April 15, 2024 • 52 mins
Medical doctors are waking up to the importance of happiness, partly prompted by the work of people like Rangan Chatterjee. Dr Chatterjee is Professor of Health Education and Communication, the host of the hit podcast 'Feel Better, Live More' and author of five best-selling books including Happy Mind, Happy Life: 10 Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day.
Rangan sat down with Dr Laurie Santos at the 2024 World Happiness Summit to discuss his life and work - and explain why physicians like him are joining the fight to make happiness a health priority.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. The world is certainly facing a ton of happiness challenges,
but whenever I feel downhearted at the sheer scale of
the problems we need to tackle, I remember all the
people working hard to put things right. These days, there
are so many people in government, in medicine, in academia
(00:35):
and in the media trying to draw attention to the
importance of well being that they can easily fill a
whole conference center. The World Happiness Summit WAHA SUE for short,
has been bringing experts together since twenty sixteen to meet,
swap ideas and give talks to the public. This year's
summit was in London and I went along so I
could record a live episode of this show with a
(00:57):
total rock star of the British happiness community. Welcome to
the WAHASU Live version of The.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Happiness Lab.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I am. I'm super excited to introduce my guest, Doctor
Rungan Chatterjee. Doctor Chatterjee is professor of health education and communication,
the host of the Feel Better, Live More podcast, which
is the most listened to health podcast in Europe. He's
also the author of five best selling books, including his
most recent, Happy Mind, Happy Life Tends Simple Ways to
(01:31):
Feel Great every day, and today we're going to be
talking about why medical doctors need to pay even more
attention to happiness.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Will how's the audience.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Are you all interested in medical doctors paying more attention
to happiness? Yes, so, Rangan, You've long been an advocate
of the importance of all kinds of healthy practices, but lately,
in your most recent book, you've been making a claim
that medical professionals also have to pay attention to something else,
something that historically doctors haven't paid much attention to, which
(02:00):
is people's happiness. Why is a happy life important for
a healthy life?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
So I've been practicing that for over two decades. Okay,
So during that time, I've seen tens of thousands of patients,
and it's very clear to me, and it's very clear
in the research that about eighty to ninety percent for
what a doctor like me it's going to see in
any given day is in some way related to our
(02:29):
collective modern lifestyles. Now, let me be really clear with that.
I am not putting blame on anybody. Okay, modern life
is tough, it's very stressful, and so if you start
off with the belief and the view that eighty to
ninety percent of our medical problems are in some way
related to the way we're living our lives. The next
(02:50):
logical step is to go, okay, well, we need to
educate our patients on what those things are that they
can then change food movements, sleep, stress reduction, the things
that I call the four pillars of health. And for
many years I've been talking about that in public and
I think that's incredibly useful. But for thelast few years
I've been wondering, is that really the root cause or
(03:12):
is it something even higher than that? And that's what
led me to happiness, because I realized that actually, for
many people, their lifestyle behaviors they weren't necessarily the root cause.
They were a cause of sorts, but they were a
downstream consequence of their moods, of the way they approached
(03:32):
the world, of the state of their lives, of their happiness.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So, I think most people will in choously understand that
happier people will naturally.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Make better lifestyle choices.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Okay, you're not going to dive headfirst into a tub
of ice cream in the evening. Generally speaking, if you
feel pretty content with life, usually for most people, that's
a way of managing stress or internal discomfort or loneliness.
So I found that we can tell patients about these
lifestyle choices, but if those lifestyle choices are their way
(04:06):
of coping with the stress in their life, they're never
going to change the behavior unless I helped them change
their stress, for example. So that's one way of answering
your question. But actually, if you go into the research,
there seems to be this link between happiness and health
that goes beyond these lifestyle behaviors. And actually, Laurie, when
(04:28):
you came onto my podcast maybe two or three years ago,
you shared with me a really powerful study that made
a real impact on me, which was that study where
I think it was a psychologist who did it, when
they took people into a laboratory and they injected rhinovirus
up their nostrils. Pretty pleasant study, right. Rhinovirus is the
(04:48):
bug that causes the common colds. Now, what was interesting
about this study is that they could see quite clearly
an association between your mood and whether you got sick
from the virus. So basically, as Laurie told me on
my show, the group who were in the not so
positive mood agree, right, got sick three times as much, right,
(05:15):
So that's pretty remarkable. So why does a doctor then
need to know that? Well, if we're not thinking about
mood and well being and happiness, Well, that study is
showing a pretty compelling association between your immune system function
and your happiness. So more and more I've been led
(05:35):
down to the belief that actually we need as doctors
to be talking about happiness a because it directly affects
your lifestyle choices, but beyond that, independently of that, and
there's more research to support that happiness is associated with
better health.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And so as we think about happiness being associated with
better health, I think is the nerds that we are.
We also have to think about our definition of happiness,
and there are lots of different definitions of happiness out
there in the literature. You use a sort of three
prong of coach in your book, which I really quite like.
So talk to me about this sort of three parts
of happiness as you think of it.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, So it took me over six months to try
and figure out what I call the code to happiness. Now,
of course many people have got their models for approaching happiness.
For me, as a doctor, I'm always thinking about what's practical.
We can talk about big ideas, but how does that
busy person with a busy life actually put this into practice.
(06:36):
So I was trying to develop a model that really
underpins its idea that happiness is a skill. Happiness is
a skill that you can get better at if you
know how to cultivate it. And so the best way
I could explain it to people was with the core
happiness stool. So it's basically a three legged stool, and
(06:57):
each of the legs is an ingredient of happiness. So
each one in isolation is going to help, but each
one in isolation is not enough in and off itself.
So the three legged stool of happiness, the way I
see it, is composed of alignment, contentment, and control. So
(07:19):
alignment is basically about when the person you are inside
and the person who you are being out there in
the world are one and the same.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Okay, So when you're.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Inner values and your external action start to line up
more and more, that's alignment. The next leg is contentment.
So what are those things in life that give you
a sense of peace, a sense of calm, and in
a sense of contentment. That's the leg of contentments. And
the final leg, which I think is even more important
today if we think about the state of the world
(07:51):
and what we might be exposed to if we go
online or look at the news, for example. The third
leg of the stool is control. Now I thought long
and hard about this word, because it's not about controlling
the world. It's about giving yourself a sense of control.
And it's actually such different. What are the things you
can do in life that give you that sense of control.
(08:14):
We know from the research that people who have a
strong sense of control over their lives, the happier, the healthier,
They do better at work, they earn more money, they
have better social relationships. So for me, the whole book
is basically about practical things that work on one, two,
or three of those legs off the stool. So you're
not directly working on happiness. You're doing something, hopefully each
(08:38):
day that works on alignment, contentment, and control. And the
side effects of that is you're going to feel happier
more often, and I think most people want to feel
happier more often.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
One of the things I love about your book is
that you don't just start with this definition of happiness.
You really try to come up with these ten practical
domains in which people can apply different strategies to start
getting happier. And one of the ones that you start
with is trying to get past what you call the
want brain. What is the want brain?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And how do we get run?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I can just say, the reason why everything I
do is so practical focused is if you think about
my life, you know, for many years it's been seeing patients.
So I can't just say to them, hey, look there's
a strong link between happiness and health. Okay, that was
going to help in your immune sysfunction. I see you
in a month's time. No, I mean I have to
(09:31):
be able to tell them and explain something. But then
I have to for me. I feel I have to
give them something that they can go and develop and
cultivate and start to feel it for themselves. So that's
why I'm always so practically focused. But the one brain okay,
so the one brain is that part of your brain
that evolved a long time again, many thousands of years ago,
(09:51):
that makes you think you have to compete, there is
limited resources. I have to get what's mine. It convinces
you that a promotion, a better salary, a nicer phone,
a piece of chocolate, although you may disagree with that,
but it convinces you that that's going to make you happier.
And actually, for most of those things, it's actually a myth.
(10:15):
And we know that because there's a lot of research
showing us that there's some research where they phone people
up at various parts of the day after they've engaged
in certain activities, and we find that actually when people
have just brought something online, or they've had a bit
of chocolates, or you know, they're getting seduced by the
modern myth of success, which often means in the workplace
that people feel less motivated, they feel less confident, and
(10:37):
they feel depressed.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
But the one brain.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Is very, very powerful, and I think we're living in
a time where society and culture very much prioritizes the
one brain. So many of us get sucked into this
trap that more work, more promotion, more Instagram followers, more
whatever is going to make us happy. And by and large,
in most cases, if you identify that with your happiness,
(11:04):
it's going to be a disappointment. And I can tell
you I started the book with very I think it's
a very powerful story of my dad. So my dad's
came to the UK in nineteen sixty two from India
for a better life, and Dad faced all kinds of
discrimination and all kinds of things that many immigrant families
at that time will have experienced. But basically, for thirty years,
(11:25):
my dad worked four nights a week, right, so he
worked in the day as a consultant medical doctor at
manster Warm Infirmary. But Dad would come home every night,
he would shave, he'd have his dinner and then a
car would pick him up at seven pm and Dad
would be out doing gp house course all night. He'd
come back at seven am shave, Mum had give him
(11:46):
breakfast and he'd drive for thirty minutes back into Manchester
and work all day. So for thirty years, my dad
only slept for three nights a week, right. And at
fifty seven, my dad gets loopus, he gets chronic kidney
failure and he's on a dalist machine for fifteen years.
And my dad died almost eleven years ago now. And
(12:07):
I'm convinced that this wants brain, that this belief that
success and more money is going to make you happier
and the people around you happier. I'm convinced that's why
my dad got sick and that's why he's no longer here.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I mean, it's such a powerful story. Of course, the
problem is it's so hard to shut off the want
brain from the basic physical wants of like ooh chocolate
to ooh promotion, ooh more money. What are some strategies
we can use to tackle the want brain. You have
an exercise that I think we might even be able
to try out quickly here with this audience.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Right, yeah, I mean one of my favorite exercises is
in chapter one of the book. It's called your Own
Happy Ending, and it's so simple. But I think if
you take nothing else from our conversation, but just do
this exercise and maybe share it with someone in your
family or someone who's sitting next to you later on,
I honestly believe it will change the trajectory of the
next few weeks and months of your life. And it's
(13:07):
so so simple, right, So the first stage is and yes,
as Laurie says, try and imagine it and do it now.
If you can imagine you're on your deathbeds right now,
look back on your life and ask yourself, what are
three things you will want to have done or spent
(13:27):
time on what does he think about that?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And then the second part of the exercise is you
bring it into the present day and go, Okay, what's
three happiness habits do I need to do each week
that will give me the happy ending I've just defined
I want. It is deceptively simple, right, So for me,
at the end of my life, I will want to
(13:54):
have spent quality time with my family and friends. Like
everyone else, I will want to have done something that
impacts the people around me in a positive way. And
I will want to have spent time or have had
time to pursue things that I'm passionate about. So for me,
my three weekly happiness habits are and these are written
(14:16):
up on my fridge at home, so I see them
every day, just on a piece of paper, nothing fancy,
very low tech, scrap piece of paper and a pencil.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Right, I specify.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I want five meals a week with my wife and
my two kids where I'm completely undistracted.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Okay, may not work for you. That works for me.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I need to record one episode in my podcast each week,
which I've been doing for six and a half years,
because I know that will have an impact on the
world around me. And if I've had time each week
to either go for long walk in nature, play my guitar,
write some songs, play snooker with my son, whatever it
might be, I know I've had time to pursue my passions. Now,
(14:57):
why that's such a powerful exercise. It doesn't necessarily remove
the want brain, Right, It doesn't mean I don't also
get seduced into these belief systems that the culture will
kind of feed in.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But it means that.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
I'm intentionally focusing on the things that are important every
single week. Now, those things don't take long. Right, It
doesn't mean that my email inbox won't overflow, and I
might get stressed about that. But the problem today, in
my view, is that we fit in the important things
when everything else is done. But the problem is today
(15:32):
everything else is never done. There's always something else. There's
always another email to answer, another person to get back to,
another WhatsApp message group to reply to. Right, And so
if you don't intentionally put in your diary the things
(15:53):
that are important for your happiness, I think your happiness
is going to wither away. And it's a simple exercise,
but it's very very effective. I do it myself and
I've done it for years with my patients and they
really really like it.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I think it's so powerful too, because what this exercise
causes you to realize is that, like, you're never going
to have time to get everything done, Like you're going
to have a bunch of balls in the air, and
a lot of those balls are going to fall. But
the key is to make sure the right balls fall.
And our instinct is never that we let the email
ball fall, because it's like you know, pinging in our
phones in our pockets. But this sort of forces us
(16:33):
to say, there's a reason I'm not entering my email,
and it's because I'm having dinner with my kids.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, and I often i'm the worst person, or one
of the worst people in the world at getting back
to emails. But you know what, I've made peace with that.
I'm okay with that because me not getting back to
emails generally means I'm spending time with my children and
my wife, and so I've got very clear that that's important.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Now here's the thing about that deathbed exercise.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Right, we all think we're different, and we all have
individual likes and needs and wants, and yes, of course
there's variability but on one level, we're not that different.
You know, palliative care nurses who have sat with dying people,
like Bronnie Ware, who wrote the book The Five Regrets
of the Dying, who I had a beautiful conversation with
(17:18):
last year when she was in London.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
On my podcast.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
She explains that after eight years of sitting with dying people,
what are the things that they say? And they all
say the same things. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family.
I wish I'd lived my life and not the life
that other people expected of me. So for me, these
(17:45):
things aren't just cute Instagram memes which go viral, right,
They don't have to be. We can convert it into action,
We can use it as a way of thinking. I
don't want to wait until my death bed to learn
what's important, right, And it's the thing I didn't mention
my dad. One thing I will say, though, just to
which I think is really important. And I've reflected on
(18:07):
this since I wrote the book and shared the story
of my dad's One thing I can't say is that
he made the wrong choices. And I'll tell you why
I can't say that. If my dad was here today,
one of the questions I'd love to ask him is Dad,
was it worth it? Because you know what, for him,
coming from India where he didn't feel there was much opportunity,
(18:28):
he may go to me, and I suspect he would actually.
And this is where my view has evolved since I
wrote A Happy Mind, Happy Life. I think my dad
was a lie. Today he may say, hey, son, listen,
it was totally worth it. I'd do it all again
because look how I've set you up with a great education.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Look what impact you're having on the world. Look what
your brother's doing.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And I'm now sort of seeing the other side and
going actually, for him, maybe it was worth it.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
But the key and the beauty of this exercises you
can figure out what's worth it for you, which is
so powerful. So in our second tip from your book,
we're going to explore a practice that you find most important.
But unfortunately we have run out of time, and that
means that all of you can only figure out Ronan's
(19:24):
second most important thing. If you listen to the Happiness Pod,
can we get a big round of a plaza? That's right,
Runkan and I only had about twenty minutes on stage
and then we had to make way for some other
great speakers.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
But kindly the.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
World Happiness Summit folks set us up in an empty
auditorium next door so we could continue our conversation, which
is coming up right after this quick break. So we're
now done our conversation at Wahasu in front of that big,
amazing audience, and now we are in a different auditorium
(20:04):
That might sound a little bit echoey because there's nobody
in here. We're sitting out here looking at like one
hundred emptyc which is a little strange.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
But yeah, and we were just getting going were we
I know, like there was a real energy in there
in the room, and now we've got to recreate that
for the second time.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But which is a good way to jump to your
second tip that we were just about to talk about before,
which is this idea that we need to treat ourselves
with kindness and treat ourself with respect even when the
situation like this one might be a little bit tricky.
And one of the reasons I loved your book so
much is that you're really candid about the fact that
this is something that you have struggled with yourself a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yeah, it's interesting, Laurie that you know I mentioned the
three legs of the stool, and I mentioned alignments and
the importance of living in a way that is aligned
with who we really are. And for this book, actually
it's the most vulnerable I've ever been, to the point
where my wife, who never reads any of my books
(21:00):
until the final stage, is when she read it she
actually said, Hey, wrong, going to be sure you want
to put all of this in your book. And I
think I'd be on this happiness journey myself, and I
feel that it is important as long as I'm comfortable
with it which I am to share the things or
some of the things that maybe I previously wouldn't have shared,
(21:21):
because it's kind of who I am. It's led to
who I am today. And I think that negative inner
voice is one of those things. I think I've had
a pretty vicious inner voice for much of my life.
I never felt good enough growing up. You know, there's
two signs to every story. There's definitely not about blame.
But this is actually not that uncommon in immigrant families,
(21:41):
certainly here in the UK.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I would say I can only speak for that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
But if I came home from school when I was
six or seven with nineteen out of twenty, it was
never well done. It was always what did you get wrong?
Why didn't you get twenty? If I ever came back
and I was second in the class, Mum and Dad
would always ask, well, who came top? How many points
lower were you? How can you come top next time?
(22:07):
And I didn't realize until about ten years ago what
an impact that has had on me on my life,
because I never felt full the love for.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Who I was. Now.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I'm not blaming my parents. They were doing the best
that they could and for them, as immigrants to the UK,
their belief system is we face a lot of struggle
and discrimination. If my child can be a straight A
student and get a really good job like a doctor
or a lawyer, they're not going to have any problems.
The problem is that little Wrongan developed the belief at
(22:37):
a young age that I'm not good enough unless i'm
number one. And for all my success, and we spoke
about the want brain earlier, I've had more success than
I could have dreamt off as a child, But that
success is not why I'm sitting with you here today, Laurie,
as happy and contented as I've ever been. In fact,
(22:58):
that success has taught me that success doesn't make you happy.
For me, at least, it didn't make me happy. What
makes me happy is when I live in harmony with
who I am, want to have a meaningful relationship with
my wife, When I get time each week to spend
quality time with my children. You know, I live five
minutes away from my mother. I help to look after
and care for her. These are things that actually make
(23:21):
me happy. So how does that fit in with being
kind to yourself? Well, when you don't feel like you're
good enough, you will develop certain traits to compensate. So
I have been very competitive for much of my life.
A lot of my best friends will tell you wrong,
as one of the most competitive people I know. But
(23:41):
you know what, I'm not anymore because that competitiveness was
an adaptation. If you only feel that, you get love
when you're top of the tree, while developing the behavior
trait of competitiveness is a genius adaptation because it drives
you to do more and to achieve more. But as
(24:02):
I've made peace with my upbringing, I've done a lot
of you know, for once of a better term in
a work, and I I feel very at peace with
who I am. I like the person who I am today,
so I no longer need the trait of competitiveness. So
I believe that you can actually change a huge part
of who you are, not everything, if you go in
and do the work, maybe with a healthcare professional or
(24:24):
a therapist. And today my inner voice is really really kind,
but it wasn't. And it's really important for happiness, Laurie,
because not just happening, but health too, right, Yeah, it's
really important for happiness and health.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So, Kristin Neff has done a lot of research Professor
Kristen nev on self compassion, and her research has shown
a really strong link between self compassion and physical health.
There's other research that shows that people who are more
compassionate to themselves not only they kind it to others,
but their immune system works better, they age more slowly,
(25:02):
and they're better able to stick to healthy lifestyle habits.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So self compassion is massive, and we don't realize that
if we call ourselves a loser. And I used to
like if I wasn't doing well, i'd I mean, I
share this in the book it's in fact, this is
one of the stories. My wife said, are you sure
you want to share this? I can remember at university
in Edinburgh and medical school if on a Sunday afternoon
we were at a local pool hall, just me and
(25:30):
my buddy's, you know, playing pool. If I was losing. Now,
I consider myself a decent player. If I was ever
losing to one of my friends, sometimes i'd go into
the restroom. I'd look at myself in the mirror, give
myself a lot of slap and say, come on, you'd
lose it, get yourself sorted right.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And you're not like a competitive billiards player. This is
like you and your maids.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
I'm not a professional, right, And it would often motivate
me to go back and sort my game out, and
usually I would then go on to win. But when
writing this book, what I realized, Laurie is that I
didn't enjoy winning. The pain of losing is what I
was trying to avoid, so I didn't feel it relates.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
To when i'd won. I was relieved that I hadn't lost.
And that's pretty dark.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, I mean, but this is a general feature of
the want brain, right, Like, when the want brain gets
what it wants, it's usually not very happy or as
happy as you thought. It's usually not satisfied. You just
like want something else immediately. And the pressure that that
can put on our mindset and our self talk is
just incredible. And so so I'm curious kind of how
you got out of this sort of really self critical voice.
(26:40):
But I also want you to talk about the specific
practice you recommend in the book, because as usual you
have this like incredibly straightforward, practical kind of strategy that
folks can engage in. And so talk maybe about kind
of how you got out of things, but then also
what you recommend.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
For your educatients.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And I think it's important just to say that when
you call yourself a loser in your head, that is
not neutral. It's not just something you're saying to yourself.
When I suppose to Professor Kristen Neff on my podcast,
she said to me that, and she showed me research
that when you talk negatively to yourself, you elevate levels
of the stress hormone cortisol. So you are literally stressing
(27:16):
yourself out with that negative self talk. And I think
a lot of people don't realize that they think, Oh,
I'm just saying it to myself. It doesn't matter. No,
it absolutely matters, because that's the start of all kinds
of negative emotions like guilt and shame, and all kinds
of things which spiral and lead us to make poor choices.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
In our life and negative health consequences.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
One of my favorite bits of Nef's research is that
she looks at people who are more self compassionate versus
less and their level of healthy eating, and she finds
that people who are more self compassionate can make healthier
choices in terms of what they're eating. And the cortisol
story makes total sense there. Right, if you're flooding your
brain with cortisol, you're like, I need snack food, I
need like comfort food.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I feel that.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And what I found is that lifestyle change for me
these days is a lot easier than it used to
be because I'm not trying to overcome something because I'm
kind to myself these days and compassionate to myself. Well,
a compassionate person someone who truly likes themselves and likes
to be compassionate to themselves, then probably not going to
(28:19):
binge eat sugar as much right, And I'm not saying
that to be critical to anyone, but we have to
understand that self compassion is a critical ingredient for health
and happiness. So how have I done it? Well, there's
been a combination of different ways. Yes, I have done
a bit of therapy, something called IFS Internal Family Systems,
which for me was incredibly helpful. But I know that
(28:40):
therapy is not either available or accessible to everybody for
all kinds of issues. Cost you know what you have
available to you in your area, and I don't think
you necessarily need it. You can do a lot even
without it. And so just being aware and catching yourself
when you have a negative voice, I think is really useful.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
For me.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Having children has been really, really helpful because what a
lot of parents I think need to hear is that
if you have a negative voice that you say out
loud in front of your children, oh stupid me, Oh
I can't do anything right? Well, what voice do you
think they're going to develop? So for me, having children
(29:24):
was a really it was a huge motivating factor to
catch myself and not do it in front of the children.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Doesn't mean it's good to do it away.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
From them, but Initially I didn't want to do it
in front of them because I didn't want them to
pick it up. For much of my life until the
last five or six years, I don't think I was
that happy.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I think I.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Thought more, I need to compete, I need to do better.
That's going to make me happy. But I got all
that and it didn't. That's when I stopped looking outside
and I started to turn the ship around to look
internally and go, ah, you need to do some work here,
that's what's going to make you happy. So one of
the practices in the book that I really like, that
it's really practical for people, is to write themselves a
(30:03):
love letter.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Now to a British.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Audience, I'm not sure there's anything more uncomfortable than say
something like that. Maybe it goes down easier in America.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I think not unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, But the point of it is, can you fact,
let's make it easy. Can you write down on a
piece of paper or in your journal five things you
like about yourself?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
And one of the things I love about the suggestion
in your book is you say, if you can't think
of those five things, pretend you're your best friend. Pretend
you're your dog. Pretend you're someone who really cares about you.
What would they say about you?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, pretend you're that teacher who you had in high
school that was awesome for you. What would they say
about you? Start there, because you're opening the door to
self compassion.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
It can be that easy. Now.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
If you can't do five, but you can only think
of one, start with one, right, and maybe over the
next few days, see if you can build up to
two or three, and look, what does the research say.
There are some really good research showing that for seven
days in a row, if you write yourself a compassionate letter,
a love letter, let's say, right, or just a letter
(31:08):
wait you say nice things about yourself. Three months later,
those researchers can still measure improvements in your happiness and
your subjective well being.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I mean this stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
What I love about it is it simple, it doesn't
cost any money, and it can have a real impact. Now, Laurie,
if anyone who's listening to this right now is pushing
back a little bit and going, I'm not writing.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Myself a love lad set, I would say, Okay, I
hear you.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
But if you're pushing back, it's probably a very good
sign that self compassion is something you need to work on.
And I would just say, like with anything, start small, and.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
This is you know, something that you obviously, as a
medical doctor know really well. We assume like, oh, we're
fixing our traits. If I'm self critical, I'll just be
self critical forever. But like our brains have neuroplasticity, right,
you know what fires together, wires together. Right. The more
you do these activities, the more likely it is that
it's going to become a habit that you can pick up.
So this, this writing, this love letter might seem kind
(32:06):
of cheesy in your journal some random Thursday night, you
do that every night, but then naturally when you're playing pool,
it will just be the talk that you bring up.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
It just becomes more of a happy you bring up
some really interesting First of all, what I've realized in
life is that we get good at what we practice.
If you practice stress every day, you get pretty good
at feeling stressed. If you practice negative self talk every day,
you get really good at talking.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Down to yourself.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
If you practice self compassion every day, or gratitude every day,
you get really good.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
At those things.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And it's interesting just to tie up the loop with
having children. I remember a few years ago I was
actually playing pool or snooker with my son, who at
the time was about eight or nine, and I remember
this really well.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I fell into.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
An old pattern, not as bad as it was at university,
but not quite as compassionate as I would have liked
to have been.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
And it wasn't that bad. I think.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I think I missed a shot and I said something like, oh,
you could have done better. You should have made that shot.
And my son said to me, Daddy, don't talk to
yourself like that. And it was so powerful because it
helped catch me. And that wasn't that bad. Honestly, competitor,
I like about it. That was good, but I thought,
(33:23):
this is awesome, Like I hope my wife and I
have brought him up in such a way that he
is compassionate to himself. And he's heard me say something.
He said, that's not nice, Daddy, don't talk to yourself
like that. And it was a really special moment for me,
a for me, but also for what I hope that
I'm teaching him.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Rungan is so open and honest about how he's had
to change many of his habits to improve his happiness.
But there's one strategy above all others that he credits
with making his daily life better. You'll share what that
is when the Happiness lab returns in a moment. I
(34:06):
often say that social interaction is the key to happiness,
but you and I both know that people can kind
of suck. They can make us angry or even make
us feel disappointed. Doctor Runken Chatterjee says the biggest breakthrough
in his happiness journey was to change how he dealt
with these tricky interactions. It can be done, he says,
by exercising our friction. So what exactly does that involve?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
So we're social animals, right, It's very hard, I think,
for us to be happy if our interactions with the
world around us and the people around us are problematic,
and a lot of the time we feel that we
have to be a victim to the way the people
around us act if they're not nice, or they criticize me,
(34:50):
or they say certain things. While I have every right
to feel down and depressed and unhappy, and that's what
I used to think, but I've realized there is another option.
The way you interact with people, the way you interact
with the world. It comes down to you. You can
(35:11):
interpret various situations and a multitude of different ways, and
once you understand that, you empower yourself. So, just as
you can go to the physical gym and do bicep
curls or make your biceps bigger, will seeking out friction
for me is working out of the social gym. You're
using social friction with the world around you to make
(35:31):
your social muscle stronger. So how does this play out
for me? Well, any time something happens in my life
that I don't like or I'm getting frustrated by, I think, well,
what other story could I write here? Okay, instead of
being a victim to this situation, how can I empower
myself here? So let's say I'm driving somewhere and someone
(35:55):
cuts me up on the road. Instead of saying that
guy shouldn't be driving, they shouldn't have got their driving license,
they need their eyes checked, I could have been hurt.
Whatever story you want to create here, you're entitled to
make whatever story you want. But if you have that
sort of outlook, you're not going to be happy because
you're going to generate emotional stress. You're not going to
(36:18):
feel good, and that emotional stress will have to be
neutralized at some point, and often we neutralize it with sugar,
with more caffeine, with alcohol, with whatever, you know, our
habit of choices. But we generated that emotional stress by
the way we reacted. And once you want to sound
that you don't need to react like that, you open
(36:40):
up a new possibility of living. This is exactly what
I've done, and when I really got this Lorry. Honestly,
the conversation, out of all conversations I've had in my podcast,
which is four hundred plus now, the one conversation I'd
always come back to is the conversation I had with
Edith Eager, who when I spoke to was a ninety
three year old lady. When she was sixteen, she got
(37:03):
put on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. Within two
hours of getting there, both of her parents were murdered.
Later that afternoon, she was asked to dance in front
of the senior prison guards. So she's in a concentration account.
The parents have just been murdered, she's sixteen years old.
She has to dance for the entertainment of the senior
(37:25):
prison guards. And there's many things I remember from that conversation.
But she said to me, when I had to dance
for them, I wasn't in Auschwitz.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
In my mind. I was in Budapest opera house.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I had a beautiful blue dress on the orchestra was playing,
there was a full house. I remember Laurie thinking, you
were able to do that in Alschwitz. Then in the conversation,
she said, when I was in Auschwitz, I started to
see the prison guards as the prisoners. They weren't free
(37:59):
in their mind. In my mind I was free, and
there was lots more. But at the end, this is
the thing she said to me that I think about.
I would say on most days, said wrongin I have
lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you that the
greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison
you create inside your own mind. That phrase has changed
(38:22):
my life because I realize that we all create these
mental prisons every day by the way we interact. So
that person who cuts me up on the road, instead
of me being a victim to that situation, it's training
myself to go, oh, I wonder what's going on in
that person's life. Maybe that's a dad whose daughter was
up last night with earache and they're exhausted and they
think they're going to be late for work, and if
(38:44):
they're late for work, they're going to get fired. You know,
maybe they genuinely didn't see me. Whatever story you want.
And here's the thing, Laurie that I've realized, and you
know you're a psychologist. I'm interesting in your perspective on this.
All situations I've realized have multiple realities. And I often
talk to people about this through the lens of a
couple's relationship. I say to people, let's say you're a
(39:04):
husband and wife and you have a disagreement. Don't know
if you ever know what that feels like, you know
for people who experienced that, right, I say, Okay, well,
you've had a disagreement stroke argument. What actually happens, Well,
it kind of depends who you ask. If you ask
the husband, he may give you a certain narrative and
story about the situation that may be completely different to
(39:28):
what his wife says, and they can both be right
for them. There was this really great study on some
psychologists where they found football fans and after the match,
they showed them the same incident. Right, so they're saying,
calmly watching the same incident, depending on which team you
supported would determine what you think happened in that incident.
(39:50):
And so the reason for me sharing that is you
realize that every situation has multiple stories that you can
create about it. Or what I say in the book
is create the story that empowers you, not the story
that makes you a victim. So this can be a
very simple practice that people do in the evening or
once a week. You reflect, where did I get really
(40:12):
frustrated by someone and make them like a really bad person.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
And one of the.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Tools I recommend is just saying what stories you need
to create to make that person a hero. And here's
the truth of the situation the way I see it, Lorrie,
the truth of what actually happens for your happiness, it
doesn't really matter for your happiness, it doesn't matter. And
when you can let go of the need to be
right and the need to know that person does have
(40:41):
a driving license and they should have known that I
was here, you never know. And I've been doing this
for over five years now. I've been slowly using every
bit of social friction in my life. In the evening,
I'd reflect and go okay, wrong, And what's a different
story that you can right here and yes. And at
first it was an effort, like when you first learn
to drive a car, if you're learning to drive a
(41:02):
manual or what you guys call the stick I think
stick share, yes, stake shift yet right, it's conscious you're thinking,
this is the clutch, this is the accelerator. But what
over time it's automatic. So now, genuinely speaking, most of
the time, unless I'm on the really high levels of
stress and or I'm sleep deprived, I will naturally write
(41:24):
a happiness story. And it means that you feel good
because you lead with compassion and curiosity. What's going on
in that person's life? Does that all make sense?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
No? Totally.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And I think when you do that, you do a
couple of things. First, you end up often changing the
other person's behavior. I imagine somebody cuts you off and
you get to interact with them after. If you scream
at them and stuff, you are going to turn them
into a jerk. But if you say, are you okay?
Like what happened? Like, if you just show it, like
a tiny iota of compassion, often that will change someone's behavior.
They will become the hero. They'll kind of want to
(41:55):
behave in the way that you want. But another reason
I just love this technique so much is that when
you realize not just that these kind of construles are
these ways of thinking about people, these sort of hero
stories matter for your happiness, but when you also realize
that you can get better at it, that this is
a social gym and you can train, you can actually,
in a funny way, become excited about these moments of
(42:15):
social free one hundred percent where you're like, oh, somebody
cut me off. This is a wonderful These are my
reps today, Like I'm going to get extra reps. This
is like leg day for social And.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
What does this do if we think about the core
happiness stool that I mentioned right, the starts, alignment, contentment,
of control. Well, this does several things, but particularly this
speaks to the control elements. If you feel that the
social world is out of control, that people are acting
in these sort of ways and you are basically just
like a puppet on a string, that if someone acts badly,
(42:45):
you're going to have a bad day. Just think about
that for a minute. You're putting your happiness in the
hands of other people. Now I get it. Of course,
we want people to interact nicely with us, but you
can't rely on that if you want to be happy.
And you know another phrase which might help people here
if they're struggling to write a hero story for the
(43:06):
other person. This phrase literally is change my life. I
think it's very powerful. If I was that other person,
I'd be acting in exactly the same way as them.
And when you really really get that phrase, what I'm
saying is if I was that other person and I
had their childhoods and the bullying they experience, and the
(43:28):
parents they had, and the first boss at sixteen who
was toxic and took advantage to be whatever it might be,
if I had their life, I would see the world
the way that they see it, and I would be
acting in the way that they're currently acting.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Now. I choose to.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Go out in the world every day believing that everyone
is doing the best that they can, and if I
were them, I'd be acting in exactly the same way.
For me, it's been a transformative practice because it means
that you know what you're curious, You understand. You're thinking,
why does that person think differently to me? Why is
that person being rude in that situation? What has gone
(44:04):
on in their life. It doesn't mean you have to
accept poor behavior. Just to be really clear, but by
not getting emotionally triggered, you feel better. You feel calmer
and in control. And let's say it's your boss who
send you a email that you don't like and you
think is inappropriate. If you get emotionally triggered, you may
fire one back that you regret, You may have an
(44:27):
unproductive interaction with your boss because you're so emotionally triggered
by it. But if you receive that email and you think, hmm,
that's out of character for my boss, what's going on
in his or her life? Oh, you know, maybe he's
having marital problems, maybe he's worried about his or her job,
whatever it might be, you just calm everything down and
then if you do have the torture boss, you're better
(44:49):
able to make changes because you've not been emotionally triggered.
So that chapter, honestly is one of my favorite chapters
in the book because I would say it's had the
most impact on me. I realize how much I picked
up from my parents, how much I thought that my
feelings were because of the people around me, and I
didn't quite really Actually, I've got a lot more agency
(45:11):
here than I previously thought, and.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
So I can see this just in interacting with you.
But I'm going to ask the question anyway. Has kind
of recognizing the agency you have to change your happiness
really changed your overall sense of joy and well being.
It seems like it just interacting with you.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, look on honestly, and again, I would have been
too insecure to say this in the past because of
how it might make people feel. But I also understand
that how people feel is up to them. It's not
that much to do with me. So I'm going to
share something with you that if people feel bad about it,
it says I think more about them.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
And I say that with an open heart. Lorry.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I'm not blaming or criticizing anyone. I'm forty six years old.
I've never felt happier and more content with who I
am than I do today, and it's been like this
for a couple of years now. I think writing this
book on happiness has really helped me. You know, what
do authors do. We often write the books that we
need for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
That was absolutely the case with me. I was on
that journey and writing it. Yes, I know it's helped
a lot of people, but it's also helped me. And
what I'm passionate about, what I've always been passionate about,
is we make health, we make happiness so complicated we
really don't need to. Like I do, think it's our
(46:29):
birthright to be happy. I think if you look at
a young child, a two or three year olds, they're
in the moments they're playing with their toys or their siblings.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
That happiness, that presence. I think it is something.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
That all of us can get, but we need to
know what to work on. That's why I created this
model of the three legged store, because I think it's
rather than thinking what can I do to be happy?
I think, well, what we need to do is what
can I do to improve my alignment? What can I
do to improve my contentment? What can I do that
gives me a sense of control? And if I can
(47:04):
do those things regularly, I'm going to be happier more often.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Cool to hear how much it's changed your life, But
I'm curious, given your status as a doctor in the
UK and so on, like, do you think that more
books like this are conld change the medical field? That
is not just you, but really like the way we
think about physical health is going to incorporate happiness even more.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
I'm an optimist, okay, so I believe it will. And yes,
I get contacted a lot by the public, but I've
had hundreds, if not thousands of messages from medical doctors saying, wow,
I had no idea about this stuff. Firstly, it's helping
me with my own health and happiness, and it's also
(47:46):
given me a tool kit to start introducing these conversations
with my patients when appropriate. So I am optimistic. That's
one of the reasons for writing the book. And there
is a course that I teach to doctors called Prescribing
Life Style Medicine, and we trained several thousand healthcare professionals now,
and some of these concepts I'm bringing into the course
(48:08):
because I think it's important, yes for patients, but also.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
For the doctors themselves. Right.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
I shared a very person sorry about my dad before,
and that may seem extreme, you know, only sleeping three
nights a week for thirty years, and yes, it is
quite an extreme situation. But there is a version of
that that I have seen regularly with so many patients,
and that version is I'm working too hard I'm doing
(48:36):
too much. I'm chasing this fictional idea of success. I
already have enough. I've already got enough to feed my family.
But I'm so used to pushing for the next thing
that I keep going and I'm making myself sick. So
that right, your own happy ending exercise. I think it's
a damn good one for doctors to do on themselves,
(48:57):
and I have used it with patients also because it
helps them realize, oh, maybe I don't need to go
for that promotion. Maybe I'm all right where I am.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
I want to have this teacher who was a patient
of mine, and I remember that he did this exercise
and then he came in a few weeks later to say, Doc,
I've got it. I'm not going for the promotion. I said, okay, great,
he said yeah. I realized, like I quite like my
current position, Like I earn enough, I can pay the mortgage,
(49:27):
I get to spend time with my kids every weekend.
If I take the promotion, yes, I'll get paid a
little bit more, but actually I'll have to say extra
evenings in the week at school and I'll be in
at weekends. And I thought, awesome, Wow, I wish I'd
been able to make those decisions at that age. So,
you know, I think it can help patients, But in
(49:48):
terms of the medical profession, I think that it is inevitable.
At some point doctors will have to start understanding happiness
and the skill of happiness better for themselves and for
their patients because what we're doing is currently not working.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Doctors are stressed out.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
There's record rates to burnout, there's record rates of people
leaving the profession. There was a study in the UK
recently that says eighty eight percent of the UK workforce
has experienced a form of burnout in the past two years.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
I don't know whether that's stat is truly reflexive of
every workplace, but even if it isn't.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
It's still pretty it's still pretty bad.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
What does it say about as a society. So you know,
when answer to your question, yes, I do see there's
a movement now with more doctors being interested. You know,
We've just been on stage at the Happiness Summits and
there's been several doctors who've come up to me and
spoken and saying, I'm using your book with my patients already,
and I have been. It's making a real difference. So yes,
(50:52):
I'm an optimist, but I do think the medical profession
is starting to change. I wish it would change a
bit sooner, a bit quicker, but I think it's going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Ringan, thank you so much for coming on the show,
and thank you so much for the great work that
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Well, Laurie.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
It's been an honor to come on your wonderful podcast,
and you literally are a trailblazer in the world of happiness,
and you've inspired a lot of my work over the year.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
So you're with these an honest to meet you in
person to come on the show.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Thanks again, Yeah, yeah, our great audience standing ovation. Doctor
Rungin Chatterjee was just one of the inspiring people I
met at the World Happiness Summit. I also spent a
bunch of time with the events founder, Karen Guggenheim, and
I got to hear how a painful bereavement kick started
her mission to improve global happiness.
Speaker 4 (51:39):
My husband caught the flu, which developed into a pneumonia,
and within ten days he was gone, Okay, well I'm done.
And I don't think that I was suicidal at all
in that regard, but I think we can be a
live dead, just being numb to life.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
That's all to come next time on a happiness lab
with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,
Pushkin. The world is certainly facing a ton of happiness challenges,
but whenever I feel downhearted at the sheer scale of
the problems we need to tackle, I remember all the
people working hard to put things right. These days, there
are so many people in government, in medicine, in academia
(00:35):
and in the media trying to draw attention to the
importance of well being that they can easily fill a
whole conference center. The World Happiness Summit WAHA SUE for short,
has been bringing experts together since twenty sixteen to meet,
swap ideas and give talks to the public. This year's
summit was in London and I went along so I
could record a live episode of this show with a
(00:57):
total rock star of the British happiness community. Welcome to
the WAHASU Live version of The.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Happiness Lab.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I am. I'm super excited to introduce my guest, Doctor
Rungan Chatterjee. Doctor Chatterjee is professor of health education and communication,
the host of the Feel Better, Live More podcast, which
is the most listened to health podcast in Europe. He's
also the author of five best selling books, including his
most recent, Happy Mind, Happy Life Tends Simple Ways to
(01:31):
Feel Great every day, and today we're going to be
talking about why medical doctors need to pay even more
attention to happiness.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Will how's the audience.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Are you all interested in medical doctors paying more attention
to happiness? Yes, so, Rangan, You've long been an advocate
of the importance of all kinds of healthy practices, but lately,
in your most recent book, you've been making a claim
that medical professionals also have to pay attention to something else,
something that historically doctors haven't paid much attention to, which
(02:00):
is people's happiness. Why is a happy life important for
a healthy life?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
So I've been practicing that for over two decades. Okay,
So during that time, I've seen tens of thousands of patients,
and it's very clear to me, and it's very clear
in the research that about eighty to ninety percent for
what a doctor like me it's going to see in
any given day is in some way related to our
(02:29):
collective modern lifestyles. Now, let me be really clear with that.
I am not putting blame on anybody. Okay, modern life
is tough, it's very stressful, and so if you start
off with the belief and the view that eighty to
ninety percent of our medical problems are in some way
related to the way we're living our lives. The next
(02:50):
logical step is to go, okay, well, we need to
educate our patients on what those things are that they
can then change food movements, sleep, stress reduction, the things
that I call the four pillars of health. And for
many years I've been talking about that in public and
I think that's incredibly useful. But for thelast few years
I've been wondering, is that really the root cause or
(03:12):
is it something even higher than that? And that's what
led me to happiness, because I realized that actually, for
many people, their lifestyle behaviors they weren't necessarily the root cause.
They were a cause of sorts, but they were a
downstream consequence of their moods, of the way they approached
(03:32):
the world, of the state of their lives, of their happiness.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
So, I think most people will in choously understand that
happier people will naturally.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Make better lifestyle choices.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
Okay, you're not going to dive headfirst into a tub
of ice cream in the evening. Generally speaking, if you
feel pretty content with life, usually for most people, that's
a way of managing stress or internal discomfort or loneliness.
So I found that we can tell patients about these
lifestyle choices, but if those lifestyle choices are their way
(04:06):
of coping with the stress in their life, they're never
going to change the behavior unless I helped them change
their stress, for example. So that's one way of answering
your question. But actually, if you go into the research,
there seems to be this link between happiness and health
that goes beyond these lifestyle behaviors. And actually, Laurie, when
(04:28):
you came onto my podcast maybe two or three years ago,
you shared with me a really powerful study that made
a real impact on me, which was that study where
I think it was a psychologist who did it, when
they took people into a laboratory and they injected rhinovirus
up their nostrils. Pretty pleasant study, right. Rhinovirus is the
(04:48):
bug that causes the common colds. Now, what was interesting
about this study is that they could see quite clearly
an association between your mood and whether you got sick
from the virus. So basically, as Laurie told me on
my show, the group who were in the not so
positive mood agree, right, got sick three times as much, right,
(05:15):
So that's pretty remarkable. So why does a doctor then
need to know that? Well, if we're not thinking about
mood and well being and happiness, Well, that study is
showing a pretty compelling association between your immune system function
and your happiness. So more and more I've been led
(05:35):
down to the belief that actually we need as doctors
to be talking about happiness a because it directly affects
your lifestyle choices, but beyond that, independently of that, and
there's more research to support that happiness is associated with
better health.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And so as we think about happiness being associated with
better health, I think is the nerds that we are.
We also have to think about our definition of happiness,
and there are lots of different definitions of happiness out
there in the literature. You use a sort of three
prong of coach in your book, which I really quite like.
So talk to me about this sort of three parts
of happiness as you think of it.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, So it took me over six months to try
and figure out what I call the code to happiness. Now,
of course many people have got their models for approaching happiness.
For me, as a doctor, I'm always thinking about what's practical.
We can talk about big ideas, but how does that
busy person with a busy life actually put this into practice.
(06:36):
So I was trying to develop a model that really
underpins its idea that happiness is a skill. Happiness is
a skill that you can get better at if you
know how to cultivate it. And so the best way
I could explain it to people was with the core
happiness stool. So it's basically a three legged stool, and
(06:57):
each of the legs is an ingredient of happiness. So
each one in isolation is going to help, but each
one in isolation is not enough in and off itself.
So the three legged stool of happiness, the way I
see it, is composed of alignment, contentment, and control. So
(07:19):
alignment is basically about when the person you are inside
and the person who you are being out there in
the world are one and the same.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Okay, So when you're.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Inner values and your external action start to line up
more and more, that's alignment. The next leg is contentment.
So what are those things in life that give you
a sense of peace, a sense of calm, and in
a sense of contentment. That's the leg of contentments. And
the final leg, which I think is even more important
today if we think about the state of the world
(07:51):
and what we might be exposed to if we go
online or look at the news, for example. The third
leg of the stool is control. Now I thought long
and hard about this word, because it's not about controlling
the world. It's about giving yourself a sense of control.
And it's actually such different. What are the things you
can do in life that give you that sense of control.
(08:14):
We know from the research that people who have a
strong sense of control over their lives, the happier, the healthier,
They do better at work, they earn more money, they
have better social relationships. So for me, the whole book
is basically about practical things that work on one, two,
or three of those legs off the stool. So you're
not directly working on happiness. You're doing something, hopefully each
(08:38):
day that works on alignment, contentment, and control. And the
side effects of that is you're going to feel happier
more often, and I think most people want to feel
happier more often.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
One of the things I love about your book is
that you don't just start with this definition of happiness.
You really try to come up with these ten practical
domains in which people can apply different strategies to start
getting happier. And one of the ones that you start
with is trying to get past what you call the
want brain. What is the want brain?
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And how do we get run?
Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I can just say, the reason why everything I
do is so practical focused is if you think about
my life, you know, for many years it's been seeing patients.
So I can't just say to them, hey, look there's
a strong link between happiness and health. Okay, that was
going to help in your immune sysfunction. I see you
in a month's time. No, I mean I have to
(09:31):
be able to tell them and explain something. But then
I have to for me. I feel I have to
give them something that they can go and develop and
cultivate and start to feel it for themselves. So that's
why I'm always so practically focused. But the one brain okay,
so the one brain is that part of your brain
that evolved a long time again, many thousands of years ago,
(09:51):
that makes you think you have to compete, there is
limited resources. I have to get what's mine. It convinces
you that a promotion, a better salary, a nicer phone,
a piece of chocolate, although you may disagree with that,
but it convinces you that that's going to make you happier.
And actually, for most of those things, it's actually a myth.
(10:15):
And we know that because there's a lot of research
showing us that there's some research where they phone people
up at various parts of the day after they've engaged
in certain activities, and we find that actually when people
have just brought something online, or they've had a bit
of chocolates, or you know, they're getting seduced by the
modern myth of success, which often means in the workplace
that people feel less motivated, they feel less confident, and
(10:37):
they feel depressed.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
But the one brain.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Is very, very powerful, and I think we're living in
a time where society and culture very much prioritizes the
one brain. So many of us get sucked into this
trap that more work, more promotion, more Instagram followers, more
whatever is going to make us happy. And by and large,
in most cases, if you identify that with your happiness,
(11:04):
it's going to be a disappointment. And I can tell
you I started the book with very I think it's
a very powerful story of my dad. So my dad's
came to the UK in nineteen sixty two from India
for a better life, and Dad faced all kinds of
discrimination and all kinds of things that many immigrant families
at that time will have experienced. But basically, for thirty years,
(11:25):
my dad worked four nights a week, right, so he
worked in the day as a consultant medical doctor at
manster Warm Infirmary. But Dad would come home every night,
he would shave, he'd have his dinner and then a
car would pick him up at seven pm and Dad
would be out doing gp house course all night. He'd
come back at seven am shave, Mum had give him
(11:46):
breakfast and he'd drive for thirty minutes back into Manchester
and work all day. So for thirty years, my dad
only slept for three nights a week, right. And at
fifty seven, my dad gets loopus, he gets chronic kidney
failure and he's on a dalist machine for fifteen years.
And my dad died almost eleven years ago now. And
(12:07):
I'm convinced that this wants brain, that this belief that
success and more money is going to make you happier
and the people around you happier. I'm convinced that's why
my dad got sick and that's why he's no longer here.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
I mean, it's such a powerful story. Of course, the
problem is it's so hard to shut off the want
brain from the basic physical wants of like ooh chocolate
to ooh promotion, ooh more money. What are some strategies
we can use to tackle the want brain. You have
an exercise that I think we might even be able
to try out quickly here with this audience.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Right, yeah, I mean one of my favorite exercises is
in chapter one of the book. It's called your Own
Happy Ending, and it's so simple. But I think if
you take nothing else from our conversation, but just do
this exercise and maybe share it with someone in your
family or someone who's sitting next to you later on,
I honestly believe it will change the trajectory of the
next few weeks and months of your life. And it's
(13:07):
so so simple, right, So the first stage is and yes,
as Laurie says, try and imagine it and do it now.
If you can imagine you're on your deathbeds right now,
look back on your life and ask yourself, what are
three things you will want to have done or spent
(13:27):
time on what does he think about that?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And then the second part of the exercise is you
bring it into the present day and go, Okay, what's
three happiness habits do I need to do each week
that will give me the happy ending I've just defined
I want. It is deceptively simple, right, So for me,
at the end of my life, I will want to
(13:54):
have spent quality time with my family and friends. Like
everyone else, I will want to have done something that
impacts the people around me in a positive way. And
I will want to have spent time or have had
time to pursue things that I'm passionate about. So for me,
my three weekly happiness habits are and these are written
(14:16):
up on my fridge at home, so I see them
every day, just on a piece of paper, nothing fancy,
very low tech, scrap piece of paper and a pencil.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Right, I specify.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
I want five meals a week with my wife and
my two kids where I'm completely undistracted.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Okay, may not work for you. That works for me.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
I need to record one episode in my podcast each week,
which I've been doing for six and a half years,
because I know that will have an impact on the
world around me. And if I've had time each week
to either go for long walk in nature, play my guitar,
write some songs, play snooker with my son, whatever it
might be, I know I've had time to pursue my passions. Now,
(14:57):
why that's such a powerful exercise. It doesn't necessarily remove
the want brain, Right, It doesn't mean I don't also
get seduced into these belief systems that the culture will
kind of feed in.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
But it means that.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
I'm intentionally focusing on the things that are important every
single week. Now, those things don't take long. Right, It
doesn't mean that my email inbox won't overflow, and I
might get stressed about that. But the problem today, in
my view, is that we fit in the important things
when everything else is done. But the problem is today
(15:32):
everything else is never done. There's always something else. There's
always another email to answer, another person to get back to,
another WhatsApp message group to reply to. Right, And so
if you don't intentionally put in your diary the things
(15:53):
that are important for your happiness, I think your happiness
is going to wither away. And it's a simple exercise,
but it's very very effective. I do it myself and
I've done it for years with my patients and they
really really like it.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
I think it's so powerful too, because what this exercise
causes you to realize is that, like, you're never going
to have time to get everything done, Like you're going
to have a bunch of balls in the air, and
a lot of those balls are going to fall. But
the key is to make sure the right balls fall.
And our instinct is never that we let the email
ball fall, because it's like you know, pinging in our
phones in our pockets. But this sort of forces us
(16:33):
to say, there's a reason I'm not entering my email,
and it's because I'm having dinner with my kids.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Yeah, and I often i'm the worst person, or one
of the worst people in the world at getting back
to emails. But you know what, I've made peace with that.
I'm okay with that because me not getting back to
emails generally means I'm spending time with my children and
my wife, and so I've got very clear that that's important.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Now here's the thing about that deathbed exercise.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Right, we all think we're different, and we all have
individual likes and needs and wants, and yes, of course
there's variability but on one level, we're not that different.
You know, palliative care nurses who have sat with dying people,
like Bronnie Ware, who wrote the book The Five Regrets
of the Dying, who I had a beautiful conversation with
(17:18):
last year when she was in London.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
On my podcast.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
She explains that after eight years of sitting with dying people,
what are the things that they say? And they all
say the same things. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd spent more time with my friends and family.
I wish I'd lived my life and not the life
that other people expected of me. So for me, these
(17:45):
things aren't just cute Instagram memes which go viral, right,
They don't have to be. We can convert it into action,
We can use it as a way of thinking. I
don't want to wait until my death bed to learn
what's important, right, And it's the thing I didn't mention
my dad. One thing I will say, though, just to
which I think is really important. And I've reflected on
(18:07):
this since I wrote the book and shared the story
of my dad's One thing I can't say is that
he made the wrong choices. And I'll tell you why
I can't say that. If my dad was here today,
one of the questions I'd love to ask him is Dad,
was it worth it? Because you know what, for him,
coming from India where he didn't feel there was much opportunity,
(18:28):
he may go to me, and I suspect he would actually.
And this is where my view has evolved since I
wrote A Happy Mind, Happy Life. I think my dad
was a lie. Today he may say, hey, son, listen,
it was totally worth it. I'd do it all again
because look how I've set you up with a great education.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Look what impact you're having on the world. Look what
your brother's doing.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
And I'm now sort of seeing the other side and
going actually, for him, maybe it was worth it.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
But the key and the beauty of this exercises you
can figure out what's worth it for you, which is
so powerful. So in our second tip from your book,
we're going to explore a practice that you find most important.
But unfortunately we have run out of time, and that
means that all of you can only figure out Ronan's
(19:24):
second most important thing. If you listen to the Happiness Pod,
can we get a big round of a plaza? That's right,
Runkan and I only had about twenty minutes on stage
and then we had to make way for some other
great speakers.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
But kindly the.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
World Happiness Summit folks set us up in an empty
auditorium next door so we could continue our conversation, which
is coming up right after this quick break. So we're
now done our conversation at Wahasu in front of that big,
amazing audience, and now we are in a different auditorium
(20:04):
That might sound a little bit echoey because there's nobody
in here. We're sitting out here looking at like one
hundred emptyc which is a little strange.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
But yeah, and we were just getting going were we
I know, like there was a real energy in there
in the room, and now we've got to recreate that
for the second time.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But which is a good way to jump to your
second tip that we were just about to talk about before,
which is this idea that we need to treat ourselves
with kindness and treat ourself with respect even when the
situation like this one might be a little bit tricky.
And one of the reasons I loved your book so
much is that you're really candid about the fact that
this is something that you have struggled with yourself a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Yeah, it's interesting, Laurie that you know I mentioned the
three legs of the stool, and I mentioned alignments and
the importance of living in a way that is aligned
with who we really are. And for this book, actually
it's the most vulnerable I've ever been, to the point
where my wife, who never reads any of my books
(21:00):
until the final stage, is when she read it she
actually said, Hey, wrong, going to be sure you want
to put all of this in your book. And I
think I'd be on this happiness journey myself, and I
feel that it is important as long as I'm comfortable
with it which I am to share the things or
some of the things that maybe I previously wouldn't have shared,
(21:21):
because it's kind of who I am. It's led to
who I am today. And I think that negative inner
voice is one of those things. I think I've had
a pretty vicious inner voice for much of my life.
I never felt good enough growing up. You know, there's
two signs to every story. There's definitely not about blame.
But this is actually not that uncommon in immigrant families,
(21:41):
certainly here in the UK.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I would say I can only speak for that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
But if I came home from school when I was
six or seven with nineteen out of twenty, it was
never well done. It was always what did you get wrong?
Why didn't you get twenty? If I ever came back
and I was second in the class, Mum and Dad
would always ask, well, who came top? How many points
lower were you? How can you come top next time?
(22:07):
And I didn't realize until about ten years ago what
an impact that has had on me on my life,
because I never felt full the love for.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Who I was. Now.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I'm not blaming my parents. They were doing the best
that they could and for them, as immigrants to the UK,
their belief system is we face a lot of struggle
and discrimination. If my child can be a straight A
student and get a really good job like a doctor
or a lawyer, they're not going to have any problems.
The problem is that little Wrongan developed the belief at
(22:37):
a young age that I'm not good enough unless i'm
number one. And for all my success, and we spoke
about the want brain earlier, I've had more success than
I could have dreamt off as a child, But that
success is not why I'm sitting with you here today, Laurie,
as happy and contented as I've ever been. In fact,
(22:58):
that success has taught me that success doesn't make you happy.
For me, at least, it didn't make me happy. What
makes me happy is when I live in harmony with
who I am, want to have a meaningful relationship with
my wife, When I get time each week to spend
quality time with my children. You know, I live five
minutes away from my mother. I help to look after
and care for her. These are things that actually make
(23:21):
me happy. So how does that fit in with being
kind to yourself? Well, when you don't feel like you're
good enough, you will develop certain traits to compensate. So
I have been very competitive for much of my life.
A lot of my best friends will tell you wrong,
as one of the most competitive people I know. But
(23:41):
you know what, I'm not anymore because that competitiveness was
an adaptation. If you only feel that, you get love
when you're top of the tree, while developing the behavior
trait of competitiveness is a genius adaptation because it drives
you to do more and to achieve more. But as
(24:02):
I've made peace with my upbringing, I've done a lot
of you know, for once of a better term in
a work, and I I feel very at peace with
who I am. I like the person who I am today,
so I no longer need the trait of competitiveness. So
I believe that you can actually change a huge part
of who you are, not everything, if you go in
and do the work, maybe with a healthcare professional or
(24:24):
a therapist. And today my inner voice is really really kind,
but it wasn't. And it's really important for happiness, Laurie,
because not just happening, but health too, right, Yeah, it's
really important for happiness and health.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Right.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So, Kristin Neff has done a lot of research Professor
Kristen nev on self compassion, and her research has shown
a really strong link between self compassion and physical health.
There's other research that shows that people who are more
compassionate to themselves not only they kind it to others,
but their immune system works better, they age more slowly,
(25:02):
and they're better able to stick to healthy lifestyle habits.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So self compassion is massive, and we don't realize that
if we call ourselves a loser. And I used to
like if I wasn't doing well, i'd I mean, I
share this in the book it's in fact, this is
one of the stories. My wife said, are you sure
you want to share this? I can remember at university
in Edinburgh and medical school if on a Sunday afternoon
we were at a local pool hall, just me and
(25:30):
my buddy's, you know, playing pool. If I was losing. Now,
I consider myself a decent player. If I was ever
losing to one of my friends, sometimes i'd go into
the restroom. I'd look at myself in the mirror, give
myself a lot of slap and say, come on, you'd
lose it, get yourself sorted right.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
That's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
And you're not like a competitive billiards player. This is
like you and your maids.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
I'm not a professional, right, And it would often motivate
me to go back and sort my game out, and
usually I would then go on to win. But when
writing this book, what I realized, Laurie is that I
didn't enjoy winning. The pain of losing is what I
was trying to avoid, so I didn't feel it relates.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
To when i'd won. I was relieved that I hadn't lost.
And that's pretty dark.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, I mean, but this is a general feature of
the want brain, right, Like, when the want brain gets
what it wants, it's usually not very happy or as
happy as you thought. It's usually not satisfied. You just
like want something else immediately. And the pressure that that
can put on our mindset and our self talk is
just incredible. And so so I'm curious kind of how
you got out of this sort of really self critical voice.
(26:40):
But I also want you to talk about the specific
practice you recommend in the book, because as usual you
have this like incredibly straightforward, practical kind of strategy that
folks can engage in. And so talk maybe about kind
of how you got out of things, but then also
what you recommend.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
For your educatients.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And I think it's important just to say that when
you call yourself a loser in your head, that is
not neutral. It's not just something you're saying to yourself.
When I suppose to Professor Kristen Neff on my podcast,
she said to me that, and she showed me research
that when you talk negatively to yourself, you elevate levels
of the stress hormone cortisol. So you are literally stressing
(27:16):
yourself out with that negative self talk. And I think
a lot of people don't realize that they think, Oh,
I'm just saying it to myself. It doesn't matter. No,
it absolutely matters, because that's the start of all kinds
of negative emotions like guilt and shame, and all kinds
of things which spiral and lead us to make poor choices.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
In our life and negative health consequences.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
One of my favorite bits of Nef's research is that
she looks at people who are more self compassionate versus
less and their level of healthy eating, and she finds
that people who are more self compassionate can make healthier
choices in terms of what they're eating. And the cortisol
story makes total sense there. Right, if you're flooding your
brain with cortisol, you're like, I need snack food, I
need like comfort food.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I feel that.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
And what I found is that lifestyle change for me
these days is a lot easier than it used to
be because I'm not trying to overcome something because I'm
kind to myself these days and compassionate to myself. Well,
a compassionate person someone who truly likes themselves and likes
to be compassionate to themselves, then probably not going to
(28:19):
binge eat sugar as much right, And I'm not saying
that to be critical to anyone, but we have to
understand that self compassion is a critical ingredient for health
and happiness. So how have I done it? Well, there's
been a combination of different ways. Yes, I have done
a bit of therapy, something called IFS Internal Family Systems,
which for me was incredibly helpful. But I know that
(28:40):
therapy is not either available or accessible to everybody for
all kinds of issues. Cost you know what you have
available to you in your area, and I don't think
you necessarily need it. You can do a lot even
without it. And so just being aware and catching yourself
when you have a negative voice, I think is really useful.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
For me.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Having children has been really, really helpful because what a
lot of parents I think need to hear is that
if you have a negative voice that you say out
loud in front of your children, oh stupid me, Oh
I can't do anything right? Well, what voice do you
think they're going to develop? So for me, having children
(29:24):
was a really it was a huge motivating factor to
catch myself and not do it in front of the children.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Doesn't mean it's good to do it away.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
From them, but Initially I didn't want to do it
in front of them because I didn't want them to
pick it up. For much of my life until the
last five or six years, I don't think I was
that happy.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I think I.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Thought more, I need to compete, I need to do better.
That's going to make me happy. But I got all
that and it didn't. That's when I stopped looking outside
and I started to turn the ship around to look
internally and go, ah, you need to do some work here,
that's what's going to make you happy. So one of
the practices in the book that I really like, that
it's really practical for people, is to write themselves a
(30:03):
love letter.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Now to a British.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Audience, I'm not sure there's anything more uncomfortable than say
something like that. Maybe it goes down easier in America.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I think not unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Yeah, But the point of it is, can you fact,
let's make it easy. Can you write down on a
piece of paper or in your journal five things you
like about yourself?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
And one of the things I love about the suggestion
in your book is you say, if you can't think
of those five things, pretend you're your best friend. Pretend
you're your dog. Pretend you're someone who really cares about you.
What would they say about you?
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Yeah, pretend you're that teacher who you had in high
school that was awesome for you. What would they say
about you? Start there, because you're opening the door to
self compassion.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
It can be that easy. Now.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
If you can't do five, but you can only think
of one, start with one, right, and maybe over the
next few days, see if you can build up to
two or three, and look, what does the research say.
There are some really good research showing that for seven
days in a row, if you write yourself a compassionate letter,
a love letter, let's say, right, or just a letter
(31:08):
wait you say nice things about yourself. Three months later,
those researchers can still measure improvements in your happiness and
your subjective well being.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I mean this stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
What I love about it is it simple, it doesn't
cost any money, and it can have a real impact. Now, Laurie,
if anyone who's listening to this right now is pushing
back a little bit and going, I'm not writing.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Myself a love lad set, I would say, Okay, I
hear you.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
But if you're pushing back, it's probably a very good
sign that self compassion is something you need to work on.
And I would just say, like with anything, start small, and.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
This is you know, something that you obviously, as a
medical doctor know really well. We assume like, oh, we're
fixing our traits. If I'm self critical, I'll just be
self critical forever. But like our brains have neuroplasticity, right,
you know what fires together, wires together. Right. The more
you do these activities, the more likely it is that
it's going to become a habit that you can pick up.
So this, this writing, this love letter might seem kind
(32:06):
of cheesy in your journal some random Thursday night, you
do that every night, but then naturally when you're playing pool,
it will just be the talk that you bring up.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
It just becomes more of a happy you bring up
some really interesting First of all, what I've realized in
life is that we get good at what we practice.
If you practice stress every day, you get pretty good
at feeling stressed. If you practice negative self talk every day,
you get really good at talking.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Down to yourself.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
If you practice self compassion every day, or gratitude every day,
you get really good.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
At those things.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And it's interesting just to tie up the loop with
having children. I remember a few years ago I was
actually playing pool or snooker with my son, who at
the time was about eight or nine, and I remember
this really well.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I fell into.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
An old pattern, not as bad as it was at university,
but not quite as compassionate as I would have liked
to have been.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
And it wasn't that bad. I think.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I think I missed a shot and I said something like, oh,
you could have done better. You should have made that shot.
And my son said to me, Daddy, don't talk to
yourself like that. And it was so powerful because it
helped catch me. And that wasn't that bad. Honestly, competitor,
I like about it. That was good, but I thought,
(33:23):
this is awesome, Like I hope my wife and I
have brought him up in such a way that he
is compassionate to himself. And he's heard me say something.
He said, that's not nice, Daddy, don't talk to yourself
like that. And it was a really special moment for me,
a for me, but also for what I hope that
I'm teaching him.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Rungan is so open and honest about how he's had
to change many of his habits to improve his happiness.
But there's one strategy above all others that he credits
with making his daily life better. You'll share what that
is when the Happiness lab returns in a moment. I
(34:06):
often say that social interaction is the key to happiness,
but you and I both know that people can kind
of suck. They can make us angry or even make
us feel disappointed. Doctor Runken Chatterjee says the biggest breakthrough
in his happiness journey was to change how he dealt
with these tricky interactions. It can be done, he says,
by exercising our friction. So what exactly does that involve?
Speaker 3 (34:29):
So we're social animals, right, It's very hard, I think,
for us to be happy if our interactions with the
world around us and the people around us are problematic,
and a lot of the time we feel that we
have to be a victim to the way the people
around us act if they're not nice, or they criticize me,
(34:50):
or they say certain things. While I have every right
to feel down and depressed and unhappy, and that's what
I used to think, but I've realized there is another option.
The way you interact with people, the way you interact
with the world. It comes down to you. You can
(35:11):
interpret various situations and a multitude of different ways, and
once you understand that, you empower yourself. So, just as
you can go to the physical gym and do bicep
curls or make your biceps bigger, will seeking out friction
for me is working out of the social gym. You're
using social friction with the world around you to make
(35:31):
your social muscle stronger. So how does this play out
for me? Well, any time something happens in my life
that I don't like or I'm getting frustrated by, I think, well,
what other story could I write here? Okay, instead of
being a victim to this situation, how can I empower
myself here? So let's say I'm driving somewhere and someone
(35:55):
cuts me up on the road. Instead of saying that
guy shouldn't be driving, they shouldn't have got their driving license,
they need their eyes checked, I could have been hurt.
Whatever story you want to create here, you're entitled to
make whatever story you want. But if you have that
sort of outlook, you're not going to be happy because
you're going to generate emotional stress. You're not going to
(36:18):
feel good, and that emotional stress will have to be
neutralized at some point, and often we neutralize it with sugar,
with more caffeine, with alcohol, with whatever, you know, our
habit of choices. But we generated that emotional stress by
the way we reacted. And once you want to sound
that you don't need to react like that, you open
(36:40):
up a new possibility of living. This is exactly what
I've done, and when I really got this Lorry. Honestly,
the conversation, out of all conversations I've had in my podcast,
which is four hundred plus now, the one conversation I'd
always come back to is the conversation I had with
Edith Eager, who when I spoke to was a ninety
three year old lady. When she was sixteen, she got
(37:03):
put on a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. Within two
hours of getting there, both of her parents were murdered.
Later that afternoon, she was asked to dance in front
of the senior prison guards. So she's in a concentration account.
The parents have just been murdered, she's sixteen years old.
She has to dance for the entertainment of the senior
(37:25):
prison guards. And there's many things I remember from that conversation.
But she said to me, when I had to dance
for them, I wasn't in Auschwitz.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
In my mind. I was in Budapest opera house.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
I had a beautiful blue dress on the orchestra was playing,
there was a full house. I remember Laurie thinking, you
were able to do that in Alschwitz. Then in the conversation,
she said, when I was in Auschwitz, I started to
see the prison guards as the prisoners. They weren't free
(37:59):
in their mind. In my mind I was free, and
there was lots more. But at the end, this is
the thing she said to me that I think about.
I would say on most days, said wrongin I have
lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you that the
greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison
you create inside your own mind. That phrase has changed
(38:22):
my life because I realize that we all create these
mental prisons every day by the way we interact. So
that person who cuts me up on the road, instead
of me being a victim to that situation, it's training
myself to go, oh, I wonder what's going on in
that person's life. Maybe that's a dad whose daughter was
up last night with earache and they're exhausted and they
think they're going to be late for work, and if
(38:44):
they're late for work, they're going to get fired. You know,
maybe they genuinely didn't see me. Whatever story you want.
And here's the thing, Laurie that I've realized, and you
know you're a psychologist. I'm interesting in your perspective on this.
All situations I've realized have multiple realities. And I often
talk to people about this through the lens of a
couple's relationship. I say to people, let's say you're a
(39:04):
husband and wife and you have a disagreement. Don't know
if you ever know what that feels like, you know
for people who experienced that, right, I say, Okay, well,
you've had a disagreement stroke argument. What actually happens, Well,
it kind of depends who you ask. If you ask
the husband, he may give you a certain narrative and
story about the situation that may be completely different to
(39:28):
what his wife says, and they can both be right
for them. There was this really great study on some
psychologists where they found football fans and after the match,
they showed them the same incident. Right, so they're saying,
calmly watching the same incident, depending on which team you
supported would determine what you think happened in that incident.
(39:50):
And so the reason for me sharing that is you
realize that every situation has multiple stories that you can
create about it. Or what I say in the book
is create the story that empowers you, not the story
that makes you a victim. So this can be a
very simple practice that people do in the evening or
once a week. You reflect, where did I get really
(40:12):
frustrated by someone and make them like a really bad person.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
And one of the.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Tools I recommend is just saying what stories you need
to create to make that person a hero. And here's
the truth of the situation the way I see it, Lorrie,
the truth of what actually happens for your happiness, it
doesn't really matter for your happiness, it doesn't matter. And
when you can let go of the need to be
right and the need to know that person does have
(40:41):
a driving license and they should have known that I
was here, you never know. And I've been doing this
for over five years now. I've been slowly using every
bit of social friction in my life. In the evening,
I'd reflect and go okay, wrong, And what's a different
story that you can right here and yes. And at
first it was an effort, like when you first learn
to drive a car, if you're learning to drive a
(41:02):
manual or what you guys call the stick I think
stick share, yes, stake shift yet right, it's conscious you're thinking,
this is the clutch, this is the accelerator. But what
over time it's automatic. So now, genuinely speaking, most of
the time, unless I'm on the really high levels of
stress and or I'm sleep deprived, I will naturally write
(41:24):
a happiness story. And it means that you feel good
because you lead with compassion and curiosity. What's going on
in that person's life? Does that all make sense?
Speaker 2 (41:33):
No? Totally.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And I think when you do that, you do a
couple of things. First, you end up often changing the
other person's behavior. I imagine somebody cuts you off and
you get to interact with them after. If you scream
at them and stuff, you are going to turn them
into a jerk. But if you say, are you okay?
Like what happened? Like, if you just show it, like
a tiny iota of compassion, often that will change someone's behavior.
They will become the hero. They'll kind of want to
(41:55):
behave in the way that you want. But another reason
I just love this technique so much is that when
you realize not just that these kind of construles are
these ways of thinking about people, these sort of hero
stories matter for your happiness, but when you also realize
that you can get better at it, that this is
a social gym and you can train, you can actually,
in a funny way, become excited about these moments of
(42:15):
social free one hundred percent where you're like, oh, somebody
cut me off. This is a wonderful These are my
reps today, Like I'm going to get extra reps. This
is like leg day for social And.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
What does this do if we think about the core
happiness stool that I mentioned right, the starts, alignment, contentment,
of control. Well, this does several things, but particularly this
speaks to the control elements. If you feel that the
social world is out of control, that people are acting
in these sort of ways and you are basically just
like a puppet on a string, that if someone acts badly,
(42:45):
you're going to have a bad day. Just think about
that for a minute. You're putting your happiness in the
hands of other people. Now I get it. Of course,
we want people to interact nicely with us, but you
can't rely on that if you want to be happy.
And you know another phrase which might help people here
if they're struggling to write a hero story for the
(43:06):
other person. This phrase literally is change my life. I
think it's very powerful. If I was that other person,
I'd be acting in exactly the same way as them.
And when you really really get that phrase, what I'm
saying is if I was that other person and I
had their childhoods and the bullying they experience, and the
(43:28):
parents they had, and the first boss at sixteen who
was toxic and took advantage to be whatever it might be,
if I had their life, I would see the world
the way that they see it, and I would be
acting in the way that they're currently acting.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Now. I choose to.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
Go out in the world every day believing that everyone
is doing the best that they can, and if I
were them, I'd be acting in exactly the same way.
For me, it's been a transformative practice because it means
that you know what you're curious, You understand. You're thinking,
why does that person think differently to me? Why is
that person being rude in that situation? What has gone
(44:04):
on in their life. It doesn't mean you have to
accept poor behavior. Just to be really clear, but by
not getting emotionally triggered, you feel better. You feel calmer
and in control. And let's say it's your boss who
send you a email that you don't like and you
think is inappropriate. If you get emotionally triggered, you may
fire one back that you regret, You may have an
(44:27):
unproductive interaction with your boss because you're so emotionally triggered
by it. But if you receive that email and you think, hmm,
that's out of character for my boss, what's going on
in his or her life? Oh, you know, maybe he's
having marital problems, maybe he's worried about his or her job,
whatever it might be, you just calm everything down and
then if you do have the torture boss, you're better
(44:49):
able to make changes because you've not been emotionally triggered.
So that chapter, honestly is one of my favorite chapters
in the book because I would say it's had the
most impact on me. I realize how much I picked
up from my parents, how much I thought that my
feelings were because of the people around me, and I
didn't quite really Actually, I've got a lot more agency
(45:11):
here than I previously thought, and.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
So I can see this just in interacting with you.
But I'm going to ask the question anyway. Has kind
of recognizing the agency you have to change your happiness
really changed your overall sense of joy and well being.
It seems like it just interacting with you.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, look on honestly, and again, I would have been
too insecure to say this in the past because of
how it might make people feel. But I also understand
that how people feel is up to them. It's not
that much to do with me. So I'm going to
share something with you that if people feel bad about it,
it says I think more about them.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
And I say that with an open heart. Lorry.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I'm not blaming or criticizing anyone. I'm forty six years old.
I've never felt happier and more content with who I
am than I do today, and it's been like this
for a couple of years now. I think writing this
book on happiness has really helped me. You know, what
do authors do. We often write the books that we
need for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Right.
Speaker 3 (46:09):
That was absolutely the case with me. I was on
that journey and writing it. Yes, I know it's helped
a lot of people, but it's also helped me. And
what I'm passionate about, what I've always been passionate about,
is we make health, we make happiness so complicated we
really don't need to. Like I do, think it's our
(46:29):
birthright to be happy. I think if you look at
a young child, a two or three year olds, they're
in the moments they're playing with their toys or their siblings.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
That happiness, that presence. I think it is something.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
That all of us can get, but we need to
know what to work on. That's why I created this
model of the three legged store, because I think it's
rather than thinking what can I do to be happy?
I think, well, what we need to do is what
can I do to improve my alignment? What can I
do to improve my contentment? What can I do that
gives me a sense of control? And if I can
(47:04):
do those things regularly, I'm going to be happier more often.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Cool to hear how much it's changed your life, But
I'm curious, given your status as a doctor in the
UK and so on, like, do you think that more
books like this are conld change the medical field? That
is not just you, but really like the way we
think about physical health is going to incorporate happiness even more.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
I'm an optimist, okay, so I believe it will. And yes,
I get contacted a lot by the public, but I've
had hundreds, if not thousands of messages from medical doctors saying, wow,
I had no idea about this stuff. Firstly, it's helping
me with my own health and happiness, and it's also
(47:46):
given me a tool kit to start introducing these conversations
with my patients when appropriate. So I am optimistic. That's
one of the reasons for writing the book. And there
is a course that I teach to doctors called Prescribing
Life Style Medicine, and we trained several thousand healthcare professionals now,
and some of these concepts I'm bringing into the course
(48:08):
because I think it's important, yes for patients, but also.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
For the doctors themselves. Right.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
I shared a very person sorry about my dad before,
and that may seem extreme, you know, only sleeping three
nights a week for thirty years, and yes, it is
quite an extreme situation. But there is a version of
that that I have seen regularly with so many patients,
and that version is I'm working too hard I'm doing
(48:36):
too much. I'm chasing this fictional idea of success. I
already have enough. I've already got enough to feed my family.
But I'm so used to pushing for the next thing
that I keep going and I'm making myself sick. So
that right, your own happy ending exercise. I think it's
a damn good one for doctors to do on themselves,
(48:57):
and I have used it with patients also because it
helps them realize, oh, maybe I don't need to go
for that promotion. Maybe I'm all right where I am.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
I want to have this teacher who was a patient
of mine, and I remember that he did this exercise
and then he came in a few weeks later to say, Doc,
I've got it. I'm not going for the promotion. I said, okay, great,
he said yeah. I realized, like I quite like my
current position, Like I earn enough, I can pay the mortgage,
(49:27):
I get to spend time with my kids every weekend.
If I take the promotion, yes, I'll get paid a
little bit more, but actually I'll have to say extra
evenings in the week at school and I'll be in
at weekends. And I thought, awesome, Wow, I wish I'd
been able to make those decisions at that age. So,
you know, I think it can help patients, But in
(49:48):
terms of the medical profession, I think that it is inevitable.
At some point doctors will have to start understanding happiness
and the skill of happiness better for themselves and for
their patients because what we're doing is currently not working.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Doctors are stressed out.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
There's record rates to burnout, there's record rates of people
leaving the profession. There was a study in the UK
recently that says eighty eight percent of the UK workforce
has experienced a form of burnout in the past two years.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
I don't know whether that's stat is truly reflexive of
every workplace, but even if it isn't.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
It's still pretty it's still pretty bad.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
What does it say about as a society. So you know,
when answer to your question, yes, I do see there's
a movement now with more doctors being interested. You know,
We've just been on stage at the Happiness Summits and
there's been several doctors who've come up to me and
spoken and saying, I'm using your book with my patients already,
and I have been. It's making a real difference. So yes,
(50:52):
I'm an optimist, but I do think the medical profession
is starting to change. I wish it would change a
bit sooner, a bit quicker, but I think it's going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Ringan, thank you so much for coming on the show,
and thank you so much for the great work that
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (51:05):
Well, Laurie.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
It's been an honor to come on your wonderful podcast,
and you literally are a trailblazer in the world of happiness,
and you've inspired a lot of my work over the year.
Speaker 2 (51:15):
So you're with these an honest to meet you in
person to come on the show.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Thanks again, Yeah, yeah, our great audience standing ovation. Doctor
Rungin Chatterjee was just one of the inspiring people I
met at the World Happiness Summit. I also spent a
bunch of time with the events founder, Karen Guggenheim, and
I got to hear how a painful bereavement kick started
her mission to improve global happiness.
Speaker 4 (51:39):
My husband caught the flu, which developed into a pneumonia,
and within ten days he was gone, Okay, well I'm done.
And I don't think that I was suicidal at all
in that regard, but I think we can be a
live dead, just being numb to life.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
That's all to come next time on a happiness lab
with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,
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