| Title | : | Feel Better In 5: Your Daily Plan to Feel Great for Life |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2019 |
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It only takes 5 minutes to start changing your life. For good.
Feel Better in 5 is the first daily 5-minute plan that is easy to maintain, easy-to-follow and requires only the smallest amount of willpower.
Top tips include:
· A strength workout that you can do anywhere
· Gut-boosting snacks you can eat on the go
· Yoga moves to relax and stay supple
· Breathing exercises to calm the mind
Drawing on Dr Rangan Chatterjee's twenty years of experience and real-life case studies from his GP practice, Feel Better in 5 is your daily plan for a happier, healthier you at no extra cost.
Feel Better In 5: Your Daily Plan to Feel Great for Life Reviews
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For years, my mother has been at me to significantly change my diet. I’ve been very resistant, not least because I don’t actually think I have such a terrible diet. Over a decade ago, I talked her into getting the internet. You see, both of us are Irish, and we remain Irish despite having lived most of our lives in Australia (she’s much more Irish than I am, of course, even if we both were born there) and so our being bloody-minded just goes with the territory. You know, there are very, very good reasons why the Troubles lasted 30 years…
When I finally got her onto the internet, and just as I told her it would, it opened up a whole new world to her. I learnt at the time that it is insanely difficult to explain to someone ‘in theory’ why they will like the internet. She would ask me what I did on the internet and when I would tell her, she would basically just yawn.
‘Ma, no one’s asking you to do the stuff I do on the internet – there’s so much more… you can…you can’ and then I would go on and on, giving an endless list of things she could do. None of which interested her in the least.
Anyway, my parents eventually got a computer and an internet connection and their own iPads. Life changed. Then it wasn’t me telling her what she could do on the internet – suddenly she was the expert. And her expertise suddenly had expanded to keto diets and life without sugar sites and the kinds of sites that tell you that you can get the same benefit from 20 seconds of high intensity exercise a month as you do from going to the gym every day. Sites that had the ring of utter bullshit about them.
A lot of our conversations after my mum discovered the internet would begin, “Nigh, Trevor, have you seen Dr So-and-So site? He’s a doctor, are you sure you don’t know about him. He was getting sick of cutting off the legs of people with type-two diabetes and so he developed his diet – it’s called the eat fat and drink water diet – in just two weeks people who were about to have their legs cut off became supermodels, I know, I know, it’s almost impossible to believe…”
Yes, I would say. Yes – in that non-committal way that leaves the possibility open that I might just be saying yes to the ‘yes, it’s really is almost impossible to believe’ bit of the sentence.
All of which was fine – I don’t really mind the idea that mum was reading this stuff – as long as she wasn’t only eating fat and drinking water. And she wasn’t, as much as she raved about the benefits of such a diet. The problem was she would say to me I should do it. “but mum – you don’t do that, why would it be a good idea for me to?” Which was taken as proof of my wilfulness and bloody-mindedness.
So, when mum told me I had to read this book I can’t say I was particularly delighted with the prospect. I figured it was yet another doctor out to save the world and to change the diets of recalcitrant people like me.
Food has become our preferred source of sin/guilt and our new food religion is full of evangelicals carrying extensive lists of ‘thou shalt nots’. As a sufferer of IBS – and so being denied so many things I love (apples, pears, onions, hummus, lentils, barley) the idea of willingly putting more foods onto the denied list was really a bridge too far.
This is by way of background to why I started reading this book with, well, trepidation. I’m delighted to tell you that there is no need to worry. This guy is well worth listening to. He really won’t suggest you only eat on Thursdays or that you should spend a month eating nothing but bananas.
Now, at about the same time I was trying to convince my mother to get onto the internet, I was reading lots of books that could be broadly described as belonging to the category of ‘behavioural economics’. These books had titles like ‘Predictably Irrational’ or ‘Mistakes Were Made, But Not by Me’. I really enjoyed these books – but it also seemed pretty clear that bad people (let’s call them marketers to save time) would also read these books and then use this knowledge against us. That is, after all, the point of marketing – to use the flaws in our character against us so as to make the world a much worse place. Behavioural economics is essentially the bringing together of psychology, economics and marketing – well, what possible good could ever come out of cross-species paring? A rough beast slouches towards the Chicago School to be born.
This book shows that behavioural economics doesn’t have to be the spawn of Satan. It shows that it can be used for good as well as evil.
What I like most about this book is that it says that if you want to change your life – and I guess we all do want to do exactly that – that you have to start by creating new habits. The problem is that new habits need to out-compete old habits, and old habits tend to be both comfortable and bad. Bad old habits have been around for so long that they are damn hard to dislodge. Also, one of the least attractive things about us humans is we believe we have ‘natural dispositions’, and these dispositions almost always mean we are doomed to continue in our bad habits because we were born bad.
A key lesson from this book, then is his saying we really need to be kinder to ourselves. Kinder in the sense of not beating ourselves up just because we might stuff up now and again.
The other thing he says is that if you are going to start a new habit, you need to make it a habit. A habit is something you do effectively without thinking. Most of us brush our teeth twice a day. We do this first thing in the morning and last thing at night. We just do it. It is part of a routine associated with the ritual of getting into or out of bed. The point is that if we don’t do it one night, things feel wrong. We don’t feel liberated from our teeth brushing habit, we feel strange and uncomfortable. His point is that creating habits might not be easy, but once they are established, they build their own momentum.
He also says that to establish a habit, all that is necessary is to set aside five minutes a day – he says this because no one is too busy to not be able to find five minutes. Many of the things he advises people to do to change their lives involve self-care – like, exercise, for example, or just being kind to yourself. To establish yourself as someone who exercises, he gives a series of simple things you can do in five minutes that, if you have been doing no other exercise at all for years, will improve your strength. He suggests linking this five minutes to some other habit you already have – like waiting for the kettle to boil. As soon as you put on the kettle, you start some stretching exercises, for example. The point is to make a start. And his point about making a start is that doing one thing is likely to then snowball into other things – and so five minutes of light stretching, might encourage you to fit a walk into the day too, or it might make you think twice about eating a second biscuit. We are complex creatures, but one change in our lives can rippling in ways we can’t anticipate.
The thing I really liked about this book (other than it seeming quite simple and even, at times, obvious) was the fact that none of it costs anything. He really isn’t asking you to go to the gym or buy a red sports car or take up sky-diving. None of what he suggests will cost you a cent. But just about any of the advice he provides will empower you, helping you to see that change comes gently, one step at a time.
I’m really glad my mum got me to read this. Look, admittedly, I’m still one up on her, because, well, I got her onto the internet, but this was still a damn good shot at paying me back in kind. -
I've been following Dr Rangan Chatterjee on his Instagram and via his podcast, he has lots of good advice, so I decided to buy his new book. Based on the idea of three five minute 'health snacks' a day this is a straightforward, quickly and personalised solution.
Broken down into three areas - mind, body and heart, each of which includes different health snacks taking approximately five minutes each. You can either choose three of your own or pick a group of three chosen by Dr Chatterjee for help with specific issues, such as depression, backache, anxiety etc. Each health snack has a page or more explaining how to do it and how it works to help you decide whether it's for you. There is also advice about to how make them habits, including picking ones you want to do, doing them at a set time of day, tacking them onto an existing habit (like brushing teeth or making a morning cup of tea) and creating the right environment for new, positive habits.
I found this an accessible and encouraging read, with genuinely practical, and well-informed, advice. For now I have chosen the following three health snacks and am fitting them into my day as follows:
💫 Mind: The Brain Tap - writing down whatever comes into my mind for 5 minutes a day (I plan to use my Positive Planner). I'll do this before bed.
💫 Body: The Classic 5 - 5 body strengthening moves (lunges, reverse fly, squats, press-ups and glute bridges) that can be done at home without equipment. This should compliment the Couchto5k, I'll do this when I wake up.
💫 Heart: Daily Pleasure - 5 minutes of 'me-time', which will almost definitely be reading and help my bookstagram account. I'll do this at lunchtime at work if I can, or if not before bed.
Should I find I need a different health snack at a particular time I can always add one in or swap one out. I would recommend this for anyone who wants to encourage better habits for healthier living in easy, bite-sized chunks. -
Dr Chatterjee is back! After loving his first book (4 Pillar Plan) and feeling lukewarm about his second (The Stress Solution), I was hoping for a return to form with Feel Better in 5.
This is a pick n mix guide to little five minute habits or ‘health snacks’ you can incorporate into your life. Most of them are hardly new ideas but I guess I wouldn’t expect them to be, and there are some examples of fun things that can be beneficial too. Exercises are included – there are step by step photos but I do think I’d find them hard to follow – video is plainly a better way of doing this. The idea is that you choose a ‘health snack ‘ from each section – mind, body and heart – each day. The final category, heart, refers to the love-heart rather than the physical organ and incorporates things such as kindness and forgiveness – this wasn’t really to my taste (not that I’m not kind or forgiving, of course!). A lot of the theory here is the same as in BJ Fogg’s ‘Tiny Habits’ which I read earlier this year and Chatterjee does credit Fogg in the book.
For me, the takeaway from FBiF is that it’s worth doing something, even if only for five minutes, because lots of five minute chunks build up to a substantial change. -
What an effective book with easy changes to improve mind, body and emotions.
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, a pioneer in progressive medicine and star of BBC's Doctor in the House, offers a program based on the newest scientific research that makes lasting health achievable in just three 5-minute periods per day, five days a week.
Features 30+ health tips including:
. Yoga for agility
. Breathwork for calm
. Snacks for gut health
. Portable workout for strength
I can’t wait to try it!
5 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 01 Sep 2020
Thanks to the author, BenBella Books and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.
#FeelBetterin5 #NetGalley -
What an effective book with easy changes to improve mind, body and emotions.
Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, a pioneer in progressive medicine and star of BBC's Doctor in the House, offers a program based on the newest scientific research that makes lasting health achievable in just three 5-minute periods per day, five days a week.
Features 30+ health tips including:
. Yoga for agility
. Breathwork for calm
. Snacks for gut health
. Portable workout for strength
I can’t wait to try it!
5 of 5 Stars
Pub Date 01 Sep 2020
Thanks to the author, BenBella Books and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.
#FeelBetterin5 #NetGalley -
A lot of the information in this book wasn't particularly new to me, and definitely not mind-blowing in its originality, but I really liked the suggested approach that Dr Chatterjee puts forward here. Coupled with a once again gorgeous looking physical copy, this is a welcome addition to the other books by him that I already own. Whether or not his health snack strategy works for me in the future remains to be seen. But it is absolutely doable, and I'm looking forward to seeing what techniques I can implement, especially during self-isolation/social-distancing during the current COVID19 pandemic.
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Let me save you a bit of time.
Eat right
Meditate
Go outside
Make lists
Do yoga
There you go, you’ve finished the book. -
I usually roll my eyes at this kind of titles even though I'm aware they're catchy and people like doing as little as possible (quilty!) and get the most/best results.
Anyway, I'm a subscriber to Dr Chatterjee's newsletter so when I saw it on the library shelf I just grabbed it, after all, I need inspiration and a kick in the behind to be mindful, exercise, eat healthily and all the other good things that we all know are good for us.
As expected, this didn't provide me with any new information, but it was structured in easy to read chapters, so it's useful for anyone who doesn't know who's lost, doesn't know where to start for anyone who finds the idea of exercise daunting and so on. I guess as long as one does something more than before based on the inspiration, information garnered from this book, it's accomplished its purpose. -
This is one of the most insightful books I’ve read regarding health and well-being. It encourages us to take only 15 minutes out of our day to create daily habits that will benefit us for the rest of our lives.
It’s easy to push aside exercise or wellbeing activities saying “I don’t have time”, but this book proves that you don’t need hours to make a change.
It has reminded me that I have the power to change things I once felt hopeless over and I’m really excited to start trying some of the activities mentioned in the book, such as the morning wake up flow, reframing the moment, and 5 minutes in nature.
I think this was the perfect book to start off my 2020 and I encourage anyone who wants to make changes in their lives to pick this up too 😊 you have more power than you think.
You can view more of my book reviews on my personal blog:
https://mymindspeaksaloud.wordpress.c... -
*thank you to Netgalley, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and BenBella Books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*
4.5 stars
I highly approve this book. Not only is it informative, it's easy to understand and follow and it just makes so much sense.
So many people think they are to blame if they find losing weight so hard. Which I get. It takes a massive amount of mental energy and focus and by the end of the day you are usually so drained that it feels not worth it. But it shouldn't be this hard and this book can help with that.
It's easy to dismiss how important and helpful a teeny tiny baby step of a change can help. But this book explains how much it can. Weight loss isn't about going full force or even 50% full force. That's simply too much. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee knows this. He's a GP and has had alot of experience with clients trying and failing to lose weight. He knows what he's talking about and I am so glad for this book.
Not only does this book include information on his experiences with clients, but also so many helpful tips covering a wide range of areas including exercise suggestions. Now I know that for alot of people, the very suggestion of exercise comes with a groan and not surprising because most people think that they need to set an exercise goal to be meet each day or every however often, per week goal ASWELL as tackling and setting up too many food rules. No wonder it overwhelms and drains people so fast. It's simply too much. But if you take Dr. Rangan Chatterjee approach and take things very slowly and in very small amounts, it is possible to change something that seems like a task to becoming a habit that you don't think twice about doing.
I can definitely see this book helping alot of people. I also really liked the photos in here. There was something so calming about them. Maybe it was the objects themselves in the photos or it was the colouring, I don't know. But they were definitely a nice welcomed touch to this book.
I highly recommend. -
I read about half of this, picked up some tips, then put it down and never could manage to pick it back up again, despite checking it out many times.
I seem to remember some fat shaming. -
This was a very easy to read prescription for a better life. With 'self-help' books such as this one I would usually just go to a section I think will be useful. In the case of this book however I read it from beginning to end and quite relished the experience. Dr Chatterjee's writing has an encouraging, participatory bent and although many of the 'health snacks' he suggests you do each day seem overly simple, they are obviously the result of extensive research and testing on the Dr's part and eminently doable.
I was fortunate to come upon the book at my local library but would like to have my own copy to revist and share with others. -
This book speaks lots of common sense. In fact so much common sense that we shouldn’t really need to buy it, but yet we fall into the same traps over and over again. This is a great January read as it’s the month of good intentions and epic failures. If that sounds like you then read this book!!
Rather than make big sweeping lifestyle changes this book just asks for 15 minutes of your day 5 days a week. This 15 minutes is divided into 5 minute snacks. No not eating but 5 minutes of exercise, 5 minutes of meditation and 5 minutes of reflection. Really easy to read, I started today, so I’ll have to get back to you as to whether it made a change to my life!! -
It’s a great book. Great for reference and to dip in and out of. I really rate Dr Chatterjee for functional health and well-being advise. He is my go to.
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Een verandering in leefstijl doorvoeren en vooral volhouden puur op wilskracht is bijna niet te doen. Dit boek helpt je om kleine veranderingen te koppelen aan routines die je toch al hebt. Als iets een gewoonte wordt, dan denk je er niet meer over na en doe je het gewoon. Een voorbeeld: ik zet elke ochtend koffie. Ja echt, elke ochtend begin ik daarmee. En nu doe ik terwijl de koffie pruttelt een oefening. Dat gaat bijna vanzelf en dat is het fijne van deze methode. Aanrader voor wie iets wil veranderen en dat vol wil houden.
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An interesting concept for a BuzzFeed article, a dull dull book
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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 life and ourselves, what can? -
I should probably review this book once I try what he advises because I don't have a life-changing story yet and I felt a bit cynical about hearing how 15 minutes a day significantly helped someone with say, chronic pain, but the claim that the worst outcome is that you'll only feel slightly better rather than much better seems pretty plausible.
I find the idea of serving tips in the categories of mind, body, and heart in the form of a menu of "health snacks" you can choose from quite refreshing. I can't picture exercise movements just from reading a description so it's good the author also has videos with them on Youtube. Smoothie recipes are always a plus, although I rarely follow them.
I'd say this book works quite well for some quick motivation when you don't feel like reading about the science behind healthy habits in depth and you're not feeling up to a big challenge. It was very easy to read (except for the fact that the formatting of the review e-book copy was off at some places) and I flew through it during one day. I might get a physical copy to be able to reference it easily and try out some of the stuff.
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Another fabulous book by Dr Chatterjee. This is the GP we all wish was our local dr. He is motivating, compassionate and driven to listen to patients and provide treatments to heal the body that don’t include an easy prescription. The methods he shows in this book are simple and quick to fit into your daily schedule, you just have to commit to yourself to follow through.
I loved the photographs throughout the book and appreciated the links to his podcast, recommended reading and recommended websites to encourage your journey.
Highly recommended. -
Älskade den här boken. En gång i min ungdom gjorde jag precis som Agneta, svarade på en radannons. Jag var 16 år och sökte jobb på en hästgård. Jag fick jobbet. Tyvärr stoppade mina föräldrar mig från att ta det, eller kanske det var tur, annars hade mitt liv tagit en helt annan vändning.
Tror det var därför som jag tyckte extra mycket om den här boken, Agneta vågade, hon tog verkligen steget.
En underbar bok, härlig humor, starka personporträtt och svår att lägga ifrån sig. Hoppas på en fortsättning av boken.
Rekommenderar den varmt! -
Great premise which would work for a lot of people and would have tangible benefits to their health and well-being. The suggestions are well researched and backed up by science which is as expected when written by a doctor.
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With Peace and Love, this might be my favorite book this year. Read it in one day and never realized how small habits amounts to big changes.
Chatterjee is such an awesome person and his books are almost as good great as himself :D Excited to try more books from him. -
A lot of things that would probably improve a person’s life in 5-minute “snack” form. I feel like any of these snacks would be beneficial, but I don’t see me doing it unless a therapist made me. Would be a good idea book for a therapist.
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Pretty poor. Like opening an Instagram stream. Sorry I wasted my money.
I much preferred his first book. -
DNF
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Review to come 😊
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I really believe in Dr Chatterjee's ideas and am really excited to get started on my feel better in 5 journey. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for ways to make a positive change and impact on your life.
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I have never bought a "self-help" book before, I've just never been that kind of person. After hearing Dr Chatterjee interviewed by Chris Evans though I thought I'd give it a go and I loved it. Such simple ideas that even a sceptic like me can take on board and do. If I can't manage 15 minutes a day to look after myself using incredibly simple tools there's something wrong. However, get back to me in a year and we'll see if it worked.
