Dr Rangan Chatterjee Change your mindset - in 15 minutes a day
In the second extract from his new book about ‘snacking’ your way to better health, Dr Rangan Chatterjee reveals easy ways to lift your mood
Our minds are not designed for the modern world. The incredible pace of human civilisation has far outrun nature’s ability to update the design of our brains to help us to cope with it. I’m convinced that this is a big part of the reason that one in four people in the UK experiences a mental health problem each year.
Our minds are overloaded. We’re bombarded by information, and mentally drained by constant demands on our energy and time. If we want to be healthy, it’s critical that we honour one of the body’s most powerful yet fragile organs – the brain.
This is why, on each of your Feel Better Days, I’d like you to spend five minutes focusing on your mind. It’s completely up to you to decide when to do these exercises, but my recommendation is to do them in the morning.
It’s not uncommon for us to wake up still full of thoughts and anxieties that our subconscious minds have been churning over all night. You may have been watching the news just before bed or got into a debate online, and this can have an effect on how you feel the next morning. It can lead us to feel panicky and unsettled about the day ahead, which starts us off on a bad foot, and makes it less likely that we’ll make good choices. Just five minutes in the morning can help to dramatically improve mood, and that’s going to increase our chances of having a truly fantastic day.
BE SURE TO DOWNLOAD
It’s a healthy part of human nature to be able to vent to those around us, but this isn’t always possible with the fast-paced lives many of us now have. I like to think of downloading as my free daily session of therapy.
The idea behind it is that our minds are constantly brimming with thoughts, especially first thing in the morning, when we have all the stresses and anxieties about the coming day swirling around inside us.
Most of the time, we just launch into our busy schedules without doing anything to get rid of these mental worries. Time and time again, I’ve found that spending just five minutes downloading them out of your brain can have a big effect on overall health.
Some of my patients like to call this health snack a “brain dump”, because you are literally dumping your thoughts out of your brain. There’s something so therapeutic about seeing all that worry contained as words on a page, which you can just chuck in the bin.
Once you start downloading regularly, you’ll soon find that you’re living every day with a clearer and less anxious mind, and your ability to absorb the ordinary stresses of modern life will start to soar.
The brain tap
Transfer those whirring thoughts out of your head and on to a piece of paper. I’d like you to find a quiet space, set a timer for five minutes and simply write down every thought that comes into your head, as it happens.
Some of my patients find this a bit difficult to begin with. My advice is just to start. There is no “wrong” in this exercise. It’s really important that you don’t filter or judge yourself as you’re writing. This isn’t a diary, or your debut novel, it’s a rubbish dump.
When you find your flow, you’ll probably notice all sorts of craziness pouring out of yourself. It might be complete gibberish. It could be stuff that you’d hate anyone else to know. This is good. It’s a sign that the process is working.
Don’t be tempted to do this exercise on your phone or laptop, or tell yourself you can just speak your thoughts out loud and process them that way. There’s something about the act of physically writing it all down that allows you to work through it all in a way that’s incredibly powerful.
Some people find it useful to buy a journal, as this can help to make your decision to create a regular practice of downloading feel committed and real. Treat yourself to the nicest one that your budget can stretch to.
Some of my patients would be mortified if anyone else read their innermost thoughts. So some lock their journal away or simply do their download each day on a fresh sheet of paper, which they then recycle or burn.
They tell me that there can be something profoundly symbolic about setting fire to all that toxic brain rubbish. Note: of course, if you do choose to burn your notes, make sure that you do it somewhere safe!
GO BACK TO NATURE
As wonderfully thrilling as cities can be, and for all the fun that can be found in your local town centre, urban life can be draining. The typical modern street is a landscape that absolutely bristles with stress.
Traffic, signs, adverts, shops, dogs, joggers, commuters, kids, smells, honking horns and wailing sirens – they’re all signals that the brain has to work hard to process and understand as it tries to keep us alert and safe. Compare how you feel after an hour at the shops with how you feel after an hour at the beach or in the countryside. Nature is tremendous medicine for the anxious mind. We know this intuitively, but we also know it from science.
Research has found that the more urban our environment, the worse our health becomes. Being out in nature has been shown to improve our mental health and our psychological well-being and reduce our stress levels.
We’re hard-wired to thrive in natural environments. We’re not supposed to be boxed into airless rooms, glued to television screens, crouched over phones or dodging traffic in polluted concrete mazes.
We evolved in nature, surrounded by greenery, bathed in sky and breathing in the healing smells of plants and trees.
Five minutes in nature
Spend five minutes each day enjoying nature, whether through sight, sound or smell. The wonderful thing about nature is that it’s not only free, it’s also readily accessible to many of us.
If you have a garden, go outside for five minutes, stare at the trees, listen to the birds, and watch the branches move in the wind. Focus on your surroundings and luxuriate in the experience. This is another health snack that’s fantastic to do in the morning – exposing ourselves to natural daylight at this time can be extremely effective in getting our natural daily rhythms in sync.
If you wish to enhance this even further, you could go outside on to the grass with bare feet. More and more science is suggesting positive health benefits from having this direct contact with nature but, from personal experience, the best reason to do this is that it feels fantastic. It wakes up the senses, and is a fabulous way to start the day. This is something I try to do most mornings, even in the winter.
You can even access nature while doing something else. For example, you could have your morning cup of tea with your window open and listen to the birds singing. Alternatively, you could drink it by the window and meditate on the branches blowing in the wind. Or you could have your morning cuppa in the garden. When I made this suggestion in my first book, The 4 Pillar
Plan, it proved wildly popular.
You could draw a picture while outside in nature or go outside to water and check in on your plants each day, taking the time to really notice how they have changed since the day before. If you don’t have a garden, or a nearby public green space, the sounds of nature can be of benefit. There are countless services available for free on Youtube, or on streaming services such as Spotify, that play the sound of waves crashing or birds singing. Get your earphones on, put your phone down and lie in a quiet space with your eyes closed.
Breathe deeply and regularly. Once again, the important thing is to try to lose yourself in the experience. You can add to this health snack by introducing the smells of nature to your session, either by buying essential oils or lighting candles.
BREATHE DEEPER
Many of my patients are reluctant to try meditation because it can sound difficult and, perhaps, even strange. At the heart of it is simply breathing. I’ve honed a selection of breathing exercises that are incredibly easy and quick, and they can deliver a lot of the benefits of meditation, such as stress reduction, pain relief, increased focus and better sleep quality. They can be done almost anywhere, as frequently as you like – unlike other powerful medicines, you can’t overdose on breathing. Start by finding a place in your daily schedule in which you can insert one regular breath-based health snack on each of your Feel Better Days. One of the things many people don’t realise is that, as well as keeping us alive, breathing acts as information to the brain. When we’re anxious or angry, our breathing becomes rapid and shallow. The brain notices this, and reads it as a signal that the world around us has become stressful and unsafe. But the opposite is also true. If we breathe in a slow and relaxed way we send a signal to our brains that the world around us is safe and calm.
Breath counting
Practise being mindful by counting each of your out-breaths. This is a simple technique inspired by the methods used by practitioners of Zen Buddhism. It’s particularly good if you struggle with concentrating for long periods or if you find it hard to pay attention.
Sit upright in your chair, and set a timer for five minutes. Make sure that your back is comfortably straight.
Take a few deep breaths in and out through your nose (or through your mouth if your nose is blocked).
Now, allow the breath to return to its normal rate and rhythm.
On the first exhale, count “one” inside your head. On the second exhale, count “two” inside your head. Keep counting on every exhale until you get to “five”. Try to stay focused on your breathing the entire time.
Once you have got to “five”, start counting again from “one” on the next exhale. Once again, continue counting on each exhale until you get to “five”. Keep repeating this cycle.
If you feel your mind has wandered and you’ve stopped counting, don’t worry. Gently and lovingly acknowledge what has happened, go back to “one” and start counting again.
Sometimes your mind might wander for quite some time, and you’ll find yourself counting beyond “five”. Once you’re aware that your mind has wandered, gently return your attention to the breath and start from “one” again.
Do this for five minutes.