The Mental Health Doctor: “Sitting Is Increasing Your Anxiety!”, Your Phone Is Destroying Your Brain, You May Have ‘Popcorn Brain’!

**Aditi Nerurkar** (0:02)
You need to hear about this. 72% of people are struggling with stress. 70% have at least one feature of burnout, and we are seeing a rise in mental health problems like we've never seen before.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:12)
What's happening?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:12)
So as a doctor, I can tell you that Doctor, Aditi Nerurkar is a Harvard physician, nationally recognized stress expert who is understanding and combating modern day burnout.

**Aditi Nerurkar** (0:23)
When I was a medical student working 80 hours a week, I was in my own stress struggle, and it was terrifying, but I couldn't find a doctor who could help, so I became the doctor I needed. I uncovered all of these studies and found a solution that wasn't just try to relax. We are seeing increased rates of depression, sleep disorders, fatigue or burnout, because stress is higher than ever.
Studies have shown at least 60 to 80% of patient visits have a stress related component.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:53)
Jesus.

**Aditi Nerurkar** (0:54)
It's crazy.
And 60% of people with burnout had an inability to disconnect from work and being addicted to work and can't shut off and checking your phone 2, 600 times a day. Yes, that is a statistic. So you might be experiencing atypical burnout. Even two thirds of parents have burnout.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:12)
That's crazy.

**Aditi Nerurkar** (1:14)
And yet, even though we're all collectively experiencing it, it's so isolating. The now 330 million people go two weeks before speaking with anyone.
So what can we do? Well, these are the five resets that are going to help you survive and thrive. The first technique is...

**Steven Bartlett** (1:33)
Quick one before this episode starts. About 75% of people that listen to this podcast on audio platforms, Spotify and Apple, haven't yet hit the follow button. If I could ask a favour from you, if you've ever enjoyed this podcast, please could you just go and hit that follow button on your app? It helps the show more than I could possibly say. And the bigger the show gets, the better the guests get.
Thank you and enjoy this conversation.
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, where does your story begin? And when I say that, I'm talking about the story that inspired the work you do on stress burnout. There tends to be a catalyst moment in the experts that I speak to's lives where something happened which started a chain of events, the first domino that fell, which led them to be sat here. Where does that story begin for you?

**Aditi Nerurkar** (2:27)
My origin story as a doctor with an expertise on stress started as a stressed patient who couldn't find a doctor with an expertise in stress. And I became the doctor I needed at a time when I was in my own stress struggle.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:44)
What is the backdrop? What is the situation of stress, the state of stress in the world at the moment? Are we getting more stressed as a people?

**Aditi Nerurkar** (2:52)
We are seeing unprecedented levels of stress in the world. It is affecting every single industry and no country or group, including all ages, all industries, all races. It is the great equalizer.
More now than ever. So as a physician and clinician, those of us who work in the medical field, stress has always been a major problem.
We see it with our patients. But now, if there is one silver lining from the recent several years, is that now mental health, stress, burnout, the lexicon has grown and it is something that people are talking about finally, in the C-suite, in other areas, where before it was, you know, there was so much taboo, there still is, but it is finally getting the recognition it deserves. And stress right now is higher, at greater rates than ever.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:52)
What are those rates?

**Aditi Nerurkar** (3:54)
So typically 70% of people have at least one feature of burnout, 72% of people are struggling with stress, and approximately that same number have said that the past several years have been the most stressful of their entire professional careers.

**Steven Bartlett** (4:11)
What's happening?

**Aditi Nerurkar** (4:13)
A couple of things are happening.
So going back to my own personal stress story, why did I have those palpitations?
At night as I was going to bed, I was developing something called a delayed stress reaction. And what happens is under periods of acute stress, like the recent events that we've all endured collectively as a global whole, during acute periods of stress, we shore up our internal reserves. As a human being, you often do not crack in that moment. You keep it together at all costs. I've seen this with my cancer patients. They have a cancer diagnosis and they go through the treatment, radiation, chemotherapy, all of it, and they are fine. They do not shed a tear. Then when they get that first clean bill of health from their doctors, they are in my office sobbing. And everyone is confused. Why now? What's going on now? Same thing with all of us. You may be feeling this way, I may be too. Right now, it's that feeling of like, okay, we've just lived through the pandemic. We should be celebrating. I'm sure you've seen every headline over the past several years, at least I did.