people to pay attention but that is the way and then so you could talk about all the other things but it really is amazing these crazy times that we're living in right deal with all this kind of stuff that even ten years ago was non-existent yeah I know what we do want to make clear rich if it people listening to this and go yeah look get all that but it's just too hard I'm I would say look maybe something they've heard that we've already spoken about or something they might read about right just pick something small just pick something small and start there maybe it's simply that you'd you want one of these people who go on your phone and your bed at nights right what if you didn't bring into your bedroom or what if 20 minutes before bedtime you thought I can I'm just gonna put this off now okay stop that keep you know I live in a house and we keep our phone charges downstairs right and the rule is but we don't always stick to it why it's where the rule is is that we leave our phones downstairs we don't bring them upstairs into the bedroom right now I'm a human what we don't always stick to it are you on call though at times where you have to have the phone nearby no the way I do practice now no I'm not so I don't need that but look I've worked with people who do right so I'm like okay fine on those nights you do it I get it but what about the other six nights in the week when you're not right because we can all make those justifications that you can make the justification there I run an online business I've got to be connected at all times well you can always make excuses for whatever it is that you're trying to wiggle out of yeah one thing is when we say we're trying to wiggle answer that I think this is where the empowerment comes in because at first the first thing we got to do is people have got a got a once a change right they might be listening again yeah you know but I don't want to do that you know if people aren't ready for that they may they may buy my book right and they may read it and do something for a week but then they're just gonna put on the Shelf have it go back to the world habits or more commonly they'll buy the book and give it to somebody who they want they want to help without appreciating the fact that if that person they're trying to help doesn't want to change it doesn't matter it doesn't matter because people think that they can will people into that wanting to change mindset and that is just restr since I go to this world and since I've suddenly seen the light yeah you know I'm trying to sing it from the rooftops so first I've learned that you know what you cannot make anybody make these changes you know but say clean all your family know and I'm sure you get as I do tons of emails hey you know something my mom my brother my husband my wife whatever I mean they need to understand this how can I make them understand it you can't you can't you can't you just gotta I say well you know and this why 2000 I try and lead by example you know not because I'm trying to be an example I just I'm just gonna concise it's enough work to do it myself right and this crazy modern world we live in I'm gonna focus on balance and bit by bit hopefully people around you will you know if their interest said you might just you know spot that a little bit of interest and I say one place this has this has played out recently which is probably not what people will expect me to say but I you know because I've got two young children you know now that they're a school it's always tricky for me to sort of knowing what I know I you know I can't control everything about them anymore and that's just part of growing up right but you know often there's a culture at schools of like sugary junk food all this kind of stuff which you know witty or one more I find very frustrating and an issue when they when my son sada is school it would stress me out this is this is crazy what am I gonna do and then my wife and I decided you know we're just gonna focus on doing what we do and at the end of that first year they went on a school trip and people could bring their treats and for that school trip so what we did is that again we're not trying to make any judgment on anybody else we're literally always cautious when we're talking about children you know I genuinely believe every parent is trying to do the best that they can for their child's within the context of their life and within their health belief system but we felt that we want to keep feeding him healthy nourishing foods you know and we made these well I say we my wife my wife made these beautiful fruit kabobs he's I think that was mangoes or breathe so these colorful girls and he took them in and then at their lunch break on their school trip you know everyone's having their stuff and he's having his food come out of which he loves because he thinks that's a treat you know am i loud all this super sweet fruit today and it we went to pick him up and his teacher said to us so before I was just incredible you know I think we're gonna institute this now as a practice for school trips we're gonna now do these fruit kabobs for everyone we thought that was fantastic and I will you learn a lesson that day I again I thought this is incredible you know we're not telling other people what to do I don't feel it's my place or our place to tell other people see we just focus on what we do and that has been observed and other parents have asked us as well so that's incredible and now other people are starting to adopt that with their children because of what they saw us do and again it's that same principle that applies which is you can't make someone else change you just gotta focus on doing what you're doing and it is hard because if you're let's say if you have had a health revelation by changing your lifestyle yet your partner is not you all you want to do is tell them so now that is you know you do this you do this but I found it doesn't work no it doesn't work and it's tough I'm sympathetic to people that are in that situation like I was lucky enough to have you know a wife who was super supportive I don't know that I would have made the changes that I would have been able to make them or make them stick without that kind of support so it's very difficult and on the the you know that the thing about kids I mean we're very similar with our kids my wife is an insane cook she makes amazing food since the food that our kids prefer but we don't make rules with them about what they can and can't do when they leave the house like I'm not that concerned about whether my daughter is gonna have a piece of cake at a birthday party what I am concerned about is her habits ten years from now and what her default settings exactly and that comes through setting the example and through constant education and using food the kitchen the farmers market the grocery store all of that the cooking teaching them how to make certain things it's all like a homeschool recipe to instill you know those those ideals around food that I think are so important then it's about serving the long term yeah and you've got much more experience than me as a parent you know so I'm always happy to hear and each kids different each gets different and I'm realizing more money to let go and you know you know at some point they're gonna push back and experiment and you know you cannot it's very hard to fight societal norms but if you don't give them anything to push back against the impulse to rebel is is diffused right you're not saying like oh you know this is if you're if you're making all these rules then when they get to a certain age they're like I'm out of the house I can break the rule yeah exactly and I'm you know we become acutely aware of that recently and really try and modify our behavior around the kids because off that and you know I mentioned before that I I met Michelle Puma there right even if you've no I don't know her but he said he said he said you know I think went out working it down initially to sort of help do all the research on the blue zones with them and I was lecturing with him in Guernsey and Guernsey looking at guns you'd say could this qualify potentially as a blues and I don't know why they've got see with that but very currently they're they're people who are organizers arrange for me and Dan not pins on me and Michelle so you go and visit some of guernsey centenarians I remember we went in a taxi and we went to this chaps house he 102 years old I remember we got out the taxi and I knocked on the door and he comes up and he answers the door which in itself was amazing to me because as a doctor I do home visits that's something we still do in the UK I'll you know someone phones in that they can't get in we go and obviously it's a self-selecting population people are sick and an ill generally frail that's why they're calling the doctor but I've never had one of those patients well very rarely open the door for me and normally there's a key lock or some a caravan that's me in this guy rocks up and he lets me in and we go and we sit down and there's a cup of tea made for us and we sit there and we talk that's where the interesting talk to him about his life and you know he said until he was 95 and start seeing dots as he was great and once he started seeing dogs his his health went down but he'd supposed to me I come up the name of this thing but he said you know one of his favorite treats was this Guernsey loaf it's like a mixture between an English cake and a French croissant I can't remember the name affair I was really interested I thought okay you know cuz I'm trying to work out what's the secret here you know and I say you know that's great how often would you have that would you want sort of most days or the weekends it's like oh no does chasity Easter and Christmas we just have it special times yeah can't that every day and I thought that's the key it's not about and I think this is consistent in all these blue zones it's not about deprivation these guys have sweet tweets they don't have it every day after school or every mid-morning coffee break at work right they haven't now and again it's a celebration time as a treat and you know that's why the recommendation I make in the book is to denormalize sugar why I'm not saying look we crave sugar if you were trying to avoid sugar in this modern food environment I think you're setting yourself up for failure really because it's gonna be incredibly challenging I feel too long so comp we avoid sugar I think we need to denormalize sugar you know it just it can't be that everyday norm it's got to be the occasional treats mm-hmm that's the key but I think you have to be specific about about what you mean by occasional because I think people have different definitions of that and I and I do think and I think you'll agree with me on this that there's something to be said for completely cutting something out like sugar to allow your microbiome to adjust and your physiology to adjust and there very well may be some discomfort because we are addicted to these kinds of foods and when we remove them there's a craving that ensues but if you can if you can kind of wait you know sort of weather that you can get to the other side and those cravings dissipate and your relationship to those foods that once triggered you and held so much power over you no longer do Rach I obviously agree look you know I go through this process if you want to go cold turkey on it I've taught people through how to do that because I'm for me that's the approach I would take because you've you you within four or five days you start to feel you saw to learn how good you can feel and how frankly hooked you are on this stuff right but some people that's too much for so I was like take them through a step-by-step process that they can take if they want to go more gradually but I agree often people will say you know I'm addicted to sugar or yeah but I've got a sweet tooth you know what we've all got a sweet tooth we crave sugar but if your norm is to have sugar in your cereal even if you're not adding sugar that the inbuilt sugar in your cereal and your bread that you have in your sandwich at lunchtime potentially in some of those breads and you already made pasta sauce in the evening right your body gets used to get your tastebuds adapt to what you're giving it I remember a few years ago when I used to drink tea when I first I'm doing is he had sugar in it and I remember giving it up the first few days I couldn't stand the table this is awful I thought I got used to it three weeks later I was at work and I picked up the wrong cup of tea and as sugar in it I had to spit it out because something that I could have drunk three weeks previously now felt horrendously sweet to me because our taste buds add that so yeah I've had the same experience so I do feel that it's much better to have a period of let's say two weeks where you go cold turkey yes you will may well go through some withdrawal symptoms okay I don't like it here that people don't like to hear that but you know what can will power things through we can say right you know maybe for four to six weeks that's harder but we can willpower for a week or two most people can my big tip for that and not only for that my big tip in general for making lifestyle changes people are serious about lifestyle change no matter what that is I would say make your home a safe zone right if you're trying to avoid certain foods do not bring them into the house and the reason is because in the 21st century in most places now if you step outside your front door you'll having to exercise willpower everywhere you go right you want to fill up petrol or gas in your car right you've got a walk pass to all the junk in there and the petrol station you want to get a coffee right you know in the UK it's like this you want to buy coffee you stand in line right you walk past or the pan of chocolates or the pastries or the muffins you may well have mentally thought right I'm gonna say no you go it to pay the barista will then say to you hey sir would you like a Punisher club with that you know you're constantly being questioned and pushed so I'm saying that's gonna be hard no and yeah ultimately we'll pick willpower is going to fail you yeah so don't use that your willpower in the house mmm right I know you will come back one day tired stressed-out underslept right and you will crave something sweets and this happened to me a few weeks ago I was you know going around the country it's talking about the book talking to people trying to promote health I was exhausted right sitting there at home with will you feel like something's sweet I open the cupboards it's nothing there's always that's not sighs I don't feel like all these are notes of the moment how do you know what after a little while that craving goes you're pissed for a minute and yeah right exactly but that's it but if you had if I had that that that bag of potato chips then I would have smash through it because that's how I felt and I really feel that it's such a key point control the environments that you can control you just you're setting yourself up for winning I talked about these these little glutes exercises I do a lot of my patients that really help me get rid of 10 year history of backache I do three to four minutes of them a day but you know what I did it I wake up how about at downtime in the morning I very mindfully and particularly weigh out my coffee beans I sort of I weighed all out a little bit obsessed with it I pour the water in and then my timer goes on for four minutes and as the coffee's brewing my step is there in the kitchen and I do three minutes of gluten exerciser so it's inbuilt into my you know I keep that stepper in the kitchen right sure my wife's are huge fan that it lives in the kitchen but the point is you've got to set these things up so you can make the lifestyle change it ain't that hard man honestly it's not that hard right the the teachable kind of takeaway is construct your environment to be conducive to making the healthy choice and that's you know what you do in your home is kind of a microcosm version of what Dan Buettner talks about in the macrocosm like he always is saying look you know we can brow be people into trying to exercise and eat well but ultimately you're not going to really solve the problem on like a Civic level on a social level until you create infrastructures that are conducive to that you have bike paths and you make sure that there are no you know terrible foods in the schools like all the stuff so that everything is sort of out of reach it's inconvenient to make the unhealthy choice and everything is set up to be conducive to driving you towards making that healthy choice and you can do that in your home and to the extent that you can control your environment at work or at play whatever you know you have the ability to control that's going to ultimately pay big dividends long-term yeah thus the key right but we look at these blue zones and I don't feel you know Dan would clearly know better I spend a lot of time out there but I don't feel that these guys are necessarily trying to be I'm trying to do anything their environment is just yeah their environment is just conducive to them something wrong because they have to be moving in there they're just living proximate to their family members and they're a part of a faith community like it's all just set up to promote that without them having to give it a second thought they don't need to go to the gym not going to the gym exactly that just though to get around to get that food to go and to do whatever they need to do they need walk that they're doing this stuff and that's why I think overall there are two pieces here one is the education piece right okay the education piece says you know books like yours books like mine so many great books out there to try and help people understand what they might be able to do but that's only one part of the piece right at one part of the puzzle the other part is the environment right ultimately that the only time we're going to get the real public health gains that are going to transform your country going to transform my country when there is infrastructure set up so that people find it easy to make those choices that you know her photo this we see on my Instagram you know I was in London on the Underground's and I was in a station and it was I think two sets of escalators and then in the middle there was a set of stairs nobody on the stairs everyone on the escalators and can I try and always take the stairs where I can't take the stairs yeah and again I'm not again I'm not trying to sort of sell my - how dare you you know I really know I get it right I get it you're so much better yeah I really don't I share the only DOMA honestly it's not my it's not my thing that I die but you see it when people come offer you know I flew in to LA a couple of days ago and you get off you go through customs and everything of them bears those stairs so that to the luggage claim hall and there's an escalator nobody's on the stairs yeah we've just been sighted did that last week I know exactly what you're talking about me sound up but I was the only one on the stairs yeah we've set up boats for 12 hours and it's easy because we're tired from the flight it's easy to son on the escalator right and I get it and again I'm not criticizing people for doing that but this is the point about the environments even if there was a sign at LAX right you know no that's good studies at show in workplaces if you put a sign on the left if you put a sign there that's have you thought about taking the stairs yeah there's a UK paper I'll send you the link it's route it's incredible it makes a difference you just like people thinking it makes a difference right I gave as well I gave so my UK publisher penguin right so a few months ago I gave them a well-being tour the whole penguin in London I went to talk to them about the four pillars basically and they their offices on the eighth floor of the building so every time I've gone that I get escorted up there everyone takes you to the left and at the end I made them a challenge I said guys look obviously you guys personalize this to your own lives but there's an opportunity here you all work on the eighth floor you've all been at this talk it's much easier to make change in groups and communities together what if those of you who were able to you know what if from tomorrow morning not next week not next January tomorrow morning you all try to help each other take the stairs each day you know how would that be and there was a you know there was a mixed reaction a little bit but people I okay you know that sounds pretty reasonable why I track this why the next day all of them took it all in took it okay 100 percent of people who attended four months later 85 percent of them were taken at four times a week that's pretty good I would have thought the attrition would have been higher really no I would have to drop off yeah meaning yeah no again I was surprised but but that goes that that place that really teaches us how how much of a role community plays because if it's the left up to an individual there hey you go out for lunch then you have to come back and you sell half a staple if what if your colleague says yeah I know but why don't we just take the stairs why when you do it in a group together you start to make those changes and I've got emails from so many people when penguin saying hey I didn't realize the impact I had I've I feel better about myself I'm more productive in the afternoon my relationship with my wife is better since I started doing that I'm sleeping better and I'm not kidding you this is not me exaggerating how powerful these changes are so these little changes bit by bit these small changes become our new habits these new habits become our health you got to start somewhere and now it doesn't matter yeah babe these guys won't changing their diets right all these guys did right let's take the stairs together four times a week it's eight blocks of stairs Yeah right people that email is saying all these kind of great benefits and what that does that then makes them feel better then they want to make a diet change well then they think you know I wonder what else I could do maybe this fifteen minutes and meantime isn't all weird maybe I can actually do this and and that's why I'm passionate saying one on one with someone I will try and find a spot that I can really connect with them where I think okay you know and find something that they can agree with either agree sit with me that the difficult I had with writing a book is I really believe in a personalized approach so I thought how the hell do I write a book for the general population that personalizes it and the way I've tried to do is by give people options give people so many options real life options right not that I fabricate it but that I have seen over nearly 20 years that patients have reported back telling me this works in my life right not what the research paper says yeah that's all in that right people want to read the research I can give them that but what I think I'm most proud of is that this book is making people want to make lifestyle change because they think yeah I can do that Wow I relate to that person he's just told me about well I'm gonna start there and it's been out for a few months in the UK and it's just it's it's really transforming the way people are thinking about health you know the four pillar frameworks but it's almost I want quite goes what I was saying it's in common parlance yeah but a lot of people are talking about it a lot of doctors a lot of health care providers a lot of nutrition professionals are raising the concepts in their little 10 minute consultation and then giving them the book at a psychiatrist contact me last week a psychiatrist saying hey doctor can you talk to you publish as I've actually bought 30 copies of your book and I've given them to 30 and my patients but so anyway we can get a discounted rate right because this is not just about type 2 diabetes and obesity this is about mental health problems it's about gut symptoms this is about migraines insomnia depression you know it's about all these things these are the chronic diseases this is what I'm seeing day in day out as a doctor and this is what I'm seeing that frankly a one pill solution it ain't working for the book these people working and I'm sorry said go on I've just I know this works I've seen this work and I just want people to give it a shot give it a chance the beauty of it is the accessibility and and and and the fact that the ask is so digestible it's like what is the what is the one thing that you can change what's the tweak that doesn't take up any time and doesn't cost any money that can ignite you and get you engaged in your life in a different way and allowing that person to explore that take ownership of it and go on their journey yeah so the call they're really the call to action and we're going to land this plane the call to action to everybody listening is you know what does that change for you what is that what is that one small thing that you can agree to that can begin to catalyze that shift yeah absolutely it really is about that one thing that's the star and you know I mean I don't never age what would be the one thing be for you haha I think for me I mean there's a whole there's a litany of areas where I could use some improvement but I think you know I have challenges around eating food late at night that I know of it negatively impacts my sleep I have issues about turning the devices off you know within a given timeframe before going to bed those are two big ones and I have a tendency to push myself too hard in in work and in play that leaves me depleted and so I don't carve out I get uncomfortable when it comes time to carving out like relaxation and reflection time yeah and I'm not dissimilar to that if I'm honest I mean I've recently particularly since I've looked at all the circadian rhythm research from from captain excuse me from California on you know not easing too late at night which is just incredible I've really tried to limit that but I struggle its call that time for myself I will sometimes you know particularly when traveling and your time zones are all off your honor stuff you start looking at devices oh but I wonder I mean I know you were interviewing me but I'm just I thought it's like this whole what I do at a consultation is I say what ok these are things you're struggling with perhaps I can also commit to something at the same time as it may be from the next seven days we can sort of make a commitment to each other that we're gonna try and do this one thing and I have done that with patients before so yeah what are we gonna commit to here what about devices before bed and we are how are you feel about that I can do that what sure I can what's achievable achievable um ninety minutes before bed you think ninety minutes I think I could do that yeah yeah so it's what I call a no tech 9c I do it we're gonna do it okay I will also commit is it doable for you it is I think so you know it's I went through a really good patch a couple of months ago I was doing it all the time and I fallen into a few bad habits but this is renewed me this is being like okay I've made a commitment to rich that I'm gonna do I think I can do it as well alright we'll check in with each other yeah and anyone who's listening and wants to let us know if they can do it as well they should let us know right right yeah for sure like bullet yeah why don't we make it a hash tag or something yeah hashtag no tec-9 say no tech 90 alright that is there you go no technology let us know when you hear this not in the 90 minutes of read do it the next morning right cool final question and then I'll let you go and I ask this of all doctors that come on the show if you woke up in a parallel universe and you would become an American citizen been appointed to become Surgeon General what what changes do you put in place you know what I should have prepared about to like your podcast so besides that I have just no say I mean on account of whether its regulatory or legislative like what kind of system changes would you like to see in health or the practice of medicine I would say that culturally I feel like legislative changes that precise health so I would like it to be almost in legislation that schools and hospitals don't sell junk food right those stock junk food let's start there even yeah will be transformative and another I guess systemic change would be to really push companies and this culture particular I think you have it in American more than any other country this you know this work hard constantly be on call always be available on your phone always be available we need to take a leaf out of like a German company I think box if I can do this recently where their employees and physically cannot access their emails in the evenings weekends and on a holiday time they're just locks out right and again it may not be what's fun I think it is but one of the German companies and it's very common in Europe now for this to be implements it I think that would be a huge thing for America if that corporate culture will change where we accept hey you're going home now I do not expect you're my boss does not expect me to answer an email till 8:30 tomorrow morning when I back at my desk I think even that's because I think many people have got the expectation they don't want to lose their job like I only said we're pie to my boss even those small things will have a huge impact yeah beautiful man thank you so much rage the pleasures been mine and just such incredible honor for me to be here I you know 5,000 miles away I'm going up and down the country on the train to London I'm often listening to your podcast I'm often learning a lot from what you you've gleaned from your guess is what I thank you for the opportunity to come and there and talk to myself thank you awesome thank you I appreciate that that's very cool to hear excited for you excited for the new book the book is in the UK it's the four pillar plan you'd see it here on video and in the u.s. they have changed the title it is how to make disease disappear why do they change the diet Americanized there's gonna be more totally different cover the whole thing contents the same yeah the context same so depending upon where you live those are the titles pick it up wherever you buy find books and come back and talk to me sometime I'd let say cool time if you want to connect with dr. Chatterjee what's the best place to do that we say Facebook or Instagram it's at dr. Chatterjee it's probably best place to get hold of me and we can have a conversation on there or possibly my podcast feel better live more podcast people can listen to that as well and yeah me at that on iTunes and all usual places yeah cool are you doing any public speaking events that are open to the general public some people yeah like no well by the time this goes up is there like a schedule on your website or anything like that yeah we're putting on the websites on dr. Chatterjee calm it's also on my Facebook page facebook.com forward slash dr. Chatterjee there's an Events section there where all my all my events are there so yeah I love speaking to the public so if you if you want to come along please state awesome and final thing are you gonna take us all out with a little guitar we didn't even talk about the fact that you're a touring rock star you like tickety took like a sabbatical from your medical practice tour with your band I did yeah yes what's the name of your band here Isis well I did under my own name the solo EP it was something wrong again it was when i reck'n dey's one had long hair you know it did my deed you have long hair I did yeah I feel pressure than I want to play do you want to I'm in it's up to you well I'm here in single feels right I'm here in the in the hills in California and yeah let's this this will be a cover with you good [Music] feel free to sing why matter hey you don't want that wanted ever traveled is another salad with it on my minds for the one want me to don't wanna Stoney wants a she's a friend of mine take it easy take it easy [Music] don't let the sound of your wheels try too crazy you still can don't even try to understand the second place to find your step and take what Matt is standing on a corner Winslow Arizona such a fine sight to see it's a girl my lord and a flatbed for some damn I ever look at me again take it easy told that the sound if your wheels drive you crazy enough you still can don't even try the understand just find a place to make your stand and take it [Music] but a jet like in the voice [Music] I don't play that a few years right now and that was great little Eagles for California I'm saying this way that's what I felt like awesome man thank you and so nice time buddy all right peace Lance [Music] you

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 67,596

Keywords: rich roll, vegan, health, fitness, diet, nutrition, athlete, podcast, inspiration, motivation, plantpower, plant-based, wellness, mindfulness, meditation, self-help, self-improvement, rangan chatterjee, medicine, doctor, stress, anxiety, sleep, blue zones, 4 pillar plan, heart disease, dementia, alzheimer's, diabetes, type 2, obesity, exercise, movement, weight loss, weightloss

Id: Ymi8GQnSSYM

Length: 134min 49sec (8089 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 01 2018