Dr Michael Mosley described his obsession with living a good life and the challenge he found in following his own advice on meditation in his final interview.
The doctor and television star, who was found dead last week on Greek island of Symi, was praised as “one of the most important broadcasters of recent decades” in the first of two tribute programmes.
In a special Radio 4 show, There’s Only One Michael Mosley, the BBC aired his final interview at the Hay Festival. In it he discussed the ways to live a good life with psychologist Professor Paul Bloom.
Opening the recording, fellow TV doctor Chris van Tulleken praised the impact Dr Mosley had on science and health, adding he would miss him as a “friend, mentor and most of all as a broadcaster”.
Paying tribute, he added: “Michael’s death has moved so many of us, so really I’m speaking for lots of television and audio presenters and producers.
“His legacy is going to live on in our memories every time we brush our teeth standing on one leg, we fast a little longer between meals, we build up our strength with squats or do any one of the other hundreds of tricks that he taught us.”
Describing his ways of working as “genius”, he recalled Mosley deliberately infecting himself with a tapeworm to become both “the patient and the guinea pig”.
Over the course of the conversation with Professor Bloom, professor emeritus of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University, the two discuss their insights into living a good life, with Dr Mosley admitting he has been “obsessed” with the notion for many years.
Discussing their top tips, the TV medic said it was a challenge to have a cold shower and that he did press-ups and sit-ups each morning, despite sharing no enjoyment for it.
Also touching on meditation and mindfulness, he admitted that despite telling other people to do it, he personally struggled to engage in the process.
“I mean to do it, and I have long conversations with my wife about it, but somehow we never get round to it,” he said.
Later in the episode, Mosley shared with the audience one of the “scarier experiments” he had taken part in – a personality test.
“I was stuck in a brain scanner and showed images of someone being hit with a ruler and then they hit me with a ruler,” he explained.
When he asked for the results, the psychologist said: “I’d send your wife out of the room at this point.”
Mosley admitted that “according to this test, I am a bit of a psychopath”.
As the audience laughed, Professor Bloom reassured Mosley: “If you’re worried you’re a psychopath, you’re not a psychopath.”
The broadcast, available now on BBC Sounds, will be followed by a special TV programme, titled Michael Mosley: The Doctor Who Changed Britain, on BBC One at 8pm on Friday.
The 67-year-old was discovered dead on Sunday after being reported missing on the Greek island of Symi last Wednesday. The father-of-four had set off for a walk without his mobile from Agios Nikolaos beach at around 1.30pm, with temperatures reaching nearly 40C.
Despite an extensive search by the emergency services, his body was found near Agia Marina beach by local journalists and the island’s mayor.
Mosley first trained as a doctor before moving into the world of broadcasting, presenting a host of science programmes and films on the BBC including Trust Me, I’m A Doctor, which looked at healthcare in Britain.
In 2002, he was nominated for an Emmy for his executive producer role on BBC science documentary The Human Face, and he ingested tapeworms for six weeks for a 2014 BBC Four documentary, Infested! Living With Parasites.
Mosley is credited with popularising the 5:2 diet, a form of intermittent fasting, through his book The Fast Diet, and later advocated for The Fast 800 diet, which follows a “moderately low-carb, Mediterranean-style diet”.
