{"id":658220,"date":"2026-10-18T07:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T07:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658220\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T07:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T07:20:09","slug":"dr-rangan-chatterjee-what-will-you-do-with-a-perfect-six-pack-if-you-havent-someone-to-share-your-life-with-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658220\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr Rangan Chatterjee: What will you do with a perfect six-pack if you haven\u2019t someone to share your life with? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time Dr Rangan Chatterjee came to Dublin<\/a>, it was for a Bon Jovi<\/a> concert in Croke Park<\/a>. He\u2019s a superfan of the band, he tells me during a video call from his home in England. He mentions this because he is a proponent of something called \u201ccollective effervescence\u201d, a phrase coined by pioneering French sociologist \u00c9mile Durkheim to describe \u201cthe special energy we feel when we\u2019re in a room with like-minded people\u201d. That energy is something he\u2019ll be channelling at his Thrive Tour event in Dublin next month.<\/p>\n

The Thrive Tour, Chatterjee explains, is his attempt to help people reclaim their own innate health expertise with a two-hour, interactive live experience built around \u201cmindset, values and actions\u201d. A journal is included in the price of the ticket, so people can take notes and, he hopes, go home with meaningful tips to improve their lives. It\u2019s the first time he\u2019s bringing the event to Ireland, but he\u2019s played in front of thousands across the UK<\/a>, Canada<\/a> and Australia<\/a>. <\/p>\n

We might be drowning in hacks, longevity gurus and health optimisation strategies, but Chatterjee insists people need to stop outsourcing their wellbeing<\/a> and learn to trust themselves again. His central argument is that \u201cwe\u2019ve outsourced our own inner expertise to external experts\u201d. It might sound strange coming from one of those experts, but he insists his goal is to make people like him redundant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to not need me,\u201d he says. \u201cThe whole theme of the night is: it\u2019s your life. You get to choose what\u2019s important to you, and everything I do is about giving people tools they can use themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, Chatterjee has managed to cut through the considerable wellness noise with a common-sense approach that blends his medical background with empowering advice for his more than a million Instagram followers. He first came to prominence in 2015, helping families with their health issues in the BBC TV show Doctor in the House. He has written six bestselling books, and his podcast, Feel Better, Live More, is the most popular health show on Apple Podcasts with more than 300 million listens. <\/p>\n

Chatterjee\u2019s approach covers sleep, stress, purpose, relationships, technology and happiness, while increasingly questioning whether modern life itself is making people ill. \u201cWe have more health and wellness information than ever before,\u201d he points out. \u201cYet physical health is worsening, mental health<\/a> is worse now. If all we needed was more knowledge, we\u2019d be thriving.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole message is about empowerment, trying to show people that it doesn\u2019t matter who you are or where you live or what your perceived problems are. That even if you\u2019re in a dark place, there are still some very simple things that you could do that will make a difference.\u201d His aim with the live event is that \u201cpeople walk away feeling really inspired and feeling that it\u2019s not as hard as they think it is to thrive\u201d. <\/p>\n

What he has learned from seeing tens of thousands of patients in his 23-year medical career and reaching millions more online is that in this hyper-connected world, loneliness is an urgent modern malaise. He\u2019s not surprised when I tell him that articles with \u201clonely\u201d in the headline receive heavy traffic on The Irish Times website. \u201cA lot of the connection we think we\u2019re getting online is what I call junk connection. It\u2019s like junk food. It\u2019s not real, three-dimensional, nourishing connection.\u201d He quotes one study that says \u201cthe feeling of being lonely and isolated is as harmful for your health as smoking 15 to 20 cigarettes per day\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How music, or silence, can help with bereavement, dementia and painOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

As the son of two immigrant parents from India who faced challenges coming to a new country, he says they were keen that their son excelled. \u201cI took on the message as a child that I was only loved when I got straight As … but for all my so-called success, I wasn\u2019t actually that happy because a lot of my life had been driven by external achievement and external validation … I\u2019ve since learnt that happiness is an inside job.\u201d <\/p>\n

He is a keen follower of Rose Anne Kenny, Trinity College Dublin\u2019s professor of medical gerontology, who has been a guest on his podcast. \u201cShe\u2019s been studying this for years and has shown that 80 per cent of how we age is down to how we live, while only 20 per cent is our genes. So I think the ideology of trying to help us to live well and be independent and mobile until the day that we die is awesome.\u201d But he also thinks we have \u201ca problem with death in western society. We don\u2019t want to face it. We don\u2019t want to acknowledge it.\u201d <\/p>\n

This philosophy has developed even more since his father died. He had lupus, and Chatterjee cared for him for years. An awareness of death is crucial for a healthy life, he believes. He has a vivid childhood memory of watching the funeral of Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi in the early 1980s. \u201cI remember seeing her body on the funeral pyre. In India, death is not hidden away; it\u2019s part of life. All of us, at some point, we\u2019re going to return to earth. And I think there\u2019s something in that because if I could live forever, I\u2019m not sure how much of my life would have meaning. I\u2019m not sure if there would be an urgency to do anything, because what makes life beautiful is the fact that we are going to die at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

I bring up the biohacking movement where science, technology and lifestyle tweaks are used to \u201coptimise\u201d the human body and mind. He says he doesn\u2019t like to judge anybody, but that caution is needed. \u201cThe risk of the biohacking movement is twofold. One is that we\u2019re trying to cheat death, and I don\u2019t think we can cheat death. And even if you could cheat death, do you even want to? Is a big question.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other risk is a world where so many of us are struggling with our relationships, where so many of us are feeling lonely. If we keep pursuing our own health habits at the expense of our relationships, we\u2019re setting ourselves up for some really big problems. You can have the perfect level of visceral fat. You can be the perfect weight. Eat the perfect diet. But if you haven\u2019t got meaningful relationships, is there any point? What are you going to do with that perfect six-pack if you haven\u2019t got someone to share your life with?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some people do [biohacking] really well, but some people give it a bad name. I don\u2019t think we all have to do cold plunges and red light therapy. They have value for some people, but I would just say, be careful you\u2019re not optimising your own personal health at the expense of your social relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sardinian village where high number of women reach 100 could be new centenarian \u2018blue zone\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He also believes screen use in children may be the most pressing health issue of our current time. He has a 14-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old son. \u201cI was never going to allow my children on social media. Knowing what I know, and seeing what I\u2019ve seen, there was no way.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re living in a world now where there\u2019s noise everywhere. Social media reels, news headlines, podcasts<\/p>\n

He started playing a regular padel game with his son recently. \u201cEvery week we play two games together on a doubles team. It has dropped my resting heart rate, which is great for my cardiac efficiency. It\u2019s made me sleep better. It\u2019s helped me with multiple aspects of my health, but I don\u2019t play for any of those reasons. I play to hang out with my boy and cultivate our relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this end, he hopes people make connections at his upcoming event. \u201cPeople send me messages saying, \u2018I don\u2019t have any friends who want to come with me. Do you think I could come by myself?\u2019 I tell them absolutely, and they often end up meeting or making friends, because it\u2019s like-minded people gathered together.\u201d <\/p>\n

The podcasts, the books and the events are about him fulfilling his own evolving purpose in life, he says. The book he is currently writing will explore this topic. \u201cIf you\u2019re living a life without purpose, you\u2019re much more likely to engage in problematic behaviours,\u201d he says. \u201cOne of the reasons I want to do these live shows is because what drives me is a real desire to help people live better lives. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as hard as we think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before he goes, he tells me he\u2019s heard about doctors who informally prescribe his podcast to their patients. If Chatterjee could prescribe one thing to the population of Ireland for their wellbeing, what would it be? \u201cTen minutes of silence every day,\u201d he says, without hesitation. \u201cWe\u2019re living in a world now where there\u2019s noise everywhere. Social media reels, news headlines, podcasts, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason we\u2019re so confused is that we stopped listening to ourselves. Ten minutes of silence, or what I would call solitude, literally helps you to start listening to yourself again. I don\u2019t care if that\u2019s a walk round your block, without your phone, or if it\u2019s meditation or journaling.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0There is no such thing as \u2018resetting\u2019 the nervous system \u2013 and we shouldn\u2019t want toOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Or perhaps, he says, the most revolutionary act these days is having a cup of tea or a lunch break without checking emails or scrolling social media. \u201cIf you spend five to 10 minutes a day with intentional silence, you will start to understand yourself better than you have done for such a long period of time and you will make better decisions throughout the day.\u201d Ten minutes of peace? It\u2019s just what the doctor ordered. <\/p>\n

Dr Rangan Chatterjee\u2019s The Thrive Tour event is on at the Bord G\u00e1is Energy Theatre on November 15th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time Dr Rangan Chatterjee came to Dublin, it was for a Bon Jovi concert in Croke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,12875,61,60,709,410],"class_list":["post-658220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-health-wellness","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-magazine","tag-mental-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}