Feel Better In 5: Your Daily Plan to Feel Great for Life

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I said, “Hey, look, if you can do that, that will be amazing. Fantastic.” So he walks out of the door, right? Chest puffed out, big smile. He is motivated, Marie, right? He doesn’t have a motivation problem in that moment. I make him a followup appointment in one month’s time.

Imagine that you go to see your doctor, complaining of a headache. Your doctor will listen to you describe your symptoms and give you a diagnosis based upon what you’ve said. They may say you have a tension headache or a migraine. You’ll probably then be prescribed one or more medications to help you with your pain. This is how doctors are trained. It’s how I was trained, in one of the UK’s top medical schools. Rangan and his wife, Vidhaata From your perspective, how do you see the increase in mental health awareness playing out in your practice? The vast majority of today’s health problems are rooted in our busy, modern lifestyles. So many people say they don’t have time for the gym, to overhaul their diet, to spend the quality time they want to with their loved ones—our wellbeing often gets added to a to-do list.I didn’t like it so much at first because there isn’t much text and it thus isn’t like the other books. But the great thing about it is that it helps us all to really get started on doing things to improve our life (or find new ways to do so). It sort of speaks to what I said maybe five, ten minutes ago, which is we think everything around help has to be really difficult and really hard and punishing and deprivation. I’m saying health can be fun. We don’t think about bad habits in the same way as good habits, so exactly what you said. Doing strength or bodyweight training before meals has been proven to improve blood sugar control and improve muscle sensitivity to insulin– something we could all do with these days. I’m passionate that Feel Better In 5 is a plan that’s relevant for each and every single one of us, whether we feel unwell or simply want to optimise our wellbeing. I really hope you’ll give it a try – and please get in touch to let me know how you get on.

So if you make it easy, you actually take motivation out of the equation. You make it easy, then it means that even on a day when you don’t have motivation, if it’s easy, you will still do the behavior. That’s the secret, that’s what all the behavioral change science tells us, and that’s what I’ve found in my clinical experience. When it comes to health, we don’t think that. We think, oh, if I’m going to do yoga, I’ve got to do a one and a half hour in-person yoga session. Do you know what? It’s fine, do that if you want. But also do five minutes a day. It really makes a difference. I’m not saying it’s either/or, right? You may already have some good habits in your life. Brilliant. But I bet you this book will help you see a couple of your blind spots and go, ah, maybe I should work on this as well. So I taught him five exercises that are in the book. I said, “So what do you think? Can you do them?” He goes, “Yeah, no problem at all.” I said, “Okay, what I’d love you to do is five minutes, twice a week, in your kitchen.” He says, “What? 10 minutes a week? I said, can you manage that?” He goes, “Yeah, easy. Of course I can manage that.” I said, “Okay, that’s all I want you to do. I’ll see you in four weeks.” Rangan Chatterjee: The second most important rule, I think, is where do you put that new behavior that you want to do? Right? Because a lot of us don’t really think about that. We think, oh, we’ll fit it in when we’ve got time.calf raises. This exercise targets your calf muscles but works your entire body as you are using your whole body weight. You can do this on the kitchen floor or, even better, on the edge of a step. Lift as high as you can onto your toes and then lower your heels down as much as your ankles will allow. Try and push evenly through the entire width of your foot – you can hold onto the wall if you’re having trouble balancing.As a bonus, if you have stairs in your house, you could also add in 10 step ups on each leg at the base of your stairs. He also says that to establish a habit, all that is necessary is to set aside five minutes a day – he says this because no one is too busy to not be able to find five minutes. Many of the things he advises people to do to change their lives involve self-care – like, exercise, for example, or just being kind to yourself. To establish yourself as someone who exercises, he gives a series of simple things you can do in five minutes that, if you have been doing no other exercise at all for years, will improve your strength. He suggests linking this five minutes to some other habit you already have – like waiting for the kettle to boil. As soon as you put on the kettle, you start some stretching exercises, for example. The point is to make a start. And his point about making a start is that doing one thing is likely to then snowball into other things – and so five minutes of light stretching, might encourage you to fit a walk into the day too, or it might make you think twice about eating a second biscuit. We are complex creatures, but one change in our lives can rippling in ways we can’t anticipate.