Dr Rangan Chatterjee: 3 Steps To "Core" Happiness | E129

Dr Rangan Chatterjee joins Stephen Bartlett to unpack his new book and his 'core happiness' framework built on three pillars: alignment (living in line with your values), contentment, and control. He draws on his upbringing as the child of Indian immigrants, his lifelong chase for external validation, his father's long illness and death, and his infant son's near-fatal vitamin D deficiency that redirected his career. He offers practical, free tools: an identity menu of values, happiness habits, perspective-shifting ('make everyone a hero'), morning routines (the 3 Ms), and behaviour-change science. He closes on the dangers of poor sleep and loneliness for physical and mental health.

• His mother pushed him because she believed he was capable, but he internalised that he was only loved when he won or scored 100 percent.
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• His father's collapse into intensive care and 15 years of kidney dialysis changed the trajectory of his adult life.
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• He introduces 'core happiness' with three components: alignment, contentment and control.
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• He recounts interviewing 93-year-old Auschwitz survivor Edith Eger, who taught him you can always create a different story about any event.
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• He confesses he would lock himself in pub toilets to slap and psych himself up because the pain of losing felt like being unloved.
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• His six-month-old son Jainam had a convulsion in France from a preventable vitamin D deficiency and nearly died, reshaping his medical mission.
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• His stated mission to help 100 million people no longer sits well with him because he feels it limits human potential.
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• Compared to about 60 years ago, society may have lost up to 25 percent of its sleep.
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• The brain has a 'sociometer' network that scans for social threats and relaxes when it receives smiles, nods and friendly gestures.
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• Edith Eger says the greatest prison you will ever live in is the prison you create inside your mind.
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• A patient cut her skin flare-ups by over 50 percent using a five-minute routine of breathing, yoga and affirmations.
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• Amazon's one-click ordering reportedly raised profits by 300 million dollars a year by removing friction.
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• Instagram was reportedly invented as a class assignment in Professor BJ Fogg's behaviour-design course at Stanford.
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• A cloudy UK day gives about 10,000 lux through your eyes versus only 500-700 lux in a brightly lit office.
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• Caffeine has roughly a six-hour half-life, so a midday coffee can still have a quarter circulating around midnight.
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• Feeling lonely is reportedly as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
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