Dr. Rangan Chatterjee
Appearances
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I say, listen, let's think about one ingredient foods, okay? So foods that don't have a barcode because they naturally are one ingredient. So an avocado doesn't have an ingredient list. It's one ingredient, right? A piece of fruit doesn't have an ingredient list, right? And so for a lot of my patients for years, Mel, I've been asking them to look at food labels, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And people are shocked at what happens when they look at food labels. That's the starting point, I think, for everyone is as much as you can, because... When you start eating more and more minimally processed food, your hunger signals will naturally start to take care of themselves.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So if you're having lots of highly processed food and potato chips and the modern food environment, basically, people are hungry all the time.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Because it plays havoc with our hormones. It plays havoc with our blood sugar. So a lot of the things we're eating these days will spike our blood sugar very quickly, which also means it's going to come down very quickly. So let's say, for example, you start the day with a bowl of sugary cereal, which is really, really common.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Now, depending on which one you eat, but most of them pretty much fall into this category. You're eating it, and you feel full afterwards, and your blood sugar has started to go up pretty rapidly. Maybe after about two hours, it hits its peak. Then it starts to crash, okay? And then when it starts to crash... It's not just a hunger issue, it's a stress issue, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
What I mean by that is, let's say you have your bowl of sugary cereal at seven o'clock in the morning. Yep. And you think, yeah, that's gonna last me till lunchtime. And then at 9.30 or 10 o'clock, whilst you're at the office, you're like, why am I so hungry? Like I've already eaten.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But there's a desperation. It's not like just a bit of hunger that you can deal with. It's somehow I need to eat something. People go for an extra coffee, the vending machine, whatever it might be. It's often because their blood sugar has started to drop rapidly. Now, when your blood sugar drops rapidly, think about it through an evolutionary lens.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
That was a threat to survival a few hundred thousand years ago, right? If your blood sugar is dropping rapidly, you don't just feel hungry. It elevates stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. So it really is a stressor on the body. That makes sense. So if instead of that, for example, you had...
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
some eggs and some avocado, these kind of one-ingredient foods, you'll find that it's less likely to happen. Yes, sometimes your blood sugar will still go up, but it's a bit more gentle.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I had a patient once, he was in his early 40s, and he came in to see me, and he had a bit of weight around his belly, he was struggling in the day with his mood, and he said, Doc, you know, I always feel like eating, and there was all kinds of things going on, but in essence, he was starting his day with sugary cereal, okay? Hmm.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I could track his day and his mood and his energy and his fatigue and his focus. And I thought, I'm pretty certain that the way he starts his day is impacting the rest of his day. And he doesn't realize this, okay? So we did an experiment. I said, okay, you've been starting your days for years with this sugary bowl of cereal. You've read the marketing, you think it's healthy.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Would you be interested in doing something that I call eat dinner for breakfast? And he said, what do you mean? I said, what do you have for dinner? He goes, well, you know, I like a good dinner. So he was pescatarian, Mel, and he would eat salmon and roasted vegetables in the evenings. I said, okay, could you make extra in the evening and then have the leftovers for breakfast?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
He goes, well, yeah, I could do that. I haven't done that before. I said, this is just an experiment. And this is... A big principle of my entire approach, Mel, I offer them to my patients as experiments, not as prescriptions. What I want to do is inspire that patient to go, hey, listen, you know what it feels like to start your day like this. Right.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
What does it feel like for you when you start your day with something else? So then for the next week, he literally did this. And, you know, it would be often in the morning, he'd have salmon and roasted vegetables like sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts, whatever. One ingredient. One ingredient foods. The salmon protein, which is satiating, okay, can keep you full for longer.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And he came in to see me a few weeks later. He goes, I feel like a completely different person, right? I'm better at work now. I have more concentration, more focus. I'm not actually hungry till 2 p.m., And this is the thing people don't realize about hunger. People think they're not eating enough. Sometimes you're eating the wrong thing, which is making you hungry.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So literally that one change for him taught him how important it was to start his day with these one ingredient foods. And then what's so important about that, Mel, is that he is paying attention to how he feels. So then what happens later is that he wants to continue doing that, not because I asked him to, because something else has happened. He has felt the difference.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And that's always been my approach. You can take alcohol, right? Or caffeine, the sort of things people are always struggling with. My job with a patient has never, ever been to tell them you must give up alcohol or you must give up smoking or whatever it might be. My job has always been to show that person what impact it's having.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And so I think one of the reasons I've always had really good compliance with my patients is I don't talk down to them. I see them as equal partners and I say, hey, listen, I think this is what's going on. Why don't you experiment this way and see how that feels? Does that all make sense, Mel?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
One of the reasons that people struggle, Mel, to make changes that last is because too often they try and change the behavior without understanding the role that behavior plays in their life. So let's talk about that through the lens of sugar. But you could just as easily apply that around alcohol or three hours doom scrolling Instagram in the evening, whatever it might be.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So let's take a typical scenario that I've seen thousands of times in my practice and maybe you've experienced before, Mel. I've not been to your house, so I don't know if you've experienced this, but a lot of people, when they're trying to reset their relationship with sugar, find that they can be really good in the day. Yes.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But somehow at 9 p.m. on the sofa with Netflix on, they're like, I really feel like ice cream.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. It's so important, and there's a couple of things to say there. First of all, the brain is an associative organ, right? So we associate certain behaviors in certain locations, right? So if you've got a habit for 10 years of having ice cream on the sofa whilst watching TV... Yeah, you're right.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Had you gone to bed or moved to a different location in your house, if you have the room, you'll probably find that the behavior naturally starts to change because it often is associated with that particular location, right? I don't know if you've experienced that before, but many people have. But the 3F framework does something really powerful for people.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It helps them understand, why do I keep on doing this? So let me go through those 3Fs, okay? The 3Fs are... feel, feed, and find.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, and then walk people through it. Okay, so for the person listening right now who thinks that this applies to them, I want them to imagine that they're on their sofa in the evening and they feel the urge for ice cream. Okay, I want you to take a pause just for a few seconds before you go and open the fridge and that spoon's in your mouth. Take a pause.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
The thing is, I've been there before myself. So I'm not doing this from a point of lecturing or judging, right? I've been there and I know that you can change your life. You can absolutely change your behaviors if you know why the behavior is there, okay? So you take a pause and before you eat it, you say, what am I feeling? That's the first step.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Is this physical hunger or is this emotional hunger? Oh, okay. yeah, you know what? I had a full meal one hour ago. I'm actually not hungry.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Well, you know the difference by practicing. You don't know the difference by suddenly doing it once and going, oh no, no, I really am hungry. No, it's all these things. We need to develop the skill by turning inwards. Okay. So we have to ask ourselves regularly, it's not as hard as you think. I've done this with thousands of patients, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
The most important thing is when you create that pause, so you're literally creating a little gap between the stimulus, the desire for ice cream, and the response, okay? So you asked yourself, what am I feeling? And you might go, yeah, well, I shouldn't really be hungry because I had a huge meal. I'm a little stressed. I had a row with my partner. The children's bedtime took too long.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I've been on Zoom calls all day and I feel a bit yucky. This is a better time for me. Okay, no problem. You now have done the most important thing, Mel, which is you're starting to develop this self-awareness of why you're going to that behavior. Then go and eat it. I don't have a problem with someone eating it as long as I've done the first F, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Now, the next time you're on the sofa at 9 p.m., I want you to go to the second F. So you go through the first F again. What am I feeling? What am I feeling? Yeah. The second F is feed. How does food feed that feeling? Ah, okay. I feel stressed when I have ice cream. In the short term, at least, I feel less stressed. Oh, that's why I'm going to ice cream. I'm not actually hungry.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Okay, so you start to build up that awareness. Oh, I've been on Zoom calls all day. I feel a bit lonely. I've not had any connection with another human being today. I feel a bit less lonely when I have some ice cream, okay? And you start to build up that self-awareness. And if you want to go and have it, sure, go ahead and have it. The next time you come, you go through the first two Fs.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So first F, feel. Second F, feed. Then you go to the third F, find. Now that I know the feeling, now that I know how sugar feeds the feeling, can I now find an alternative behavior to feed that same feeling? Okay, so what does that look like? Oh, I feel stressed. Sugar helps me feel less stressed. Well, what else could I do to make me feel less stressed? Oh, I love yoga. Okay, well, I like yoga.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Maybe I can put YouTube on and do a 10-minute yoga sequence from YouTube. Maybe you're feeling lonely because you've been on Zoom calls all day, or maybe your family are away, or you're in a hotel room, right? Okay, well, instead of going to sugar to feed the loneliness, maybe you could phone a friend.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Maybe you can phone one of your parents if you're lucky enough to have one of them still alive, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, what else can you do? Well, you could run yourself a bath and nourish yourself in a different way. So... This 3F framework can be applied to sugar, to alcohol, to social media, to online pornography, frankly, to anything, Mel, because it does something very powerful. It creates a gap between the stimulus and the response, and then you do the most important thing,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
which is you start to understand yourself better. Mel, this is why we're so confused in the world at the moment with health information, right? We keep thinking that there's an expert out there who knows what's right for me. The person who's eating too much sugar in the evening, right? Let's say you're trying to stop ice cream in the evening on your sofa.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Mel, you don't need another book on sugar, right? Right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But most people who are trying to cut back on sugar alcohol, they don't need another book telling them, oh, sugar is going to affect your teeth. It's going to put on weight. You're going to have low energy. It's going to increase your risk of diabetes. No, I would say in the world today, we have so many health podcasts, so many health books, so many online articles.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
We've got more information than ever before. Yet despite that, our physical health is getting worse, our mental health is getting worse. So the case I make in this new book, Mel, is that we don't need more external knowledge necessarily. We need more internal knowledge, more self-awareness, more insights. That's how you change your life for good, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You listen to experts like you, Mel, or me, but then you put it through your own filter and go, does this work for me? Is this the right approach for me? And that's what I found to be, The most useful thing throughout my entire career, Mel, the patients who've changed their life for good, somewhere along the line, it stopped being my plan and it became their plan. Oh, I love that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's such a key point, Mel. People will often ask me, well, are each of those three Fs as important as the other? No, they're not. The most important F is the first F, feel. What am I feeling? I would say that's 80 to 90% of it. When you break the loop of this patterning of sofa, I want some ice cream, open the freezer, spoon in my mouth, right? We've all been there, Mel, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
With that first step.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You know what, on another note, like... We don't have that stuff in the house because one of my principles that I've been sharing with patients for years is try not to use up your willpower in the house. You have to use up your willpower as soon as you step out the front door these days. So in the UK, if you want to buy a coffee, you have to walk past
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
the pastries, the pan of chocolats, the biscuits, whatever it might be, I have a rule that if I don't want to eat it, I don't bring it into the house. That makes it much easier, and I think that's a great rule for many people to think about. But that first F, Mel, where you just start to understand yourself, I've seen it with patients, it starts to change everything.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You may not change it straight away, but I tell you, within a week, you're coming there, you're on the sofa, you're thinking, wait a minute, I don't need this. I know what's going on here. And you feel the sense of control. I read your new book recently, The Let Them Theory, and I love it. And in that book, you write a lot about control.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
This base human need that we want to feel in control, why the three Fs work so well, and why listening to lots of external advice and not... owning the advice for yourself becomes problematic because you feel out of control. Yes. Right.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
When you can't decide between a low carb diet, a plant-based diet, a keto diet, a paleo diet, when you try them and you feel it doesn't work for you, but it worked for your best friends.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You never think, well, you rarely think that the diet was the failure. You think you're the failure
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. And that leads to guilt, shame, regrets. That leads and reinforces these feelings that I'm not good enough. Okay. I can't get the right plan for me. And sometimes I would argue that some people are better off having not started that diet than than having started it, failed, and then feeling even worse than before they'd even started.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's the biggest piece, right? It's not just doing it. It's doing it and then going, oh yeah, I'm noticing now that I'm feeling different. So let's say someone listens to your podcast, smell or mind, right? And one week they hear an expert talking about the benefits of a plant-based diet. Yep.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And the next week, they hear another well-credentialed experts talk about the benefits of a ketogenic diet. And the problem is people get confused, right? Because they're like, I'm only going to listen to experts. Oh, but here's the problem with that. You can have well-credentialed experts from really good institutions saying two different things, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So how do you navigate that conflict and that confusion? The way you navigate it is by starting to trust yourself, right? And so I say to people, when that's happened on my show before, I said, okay, both of them have got credentials, both of them have got research to back up what they're saying and case studies, they could both be right for different people.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So why don't you try one diet for four weeks, and as you're trying it, pay attention. What's your energy like? What's your sleep like? What's your focus like? What's your guts like? What are your bowels like? What is your bloating like? Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
and you pay attention, then for another four weeks, you try the other one's diet, and you pay attention to those same things, you will very quickly realize, actually, you know what? I think at this stage in my life, because that's the other thing, things can change throughout your life. At this stage in my life, I think this is probably the right approach for me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And it's life-changing with people because it gives them the power. Like you write in your book, Mel, it's about control, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
This gives you a sense of control.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's my pleasure, Mel. I'm a huge fan of what you do, the way you're impacting people all over the world. So I can't wait for this conversation.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I would say a minimum of three weeks. Three weeks, okay. I would say three to four weeks, generally speaking, is the kind of time you want to be trying something for. It's enough time for your taste buds to start adapting to the new flavors. It's what people don't realize. If you're used to having a lot of sugary foods, For a few days, you know, you're going to really miss them.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You're going to go through withdrawal. You have to go through that and come out the other side. A key point, Mel, I want to make is that I'm not saying ignore external experts, right? I'm not saying that. You didn't say that. I'm saying that something's happened in society now with all this information where we put all of our faith in external experts at the expense of ourself.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I'm saying we need to bring up our own inner expertise as well. Yes, listen to the external experts, but also know that, hey, you know what? My life is unique. I've got unique pressures, unique stresses. What works for someone else may not work for me. So again, I don't mean to confuse the issue.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's like fasting mouth. fasting becomes this really controversial topic, right? Should I fast? Should I not fast? Is fasting better for men? Is it not so good for women? People are getting confused, right? But even the fundamental premise, is fasting good or bad? It's the wrong question.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
the right question is for who and in which context, okay? The two most important questions we can ask ourselves whenever we're hearing advice, okay? For some people, fasting is a game changer. If you have been carrying excess weight for a while, if you have type 2 diabetes, if you've been ingesting excess calories for 10 plus years,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
a form of fasting that suits you and your life may be game-changing. Yes. If, on the other hand, you're underweight, you have an eating disorder, which you are suffering from or recovering from, well, fasting might not be the best solution for you. But these days online, we want to say, is it good or bad? It's like, well, it's neither.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It can be amazing, but it's an option that you may want to play around with.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
This is one of the most important things I do each day, and not only for my health. I would say it's also one of the most important things I do for my happiness and my relationships. Remember at the start, Mel, I said that health, happiness, and relationships are not as separate as people might think, okay? So what do I do?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I think it's a useful way of helping people understand the key principles of habit formation. So for over five years now, I've been doing several things each morning. But one thing that I rarely miss on is a five-minute strength workout. Okay, so what does this look like? Okay, I go to bed early and I wake up early. That's just what works for me, right? But I wake up around five o'clock.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Again, I'm not saying anyone else has to. It's what works for me. My wife doesn't want to get out of bed till seven or half seven, right? So we have found what works for us, okay? So I come downstairs. And I do happen to meditate, that's the first thing I tend to do, but that's not relevant for this part of our conversation. I go into my kitchen, and one thing I do is I love to make coffee, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So I weigh out my coffee, and I pour the water in into the French press, and I put a timer on for five minutes. In those five minutes, Mel, I don't go on email. I don't go on Instagram. I don't go on the news. What I do in those five minutes is I have a strength workout in my kitchen, in my pajamas. What do you do? Well, I do a variety of things. It started off being body weights.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I do some press-ups, some calf raises, some squats. I just do a little circuit in my kitchen. And then I get the gorgeous reward of a hot cup of coffee just the way I like it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, there's a video on YouTube that I've worked off my five-minute kitchen workouts. These days, I do a couple of other things. I have a kettlebell and a dumbbell in my kitchen, so sometimes I'll do some kettlebell swings, sometimes I'll do some bicep curls, whatever I feel like. But the point is, I do that five-minute strength workout every day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I even did it this morning in my hotel room here in Boston, Mel, okay? And I'll explain why it's so important. It's what I would call my keystone habit. It's a habit that when I do it, it makes it infinitely more likely I'm gonna do other healthy choices in my day, right? Every single day, Mel, we're all asking ourselves two questions. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
What my five-minute kitchen workout does to me every single morning is it shows me that no matter how busy my work is, no matter what my wife needs from me, what my children need from me, what my elderly mother needs from me, I still found five minutes for myself. It shows me I can trust myself. I can rely on myself. Now, people might go, you know, strength workout every day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Do you not vary it up? No, I don't vary it up, right? Especially when I started. No. Do we vary up toothbrushing? No. Right. I hope, Mel, every single person listening right now brushes their teeth for two minutes in the morning and two minutes in the evening.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's not as hard as we think it is, Mel. When we think about improving our lives, our health, our happiness, our relationships, those things aren't quite as separate as we often think. I think those three things are all absolutely interlinked.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
100%. And with toothbrushing, the key point I want to make is that we don't apply those principles when it comes to changing our health, right? We make it so difficult and complicated. That's a theme throughout this conversation, Mel. How do we keep it simple? If your audience, Mel, if the person listening to this...
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
episode right now, if you take nothing else from this conversation, but this idea that you're going to find one five minute action and you're going to do it at the same time every day, try it for the next seven days, I guarantee, like I literally guarantee, because I've seen this tens of thousands of times, not only will you feel better, You will change the way you experience life.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You will change the way you view yourself because you build up this momentum. You build up self-esteem. You become someone who can do what they say they're going to do, right? I had a patient. Again, I'm going to bring this and make this really real because I imagine there'll be people listening. Mel, who think, I'm busy, like I'm a nurse, I'm a teacher, I don't have time. Right.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And my entire career, yes, with my patients, but over the past 10 years with my public platform, whether it's with my books or my podcast, I'm always trying to think about simplification. How can you translate this idea for a busy person who doesn't feel as though they've got time, who feels that health is too confusing and they feel it's too complicated to
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
No, no, you do have time, right? I had a patient, 48-year-old guy, this is maybe 10 years ago, Mel, and he came in to see me with three common complaints, okay? He's a little bit overweight. Yep. Okay. And he was pointing to his tummy as he came in. He had a bit of low moods and he had low energy. Okay. Okay. There's many things that can cause these things.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So I spent a bit of time talking to him, Mel, trying to understand his life and his lifestyle. And there was quite a few things there. And I said to him, hey, listen, there's a few things in your lifestyle that I've identified that I think could be responsible for all three of these things. Are you interested in me helping you change some of them?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So I always have permission with my patients, right? I don't just give them advice and say, are you interested? He said, yeah, that'd be great. So I went through all kinds of options. he wasn't biting at any of them. He was like, nah, I don't think that's for me. I don't think that's for me. When I said strength training, His eyes lit up now. Okay, so I'm meeting him where he's at.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
He's like, yeah, dog, you know, I used to do that at school as a teenager. I haven't done it in years. I've got busy with adult life, basically. I said, I think strength training is going to really help you. I think it's going to help you with your weight, your energy, and your moods. He said, right, great. I want to do it. What shall I do? 45 minutes, three times a week in the gym.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I said, yeah, that'll be fantastic. Great. And he goes, right, I'm going to do it. I said, okay, here's an appointment for four weeks time. You go and do that. Come back in four weeks and we'll figure out how you're doing. Okay. So he goes away and I'm feeling pleased. I think, okay, cool. He's going to go and do that. Four weeks later, Mel, he comes back into my office.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And he walks in and his body language is a bit off. He's not making eye contact with me. I said, hey, how was the gym? Has it made a difference? He said, hey, doc, listen, I've not been yet. Okay, work's been really busy. The gym's quite expensive. It's not really on my way to or from work. I've not actually gone yet. Oh, so now he feels terrible. He feels terrible.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I remember that case so well now because it was one of the most instrumental moments in my career. I never thought in that moment, he's not done what I've asked him to do. I thought, Rangan, you've clearly not given him advice that he feels is relevant in the context of his life. So in that moment, I took my jacket off, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I said, right, can I teach you some body weight exercises right here, right now? He said, sure. So I literally got down on the floor in my office and I was teaching him press-ups, squats, calf raises. I was modifying them for his ability level. And I said, what do you think? Can you do that? He goes, yeah, that's okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I said, okay, what I want you to do is I want you to do this for five minutes, twice a week in your kitchen. And he looked at me, he said, what, 10 minutes a week? Is that it? Yeah. I said, yeah, can you do that? He goes, that's easy. I said, okay, great. You go and do that. I'll see you in four weeks. Okay, so he goes off. Four weeks later, he comes back. He's almost dancing into the room, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
He comes to see me with a big smile on his face. I said, hey, how are you doing? He said, dog. You asked me to do five minutes twice a week. It was so easy. I enjoyed it so much that I now do 10 minutes every evening whilst my dinner's getting ready in the kitchen. So I do 10 minutes, right? That changed his life, Mel.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
How can I get through to that individual? That's what I've really enjoyed doing my entire career as a doctor, but I also enjoy doing it through media platforms like this one.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Because when I asked him or when he felt he had to do 45 minutes three times a week in the gym... He did zero. Right. When he felt he only had to do 10 minutes a week, he's now doing 10 minutes a day. That's 70 minutes of strength training. That then led to what I call the ripple effect. Over the next few weeks, he starts to go for a walk at lunchtime.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
He starts to cook a little bit better for himself. He starts to prioritize his bedtime. I saw him a few years ago, Mel. This is maybe five years after we started. He's now meditating each day. If I had brought up meditation to him 10 years ago, he would have left me out of the room, right? Small changes done consistently lead to big outcomes. I've seen it time and time again.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Honestly, if your audience take literally nothing else from this conversation, I want them to take this. Find a five-minute action, something you've thought about before, something you feel drawn to. I don't care what it is, journaling, meditation, yoga, pull-ups, star jumps, doesn't matter. If five minutes feels too much, make it one minute, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But start somewhere and do it for at least seven days. And if you don't feel differently about your life, sure, ignore everything I have to say.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I know they are going to feel different. Of course. But you have to do it. Inspiration without action does not lead to change. This is what I see these days, Mel. People listen to your show. They listen to my show. They see a positive Instagram post and a really inspirational meme and they heart it. They think they've done something. They haven't done anything, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
They move their thumb about half a millimeter on their phone. That's great. Don't get me wrong. But you need to take the inspiration and figure out, well, how am I going to take action in my life?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, you'll be shocked. And what people don't realize, because I've seen it with so many patients, is they underestimate simplicity. I go to the gym sometimes, right? I'll lift things at other times, but some weeks I don't, but I never miss my five minute morning action. It's a promise I made to myself. And why do I think that helps your health, your happiness, and your relationships?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Because when you make that commitment to yourself, when you make that promise and you keep it, Mel, you do something so powerful, right? It builds you up inside. You become a human being who knows your self-worth and you take that to your relationships. You take it to your work. You take it to every other aspect of your life.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
When people think about sleep, the first thing they go to is what are they doing before they go to bed. Now, whilst that is important, What we don't realize is that a good night's sleep starts first thing in the morning, how you start your morning off. Now, if you're able to get natural light first thing in the morning, it's fantastic for your overall wellbeing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It helps set your circadian rhythm. This is your biological clock. Every single cell in your body has a clock, okay? And one of the key drivers of that clock is is exposure to light, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So if you expose yourself to bright natural lights, ideally, but I appreciate also that, you know, depending on where you live in the world, certainly in the UK at the moment, you're not getting bright natural lights in the morning. So yes, you know, put all the lights on at home, get them as bright as you possibly can. That actually helps you sleep better in the evening.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I think people are going to find that they have more energy, more focus, more motivation, better physical health, better mental health, happiness, inner calm.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
There's some studies which show us that if you meditate or practice mindfulness first thing in the morning, that can also help you sleep better at night, okay? So there's many ways that I want people to think about sleep, but what you do first thing in the morning can absolutely impact your sleep in the evening. Now, why should people care about sleep, okay? It's not just about energy.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yes, energy is, of course, something that we all want, right? We want the energy to do the things that we wanna do in life. But here's what happens when you're sleep deprived. your mood goes down. You're less empathetic. You're less compassionate. You find it harder to resist temptation.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
If you sleep five and a half hours each night compared to seven and a half hours each night, one study showed, on average, you're eating 22% more the following day in terms of calories. Okay, so think about that. Five days of extreme sleep deprivation will lead to a whole extra one day's worth of calories going through your mouth, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So I've helped, Mel, some patients lose weight in a sustainable way, not by focusing on their diets, by focusing on their sleep. This goes back, Mel, to what I said right at the start. think about these four pillars and ask yourself, which one of these four pillars do I need the most work in, right? Too often we focus on our favorite pillar.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
If your diet is 85% good, moving it from 85% to 90%, whilst you're only sleeping five hours a night, ain't going to move the needle. If you can bring up your sleep from five hours to even five and a half hours, again, it's not about perfection. It's not about either eight hours or nothing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
If you can actually get 20 minutes more, 30 minutes more, there will be a physiological difference in your body meld the following day. And so it's important for your physical health, your mental wellbeing. Life feels different when you've had a good night's sleep, okay? So in terms of what people can do, I mentioned first thing in the morning, okay? Get light exposure.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. So it doesn't always have to be the sun to be clear. You still get a lot of natural light on an overcast day or on a cloudy day. Okay. But yes, I appreciate we all have different work schedules. So if you can't do that, you know, put the lights on in your house. If you want, you can go on Amazon. You can buy like these bright lux lights. They're not that expensive.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
better relationships because actually the key principles the key ingredients to all of these things they're really not as complicated as people think really yeah they in my view because already the list Dr. Chatterjee I'm like oh my god that's a lot I don't even know if I can remember all this so like it's really not that complicated yeah well through this conversation hopefully people will learn it's yes I'm not saying change is easy yep
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You can have those on in your house, right? Do what you can. If you can't do it first thing in the morning, Maybe at 10 a.m. when you have a little coffee break at work, can you take your coffee and go to the balcony or go out the front door and be outside and get some of that light into your eyes? Okay, there's many ways. And Let's be honest, Mel, some days you may not be able to. Correct.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And that's okay. Yes. Right? Fine. There are other ways to improve your sleep. You know, we can talk about five or 10 different tips. You're probably not going to be able to do them all.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. The most important thing about an evening routine when it comes to sleep is the fact that you need a routine. Right. Right? You have kids, Mel, right? They're older than mine. I have kids, right? I'm guessing, and again, I don't know this. I've not met your children, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But I'm guessing when your kids were younger, what you didn't do before bed was put all the lights up as loud as possible, get the music blaring, give them loads of sugar, and then try and get them to sleep.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
We as adults are no different, right? With children, what do we do? We dim the lights. We lower our tone. We might read them a story. We create the environment that is conducive to winding down. One of the most toxic things about the modern world is this separation between work life and home life has vanished.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
with emails, with social media, with whatever it is, we can still be working in our bedroom, in bed, and then somehow wonder why we can't afford a seat 10 minutes later when we've just had a stressful work email. I think the most important thing for many people, and certainly it has been for me, is one hour before bed, I make a mental switch in my head. I'm now on wind down time, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So for me, and again, I want to be clear, Mel, Everyone's got a unique life, right? So what works for me may not work for someone else. But what I do one hour before bed is I make sure my laptop's closed. I will not do a work email in the one hour before bed, barring an exceptional situation. Okay, let's be honest. Sometimes stuff is going on that you want to handle.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But by and large, I won't do that. I have educated my family over the last few years. And it was hard at first, but everyone understands now that in the evening... Past, you know, one hour before bed, I don't want to talk about finances. I don't want to talk about household items.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
My mum, my brother who lived nearby, they now know if it's something to do with mum's care, unless it's urgent, I don't want to know about it in the one hour before bed.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
okay so by educating the world around me i have a wind down for that one hour what do i do i'll try to be off my screens i'm usually pretty good i'm not perfect you know for me if i bring my phone into my bedroom i'll look at it yeah so i live in a house so what my wife and i try and do is we make a commitment to each other that we're going to leave our phones in the kitchen to charge
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, just because I write about this stuff and talk about it on my podcast each week doesn't mean I'm any less human than anyone else. I can't resist looking at that phone.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But it can be simple, right? If you understand the key ingredients to change and you start applying them into your daily life. And I'm a busy guy. Look, I'm a dad. I've got two children. I help care for my elderly mother who lives five minutes away from me. I have a busy job. I know what it's like to feel busy and feel as if you don't have time to do the things that you want to do.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Because it's subtly different. Relax is speaking to the issue of stress. So we know that 80 to 90% of what comes in to a doctor these days is in some way related to stress.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. And a few years ago, the World Health Organization had on their homepage that stress is the health epidemic of the 21st century.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I do. And also, these four pillars, they all feed each other, right? Because a lack of sleep is a stressor on the body.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Eating lots of junk food that's causing inflammation in your body is a stressor on the body. Not moving at all is a stressor on the body. But what people will find is when you start looking at your life through this framework of these four pillars, you can start wherever you want. It will start to make a difference in the others. They all start to feed each other.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Now, when I'm talking about stress, And when I talk to my patients about stress, I help them understand what stress actually is.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Stress is basically your body's response when it wants to keep you safe. Okay? When it thinks you're in danger, in essence. So I always explain this to my patients now. I say, listen, what is the stress response? Imagine... It's 100,000 years ago, and you're in your hunter-gatherer community in your tribe doing your thing, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And then, whilst you're doing your thing, you notice a wild predator approaching the camp. In an instant, your stress response kicks into gear. Now, several things happen in your body when that happens. Okay, what happens? Your blood sugar starts to go up, so it can deliver more glucose to your brain.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Your blood pressure starts to go up, so more oxygen can go around your body and get to your brain, okay? Your blood becomes more prone to clotting. Why? Oh, if that lion or that predator was to cut you, instead of bleeding to death, your blood's going to clot, which is going to save your life, okay? Your amygdala, right? Your emotional brain goes on to high alert. Why?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But there is always a way to make time. I've done it for years with my patients, and I hope to show your audience, Mel, on this program today that they can also do it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Because you want it to be on high alert. You want to be vigilant. You want to hear every pinprick. These are all appropriate responses when you really are in physical danger. The problem today, Mel, is that so many of us are having our stress responses activated Not to wild predators. By email.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But to the state of our daily lives, our email inboxes, our to-do lists, the three social media accounts we're trying to keep up to date with, the news headlines. In a very similar way, our stress response has been activated. So those four things I mentioned, helpful in the short term, problematic in the long term. So blood glucose going up to help you run away, brilliant.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
If that's happening day in, day out, that will cause weight gain, fatigue, and type 2 diabetes.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, stress is a massive, massive issue that we don't think about enough. And a lot of people don't realize this key, key point, Mel, that I have only realized in the last few years, which is this idea that we see the world through the state of our nervous system, right? So if you're chronically stressed,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I would bet, Mel, that a lot of your audience, even if they're on a walk right now and listening to me and you talk, a lot of them would probably identify as being chronically stressed.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yes. Think about the point of the stress response, okay? It's when we think there's danger. So what happens? Your focus comes inward. You're not compassionate. You're not looking to cooperate with people. You're looking for threat. You're looking for problems, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Okay, another way people can often understand this is this idea that if you've had a weekend off where you've properly rested, okay, and you've switched off and maybe you've gone for a walk in nature, okay, You can read an email on a Monday morning and interpret it a certain way.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You could read that same email on a Friday afternoon when you've had a busy work week and you are interpreting it completely differently. It's the same email, but you are looking at it differently because of the state of your nervous system, right? And it's, you know, I thought about this the last few days, Mel. I don't know how this lands for you, but
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I was thinking about me and, you know, I'm away from home at the moment. So when you're away, you can often think big picture. I think, what is it you're doing wrong again? You know, with your podcast, with your books. On the face of it, it seems like what I'm talking about is health. But I've realized that's not my end goal now, right? Why? Why does health matter? Why does happiness matter?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I think what I'm trying to do actually at its core is create or contribute to a more compassionate world. If you're healthier, if you can lower your stress response, you're a kinder person. You have more empathy. Well, that's a world I want to be part of creating. I want my children to grow up in a world where there isn't all this division, where actually people are nice to each other.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
That's who we are as humans. I'm sure of it. Me too. That's what drives me, Mel. This stuff seems like it's about health. I don't think it is. Health is the mechanism to get to compassion for me. And connection. And connection. And peace. And peace when you're well slept.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
When you understand where stress lives in your life and you do a few simple things that we can talk about, like a breathing practice or a journaling practice, okay? Simple things that don't cost much money. That's what I'm always talking about in my books and my podcast. Most of the things I write about and talk about are free of charge. People say health and wellness, you need money for it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Then I push back against that. Yes, I get it to buy healthy food in certain parts of the world. Yes, your income matters for sure. But there are lots and lots of things that we can do that do not cost any money at all that will absolutely change our state or lower our stress levels.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I think the most important daily practice for anyone in 2025 is a daily practice of solitude. I believe that with all my heart, Mel.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, so solitude is different from loneliness, okay? Solitude is the intentional practice of spending a bit of time with yourself. Because what happens today, Mel, is that so many people, they're waking up, their smartphone is their alarm, they're picking up their phone, they're reacting to the world around them, they're consuming emails, toxic content online, social media, news.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And what a lot of people don't realize is that their thoughts, their feelings, and their actions are often downstream from the content they're consuming. So what can that solitude be? Okay. It could be a walk for 10 minutes where you don't have anything in your ears, where you're just allowing your thoughts and feelings to come up. It could be journaling. It could be breath work.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It could be anything you want. I'll give you some of my favorites. Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Exactly. They all link in with each other. The pillars aren't as separate as we might think. They're a useful framework to look at our life and see where we're going to make change. But once you start in any one of them, you'll realize how they all feed each other, right? Breathwork, the most powerful way and the quickest way to change your internal state and therefore your stress levels,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
is through a practice of breath work. Now, one of my favorite practices is what I call the three, four, five breath. I've been using it with my patients for years. Great. Why don't you walk us through it? I love it. You breathe in for three. Okay, let's do it. Okay, let's do it. Okay. Okay. So breathe in for three. Okay. Hold for four. One, two, three, four. Now breathe out for five.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
One, two, three, four,
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, I felt it. I felt it myself as well. That's just one breath, okay? The three, four, five breath. One breath takes 12 seconds. Five of them takes one minute. When your out-breath is longer than your in-breath... You help to switch off the stress part of your nervous system and activates the relaxation part of your nervous system.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Okay, so the 3-4-5 breath is just a very simple method I've created to help my patients. There are so many other amazing breathwork practices out there. I'm not saying you have to do this one. But the principle is that it will really help you calm, lower your stress, be more present. It shows you how interconnected the body is. So I would say something like the 3-4-5 breath is...
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's a really, really simple tool that you can use preemptively in the morning as part of a routine, a morning routine. Or when you're getting stressed out in the day, you have a meeting with your boss and let's say a disagreement with your husband.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You can actually just take a time out, do three, four, five breathing for just 30 seconds a minute, and you'll be much better able to engage once you've done it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. Dad came to the UK in 1962 from India and... Dad's not been here now for almost 11 years. And it's almost the classic immigrant story, okay? He came to the UK in search of a better life, a better life for his immediate family in the UK and his family back home in America. But this is what my dad's life was like. My dad was a doctor. He was a consultant at Manchester Ward Infirmary.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But for 30 years, my dad only slept three nights a week. It is actually really hard for me to even imagine that now. As a father myself, thinking through to what my dad did and how he lived, I don't really understand how he was able to do it. But I think when you have a strong passion and a mission, it's amazing what you can achieve. So I've really evolved my view on my dad's life.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I think these days people are struggling with fatigue. They don't have energy. They're struggling with motivation. They can't sleep. They're feeling chronically stressed. This is affecting their physical health, their weight, the way that they feel about themselves. It's also impacting their mental well-being, how they see themselves, how they see the world around them.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But in essence, when my dad became 57, he suddenly became sick with the autoimmune condition lupus. his kidneys failed and he was chained to a dialysis machine for 15 years, three times a week at the local hospital until dad died in 2013. Now I moved back to where I grew up, which is where I live now, which is, you know, you've been there when you came onto my podcast Mel a few years ago.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I live in the same town that I grew up in and I moved back to help my mum and my brother look after my dad. When my dad died in 2013, It was like a juggernaut explosion in my life. Like it is for many people, it's the first time I had to really confront death. I had to confront death as a doctor with patients for many years, but it's different. That's my job.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
When it was with my dad, who I used to care for and see three times a day, I had this big hole in my life. And really, it was only after my dad died that I started to ask myself the big existential questions, Mel, about, well, whose life am I really leading? Is it my life? Is it someone else's life? So I've been on a real... journey since my dad died.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I've made changes in how I live my life based on what my dad did. So I'll explain one of the changes is, you know, I rarely saw my dad growing up because he was working, he was providing, right? And I used to say, Mel, I used to say that I think my dad made a mistake. I used to say that I think my dad mistook success for happiness, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
which is, I think, what many people do in the world these days. But I've actually evolved my view, Mel. I think it's unfair of me to make that judgment on my dad. If my dad was still alive today, the one question I would have for him, and I've thought about this a lot, I would say to dad, dad, was it worth it?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Because he might say to me, Mel, he might say, you know, we might say, oh, he was chronically stressed. He was sleep deprived. That's why he got lupus. He shouldn't have worked so hard. And through one angle, I actually believe that, Mel. But the other way I look at life now is my dad might say, hey, son, yeah, it was worth it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You know, I came to the UK to give you and your brother a great start in life. And I did that. Look at you now. Look how many people's lives you're impacting around the world. Look how many books you've written. Look how many people listen to your podcast each week. Yeah, I'd do that again. And it's a really different way of looking at life, Mel. Like I've learned over the years...
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
that you can reframe anything in life, that stress is not just external, it's internal as well. It's how we look at these neutral events, right? I can look at my dad's death in a very negative way, I go, I can't believe my dad's not here. Poor me. I lost my dad at a young age. And I used to do that, Mel, but it doesn't help me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I've experienced the grief, but now coming up to 11 years on, you know how I see my dad's death now? I see my dad's death as a gift. It's a gift that he gave me. The things I've learned through my dad's death, all the things I share in these books, particularly this new one. Yes, you write a lot about this. I would not have known this stuff had I not gone through the grief of losing my dad.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So now, and you can call this spiritual if you want, and I'm okay with that. I know as medical doctors, maybe we're not meant to talk like that, but I would say these days, I do feel really spiritual. I actually feel that through dad's death, I have learned some of the most powerful lessons of my entire life. And so now I choose to look at it as a gift that my dad gave to me.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But what a lot of people don't realize, Mel, is that the health landscape in the United States, in the UK, and frankly, most countries around the world has dramatically changed over the past 20 or 30 years. We used to see what I call acute problems. So 30, 40 years ago, the medical system was really well set up for the problems that people came in with.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
First of all, Mel, if there is someone who is listening right now who is in that role, I get it. I know how difficult it is. I know how stressful it can feel. I know how it can feel that there's no way out and you have no time for yourself. I was there. I was there for a long, long time.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But those words that you just read out, Mel, it's really quite emotional listening to them because now I can reflect back and to put it in real context, In the months and years leading up to dad's death, this is what my life used to look like. I would wake up. I lived five minutes away from my mum and dad. I'd wake up at about five. I'd go round to mum and dad's. I'd help get dad up.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I'd help get him shaved and ready. And that could take all kinds of... time, depending on what was going on and how well he was. I'd then come home, try and see my wife and my young baby boy. Then I'd drive to work as a primary care doctor and be busy in the day. I'd try sometimes on lunch, if one of the home visits was near my parents' house, I'd try and nip in and just check how dad was doing.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I'd then go back to work. On the way back from work, after a long day seeing patients, again, I'd go. I'd often end up Coming back home, feeling really, really stressed. My wife had already put my son to bed. I was chronically stressed. If I think about it now, the impact on my marriage, on those early years as a father, You know, I don't believe in regrets, I really don't.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So you'd come in and say, hey, doctor, I've got a cough. I've got a fever. I'm bringing up a lot of sputum. And the doctor would see you for 10 or 15 minutes, examine you, give you a diagnosis, give you a pill and say, take this three times a day for seven days. And hey, presto, seven days later, your problem's gone away.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I believe regrets in many ways are a form of perfectionism, but I believe I can learn from the past and I can learn from those mistakes. Not even mistakes, I can learn from those experiences and go, if I was in the same situation again, And I have been in a similar situation over the last few years because my mum has become more and more unwell. I'm very different now looking after my mum.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
My mum's like 84, 85, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's not my identity that I'm the only person who is going to be here and responsible for everything, right? With my dad, I made it my identity. It was who I was. My dad being well was a reflection of who I was as a human being, right? I would do everything. If dad wasn't well, I'd done something wrong. I was going to go and fix it.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
That creates so much inner torture when you see yourself like that. And as... You know, you just read out. No one expected that. Like that was a story I created inside my own head. Was it real?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's not dissimilar in some ways. I mean, when I read the letter theory, one of the things I find really powerful about it is is the separation between me and the other person, but in a really beautiful way, not a separation that I don't care. In your book, Mel, you write about how it's okay for other people to feel their emotions and feel disappointed.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And you can apply the same principle here, Mel, where if the cost, and this was the cost, if the cost of looking after my dad meant that it was gonna impact my ability to be a good father and a good husband, that's a cost I wasn't aware that I was paying. But now I know, now to be really clear, I have a great relationship with my kids. I'm happily married, it's just past 17 years recently, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Things are great. But I've learned from that, and now with my mom, who I love just as much as my dad, I'm not falling into the same traps.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
This is so key, Mel. Exactly. And that's why I brought up your book, right? Because it's a key theme that I got from that book that I think totally applies here. I couldn't tolerate something, you know, me or someone not being there for my dad to meet his every needs, right? But it's ridiculous. It's utterly ridiculous, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, and it worked beautifully well for those kinds of problems. But today, Mel, 80 to 90% of what we as medical doctors see is in some way related to our collective modern lifestyles. Okay, now let me be really clear. I am not putting blame on anyone. The person who's listening right now, I am not putting blame on you, okay?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I would argue that I cared just as much for my mother as I did for my father, but in a completely different way. I practice self-care. I will do these things for my own health. I will also, the truth be known, like... If, for whatever reason, I can't do something, I'm not gonna kill myself like I used to to get it done. I'm like, actually, you know what? On balance, it's okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I can't meet every need for my mom anymore, okay? It's okay if sometimes she wants me around and I can't be there. That's okay, right? And it's okay to come round and see her disappointed, okay? That's okay. And the funny thing is, I would almost argue that I'm caring for my mum in a much better way. When I'm around that, I'm not tired. I've got the energy. I've given myself five minutes each day.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And then there's another powerful story at the start of chapter one, where, you know, I took him at my dad's funeral, Mel. And I remember I had back pain for years, chronic back pain. And I saw this amazing musculoskeletal expert who helped it like 70, 80% for sure. But there was still this niggling tightness. And I can still remember, Mel, 2013, I'm at my dad's funeral. I'm in my best suit.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
You know, we've just had the ceremony. And I can still remember being at Manchester Crematorium, watching the body go into the flames. And the tightness of my right back just vanished. And I second guessed myself. I said, did that just happen? I know that happens, right? And what I've realized, because I've read for years about how the body stores emotions. Of course.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But that's the first time I truly got it. I got it. I was like, oh my God. the weight, the pressure that I put on myself, that I'm the one who's responsible for my dad's wellbeing, even though it was dad who was sleep deprived for 30 years, chronically stressed, you know, didn't take his holidays, somehow it's my responsibility, that was giving me back ache.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It's absolutely crazy, Mel, to realize that I needed to see my dad's flesh and blood being burnt for my body, for my subconscious to finally realize, oh, it's not on you anymore. That back pain was the weight of expectation I put on myself to look after him.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, there's two things. Okay. There's not one thing, there's two things. One of them is what we've already spoken about. And it's the cliche of putting on your oxygen mask first, okay? If you do a five-minute action for yourself each day, I promise you, you will be better able to look after whoever you have to look after in your life.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
When you think you don't have any time for yourself, that it's all on that person. And frankly, take this away from being a caregiver for a sick elderly parent. What about mothers? or an autistic child? Yeah, like my practice was full of, well, many people for years, right? But I saw a lot of mothers who literally never gave themselves any time.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Everything was for their partner, their parents, their children. Like they did nothing for themselves. They didn't feel that they could. And actually one of the biggest things I would teach a lot of my patients throughout the years was that I gave them, well, I didn't teach them this. I shared with them how important it was.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I understand that life is tough, that people feel stressed, they don't have the energy. I do understand all those things. At the same time, we have to understand that these modern lives and the way in which we're leading them is resulting in us being sick. Okay.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And a lot of them would come back to me and say, hey, dog, you know what you've done for me? You've given me permission to relax. You've given me permission to look after myself. Even if you've got the most tax and care job in the world, I promise you have five minutes for yourself each day, right? You have five minutes to nourish yourself. That will make you a better carer.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
It will make you kinder. It will make you healthier. And it will really do something quite special to how you view yourself. So that's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say, and it goes back to why I believe a daily practice of solitude is the most important thing. Hmm.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
if you sit with yourself each day, whether it's a three, four, five breath, or you just frankly sit in silence with your cup of coffee and you're not scrolling email at the same time, you will start to feel things in your body, right?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So Mel, what was going on for years with me that I never knew because I was too busy and I didn't have solitude was when my stress load is building up, I start to feel tightness in my right upper back. When I was so busy, I never paid attention. Now, because I have a daily practice of solitude, when I feel that tightness on my right back, it's like an early warning signal.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
When I feel that pressure coming up, Mel, I'm like, oh, what's going on in my life? Oh. There's a difficult conversation I need to have with my wife. I've taken on too much at work. Maybe I need to really switch off this weekend. Whatever it might be, it's an early warning signal to tell me that I need to take aversive action. At the moment, Mel, people are not doing this.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
In the UK, 88% of people are thought to have experienced some degree of burnout in the past two years. I mean, that is a really damning indictment of the state of modern society. And what I'm trying to say for the person listening right now is that one of the ways that you will improve every aspect of your life is with a daily practice of solitude.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Start listening to yourself, feel where the tightness is in your tummy, your back, your neck, right? And then start asking yourself, what is this telling me? And you will start to develop this inner trust in yourself. You will start to pick up problems before they start to arise.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And so I was very much trained the model where you try and diagnose a patient when they come in and give them a treatment, which is usually a pharmaceutical treatment. Now that can have value. But what a lot of people still don't realize is that if you make changes in four key areas of your life, you can have a profound impact on so many different aspects of your health.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I would say, Mel, with all of my heart, the thing that I've learned the most, that I'm most passionate about, is this idea that anyone can change their lives. It doesn't matter how dark you think your life is at the moment. It doesn't matter if you feel stuck, lost, unmotivated. I have seen patients who were suicidal transform their life, and it started with a five-minute action.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
No word of a lie. It started with a five-minute action because here's the reality. If you've got deep and dark depression and you're having suicidal thoughts, any change feels too hard. Because when you're suicidal and you feel like there's nothing there for you, and to be really clear, there are many factors that contribute here. Of course.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Okay, I'm not trying to at all trivialize this in any way at all.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But a five-minute action done consistently does something so powerful to self-esteem, to the way you view yourself, to your motivation, to your belief that you can make change. So what do I believe more than anything? Anyone listening now to this show right now or watching it on YouTube, I don't care how bad you think your life is.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I absolutely believe in you because I've seen people in the darkest places change their life time and time again. So I know it's possible for each and every individual.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
My parting words are, think about your life. Think about where you are at the moment. Is this the life you want? Is this the life that you dreamt of when you were 15? If it's not, I'm not here to say that you can achieve all of the dreams you had as a child. I'm not here to say that. But what I'm here to say is that you can improve things. It is not as difficult as you think.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
If you're not happy with the state of your life, if you're not happy with where you are, what you're doing, the energy you have at the moment, you've got to make a change. It's not as hard as you think, but if you don't change now, When will you?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
My pleasure, Mel. Thank you so much for having me on your show.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And those four things are what I call the four pillars. Yep. Food. movement, sleep, and relaxation.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I'm pumped, man. I've been looking forward to this for days.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Well, wait till I get going and then I'm going to start screaming into the mic. That's a joke. I won't be doing that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Mel, I've been a medical doctor for over 23 years. I've seen tens of thousands of patients and I just cannot emphasize this enough. Ask yourself, which of these four pillars do I need the most work in? Food, movement, sleep, or relaxation?
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. Now, Mel, there's a key point here. Okay. So when we talk about our lifestyle, we often talk about it through the lens of prevention. Okay, yeah, yeah, you know, it's important to pay attention to our lifestyle. We want to prevent getting sick in the future. Now, I agree with that.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
But what people forget or they miss or they don't understand is that lifestyle can be part of the treatment as well.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah, you mentioned a few different conditions there. You even mentioned cancer, right? Yes. So let's be really clear on this. I'm not saying that it's only lifestyle. Right. You may be under an oncologist and be undergoing treatment, but even if you are, paying attention to your lifestyle is going to help you manage the process of undergoing that treatment.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
They're 100% medicine. The problem is we're not taught to look at medicine in that way, okay? But I've been using those four pillars as medicine for many, many years. And Mel, I had the great fortune to do this on a big scale back in 2015, okay? So back in 2015... I got my own BBC One primetime series called Doctor in the House.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And I basically lived alongside families for four to six weeks who were sick. They were already sick. They already had a diagnosis. They were already under doctors and on medication. And in every single case, I either helped them reverse their condition or significantly improve it, using the lifestyle. So, and I'll tell you what happened. There was a lady with type 2 diabetes.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I helped her put that into remission in just 30 days.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Using these four pillars, okay? I helped a lady with panic attacks, reduced them by 80% in just six weeks. I had a lady with menopausal symptoms- who didn't want to take hormones, and we vastly reduced them in just six weeks using these four pillars, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome. I did all of that on primetime television to show people that actually, it's not about blame.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
This is the key thing here. When you mention lifestyle, some people will get defensive, go, what are you saying? I did this to myself. No, no, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that... Your health is a combination of a number of factors. Yes, your genetics, for sure, that plays a role, but also the way you're living your life.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And often you haven't been intentional about the way you're living your life, so you end up at some point with a set of symptoms. But it doesn't mean that the only solution for those symptoms is a pharmaceutical drug. It may be, it may be part of the solution, but a lot of the time you can actually reverse these problems if you change your lifestyle.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
And for me, the simplest way I managed to help my patients with that is through the lens of these four pillars.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
Yeah. So one of the things I've got to make really clear is that there's no one right diet for every single person.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
I will make it simple. At the same time, Mel, I think when we believe there is one true diet that all of us should be eating, I don't think it simplifies it for us. I think it complicates it. And the reason it complicates it, and one of the biggest problems in health and wellness today, is the confusion that exists.
The Mel Robbins Podcast
Change Your Body & Your Life in 1 Month: 4 Small Habits That Actually Work
So when I talk about simplification, if you overly simplify, you end up confusing people. So I want to simplify as far as I possibly can, but then I also want to give the listener a bit of responsibility. Got it. the most important principle when it comes to food is as much as you possibly can have minimally processed foods as close to its natural form as possible.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
I think one of the things we see these days, because there's a growing awareness now of our emotions, you talk about it on your show all the time, there's many people talking about this in public. I think what's happened is that for some people, They go to, oh, I get it now. This is why I'm the way I am. This is because of my mom or my dad. This is how I was brought up.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And they stay there and then they start to blame their parents. And I think that's unhelpful. Maybe you have to go through that, but you can't stay there. At some point you have to come out the other side and go, okay, I've now learned why I have these triggers and reactions. Now let me move to the next part where I process them and move on.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And I'll tell you a very simple technique that's helped me, Larissa. I don't know if it will help others, but it certainly has helped me is a few years ago, I chose to take on the belief. And again, I use those words carefully. I chose, I don't have to take on this belief, but I've chosen to take on this belief in life.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
I believe that every single person is doing the best that they can based upon their experiences. And so let me just elaborate on that a little bit, because it can be quite triggering for people that. I choose to believe that if I was that other person, I'd be behaving in exactly the same way as them. Why?
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Because if I was that person with their parents and the bullying they had as a child and the friends and the influences they had when they were growing up and the toxic boss they had when they were 17 or whatever it might be, if I had their life, I'd probably be thinking and acting in exactly the same way as them. Now, it doesn't mean I'm saying that what they're doing is right.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
I'm not saying that. But once you adopt that approach to life, like you can feel this inner calm, Lewis, because your initial way of interacting with life is with compassion. It's trying to understand why is this person behaving that way? Now, it doesn't mean it's easy and it doesn't mean that what they're doing is not abhorrent or wrong.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
But I choose to take that approach to life and it's really, really helped me because now my first instinct, if someone's attacking me online, if something's happening, if someone disagrees with me, my first instinct now, because I've trained it for years is, oh, I wonder why they think so differently to me.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And you just don't generate all this internal stress that affects people in the first place. And once you start interacting with life like that, I think forgiveness becomes a lot easier because then you're like, oh, if I was that person, I'd be doing the same as them. Oh, their dad cheated. They grew up seeing that. It doesn't make it right, but I think it makes it easier.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And again, do you know when I learned that the most, right? Have you heard of John McAvoy?
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
No, no. So John McAvoy, I had a wonderful conversation with him on my podcast about five years ago, Lewis. You would love talking to him, I promise you. He used to be one of Britain's most wanted criminals. Wow. Right. So he was locked up in Europe's highest security prison with two life sentences. Right. With all the terrorists, he was locked up there. And he got out. He got out. Wow.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And he's like, he's one of the loveliest people I know. Right. I would leave him alone with my children. Right. I think he's the most wonderful person. But I spoke to him for two hours and he went through his life story with me. And he told me about his upbringing, that his dad wasn't around. And that the only male figures in his life were armed robbers. And they came rounds.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
They had fancy clothes and they drove nice cars. And they had a code of conduct. They treated women well. Like they had their own code of conduct. And I remember there was so much in that conversation because he's now a free man, inspiring kids all around the world to get into physical activity. It's an incredible story.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
But I remember when he left my house after recording on the podcast, my mind was blown and I saw my wife in the kitchen. I said, babe, you know what? If I was John, if I had lived John's life, I think I'd be in jail right now. Like I genuinely thought if I had his childhood, I would be in prison. Or dead. Or dead. And it really helps me understand that, look, we all see the world differently.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
It's very easy to judge. And I get it. Some things are horrible and really traumatic. And you're going to probably need help to process that. But I'm saying there is a cost of not processing that. So let me go back to what you said about Dr. Rahmani, who I really admire and respect. Yeah, she's great. I don't have the experience that she has with narcissistic individuals. I don't.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
She has every reason to believe what she believes. My belief, based on my 23 years of clinical experience and what I've seen with patients, what I've seen in the research, and what I've experienced myself... Is that if you can learn the art of letting go of the past and moving on, maybe you don't like the term forgiveness. Yes.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
So I think that can be triggering for some people because they feel it's like, I'm forgiving that person for what they did. I don't mean that. Maybe don't forgive it, but let it go and move on. Let go and move on is how I describe it in this book, right? Yeah. I think you do not realize the lightness in your being that exists on the other side.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
I mean, Lewis, why don't you, I mean, if you don't mind, like I'd love to know from you, like you have acknowledged publicly on many occasions how you struggle with this for years, but you have moved through that. How has that been for you when you weren't able to forgive and now, would you say that you can forgive now?
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
But you're validated in society for holding it. As you say, like if you hold on and you go, yeah, they shouldn't have posted that post. They're wrong. Your friends will often support you. Yeah, they shouldn't have done it. But what we don't, and I used to be that person, so I'm not judging. I just know what it's like to not live like that anymore.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Chapter five in this book is called Take Less Offense. And I say many of us have an over-reliance on being right. And I make the case in that book, I talk about the George Floyd death. That's how I opened that chapter. And I kind of explain how it affected me and then what I chose to share on social media and how I got attacked for it.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Because if you remember when the George Floyd death made headline news around the world, it was during COVID. We were in lockdowns. I was in the UK. We were in a lockdown. And this event happened. Horrible event, tragic event, just to be really clear. And it brought up all kinds of feelings for me. Now, I'm a Brit, right? I was born and brought up in the UK. I've got Indian immigrant parents.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
I'm not American, right? I haven't lived in America and know the history of this country, right? So I understand that, right? I have to say this is... I'm just watching it from the outside. But nonetheless, whatever the narrative was at the time... brought up things for me, and I wanted to share my view on social media, right?
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Like you, I have a large platform, and I felt like I wanted to contribute to this public voice. I don't always comment on public things. In fact, it's quite rare for me, but I felt like I wanted to. I thought about some of the things that my family had experienced when they came to the UK, and I also thought about something my wife told me when she was a little girl living in the north of England.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
She can still remember one afternoon when a local nationalist party threw a brick through their window and told them to get out. And she was just watching TV, I think, and suddenly a brick smashes the window and comes in. That is traumatic. That is really scary. So two or three days after George Floyd's death, I shared a well thought out post on Instagram.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
I explained my perspective and I also shared the impact that racism can have and some of the things that came up for me. And I shared that example of what happened to my wife. And There was a small section who started to take offense at what I said and were attacking me and saying, you shouldn't be commenting. This is not your place. This is a black issue. This is not an Asian issue.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And initially I was like, oh, have I done something wrong here? Like I was trying to put out a really careful, kind, considered post to try and contribute to this big public conversation. Initially, I thought I did something wrong. And then I meditated on it, Lewis. I thought about it and I thought,
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
wait a minute, I'm not signed up to any code of conduct that determines how I can or cannot react to the death of an individual 3000 miles away. I'm perfectly entitled to share my truth the way I see it. And I kind of feel that many of us these days are walking around taking offense to everything. And it comes at a cost, right? Because people need to understand Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ,,, you then send calm signals up to your brain and then they send calm signals back to your body. So I have a, you know, first thing I do each morning is a bit of meditation and breath work before I actually have my coffee. That's the first thing I do. And I do it as preemptive, right?
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
So I do it to ground me in the morning, but I also learn about the breath so that if I get stressed in the day, I can just take a step back and do like two or three minutes of three, four, five breathing. And it really helps me. So, It's one of many techniques that can help manage stress. Another one that people don't talk about enough that I've written about is touch.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Like consensual, affectionate touch is one of the best ways to alleviate stress. So we've got in our skin something called CT afferent nerve fibers. It's so interesting. Nerve fibers. Nerve fibers. And these nerve fibers are...
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
optimally stimulated check this out at three to five centimeters per second right okay so that's a stroking rate of three to five centimeters per second now here's the thing no one's measuring their stroking rates but this is how humans naturally stroke right so a mother stroking her baby will stroke at that rate We're doing that. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
And there's some research from the University of Liverpool that I've interviewed this professor on my show, Professor Francis McGlone. He has shown that when we stimulate those CT afro nerve fibers with this kind of light affectionate stroking, it sends a signal to the deepest, most primitive part of our brain. and levels of the stress hormone cortisol go down. Wow. Right?
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
Can you do this yourself too? You can do this yourself. But it's better with someone else. It's better with a partner. It can be done with a pet. Right, as well. Like, so some people.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
No, but you get, like, there's benefits both ways. Like, even if you stroke someone else, you also get benefits. And what's really interesting, if you dive into that research.
The School of Greatness
How To Awaken Your Brain To Heal Yourself
To stroke you, but. Yeah. But look, I'd never had pets. Ah, yeah. But people who do have pets. Oh, it is so, it's calming.