Dr Rangan ChatterjeeRecensioni

I wanted to read this to help with a mental reset around my health and fitness.

I’ve listened to Chatterjee’s podcast a lot and always find his conversation and attitude toward health to be realistic. He is a gp and uses his medical background and real world experiences to inform his health advice. This book is no different.

As the title suggests it breaks down your health into four pillars: Relax, Eat, Move & Sleep. And then in each section outlines strategies that can help.

For me it was more reminding me about things l already knew but what I like about Chatterjee is how he is realistic about what he advises. Even with intermittent fasting, he suggests a 12 hour window is much more realistic. He suggests working movement and exercise into your whole day rather than just 3 times a week in the gym and then forget about it. (Although he’s not saying you shouldn’t go to the gym unfortunately!

At first, I didn’t think this book was as good as the author’s previous ones, which I loved. Perhaps I didn’t find the beginning of the book very good. But I soon began to appreciate it.

To begin with. I will list what I thought were the book's negative features. I may have said this before in a previous review, but if so here it is again. Dr Chatterjee is a handsome man and it’s fine to see one or two photos of him. But it was overwhelming for me that the book included quite so many photos of him. Enough is enough.

It is a beautiful book with glossy coloured pages. But I don’t always have the best light at my disposal when reading and I often found trying to read the text somewhat difficult. especially when the print was white.

There is no point in a book being beautiful if one can’t read the text; the book’s content is what is important, not its appearance.

The aim of the book is to help us improve our life so we feel less stressed and happier.

Dr C distinguishes between Core Happiness and Junk Happiness.

Core Happiness consists of contentment, control and alignment. “Feeling aligned means that the person you want to be, and the person you are actually being out there in the world, are one and the same.”

A Junk Happiness habit is something we use to “numb the inevitable pain of living”. He said it, not me.

One of Chatterjee’s Junk Happiness habits when young was gambling. Another such habit could be a glass of wine, chocolate, Instagram or online shopping. (That’s what he says. For me, online shopping is not a Junk Happiness habit but necessary since there are quite a few things I can’t get hold of in the physical shops.)

Happiness is about making internal, not external, changes.

We’re told that if we follow the advice in the book we’ll become happier and healthier.

These days we have to make many choices; too much choice affects our health. Dr C maintains that this is one of the main reasons most of us feel burned out, overwhelmed, and stressed out.

He suggests methods of eliminating choice; we should save our energy for decisions that matter.

He introduces the concept of a Want Brain and the idea that purchasing what we want will make us happy.

We should not equate success with happiness. Dr C personally knows many highly successful people who are miserable.

He reveals his own problems/challenges by way of illuminating his points.

He used to hate losing and thus treated himself with a lack of respect when he lost, e.g. at pool.

Self-love and self-compassion improve physical health.

People who are self-compassionate are more likely to look after themselves and adopt healthy lifestyle habits.

The links between self-compassion, health and happiness are overwhelming.

“Self-compassion is the practice of extending kindness toward yourself. It’s about being there for ourselves and empowering ourselves to alleviate our own suffering.”

He gives us some mirror exercises reminiscent of Louise Hay’s though he doesn’t actually tell us to say “I love you” to ourselves in the mirror. He perhaps thinks that many of his readers would regard that as too much.)

We’re told about Dr Edith Eger, who survived Auschwitz. She was rescued in 1945 by an American soldier who saw her hand twitch in a pile of corpses. Dr C spoke to her in his podcast. (I’ll have to hear that episode, podcast No. 144.) In Auschwitz she reframed the situation so that the guards became the prisoners. She told him “The greatest prison you’ll ever live in is the prison you create with your mind.”

He tells us to seek out friction – the more you risk friction by telling your truth, the more aligned you become.”

He advises us to talk to strangers. Positive interaction with strangers helps us to feel connected and appreciated. Begin with a smile and a moment of eye contact and take it from there.

There’s a section about how to take a daily vacation, which can include meditation.

We need periods of stillness. He quotes Thich Nhat Hanh: “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

Feeling gratitude every day is the cure for negativity, It is virtually a non-negotiable for happiness. It brings us into alignment.

Throughout the book we’re provided with case studies, which are both enjoyable to read and help us understand what Dr C is telling us.

So, all in all, this is another very readable book to add to your collection of Dr C’s books.

An inspiring collection of relatively simple health interventions that are said to make a huge difference in many people's lives. I like that they all pretty much seem attainable, even the exercise ones, which otherwise are probably the ones I'd find the most daunting. But Dr. Chatterjee sets out some simple goals and suggestions that make you want to give it a try. He also doesn't promote any one certain diet, but rather the principles of eating whole, non-processed foods as much as possible, and de-normalizing sugar. This is basic stuff, but sometimes we need to hear it from a source that seems legit and can explain why.

My biggest takeaway on the science front was that when we get stressed, our bodies make extra cortisol, and to do that they have to steal ingredients that would otherwise be used to make other super important things like hormones. (Something I also learned about in Lara Briden's book on women's health.) No wonder reducing stress is so important. I always thought that was just sort of a feel-good, soft, catch-all suggestion, so it was interesting to read the details.

The other thing I really had very little idea about was how insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes happens. I'm grateful for the semi-decent habits that mean this is probably not going to be a huge worry for me and my family, but it made me thoughtful and a bit sad about how widespread it is, even though it's preventable. Modern habits are the worst, especially when they're rooted in lack of knowledge.

I'm reviewing this book under its UK title instead of its American one... in America, it's called "How to Make Disease Disappear," and I just instinctively cringe at something so clickbait-y.

I much appreciated Dr Chatterjee’s previous two books but I now realize that this one is actually the best, though I didn’t think so at first.

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).

The basic idea is that though most of us cannot spend much time every day on various pursuits (exercises), we can all spend five minutes, three times a day, five days a week on such things.

We will feel better within days and our initiative will lead to “meaningful and long-lasting” change.

His plan is easy to follow and requires only “the smallest amount of willpower”.

He calls the various things we can do “health snacks”, some of which are for our mind and reduce stress and anxiety, some for our body to get us to move more, and some for our heart to “strengthen our essential connections”.

We should do one of each kind a day. I understand this completely as an optimal solution, but my suggestion is that we could begin by doing the ones we feel for, no matter which category they fall into.

Dr C tells us that the important thing is to get into the habit of doing our three health snacks a day. These will have biological effects on our body just like medicine (but will be much more positive – my comment). They will change our system and rewire us.

When you do some of his Body health snacks, you can “change the expression of your genes, wind back the ageing process and increase levels of the brain hormone, BDNF, which helps you make new nerve connections and may improve your mood”.

He has six tips for making changes that stick:

1) Start easy.
2) Connect each snack to an existing habit.
3) Respect your rhythm.
4) Design your environment (e.g. Leave a dumbbell by the kettle that you can work out with whenever you’re waiting for the kettle to boil, go through your cupboards and remove all the sugary snacks, and consider removing the TV from your bedroom.)
5) Use positive self-talk
6) Celebrate your success.

An example of a mind health snack is “the brain tap” – “Transfer those whirring thoughts out of your head and on to a fresh piece of paper”.

Another is “Spend five minutes each day enjoying nature, whether through sight, sound or smell”.

Being in nature lowers stress levels, lessens depression, improves mental focus, boosts the immune system, increases endurance, reduces tiredness, reduces chance of disease.

As regards Dr C’s breathing exercises, which are placed in the Mind section for some reason, these are “Simple Breathing” and “Breath counting”. They are all well and good but I’m somewhat disappointed that he doesn’t include some of the good breathing exercises he presented in one of his previous books, which I much preferred, since I don’t own those books.

The part of the book I am most enamoured of is the Body section which deals with physical exercises.

Unfortunately, most of these I am unable to do without the aid of one of my physiotherapists, who have both gone on holiday for the next three weeks. I can’t do them by myself because I can’t do an exercise and look at the book at the same time, and am unable to remember exercises in my head without having done them hundreds of times.

Some of the exercises I just can’t do with or without help, e.g. one called “wall cogs”, whatever that means. This exercise requires that one’s bottom, upper back and back of one’s head always have contact with the wall; but it is impossible for my bottom and the back of my head to have contact with the wall at the same time, presumably because my back is not straight.

I can sort of do Jogging on the Spot and Jumping Jacks, and can do Sumo Squats, and do these each day while my physios have abandoned me.

I can’t do each of these exercises for five minutes but I can do a minute or two of each one, the one after the other.

There are loads of exercises, all illustrated by photos, though personally I also need verbal explanations for these.

And, as regards photos, though the good doctor is a personable man, as I mentioned in a review of one of his previous books, I really feel we could do with fewer photos of him, and perhaps instead photos of his wife.

The heart snacks have the intention of improving the quality of our connection with friends, family and partners.

One example is the “Tea Ritual”- “Stop what you are doing and sit attentively with a friend or partner”.

Another is “Perform a five-minute act of kindness”.

A third is “Do something you love for five minutes each day”. (I presume this has to do with one’s connection to oneself.) That’s easy for me. I love reading and writing book reviews. So I do things I love for a couple of hours every day, more or less.

It’s important that we choose the health snacks we really want to do.

We are told that the “Ripple Effect” occurs, by which Dr Chatterjee means that tiny changes in routine can trigger new, positive changes in other areas of our life.

Since I’ve learnt much about optimal nutrition from the Medical Medium, Anthony William, I would like to comment on Dr C’s brain-nourishing smoothie.

He extols the values of blueberries but fails to mention the vastly superior qualities of wild blueberries, which thus would be an even better ingredient for his smoothie.

And in his “Happy Brain Smoothie”, Dr C recommends using cow’s, goat’s or unsweetened plant milk, whereas I would suggest that cow’s milk is not to be recommended.

Otherwise, his suggestions for Smoothie ingredients, such as raspberries, cinnamon, turmeric and ginger, are of course mostly excellent. (It was in fact the neuroscientist Miguel Toribio Mateas who created the smoothie.)

The book also comprises case stories so we can hear how doing the various exercises has helped Dr C’s patients.

I feel that the print could have been larger so as to take into consideration us older readers or others whose sight may not be perfect.

But, all in all, I feel this latest book of his provides an excellent help for us time-constricted and stressed denizens of the modern world. If this book can’t help us to improve our lives and ourselves, what can?

Excellent book that is full of advice to help you feel well and live well.

This is another excellent book by the esteemed Dr Chatterjee.

I listen to his podcast interview every week and am dismayed that I have been unable to see his amazing Doctor in the House series, because our limited Danish TV companies refuse to buy it, though it has been transmitted to many, many European countries, as far as I have heard.

Dr Chatterjee, understanding that we are all far too busy these days, has identified stress as being our number one problem, and in this book suggests various solutions by which to relieve it.

He is himself extremely busy and prone to stress so he knows the problem, and in the book refers to various aspects of his own life, and introduces us to his family.

He provides us with the term “micro stress doses” or MSDs and shows us how our lives are overloaded with these small stressful events.

The first pillar of the book deals with meaning and purpose, the second deals with relationships, the third deals with stress as it manifests in the body, including poor diet, the wrong kind of exercise and unhelpful daily routines, while the fourth pillar looks at our mind.

We are recommended to do affirmations, which, enjoined by his mother-in-law, he does himself. Wow, a doctor who does affirmations and a man that listens to his mother-in-law – I love him!

We learn the value of reframing – seeing the positive in your situation, and having a daily practice of gratitude.

It is helpful to schedule our time - ´do` time - and make a start to do something we haven’t previously felt we had time for that gives us joy, such as taking up a new sport or hobby, or something that involves movement or exercise.

We need me-time every single day: we should listen to relaxing music or meditate with an app such as Calm.

Rangan informs us of the value of “zoning-in” in the morning instead of diving into our stressful life with full force.

By “zoning-in” he means carrying out a morning routine for “sending rivers of thrive information into your brain and body”. This routine should include short interventions from what he calls “the three M’s” – Mindfulness, Movement and Mindset.

Mindfulness can consist of doing one of the breathing exercises he recommends, being in nature or meditation.

Movement can be skipping, t’ai chi or yoga.

Mindset can be gratitude, affirmations or loving-kindness meditation.

In a chapter about how to live more we are encouraged to find our ikigai.

This should meet the following four criteria: 1) doing something you love 2) doing something you’re good at 3) doing something the world needs and 4) doing something you can make money from.

Rangan reminds us of the vital importance of human touch – it is a biological necessity.

Affectionate human touch lowers the heart rate, lowers blood pressure, reduces cortisol levels, raises levels of natural killer cells (which defend against infection) and increases parasympathetic tone, which puts us into thrive state.

Those in marital-type relationships need to focus on intimacy, which doesn’t necessarily mean sex.

It has several components:

1) Trust
2) Feeling like two members of a team
3) Being present with each other
4) A deep level of care for the other person
5) Sharing profound information with each other you wouldn’t share with anyone else.

There’s a chapter on nurturing our friendships.

In the Body section we learn about the importance of our microbiome. Diversity in our diet and thus in our microbiome is crucial.

He encourages us to “eat the alphabet” and aim to eat 26 different plant foods a month.

Look for new foods to buy. Skip a meal now and again Eat fermented foods such as kimchi, sauerkraut or kefir. Avoid artificial sweeteners.

There’s a chapter on how exercise fights stress; Rangan suggests indoor climbing, open-water swimming. T’ai chi, skipping, a run in nature, Nordic walking (walking with poles) and Bikram yoga, which combats depression.

He enlightens us about heart rate variability. A young doctor recently scared the life out of me when she informed me that my heart rate was absolutely regular since I’d just learnt about heart-rate variability and how if your heart-rate becomes completely regular you will die in the next second or two. One’s heart-rate variability (HRV) should be as high as possible. With a high HRV the time between each heartbeat is constantly changing. Low HRV indicates that our body is in a stress state and not thrive.

You can get an app that monitors your HRV. Consuming alcohol and watching Gordon Ramsay on TV lowers your HRV!

There’s a chapter on resetting our rhythm. Rangan suggests the use of red light bulbs as nightlights. Amber glasses that block blue light are suggested for evening use to help you sleep better.

Time-restricted eating (eating within a twelve-hour window each day) helps with weight loss, blood-sugar control, general stress levels and digestive disturbances.

There’s a useful and informative chapter about sleep, including tips for night shift workers.

In the final section on mind, Rangan discusses technology overload and strongly suggests taking a digital holiday. There’s even a small part on Facebook Brain!

He introduces us to various valuable breathing techniques, including the 3-4-5 breath, box breathing and alternative-nostril breathing.

In the 3-4-5 breath, breathe in for three seconds, hold for four seconds and breathe out for five seconds. This is effective for patients prone to anxiety or stress.

One of the things I appreciate about the book is that the author does not insist we try to do everything, or even a whole lot. He suggests an hour of this, or 5 minutes of that, and before we know it, we’re in the process of transforming our lives.

This is a beautiful book. Rangan’s first book was absolutely great but in this one he excels himself: everyone can benefit from reading it. This is a stressful world and Rangan presents a myriad of valuable suggestions, the implementation of only some of which may well transform our life.

This is the American version of “The 4 pillar plan” so please see my review of that book.

This is an excellent book, providing us with basic, necessary information about how to keep or regain our health. Dr. Chatterjee tells us how to relax, eat, move and sleep, these being the four pillars of health.

With his tv-show “Doctor in the House” Dr. Rangan Chatterjee is educating the British public about how to become healthy. This show has been sold to about 70 other countries but unfortunately the Danish TV companies (I live in Denmark) are apparently not interested. Tough luck for us.

Dr. Chatterjee is one of my new heroes, since he is both transforming the lives of thousands of people for the better and also showing us how the doctors of the future need to be – they need to get away from prescribing medicine, which is harmful in the long run, and begin to teach people how to heal themselves by improving their lifestyle. As Rangan states, “the practice of medicine will also need to evolve”.

Rangan has reversed type 2 diabetes, got rid of depression, eliminated irritable bowel syndrome, lowered blood pressure, reduced menopausal systems without the use of hormones, conquered insomnia, helped people lose weight, got rid of severe migraines and even reversed autoimmune conditions, all without the use of any medication.

He does not decree that we need to do everything immediately but gives us ideas about how we can begin to improve our lifestyle in the four areas, one thing at a time, or whatever appeals to us. If we can’t meditate for 15 minutes, then we can begin by meditating just for a few minutes.

Re relaxation, he suggests 1) me-time every day (he’s found that stress due to lack of me-time is a big issue for many) 2) weekly screen-free Sabbath 3) keep a gratitude journal 4) a daily practice of stillness and 5) eat one meal per day around a table without an e-device (again, he has discovered that many families have stopped eating meals around a table together as they did previously, but instead eat in front of the TV.

Re eating, he suggests 1) de-normalize sugar and retrain your taste buds 2) eat five different vegetables every day 3) eat all your food within a twelve-hour window (what Dr. Mercola also advises and terms “intermittent fasting”) 4) drink eight glasses of water per day and unprocess your diet by avoiding any food product containing more than five ingredients.

Re moving, 1) walk at least 10,000 steps per day (though I’ve seen from British tv-programmes on health, with for example, Michael Mosley, that just walking half an hour a day will suffice 2) do a form of strength training twice a week 3) do a form of high-intensity interval training twice a week 4), make a habit of “movement snacking”” 5) do daily glute exercises to help wake up the glutes.

Re sleep, 1) Create an environment of absolute darkness (in the bedroom), 2) spend at least twenty minutes outside every morning 3) create a bedtime routine 4) manage your commotion (minimize any activity that will raise emotional tension before bed) 5) enjoy your caffeine before noon.

Rangan doesn’t just tell us what to do, he walks the walk himself. The book is crammed with photos of the handsome doctor doing the various activities he advises us to do, relaxing on a park bench, buying fresh vegetables at the market and taking a brisk walk, for example.

We have previously focused mostly on the importance of exercise and eating healthy food but now Rangan tells that adequate sleep and daily relaxation are just as important.

The book is extremely readable since we are told about what Rangan himself does and are also presented with edifying case histories.

The difference between the author and most GPs is that he listens to his patients and thus finds out how they live their lives and is better able to find out what they are doing wrong. In the TV programme Doctor in the House, he moves in with a selected family so he can really see what they’re doing and eating, and what rubbish their kitchen cupboards contain (which he then encourages them to chuck out).

He has discovered that many of our problems stem from an addiction to digital device such as our smartphones, and provides suggestions for letting go of these addictions.

He teaches us 3-4-5 breathing, breathing in for 3 seconds, holding our breath for 4 seconds and breathing out for 5 seconds.

He’s not fanatical about what exactly we eat, but we need to cut down on sugar, read labels, avoid processed foods, remove unhealthy food from our kitchen cupboards, as stated, and instead keep healthy snacks readily available at home and at work so we’re not tempted by unhealthy ones.

As regards the five portions of vegetables we should strive to eat each day, these should ideally be of five different colours.

We are informed about our microbiome, i.e. the “bugs”, as he calls them, that live in our gut. An ideal microbiome is a diverse one, and the more diverse our eating, the more diverse our gut bugs. These love plant-based fibre. Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables are especially loved by these bugs. They are beneficial for the immune system and sooth inflammation.

One particularly beneficial bacterium is Akkermansia muciniphila, which feeds on onions, garlic, leeks, artichokes, yams, bananas, Brussels sprouts, etc.

Walking more will reduce our risk of getting Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart attacks, strokes and type 2 diabetes and will improve our mental well-being and quality of life.

Strength training is important as it will reverse ageing, reduce risk of muscle loss, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke and improve our brain health.

We are given a five-minute kitchen workout complete with illustrations. This includes 5-10 squats, 5-10 calf raises, 5-10 press-ups (if like me you’re not strong enough to do them on the floor, you can begin by doing them against a wall and then a kitchen worktop), 5-10 triceps dips and 5-10 lunges.

We’re also provided with valuable exercises to wake up our glutes. (I’ve learnt the word “glutes” from Rangan.)

We learn about the importance of getting adequate sleep and I was introduced to the idea of purchasing red light as a night-light. Red light has the least impact on your body’s circadian clock. Blue light from computers etc is harmful and it is beneficial to use amber glasses to block it out.

Though I already knew much of what Dr. Chatterjee had to say, I greatly appreciated this well-written informative book. I highly recommend that everyone read it. It has appeared in the USA under the name “How to make disease disappear”. I’ve been reading that book too at the same time, since I had ordered them both from the library and it doesn’t harm to read the same thing twice and thus more easily assimilate the information, His new book “The stress solution” will soon be appearing so I’m looking forward to reading that too.