How to Let Go of Toxic Emotions | Rangan Chatterjee on Conversations with Tom

[Music] you strike me as somebody who is very even keel very sweet-natured what what's an example of a toxic emotion you've held on to guilts as like a parent or a hundred percent as a parent yeah I mean the biggest turning points in my life was when my son got sick and when he was 6 months old that is why I do what I do today so you know first child suddenly at six months has a convulsion we not sure he's gonna make it through the night we're in a foreign Hospital in France it turns out that he had a preventable vitamin deficiency that nearly killed him there's a huge rabbit hole there but just that is the summary of what happened I as a you know externally you would call me a highly qualified doctor I've got my physician exams for being a specialist I've got my general practitioner exams I've got an immunology degree with all of my training with all the prestigious places I went to train right it didn't mean anything because I wasn't able to prevent my son from nearly dying from a preventable vitamin deficiency right so what happens I feel guilty right I feel right I now I'm gonna get my son back to optimal health as if this had never happened that was the challenge I saw doubts myself sure modern medicine saved his life in the acute phase but the chronic impacts of it was a vitamin D issue so I was thinking what if my son has had no vitamin D for his whole life and while he was in the womb and that's a critical nutrient for a immune system to develop what impact has that had is that why he has such bad eczema is that why he has allergies etc etc so I felt so guilty and that guilt drove me to actually find out how to get him fully better I'm very very lucky to say he's a happy thriving nine year old boy today super well super healthy this led me on this path which I am on today that has given me this drive and this mission to go out and try and help as many people as possible but that gilts whilst it drove me to get where I've got see it also had an unintended consequence which is you know I wasn't showing up as a father in the best way that I could he doesn't need his father's be guilty he doesn't need me to hold on to this sort of baggage that was affecting how I was parenting you know I I would have my own emotional baggage I would probably be overly focused on him and in the last yeah 18 months that is start to go I don't have that guilt what do they talk about the book like what what's the trick to letting go there is no trick man there's no hack to it it is a long process of self-reflection but reading about emotions reading about examples of where they might come from and how they can impact someone that helps to shine a light on yourself you can oh I recognize that trait in myself sometimes awareness is all that takes sometimes you are living a life that you think this is your personality why people say this is how I am well that a minute I realize now that I didn't know how I was I didn't know what what I thought my personality was is not my personality it was simply what I had absorbed over my life and I was responding to what I'd absorbed now that I understand that and I started to peel away those layers I no longer had the guilt right various addictive tendencies that I may have had in my life right I don't really have them anymore that's not because I've tried to address them that's because as I feel I guess as I feel freer in myself I no longer need to numb you if you come across gabble masses work never heard those syllables put together before you would say look in love Gabor maté a gabbo gabbo GA bo AR got it ma se ma te okay I'm surprised because I think you would love his work and his whole he's a psycho well he's actually a GP but he's like one of the world's leading addiction specialists he's worked with you know drug addicts in downtown Vancouver really really deprived area and he looks at addiction as he says all addiction whether it's drugs alcohol sugar sex shopping come down to the same thing and in his language he would say it's down to childhood trauma and he defines trauma as being either a bad thing has happened to you or not enough good things have happened right it's a really simplistic way of looking at it but I think there's real merit to his view and he's got a lot of experience and looking at it this way and I really resonate with that and I think what it comes down to tom is this whole idea that if we don't feel whole in ourselves right if we feel that there's a bit missing we will you know we were try to fill that with other things you know whether it's sugar whether it's booze whether it's shopping we will use other things to give us that buzz and as we feel more complete and this is what how I feel I'm going on this journey as I start to understand myself and let go of these negative emotions I just feel those compensated behaviors have no longer adopted not because I'm actively trying not to do them but because it's no longer serving me and then you take it back to something super simplistic like as a doctor how many people are trying to quit sugar right and you can tell them how bad sugar is for them right or too much sugar I should say and they can use willpower to get them to a certain points but I find it's never really a few people for sure managed to do it that way but most people that do it for two weeks for three weeks but unless the underlying drive behind it if the underlying stress that caused it in the first place is gets addressed they're gonna flip back to the same behavior same with booze and alcohol and so I guess why I like that book so much is because I think coming across that book has coincided with me going down this path of emotional growth I don't if you had put that book in my hand five years ago I probably would have put it right back to and I probably have had a look get this all right now you're gonna have to tell me what primed you to be open to that because this is probably the thing that frustrates me the most in life is that you can't want it for somebody and I say that in response to this because when I look at people that really are struggling to make that change there's some loop some patterns some mental pain hole wound trauma something fear limitation blocker wound to use screenwriting language that they have that until they're able to pierce that veil and realize that they have that and in fact I'll use microbiome language to really make it medical for a second so when the microbiome gets into dysbiosis you get some of the microbes end up getting covered in that the film I forget what it's called exactly and it basically makes it impossible to get rid of them because anything that you're trying to use is an agent you know eradicate them just hits that that coating that they have on them and is unable to penetrate to get to them and so you can give people all the amazing advice in the world and they have this biofilm around their mindset and you cannot get to them and with but then like it you're alluding to here oftentimes there's one thing some thing that happens either the death of their father or something else that pierces through that biofilm and now they have access to actually change and my mission in life is to figure out how to pierce that so that they can hear it so that they can understand for their own reasons either letting it go or recognizing the because I think sometimes it's it might be there's a guilt or something like that and sometimes it's just not understanding the way the mind works and understanding how to build things like desire or self-love or self-worth or that your beliefs are malleable or your values invaluable all of that stuff just simply not recognizing that that kind of stuff is true so you have these two things one you can't pierce the veil they have a belief or there's something that I think basically the trauma creates a world view that is impenetrable and then on the other side of that then it's do they actually understand once they penetrated it do they actually understand how to make the change I think you might go by my knowledge is so freaking good honestly it's it's such a such a great way of looking at that problem which is this you know when we see it we want to help all those people around us those close to us Hey Hey look if you only just do this it never works very rarely words I also think about this a lot one of the things I ponder the most I would say is what causes people to change you know does a human being need to come across significant adversity in order to start looking at things and start to shake their foundations and start to go on that journey of change I've heard you talk about this as I have with a good friend of both of ours rich a rich role and you know rich will talk about that whole incident where yeah he needed that pain he needed that adversity to go on that journey and in many ways it's a tragedy worthy isn't it because we don't really want everyone to have to go through that level of suffering before they start to go on that growth journey but then is there any other way is that necessary in some way I really want to believe that there is and I I actually like everything I think it is so highly variable so that yes some people absolutely have to hit rock bottom and other people can do it faster other people's rock bottom is more shallow than other people here's here's what bothers me in in this space that I'm deeply in and you're maybe a more professional like qualified version of like the self-help universe is you get people who talk like there is no human tragedy there's [ __ ] human tragedy man and there are people that they not only do they not escape but the kids don't escape it and their parents didn't escape and their grandparents didn't escape and it's just cycle after unending cycle of people who are unable to figure out how to get control of their own internal experience and thusly their internal experience borders on torture it is a level of self cruelty that you would never like subject upon someone that you love but you certainly subject upon yourself I think it comes down to awareness tell like but I don't want to let go of this the know [ __ ] rock bottom like is there another way I want there to be another way yes so badly I think it's awareness right I think one component here is awareness and let me explain what I mean by that so my contention is that many of us including myself particularly in the past maybe I'm still doing it on certain things and walking around unconscious to what is really going on like I think the way I am now is it's just imply the way I am this is my personality now one option is to hit adversity right where something so tragic something so painful happens these sorts of look at things in a different way right but this and this is what drives me in my work that I do in the books that I write in my podcast this is what drives me I think it's storytelling my storytelling Rewa were an alignment there yeah but stories having is arguably the most powerful way to impact people so do you mean self narrative or do you mean stories books TV shows movies I mean self narrative I mean telling people's stories on your like what you do on this show what you do on your YouTube channel what I do on my podcast right you talk to people and if let's say you're talking to someone who has gone through that journey and they shared their emotions and as they reflect how they act in certain situations people will hear that and they will go hey wait a minute you know that's me actually in that situation hey hey like today that someone might go you know what I'm that person who doesn't own his name and feels like I don't want to offend people so maybe they don't need to wait for them to get sick or one of their parents to die maybe somebody will listen to that ago wait a minute and now he's free from that and okay I'm gonna go down that road I'm gonna start that process awareness is key right awareness is absolutely key because most of us are in my view we are unaware we are walking around with the blindfolds on in terms of what is really going on and just to be clear I am not criticizing people I was that person but when you can see the light when you can see what truly is going on I think that's dance this long period growth I don't think it's quick I don't think is easy I think it's a hard journey to go down but I think it's the most fulfilling journey to go down so yes I think there's another way I don't you necessarily need adversity although I think it helps and I guess this is what challenges me as a father right one of the big things that challenges me is this I feel that I have grown and learnt things about myself more from the difficult things that happen in my life than the good things no question so then the question is as a parent you want to protect your kids you want them to have great experiences but I also know that it's the bad stuff that can shape us how do you do this this is I don't know about this is the reasons I don't have kids yeah like when I stop and think about what makes for an extraordinary human being it is an unending parade of [ __ ] misery that that person somehow overcomes now here's the problem the misery breaks most of the people that it touches so like when I think about life man the school of hard knocks the school of hard knocks kicks the [ __ ] out of most people and they never recover and they never do anything interesting and their life is is a certain level of suffering and some people though are able to internalize that and go whoa there's something really powerful here I'm gonna learn from this I'm going to grow and I'm going to I'm going to get better and I really want to believe that there's this awareness now around growth mindset that is really shifting a tide and that enough people are growing up and they're not falling prey to that trap because we're hearing about it and you talked about your mission being born of your son and it while mine is clearly not born of my son I have a mission that fills me with an equal amount of passion which is I want to make sure that nobody reaches adulthood without encountering a growth mindset like just to know that it exists and for me growing up I didn't know that it existed so I didn't have a mental model it's like Roger Bannister in the four-minute mile until you know that it's possible like you just you you can't conceptualize it but this is the point of trying to make some about awareness awareness is key and if you are unaware you can't make those changes if you don't know what growth mindset is you know how can you develop one right and I think I do think things are shifting in the world I do think there is a growing one and support this stuff I think the Internet is a big part of that you know we are sharing ideas now you've got this platform I've got a platform we're sharing these ideas people will hear this stuff and it is changing their lives you will get messages just as I do on your DMS in terms of oh man I heard that last interview I get it now I've you know I've done a B and C now in my life because of that isn't that the most awesome thing in the world on an individual level that we get to touch people by sharing these stories the the thing I would come back to is if I think about those episodes that I have recorded like with with Gabor maté say for example that is quite poignant it is quite if you are not ready for it it can rub you up the wrong way so why how Wow so what happens right what does he say what I think he's one of the most compassionate human beings I've come across so I don't see how necessarily can rub somebody up the wrong way but if you are so entrapped with your own stories right if you cannot see how that said if you have an identity that is built up around being a certain way it can be too challenging is he saying like start playing the victim what are his you know what are the things that would rub somebody the wrong way but any addictive tendency you have is rooted in childhood trauma that is a pretty controversial statement for a lot of people having said that he and I think the word shows what people want to say this is a genetic disorder yeah or they want to say you know my childhood was great I had a great childhood what you mean trauma yeah nothing bad has happened to me but the way he displays it the way he explains it is I think there's real compassion there and I I saw him speak live in London the day before I interviewed him and he basically at the end of his talk he asked the audience does anybody here think that they have got an addiction that was not rooted in child a trauma right on the edge of my seat right let's search a few people put a hand out it took a while but no there's a couple of hands go up so he went to someone at the front and he said look before we go down this path are you open to sharing and you open something asking you a few questions there front in this audience she goes yeah no problem really confident yeah yeah no problem and so he goes so how was your childhood really with the goods were you loved by your parents absolutely right really kind of 110 percent answers my childhood it was great anyway he kept probing away this took 2 minutes maximum and then it turned out that he decided asking about her relationship with her parents and then she said yeah yeah I guess you know my parents were so in love I often felt that I was a spare part and I was getting in the way and the whole audience you could tell we all took a like a deep breath I mean it was so clear from the outside and bingo and so he honed in on that and he made a supposition that maybe your various addictions may be the way you are now is born out of that experience where you feel that you are getting in the way that actually you are a burden on your parents you're getting in the way of their love he did it in such a masterfully beautifully compassionate way white and she did turn around and she did accept it and she did start to you could tell the tone of her voice changed she what was happening she was being shown awareness he gave her bad awareness now I don't know what's happened to her I don't know she's gone down that journey oh uh Ronnie and I want to follow up with this woman I need to know where she's at man yes the this kind of thing is is like okay when people have a breakthrough like that are they able to transform that into something that is permanent so when you think about like habit formation so this is where I often butt heads with people that take and entirely would all call spiritual or woowoo approach to making real change in your life breakthroughs like that are extraordinary but if that because they give you the awareness they now she has a framework with which to re-evaluate her life and maybe the wound that she is seeking to fill with the addiction or whatever okay super helpful now moving forward how what is the process for making sure that somebody then goes down the path of gaining the understanding of how to make the actual changes that you want in life because normally what happens is a psychological immune system kicks in she's now feeling raw and vulnerable she does not like that feeling and when there's not the sort of hype and in fact I would be surprised if she didn't later have I don't I don't know her but one potential yeah one potential sort of response that would be either the family's like what are you crazy and then she's like yeah maybe that was crazy or she wakes up in the middle of the night and is like oh my god I can't believe that whole audience thinks that my parents didn't love me because they loved each other so much and like begins to unwind this I have seen that so many times where you think oh my god this person has had this amazing transformational breakthrough but they simply can not be open to the fact that there is they're doing something wrong it is hot I wish I could give you a simple answer and say oh no you do a B and C and you will be okay it is hard because I think this lady was maybe I'm gonna guess late 40s early 50s that is many years of developing these shields around her developing these behavioral patterns right I think awareness is key is awareness enough I don't know where this is enough I don't think everyone with awareness will do something with it but I think without awareness you've got very little if not zero chance how do you give people who don't want to work out to start working out you so simplicity that's one of your tricks you've told the story of the couple in their 60s that started doing the work out at the top of the stairs and all that and then they started a good memory like seven days a week and yeah so how do you make that stuff stick or do you just tell everybody and some people do and some done now I personalize my approach depending on who the person is I try and find so one-on-one it's easier than clearly if you're trying to deal with a lot of people or trying to give a message that's gonna work for a whole population one on one I will listen very very carefully to what a patient is telling me I will pick up I would try and pick up on these nonverbal signals what is that pain point what is that trigger point what matters to them and then I will try and frame the next steps around that do you do move towards techniques or move away meaning you don't want to die of heart disease or you want to look good in that bikini I can't I don't want to evade the question but it did was no because I found one thing you know how long have I been seeing patients for now nearly 20 years right there is no one right way that works for every single person so where I think the lifestyle gets so important is sometimes and you mentioned that couple in their 60s who do this now this ten minute strength bodyweight workout every night while their bath runs upstairs we've spoken at this before why is that so important it is not them going on this huge personal self growth journey but what it is it's starting to help them get in tune with their bodies what it's helping to develop a bit of self awareness and without that self-awareness you are never gonna get their rights so I think sometimes even these small steps that people take ah they're sort to show themselves a bit of self-respect the starlings to help themselves feel complete oh I can do this I didn't think that I was good enough to strength train I didn't think I was the kind of person who could work out well hold on a minute now you've been doing it every day for six months hey I'm the person I'm the kind of person who works out you know I feel good like I've got more energy I can see the tone on my body improve this feels great what else can I achieve so this is what I'm so passionate about small things do make a difference small things when don't consistently lead to bigger and bigger things and so I think it is possible for everyone to grow and everyone to make change but I think the path by which you get there is different for everyone and look I if you think about a graph for me to go on this journey I've had dips along the way I have at times when I thought you know it is hey if you go on this journey and your other half does not that is hugely challenging I'm very my wife is on her journey like I am on my journey and we have got this deep commitment that we are committed to self growth ourselves and we're committed to be together as well even if sometimes it makes it challenging because if one of you is changing at a different rate compared to the other one it can what do you do when you're in that circumstance this is so interesting to me what do you do I'm a lot better at dealing with in the health and I was a few years ago that's for sure hey a few years ago it would lead to rouse right we were just for the u.s. audience arguments yeah it would yeah we it would blow up and you know because somebody's feeling judged yeah someone's feeling judged and one thing I've learned on all this stuff is when we're judging someone else we're really judging ourself and again these things sounds super spiritual no no no right this is money I think this is genuinely what I think is ultimately the key to good health if I'm honest if I'm truly honest relationships specifically growing growing as a person understanding who you are right finding out who you are without all the programming from everyone around you I think it's the only journey worth taking if you ask me what is the point of life right because I reflect on this a lot I think the point of life is simply to figure out who you are I don't wish you on that yes so wish away you brought this up earlier you default to the words figure out who you are but then you once followed it up by saying and change elements if you want to me it isn't necessarily that interesting to find out who you are other than to know where the starting line is and then to me it's a question of who do you want to become like what do you want to develop what aspects of your personality do you respect what aspects of your personality do not respect and then be able to change and shape those accordingly do you see it like that or do you see it as no no this is about recognizing an immutable truth about who you are and at least now you know I think it's both because I think what it is is it's the process of understanding who you are I think leads to all the gold in life right I think it leads to the I think it leads to you achieving things why do you say that that does not sound true to me why does it not sound true because I think most people don't have passion and I think clearing out their head of all other people's judgments about things that they may like and all that will be tremendously beneficial but to me passion seems to be the result of a process it does not seem to be an archaeological dig it is it's about building something it's architecture so when I think about like every time you've said it in this interview because one time you said and then you can make changes if you want I've just sort of said all right I'll assume he means as like a starting line a starting line a starting line but discovering who you are implies an intrinsic immutable nature and I think that who you are is based on yes for sure your wiring we are not blank slates I do not think that I'm [ __ ] fascinated by Steven Pinker's book blank slate which basically hammers home the fact that we come with a whole lot of wiring so hey fair enough there is some amount of like your personality just gonna be different you have two kids right two kids so I'm sure they're very different in temperament and one yeah so every parent says that me and my sister oh my god for all the things that we have in common like we are very different people so I fully understand that there's a certain amount of hardwiring and and as a starting point for my sister to understand how she's gonna react to certain things and for me to understand how I'm gonna react to certain things is very beneficial as a starting line but then going beyond that I think that there are the one constant of the human animal is our ability to adapt so now my question just becomes for anybody like who do you want to become like if you understand how the mind can change if you don't have a passion which is probably the number one question that I get asked don't panic you can develop one if you don't like an aspect of your personality you can change it you talked earlier about identity I think a lot of this comes down to you were saying that I'm the type of person who works out you know I didn't think I was but here I am I've been doing it for six months like that's all grabbing ahold of your ID identity and saying I like the staircase example could have just as easily gone no no no we're gonna practice everyday you're gonna come and see me in for an hour we're gonna talk about what a badass you are in the gym but I'm not gonna let you work out you're going to imagine you're gonna visualize you're gonna tell me what a badass you are you gonna go tell other people and then a month later I'm gonna let you actually go in the gym and then I think that that person well certainly won't be guaranteed I think they're more likely to have success because they've done other work in their their identity their mindset their belief system their values all of that but that's all malleable it is malleable I guess what I'm saying is that because I feel that many of us are walking around unconscious we don't actually know what our true passion is let's say you do things you think it's everyone has a true passion that's lying dormant no I'm not saying that what I'm saying is this if you don't know who you truly are what you think your passion or you know but things you like doing your hobby is to be someone that might be we may just I may be misunderstanding your definition so when you say who you are what does that mean so I am clearly influenced in my conversation at the moment because I'm going through a lot at the moments right so I'm going through this path so I'm constantly shifting like if we have this conversation six months ago it would be different from the way we're having it today right so things are changing all the time so things in your identity beliefs values yes who I am I mean I can share some of those things with you what is even change on this trip to LA for example right so I feel that as the week's go by I am understanding more about Who I am and therefore the decisions I am taking on now different what I used to think was a passion is no longer a passion I give an example yes please why I used to be a huge football or soccer fan okay so you know I grew up in South Manchester right soccer is the predominant game in the UK it is the national sports rights my older brother supported Manchester United so I rebelled against that and I supported Liverpool now when I say support it let's be really clear I was upset I went to the games I would check all the transfer speculation seven days a week if we lost I would get upset when I was old enough to and I was earning money I would fly around Europe to watch Liverpool play right if I was at a friend's wedding a Liverpool player I would want to sneak out see if I could catch some of it let's put that in perspective I was all-in with football my friends would have said what water wrong dunes hobbies man he loves football he loves Liverpool Football Club why fast-forward now where I don't pay attention to anything that is going on in football now what's going on there what's going on there cuz I've thought about this a lot I think that what happens like many teenagers you were trying to fit in right I can only express my own experience being an immigrant living living in an immigrant family in the UK where I've got an Indian culture at home I want to go to school all my friends all my buddies have a Western culture so you kind of almost have these two personalities your home personality and your school personality right so I think that I developed this passion for football has a way of fitting in as a way of defining who I was it was my identity I'm a Liverpool Football Club fan I get upset when we lose I'm gonna show you how much I care about this team right what's happened over the last few years I don't give two hoots anymore what happens now that was a gradual process in the sense that as I started to find myself as I sought to strip away the layers as I saw it's become calm and more at peace with who I am actually I no longer had that desire anymore I'm not trying to please other people replaced by something like did you suddenly realize I've actually always been into video games swimming basket weaving I think there's multiple things that could be going on here this has also clashed with me being a parent right so my time has suddenly got limited in a way that it wasn't before and my view now is that you know so busy as is everybody do I want to spend my free time watching 22 people on a pitch play and start to raise my stress level to something I have zero control over I don't want to hang out with my kids or go for a walk with my wife or do something for me so I think that's one component I don't think could have indoctrinated them and made it like a whole big thing for you and your kids it's interesting I have Eddie so my son does not support the same team as me right and my friends like did you walk it how have you allowed this happen I said hey you know what I don't want to program my son to all the stuff that I I've done it's chant this journey has changed the way I parent I feel I'm a karma I feel I'm a less judgmental parent now then possibly I was before I feel I'm in a much better way able from my chair my child my children to express themselves the way they want to express themselves have they said anything know that do you think they notice are they too young what my son is now getting to that age where all his bodies are into soccer so now we're talking about it and I am trying to get back into it so I can interact with my son but we I just I'm just not interested right so when I say you will start to find your passions rights what I mean by that is and I guess we're looking at passion from a slightly different perspective I'm simply saying that if you don't fully know who you are okay I think it's very hard to know what it is you truly wants so I get so much satisfaction these days like I love my life right I don't mean that to sound like a dick right I say that because I generally do like I love the career I've got I love the fact that I get to help people that I get to write books record podcasts with really cool people so I get a lot of growth from it but then I also get to share this thing and help inspire hundreds of thousands of people I love it right so I would you say I've replaced following a football team for having a career that I'm super stoked about I'm not sure it's that straightforward that I've replaced it with something else I just feel now I'm not trying to be someone who I'm not anymore I don't think I am anyway I feel and now more in touch with actually what it is I once liked what it is you know I I'm not into this whole third-person piece where you how you talk about it so but like how one might talk about themselves I'm thinking but you know what does wrong and Chatterjee once right not what does he think he wants and so I was not what you think you want or not what you think you should want both both you know you ever have an ease around football like was it a thing real like oh god I've kind of backed myself into a corner but why the [ __ ] am i flying to see this team unease I wouldn't say about that I remember in 2007 so in 2005 Liverpool got to the Champions League final I flew to Istanbul for the day from the UK to watch it it was you know regarded as one of the best fighters of all time Louisville with three nil down at halftime thought they were done you know the whole crowd starts singing inspires a team they come back two three all them went on penalties at that time that was probably the best moment in my entire life at that time well it's three to two years later in 2007 we are also in the final again I flight with my same buddy to Athens for the day to watch the final what happens I'm sitting in the Liverpool section with my buddy and things are not going well Liverpool are losing suddenly this group of guys turn around and start screaming racist abuse at me randomly yeah you know I'm not gonna repeat what they said and it focused that's so crazy your own support here I suppose I had my shirt on I was with my buddy who's a Caucasian guy you know to the point where we both got super uncomfortable so and I had never ever had that at a football game before and so that could also be a slight trigger of a start of the end of my love affair with football because I thought I'd have examined I thought isn't this interesting when things are going well when the teams are winning everything's great but as soon as people start to get frustrated they sort of take it out on people so I didn't like the way that made me feel for sure we moved into a different part of the arena so I don't think I've ever experienced any negativity apart from that if I'm honest so I have not tried to stop watching football it just no longer fits with where I'm at at the moment so and that feels to you like you're discovering who you really are versus just evolving well I think discovering who you really are is evolving you know maybe you could clarify what do you mean by that exactly I think what I'm saying is I look at us like we are a chemical processing plant that shifts and changes how it responds to its environment based on its environment so if you grow up as an immigrant in a foreign country then you're going to have a very different frame of reference than you would if you didn't grow up in an immigrant family so that's one way that you have a frame of reference if you're not loved as a child that creates another frame of reference if you're bullied that creates a frame of reference if you grow up or a frame of reference rich frame of reference so all of these things give you a different perspective with which to view the world now none of them are the real you there's no real you oh you grew up rich and that's the real you there's no grew up poor and that's the real you but I think those people would come out very different so we were talking about how kids are wildly impacted by adversity okay so is that kid fundamentally themselves when they're facing adversity or fundamentally themselves if they're not facing adversity I don't think there is sort of a fundamental self I think that there are we come with wiring everybody is different I think you do have sort of a baseline personality I think it would be useful to understand like where you're going to struggle versus somebody else for instance I find it while I am introverted I find it very easy to put on my extroverted hat so I'm an ambivert now other people my sister for instance is wildly extroverted so it is like useful for us to know sort of our what we're like in our idling state but when I think about even what I was like 10 years ago it's rad different than I am now but back then felt back then I would say was authentically me but there were problems that I had not addressed yet and now I feel like I'm authentically me but for sure I'm better than I was ten years ago in terms of my ability to stay emotionally calm and centered things that I'm pursuing or different and ten years from now I will be radically different but I don't believe any of them were me laboring under a false sense of identity even though some states were suboptimal in terms of my ability to enjoy my life I think my journey was absolutely defined by false states of identity and I guess that's where this passion about this comes from is because I can now reflect back and go yeah sure that felt authentic to me at the time I didn't feel I was faking it right I didn't I thought that was me and you could argue right and I probably can't disagree that on one level is this just a natural consequence of getting older right is this just what happens as you develop more life experience I'm not convinced it is because I think you can grow older become wiser change you know not be as reactive in your 40s as you are on your twenties you know a bit more chilled about things sure I think that happens to a lot of people but I do think that's when we stop looking for answers externally when we start going internally I think we start to figure out you know who we are like and there are many potentially there are many versions of who you are right maybe it's not just one thing maybe you can go down this path and come up with lots of different conclusions I don't know I'm still on the journey right so I don't know if we do this chart in two years maybe I've got something different to share but at the moment and I've got to say if I take it back to the consultation room with patients rights because there's one thing I've got a lot of experience then tens of thousands of patients over many many years yes I'm a huge fan of lifestyle change for sure but I think that lifestyle change can be very limited for people can be very challenging for some people because there's underlying issues that are unresolved and I find the people who really get true freedom from their health complaints often I'm not saying always right because it's a Redell icky area but generally I find that they have taken their mindset has shifted on some level they have started to change certain patterns in their thinking right that can happen many ways you took a lot about mindsets right can you consciously just change your mindset potentially rights but I think if you're consciously always trying to change something they're potentially still a slight tension there because you're consciously trying to do it I have found that when you strip away these layers those changes often happen without you even trying without even trying to consciously change my mind sets those things move away so I've always been a perfectionist you're you would consider me to be a perfectionist I don't really think I have anymore you know III certainly have that tendency it's not because I'm no longer trying to be a perfectionist but by doing the inner work I no longer feel the need that everything I do has to be perfect that I can't put anything out into the world until every little thing has been checked so I think there are many ways to get there but you follow what I'm saying I'm not convinced that it always has to be a conscious process this is very intriguing to me and I disagree I think I do right but here is the I I'm not yet sure how much it matters because you're obviously working your way to a beautiful place and so I want to say that all of my words are predicated on it's entirely possible this is just semantics it's entirely possible that people listening at home are saying oh my god you guys basically agree and you're just missing this one variable well I know that we will get so through yeah no doubt we'll find out we will here yeah I don't think that's the case I think that you're coming at it from a fundamental place of what you just said which is you believe in this stripping away and I believe in the building up or changing so I think that like when I here actually I won't tell you what I think do you think kids exist in this sort of idyllic state that the world twists and tuck sissified or I think that's I think that's too binary I think there is some pre-program and it comes in I think we know there's a lot of science were on epigenetic imprinting but actually the stress from our ancestors the stress from our parents can absolutely be programmed in and can change the way that we react to stress the way we look at things in our own life so I think there is a certain amount of pre programming that comes for sure but I also do think which is relatively obvious on some level that the environment hugely shapes what then happens okay so that we agree on radically so I think that for sure there's a mixture of genetics epigenetics environment so I think that the human animal is born to respond to its environment that is what it does now if you think about the responses to the environment being a shaping of the personality I don't see where the sort of true personality comes in now if you say hey people have given you beliefs that don't serve you then I would say please define don't serve you I will postulate put forward I think postulate is correct I will put forward that what is going on is you have beliefs about the world beliefs about yourself that lead you to a neurochemical e disadvantaged state meaning you just don't feel good something feels off something doesn't feel right whatever that's why I was asking like did you have a sense of unease about the football because I've been around people that love sports in a way that I do not so I'm on the outside I'm looking in and I think that's really interesting you're you're having a surrogate experience that takes you on this neurochemical roller coaster that is very similar to actually being out on the field playing now I think somebody out in the field playing nobody would say oh that doesn't make any sense why do they care about it I mean you could say that about almost any job that isn't like an MD where there's actual real life-and-death consequence is we hold athletes up as a celebration of human potential realized so I think there is this desire to feel like you're a part of a team to belong to something to seek victory to feel attached and like that victory is yours when they win to feel the pain of defeat when they lose to have this communal sense of ownership over that experience I think all of that is innate to the human so when people say that they're really passionate about sports I say yeah that makes a lot of sense in terms of having a surrogate experience rather than actually playing it yourself you're into it so to me loving it and then eventually not loving it is simply you're moving through like a continuum continuum of the human experience not that oh this was it was born of a desire to fit in I get that and I get how in that context your makeup as a human being is telling you not even that a better way of saying it you were designed to conform to your environment to survive that's what [ __ ] shoes do so you're born into that particular environment of course you're going to do things that fit in to fit in and when you grow and change and your life changes in your environment changes it it makes sense to me that your likes and dislikes are going to change now why do I press this point the reason that I press this point the reason that I think that it makes sense to stop and differentiate between the two world views is people listening right now I want them to understand everything about your worldview everything about your identity everything about your values and beliefs it's all made up and it is a random artifact of that is what humans do and that is the environment into which you were born and so trying so I'm literally writing a book about this right now and I was trying to like explain to people how do I get them to buy instantly into the fact that you are malleable man you are so malleable I'll give me one more somatic about no that's fine so you've got if I take a kid and raise them in America or I take that same and let's make it nice and juicy I take a girl and I raise her in America or I take same girl and a razor in Afghanistan they are going to be very different outcomes now there will be certain things you would recognize if they were twin separated at birth like there would be certain things that they recognize but their value systems would be unimaginably different and when you think about that that the same person and you just raise them in different cultures and they have different cultural beliefs to the point where people go to war over the religions that they happen to be born into so it's like yo if you can shape somebody's worldview to the point where they would kill and/or die for that belief simply based on where they were raised how they were indoctrinated it's like what sort of natural state are we trying to get people back to that that presupposes in my estimation that kids are born perfect and the world then sort of torments them and my thing is kids are born as an adaptation machine and they're essentially dumb and the culture fills them up right they can't even take care of themselves it they would get eaten and so when I hear people talking about like a six year old and look at the way they [ __ ] color and they get so into it like I get it as a way for us to think about being in flow and to let go of the judgments and all that but there is yet to be a six year old without a brain disorder that doesn't take in the input from their culture and morph and change to fit in and to pay attention and to think about how they work in the world and not work in the world in fact the kid that just colors and is totally divorced from the world around them and is in a constant state of flow we would say they're autistic so it's like I don't think there is like oh you're born with this sort of innate beauty and goodness for being a human and then it gets all [ __ ] up it does in some cases get all [ __ ] up because you get the wrong identities beliefs values blah blah blah but it's like the goal is to go not that I need to revert to some pure state it's oh I see beliefs are malleable values of malleable identities malleable I need to change them into something that serves me and gives me what I will shorthand to fulfillment some I don't think I disagree with you right I don't think actually what we're saying is as different as it potentially sounds so I agree he was invaluable I also agreed we have various belief systems that will depend on where we are right and those belief systems often will serve us at that time so me feeling to take one incident where as a 12 year old boy I don't feel as though I fit in what I have morphed I have adapted so that I do fit in you could make a case that that was fully appropriate I did the right thing so that I belonged to a community right you can make that case maybe that served me to a points maybe the evolution is simply that it no longer serves me there's a slight unease in my life after my father died with the time that I had to self-reflect there was unease in my life that is also what drove me to try to figure this stuff out it's like why is this like unease and what I'm doing why is that dis-ease and what I am doing so I agree it is evolution it is trying to find out which behaviors which identities that you have created because I do also agree with you that it isn't our heads we create these identities we can just as easily if we choose to create a different one rights I don't think what we're saying is as dissimilar as potentially I'm not saying you're trying to make out because I think it's I think it's a I think it's a valuable dive in it's super interesting for me to try and figure this out girl actually it's what we're saying is different as it might sound or is it actually the same thing my mindset is changing right maybe it's my I think I've always had a growth mindset I think I've always been driven to do the best at everything I do to be as good as I can so maybe that mindset when I suddenly had the time right post my dad when I suddenly had the time then I had the time to actually go there is something not quite right here I am always striving to learn I'm always trying to get better I want to get better at being me right that is the journey I've been on and the way I have found to do that is to strip away layers is to peel away at layers of the onion and so when I say to find out who the real me is maybe the real me living in the UK traveling for a week's promo in LA maybe this is the me that serves me in this environment maybe if I lived in Afghanistan my journey to find out who the real me would be would actually be a different version of me because I would have to find than me I was comfortable with in that environment so I actually think there is similarity to what we're saying but I guess maybe I'm articulating in a slightly different way from how you would articulate it if it is about tools that we can pick up if it is about changing our mindset let's say we've got lots of compensations conversations okay I can I can I can frame that better if we've got lots of behaviors that have been appropriate responses to the experiences we've had but we work on our mindset we take some of the tools that you're teaching all the time to work on our mindsets as we do that I think the natural consequence of that will be that we will start to re-examine some of our belief systems so I think there are many paths to get to the same place and I don't think it's one or the other I think people will figure out what works for them I'm sharing very openly my journey I have seen this also work for many many patients I've looked after people with chronic chronic health complaints and when their mindset shares when they start to see some of the programming that they've had to view the world a certain way and when that starts to shift and they see where that has come from then I see this truly wonderful growth and I think I'm influenced by my own experience I'm influenced by seeing patients and what I find works in real life the people who were struggling now you also have experience you also you know you share your rules the rules that you have there what you feel about mindsets I think there are many ways to get to that peak what what is that place that place is where we feel we feel good we have that innocence of calm we're very console with what we're doing in the world with who we are when we like where we fit in we know where we fit into the world around us to that particular environment which we currently resides you know if I move as I've said already if I moved to Mexico right maybe the way I am would have to change again maybe the real me in Mexico is the different real me from Manchester I believe that there are fundamental similarities that will be there you know I feel I worry that like as adults we don't have the level of like fundamental change that we would as a kid I am I am this is something people that listen to me have heard me say many times I'm deeply distressed by how much of our imprinting happens when we were young and so like as you're talking about that and you're talking about would the real you be different in Mexico probably not I mean like the the so if I were to step to your position but use language that I understand better maybe the right way to say it because I think you're right like I can feel that this if we were functionally to like work in the same space that I don't think there would be much difference in terms of how we perceive it but I think we would explain things very differently great when I think about the truth of what you're saying what I think too is the importance of stillness the importance of silence the ability to what I'll just round to meditation and how powerful that is when there's no noise when you're not judging yourself when you're not allowing other people's judgments to cloud your vision to have the awareness of your own emotional your internal emotional States so that you can really begin to suss out what you respond to so I'll say that a passion for me I don't think is uncovered but I do think it begins as an interest and if you can't hear that interest because you're shutting it down and you're saying oh I shouldn't be interested in that or whatever then certainly people are never able to discover that they're never able to I was gonna bring this up earlier biofeedback is something that at one point in my life ended up being insanely powerful because I could not internally get in touch with a certain part of my mid-back and it was causing all kinds of problems when I lifted weights and so I went to see a physiotherapist and he said though you have the these two parts of your mid-back they're just insanely weak compared to the rest your back and he was like here try to fire it he was touching it I was like I don't know what you're talking about dude it feels so weird and so he put these biofeedback devices on my back so that when I fired the muscle it would beep and when I began I couldn't fire it and it was basically silent and then by I don't know whatever two months later or something I could make them sounded like a machine gun going off and it was so crazy to see how by getting that external feedback because I couldn't for whatever reason I couldn't get it internally by getting the external feedback then I was able to find the connection inside and that ended up being incredibly powerful so people that aren't able to hear themselves they aren't able to get to that point to learn to do that what I think you're calling stripping away the layers of other people's influence or at least having the awareness of how you developed a belief so that if you know ah this belief was developed because I wanted to fit in ah my obsession with football actually began with something else okay now I have this sort of awareness path of how these things became hardwired do I want to change them and if I do at least now seeing their construction you can't unsee it and so now once you see it as a construction then you can really begin to make the change like I get that's me using my own language but you've just you've just the phrase which really gotta three there is when you see that it is a construction then you can start to unconstructed right right I think fundamentally that is what we are both talking about hundred percent we're talking about awareness and just as the environment shapes us your upbringing your experience in business the people you interact with will probably shape the way you have found to articulate that my own experience me you know I'm not in business I have my job as seen people where they come in with problems so I have developed a way to explain this to people in a language that I feel and I have seen resonate with them right so maybe it's your background you know I don't want to be overly simplistic but maybe it's you've got a business background I don't I've got a seen patients background so maybe the way we're gonna articulate these ideas is inherently going to be different because we have got different language and different experiences through which we are trying to explain this because I don't think you know as you're describing the way you see it I'm sort of an agreement right maybe I'm not particularly good at explaining no no you're great and I certainly don't want this to be this versus that it it is but it is a construction man that's the point it is a construction yes you can strip everything away and say the story goes like this my dad died I now have time with that time I started to self-reflect I realized that many of the things many of my behaviors were constructed behaviors once you see it you cannot unsee it now that I've seen it I'm gonna start stripping them away that is the way I would summarize the whole journey it can be that simple now how you unconstructive a it's how you decides once you have that awareness to start building a new identity if that's what you want or new beliefs new idea you know new beliefs this is whatever is that I believe there are multiple ways to get there I think there are so many different tools and techniques people can use you know you know people can read a book and they can read like your lessons and they go right I'm gonna apply this framework in my life for many people that will get them there speaking of books let's talk about the stress solution what made you want to write this particular book I've heard a phrase that authors often write the books that they need to write for themselves and I think there's a very very strong case for that the the reason that I think I wrote the book is a it's out of these four pillars that I talk about food movement sleep and relaxation the relaxation piece is the one I struggle with it's the piece that when I was promoting my first book and going around the country and abroad talking about this people would say that is the pillar I struggle with the most so consistently I was hearing that this stress is what people are struggling with and I wrote the book because I felt that when we talk about health and well-being I think diet and movement gets all the attention right I think it usurps all the press column inches all the books it's all about food and movements now those are clearly important I am NOT for one minute saying they are not important but I think potentially we have over emphasized those at the expense of chronic unrelenting stress the stress can be a very toxic word you have to define what you mean by it you know what stress itself is a toxic word I think for some people like it's a Trier because they feel guilty I don't understand that yeah a lot of you don't like the words that they don't want to be I want to mean by that is I talk to word in the sense that I don't want to hear about stress I don't think I am stress the amount of patients for example who I have seen where you try and bring up the word stress it comes up with a barrier straightaway yeah I'm not stressed you know stress is not an issue oh I understand what you're saying but that doesn't affect me I'm totally cool with my life right and so I think the word stress in itself can be problematic for some people but just to put this in perspective Tom the World Health Organization calls stress the health epidemic of the 21st century right that is now on their website even today the health epidemic of the 21st century I think that is a pretty remarkable statement from a very big global organization research suggests that up to 90% of what a dots are like me sees in any given day is in some way related to stress the thing I found so capture captivating in the book is the part about relationships that was the part I didn't expect talk to me about that talk to me about some of your views on I think I'm getting pretty close to a paraphrase quote here that sex doesn't even necessarily have to be about romance and I've got to imagine you get some pushback on that so one what is the talk to me a little bit about some of the declining sex rates you've talked about the increase in virginity do you know about Japan what about Japan there they have the lowest fertility rate of any industrialized nation in history and that they have like 10 percent I think virginity rates in the mid-30s which is crazy they're expecting in the next century for their population of Japan to get cut in half current rate this anyone speculates it what is going on well it reminded me so much of what you write about in the book that yes so there's part of it is technology part of it is stress crazy great I mean Japan is like famous for people working until they die at their death I know so I'll chalk it up to that technology cultural differences yeah I didn't know about this in Japan okay that's the news your book is so on point with it so even just going off of what you talked about the book you're you're right on the money look there are many things that can cause infertility there are many things that can cause a low libido right but to really simplify this what is your stress response there to do right so to keep you safe it gets activated when you perceive that you are in danger okay your listeners will know what this 2 million years ago you're when you're hunter-gatherer tribe you're getting about going about your business a wild Predator is approaching suddenly in an instant your stress response gets activated right various things happen in your body your blood sugar goes up so more glucose can get to your brain your amygdala your emotional brain goes onto high alerts so that you are hype and vigilant for all the threats around you okay that is an appropriate response your blood pressure goes up appropriate response your blood becomes prone to clotting so that if that lion attacks you you don't bleed to death that is fundamentally what your stress response is there to do right problem now is that it's our lives that are activating our stress response not wild predators and that I think we understand but as well as the things that it prioritizes when you're in danger when you are stressed what are the things that switches off well it switches off your digestion which is the main reasons why so many first 80% of the UK population in any given year have a digestive complaints right 80% 80% the last survey said 80% and again we always talk about food on talk about digestion and clearly that is the components but I contend that stress is a bigger component than food when it comes to digestive disturbances I have patients who many patients now complain that they are intolerant to certain foods right gone and they are you know they have a reaction when they eat a certain foods I've coming back to libido in a minute this is a slightly roundabout way of getting there but you do say we do long for hey hey there's this so that's so I have found in the last few years that somebody who actually is reacting to a certain foods it is not the food so when I have taught them about the stress response and taught them how that they can switch it off before they eat it's tell me because this almost certainly is something Lisa struggles with and we'll get back to libido what can I say yeah but I found now that a certain section of my patient population no longer react to the foods that they previously they're them do it is simple like everything I recommend in the book it is simple right we've overcomplicated this whole industry around wellness and health and stress breathing right it's simply I've got a multiple load of breathing techniques as a breathing menu in the book I get people to choose one but the one I like a lot that my patients seem to really respond well to it was something I call the 3 4 5 breath when you breathe in for 3 you hold for 4 and you breathe out for 5 now to do that one cycle takes 12 seconds you do that 5 times it takes one minute many of my patients I have them do that for one minute before they eat so this is to try and break the cycle off us and going at 100 miles an hour sending our emails sending our texts oh I've got to eat I'm gonna buy my healthy whole food organic lunch but I'm gonna eat it whilst I'm also getting back to these emails and I'm hey man I do this right I am NOT kritis I'm saying when people do this I am Society people hate you with that a lot well the like I'm not criticizing yeah because I've said it so many times in a sense whew yes I was a [ __ ] criticized for you want to help for sure but yeah wouldn't be - well people are doing stuff that's [ __ ] them up I would say that this is still a hangover from these behavioral patterns and identities and I'm trying to shake off right about not wanting to offend my right wanting to be the one who actually everyone likes right I can be honest about this I think I'm hoping if we have this chat in two years time I'm not doing that anymore you know grab there might be like all right [ __ ] this is gonna be but if I'm if I'm completely honest this is this is probably something I'm not quite managed to let go yet right so yeah but it I have notes as I've said that quite a lot today I don't want people and also it is also comes from a place of compassion where I know that these tools are gonna help people because I see it day in day out so I would like people not to think oh you are you're whiter than white what you want you never actually eat your healthy lunch whilst also sending emails do you know what I mean I might know I am human I do it as well just cuz I know what one should we didn't this I mean I always do it but to come back to it what I've seen with patients is sometimes patients who feel that they are suffering and are intolerant to a certain food what I've realized is by doing that before they eat by slowing down before they eat by shutting the laptop go to a different room actually changing the way that they're thinking suddenly they're no longer reacting to the same food and man I've only figured this out in the last couple of years right so this has been a revelation to me that oh man in the past I was asking them to eliminate that food for a while now I still do need to do that sometimes but I'm figuring out wait a minute it makes sense when you look at fundamentally what the stress response is if you are stressed right and your stress will be different from my stress you will switch off digestion it is not essential to survival therefore maybe that is why you're out into that food if you can activate if you can switch off stress response promote relaxation there's suddenly maybe you're not gonna react to the same food it could be a five-minute walk right it could be that Lee said before she eats and again I don't know the ins and outs of what's going on but maybe it is not going straight from work to food maybe it's about going outside for five minutes chilling out hey what did the French do right what a French Dip they're known for their long lunches right it is not you do not by and large and I spoke to some meal from Paris we say in the urban settings and offices as there's an international workforce coming in things are started to change but still it is a core part of French culture we don't mess around with a lunch break his lunch break write book down pen down we are chilling now are we all going to enjoy our lunch right there is this whole thing called the French paradox why can the French apparently eat so many what we would consider unhealthy foods yet apparently not suffer from the consequences I think more and more this is a big part of picture I think the way they eat is as important as what they eat and I don't feel that we in the West take that seriously enough we talk about food but Scott what are you eating I'm not yeah I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire for a second I think earlier you said it's more important than what they so if you had to rank order them I know you don't want to but you're gonna push me I'm gonna push you what or how which is which has a really yeah wow if you pushed me now yeah how I view myself and how I view this today from what I've seen in my clinical practice I actually now believe that how you eat is just more important Wow you eat so let's and we are not you're pushing me yeah yeah no look I think both reports are important I'm not saying be chilled out any junk food right you can have a Snickers as long as you relax no I get that so if somebody we're gonna do it like just absolutely perfect way what would a meal look like they sit down they do the three four five breathing for a minute yeah a little minute if that if that floats your boat if that appeals to you and I appreciate it it doesn't so everyone easy you is more important than anything yet because that is the patient population I see busy people with busy lives who tell me they don't have time to do all this fancy one whether somebody's I'm asking for a friend what if somebody's super diehard and they're willing to do whatever what would be the I would say you wanna you know the system has two states stress taking the relaxed I just say no very very simplistically you want to make sure you're eating in a relaxed States right how you do that depends on how much stress you've accumulated in the morning what's going on in your life but a very simple tool would be have some form of switch something where you [ __ ] you shift from work mode to relaxation mode you go for a walk for five minutes do something like moving is that a critical component or anything that gets you relaxed anything that gets you relaxed right anything that actively relaxes you so I think breathing is one of the best I think genuinely think that breathing is possibly the ultimate health hack breathing in a particular bringing in it breathing consciously not breathing as you know we all can breathe we are all breathing without our conscious control as an autonomic process but the way we breathe is information for our brain into the nose out through the mouth and ear that matter for sure what I mean let me just explain why I think breathing so important if you are busy Tom right I know you seem a super chilled guys to me so I don't know what they're like yeah I mean you could be intense yes right but I think you seem pretty relaxed and chilled but then I'm in your house as well so I mean you know I'm in your kingdom as it were we we could really derail on this it actually be fun for me to articulate but I don't we saw begun by to libidos okay this is that so let's say you're busy okay let's say a friend if you're okay is busy and they've got a lot of deadlines and they've got a lot of things they're juggling almost certainly without them realizing it's their breeding pattern will change they will start to breathe a little bit faster a little bit more shallowly they will start to breathe less from their diaphragm and more from their chest okay these things will happen without them even realizing it okay what is that doing as you start to breathe faster as you start to breathe more shallowly you are sending messages to your brain effectively saying I am in danger okay things are not good and you start to this it's a self-fulfilling prophecy if that activates your stress response that causes you to breathe faster and faster again and you basically have this cycle going on now the beautiful thing is you can hack that very simply because if you slowly and consciously control and slow down your breathing right you can send information to your brain hey everything's calm everything's good I am NOT in danger it can be that simple your breath instantaneously will change your physiology will change your biology yet because we can do it without thinking about say we walk around each day not practicing our breathing so to pull something else in from this conversation from the start when you're talking about my morning routine I said I used to last year for four or five months I was using the calm meditation app I do not do that currently what I am currently doing because I've done some breathing work a lot the summer I've been learning some pranayama practices I will do five or ten minutes of breathing in the morning now as my mindfulness you said pranayama probably helmet it's a it's a it's an Indian it's what a breathing practice is called in yoga okay what what makes it different or how would you define it necessarily makes it different I just think people have been doing this for thousands of thousands of years they have recognized that that breath is very powerful so what is it into the nose up to the mouth diaphragm most of the ones I've been working on are in through their nose and out through the mouth okay there are various different protocols there is you know there's a particular type of breath where you're breathing very very fast from your abdomen there's a whole series of different breaths and actually one thing I've been learning recently is that different people respond differently to the same breath so actually again without I know people want what is the white breath to do what should I go and do now if you want that I would say start with a three four five breathe in practice in through the nose and out through the nose start there I think that's the optimal way to start and see how you go but there are plenty of stuff online to start looking at different breathing practices different techniques and you can start figuring out what works for you there is alternate nostril breathing are you familiar with that I get it from the words but no yeah again this all comes from yoga I'm not claiming any of this is new there is a way off where you breathe in through one nostril you'll then switch your breathe out through the other nostril then you'll breathe back in through that nostril and breathe out through then also that you first read them through that is a very common practice I will sometimes use that before I go to bed what do you get from that what do you get from that it is I feel really chilled and relaxed and there were than if you did into the nose out through the mouth more than if I do in through the nose and out through the mouth so in the gym I'm trying to figure out this is like a just do variation breathing techniques or if some breathing techniques apply to one area and others to another area I do literally one kind of breathing I've tried wim HOF I will say yeah and that was very interesting but I don't do that on a regular basis because it makes me somewhat lightheaded so I basically just do one kind of really simple breathing as well into the nose out through the mouth I try to be I try to maximize the pleasure of each part of the breath cycle so I do in hold exhale hold in hold exhale hold so those four parts so like a books breathing like a full yes but I don't do even so that's how it started and I found that it made me feel out of breath all the time so I thought let me just try to maximize the pleasure so I'll breathe in whatever feels right I'll hold and when I breathe in its I would say pretty normal my whole that the at the inhale is very short my exhale I literally just let it out so just goes and then my hold on the exhale tends to be very long like 1015 seconds long and then you press a bit of breath through attention yes because it feels good yeah and this is currently what I'm doing I'm doing some breath retention some breakfast I just want to go if the alternate nostril thing if that has like a different effect like it yeah for sure a like what some studies probably not so the that the standard that you know modern medicine would want to make a supposition about it have been done but if you talk to Yogi's people have been practicing this for years they will say actually even which nostril you go in through first and out will make a difference as to whether it activates you order it relaxes you wait so you've got to figure this stuff out this weekend I was at an art of breath workshop in Santa Monica with a chap called Brian Mackenzie you've got a book that he's carrying up in your green room yes unlike the show was Brian on the dress he works at red ball almost certainly hey well I don't know if he works a red ball but I've followed Brian's with just a few months now and when I was here I saw he was putting on a workshop so I went to the workshop by in speed in the net stay for my podcast and you know he talks about different poets cause they're doing that a lot of research into breathing and one of those is one one two one where you breathe in and you can and one more to want is the rhythm so you can make that if you want ten ten twenty ten right that's the the protocol to use but you've got to figure out what works for you breathing is a huge rabbit hole right I I'm guessing you have a lot of really highly motivated people listening to your show who want specific advice whites and I guess that's where I've come from a place of where I want to impact a lot of people I once I don't want this to seem unachievable I know that every single person listening to this can do a simple daily breathing practice that will start to change their life so that's why I simplify so much it's not because I don't personally practice some things I can get pretty obsessed with stuff very obsessed with stuff but also when I'm trying to communicate with the public in books or on TV or one-on-one with patients I try and break it right down I want it make the might tip for getting people to make behavior change let's keep the boss super low start with the boss super super low get them feeling good about themselves doing it regularly feeling the difference and that will lead to them themselves going down the breathing rabbit hole but I just want to set them off and just show you just what is achievable do you know what I mean definitely and that's the approach that works on me and my population so I think there are different breeding techniques I think it is worth having a go and so me my mindfulness piece at the start of the day now is no longer meditation I'm sure it will come back to that at some stage you know it doesn't have to be the same 3 Ms for life as you say you have rules for when they work for you when they don't you check them out right I'm the same I think these streams provide a beautiful framework for people when trying to design their morning routine right I think if you cover those three bases mindfulness movement and mindset you are setting yourself up for a much better day than had you not done that now what you want to do in mindfulness there are many options what you want to do for your movement there are many options what you want to do for your mind sets what there are many options someone else might read letting go from David Hawkins I can't I can't stand this book this is putting this is getting me this is going to be pissed off first thing in the morning that's probably not the right book for you to read for your mind set piece right so that's what I like coming up with frameworks that people can individualize and personalize for their own lifestyle I can't remember where we started and how we ended a beat oh how we ended up there was a wonderful journey but where we started was libido so I when reading the book the stress solution I really liked the section on relationships I found it in terms of somebody who wants to make sure that they don't piss people off I was actually pretty surprised that like how would be the right word not really counterintuitive but it's very different like you were basically saying look if you're one a touch diary I thought that was super interesting like how often are we being touched people are being touched enough and then the notion of look if you're in a relationship and you're not having sex that is a problem and then I know how many people are going to start with well I'm stressed and I don't really feel like it you're like yo you still need to do it and I found that interesting and then the pushback on like telling people it doesn't even need to be romantic you just need to do it I was like whoa he must get people saying some things it's funny you say that because I know how does much pushback as you want because you're right I loved it I was like is awesome so two two things I want to I want to touch on first one is I don't feel I could have written that relationship section a few years ago you know this whole theme of this whole podcast because you're going through it or because of the personal discovery because the personal discovery and I fail it was probably a little bit what will people think right yeah right what will people thinks I'm that is probably the section of the book I'm proudest off the most if I'm honest or it really means a lot to me that someone what yourself who I deeply respect likes that part of book and it resonated with you that is awesome brush by the way it was but I means a lot to me so thank you for sure but there are various aspects that I think touch is important but let's just deal with that whole sex piece what I was trying to say is that look I'm trying to make the case that stress is the biggest libido killer out there and when you intersects Monday through Friday Monday through Friday sometimes I don't almost busy sort of so yeah I make exceptions on Friday night I won't lie okay but usually it's more of a like almost religious thing where I'm I'm trying to get [ __ ] done I don't want to derail from your your main point but when you talk about stress and like yeah so my thang Monday through Friday if I'm awake I'm either working or working out so there because I really start my routine Sunday night I'm a little lenient on Friday night but yeah Monday through Friday essentially I don't have sex as like I will say it never happens but it's really [ __ ] rare I feel like I'm betraying my objectives because that's too big of a statement I'm gonna I'm gonna take that back I'm very protective of my relationship that's first and foremost to me which is why I resonated with the relationship part of your book so much and I'm soup my wife and I are super careful on the weekends to be husband and wife to pretend like we don't have a business as much as we can and to connect and be physical and all that stuff but yeah Monday through Friday but but then what hearing from that is you and your wife have figured out a system that works for you right yes - Friday you guys I don't know what your wife does but you know you're hitting it hard you're working hard or you're working out you're getting stuff done but then you have intentionally created a part of your week well actually you're gonna start nourishing your relationship that is beautiful that is exactly that is totally consistent with what I would be asking people to do right I think the problem I see as a doctor is this men women constantly coming in complaining of low libido or not having sex different people in the relationship having a different perspective and a different view on that and not just the man wanted to have more sex and the woman nots go it also works the other way as well because one of the most humbling things dot says that people let you into their lives they tell you things that actually you would not otherwise generally hear from other people right so you really get a window into people's lives Oh God can you give us some examples obviously without any indication of who they came from so I mean look there are so many let me think yeah so look a couple comes in and this was this this particular couple did follow what the stereotypical path which was the guy was very frustrated that they were not having sex anymore so we never have sex or do they how old were they these guys were late thirties okay Wow okay late thirties you know when I'm sets anymore the his partner his wife was having a different viewpoint saying we do we just you know we're busy we're tired you were got kids to look after and the point I try making the book and and the point I made with this couple was look I get it you guys have different perspectives on this okay is it fair to say that you both would like to have more sex you know let's say your lifestyle did not exist you weren't this busy the kids weren't around all the time would you like to now clearly it's much better when they agree on that but yeah this couple did agree like there was she was like yeah I would love to but it just doesn't it doesn't fit in I'd rather get some sleep I'm sorry I say to the couples that don't agree one of them is like no no no this is enough and it was like well like you know although I don't see my job as conventionally a relationship counselor I got to tell you I think my job as a generalist a very proud generalist is actually often it is cycle it's psychology it is counseling not that I'm trained to do that's fair right but what do you say to these couples what's different different let medo do you say you should do it anyway sometimes yes um I took about scheduled people with the negative comments poised their fingers yeah I can see that 450 words a minute they're ready they're ready a psych leaver look hear me out first so I will not impose this on people who do not want sets right I take a very individual approach so it is not a global solution just to be a sleeper sofa maybe then to explain why is this so important why is touch important why is sex important like what what what does that do these things nourishes this is a book about living longer and healthier and there's a whole brilliant section the quarter of the book is on relationships because I think it is that importance I think that a lack of clothes nourishing relationships is one of the biggest stresses in our lives just not having it not having it no matter not a toxic relationship just not having or not having it but be if you do have it right and you're not giving attention to that relationship if you're taking that relationship for grants Ed's I think that is incredibly toxic on your stress levels incredibly toxic why is it so important it's important on multiple levels right touch it's got touch human touch is something we have now fought very valid reasons I might add we have become a society that is averse to touch rights our God talk about a minefield yes I am like yes I'll just say that yes well okay let's revisit this yeah the point I'm trying to make is we have underestimated the value of human such how primal it is how important it is now we become aware of this in the last couple of years right I shot a BBC one documentary last year know two years ago we were in Liverpool John Moores University with one of the world's leading researchers in our touch at nerve fibre what I learned that day blew me away and that particular chapter I was heavily influenced by his work and he says this human touch is not a sentimental human indulgence it is a biological necessity okay what why why so he has he and many colleagues have spent time studying something called the C tactile afferent nerve fiber okay let's break that down why is that important we have two different kinds of touch nerve fiber in our body fast ones and slow ones it is the same with pain so let me start by explaining mostly the same with muscle twitch yeah that's true I didn't think of that absolutely but they serve different roles and can I go one further if the book Thinking Fast and Slow can be believed the same is true of the brain there's regions of the brain that think fast and then there's regions of the brain that think slowly well it wouldn't make sense because touch for example and various different senses have to serve different roles so I still don't understand you're about to explain the difference between fast and slow about to do this yeah so let's start with pain we're going to touch let's just start with pain for a second because I think it's a easy way to get our head around it you are in the kitchen right you are boiling something and the pan is super hot right what happens instantaneously in a millisecond you put your hand away right that is because that pain signal has been transmitted along the fast nerve fiber to your brain and has told you where you been touched this is a problem move it away a few seconds later is when the emotional quality of that pain you might feel tearful exactly I noticed this with my kids you pull your hand you're like oh yeah my daughter when she was four she fell over in the back garden right now on the paving she falls over onto her knee what does she do immediately she just looks a bit of a muse she's rubbing her knee she is not crying right about three to four seconds later the coin kicks in that is the slow signal saying which carries the emotional quality to that pain right so far so quick yep right let's move it to touch so touch also has these two different nerve fibers so one of those nerve fibers the first one tells you geographically where you are being touched okay you know I touch you now you know I've touched you that right but you say oh he has touched me on my hand why is he done that okay there is also on our skin these see tactile afferent CT afferent nerve fibers which are optimally stimulated when you stroke them at three to five centimeters per second now now this is this is mad uh-huh when you are stroking your wife right you do not have a tracking device there there was an awkward pause right there okay when you're hugging it when you're watching a TV show and you're just rubbing her on let's say okay let's say when your friend is stroking their other half right you're not actually calculating am I doing this a 3/4 centimeters per second right but when mothers are watched in a research setting stroking their children they all automatically lock into that speed that's so [ __ ] weird it is innate it is within us why because those nerve fibers are optimally stimulated at that point so the next question is where do those nerve fibers get those nerve fibers go all the way up to our brain but to the emotional part of our brain the most primitive part of our brain and what do they do there they serve an emotional role in our body they help to lower the stress hormone cortisol they increase levels of the hormone oxytocin it lowers your heart rates when these nerve fibers are stimulated it lowers your blood pressure natural killer cells these are the part of your immune system that help fight off things like viruses and colds those go up significantly when the slow touch nerve fiber get stimulates can I tell you something please literally last night so my wife is traveling yeah so last night was gonna be our last night together for I don't know like five nights or something and and we do this quite frequently but if we need to reconnect she just Pat's her lap which means for me to take my shirt off lay my head down and then she just strokes my back dude I would freak out if she is doing it at that thing sort of on that tempo unknowingly that's really interesting I would say she is I would bet that she is because we're all human we're all wired bet there's a certain commonality in the way we're wired this is just something that is inbuilt the point I'm trying to make is that we have undervalued touch when we talk about senses you know you might say you know vision or hearing which one would you rather lose you know maybe it may be taste and smell we'll get a looking at what does touch come like we don't think about touch and I think what he says human touch is not a sentimental human indulgence of biological necessity when you read the research it blows you away but check this out Tom right a few years ago we're in America right in the NBA the teams who touched themselves more at the start of the season each other each other with the teams who ended up higher get out no no look I am NOT trying to say there were no other components there okay like just to be super clear sure sure but it is interesting if a waiter or a waitress hands you the check right and they tap you on your shoulder you will tip more that has been shown in multiple research settings right the point I'm trying to make is human touch is an important it is a fundamental part of who we are and interesting enough right when your wife strokes you like that hey I bet she's doing it at that pace right but B she is also getting a benefits so these C tarts out afferents most of them on our body and this is gonna freak you out I want our shoulder and upper band that's exactly yes literally that's my spot right so professor magloan talks about this and he explains that what that is so weird why there why why that why would we have such an important concentration of these nerve fibers on a place that we would find hard access our saris why we're social beings were meant to be with other people evolution had put it there so that actually it brings us together and the giver off touch also experiences a benefit so it's not just you who's having your CT afferent nerve fiber stimulated right it's not just you who's getting that and you're getting the benefit she is also getting the benefit as well so on an eeveelution well it's just super super interesting why we have such a high concentration on our back and when me and francis McGlone talked about this we hypothesize that it is you know it's because we are these social beings we are meant to be together it helps connects as when were with someone else and we do this it Bond's us hey you can do I don't own a pets but I've spoken to since this book came out in the UK a lot of people have asked me what about when you're stroking a pet and it appears the same thing happens when you stroke your pets not only is your pets getting a benefit you are also getting a benefit as well so touch is important what is the intervention I recommend I say keep a touch diary said write down how many times you are having appropriate writes appropriate affectionate human touch and I say look after write down in one week how many times see if the next what you can double it you know and then see the week at home and this is a very powerful important and dangerous topic I'll just keep with the appropriate thing but I will tell you a story so I went out on a business meeting but it was like out and about it had to do with film and the woman that took me out touched me no joke 20 times more than the average person would touch you it was so like it so caught my attention that I would I think at one point I actually laughed out loud because it was like touching my shoulder touching my arm she would you know touch forearm hand shoulder by it was like hilarious and I was like and yet it's working I couldn't believe how disarming it was I was like this is so weird like she's making me feel disarmed and relaxed and it was super bizarre and I thought is she doing this on purpose or she like optimized for something unknowingly it was really interesting and it was so outside the norm because you're right people do not do that but I couldn't leave even though I was hyper aware of it I was like it still has this really weird calming is the right bonding effect this is super bizarre and it's weird because it's become so it's become almost socially unacceptable to do that Oh dad the whole time I'm like does she know you can't do this like a touch people like this yeah like ten years ago in my consultation room if I was delivering bad news to someone right I would probably sit close low in my turn I may well put my hand on their back you know to deliver in a very caring and compassionate way I rarely do that these days I am scared I'm like maybe not even consciously I'm just a way that this is not appropriate you know be very careful you know hey I am saying that in this quest to keep us safe which I totally get and I supports rights I am just raising the question have there been unintended consequences have we underestimated search I think for guys this is a huge problem you know since I dive into this research I heard my buddy small right when I meet them now instead of that you know that high five or a handshake you know what often now I give them a hug right not in a weird way but and it feels good and you notice a response from it I talked about something in the book which I think you'll like called the 3d greeting right and I it's the pits and the piece on intimacy it's an assault on Turks voice and touch yeah greets your partner or greet someone close to you in three dimensions as you say you know eyes voice and touch I actually genuinely do this with my wife in the morning for fifteen second oh do you guys do the staring at each other for five minutes saying oh we did it once man I was like oh I don't know if I have you tried it no man please I beg you to try it so weird yeah I mean this was Anna I was at an event and you know it was in it was doctors actually and you know one of the sessions was about I think it's about breathing or meditation and it was an exercise you know that we were to participate in so we had to find a seat sit opposite someone who we didn't know right randomly mm-hmm and then you had to go through this process that I do describe in the book that with the knees touching and everything yeah with it so this was a girl rights who I didn't know and we sat together knees touching and then we have to look into each other's eyes for five minutes without looking away man it is so deeply uncomfortable yes right and what struck me at the end was oh my god I have just spent five years five minutes looking into another woman's eyes I don't think I've ever ever done that with my own wife right so for me it was like it was really it was really an educational and one love I thought this is mad I've just done that but what's really weird is when you do it it starts off feeling uncomfortable people are trying to look away but you sort of get in sweat and you you can pick up so much you can look you know it feels so you're looking deep into someone's soul right you said we're these sorts of pickup things again that was a learning experience for me I thought wow I should do that when my wife and we have done it mmm but only one only once but now has it's weird you know what just cuz life gets busy and we're you know I'm not thought about it again so I'm gonna make a commitment to you on air now Tom time we're gonna go back when I fly back on Friday night I'm going to do this with my wife I am because I want to actually I would love to actually redo it after I do with Lisa as well then yeah text me I'll text you guys because I think it's a it's really insightful I'm not saying this is not something I'm recommending people do day in day out what I am recommending people think about doing is the 3d greeting many people listening to this will be so busy in the morning so I'll be rushing around trying to get out for work if they've got kids try to get them off you are like passing ships with your other half quite often this has changed and transformed my relationship 15 seconds in the morning where we'll hug I will look her in the eyes I was say something nice she will say something nice to me and you know the mad thing Tom since the book came out so many people send me a DM on Instagram they say does Jesse you know that a 3d greeting thing like I've been trying it and it's making a huge difference one lady and not just one many people have said this to me but one lady in particular said I've been trying this with my husband he doesn't know that I'm doing it right and it is changing everything he's happier he's calmer he's more present with the kids is that so bananas yeah this really simple [ __ ] that makes such a big difference to just hug your partner look them in the eye say something nice touch it's crazy the science is that we know intuitively we're just missing the big picture we're getting sidetracked down the route of what is this tech gonna tell us right I cannot unsee that I'm just saying let's not forget about the basics how often should people have sex yeah you know give me some ideals here I would say in a relationship yeah yeah I'm talking with a significant other yeah you should be doing it at a time I think you should probably have that conversation with each other and actually not lead this thing to be that thing at it you don't really talk about that you actually haven't opened up front conversation the GU you know in a couple one-one-one half says how much they would ideally like the other half says what they would ideally like if there is a big discrepancy agree on a compromise I wasn't at a bioloid the biological necessity let me come to that because I think this is super-important sonica right it is simply and this is the point I was trying to make about people should schedule sex I was trying to make the point I use this tip with many of my patients and actually it brings the romance and intimacy back into their relationship they are too stressed to have sex they don't feel like it I'm saying would you consider for four weeks putting it in the diary as you would diary in anything else in your schedule more often than not they will come back a few weeks later not always and there's often other other issues to deal with more often than not people will come back and say the act of putting it in the diary the acts of prioritizing it the act of prioritizing that other half actually has led to more connection has led to more intimacy has often led to them having more sex so I think not having any sex not having intimacy leads that becomes the the self-fulfilling prophecy and what I was trying to say and it feels very apt to say this because I'm now here in you know we're in Beverly Hills I think yeah you know and I you know I've been in Hollywood this morning I say the movies have given us have sold us this artificial idea of what our relationship is that it's about the prince and princesses that actually you know what we can only be intimate with our parts when everything is perfect when the lighting is right when the candles are there when we feel chilled out that is not real life right real life is busy we life is hard I am all for romance but I think and I have seen this this is where this comes from from me I am giving you my experience my clinical experience as a doctor I'm looking at the science but I'm also marrying it with what I've seen in real life and I think for many people they are simply not prioritizing it they are not scheduling it they know the curvy contours off their iPhone more than they know the curvy contours of their partner rights and I think there's something in that and I guess some of those words are quite provocative in the book but I haven't had that much pushback I think people all recognize that this is an issue in terms of the answer you would like to know how often on a biological level should people be having sex honestly I don't know but I would speculate twice a week okay if I don't like being pushed on exacts but you like pushing me so I'm gonna say twice a week is there such thing as too much you asking for a friend I'm asking for yeah of course assuming no friction burns or anything like that like is there a point at which you are now diminishing returns I think there probably is yeah I think with with anything there is just a biological level I am NOT an expert on that so I don't want to proclaim to be I think it's got to be the right amount in the concepts of the rest of your life it's got to leave you feeling energized it's got to help you feel closer more intimate more connected it should have a knock-on effect on other aspects of your life if it doesn't of course there could be other factors there but I think that's what people should be looking for not just that act off having sex is what else is going on does it change the fabric does it change the texture of your relationship and I would say people give it a go you know if I don't know if your audience is predominately male or female do you know it's about 60/40 okay pretty evenly so you know people are listening to this maybe you know ask your other half to listen to this part or read that section of the book and maybe come up with an agreements and just try I would I would make the contention that we experiment in all aspects of our life we try a certain workout for a few days see if it agrees with us we tried diet for a little while see do we feel good on this if you are dissatisfied with the intimacy in your relationship rights if you feel you would like to connect more with your other half try the three degree thing for seven days try that for 15 seconds a day I get her and see you will feel the difference and if you feel that you're not having enough sex a try the three degrees because I think that will help connect you put it in the diary like your gym session like the meeting you have with your boss like the kids party you've got to take your four-year-old son suit puts intimacy in the diary now I do clarify in the book I'm talking about scheduling intimacy it does not have to mean sex every time it could be you know I don't know take a shower with your partner right and you may ask me Tom why is it then in 2019 we have a doctor having to say stuff like this right that would be a great question yeah but there what else he is I am responding to the things that I see in my clinic these are the problems that people are suffering with today therefore I want to give people tools that work that are accessible that are absolutely practical for them to do that work for the complaints that people come to see me with today maybe 20-30 years ago you wouldn't need a doctor telling you this stuff but even what how old is all this modern tech how old are smartphones 10 10 years what was the first iPhone twelve years came out in 2007 I think 2007 twelve years ago before that time I think intimacy was much less of an issue right I really think technology for all this benefit he's some stats in the book that were a little chilling in terms of how much less sex we're having now which is crazy it is crazy and there were different stats saying different things rights but just imagine this I think we can I think many of us will resonate with this this whole idea that we are physically in the same location with our partners but mentally we're not on the same place you're in the same room okay you're in the same bed you're lying on one half partner on the other half you are physically a few centimeters away from each other but in your heads you can be millions of miles away we're not personalized worlds we've got our own emails we've got our own social media feeds we've got our own Netflix is feeding us exactly what we want actually it is very hard for a fellow human being to compete with what an algorithm is feeding you to your own desires this is having consequences because what if the reason we're not having as much sex as before is simply because we're not allowing those opportunities to develop let's say pre technology what are two people doing in bed they can't go on your email right the can't go on social media they might read a book they might talk they might have a conversation they might hunt hug and that might lead to intimacy of some sort I don't mean always sex it might just lead to more intimacy it is almost like a cliche now that we're again on reflection I have said some quite controversial things in the book you know as I say we're all having AI affairs with our partners with our phones you know and I think if people sit and reflect on that you know I think it's an issue and simply intentionally removing the phone from the bedroom for example not only will I think that help your sleep will help you lower your stress levels if you are lucky enough to have a long-term partner right if that is what you want and you do have a long-term partner I genuinely believe it will transform your relationship not over weeks within days magical [ __ ] man good place to tap out thank you brother that was incredible good to have you back on the show love the book the stress solution check it out it for nothing else you got to read that section on relationships fantastic but thank you man for being here thanks for having me on something that somebody definitely everybody listening thank you for joining us we'll see you next time and until then be legendary take care of my friends peace that was deep for people who are struggling with their diets and they're struggling with what to eat obviously why don't you focus on when you eat when you eat is arguably as important or certainly of critical importance as well as what you eats