Rangan Chatterjee, the doctor-star of British TV: “I dream of making lifestyle the new basis of my treatments”

I was born into a family of doctors, my father transmitted his passion to me and my mother taught me natural medicine; I have always loved my job, but after several years of practice, I realized that with my medication I relieved the symptoms but I did not attack the root of the problem and really only helped one in five patients.

A personal event definitely made me switch. That winter, while staying in the Alps, I was very scared: my 6-month-old son had convulsions, his blood vitamin D and calcium levels were very low and he almost died. If modern medicine saved him by urgently administering the necessary nutrients, no one explained to me how it had come to this, and I myself felt guilty: with all my medical qualifications, I had no been able to prevent the totally predictable evil that nearly killed my baby.

Obsessed with the idea that the precious good of health must be maintained on a daily basis, I began to read, to document myself on nutrition and overall health factors, understanding that the body is a biological machine where everything is connected. I adopted new principles for myself, for my children and soon for my patients.

Diabetes, obesity, hypertension, depression... linked to our habits

Relaxation, sleep, nutrition and physical activity are for me the four pillars of health. If, thirty years ago, we essentially treated targeted conditions with adequate antibiotics, the nature of the ailments has changed.

Diabetes, obesity, hypertension, depression, insomnia... are global problems directly related to our lifestyles. In my office in Manchester, where I receive an audience of all social classes, I help my patients revise their habits.

“I don’t just put poultices on problems anymore”

A headache, migraines? Where I used to give medicine, I now try to understand what is going on in their lives. A depressive state? I will suggest a diet rich in unsaturated fatty acids, meditation and physical activity rather than antidepressants. By guiding towards small changes, I managed to treat insomnia, depression, irritable bowel syndrome, but also type 2 diabetes, chronic pain and certain cases of autoimmune diseases.

I don't just put poultices on problems anymore. A firefighter patient once told me that he took my advice because I was the first doctor to apply it in my own life.

A reality TV series

In my family, we have always been health conscious, but I gradually changed my food to fresh home cooking, as my own mother prepared it for me. I also gave priority to my 8 hours of sleep, by watching, an hour before going to bed, to cut the flow of my day. No more TV, Netflix, work, screen, light, phone calls, but a soothing evening routine: a chat with my wife, a bath, time for deep breathing. I have never taken so few medications.

Good health is actually something very simple that has been made complex. These are habits to rediscover, like sitting together around the table – the French ritual par excellence! –, instead of eating at full speed each on his own while working... and digesting badly because we are stressed.

This simple but progressive medicine inspired in 2015, and for three consecutive seasons, a reality TV series on BBC One, Doctor in the House. A documentary in which I go to voluntary families to examine their way of life and try, by modifying their cooking or their sleep pattern, to improve their health.

“I have become a much better doctor”

I thus spent four to six weeks with individuals to understand their way of life. All were medically monitored and took many pills. I suggested that they work on their good health instead of focusing on managing their disease. After the series, all were better, 80% of them had reviewed their habits.

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For my part, I believe that I have become a much better doctor, more caring, open-minded with my patients. I no longer tell them what to do, but they are partners to whom I offer options and who choose their own path back to health. I just tell them, “Identify the pillar that is yours, adopt a practice and stick to it. Everything I advocate is free with no side effects. At worst, it won't change anything, and at best, you'll change your life. »

I strive to find advice that patients can follow in their daily lives. For example, we know that maintaining muscle mass is one of the first anti-aging factors, and I explain to them how to prevent sarcopenia (the loss of this muscle mass) without gym classes or equipment, but simply by taking five minutes a day in his kitchen to build muscle and stretch. I do these exercises myself every morning while I run my coffee!

"As important as fruits and vegetables, I prescribe to my patients a daily quarter of an hour of time for themselves"

Another key to health is to relearn how to take time for yourself. We have never had such a full life: between our emails, our professional activities, our children, our old parents..., our stress is always at its maximum, and the body pays the high price. Any organ – stomach, brain, back... – can be affected.

However, many are waiting for the doctor's prescription to allow themselves to relax. I prescribe – especially to women, who listen to the needs of their children and their husband before their own needs! – a daily quarter of an hour of time for oneself. Not with his iPhone, but in a café with a book, good music, friends... It's as important for your health as fruit and vegetables. Just 15 minutes a day made the difference for all my patients who adopted this ritual, finding serenity and sleep.

To sleep, expose yourself to natural light

Faced with the epidemic of lack of sleep, I propose to stop fighting with our nights, but rather to take care of our exposure to light. To adjust to our circadian rhythms, I recommend complete darkness (0 lux) in bed (with a red light, promoting the production of melatonin, if a night light is needed) and exposure to natural light during the day: 15 minutes in full sun (more than 50000 lux) or on cloudy days (more than 10000 lux).

We need this difference in exposure to set our biological clock. During a day locked in the office, you only receive 500 lux. Also, a 20-minute walk during your lunch break, or, like me, a cup of tea or coffee in the morning light from a balcony or garden, will help boost your dose of light. natural... and to sleep at night. All you have to do, one hour before going to bed, is to cut yourself off from the world and the blue lights of the screens, so as not to block the natural triggering of melatonin, the sleep hormone, and to block emotional stress, which is responsible insomnia.

Europe's most followed health podcast

Personally, it's deep breathing, learned in yoga, that helps me unplug. But it's not easy: meditating is a struggle. Between my consultations, my family, my podcast to post every week [the most followed in Europe in the field of health! editor's note], my classes, I always have to be careful to modulate my pace.

I know that meditation changes brain circuits, reduces stress levels, improves sleep, concentration... Regularly, I prescribe it to my patients, with the help of apps like Headspace or Calm. But it remains for me a real job that I have to stick to every morning when I get up, otherwise I can't find the time. Meditating doesn't bring calm – one day you're peaceful, the next day you're agitated with a thousand thoughts! – but gives you time to observe your own strengths, makes you more empathetic with yourself. If I start with meditation, I know my day will be different.

Cultivating gratitude is another factor in good health. In the evening, at the table, we have a family game. We all have to answer three questions: “How did I make someone happy today? What did someone else do to make me happy? What new did I learn? I taught my two children, from an early age, to be interested in the positive – a useful practice in this stressed world! –, but this child's game is constructive for parents, because it teaches us to value the positive in our days.

“Being attentive to the positive for a few minutes each day improves our physical health”

Our brain, formatted to apprehend danger, has protected us for millions of years by focusing our attention on the negative of life. Today, science shows us, on the contrary, that being attentive to the positive for a few minutes each day improves our physical, emotional and psychological health. It can save us from feeling depressed and eating sugar to calm our emotions. Consciously changing our lifestyle will, unconsciously, change our biology.

Does it have a connection with my culture of Hindu origin? Anyway, I find that as I get older I'm interested in spiritual things. In the West, we are marked by a strong individualism. But if we feel concerned about the health of the planet, about the state of nature, if we start caring about others, about gratitude, our health will improve.

Medical school teaching only responds to 20% of diseases

What we learn in medical school is fantastic, but today only responds to 20% of what we see in our patients; we need a new toolbox that makes lifestyle the new basis of our treatments. I've been talking about it in the media for years. This is what I teach today at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London.

A thousand doctors have learned with me there, over the past eighteen months, what they had never learned at university. Among them are family doctors, cardiologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, who also come from the rest of Europe or the United States, who want to learn how to support their patients differently. And thus rediscover the taste for healing.

Doctors today are frustrated not only by their pace of life, but because they can no longer cure their patients, which is at the very heart of their oath... My progressive approach fails always to reverse the course of certain diseases but resolves many basic problems. I am convinced that medicine, in the next hundred years, will evolve in this direction, with the help of patients.

The first quality of the doctor, more important than his training, is to listen to what we have in front of us. Sometimes you can't help, but when you listen carefully without judging, that already has value. In twenty years in the profession, my patients have above all taught me compassion.

5 KEY DATES1977Born in Manchester, parents born in India.2001Graduated in Medicine and Immunology.2008Fellowship of the Royal College of General Practitioners.2015Regular columnist on BBC One and BBC News Channel. Inspires the Doctor in the House documentary series on BBC One. 2019Publishes Take control of your health. The New Art of Healing, Belfond (to be published October 17).

Take control of your health. The New Art of Healing, Rangan Chatterjee, ed. Belfond, 2019. A warm plea, with many exercises such as 3-4-5 breathing, flash sports in the kitchen or my ideal bedtime routine.

drchatterjee.com: “Feel Better, Live More”. On the site of this media doctor, a blog and podcasts with many contributors on the new lifestyle medicine.prescribing lifestylemedicine.org To follow the training in London lifestyle medicine.

This article appeared in Sens & Santé in October-December 2019.