Episode: 203
8 Realistic Healthy Habits That Make a Huge Difference
with Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, MD
Have you ever wanted to know exactly how a Harvard doctor grocery shops?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a world-renowned stress and public health expert, shares her evidence-based habits for grocery shopping, meditating, exercising, and more.
Learn 8 simple, science-backed approaches to feel calmer, healthier, and more balanced starting today.
Listen on:
Framing your goals positively makes all the difference. Instead of 'I don’t want to be stressed,' say 'I want to feel strong and in control.' Your brain needs a direction.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, MD
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Transcript
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (00:00):
Everyone listening, you probably think you are an excellent multitasker. A hundred percent of us think that we are excellent multitaskers. The truth is only 2% of human brains can effectively multitask. Multitasking is a scientific myth. There is no such thing. If you can do 20 minutes of a walk every single day, great, it's the equivalent of a Facebook scroll. Seriously, we all scroll. That's true. Or Instagram or choose your poison.
Mel Robbins (00:24):
So you say in your research that there are six elements that make up an incredible life. What are they?
(00:34):
Hey, it's your buddy Mel, and you know the other day I was standing in the grocery store staring at the pickles and it occurred to me, Mel, you haven't changed the way you grocery shopped in probably five years. I move through the grocery store the exact same way. Every time I walk in the door, I buy the exact same things. Most of the time I don't even have a plan. I bet you're the same way. I mean, have you ever stopped to think about it? Just imagine if I were to put a tracker on you. I know that would be kind of creepy, but let's just say that I was going to put a tracker on you. I bet if we mapped you going into the grocery store about a dozen times, you would walk the aisles the exact same way every time you go, you would stop at the exact same spots every time.
(01:24):
Well, today you and I are going to learn that there is a much better way to grocery shop a way that's going to lower your stress, a way that will make you healthier. I mean, this is going to blow your mind because you are going to learn it from a Harvard medical doctor. I mean, how cool is that? We're going to the grocery store with a Harvard medical doctor, but that's not all Harvard's Doctor Aditi Kar, one of the world's leading experts on stress. She is back. You loved her the first time she was on the Mel Robbins podcast. She is back with eight proven and very simple hacks on everything from how you and I can grocery shop better to one change that she makes all of her patients do whenever they're on a zoom call, it immediately is going to lower your stress. She's also here to teach you about the life-changing impact of something called a fake commute. I don't even know what that is, but I want one and you're going to want one too. And she's also going to explain that there is this habit that's related to your bottom.
(02:26):
The thing that you're probably sitting on right now if you're listening to me, if you're in your car or you're at work, but there is this particular habit that you have that's related to your rear end. It is slowly killing you. Wait till you hear this research and what you need to do about it. And that's just the tip of the iceberg on the things that you are going to learn today. And more importantly, what I love about this conversation is that these are simple changes that you're going to be so inspired to make in your day-to-day life. They're going to lower your stress, amplify your happiness, and make you healthier. And what I love is you're going to be able to make immediate changes to your habits that are going to make you feel healthier with this advice from Dr. Aditi. And here's how we're going to do this. We're going to go down to our studios in Boston for this incredible conversation. I just want to jump right in. Take us to the grocery store. How does a Harvard doctor shop?
Mel Robbins (03:20):
What are the best foods to buy? Let's hear your secrets.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (03:23):
A simple thing I tell my patients is to walk the perimeter of the grocery store. So as you go into your grocery store to figure out what am I supposed to eat to heal or to strengthen or protect my gut brain connection, just go on the perimeter. You have fruits and vegetables that's really important for a strong gut-brain connection. You can go into the dairy section for fermented foods like yogurt, kombucha, kefi, there's so many fermented foods that are there, whole grains and then lean proteins. You can follow also a Mediterranean diet and that word is kind of deceptive because it's not really a diet, it's a way of life.
(03:59):
The Mediterranean diet is sort of the gold standard in terms of the way of eating. It's been used in all of the countries in the Mediterranean for eons, for centuries, and now it's slowly making its way here to the us. So focusing on a plant-based diet, eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, minimally processed foods, whole grains, beans, nuts, oils like olive oils and minimizing dairy and red meat. And most importantly here in the us, the reason I mentioned the periphery and the perimeter of the grocery store because here in the US and likely in other countries as well, when you go into a grocery store, the perimeter is where you have the produce, the dairy grains and meats. And in the center, all of those aisles are processed foods. Many of them are ultra processed foods, especially here in the us. And so you want to minimize your consumption.
(04:49):
This is not about becoming a monk and leading an existence where you are not engaging with food because food is pleasure and it is important, and especially when you're feeling a lot of stress, eat a little chocolate cake. It's good for you, it's good for your soul. I certainly don't refrain, but it's about when you create a habit and when you have that habit of a slice of chocolate cake, I talk about this in the book with one of my patients, a slice of chocolate cake every single night at 11 o'clock, and then it starts affecting your cholesterol and all of these other things. And then you're saying, okay, wait a second. I got to get a handle out in this and it can be a slippery slope. So really trying to focus, be practical in what you eat. It doesn't have to be this huge lifestyle overhaul a little bit can go a long way. So if you can make some simple swaps, like put a few forks fulls of sauerkraut in your sandwich today when you're having lunch or at night, have a little bit of extra helping of vegetables. Simple daily things can make a big difference in the long run. And then what this does is when you have prebiotics, probiotics as sort of Mediterranean diet, it doesn't have to be all day every day, but if you can start slowly incorporating a little bit at a time, it strengthens your microbiome.
Mel Robbins (06:03):
Wow, that is super cool. So as a Harvard trained medical doctor, when somebody comes into your practice, do you advise them to take supplements to improve their gut?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (06:16):
Every day people would come in with bags of supplements and say, what should I take Dr. Nerurkar? What's going to help me? What's not going to help me? My standard line for every single patient who came in, I would look at all of their medications, I would write them on the medical record. To me, very much taking a supplement is like taking a medication, right?
(06:35):
And so my approach is always to strengthen and give people a sense of empowerment to heal themselves from inside out. And so that's not to say I don't want that to be taken out of context. I very much am a part of the medical system. I believe deeply in the conventional medical system in medications to treat conditions. But I mean when people come to say, what supplements should I take for my stress and my burnout?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (07:01):
I say try because I've had patients come in saying, I sleep four hours a day. Can you tell me the best supplement to take to manage my stress and burnout? I drink four cups of coffee a day, sometimes seven or eight cups of coffee a day. I sleep four hours a day. I'm just powering through what's the best supplement to take. My answer is that sleep is a therapeutic intervention. Let's focus on your sleep. Let's decrease your caffeine intake. Let's get you moving a little bit. These are the supplements that I want to really instill in people rather than popping a pill.
Mel Robbins (07:31):
I fucking love that answer. And you know what else I'm thinking about is the fact that we just roll our eyes or we don't. When you hear the advice, just get better sleep. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store, like these small interventions. It's easy to dismiss this because you think that the stress is so big or your problems are so big that there's no way that something so little would actually impact something so big. And I have always found in life that the bigger the problem and the bigger the issue, the smaller the solution.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (08:14):
I would say parent yourself back to a better state of health. You know that if you are a parent listening or if you think about how your own parents were, maybe that's not the best example because you might not have had great parents, but you know what it means to be a good parent, right? Like a good bedtime, protecting sleep, minimizing screen time, eating good food, a little bit of exercise every day. There are things that we tell our children all the time. If you don't have kids, you have nephews and nieces, there are things that will help them. Of course, the adult brain is different than a child's brain, but the adult brain is developing as well because of the principles of neuroplasticity. Your brain is a muscle
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (08:55):
And it responds to external stimulation and external influences. Even today, I've had patients who have been 80 years old and made behavior change and that has made all the difference in their stress and burnout. So these small little things actively influence the brain because of neuroplasticity and can change and rewire your brain for less stress and burnout. How does sitting all day
Mel Robbins (09:17):
Impact your stress?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (09:19):
As you may have heard in pop culture, sitting is the new smoking. The science shows that sitting. It's not just that exercise is good for you and moving is good for you for your stress, anxiety, burnout. It's that sitting is actually bad for you and it can increase your sense of anxiety, stress, and burnout.
Mel Robbins (09:40):
Wow, maybe we should have ordered standing desks around here. Thank God we're only in here two days a week.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (09:49):
And of course you want to sit and for me, when I can never use a standing desk, I can't think, right? I need to sit down and do my work and have my deep thinking. I wanted to share a couple of pretty alarming statistics about sitting. There was a study of 800 people and the ones who sat the most. This is like knock your socks off data. The people who sat the most had 112% higher risk of diabetes, 147% higher risk of heart disease, a 90% higher risk of death from heart disease and a 50% higher risk from death overall, all to say that sitting is actually bad for our health, our wellbeing, and as it turns out, your stress and burnout, how does sitting
(10:39):
Trigger stress? The mechanisms of action aren't entirely clear, but the data suggests that when you are sitting for prolonged length of time, you're stewing in your own emotions so to speak. And so it's that getting up and moving creates a whole cascade of positive biological changes to your brain and your body. And when you're sitting for long periods of time, that doesn't happen. It also has a cardiovascular benefit or rather it's detrimental to your cardiovascular health to just sit because a body is meant to move. Your body is the greatest machine, and so use that machine to do what it's meant to do. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to become an Olympian, but certainly getting up and moving a little bit every day, even if it means five minutes between your zoom meetings, get up, take a walk, stretch, sitting for prolonged periods of time. Because think about it, we sit all day at work, you sit all day at work and then you sit in a car going back home and then you sit on your sofa all day. So the human body hasn't been designed to just sit all day. We are meant to move and move our bodies.
Mel Robbins (11:50):
As a doctor, what do you recommend? My watch has that standup thing. I love it
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (11:55):
And
Mel Robbins (11:55):
I don't realize how much time will go by and it's like, oh, I haven't stood in two hours. Holy cow.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (12:00):
I love that. I would say there isn't necessarily a prescription, like a dose relationship for sitting and when to stand up and what's the dose of standing and sitting? Just do it when you can. You have a two hour meeting, can't stand up right after that two hour meeting. Instead of sitting on your slack channel and responding to emails or doing all of those things, get up and walk around. There is something to be said, right? Like Plato, Aristotle, all of these greats talked about the benefit of a walk, that mental health benefit of taking a walk.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (12:30):
And so it doesn't have to be this long, profound walk. Just get up and stretch your body, do some gentle stretching, some exercising. Connect your breath to your movement, to your posture. This is really important because that's a way to tap into your mind body connection as well.
Mel Robbins (12:43):
How can you use your commute or time that you're spending carpooling as a moment for reset?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (12:51):
85% of employees right now favor hybrid work. I am a hybrid worker, as are you many people on your team. There are so many benefits of hybrid work, increased autonomy, greater productivity, and less stress and burnout as it turns out. However, our commute back in the day when we all used to commute to and from the office, it served two important roles. The first was geographic getting you from point A to point B. The second more important was psychological. It got you out of home mode and into work mode. Think about when you're working from home what you do. You set up your laptop often on your kitchen table because many people don't have an office. So you set up your laptop, you do all of your morning stuff to get the kids ready or to get yourself ready or get your dog or pets or spouse or partners, and then you just sit down on your laptop and you start your day or you sometimes just get out of bed.
(13:44):
Hopefully you're doing the five second rule. You get out of bed, brush your teeth, put on some clothes, sit down at your laptop. Your brain loves compartments. That is why in 2020 when we were parenting, living and working in the same space, it was very difficult for us to function because your brain needs compartments. When you are giving yourself no time to transition from home mode in your bed asleep to work mode on your laptop, your brain can't adjust as well. So what you can do is you fake your commute, especially if you're working from home. It can again, five minutes, two minutes if that's all you have. Get your laptop, your workstation set up. Maybe you have a desktop, get your workstation set up at your home.
(14:26):
Maybe it's the kitchen table. Put on your clothes that you're wearing for the day. Get out of your pajamas, head outside, take a small walk, go grab a cup of coffee, look at your to-do list, look at your schedule and your meetings. What do you have planned for that day? You take a few minutes to just map out the day, come back into your workstation, your quote unquote office and start the day.
Mel Robbins (14:49):
Why does that work?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (14:50):
It works. It honors your need for brain compartmentalization while still you reap all of the benefits of a hybrid work model or working from home, the flexibility and all of that. The reason it works is because your brain needs time and space to transition. We are multidimensional creatures, humans, and we have many roles that we fulfill and we have to honor all of those roles and each of those roles and this fake commute allows us to honor all of those roles, but also honor ourselves in the process. And it gives you time and space to transition out of home mode and into work mode. And it's that buffer and reset you need. And if you can try to bookend it so at the end of your day, instead of finishing up that last meeting and rushing to daycare or rushing to get dinner ready, a lot of times what we're doing throughout the day when we're working from home, we'll say like, I'm going to do the laundry and I'm going to do this at the same time and I'm going to do that at the same time because I'm home. Might as well unload the dishwasher or load the dishwasher
(15:50):
Instead. When you create that fake commute bookend it day and evening, it creates a little bit more structure and it gives your brain a reset
Mel Robbins (15:58):
That is brilliant and it makes so much sense. Like I sit here and I'm thinking, but I'm trying to cram it all in and I get my exercise in and now I'm running late my first zoom meeting, so I'm just going to leave my exercise clothes on and pull my hair up in a ponytail and then I never actually pull out of that mode.
Mel Robbins (16:15):
And so this, based on how you explained it and the science and what your brain needs, seems like the perfect solution. Again, free anybody can do it, it'll take you two minutes and it will help you manage your stress. I love this. I'm curious, since you were talking about hybrid, what's your recommendation about video calls and stress? If there any research or anything that you teach audiences when you're talking about how to be on a zoom, and I ask that because I've seen lots of recommendations about turning your camera off, and so I just wondered if you had anything specific.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (16:54):
It is a real entity. So during the pandemic particularly, there was an entity called Zoom dysmorphia. We don't ever look at ourselves that much during the day, right? And so when you are on a zoom, you are looking at yourself. And so there was this uptick of people who were not feeling very good about how they appeared and how they looked because they kept looking at their faces. If it makes sense for you, shut off your camera. If you can need to be on my rule of thumb right now, is that just showing up is enough? You're on audio, great, you're present. Great. I don't do anything else when I'm on the call, but I will often say, Hey, do you mind if I'm just going to shut off my camera? And I cannot tell you I am met with that such enthusiasm. Do you mind if I shut mine off too?
(17:42):
No, let's just have a conversation or do you want to just talk on the phone? That would be great. So people welcome that we all have zoom fatigue. It's a real entity. It's not laughable like, oh, you don't have zoom fatigue. Of course you do. Your brain is not wired to look at yourself all day every day. There's something very unnatural about that. So it has been shown to have ramifications, mental health ramifications in terms of how you look. But if you want to shut off your camera and you feel more empowered and you feel like you'll get your work done better or you'll engage better by shutting it off, shut it off. More power to you.
Mel Robbins (18:13):
Talk to me about multitasking.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (18:15):
So in that day of working from home, you do the fake commute morning. Hopefully you do it in the evening, but maybe you just do it once a day. Morning is more important than the evening. And in the day, if you are feeling like you are multitasking or during your workday, you are multitasking. It's the way of the modern world. You have your slack channel going, you have emails, you're doing your meetings. The thing about multitasking is even though we think it is a badge of honor and we pride ourselves on being multitaskers, everyone listening, you probably think you are an excellent multitasker. A hundred percent of us think that we are excellent multitaskers. The truth is only 2% of human brains can effectively multitask. Multitasking is a scientific myth. It is a misnomer. There is no such thing when you are multitasking, what you are effectively doing is task switching, doing two separate tasks in rapid secession, and your brain is wired to do one thing at a time.
(19:11):
The thing with multitasking is that it weakens your memory, your cognition. It decreases your productivity. Ironically, it also weakens your ability to solve complex problems by weakening your prefrontal cortex. We talked about that area that is very important for our brain and for adulting, we cannot afford to multitask. The world is filled with complex problems that urgently need solving. So the antidote to multitasking is, is doing one thing at a time. Now everyone will say, people say this to me all the time. I mean, come on, it's totally unrealistic. I can't even bring that science into my life. Monotasking like non-starter. You can bring in the science of monotasking by practicing something called time blocking. You've talked about it before as well. Let's say you have four work tasks to do in an hour. Instead of completing them all at once, spend five or 10 minutes on one task, then take a short break, then the second task, 5, 10, 15 minutes if you can take a short break.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (20:12):
So by the end of that hour, you have made headway on all four different tasks, but you have not weakened your prefrontal cortex in the meantime. The other important thing to note is that those brain breaks. We talked about the breaks instead of mindlessly scrolling, what do you want to do in those short breaks? Go for a walk, stretch, try some of the breathing exercises. Be mindful and present during the breaks. In fact, a science very fascinating study recently showed they compared the brain scans of two groups of people and found that one group that took no breaks and they looked at their stress at the end and then a group which took incremental 10 minute breaks and the group took breaks at the end of the day, had decreased stress, better cognitive function, memory, attention and more engagement. And the researchers themselves, they said these short breaks were a reset for the brain from cumulative stress. So if you think, oh my God, what's a 10 minute break going to even do for me? Like I am so up a creek right now with my stress and burnout, try it. The science shows that taking these short breaks can help reset your stress. It gets you into that goldilock zone of productivity. It helps you with multitasking and gets your prefrontal cortex feeling strong again. It's all kind of connected, Mel, at the end of the day, it's all just one connected piece of tapestry here. When we're talking about stress and burnout
Mel Robbins (21:30):
As a doctor at Harvard, what do you do for exercise and movement?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (21:36):
25 years ago, I was a stressed patient looking for answers, and that is why, that's my villain origin story of how I became a doctor with an expertise in stress is because I was a stress patient looking for answers. I found my way out of the stress struggle, put on my scientist hat. I had gone to see a doctor and my doctor had said, go get a massage and just relax. Just try to relax more. So I was like, okay, I'll get a massage. I'll have dinner with friends, I'll go retail therapy, all the things that didn't work. And so when I put on my scientist hat and I started looking and doing the research is when I really found out, okay, this is how stress impacts the brain and the body, and this is how I'm going to find my way out of stress.
(22:16):
Movement was one. And then when I came out of that, I said I wanted to be the doctor that I needed during that difficult time. So that's my origin story. I mentioned that because movement was not something I did every single day. I was working 80 hours a week and I don't know, I was running from one patient room to the other. I thought that was movement enough. And so what I did during that time, I was acutely stressed. I was so depleted and running on fumes smell. I was erratic in my food intake, my sleep, seeing death and dying on a daily basis and burnout or even stress was not in my lexicon. It was not in my vocabulary. When I was training in my medical training, my motto how I was trained was pressure makes diamonds. Someone sat a whole group of medical students down in our first year or second year of medical training and said, I just want you guys to know what you're about to go through.
(23:06):
Pressure makes diamonds. So I was like, Hey, diamond in the making, bring it on. And then my diamond cracked. So when I discovered all of the science around why movement is important and exercise is like E, the dreaded E word, no one likes to talk about it. So we can talk about movement, we can talk about exercise. To answer your question, it has changed. When I was a stressed patient or a medical resident working 80 hours a week and I was running on fumes and so depleted, I focused on gentle therapeutic movement. So I went to a yoga class several times a week. That was my gateway to, I went to a couple of yoga classes. So just to say that doctors are socialized to play small. We don't share our own personal stories because we focus on the patient. So writing the five resets and sharing my personal story, I have to tell you, Mel, I might start crying, but you were an inspiration for sharing that story because you share so much of your own personal stuff to help people. And I knew that the only way that people would relate to me is if I told them the truth and not I'm just doing this for my patients. It's because no, I was a patient. I struggled with my stress and burnout and that's when I became the doctor I needed during that difficult time. And so your story and your example was a leading sort of like a light that really a lighthouse that guided me.
Mel Robbins (24:23):
Well, I'm thrilled that you shared your story because you clearly are the doctor we all need.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (24:28):
Thank you. And so during that really difficult time, I focused on a couple of days a week of yoga, gentle stretching, nothing much and a few walks. So I used to walk every single day, even if it's five or 10 minutes. Again, you might say, what's a walk going to do? It's going to do nothing because it's not about the promise of physical fitness. This is the promise of mental fitness.
(24:50):
And so a little bit of a daily walk, and the reason I walked every single day when I was a stressed patient and why I suggest when people are feeling that acute sense of stress to walk every single day is because it avoids decision fatigue. If you say to yourself when you're deeply stressed,
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (25:05):
I'm going to go to the gym three times a week for an hour long class. Then Monday rolls around, a deadline comes up at work, you don't go Tuesday, there's a family obligation or a conflict. You don't go Wednesday, same thing. And by Friday you might've gone zero or one time your sense of self-efficacy goes down. You're like, oh, I can't get anything. Right. Why bother at all? And then your amygdala starts firing, right? Because the forward future planning prefrontal cortex isn't working as great. Instead, aim to do something a little bit every day at avoids decision fatigue. Now, to answer your question, it's changed. So initially I started my, I was a sedentary person. I didn't really exercise much. I was into dancing as a child, but not sports. Now I understand the value of sports for so many reasons. Gentle yoga and walks every day, 10 minute walk that was like, yes, I walk check. This is not about walking five miles a day.
Mel Robbins (25:57):
I love that because the person listening is like, okay, how long? What do I do? And it's just 10 minutes, just 10 minutes,
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (26:02):
Five minutes is fine too. If you can do 20 minutes of a walk every single day, great. It's the equivalent of a Facebook scroll. Seriously, we all scroll. That's true. Or Instagram or choose your poison. It's the equivalent of a scroll. Opt out of a scroll and go for a walk. Instead, do it in between your meetings if you can five, 10 minutes every single day. It's that inertia that you're, sometimes it feels like you're wading through molasses when you're feeling stressed of lacing up your sneakers and going outside. And if you say, oh, I'm going to do this for 45 minutes, forget it. You're never doing it. But if you say, oh, five minutes, I can do that. It's about closing that gap between where you are and where you'd like to be. So five minutes. So then now what I do, because I am of a certain age, I focus on resistance training.
(26:46):
I aim to exercise 30 minutes every single day. Does that happen every single day? No, but I probably get in four to five days of exercise and that includes walking. Or if I do a 40 minute walk one day, I won't do resistance training, but I do some form of movement every day. So now I focus on resistance training and balance, because for me, I've been very into fitness over the past several decades as you have and endurance flexibility and strength. Those were my three things that I was like, okay, that's what I'm going to be focusing on. But I realized I got on a balance board two months ago and I was falling off. It was crazy. I'm like, what happened to my core strength? I thought it was great. It was comical. And so every day I get on that little board, I have one, it's a wooden board.
(27:36):
I stand on it when I'm taking a work call, when I'm taking a meeting, and I just incorporate it into my day because it's hard to exercise when you are feeling a sense of stress, lacing up those sneakers and doing something and moving your body feels like wading through molasses, and you have to make it easy, easier than you even think. You have to say, what is this even going to do? Fine, I'll do it anyway. A lot of the way I describe it to patients, so I really focused on behavior change and the psychology of habit formation. When you're talking about how to get people to engage in positive behaviors, you are a master of this. It is about making things small and tangible and decreasing the barriers to taking that step. So fine, you don't want to put on your sneakers, take a walk up and down your hallway in your house, walk up and down a set of stairs.
(28:26):
Research has showed that it in fact, to decrease. There was a study that was done that ultra short bursts of activity one to two minutes. So walking up a set of stairs or going to parking far away. When you're going to the grocery store, we all look for parking really close to the entrance park far away. Take a walk up to the grocery store, run for the bus or walk quickly to go get the bus or the subway. These short, they're called ultra short bursts of activity can decrease your risk of dying from cancer by 40%.
Mel Robbins (28:56):
Wow, you heard the doctor get your walk on every day, 10 minutes. That's all she's saying, and it's going to lower your stress.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (29:03):
Another thing you can do as you're walking is think of it, I mean, you don't have to think about it this way, but I used to is I hated to meditate.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (29:09):
And when you're feeling a sense of stress, the last thing you want to do is get into your head. But in fact, when you're feeling stressed, it's so important to get out of your head and into your body. So people would initially recommend meditation. It was so foreign into me at the time. Now I've been meditating for 25 years, but at the time it was so far into me. So what I did is movement meditation. I would walk for five minutes or 10 minutes every single day. It was like part of my day. I would park my car after a 30 hour shift and instead of walking directly into my building in Philadelphia, I would take the long way, the scenic route, and I would time myself.
(29:44):
I did it first. I did two minutes. It felt good. I was like, oh, that feels good. I'm going to do it again for a little longer. So every day it built up and up and you focus on your feet on the floor. As you're walking, your feet have 30 bones and a hundred muscles. And so when as you are walking, it's a grounding force. And so you walk, you breathe, you think about your day, and over time, that walk could increase. You can also say, oh, I now have that sense of daily movement. I've made it into a habit. Then you can add your gym sessions. No one has ever, the thing that bothers me about exercise so much of the fitness industry, while I love fitness for myself, none of my patients have ever been propelled or fueled by the promise of cosmetics.
(30:28):
So taught bellies or biceps. That doesn't appeal to someone who is feeling a sense of stress and burnout. But if I say, because even me, when I was working as a resident, 80 hours a week, I had a state of the art gym in my building, Mel. It was in the basement. I walked in. I knew I was a doctor. I knew that exercise was important. It was a gym in my building. I walked into the basement, into the gym, opened the door, saw the mirrors everywhere, the crazy machines, the the blasting techno music turned around, walked right back out, never went in there. Again,
Mel Robbins (31:01):
I so relate to that story, and I was also thinking that it's not that motivating either because if I'm not stressed out, I'm not thinking about being in a bathing suit. I'm not thinking about going to a party. I'm literally thinking about how the hell I'm going to get through my day. And so I love that you pointed that out because the promise of a 10 minute walk outside is that you can do it. It immediately makes you feel better. It's a way to engage in moving meditation. It also gives you a sense of control back and agency because you're seeing yourself follow through on something that you know is going to make you feel slightly better. There are medical benefits to doing it. And as we're learning over and over and over from you that you are sending a signal to your amygdala, reset, I'm in control.
(31:56):
I'm going to take a deep breath and take myself on a walk, and I'm going to put myself back in control, and that's how I'm going to manage my stress. Fantastic. Dr. Aditi, I know I've said it before, but I just love all of the wisdom and the science and the tips that we can put to use immediately. There are so many people that I'm going to share this with, and as you're listening, please share this episode because it will really make a difference in someone else's life. And it's a simple way to say, I really care about you, and you can send them Dr. Aditi to help. Alrighty, we're going to take a quick pause here, a word from our sponsors. We'll be waiting for you with more tips, more wisdom, more science after a short break. So stay with us. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and because you're here with me on YouTube, I took out my own ad because I wanted to say one thing.
(32:40):
First of all, hit subscribe because that really helps support this channel helps me bring your free videos. Second, make sure you take advantage of this free workbook that I've created as a thank you to you for subscribing to this channel. This workbook is going to help you answer the single most important question you could answer in life, which is what do you really want? It's a surprisingly hard question to answer, but now it's not because you have the science back approach that I use in my work, in my marriage, in my life to help me get to the truth about what I actually want. This workbook uses science. It is free to you. You can get your hands on this puppy in just a minute. Click the link below and it is yours as my thank you for being here and supporting this channel. Again, this is going to help you answer the question, what do you want? Because if you can't answer that question, there's no way you're going to get it. So use science and let me support you and answering the question and gaining the clarity and the courage that you need to figure out what your next move is. Alrighty, take advantage of this, Mel robbins.com/what. Hit subscribe and let's get back to the video. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and I'm here with the amazing Dr. Aditi, and let's just jump right back into it. So Dr. Aditi, how long does it take for all these changes to become new habits?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (33:54):
It doesn't happen overnight. It takes eight weeks to build a habit, understanding that it takes a little bit more time. You may fall off, give yourself a solid three months to get there, and you will get there. The reason you have a most goal is because it is a concrete metric that you can measure for yourself, and it can be many things. I've had patients who've said all sorts of things. I want to feel healthy enough to take a bike ride through Europe. I want to run a marathon. Lots of physical things. It doesn't have to be something external. It can be something internal. But I would say that framing it as a positive and say to yourself, I want my future self to be X, Y, and Z. Fill in the blank. I want my future self to have better sleep. Or you can be fed up and say, I'm sick of not being able to sleep through the night.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (34:39):
I want to sleep through the night. Motivation comes in many different forms. It can be positive and energetic, but it can also be that you're just fed up of your own shit. But if you start these today, give yourself eight weeks, but you will see a difference within a week. By the weekend, you should start feeling better. These things take shape quickly because your brain and your body are rewiring all the time. Your brain is a muscle. Neuroplasticity, a very fancy science word, but it means your brain is a muscle. It's not a grab bag like what you got for birth is what you got for life. It's not what it's, your brain is like a muscle, just like a bicep. So in exercise, the thing with sleep that's fascinating is that with exercise, if you did two pound dumbbells, like a hundred curls with your biceps, you'd know that it's doing something.
(35:26):
I mean, it's not going to do as much as like a 10 pound, but you try it anyway. You're like, you know what, I'm going to try it. So think of your brain as a muscle. Try things out, experiment, understand that doing a little bit a simple change like keeping your phone off your nightstand could make all the difference and could be a game changer. It doesn't have to be this big giant lifestyle overhaul. Also, your brain cannot handle big lifestyle overhauls when you are feeling a sense of stress, because even positive change, like all of these things that we're talking about, change is considered a stressor to your brain.
Mel Robbins (35:56):
So you say in your research that there are six elements that make up an incredible life. What are they?
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (36:03):
The prescription I give, and it's probably one of my most universal prescriptions, it is this idea of live a lifetime in a day. So the genesis of this idea is I had a colleague early on in my medical training my first year out of residency, and he loved to play the guitar and he worked many, many hours as a doctor, but his great passion was guitar playing. And he would say to me, it was a Thursday, and we were both signing charts and he said, oh, I can't wait only two more days until I can play my guitar. And I said, what do you mean? He said, oh, I can't play it during the week. I can only play on the weekend, and I'm so busy during the weekend, so I barely get any time. Last week I didn't play at all. And I said, why not?
(36:42):
Why can't you just play tonight when you get home? And he said, what do you mean it's a weekday to do it on the weekend? And so live a lifetime in a day is a direct response to that conversation because I thought, why are you living for the weekends? Why don't you bring in all of the good stuff during the week, play your guitar every day. I had another patient who used to say similar things to me about also, ironically, guitar playing live A Lifetime in a day is about thinking about the six elements that make up a long arc of a meaningful life and bringing them into your day every day. So when your head hits the pillow at night, you rest your head feeling like, wow, I had a fulfilling day even in the midst of stress and burnout. So I can go through each of those very quickly.
(37:25):
So the first is childhood. Can you do something today, even if it means two or five minutes to embrace that sense of wonder and curiosity and play, really live in that timelessness of the present moment. We call this a state of flow in science, and it does have a mental health benefit and a therapeutic benefit. So can you can do something that creates a sense of childlike wonder, play simply for play's sake. You're not getting a reward for it, no one's watching you. It's just bringing you joy. Next work. This one's an easy one. Yeah, we need to stop working it
Mel Robbins (38:02):
Sounds like.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (38:03):
Can you engage? For us, it's a few hours. For others, it's less. Now, this doesn't have to be paid work. It can be unpaid work, but something that creates a feeling of meaning and purpose, a sense of accomplishment. Then can you spend a little bit of time in vacation? Also, an easy one, enjoying and reveling. Again, we talked about, we haven't covered this.
Mel Robbins (38:23):
Enjoy it. Like do what you do on vacation, right? Go outside.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (38:25):
Yeah, just ponder. Let your brain ponder. Let your mind wander. There are lots of health benefits to that mind wandering brain circuit. Next, spend time in community. Whether you have a family or your chosen family or your friends, that doesn't mean you have to be with them all day or even you don't have to be present with them, but check in with someone. Send a text message. Pop on a quick call. Just say, Hey, just wanted to hear your voice. Connect with someone because we know that has great mental health benefits. Loneliness is equal to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Next, as much as you are engaging with community, spend a little time alone because we know that that fosters creativity. And finally, retirement. This one's my favorite. Spend a few minutes reflecting on your day, taking stock of your accomplishments. So when your head hits the pillow at night, you feel like, wow, I really did a lot.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar (39:17):
This does not take time. I know it's six steps, and it feels like, oh my God, there's no way I'm going to fit this all into a day. It can be two minutes, but just so you hit all of those points, so you are not on that hamster wheel of just like we're constant work, constant work. It will also help with your stress and burnout. It will increase your sense of fulfillment. And I think I just want to say one thing about happiness. It will make you happier, but the right kind of happy, just like there are two kinds of stress. There's good healthy stress and bad unhealthy stress. There are two kinds of happiness. One is hedonic happiness. This is really easy to understand. It's Netflix binges, fast, fancy cars, beautiful purses or designer clothes, all the bling. This is something that we really understand very well because we think, oh, if only we get all those things, then we'll be happy.
(40:06):
That's hedonic happiness. The joy, pleasure. The second kind of happiness is eudaimonic happiness. Very long word, hard to say. Even for me, this is not that thrill kind of happiness. It is about purpose, meaning it's contentment. So think about something that brings you joy, a sense of purpose and meaning. It doesn't have to be work related, but hobbies are a great thing. So when you're painting, do you feel that sense of connection to yourself? Are you engaged? So those two kinds of happiness are very different. They also have a different impact on your brain, on your stress and your burnout. You need hedonic happiness, those thrills and the pure pursuit of pleasure for pleasure sake or joy. It's like a bandaid and it's a gift to your brain and body. You have to do that. I have a list. I have a group chat with all of my girlfriends, and we suggest good shows on Netflix to watch.
(41:00):
And that's like my hedonic pleasure. I love it. I just watch shrinking. I met Harrison Ford recently, so he told me about shrinking. I have to show you that picture. You'll love it. And then I watched shrinking and I loved it. It's about mental health. It's comedy, it's beautiful. I ate it up. It was hedonic pleasure and hedonic happiness. But you die on happiness. But that has no bearing on your, it has an immediate benefit to your stress and burnout and mental health, but it doesn't have any lasting benefits, but it's important. So it's not to say, again, we're not leading a life of a monk. You want pleasure and joy and happiness in the moment. It also makes you feel good when you're feeling stressed. That's what I was chasing when I was a stressed patient. Massages dinners out with friends. Retail therapy. That's when people say, just try to relax.
(41:44):
That's what we do. The thing about onic happiness, it's called the hedonic treadmill, that we have a set point. That's why lottery winners, they win a lot of money and then they come back to the same baseline of happiness. The other kind of happiness is what we really need to start chasing and create a cultural conversation around eudaimonic happiness. This is about meaning and purpose, a feeling of connection. The science shows that this kind of happiness can actually change your cells and your brain and your body know the difference. There are genetic and cellular changes that happen in your body with you. Damani happiness. They don't happen with hedonic happiness.
Mel Robbins (42:22):
Dr. Aditi, you're the greatest. I mean, I love your advice about meditation in particular because I'm married to somebody who has been a sit down, close your eyes, be still meditator for a decade every single day for a decade. This guy meditates. And so I always made myself wrong because I really couldn't sit still. So I love hearing from a medical doctor that you don't need to sit still. You can do a walking meditation, and it absolutely still works and it counts. I love that.
Mel Robbins (42:55):
And as you're listening, I am sure you've been nodding along, smiling ear to ear. You're like, I love Dr. Aditi. And there's probably somebody in your life that comes to mind. I mean, I know I'm going to be sending this to my brother, Derek, to my friend Jody, who I want both of them to stay with me for a long time.
(43:13):
And in order for them to do that, they need habits to be a little healthier. They need Dr. Aditi in their life. And maybe you're thinking of someone who is struggling to eat healthier or who works too much. You know who I'm talking about. You love them. And just like I want my brother and one of my best friends to be a little healthier, to take better care of themselves, you want the same for your friend. So share this episode with them. It is a simple way for you to say, I love you, for you to say, I care about you, and for you to get a little more Dr. Aditi into their life. I mean, you heard Dr. Aditi say that even as a doctor, she knew what to do, but wasn't in the right environment in medical school to develop the habits. I just love it when people admit this kind of stuff, don't you?
(43:58):
And she didn't have people around her supporting her. In fact, they were telling her that she had to push harder, wrong advice. And so the thing about the people that you love is they've got you. They have you supporting them and you sending them this episode saying, Hey, I love you. I see you, and here's a little love coming from Dr. Aditi and me. So please, please take a moment and send this episode to somebody that you love because it really does make a difference. And one more thing, in case no one else tells you. Today, I want to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to take all this inspiration and these eight amazing, simple, sneaky little hacks from Dr. Aditi and use them in your life, because I do see that for you.
(44:48):
I want you to live a long and healthy and happy life. And if you take everything that you just learned today to heart and you put it to use in your life, you will. Alrighty, I'll talk to you in a couple of days. And because you're here on YouTube, I just wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited for you. Thank you for sharing this. And one more thing, if you love this episode, please, please, please show me that you loved it. By hitting subscribe, it literally takes a second. It supports me. It supports me in being able to bring you free videos and world-class experts at zero cost for free every single day. So hit subscribe. I really, really appreciate it. And also, since you're now super empowered by Harvard's, Dr. Aditi, I want to share another amazing medical expert. We're talking world class with you. Check this video out next. You're going to love this.
Mel Robbins (45:44):
This is on the science of strength training and learning how lifting weights, even light ones, those are the kind of ones that I lift, will help you lose weight, feel better, and live longer. The science is fascinating. You're going to love it. So check it out.
Key takeaways
Multitasking is a lie. Only 2% of us can actually do it, and for the rest of us, it just fries your memory, kills your focus, and spikes your stress.
If you're sitting all day, you're raising your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and early death by more than 100%. Stand up or even walk to reverse these issues.
A daily walk isn’t about fitness. It’s a mental reset, a brain break, and a way to reclaim control when stress makes life feel like molasses.
Zoom fatigue is real. Staring at your own face for hours a day messes with your confidence, so give yourself permission to turn off the camera.
Want a more fulfilling life? Live a lifetime in a day: a little work, a little play, some connection, a bit of solitude, and space to reflect.
Guests Appearing in this Episode
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, MD
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar is a physician, integrative medicine expert, and lecturer at Harvard Medical School specializing in stress management and resilience.
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Books
Dr. Nerurkar illuminates why our everyday attempts at being “resilient”—like multitasking, sleeping less, and undergoing huge lifestyle overhauls—aren’t beneficial to our stressed brains. Instead, she prescribes practical, real-world solutions for our modern-day perils that are time efficient, cost-free, and can be applied to anyone’s life, including following the Resilience Rule of 2 (making no more than two changes at a time because doing more is unsustainable), accepting that multitasking is a myth (our brains are wired to do one thing at a time!), and adopting her Bookend Method (creating boundaries to honor our brain’s need for compartmentalization).
The five mindset shifts, along with fifteen proven techniques, offer you a road map to change your relationship with stress, bring your biology back into balance, and feel calmer right now.
Resources
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- Psychology Today: Why trying to relax can make you more anxious.
- CNBC: 7 toxic signs of someone addicted to drama
- Psych Central: Are you addicted to stress?
- The New York Times: The ‘busy’ trap.
- Scientific American: Why your brain needs more downtime.
- Harvard Health: Exercising to relax.
- PBS News Hour: The human brain never stops growing neurons
- Current Obesity Reports: The effects of chronic social stress on obesity
- Nutrients: Magnesium status and stress
- American Psychological Association: Making mindset science work in the real world
- The New Yorker: The Surprising Psychology Of Names And Labels
- The New York Times: Where We Are Shapes Who We Are
- Psychology Today: Strange Truths About How We Perceive Time
- The Atlantic: How Nature Resets Our Minds And Bodies
- American Psychological Association: The Dark Side of Screen Time
- Association For Psychological Science: Investigating The Irresistible
- Harvard Medical School: Screen Time and the Brain
- National Institute on Drug Abuse: Can Too Much Screen Time Harm You?
- Forbes: 7 signs of perfectionistic overfunctioning
- Harvard Business Review: A guide to setting better boundaries
- American Psychological Association: How stress affects your health
- Forbes: 7 unhealthy coping mechanisms
- The Wall Street Journal: Fix burnout - without blowing up your life
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