Feel Better In 5 : Your Daily Plan to Feel Great for Life

This was the most motivating and doable book on health that I have ever read. I have purchased more of Dr. Chatterjee’s books as a result of reading this one. Thank you Dr. Chatterjee for your caring devotion to the health of many who would not otherwise have access to your wonderful expertise and wisdom.

I love this doctor's podcasts and this book is also excellent: he gives you health practices that take 5 minutes or less to do; you pick 3 to work with at a time, so you're improving your health in 15 minutes or less a day. These practices tend to have a synergistic effect, so for example: you pick a 5 minute "kitchen workout", a "brain smoothie", and meditation...the workouts gradually increase your energy, so you start feeling more active...the smoothie replaces a cup of coffee, so you're less jittery...the meditation helps you practice staying calm, so you're less stressed...next thing you know, you're ready to add another practice, or swap one out for another: "Little by little...a little becomes a lot."The explanations of the practices are clear and simple, so incorporating them into your life isn't difficult...and it's hard to persuade ourselves we haven't got 5 minutes, somewhere, in three parts of our day, so the mental barriers to adding the practices to your life are low.He also has a nice section in the back with suggestions for which practices to apply to various life challenges: "Try these if you're depressed...these other ones if you have insomnia...this set if you want to increase energy" which is very helpful when you're trying to decide which practices to try; and of course if you change your mind later, you can always swap one out for another.I downloaded my copy from the library, but I've also been gifting the book a lot to friends and family. Check it out!

If you’ve read James Clear Atomic Habits you’ll know what this book is based on except Clears book is sooo much better. That doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate the book. It’s a good reminder to link new habits onto old ones. I did like the “healthy snacks” approach.

I've read a few of the authors previous books. They are written in an easy to read not very technical language. Thus there isn't anything in general that surprised me, or that I didn't already know. What I found very useful were the ideas on HOW to implement simple changes into my life.The latest of his books clearly shows how his ideas have developed. Basically he has created a number of "health snacks" along the various dimensions of health, such as diet, stress, exercise, sleep....These simple routines take 5 minutes, and you can pick the ones that appeal to you.I've started recommending this book for people who want to do SOMETHING but are not yet motivated enough to work very hard to figure out what they should do. I think of the 20-30 recent books I've read on health/fitness this is the single best one for people to begin with.I know from my journey to much better fitness (I thought I was fit before!) that it takes some time an effort to find a routine that helps with your specific issues, is motivating enough, and shows progress.If you take the time to listen to the authors podcast, you'll learn a lot while being entertained.Not only does the book contain sound advice, it's well presented, illustration and graphics are nicely done. It's a quality printed book. Highly recommended for anyone that wants to improve their health or maintain their health. Unless you are already doing a multi dimensional program for diet, exercise, stress, sleep etc... this is a useful guide to self improvement.

Can 5 minutes 3x a day change your overall health for the better? Within an hour of listening to this book I was convinced it really can. As Dr. Chatterjee states (quite more eloquently than I) why do we doubt we can do a positive change in that little of time? We wouldn’t doubt that doing 15 minutes of bad things for us would make a change. I immediately went and ordered a physically copy for me and my best friend. Dr. Chatterjee suggests 5 minutes 3x a day 5x a week to improve your overall well being. 1- mind 2- body 3- heart. Each section he gives different options for things you can try. Before finishing the book I already adopted one that has really helped me relax. Immediately upon waking before even getting out of bed, I was reaching for my phone. Anxious to see what I had missed. Now I give myself 5 minutes to wake and stretch before even looking at my phone. Well what started as 5 minutes has now expanded to 30 to an hour. I didn’t realize how much I was setting the tone of my day to be stressed with that one thing! Dr. Chatterjee is not pushy or preachy. He’s extremely encouraging and genuinely seems to want the best for people. I can’t recommend this book enough.

This book was quite easy to read. It is interesting and informative. It would allow you to become a better you if you practice the health nuggets daily for at least five days. The mind exercises allows you to reflect on your day and plan ahead. This allows you to be intentional in behavior and not reactive. The body exercises are not difficult but can be a bit challenging based on your level of physical activity. The heart exercises allows you to focus on the positive and being thankful no matter the situation. There is always something for us to learn from the negative situations.I would recommend this book to anyone who seeks to know themselves, develop themselves and become a life long learner.

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-talk6) 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 love this book (as you probably guessed from my title). I am on an holistic health journey, slowly losing 112lbs (30lbs so far) and reversing reversible health blips, with guidance from a Nutritional Coach and a PT. I love the bite size chunks of each section of this book. You could read it cover to cover, or dip into whichever section you feel is most relevant. The 5-minute sessions are all so achievable even in the busiest of days. I particularly love the 5 minutes in nature in the mornings, and the resulting impact of several small habit changes all leading to a big impact on overall health and well being. An excellent book.I’d also recommended Dr Chatterjee’s Podcasts in conjunction with this book. His whole approach is so professionally and thoughtfully delivered giving real food for thought and actionable insights.

I've not read all of this yet but il get there. Looks good though. Interesting too.i bought it because it is a gd book to have

love this book.It really has been a life changer for me

Shows that small doable changes can make the difference you want.