After 23 years as a GP, Chatterjee stopped practising last year to focus on teaching and advocacy. He’s written several bestsellers, including Happy Mind, Happy Life, and taken up a role as visiting professor of health education and communication at Chester Medical School. “So much of modern medicine is about deprivation,” he says. “What should we eat less of, or do less of …” His outlook is more positive: medicine can, and should, be about abundance. Identify the things you do that help you thrive, he suggests (exercise, say, or spending time with friends) and do them more often. There is a direct link, he reminds me, between happiness and longevity: those who thrive for longer live longer, too.
