This summer I was lucky enough to buy an inspirational book ‘The 4 Pillar Plan’ by Dr Rangan Chatterjee and it has not left my clinic desk since! Dr. Chatterjee is also known for the BBC series ‘The Doctor in the House’ and is now a familiar household name.
Dr. Chatterjee has used his 18 years experience as a GP to help us find better ways to relax, eat healthier, move more and sleep better. As we have spent the whole 2018 focused on the concept of ‘active ageing’ we were delighted to find this book and it has been a corner stone of my advice to my patients since.
The book is simple to read and packed with interesting and new research on health and well-being but also practical tips that can easily be implemented in your daily life.
Rangan has also added many patient cases in the book which make the information more palatable and relatable for the reader. Dr. Chatterjee is on a mission to get as many patients off their medication and it is inspiring to see a GP feeling so strongly about this.
The book is divided into four pillars being: Relaxation, Eating, Moving and Sleeping.
Each chapter gives you the science background to healthy living but also explores why we suffer so much ill health as a nation. The statistics on how many people are living with poor health and the cost to our nation are staggering. Rather than prescribing drugs Dr Chatterjee recommends we look at our own diet and cook simpler meals choosing foods with more natural colour, a diet called the ‘Rainbow Diet”, favouring fresh, natural foods of different colours and avoiding those that are more processed. His food chart is simply superb and has inspired many of my patient to try more diverse and colourful vegetables already. (Also see Pippa Mitchell’s blog here: https://www.lucksyardclinic.com/why-are-phytonutrients-so-important/)
The book is linked to his website and you can find so much information there to download in addition to the book. See here: https://drchatterjee.com.
Each chapter explains what kind of symptoms you may experience when your body is out of balance and offers simple steps to nudge yourself towards a healthier life style.
Like Maria Borelius’s book describing her anti-inflammatory life style in ‘The Health Revolution’, much emphasis is put on chronic conditions that are due to cellular inflammation. So many of the suggestions are aimed at reducing inflammation in the body. Dr Chatterjee is also very accepting and understanding that we are all different and have challenging lifestyles, so he tries so hard to make it simple for us to simply tweak and nudge our health in small ways for the marginal gains.
Since the book has come out I have also started listening to his weekly podcast called ‘Feel better, live more’ and I can highly recommend this as an addition to the book and a kind of ‘top-up’ for weekly health-habit-nudging. The people he interviews are so positive and inspiring, each in their own way and I have found it invaluable for my own work as a chiropractor working with patients on a daily basis. Listen here: drchatterjee.com/podcast
The podcast also show notes with further information from the talks with research and links to dig deeper into each subject.
In short I am so grateful for this book and would hope it will be on everone’s Christmas list, as improving our health should be the number one priority in 2019.
