For most of the stressful situations in our lives, it's a perception of a situation more

than the situation itself.

But turn that around and what about its opposite? Physiologically the opposite of stress,

its kindness, its how kindness feels. Some psychologists refer to it as elevation.

The kindness feels like an elevated state. You help someone it feels satisfying and it feels nice.

If you observe an active kindness, somethings if you're moved or inspired.

But globally those are referred to similarly as elevation.

Welcome to the Docks a Skitchen Podcast, the show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today.

My name is Dr. Rupi, I'm a medical doctor, I also study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine.

Join me on this podcast where we explore multiple determinants of what allows you to live your best life.

And remember you can sign up to thedocksaskitchen.com for the newsletter where we give weekly recipes plus tips and hacks on how to improve your lifestyle today.

My guest today is David Hamilton, PhD. He is a writer, columnist, speaker and author of 10 books covering the science of kindness, self-esteem and the mind-body connection.

He is pretty much the kindness czar and has been featured on Channel 4 Sunday Branch Live in the UK and CBS Sunday Morning in the US.

And in today's podcast we talk broadly about the subjects of kindness, self-esteem and mind-body medicine as well as his personal journey from organic chemist at a well-known pharmaceutical company to now having the courage and confidence to preach what he practices.

We have a really down to with authentic conversation. Perhaps the second part of the conversation is my favourite because we're really diving into what he's thinking about doing next.

And how that's conjuring up a bit of nervous energy which hopefully will be converted into something positive.

But earlier on we talk about the placebo effect, how to cultivate inner self-confidence and esteem, manifesting physical changes in the body with brain visualization and mental exercise.

There's something that I probably would have scoffed at about five or six years ago but now I'm really understanding a lot more about the research and the science behind.

We talk about the antidote to stress hormones and the kindness hormone, oxytocin, the virality of kindness, the difference between toxic positivity and actually empathising when in a bad situation, as well as kindness and positivity as a muscle that needs to be worked out.

You can find my guest at www.doctordavidhamilton.com and also check out the links all of which are on the show notes, thedoctorskitchen.com forward flash podcast.

And check out some of the visuals that we put on social media results, some little sound bites that I think really resonated with myself.

But for now it's a bit of a long podcast, I hope you enjoy it and I will sum up some of the most impactful tips that David gave me that I'm personally going to be putting into practice at the end of the show.

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