“Do these five things and manifest the life you want"; “How a little delulu led me to my dream life"; “The morning routine that changed everything." You get the picture.

I’m not entirely immune. I quite like the idea of imagining a better future. I’d even go so far as to call it soul food: a little hope, possibility, a reminder that the life you have isn’t necessarily the life you’re stuck with. But depending on the phase you catch me in (I daren’t say luteal), I might still squeeze out an eye roll at the word delusional.

Because here’s where you’ll find me: interested, but with questions.

So when I listened to a recent episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast, in which Dr Cassanda Vieten unpacked the science of imagination and creating change, it caught me rather differently. This wasn’t about asking the universe nicely for my dream life. It was about what happens when we imagine the future - and whether that imagination can actually change what we do in the present.

Vieten, who directs the Centre for Human Imagination at UC San Diego, sent me down a research rabbit hole. And what I found was far more interesting than manifestation: evidence that imagining the future can influence motivation, planning, decision-making and behaviour - particularly when we imagine not just the destination, but the journey there.

Which left me with a rather tempting question: what if I tried it properly? No manifestation, no wishful thinking, but the actual techniques researchers have been studying - and whether they could change anything beyond my mood.

For one month, I’d put the science to the test: imagining not just what I want my future to look like, but who I want to become, what might get in the way and how I might actually get there. And, guess what - you have front-row seats to what happened to my motivation, confidence, habits and goals when I started treating imagination less like an escape and more like rehearsal.

I Tried the Science-Backed Art of Imagining a Better Future

So, What Am I Actually Doing For A Month?

Before I start, let’s get one thing straight: this is not a month of visualising Birkins and my wildly successful future self while waiting for the universe to sort out the logistics. It turns out, there’s homework: a three-part approach rooted in future simulation, neuroscience and behavioural change.

First up: Best Possible Self.

“At the start of the month, I’d either do a guided practice of meeting your future self,” Vieten tells me, “or, if you are more of a storyteller, you can do this exercise by sitting down with a pen for twenty uninterrupted minutes and write about your life - three years from now: what you're doing, who you're with, how you spend your time and how you're showing up in the world."

Then, I'm to repeat this. "Each morning that month, spend five minutes a day with your eyes closed, going back into that scene by either sitting down again for a brief check-in with your future self and asking them a question or two," Vieten instructs.

This gives me my starting point: one longer exercise to construct the future on day one, followed by five-minute sessions each morning to return to it.

Specificity matters here. "Detail helps most on the parts you actually control,” Vieten explains. “Imagery and simulating future scenarios recruits emotion, while writing creates more coherence and discernment. The mental imagery you conjure connects more deeply to emotions, which in turn shapes motivation and behaviour. With writing, you’re more likely to discover what you really want – or whether you’ve simply absorbed expectations from your upbringing, societal messaging or habit.”

Then comes mental contrasting: imagining the future I want, identifying the obstacles that could get in the way and making a realistic plan. Vieten recommends Gabriele Oettingen’s WOOP method: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan.

And crucially, I’m not just visualising the result. Vieten suggests imagining the process of getting there, “how will you face the situation, rather than simply seeing yourself succeeding.” Which, frankly, is much more my speed.

TLDR: construct the future, return to it regularly, confront what might get in the way and see whether any of it changes what I actually do. Assignment understood.

What Does The Science Say?

So, we have our three-pronged method. Tick. But what’s the science behind them?

“There is a strong neuroscience literature showing that imagining future events recruits some of the same systems involved in remembering and experiencing events,” psychologist Dr Sophie Mort tells me. “Your brain knows you aren’t doing the thing, but it is activating your brain in ways that are very useful.”

Vieten puts it even more plainly: “Imagination runs on much of the same machinery as actual sensory perception and behavioural action,” she explains. “Visualise something and your visual cortex engages; mentally rehearse a movement and motor areas engage; even imagining the smell of biscuits can activate the brain’s olfactory areas.”

“Imagination is a “neurological reality” that affects our brains and bodies,” notes Vieten. And importantly, “repeated practice does strengthen the neural pathways involved.”

But how does that get from inside my head to changing what I actually do?

This is where the technique matters. “Imagining the future in detail can make it more familiar before we actually get there,” Vieten tells me. “We can mentally rehearse how we want to behave, anticipate what might get in our way and think through possible responses. When the real situation arrives, we’re not encountering it entirely cold."

Perhaps this is why mental rehearsal has long been part of elite sport. Billie Jean King has spoken about imagining how she’d respond to a ball coming at her from every possible angle; Jack Nicklaus famously described running a “home movie” of every shot before taking it. In a 2004 study, people who repeatedly imagined muscle contractions alongside their physical training increased their finger strength by 35% and their elbow-flexion strength by 13.5%.

It’s a striking example of what mental rehearsal might actually do: not replace the physical work, but potentially make the work more effective.

Which got me wondering: if imagining a movement can influence something as measurable as muscle strength, what happens when the thing I’m rehearsing isn’t a tennis shot or a bicep curl, but the person I want to become?

Does Optimism Actually Change The Brain And Body?

If imagining a better future can make us more optimistic, does that optimism (no delusion in sight) change anything beyond how we feel?

“The evidence suggests yes, but it’s more complex than popular claims suggest,” Mort tells me. “Optimism does influence brain structure and function.” Research published in 2021 linked optimism with activity in parts of the prefrontal brain involved in how we think, make decisions and motivate ourselves. “An optimistic outlook affects how we perceive and attend to our surroundings,” Mort explains, with the research suggesting that what we expect to happen can influence what we actually notice, particularly when it comes to positive information.

Dare I say it, optimism might be doing more than making us feel a little more glass-half-full. It can subtly change what we pay attention to, how we interpret what’s happening around us, and ultimately how we respond to it.

So no, thinking positive thoughts doesn’t simply flood the brain with happy chemicals. It’s subtler than that. A more optimistic outlook can change what we pay attention to, how we interpret situations, and, ultimately, how our bodies respond to stress.

I Put Future Visualisation To The Test

Week One: I Met My Future Self

With the science in mind and the methodology in tow, week one started with Best Possible Self. I certainly wasn’t expecting to emerge as a new woman by week four, nor was I about to credit every random boost of productivity to the power of visualisation. But as I sat at my desk on day one, pen to paper, imagining what my future self might look like, I felt an unexpected sense of comfort.

It started to feel almost game-like. I was imagining what my future days would feel like: how I’d start each morning, where I’d sit with my coffee, what emails I’d be sending, what I’d be wearing, even what I’d have planned for that day. No detail was left unimagined – literally.

Now, ironically, as a writer, I thought I’d have no problem scripting who I imagined myself to be. Instead, I faced an unexpected bout of writer’s block. I couldn’t give myself free rein to write without judgement or control; I wanted the future I imagined to be…well, perfect. I was over-auditing, as per usual (another day in the life of a Type A)

So I revisited my interview notes from my time with Vieten. “Focus on what you can control,” she told me, and “write it properly once before keeping the daily practice short.” I did just that. I spent 20 minutes, as instructed, writing out this future version, then, for the next six days, returned to her for five minutes each morning. I found that once I’d got over myself, the exercise forced me to get specific about what I actually wanted - and what I could control. Imagining the future became less of a fantasy and more a set of choices.

Week Two: I Had To Face What Was Getting In The Way

This is where the exercise became considerably less comfortable. Once I’d got used to my Best Possible Self, I had to look at the gap between her life and mine. What was actually standing in the way? Time. Opportunity. Distractions. Saying yes to something I didn’t really want to do. The general tendency to have excellent intentions at 9 am and completely different priorities by 4:30 pm.

Mental contrasting made me confront what was actually making me feel restless about where I was. I’d mapped out my future self - and the choices I could control - in such granular detail that seeing the challenges that could crop up and derail me felt a little too real. For each goal written (a long list, let me tell you), I asked myself what was most likely to get in the way and what I could realistically do when it did.

Oddly, this didn’t dim my optimism. If anything, it made the goals feel more within reach. The Best Possible Self Exercise had given me the joy of imagining where I could go; mental contrasting made the route there feel approachable. I thought I’d feel pressure identifying challenges and how I’d overcome them; instead, I felt reassurance: acknowledging the trials and tribulations that would come with my future self, and carving out an ‘imaginary’ path so they’d feel a little less unfamiliar when they arrived. Me not spiralling at the idea of things going wrong - that’s what I call growth.

Week Three: I Stopped Imagining The Dream And Started Imagining The Work

It was here that I stopped visualising the finished product and started rehearsing the behaviour. Before sitting down to work, I imagined myself doing stuff I’d been putting off: opening the document, getting through the difficult bit, finishing the paragraph even when it wasn’t very good. If I wanted to be more than one thing, I’d imagine myself making time for the other things I wanted to pursue, too - not just imagining what it would feel like once I’d succeeded.

​I knew what I should be doing, but there was something different about mentally walking myself through it before I started. I wasn’t asking, How brilliant would it be if I achieved this? I was asking, What does the version of me who achieves this actually do when it gets difficult?

​By the end of the week, I couldn’t honestly say I was suddenly more disciplined. I still procrastinated. Gosh, there were days when the last thing I wanted to do was follow through. But I noticed a small shift in my confidence. It was less about believing I could be that person, and more about having evidence that I could practice behaving like her. And that seemed to be the point of process visualisation.

The Final Week: Did It Actually Change Anything?

By the final week, the novelty had definitely worn off. Which, I’d say, was the most useful part.

I wasn’t waking up every morning as my highest self. Some days, I forgot; some days I couldn't be bothered, and some days my future self and I were simply not on speaking terms.

But I had noticed something: my confidence in being able to act on what I wanted felt steadier. For a month, I’d rehearsed the behaviours I needed to get where I wanted to be. I’d preached on paper, and I’d practised each scenario.

I won’t pretend visualisation transformed my life in four weeks. It didn’t, and a one-person experiment certainly can’t prove that. But I did feel more motivated to act on my goals, clearer about what I wanted and, by imagining the woman I wanted to become, a little more like her.

Maybe that’s the real appeal of the science-backed art of imagination: not romanticising a life until it magically appears, but using legitimate methods to rehearse the person you need to become to build it.

MC's Essentials for Your Best Possible Self

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m getting older, but the speed at which time passes has been bothering me more than usual. I’ve realised that, in many ways, I live my life in fast-forward - so focused on achieving the next goal that I skip from one major scene to the next, missing the small plotlines that happen in between. It’s how I frequently find myself arriving on Saturday without any recollection of what happened on Tuesday, how I got to September unsure what I did all summer, and how, at the ripe age of 27, I still feel 13.

I know others will relate. We live in a culture that rewards optimisation and efficiency; that celebrates being able to do things faster and in more automated ways. And that approach, though it might be effective for profit margins, can at times feel more like a computer programme than real life.

It’s why I was so intrigued by the concept of an everyday delights journal when I read about it in one of my favourite wellness newsletters, Daily Rituals. The idea is that, by noting down the small sensory moments that scratched your brain throughout the day, you can extract more awe, delight and curiosity from everyday life. It got me thinking: could this be a way of slowing time down and feeling more present for the entire movie of our lives?

Ahead, with the help of psychologists and authors working in the field of happiness, I investigate these everyday delights to find out whether paying attention to them could really make a difference to our wellbeing.

For more mental wellbeing tips, check out our guides to friction-maxxing, dopamine menus and why your friendships are a powerful tool for health. Plus, what happened when one writer opted out of optimisation for a month.

What Happened When I Spent a Month Writing Down the Little Things That Made Me Happy

What is an everyday delight?

In his new book, The Small Stuff: How To Live a More Gratifying Life, author Ian Bogost makes a case for the importance of savouring the small, sensory moments. These everyday delights, he tells me, could be “any kind of momentary experience that happens right now in your senses.” That means the noise of popcorn popping or the click of a light switch, the feel of the bedsheets on your bare feet or the weight of your coffee cup in your palm. These are all examples of everyday delights.

“It happens right now, always,” says Bogost. “These are immediate sensory connections that you can’t save up.”

Ironically, he says, it’s their supposed mundanity that defines them. “Intellectually they feel unimportant,” he says. “They are things that feel as though you need to move through them, as if they aren’t relevant to your goals.”

What are the benefits of noticing everyday delights?

Ever since the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment of 1970, instant gratification has had a bad rep. The study, which monitored preschoolers' ability to resist temptation, concluded that those who displayed greater self-control and willpower were healthier and more successful in later life.

The study became evidence of a wider cultural perspective: that things that provide immediate pleasure are indulgences or distractions from more important goal-driven activities. “Anything associated with sensory life has been classed as a practice we need to suppress,” confirms Bogost. “It’s viewed as this all-encompassing thing that you must refuse in order to be efficient and successful.”

The reality, though, is that paying attention to small everyday delights can have genuine psychological benefits. “We call this savouring,” says Professor Bruce Hood, Developmental Psychologist at the University of Bristol, when I ask him whether my journaling is doing any permanent good. He explains that “all experiences, good and bad, can be amplified by attentional focus. If we choose to focus on an experience, we process it more deeply and, therefore, get more from it.”

Research consistently backs this up. Savouring has been found to aid stress regulation, enhancing positive emotions and alleviating negative ones, and has even been connected to relief from symptoms of chronic pain, depression and anxiety.

Are there any risks to everyday delights journaling?

On the whole, paying attention to the small sensory delights of your day has very little downside. They’re free and don’t require you to add anything new to your, likely already busy, schedule. “You don’t have to change anything about your goal-driven, ambitious life in order to add gratification in,” explains Bogost. “The gratifying experiences are right in front of you. On the way to doing all the things you’re already doing, just notice them as they happen.”

Of course, if we indulge in the everyday delights at the expense of the things we have to do - like our jobs, caring for family members, or cleaning the house - the balance will be off. “You don’t need to gratification-max,” says Bogost. “It’s just spending a second longer in a sensory experience.”

I Kept an Everyday Delights Journal Every Day for a Month—And Can’t Believe How Much More Grounded I Feel

Weeks one and two

Before we dive in: some context about me. I’m notoriously Type A - a perfectionist, ambitious to a fault, organised (read: controlling) and a little anxious. Things often feel urgent when they aren’t, making me a prime candidate for an everyday delights journal. I regularly miss the small sensory moments of my day because I’m doing five things at once - replying to emails as I eat my breakfast, texting while on my morning walk or listening to a podcast whilst cooking. I’ll do anything to tick the to-do list off faster and get to the next major milestone.

It’s why the journal worked well for me from the start. If you’re naturally prone to noticing the small sensory pleasures around you, you might not need to write them down. But for me, the accountability of journaling made me pay more attention to what I like about these little moments in the day. In the first week alone, I racked up quite a list - some of which I’ll share with you here.

• Turning the pages of a paperback book
• The scent of nice perfume as someone walks past
• Hearing the pop of a newly unsealed jar
• Putting my bare feet in cold sheets
• Stroking my nails down my arm
• Spinning my rings round my finger

Sometimes, I could describe what I liked about these sensory interactions and other times, I couldn’t put my finger on it. They were just, somehow, delightful. What I do know is that spending a few seconds longer thinking about them as they happened, and later reflecting on them at the end of the day, made them feel even more delicious.

Weeks three and four

By week three, I was well into the groove of noticing the delights of my day. I didn’t always write them down - this wasn’t a strict journaling habit - and instead tended to just note them down when they really stuck out to me. I keep my journal and pen in my handbag, so rather than making it a nightly thing, I started jotting them down throughout the day.

The best part of all? Reading them to my friends. When you make these sensory habits social, they become even more fun. It’s a great conversation starter. Tell your friend what you love so much about the satisfying way a knife slices through a cake, and you’ll probably find they come back with something equally odd, sparking hours of conversation.

As I’ve discovered, the sensory delights of the world are endless, and noticing them takes nothing away from your day. I’m just as efficient, productive and ambitious as I was a month ago, but my life is peppered with more mini, random moments of happiness. It’s not life-changing, but it is life-enhancing.

Instead of living my life in giant, busy blocks of time, I now feel that it moves more like stepping stones, punctuated by pauses where I’m truly connected to myself and the world around me.

Shop MC-UK everyday delights tools now:

But in 2026, the phrase has taken on an entirely new dimension. Now, instead of deciphering whether a creator has tweaked their appearance, we have to question whether they’re human at all.

It seems almost dystopian, but it’s true. The AI-generated influencer market is now worth over $11 billion, with virtual personas earning up to 40x more than the average human creator.

That in itself seems bizarre. But there’s also a darker side to this booming industry. Because, as an investigation by the New York Times revealed in July, hundreds of these hyperrealistic AI-generated personas are being used to tout misleading health information online. It’s a frightening reality, especially given that one in four of us rely on social media and AI as a source of health information.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s another layer, too - one that The Times didn’t address. Because as these AI-generated influencers proliferate, genuinely credible women’s health creators and brands are having their content hidden and removed by social media platforms right here in the UK. In fact, 95% of women’s health brands who responded to a survey by CensHERship in 2025 reported experiencing digital suppression.

Ahead, we investigate what the rise of virtual influencers really means for an already murky online wellness landscape. With the help of lawyers, scam researchers and women’s health experts, we ask who these AI-generated personas really are, how we can spot them, and what their presence on our feeds really means for our wellbeing.

Whilst you’re here, you can find more investigations into the modern state of wellness, including the chronic issue of PMDD misdiagnosis, the debate around the new Ozempic add-on pill, and what the launch of ChatGPT Health means for women, over on the MC UK health section.

Meet the AI "Wellness Experts" Sharing Dangerous Advice

What is an AI-generated wellness influencer?

Early adopters and tech wizards, forgive me, but before we go any further, I think it’s important to define what an AI-generated influencer actually is.

For that, I turn to Kelly Allison, founder of KVA digital communications agency and host of the Health Applied podcast, who specialises in the humanisation of AI. “An AI influencer is an avatar or an artificial persona, often created by a brand to represent them,” she explains. “Usually, these personas aren’t based on real people - they’re created from scratch in order to give the brand full control of their appearance and narrative.”

Occasionally, though, AI influencers do represent real people. “Some influencers have created digital twins of themselves,” says Allison. “It’s less common because they can erode trust with an audience built over years, but it does allow the influencer to take on more work.”

One thing to note: an AI influencer is different to a deepfake. “Deepfakes are digital twins of a celebrity, influencer or someone in the public eye, created unethically and without their permission,” says Allison.

As for where these AI influencers live, often it’s on a brand’s channel where they’re used for individual promotional videos. At the same time, though, there has been a rise in entirely new profiles being built around virtual influencers. “Many of these profiles are bot-managed,” says Allison. “They can respond to comments, follow back and can grow very quickly.”

She points out that Meta has some regulations and auto-detect tools to mitigate against the creation of these bot-managed profiles, but says that not all are picked up. “The result is people following someone who they think is a real-life influencer, and yet behind the content there is no substance, no empathy or emotions.”

Why are wellness brands using AI influencers instead of human creators?

Unless you work in marketing, you might be wondering why a brand would create an entirely new persona instead of working with an actual human creator. As with most things, the answer comes down, in large part, to money.

“It’s not just avoiding having to pay the influencer themselves,” says Allison. “Brands using AI-generated influencers can also make savings against translations, editing, briefing and rights to share across multiple platforms.”

It’s what makes them so popular amongst wellness brands. “If you’re trying to show someone how to inject or apply a product at home, using an avatar is a quick, accurate and cost-effective way to do that,” says Allison. “There’s less need for human trust because the video is instructional.”

There’s also an element of control at play. “With a human influencer, brands are relying on an influencer’s individual style and way of presenting a narrative,” Allison explains. “In contrast, an AI influencer can be engineered to speak specifically to a brand’s audience across different platforms.”

What’s the problem with AI-generated wellness influencers?

It’s the complete control brands have over the narrative that presents a potential danger for consumers. The influencer industry is built on trust - the principle that someone on your feed has tried a product and influenced you to buy it based on their first-hand experience. Over the years, we’ve watched that trust erode even in the human sphere, as influencers have marketed products that feel misaligned with their values.

When you remove the human entirely, that opportunity for deception grows. “An AI influencer has zero values, and yet they can be programmed to use the most emotionally persuasive, warm, kind, caring, empathetic language,” explains Allison.

The result is an influencer model that relies entirely on a brand’s moral compass to share credible information. And that, unsurprisingly, has opened up an industry of scams, known as PharmaFraud. “Last year alone our software stopped over one million attempts to send people to fake pharmacy sites from social media,” says Leyla Bilge, global head of scam research at Norton. “These sites are dressed up to look exactly like a real online chemist but are selling medication that either doesn’t exist or isn’t what it claims to be.”

Bilge says that mid-life women are the demographic most frequently targeted by these faux-pharmacies, which primarily market medication relating to weight-loss, sexual health, hormone health and antibiotics. “This content works on emotion, and it follows trends fast,” says Bilge. “AI can build websites and personas very quickly, so they can follow the health story people are searching for.”

To add insult to injury, all of this is happening at the same time as medically accurate women’s health content is being censored. “Automated moderation treats an anatomical word such as ‘vagina’, ‘breast’, ‘cervix’ or ‘menstruation’ as an indicator of sexual content and restricts it, regardless of whether the post is providing legitimate health education,” explains Kate Prince, head of public affairs at health and hygiene corporation, Essity.

It’s an issue which Dr Helen O’Neill, Professor in Reproductive and Molecular Genetics and co-founder of Hertility, has experienced first-hand. “Meta actively removes Hertility content,” she tells me, referencing a promotional video the brand used of a real woman discussing her experience of endometriosis and secondary infertility. Meta removed the video for being too political. “There is an obvious gender bias in what platforms deem acceptable when it comes to health,” Dr O’Neill explains. “More than 600 women’s health companies have reported experiencing censorship or restrictions of their content.”

As the experts point out, suppressing credible information doesn’t stop women looking for answers - it simply creates a vacuum for misinformation to fill at the exact moment that AI-influencers are rising. “Our research found that three-quarters of 18- to 34-year-olds turn to social media to educate themselves about male and female health, and 47% of social-media users regard it as important for health education,” says Prince.

It’s this interaction between AI-generated misinformation and the suppression of medically accurate women’s health information that creates the issue. “If users cannot distinguish between a real clinician, a commercial avatar and a fabricated testimonial, they cannot properly assess the credibility or motivation of the advice,” says Prince, who points out the myriad of potential consequences.

“People might delay professional advice, make inappropriate treatment decisions, spend money on ineffective products or become unnecessarily frightened about normal symptoms.”

Are AI-generated wellness influencers always untrustworthy?

Before we consider how we separate a credible AI-influencer from a scam, it’s important to point out that a brand simply using them in their content isn’t a red flag. “AI influencers could be useful if they are designed around transparency, evidence and human accountability,” says Prince. “They could translate trusted health information from sources like the NHS website into accessible language, communicate in different languages and formats, reach underserved audiences and signpost people towards appropriate services.”

It’s the lack of regulation that makes trusting them a challenge, particularly as the technology rapidly becomes more convincing. “The UK has no standalone laws for AI influencers or AI marketing, relying instead on existing consumer laws and advertising codes to regulate generative media,” says Stacey Gray, Commercial Senior Associate at Square One Law. She explains that, although brands have a legal responsibility not to share misinformation or misleading content, there is currently no blanket requirement to disclose an AI’s identity in organic social media posts.

For Prince, that’s a sign we need tighter restrictions, such as a verification tool for qualified health professionals on social media. “That would help users recognise reliable sources and help platforms protect clinically accurate education from wrongful suppression,” she says.

How to spot an AI-generated influencer scam:

While we wait for the platforms to clamp down on AI influencer credibility, how can we protect ourselves online?

1. Look for a digital footprint

According to Bilge, it’s no longer enough to look for video glitches like funky hands or unrealistic-looking hair. “That advice is dating fast as the sophistication of AI evolves,” she says. Instead, she recommends we look at the influencer’s digital footprint.

“If it’s a digital twin of a real celebrity, check if they have talked about that product on their own verified account,” says Bilge, whilst Allison points out that with AI, often there is no footprint at all. “This is because the persona has been created for one particular purpose,” she explains. “In these cases, it’s crucial that a brand has labelled their content as AI, and that they have data to back up the claims being made.”

2. Check for licenses and qualifications

In the UK, all registered pharmacies are listed by the General Pharmaceutical Council. These providers won’t offer you a medication without a prescription - something Bilge says is a clear red flag in unlicensed providers. “Avoid anything that will sell you a medical product without a prescription, or who will offer you a prescription without meaningful consultation,” she says.

If it’s an individual rather than a brand, Dr O’Neill reminds us to look up their qualifications. “Look at who is actually behind the claim. What are their qualifications? Are they a regulated healthcare entity or professional, and are they qualified in the area they’re talking about?” She says.

3. Watch out for bold claims and pressurising statements

Bold, sweeping statements from any online wellness creator, whether they’re human or AI-generated, are things to watch out for.

“Incredibly simple solutions to complicated biology, particularly claims about ‘balancing hormones’, reversing conditions or fixing fertility, are important to be wary of,” says Dr O’Neill.

Bilge agrees, adding that “if everything around the order process feels generic and rushed, that’s usually a sign that something isn’t right.”

Shop MC-UK approved wellness products now:

For a good while afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. While the sentiment of the article, and the study behind it, was undeniably positive, I couldn’t help but feel there was something off about the headline’s delivery. Looking on the bright side, finding the silver linings and keeping your cup half full are all nice in theory, but do they risk dismissing difficult, yet important, emotions? Do these worldviews require a certain amount of privilege? And does relentless optimism leave any room for admitting when something is actually just really hard?

As it turns out, I was wrong on all three counts. As psychologist and optimism expert Dr Deepika Chopra and health and social psychologist Professor Fuschia Sirios explained to me, optimism isn’t about denying life’s hardships. It’s far more about whether we see positive and negative experiences as temporary and external, or as permanent reflections of who we are.

And that means we all have the capacity to shift the way we think about the world, regardless of the circumstances we’re facing. It doesn’t mean ignoring challenges, but it can offer a different, and potentially more manageable, way of moving through them.

Ahead, I followed Dr Chopra’s seven tips for building real optimism to see how much they could actually shift my worldview. A month later, I’ve been impressed by the results.

If your mind is searching for a bit of TLC right now, I’d also recommend checking out these daily habits a neuroscientist uses to boost brain function, as well as these 10 simple ways to tailor your nutrition. We also have expert advice on training your brain to enjoy exercise and the mental reframe that soothed one writer’s overthinking brain.

What I Learnt Trying An Optimist Expert's Attitude Adjustment Tips For A Month

What is optimism?

Optimism is a funny thing. Though we all recognise it when we see it, actually being able to define and separate it from other positive mindsets such as hope and gratitude is surprisingly difficult.

“We tend to equate optimism with positive thinking,” says health psychologist and optimism doctor Dr Deepika Chopra, “but that’s not what optimism means. Real optimism is the belief that even when things are difficult or uncertain, possibilities still exist. It’s the belief that our actions can influence what happens next and that whatever we are met with, we are capable of responding to it.”

Professor Fuschia Sirois, a social and health psychologist at Durham University, agrees with Dr Chopra. “Optimists don’t just sit there waiting for it all to work out,” she says. “They put a lot of energy and effort into achieving the outcome they want. They’re persistent precisely because they believe they can achieve a positive result.”

What are the benefits of being optimistic?

Most of us can probably guess that optimism is linked with feeling better psychologically. But what you may not realise is that research has actually linked it with a far wider range of positive health outcomes, from better cardiovascular health, stronger social relationships and even improved longevity.

“One of the most useful ways to understand why optimism matters is through behaviour,” says Dr Chopra. “If I believe my actions might make a difference, I’m more likely to act. I’m more likely to problem-solve, seek support, persist after a setback, make the doctor’s appointment, move my body, have the difficult conversation or try again.”

It’s this resilience that makes an optimistic outlook so beneficial. “Optimism doesn’t magically create a good outcome, but it does change how we act in the space between uncertainty and outcome,” says Dr Chopra. “Over a lifetime, that makes a difference.”

But just like optimism doesn’t guarantee we’ll achieve our goals, pessimism doesn’t automatically mean we’ll fail at them. The difference is how we experience the process of working towards them. “Pessimists may still achieve their goals,” confirms Professor Sirois. “But they have a far less positive journey towards them than an optimist.”

Can we learn to be more optimistic?

Ok, so things seem fairly simple so far. But if optimism is so beneficial to our health and wellbeing, why does it seem to come less naturally to some than others? And if we feel we’re lacking in the optimism department, is there anything we can do to change it?

To make sense of this, we need to first understand where optimism comes from. “Research suggests that up to 50% of personality traits are biological,” says Professor Sirois. That might sound like a lot, but as she points out, “that also means that 50% is determined by our environment.”

It’s why she says surrounding yourself with optimistic people is so important. “Optimism is infectious that way,” she says. “Surrounding yourself with people who think in a certain way makes it easier for you to do the same.”

On the flipside, we can’t ignore that certain environments and circumstances make optimism somewhat harder to build. “Context matters enormously,” says Dr Chopra. “Your history, your current circumstances, any chronic stress and the amount of control you actually have over your environment all matter. It’s why someone experiencing grief, financial insecurity, discrimination, illness or repeated adversity shouldn’t be told they simply need a better mindset.”

Instead, she prefers to focus on something she calls real optimism. “This is about acknowledging reality before we try to reframe it,” she says. “It recognises that two people won’t begin from the same starting point.”

Once we have taken stock of our starting point, Dr Chopra recommends asking yourself these three questions.

• What remains possible?
• What do I have influence over?
• What is my next move?

The answers to these questions help you to start assessing how you can reasonably move towards achieving your goals. One thing Dr Chopra is very clear on is this. “You may have a natural optimism set point, but you are not sentenced to it. An optimistic explanatory style is trainable.”

I lived by these 7 optimism tips for a month - my mind felt infinitely better for it

When I first discovered Dr Chopra’s optimism checklist via Kourtney Kardashian’s wellness platform, Poosh, I was struck by how manageable her tips seemed. Where I expected to find vague, sweeping statements about thinking positively, instead I was met with small, practical activities which Dr Chopra said would, over time and with consistency, start to shift my way of thinking. There were no promises of things magically falling into place; just that the process of existing day to day might begin to feel that bit more enjoyable.

So, without further ado, the seven daily attitude adjustments which, after a month, have genuinely changed how I show up in the world.

The tips

• Savour something you have to look forward to
• Check in with your body before reacting
• Imagine the ‘other-case scenarios’
• Swap resistance for curiosity
• Attach optimism to existing habits
• Question your thoughts
• Build tolerance for discomfort

Tips one to three

Dr Chopra’s optimism checklist begins from the moment you wake up. Before you check your phone in the morning, she encourages us to think about something we’re looking forward to that day. It could be your morning coffee, your lunchtime walk, a phone call with a friend, or the twenty minutes you’ll spend reading a book that night.

When I ask her why it matters that I do this before I check my phone, she’s quick to explain. “We want to give your brain a future of your own to anticipate before someone else’s priorities get your attention,” she says. “Before the news, emails and social media get to tell your brain what matters, ask yourself what you are looking forward to.”

It sounds simple, but this tiny moment completely changes the trajectory of my day. I’m naturally quite anxious, so I tend to wake up with the weight of the world on my shoulders, flooded with a mental to-do list built of things people need from me. Taking a short pause to think about something small and positive that’s just for me - often something tasty I’ll make for dinner, a friend I’m seeing, or my daily swim - noticeably dislodges the dread that’s building inside me, and I find that it makes it easier to get up without so much procrastination.

Her second tip comes into play once that first stressful moment of the day hits. Whether it’s a blunt email, a difficult conversation or a missed meeting, Dr Chopra asks us to check in with how tension shows up in our body.

I’ll be honest; this is something I’ve already been practising in my own therapy, so I have a head start. But for those new to somatics, it stems from the idea that experiences don’t just get processed in our minds; they’re processed by our bodies, too. When we’re stressed, scared, angry or anxious, we might clench our fists, tighten our jaw, and our hearts might race. These reactions are all designed to protect us, but they can cloud our judgement and attention. Simply noticing what’s happening in our bodies can create that pause between situation and response, giving us the opportunity to choose what happens next.

It’s not easy, and I still don’t do it consistently. Sometimes the moment gets the best of me, the panic sets in, and my mind spirals towards disaster. But when I am able to notice what’s happening in my body, I do notice how much emotional distance I’m able to put between me and the situation.

Which brings me nicely to tip three. Instead of imagining the worst-case scenario every time, Dr Chopra encourages us to also consider various neutral-case and best-case scenarios that could come from a particular situation.

What I loved so much about this tip was that it didn’t demand that I imagine a perfect world every time, nor that I had to deny any negative thoughts. To me, this often seems unrealistic when things are imploding. In contrast, just imagining a slightly better, alternative scenario than the one my mind has automatically run to felt like a gentler stepping stone to a more optimistic outlook.

Tips four to seven

Tip four is all about asking yourself how a situation is asking you to adapt.

Change, even if you’re someone who enjoys it, often comes tinged with fear. I know for me at least, I often end up hanging onto the past instead of looking ahead to what’s next.

“You don’t have to like what’s happening,” Dr Chopra previously told Poosh. “It means staying open enough to grow because of it.”

Thankfully, this month, I haven’t had any major u-turns show up in my life, but even small plan changes, such as work trips being cancelled and rearranged, have given me the chance to try this little reframe. Instead of looking at them as losses, I’ve tried to think about the opportunities they’ve created, such as giving me more time to work on other projects or catch up with friends.

Then there’s habit stacking. This tip isn’t so much a practice itself, but is the idea that by attaching our new optimistic behaviours to existing daily cues, we increase the likelihood we’ll stick to them. Instead of creating whole new routines, I practised saying the thing I was looking forward to whilst drinking my morning coffee, and imagined alternative case scenarios to things that were worrying me before bed. Anchoring my optimism to these things I already do (and enjoy) undoubtedly contributed to my consistency this month.

And just as she encourages us to check in with our body before reacting, Dr Chopra also suggests that we question our thoughts before taking them as gospel. That’s because our thoughts, of which we have hundreds, if not thousands, every day, aren’t always facts. Instead, they’re often predictions designed to keep us safe.

When I was younger, I had a real tendency to catastrophise and, though I’ve got better at managing it, I can still slip into panic when I think about the future. I’ve found the process of asking myself whether something is fact or assumption to be helpful for a couple of reasons. First, it’s given me more compassion for my (sometimes borderline unhinged) thinking, and second, it’s given me the time to distance myself from acting on it.

Finally, my favourite of Dr Chopra’s reminders. “Optimism doesn’t always feel good,” she tells me.

It’s this which I’ve always got wrong, and which tends to make me feel I’m failing at optimism. I’ve assumed I’m supposed to feel unwaveringly positive; when I don’t, I think I must be a pessimist. But in fact, according to Dr Chopra, a real optimist has to tolerate discomfort. “If your version of optimism requires you to immediately transform every painful feeling into something positive, that’s not optimism - that’s avoidance,” she says. “Sometimes the healthiest response is simply: This hurts. I’m disappointed. I’m scared. I don’t know how this ends.”

To me, this is the most reassuring of all her advice. I have a tendency to run away from negative emotions, to push them down and ignore them. To tell everyone I’m fine when really, I’m not. And that makes the negative feelings linger a lot longer than they need to. What’s changed this month is that, instead of pretending things don’t hurt, I’ve allowed them to exist without making them permanent. I feel them whilst knowing they aren’t where things end. I consider them bad moments, bad days, even bad weeks, without them making me a bad person with a bad life.

None of this is easy, nor does it shift overnight. I’m practising every day, some more successfully than others. But I’ve noticed within just four weeks that I’m feeling more hopeful, more able to be honest about my emotions, and more confident to make decisions knowing that I’m capable of adapting to what happens next.

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It’s not even that I particularly enjoy the habit – more that, after a long day, reaching for my phone has become the path of least resistance. The problem is, phone time – and more specifically, doomscrolling – before bed isn't a particularly healthy habit.

"It means more blue light exposure, algorithm-driven social media and increased mental stimulation,” explains Dr Amanda Mwale, clinical psychologist at The Good Sleep Clinic. “But to fall asleep, our nervous systems should be shifting into ‘rest and digest’ mode, rather than becoming more stimulated.” Research backs her up, too: one randomised trial found that people who avoided their phones for 30 minutes before bed fell asleep faster and reported better sleep quality and mood.

But rather than simply banning my phone and leaving a 20-minute void I’d inevitably resent, I wanted to replace the habit with something that actually felt appealing. Enter my new bedtime wind-down ritual: ten minutes of gentle stretching followed by ten minutes of journalling – two things I already know make me feel calmer, but I rarely prioritise at the end of the day.

For two weeks, I committed to making the swap every night, curious to see whether it would change more than the time it took me to nod off. Would I feel less wired before bed? Calmer during the day? More energised in the mornings? And, perhaps most importantly, could a deliberate 20-minute ritual finally make my evenings feel like an actual transition into rest rather than one last extension of the day?

I Swapped My Evening Scroll for a 20-Minute Wind-Down Ritual—It’s Been a Game-Changer

What is a bedtime wind-down ritual?

A bedtime wind-down ritual is exactly what it sounds like – a handful of familiar habits that help you move from doing to resting. As James Wilson, aka The Sleep Geek, explains: “A wind-down ritual is simply a bridge between the busyness of the day and sleep. It is not a magic routine that makes you sleep. The aim is to reduce physical and emotional alertness so you feel relaxed and secure enough to let sleep happen.”

Interestingly, Wilson points out that there’s no universal formula here – and yes, your phone could technically form part of a routine if it genuinely helps you relax. For me, though, scrolling tends to do the opposite: I come away feeling more mentally switched on, and sometimes more anxious, too.

What are the benefits of having a bedtime wind-down ritual?

So, how could curating a relaxing wind-down ritual help me exactly? At its simplest, it creates a buffer between the doing part of the day and the bit where we expect our brains to suddenly switch off. Rather than going straight from emails, chores or scrolling to lights out, those few quieter minutes give the body and mind a chance to come down a gear.

That’s a big part of why I chose journalling and stretching for my new wind-down ritual. Both force me to slow down and pay attention to the present moment, rather than ricocheting between thoughts and tasks. “Many of the people I have worked with clinically have found journalling extremely helpful for ‘putting their worries to bed’, but also for recognising their achievements and things that they feel grateful for,” says Dr Mwale.

There's some pretty interesting science around this: a 2018 sleep-lab study found that people who spent five minutes writing a specific to-do list before bed fell asleep faster than those who wrote about tasks they had already completed.

Stretching serves a slightly different purpose for me – getting me out of my head and back into my body. Dr Mwale says gentle stretching can help release some of the physical tension accumulated throughout the day and encourage the nervous system towards a state more conducive to sleep. And a 2024 review of stretching interventions found a positive trend in sleep quality improvement, although the researchers noted that the evidence is still mixed.

Importantly, neither activity is a magic sleep hack. As Wilson puts it, journalling can become “another task” for some people, while stretching isn’t a sleep treatment in itself. His advice? Pay attention to whether your chosen ritual leaves you calmer or more alert. If it's the latter, it doesn't matter how many studies or online articles suggest that it's good for sleep – it's got to work for you.

Swapping doom scrolling for a wind-down ritual: my review

Week one

The first thing I noticed was just how automatic reaching for my phone had become. More than once, I found myself picking it up without consciously deciding to – that familiar urge to just "check" something was surprisingly persistent.

For the journalling portion of my ritual, I initially took inspiration from the research and tried writing a to-do list for the following day. Unfortunately, this had pretty much the opposite of a calming effect on me. Instead of putting those tasks to bed, I climbed into mine still mentally running through everything I'd written down. Useful for organisation? Absolutely. Relaxing? Not so much.

So, I switched tack and tried gratitude journalling instead – and this was a game-changer. Spending a few minutes focusing on what had gone well that day left me just feeling better. Pairing it with gentle stretching worked brilliantly, too. Getting off the couch and onto the floor brought me back into my body, and even though I only stretched for ten minutes, I felt noticeably calmer when getting into bed.

Week two

By the second week, reaching for my phone felt less instinctive, and the ritual itself started to feel like a signal that the day was winding down. I wouldn't say I suddenly became the world's best sleeper – and I certainly wasn't springing out of bed brimming with energy every morning – but I did notice subtle shifts. I felt a little less groggy on waking some days, and generally calmer heading into the evening. I was starting to look forward to my wind-down ritual, which is key.

More importantly, the experiment changed how I think about winding down. I don't think the magic lies in exactly what you do for those 20 minutes. For me, the biggest benefit came from consciously choosing how I wanted to spend them, rather than automatically reaching for my phone and disappearing down a scrolling rabbit hole.

Am I swearing off my phone before bed forever? Probably not. But I do want to be much more intentional about how I use it. I've already got my eye on some of Headspace's wind-down meditations, which feels like a more mindful use of screen time than scrolling.

Two weeks later, that's probably my biggest takeaway: a bedtime routine doesn't need to be perfect or elaborate – it just needs to help you draw a line under the day and give yourself permission to slow down. I'll definitely be sticking to mine.

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In case you missed it, manifestation is the idea that we can influence our lives in various ways through the power of thought, attracting greater success and fulfilment via a proactively positive mindset.

If this sounds too good to be true (and trust me when I say that I get it!), you might be interested to learn that, in fact, the technique does have some scientific weight behind it. Studies reveal that people who manifest perceive themselves to be more successful and have stronger aspirations and belief in their success (check out this study from the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin) - and it's also endorsed by the experts.

"Reframing and self-belief definitely have some strong psychological backing," notes psychotherapist Eloise Skinner. "There are fields of therapy that address these behaviours specifically - cognitive reframing, for example, is used across many fields of psychotherapy, while gratitude practices have quite a bit of research behind them, indicating that a consistent gratitude practice can help us feel more positive and intentional."

I'll be honest: a combination of life stressors and hormones has been playing havoc with my brain lately, and I could do with a little purpose and direction, so when I was asked to try out Roxie Nafousi's manifestation mindset technique, it felt serendipitous. Could a month of manifesting clarify my goals and boost my motivation? I couldn't wait to find out.

Keep scrolling to find out how I got on, but in the meantime, you might be interested in our guides to common manifesting mistakes, five steps to manifesting the life of your dreams and quiet magic morning routines here - plus, find out how one Health Writer got on when she tried Dr Tara Swart's four-step manifestation method, too.

I Tried Roxie Nafousi’s Manifestation Mindset Technique To Boost Calm and Restore Balance

What is Roxie Nafousi's manifestation mindset technique?

Firstly, let's dig a little deeper into what manifestation actually looks like - and how it works.

For this, I went straight to the expert herself: Roxie Nafousi is a self-development coach, motivational speaker and bestselling author of the best-selling manifestation bible Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life, and it's her seven-step method taken from this book that I'll be trialling.

"For the Manifest Mindset series, I took the same seven manifestation steps from my book, which were inspired by my own journey of changing my life, and created a short class for each," she tells MC UK. "In each class, I break down the concept behind each step and then guide you through an actionable workshop where you can put it into practice."

Put simply, the technique is a simple, follow-along guided manifestation series for those who need a little extra help along the way - perfect for this manifestation newbie.

So, how does it work? "I created the 7-step method to be an entry point, so if you've never manifested a day in your life and think it all sounds like a bit much, this is for you," shares Nafousi. "But it's just as useful if you've read my book already and want a more guided, practical way to work through the steps. It's for anyone who's in a season of wanting change but doesn't know where to start."

The main tenets are visualisation, gratitude and reframing - tenets that are all psychologically backed, as we'll go into more detail below.

What are the benefits of the manifestation mindset technique?

Manifestation has plenty of purported benefits, provided you're willing to also put in the work: this isn't as simple as making an aesthetically pleasing vision board and gazing at it each morning (although, if that helps, you do you!). The techniques you use are grounded in strong neuroscientific principles - centrally, the idea of neuroplasticity. If you've never heard of it, prepare to have your mind blown.

Put simply, our brains aren't fixed - how we think can, quite literally, change them. The more often you have a specific thought, the deeper those neural pathways become, meaning you're then more likely to continue thinking in that particular way. Fascinating, right?

But beyond this, Nafousi's method has benefits of its own, too.

1. Visualisation focuses the brain

"Visualisation can be incredibly powerful in several ways," shares career coach Hannah Salton. "Firstly, it forces you to focus on what specifically you want. It sounds simple, but often when we’re not satisfied, we think quite vaguely. Visualisation encourages people to say exactly what they want, write it down, and picture it.

"This focuses the brain and triggers something called the reticular activating system – the part of the brain that filters information and starts drawing your attention to things relevant to what you're focused on. That’s why, for example, if you decide you want to buy a blue car, you suddenly start seeing blue cars everywhere."

2. Gratitude promotes a more positive outlook

"Gratitude works in a similar way to visualisation," continues Salton. "When we focus on what we already have, it makes us feel grateful, or lucky. Once we feel that way, our mindset shifts – and a more positive mindset makes us more open to possibilities and more likely to spot and act on opportunities we might otherwise have missed.

"Self-belief is something that grows over time – it's not something you can click your fingers and make magic. But by reminding yourself of what you already have and what exactly you want, you are more likely to develop self-belief. Other things that help with self-belief are focusing on your strengths – what you are naturally good at – and reminding yourself of what you have achieved so far."

3. Reframing helps shift our perspective

Manifestation isn't just about picturing your best life. While that's one aspect of it, it also forces us to challenge our habitual thought processes - some of which might not be altogether helpful. Working on reframing thoughts and situations is a key manifestation skill - and one that can have benefits way beyond the technique itself.

"Reframing can be an incredibly powerful tool, and involves deciding to view a situation differently," notes Salton. "For example, many of my career coaching clients experience rejection when job searching, and it’s easy to tell yourself it's because you're not good enough. In reality, there are so many reasons why you might not get a job offer – for example, the challenging job market, competition from other candidates, roles being paused."

"Reframing your perceived failure as being part of a broader, more complex situation can remind you that your worth isn’t defined by one outcome."

4. It's simple and accessible

Nafousi's method draws on all the techniques referenced above, but in an easy and accessible way.

"Using small, repeatable steps like in my 7-step method helps to build momentum," shares Nafousi. "I believe you don’t need to wait for a big breakthrough in your life, but stacking small wins helps start to shift how you see yourself and what you think is possible. Over time, you’ll start to notice more opportunities and show up as a more confident version of yourself."

Who is manifestation best for?

The experts are clear: manifestation can be useful for anyone and everyone - with an important caveat: you have to put in the work.

"Anyone and everyone can use these techniques; we all have this incredible superpower that we can use," agrees holistic life coach Nichola Henderson. "We can unlock our personal potential to achieve what we’re capable of by removing our own self-imposed limitations.

"There are many examples of incredible people who have achieved amazing things by unlocking their own potential. Take Olympian Eileen Gu, for example, who recently spoke so eloquently and openly about using some of these techniques to help her become who she wanted to be. She described how she spends a lot of time in her mind, breaking down her thought processes and controlling what she thinks using an analytical lens; this is the power of metacognition to move towards whatever your goal may be.

"This doesn’t mean we can all become Olympic athletes, but it does mean we can experiment with what we are capable of. If we are brave enough to treat ourselves like a beautiful artwork, we can experiment, mould ourselves over time, knowing that it’s OK to do it just for ourselves; then we get to consider what might be possible.

"Generally, these techniques can be especially useful for people going through change or transition, rebuilding confidence after a setback, developing a new habit, or anyone feeling stuck or lacking clarity."

I tried Roxie Nafousi's manifestation mindest technique for a month - here are my honest thoughts

Steps one to three

Full disclosure: I've never manifested before. I'm notoriously poor even at basic mindfulness skills like journalling, so it's safe to say I'm slightly apprehensive about getting started.

Added to this, we're deep into school summer holidays, meaning that there's little to no time for me to get stuck in - but I don't have the luxury of choosing a perfect time, so there's nothing for it but to start. And, to my relief, the first step is all about learning all about the process - nothing too scary here.

Step one is where things begin to ramp up a little, but honestly - it's totally achievable - the longest class is only just over twelve minutes, so even time-poor parents like me can manage to squeeze it in. PSA, though - listening to the instructions and attempting to lock in on a busy commuter train is not the one!

This being said, it's interesting to take some time to think about things I haven't really considered recently - if ever - such as asking myself what I really want from my life. In fact, it's pretty confronting - and when it comes to making a vision board, I'm well and truly stumped. But then my newfound reframing skills come into play, and I consider that maybe this is the perfect task for me.

Steps two and three involve removing fear and doubt and aligning behaviour, and I'll be honest, it takes me a few days to settle into it - but Nafousi is clear that this is all part of the process. "Start with step one and don't rush it," she advises. "Being clear on your vision is the part people want to skip, but it's the foundation for everything that comes after. Sit with the meditation, do the vision boarding exercise, and put it somewhere where you’ll see it every day. From there, go at your own pace and move through the steps one at a time.

"Some will take you ten minutes, while others may take you a few days to sit with, and that's fine. The workshops are created to help get you in the habit, and you can revisit any of the classes whenever you need a reminder."

Maybe I can work on my impatience at the same time...

Steps four to seven

Steps four to seven feel a little more intense; I won't lie. Step four is overcoming tests from the universe; it's all about the reframing skill- how to overcome those things that don't quite go our way: the tough times, rejections and failures.

Parenting three children in the summer holidays is essentially one long series of failures and rejections, so it feels like this has come at exactly the right time. I'm surprised to find out that actually, I'm already pretty resilient, and able to bounce back from setbacks - I'm taking this as a win.

Moving on to step five - embracing gratitude - feels relatively simple. I try and apporach life with a gratitude mindset always, and this task builds on the skills I know I already have. Likewise, step six (turning envy into inspiration) feels straightforward to me. I've long used feelings of jealousy as a driver for what I need to go after in my own life, transforming one of life's least constructive emotions into a powerful goal-setting message.

After a few weeks of deep work, it's time for the final step: trusting in the universe. Nafousi is clear that this isn't a passive step; it's not about sitting back and doing nothing; rather, it's about trusting the process and relinquishing control. Put simply, the art of letting go. As I'm about to go on my summer holiday, I'm more excited than ever to have a week off - and allow the universe to do its thing.

And I'll admit - I really do feel calmer than I have for months. Somehow, allowing myself to really let go of things helps me feel calmer and - confusingly - more in control than before. I'll have to report back on whether the universe delivers what I want - but for now, this sceptic is firmly on board.

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If we’re all honest, the wellness industry has given us all a few trust issues. A product promises to transform your hormones? Sure. A wearable claims it can decode your sleep? Stunning. A supplement that claims it’ll help you live longer? Naturally, our interest is piqued.

Strip away the noise, the trends and the increasingly expensive business of “wellness”; what genuinely makes a difference? I asked the women who know best. So, park yourself up - consider this your ultimate wellness shopping list, curated by the experts leading the conversation - from the habits they swear by to the appointments, treatments, tests and products they believe are actually worth your time, money, and, crucially, attention - the good stuff, in other words, with the wellness-world nonsense left at the door.

Keen to read more expert-backed advice? Scroll our features on the best healthy ageing habits, the blue zone habits to try, and the simplest ways to improve your health here.

5 Best Health Investments of All Time, According to Top Experts

The women who know what’s worth investing in

So, who made the guest list? Five experts; five very different health investments. Around the virtual round-table we have: a sleep specialist, a cardiovascular expert, a menopause doctor, a longevity specialist, a women’s health GP, and a fitness expert - all revealing the health investments they genuinely rate.

The answers range from the things you can buy to the things you absolutely can’t - and, perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a lot less biohacking and a lot more of the basics than you might expect.

1. The Sleep Investment That Pays You Back Every Day

If there’s one thing Dr Wendy Troxel, clinical psychologist and sleep scientist, would like us to stop doing, it’s looking for a pill to “switch us off.” She’s sceptical of the booming market of sleep supplements and “hacks” promising the perfect sleep. “There are effective strategies to improve sleep quality across all stages of a woman’s life, and they don’t come in a pill,” she says.

"For chronic insomnia, the gold-standard investment is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), while the everyday basics matter too: a consistent wake-up time, plenty of light and movement during the day, a proper wind-down routine and resisting the late-night doomscroll."

And for her own investment? Start with the place where you spend a third of your life. “What other piece of furniture do you spend eight hours a day in?” She has a point: research using wearable data suggests adults spend around 7.5 hours a day actually sleeping, while estimates that include the time we spend awake in bed put that figure closer to nine hours.

So, creating a comfortable sleep environment, for Troxel, is one of the wisest investments you can make for your sleep.”It’s not a case of spending £3,000 on the latest sleep-enhancing mattress; comfort is personal, and your sleep set-up should change as you do. Your mattress may need to change with you too.”

Her more unexpected investment is an eye mask with Bluetooth speakers. “If I wake, I’ll listen to a short story rather than lie there trying to force myself back to sleep. The harder we try to make sleep happen, the more elusive it can become - the best thing you can do for your sleep is stop trying so hard.”

2. The Heart Check You Shouldn’t Wait For

For Dr Nabila Laskar, consultant cardiologist and cardiac imaging specialist, the smartest health investment she made was understanding a good route into prevention. "I prioritise knowing my own cardiovascular risk rather than assuming that because I feel well, everything must be fine. I keep an eye on things such as my blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar." As a cardiologist, she sees how easily those risks can develop silently, which is why she favours prevention and knowing her numbers over spending money on the latest wellness product.

​But cardiovascular health isn’t just about numbers. Laskar wants women to remember three things: "First, your pregnancy history is part of your heart history. Conditions such as pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes can be important markers of future cardiovascular risk, even years after the pregnancy itself."

​Menopause is another opportunity to take stock. “It’s not simply about hot flushes, sleep and hormones; changes in cholesterol, blood pressure, body composition and metabolic health can also affect cardiovascular risk."

​The third point is not to normalise a change in what your body can do. “If a woman who has always been able to walk up two flights of stairs comfortably suddenly finds herself unusually breathless,” Laskar says, “don’t automatically blame age, menopause or stress."

This isn't about becoming obsessed with your health. It's about recognising that prevention can give you something far more valuable than another monetary "wellness" hack: time to act before a risk becomes a problem.

3. Forget Biohacking: This Is What Actually Helps You Live Well for Longer

If anyone is qualified to tell us what’s worth spending money on in the pursuit of longevity, it’s Kayla Barnes-Lentz. Having invested more than $1 million in her own health optimisation - and personally trialled everything from hyperbaric chambers and red-light therapy to PEMF, cold plunges and brain photobiomodulation - she has a surprisingly simple conclusion: “The basics absolutely must be prioritised. Not only are they most backed by science, but they’re also where I’ve seen the most measurable shifts in my biomarkers.”

That doesn’t mean Barnes-Lentz has abandoned optimisation altogether. One area she invests in significantly is her everyday environment. “We know environmental toxins like BPA, parabens and phthalates have a detrimental impact on our health,” she says, pointing to air and water filtration as two of her priorities. She also monitors the air quality in her home. “We breathe more than we do anything else,” she says, whilst also arguing that a high-quality water filter is worth the investment.

And of all the advanced interventions she’s tried, her standout is decidedly old-school: the sauna. “Out of all my ‘tools’, the sauna has the best data,” she says, personally using one four or more times a week. Regular sauna use has been linked with lower blood pressure and better vascular function, essentially giving your cardiovascular system a workout while you sit still. For a longevity investment, it’s hard to argue with something that asks you to do very little beyond sit, sweat and relax.

4. The Exercise Investment That Makes the Biggest Difference

For fitness coach Laura Hoggins, the best investment she’s made in her physical health wasn’t a piece of equipment - it was joining a great gym or being coached in her formative years. She’s quick to acknowledge that having the financial freedom to do so is a privilege, but says the experience was game-changing. “The small yet mighty community gave me a sense of belonging, accountability and a shared goal to be our best selves inside and outside of the gym,” she says.

And there's evidence that this sense of community can make a huge difference. A 2025 systematic review spanning 68 studies found that social support and accountability were among the factors that helped people maintain physical activity over the long term.

But the good news? “You don’t need an expensive membership to get stronger. If I had £100 to spend on fitness for the year, I’d buy a good pair of durable, supportive trainers.”

When it comes to women's health, Laura is less interested in the latest wellness promise and more interested in getting the fundamentals right. Which is why there's one category she wouldn't spend her money on: "Supplements promising to balance your hormones. Let’s start with the basics and ensure your lifestyle choices, nutrition and stress management are in shape first. This will be the biggest contributor to your ability to manage hormonal changes."

5. The Health Appointment You Should Stop Putting Off

For women’s health expert and GP, Dr Raj Arora, the smartest health investment isn’t money. It’s time - time to understand your body, stay ahead of prevention and notice when something changes. “Invest in understanding your own health and your own body,” she says. Know your normal, know your numbers and don’t wait until something feels wrong to start paying attention.”

It’s a particularly important message for women, who Aurora says can become “incredibly good at putting their own health at the bottom of the list”. And she’s not wrong. Raise your hand if you’ve ever thought I don't have the time when it comes to booking that appointment, chasing that referral or getting that check-up. In shame, I’ll go first.

Her advice? Make your health an appointment in the diary, rather than something you’ll get around to eventually. Cervical screening is a key preventative check, alongside breast awareness and regular blood pressure checks. “You don’t need to become anxious about every symptom,” Aurora says. “But you do deserve to take your own health seriously.”

So, What’s Actually Worth Spending Your Money On?

Five women at the forefront of women’s health. Thousands of pounds’ worth of expertise. And the verdict? You probably don’t need to buy that much stuff.

Here’s the expert-approved wellness shopping list: what’s worth it, what’s nice to have, and what you can safely leave in the basket.

Worth the investment

• A good bed: Let those 9 hours be comfortable.
• The right health checks: Know your metrics; stay on top of cervical screening and understand yours and your family’s history. Prevention may not be sexy, but neither is finding out you should have checked something five years ago.
• Strength Training: You don’t need a boutique gym or PT. Your muscles don’t care whether your weights come from a luxury fitness studio or Argos.
• Good Trainers: Spend the money here rather than on a designed water bottle. Laura Hoggins has spoken.
• Therapy or evidence-based treatment when you need it: Particularly for something like chronic insomnia, where CBT-1 beats hoping the latest sleep gummy will do the job

Nice to have

• A sauna.
• An eye mask with Bluetooth speakers.
• A decent gym membership if you genuinely enjoy going.
• Air and water filtration if it’s within your means.

The experts aren’t anti-wellness - they’re just much more interested in what actually earns its place.

Where to save

• The biggest (and cheapest): time. Time to sleep. Time to move. Time to notice when something has changed. Time to make an appointment. Time to look after yourself before your body forces you to.

As a woman who loves a little treat in the name of “wellness”, it pains me to say this, but it turns out you can’t really buy your way to better health. But you can spend your money and your time - a little more wisely.

Shop MC UK approved health investments now:

In many ways, that’s positive news. The rise of wellness has coincided with a reduction in alcohol consumption, which in 2025 hit its lowest level since records began. Physical activity is also on the up, with 30 million adults now meeting recommended activity levels. And women’s health is attracting more (much-needed) investment, too: the number of femtech companies has increased by 864% since 2015, with a record £177.1 million invested in the sector in 2024.

And yet, as a health writer, I can’t ignore the other side of our growing appetite for self-improvement. As wellness has become increasingly commercialised, so too has the pressure to keep up with it, with women, in particular, spending more money in the process. A survey of 2000 adults commissioned by Pukka Herbs at the end of 2025 found that British women are spending an astonishing average of £554 a month on wellness - a number which was £100 more than men.

It’s easy to see how this happens. I’ve watched my own wellness spending creep up over the last two years. My £1 Always pads have been replaced by organic alternatives from Yoni and Daye; my skincare and supplements drawer has ballooned with products promising to tackle everything from sun damage to iron deficiency; and I’ve spent hundreds on Pilates classes and healthy fast-food lunches. Just when I think I’ve got my routine covered, another potential threat appears on my social media feed – most recently, it was a podcast about hair ageing and how to prevent premature greys.

None of this spending feels frivolous. It comes from a genuine desire to protect my future self. But I’ve also noticed the financial stress that can come with trying to keep up with all these new healthy habits.

Financial advisor Hannah Mayfield sums up the issue. “The problem is that wellness so often feels like an ‘essential’ because it is linked to our health, mental health or quality of life,” she explains. “It makes it a harder category to cut back on because you worry your quality of life might be impacted in a way that you wouldn’t for clothes or make-up.”

Given the well-researched connection between financial wellbeing and mental health, and the significant impact chronic stress has on cellular ageing and inflammation, it raises the question: at what point does spending to optimise our health start to become counterproductive?

To find out, I asked Mayfield to explain what financial wellbeing actually looks like, the signs that our wellness habits might be putting it under strain, and how we can redress the balance without abandoning the things that genuinely make us feel good.

If you’re here looking for more affordable ways to feel well, check out our guides to the simple Blue Zones habits linked to greater longevity, the rituals experts say matter more than biohacking and the surprising impact that journaling can have on the brain. Plus, we’ve got tons of home workout suggestions, from the best home Pilates exercises to 6 energising yoga flows and a PT’s favourite living room strength session.

How To Wellness Budget, According to a Financial Advisor

What is financial wellbeing?

In simple terms, “financial health and wellbeing is having a knowledge of your finances, making sure you are looking after your future self financially as much as possible and aren't suffering from financial stress,” says Mayfield.

Whilst we don’t often think of it as part of a wellness routine, Mayfield says the state of our finances can have a real bearing on how good we feel. “Financial wellbeing is more likely to lead to other types of wellbeing because it provides a safety buffer,” she says. “When you have money set aside, you can save yourself a lot of stress when life throws you curveballs.”

How could our wellness habits put our financial wellbeing at risk?

“The biggest risk is that our wellness habits cause us to neglect other important aspects of our finances,” explains Mayfield. “These things, like our pension contributions, often feel quite hidden and easy to ignore until they’re too late.”

Tara Massoudi, General Manager of Premium Products at Revolut, echoed Mayfield’s concerns when I spoke to her at the end of last year. “The real risk comes when people lack the skills or language to manage and talk about money. Without that confidence, financial pressure can tip into anxiety, judgement, or a sense of being left behind and cancelling out the very benefits wellness is supposed to bring.”

What are the signs my wellness habits are compromising my financial health?

A healthy wellness budget will look different for everyone, depending on your income, priorities and other expenses. That said, Mayfield has some red flags to look out for that could indicate your wellness spending is doing more harm than good.

1. You’re in debt or an overdraft

“If you’re in your overdraft or credit card debt but still spending a lot on wellness, this is something to think about,” says Mayfield. “You're allowed to enjoy things even while you're paying off debt, but it’s important to be honest with yourself about whether cutting back on some expenses to get there faster would actually make you feel better.”

2. You can’t afford to contribute to your financial goals

“If the amount you’re spending on wellness is compromising your ability to save for long-term financial goals that matter to you, that’s a sign to reevaluate," says Mayfield, who makes clear that these goals will be individual to you. “It could be setting money aside for an emergency fund or saving for a house deposit - if wellness spending is preventing you from making progress towards them, that’s something to consider.”

3. Your wellness spending is a large proportion of your income

“Rigid budgeting rules don't apply to everyone,” caveats Mayfield, “but it can be helpful to use the 50/30/20 rule as a guideline.”

She explains that the 50/30/20 rule refers to splitting your income. “50% should be going on essentials such as bills, housing and transport, 30% goes towards your ‘wants’, such as meals out and subscriptions, and 20% is reserved for financial goals like debt payoff, savings, investments, etc. If your wellness spending is much beyond 20- 25%, it's probably too high.”

4. You feel worried, anxious or out of control with your finances

“If you’re ignoring your finances so you can keep spending on wellness, if it’s causing you to worry or you find it hard to keep track of everything you’re buying, these are all signs it’s getting out of hand,” says Mayfield.

A Financial Advisor’s top 3 tips to improve financial wellbeing:

If you recognised yourself in any of the above signs, you might be wondering what you can do about it. Fortunately, Mayfield has some handy tips you can use to get working on your financial wellbeing today.

1. Get clear on your wellness priorities

Mayfield is clear that getting a handle on your wellness spending isn’t about cutting everything out. “Decide which of your habits are having the biggest positive impact on your life, and which things feel like a nice-to-have,” she suggests. “That will help you choose which to keep and which to cut.”

2. Treat your new budgets as temporary

“If you're finding it hard to give things up, try reframing it as a trial,” says Mayfield. “For example, you could skip Reformer Pilates classes in favour of home mat workouts for a month. At the end of the trial, you can see how much you missed it and make a decision on whether to re-introduce it.”

3. Connect it to a goal

“Psychologically you need to figure out how to get some kind of satisfaction from practicing financial wellness,” explains Mayfield. “Otherwise, it starts to feel like you’re giving something up and not getting anything in return.”

She recommends connecting your daily savings to a bigger goal. “Focusing on the big picture vision of where you want to be financially, and continuing to hype yourself up along the way will help you to stay motivated,” she says.

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To understand how I got here, and why it matters to anyone besides myself, we need to go back a step. Because before I was spending nearly £100 a week on therapy, my wellness budget was by no means in check. In a month, I could easily spend the same amount on studio Pilates and trips to the sauna, a further £50 or so on overpriced salad bowls, and I hardly dare to tell you how much on skincare and vitamins.

I recognise that all of this is a privilege. Having the disposable income to even consider these things as options makes me more fortunate than many. But with the wellness industry now valued at $6.8 trillion and 79% of us in the UK considering it a top lifestyle priority, critically evaluating where we spend our money is of growing importance, especially because only 13% of us feel that we’re achieving our wellness goals. In fact, according to McKinsey, many of us report that, despite our increased spending, our most important wellness needs - in particular, our cognitive, heart and gut health - remain unmet.

It all points to the sense that we could be spending in the wrong places. But how, amongst all the science-backed claims and influencer-endorsed products, do we find the things that will truly make us feel well?

Ahead, we ask leading psychotherapists what wellness really looks like, and how therapy can be a tool to help us find it. Plus, a financial advisor shares her tips on how to healthily build a wellness budget, and I reflect on my own spending shifts over the last nine months.

For more expert-led wellbeing content, head to our guides to boundary-setting for empaths, why you should prioritise your creative health and the benefits of little treats.

I Swapped Wellness Spending For Therapy—My Review, 9 Months On

What do we actually need to feel well?

Quantifying what it means to be ‘well’ has been the work of centuries of philosophy, dating back to the Ancient Greek and Roman periods. But it wasn’t until the Harvard Study of Adult Development in the 1930s that psychologists first formally attempted to measure wellbeing. The study, which includes over 80 years’ worth of data, has prompted a landmark shift in the way we understand health, thanks to its discovery that social connection and the quality of our relationships are leading predictors of long-term health, happiness and longevity.

Since then, the study of happiness and wellbeing has exploded, with leading psychologists such as Dr Martin Seligman theorising that personal agency, a sense of purpose, optimism and accomplishment are also core components of a healthy, happy life.

Whilst there are now multiple models and scales used to measure happiness, what’s generally agreed is that it’s not something you can bottle or buy in a single pill or product. “Wellness is much broader than just being physically healthy or free from illness,” confirms psychologist, Dr Farideh Banafshei. “It’s a holistic look at the stability across all domains of your life.”

She explains that this stability spans physical, psychological and emotional health, as well as financial and relational health, alongside our wider sense of purpose and fulfilment. “At the foundation of all of this are our fundamental needs as human beings: to feel safe and autonomous,” she explains. “Wellness is not about being happy all the time or achieving some kind of perfection. It’s about having secure foundations that allow us to ride the waves of stress and to know that we are capable of moving through the adversities that come our way.”

What are the benefits of therapy as a wellness tool?

Now, to touch on therapy specifically, and the reasons that initially led me to prioritise it as a tool for wellbeing.

It’s a slightly confusing one, mainly because the benefits are less obvious and immediate than other wellness habits out there. Where you might leave a Pilates class feeling energised and accomplished, therapy can often leave you feeling worse in the immediate aftermath, at least at first.

The benefits, instead, tend to creep up on you over time without you even noticing them. They show up in the different ways you respond to emotionally charged conversations, in the decisions you make around self-care and boundaries, and the people you choose to spend your time with.

“One of the biggest benefits of therapy is that it allows you to actively engage with difficult emotions, rather than avoiding them,” says psychotherapist Cheryl Donaldson, who shares a list of other benefits we could expect to gain from therapy.

• Deeper connection to self and others
• Better emotional regulation
• Greater tolerance for adversity
• Sense of calm

“This all, of course, takes time,” she reminds us, adding that in trauma therapy, there’s the additional benefit of helping “the brain and body to safely return to the present moment.”

6 tips to work out your wellness priorities, according to a therapist and a financial advisor:

One thing that’s important to point out here: although therapy has worked for me, it’s not the only route to improved wellbeing, and it won’t be the right choice for everyone. It’s undeniably expensive, even when you’re opting for lower-cost services like BetterHelp, where sessions tend to be between £45 and £75.

It’s why consciously connecting with your own wellness priorities is essential in reaching your peak state of wellbeing. To help you do that, Donaldson and financial advisor Hannah Mayfield have some tips.

1. Get familiar with your finances

“The first step is actually knowing how much your disposable income is each month,” says Mayfield. “Once you know this, you can allocate it more strategically, taking into account all your big financial goals for the future. That way, nothing important gets compromised.”

2. Focus on the basics first

“If the basics are not there, there is nothing to build or optimise,” says Donaldson. “Our medical, emotional, and relational needs are non-negotiable. Everything else is a bonus.”

She says that at the forefront of this is social connection. “Our most fundamental need as humans is to be connected to others. If our primary relationships are not good, then no supplement or massage is going to fix that.”

3. Find affordable swaps for the nice-to-haves

Once you know how much you have available to spend, Mayfield says it’s about assessing impact. “Make a list of all the things you’d ideally spend your disposable income on,” she suggests. “From there, consider which ones have the biggest positive impact on your life. This helps you identify which are essential to keep, and which could be swapped out for a more affordable alternative.”

4. Go slow

“If you implement everything all at once, you can measure nothing,” explains Donaldson, who suggests adding one new habit at a time and monitoring how it goes. “I often measure change through frequency, duration and intensity,” she explains. “People rarely change overnight, but over time you should be able to see markers shifting. If a problem you’re facing is just as frequent, lasting just as long and feeling just as intense, that is useful information. If those things are gradually decreasing, something is working.”

5. Be mindful of subscriptions

This one is fairly self-explanatory, but Mayfield says it’s easy to fall into the trap. “Once you get used to a subscription, you can quickly end up unconsciously losing a chunk of your income every month to something you don’t really use.”

6. Avoid impulse purchases

Part of what makes wellness budgeting so tough is the way that products are marketed and the ease with which we can instantly buy, explains Mayfield. “Lots of wellness products are presented as a need when in fact they’re a luxury,” she says. “Try to avoid purchasing on impulse and instead take your time to consider it before buying.”

I Reduced My Wellness Spending To Afford Weekly Therapy-Nine Months Later, It’s The Best Thing I’ve Ever Done

Months one to four

The decision to start therapy was one I pondered for months (read: years) before I actually took the leap. I’d dabbled in it before and had discovered that if I really wanted to start shifting some emotional patterns and persistent coping mechanisms, I’d need to invest in more than just a handful of sessions.

The biggest hurdle was, as you’ll know by now, financial. I’m a freelance journalist and, at the time, was only five months into my career, which meant that my finances were unstable at best. Plus, as anyone in the creative industries will know, this is not a career you enter for the money. As a result, I knew there would need to be some sacrifices.

I started with a spreadsheet, mapping out where my disposable income was going each month and looking for places where I could make sensible swaps without drastically affecting my quality of life. I’m already fairly stringent when it comes to transport (I’m a girl who’ll always get a bus over an Uber), and I don’t go on a lot of nights out, smoke or drink much alcohol, so there wasn’t tons to cut back on there. The obvious place was wellness. In the months before starting therapy, I was spending more than £250 on studio Pilates, overpriced salad bowls, new workout kit, the odd facial, a trip to the sauna and lots of skincare.

There was nothing wrong with any of these things. But if I was going to find nearly £100 a week for therapy, some of them had to go. So, I reluctantly cancelled my Pilates subscription, bought some new Tupperware and took inventory of the skincare products I was using to see where I could find more affordable alternatives.

What’s most interesting about those first four months is how little I missed my old habits. Mainly because I didn’t go completely cold turkey. I’m a big advocate of moving your body daily, so there was no way that cancelling my Pilates membership would mark the end of my practice. Instead, I swapped studio classes for home YouTube workouts (Pilates by Izzy and The Aloha Girls are my favourites), alongside regular gym sessions and swims at my local leisure centre, which cost me £7 and £4 respectively.

In fact, these practices have become even more important to my mental wellbeing since starting therapy. They’re the only way I can clear my head after a session, which makes them feel just as essential as the therapy itself.

Therapy, meanwhile, didn’t make me feel immediately lighter. For a good few months, it was tough going. In the hours (and even days) after a session, I’d feel more exhausted and emotional. At times, it seemed like my work ethic and social battery were slipping because of the extra mental energy I was using, and I regularly questioned whether I’d made the right decision.

Was I really paying to feel worse?

Months five to nine

And yet, something about therapy made me stick at it, and by month five, I started to turn a corner. Day to day, things still felt a little heavy, and I certainly wasn’t getting the dopamine spike that buying a new workout set or getting a facial would give me. But when I reflected on my overall sense of ‘ok-ness’ (not a technical term), there was noticeable improvement.

It came in the form of lots of small, subtle shifts. In the way I spoke to myself day to day; in my ability to connect with my emotions and in how present and vulnerable I could be with my friends. It was also in how I reacted to stressful situations, and in my ability to rest without distraction.

As those changes took hold, I also noticed less of a need to spend on wellness. I was less drawn in by the healing promises of products and services because, ultimately, I felt that there was less I needed to fix.

That’s not to say that I stopped spending altogether. I still like going to Pilates when I can afford to, I still love the taste of a Farmer J field tray, and who could refuse the joys of an evening trip to the sauna from time to time? The difference is that these things feel less urgent now. They’re treats I add when I can afford them, rather than things I believe will make me any more whole than I already am.

The verdict: which wellness practices matter to me now?

You might be wondering what my wellness routine looks like now. So I’ll tell you, with the caveat that what makes me feel well might not be the same for you.

• Weekly therapy
• Home Pilates
• A gym membership to an affordable gym with a pool
• Daily reading
• Home cooked, whole-food led meals
• Regular in-person catch ups with friends

Together, these habits protect my physical, mental, relational, creative and financial health, and make me feel safe, balanced, energised and supported.

My advice for anyone else questioning their wellness spending? Tune in to how something makes you feel, not to how it looks or what a marketing claim promises. Never feel guilty for spending on something that genuinely improves your health and don’t be afraid to switch things up if it’s not working.

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We are, after all, very busy people. There are jobs, partners, children, ageing parents, life admin and approximately 38 WhatsApp conversations we are already failing to keep up with. Friendship can start to feel like another thing on the list. Something we’ll get to when everything else is done.

Except, it turns out, friendship might not be a nice-to-have at all. It may be one of the pillars of staying well; a biological necessity.

One look at the research, and that post-friendship exhale starts to make perfect sense. A 2010 meta-analysis of 148 studies found that people with strong relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival than those with weaker social connections. The researchers also found that the mortality risk associated with social isolation was comparable to - and in some cases greater than - risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity and heavy alcohol consumption. In other words, your friends are, quite literally, either adding years to your life or taking them away.

And for women, the story gets even more interesting. Because friendship doesn’t just make us feel better - it can change what's happening inside our bodies. Neuroscience research suggests that close friends can begin to synchronise with one another - their brains, emotions and even psychological responses falling into step. In a sense, spending time with someone we trust creates a shared version of the world: one that can feel safer, more familiar, and crucially, easier to navigate.

So that feeling after a two-hour catch-up and you walk home lighter than you arrived; it turns out - it isn’t just in your head - your body has been asking for her all along.

Hooked? Before you rush off to text one of your 38 unopened WhatsApps with “I’m so sorry for the slow reply”, let me throw one more thing into the mix: if female friendship is so deeply wired into us, what happens when we stop making time for it? Why, despite knowing how much we need one another, do so many of us push our closest friendships to the bottom of the list? Experts, come forward. It’s time to find out what we’re risking when we do. Keen to read more? See how one Health Writer got on treating friendship as a wellness habit, and scroll through expert-backed healthy ageing habits and Blue Zone tips while you're here.

Why a Behavioural Scientist Thinks Friendships Are One of the Most Powerful Health Tools

The Biological Reason For Needing Friendships

“Friendships can actually influence our neurochemistry and change how we perceive the world, experience stress, how threatening the world feels, and even how demanding a task appears,” explains behavioural scientist Ghazal Moenie.

It is a deceptively big claim for something we tend to think of as fairly ordinary: a quick coffee, walking home together, sitting on the sofa talking absolutely nothing. But there is growing evidence that the presence - and quality - of our closest relationships can change the way our bodies respond to the world around us. Research has found that people had lower blood pressure and heart rate reactivity when facing stress with a supportive friend than when alone. TDLR: friendship can really alter how difficult we perceive life to be.

The implication is not that friendship magically takes all our stress away. Rather, close relationships can act as a buffer: making the same challenge feel less threatening, and perhaps more manageable.

For women, there may be an additional layer. 26 years ago, researchers at UCLA proposed the idea of “tend-and-befriend” - essentially, that women may respond to stress in a slightly different way than the familiar fight-or-flight response. When something goes wrong, our instinct isn’t necessarily to run or retreat. We might call a friend. We might gather the women around us. We might talk it through, look after someone else, or simply need to be near people who make us feel safe.

Naturally, there’s biology behind that instinct, too. The research suggested that oxytocin - sometimes referred to as the “bonding hormone” - plays a role in encouraging social connection and helping regulate the body’s stress response. “Oestrogen can enhance the effects of oxytocin, which may help explain why this response is particularly relevant to women,” says Moenie.

Evolutionarily speaking, the theory goes, women were encouraged to both “tend” - protect and care for offspring - and “befriend": make those social connections that could offer all of the above.

It gives a rather beautiful biological explanation for something most of us already know: the friend we call when everything feels too much may not be distracting us from the stress; she may be a part of how our bodies know to carry it.

The hidden health cost of feeling disconnected

I can’t be the only one who feels heavily lost - emphasis on the heavy - when I don’t spend quality time with my girlfriends. Nothing light; I’m talking sitting down, opposite one another, discussing the woes of the world. I know that once I’ve had this, I feel like I’ve been pieced back together. The more I researched, the more one question kept cropping up: what happens to our health when we don’t have connection?

​If we are, as research suggests, biologically wired for closeness, the absence of it matters significantly. “There is lots of research now showing that being lonely is linked to poor mental health, high anxiety and high stress,” explains neuroscientist Antonia Hamilton. “In older people,” she says, “loneliness is also associated with dementia and heart disease.”

​And the physical effects appear to run deeper than feeling low or lonely. A 2024 systematic review of 24 studies, representing almost 300,000 adults, found that social isolation was linked with higher levels of inflammation, frailty and cognitive decline, as well as disrupted sleep and a higher risk of death.

​But Hamilton is keen to point out: “Connection can be protective, too. For young people with mild depression or anxiety, she says, joining a structured social group once a week for at least six weeks can have benefits comparable to antidepressants. It doesn’t much matter whether that’s a choir, walking group, dance class or book club. The important thing is the regularity of the connection.”

​Time to welcome a mindset change? Connection isn’t something we simply have. Going off what the experts have to say, it’s something we have to keep doing.

Why keeping close female friends gets harder as we get older

There’s a rather boring reason keeping close friendships gets harder as we get older: we stop seeing each other by accident. “Friendships need time, availability and repeated contact, and adulthood often removes all three,” says Psychologist Dr Sophie Mort. “Work, relationships, children, caring responsibilities and simply having less energy can mean that the spontaneous contact we had earlier in life becomes much harder to maintain.”

​Which explains my newfound ability (I thank my fully developed prefrontal cortex for this) not to be offended when a friend doesn’t reply for two business days. We have jobs, partners, children, admin, ageing parents, and occasionally, absolutely nothing left to give. However, be aware of the subtle trap here: giving each other grace can quietly morph into giving up.

“Friendships rarely disappear because somebody consciously decides, ‘I no longer value this person,’” says Moenie. “More often, tiny moments of friction accumulate.” Time. Distance. Competing Demands. We can start interpreting a missed message as evidence of how much someone cares, when sometimes life is simply getting in the way.

Not to mention there’s a bigger cultural problem at play: “We tend to overrate romantic relationships compared to platonic friendships,” Moenie says. “Friendship is often treated as a sideplot, by accident.”

The Irony: the busier our lives become, the easier friendship is to prioritise - and the more important that friendship may become. “There is a danger in continually placing our friendships on the back burner,” says Moenie, “because these are often precisely the periods when that support becomes most important.”

How to prioritise the friendships that actually matter

Trying to be a better friend takes up a huge, unrented space in my mind. So, I wouldn’t be doing my journalistic duty if I didn’t ask the question we all want answered: without turning friendship into yet another self-improvement project, what actually makes the biggest difference to maintaining friendships that matter - and, given what we now know, perhaps even living longer?

The answer, according to behavioural science, may be less about trying harder and more about making friendship harder to lose. “Changing the environment often works better than relying on motivation alone,” explains Moenie. Her advice is to make friendship “Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely - the EAST framework. Pair a catch-up with something you already enjoy. Make plans recurring rather than renegotiating them every time. Reach out when the cue naturally appears, rather than waiting for the mythical moment when everyone is free.”

There’s also what Moenie calls an “implementation intention”: deciding in advance when and where something will happen. “We should catch up” is a lovely sentiment. “I’ll call you on my commute home Thursday” is a plan.

And I like her suggestion to lower the threshold for what “counts” as connection. “One of my favourite areas of research looks at weak ties” - the work friend you see in the kitchen, the neighbour you chat to, the person at the pet shop who remembers your cat. These small interactions can boost happiness and feelings of belonging, too.

A case for showing up

I started this piece wondering whether I was spending enough time with my friends. I’m finishing it wondering why we ever decided friendship was something we could afford to put on hold. Because the women we make time for, inconvenience ourselves for and show up for aren’t a nice addition to our lives. They are part of what keeps us well, and quite possibly, on this planet for longer. So, consider this your sign to hug your friends that little bit tighter. You’ll find me doing the same.

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A world away from FOMO, which had us saying yes to everything just in case we missed out, soft hermitting embraces the exact opposite. We're not talking about enjoying the occasional night in (like JOMO, or the Joy of Missing Out), but deliberately creating more space away from socialising.

After years of hustle culture telling us to stay busy, say yes and never switch off, it's easy to see the appeal. Research suggests there's a fine line between restorative solitude and social withdrawal. This 2023 study found that spending time alone was associated with less stress and greater feelings of autonomy, but also greater loneliness and less satisfaction.

So could soft hermitting be a healthy way to set boundaries - or could we be getting a little too comfortable socially withdrawing?

I spoke to two industry experts for their take on the latest lifestyle trend, as well as their tips for practising soft hermitting without becoming isolated. Keep scrolling for the need-to-know. And if you're keen to read more wellness content, check out our latest expert-led wellbeing guides on how to improve joyspan, prioritise micro-recovery, Blue Zone living and metta meditation.

Soft hermitting is gaining traction–is it healthy or are we becoming too comfortable with isolation?

What is soft hermitting and why is it trending?

Soft hermitting is essentially about deliberately creating more space from social interaction.

As qualified psychotherapist and author Eloise Skinner puts it: "This phrase is being used to describe scenarios where people are deliberately turning down plans or social occasions, and preferring instead to stay at home and avoid interactions with others."

Skinner believes the appeal could partly be a reaction to the feeling that we're constantly switched on. "The world can feel overwhelming and exhausting for many people, and social interactions can feel as though they add to this, especially where we're constantly on our phones, responding and checking notifications," she explains. "Withdrawing socially may be a way to restore more calm, balance and peace."

There's also a cultural element at play. As we push back against hustle culture and the expectation to always be doing more, soft hermitting can feel like another way of rejecting the pressure to be constantly available.

Dr George Sik, a psychologist at eras, agrees that there's something appealing about deliberately reducing stimulation. "Social interaction can be mentally demanding," he says. "Having periods where we deliberately reduce stimulation can give us an opportunity to recover and reflect."

In other words, cancelling plans doesn't automatically make you antisocial. It might just be what you need.

Is soft hermitting actually good for us?

In the fast-paced world we live in, there are plenty of reasons to embrace a little more solitude. Choosing to stay at home can give you space to decompress, reconnect with yourself - and perhaps most importantly - do things because you actually want to, and not because you feel obliged to.

And while the experts agree that spending time alone isn't inherently a red flag, the reason behind it matters more than the behaviour itself. Dr Sik says that wanting to spend more time alone isn't a negative behaviour, but the line to watch is between choice and avoidance.

"The important distinction you should determine is: are you choosing solitude because you genuinely enjoy it, or are you avoiding something that feels uncomfortable?" he says.

If turning down an invite leaves you feeling rested and more enthusiastic about seeing people next time, that's likely a healthy boundary. But if avoiding plans starts to feel like the easiest way of escaping social anxiety or discomfort, that's when things can get complicated. "It’s worth asking yourself whether you’re genuinely recharging, or simply avoiding," adds Sik.

It's also worth weighing the trend against what the research says about connection more broadly. As Skinner notes, longevity research - including the famous 85-year Harvard study of Adult Development - consistently shows that close relationships play an important role in long-term health and happiness.

So perhaps the goal isn't to become a full-time hermit. It's to become a little more intentional about when we socialise, and when we don't.

How to practice soft hermitting without becoming isolated

So, if it's a fine line between protecting your social battery and withdrawing altogether, how do you strike the right balance? Here are a few expert-approved ways to embrace soft hermitting without isolating yourself.

1. Ask yourself why you're saying no

Before automatically turning down an invite, Skinner says it's worth checking in with yourself.

"I'd encourage anyone adopting the trend to get clear about what purpose or value it fulfils in their life," she outlines. "For example, if someone tries a hermit-style retreat practice and finds that it brings them more mental clarity, focus and peace, it could be a great part of a routine, when combined or balanced with other activities."

2. Protect your social battery

Instead of accepting every invitation, prioritise the people and plans that matter most to you.

As Dr Sik points out: “Healthy social connection doesn’t necessarily mean being the busiest person. You can have a very small social circle and still have meaningful relationships."

3. Make your time alone intentional

If you're going to stay at home, make it count. Whether that's reading, having an everything shower, cooking a nice meal, going for a walk, or simply doing nothing, the point is to use solitude to recharge and not dwell on cancelling your plans.

Skinner suggests paying attention to how time alone makes you feel. If a period of retreat provides you with care, space and time-out, it could be a valuable part of your routine.

4. Know when to step back out

Rather than an all-or-nothing approach to soft hermitting, both experts suggest trying to maintain a balanced approach.

"Many people could benefit from adopting elements of the concept into their routines," says Skinner. "Perhaps experimenting with small amounts of social retreat, combined with other times of stepping into social situations."

The aim, she says. is to balance self-connection with connection with others.

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Admittedly, the more I thought about it, the stranger the premise seemed. When did dopamine become something we thought we could manage with a five-point list? Online, we talk about it as if we can simply top it up, turning one of the brain’s most complicated chemical messengers into shorthand for pleasure, motivation and feeling good - and apparently decided we can curate our way to more of it.

But can we? Naturally, after having been thoroughly seduced by the concept, I did what any sensible person (and intrinsically curious journalist) would do: made one for myself, then asked actual neuroscientists and psychologists whether I’d been completely taken in.

Ultimately, I wanted to know what a menu like this actually does to the brain, whether it can genuinely support our wellbeing, and whether we’ve started overcomplicating the simple things that make us feel good, and, if so, whether I could build a better menu - without chasing the classic ‘dopamine hits.' For that and more, keep scrolling. And don't miss our guides to low dopamine mornings and dopamine fasting here.

Do Dopamine Menus Work? We Asked Top Experts

What Is a ‘Dopamine Menu’ Actually Doing To My Brain?

In the interest of time (my next dopamine fix waits for no woman), I wanted to first understand what a menu like this would actually be doing to my brain.

Because while I joke about dopamine constantly - usually when I’m stressed and reaching for my phone, a coffee or something sweet - I've never really stopped to think about what it actually is. I’ve treated it as a one-way ticket for feeling good, when, as neuroscientist Farah Qureshi explains, it’s doing something far more complicated.

“The brain is energy efficient and doesn’t necessarily like change,” she tells me. “It likes familiarity and predictions.” Dopamine, she explains, "is not simply a chemical signal for pleasure, but one of the brain’s gears that helps us recognise what is worth pursuing, learn from rewards and anticipate what might happen next."

That means when I see a friend, listen to music or finish something I’ve been putting off, I can absolutely talk about dopamine being involved, but it isn’t quite the “hit” I’ve been imagining. “This felt valuable, remember it and do it again,” is closer to the message, says Qureshi.

And this is where my very simple idea of dopamine starts to shatter slightly. It isn’t just about how good something feels; it’s also helping our brains learn what we value, what to expect and what might be worth doing again. A 2024 review in Nature Neuroscience found that while dopamine plays a key role in learning this, the familiar idea that it simply signals a “reward prediction error” doesn’t tell the whole story.

Can Choosing The Right Things Actually Make Me Feel Better?

When I sat down to curate my dopamine menu, I felt an almighty pressure to choose the “right” things. What genuinely brought me joy, rather than simply distracted me? What made me feel my most rested self? Suddenly, a list of things I liked doing felt like a surprisingly serious exercise in self-reflection - and I wondered whether this was genuinely useful or just another fad destined to disappear by next week.

Perhaps the answer partly comes down to how easy it is to follow through. Psychologist Tara Quinn Cirillo tells me that when we’re overwhelmed, even things that are good for us can feel overwhelming too. “There is a relationship between anxiety, mood and motivation,” she explains. “When our brains reach capacity, even deciding what might help can become another task. Preparing a list of restorative activities in advance can reduce that cognitive load and make us more likely to engage with them.”

​And those things don’t have to be big. She points to a 2024 randomised controlled trial of 349 people that found that encouraging everyday behaviours - from meaningful activities to healthy habits to social connection and making plans - led to moderate reductions in depression and anxiety.

​It’s an idea that Quinn Cirillo describes through the lens of “marginal gains”: rather than waiting for one big intervention to transform how we feel, small changes across different areas of our lives can, collectively, make a meaningful difference.

How To Stop Your Dopamine Menu Becoming Another Thing To Optimise

Now, I’m going to do something that feels slightly rebellious: strip away all the dopamine language. Why, I hear you whisper? Because the more I hovered over my list, the more I worried I was turning this experiment into another way to optimise my own wellbeing, to prove I was capable of looking after myself.

“Our brain chemistry is constantly responding to how we live: our relationships, movement, sleep, purpose, connection, stress levels and the things we enjoy,” Qureshi tells me. “So rather than constantly chasing a dopamine hit, I think it’s more about creating a life and habits that support the brain naturally.”

Enter science, which suggests the value of my menu might have less to do with getting a dopamine buzz, and more to do with making these small, intentional choices easier to reach for. A 2024 study put five simple wellbeing habits to the test: connecting with others, being active, taking notice, learning and giving. After 10 weeks, participants reported greater improvements in life satisfaction, positive emotions and overall wellbeing than the control group, alongside reduced anxiety and depressive symptoms.

So, it goes without saying, we don’t need one big wellbeing overhaul. The little things matter too - which made me feel better about the decidedly unscientific process of filling in my own menu.

That being said, Quinn Cirillo warns that focusing too heavily on dopamine can create a “tick-box” mentality, and this is exactly what we need to avoid. “We can start expecting every activity to deliver a hit of happiness, then feel deflated or self-critical when we don’t complete the list. And, she reminds me, rest and spontaneity matter too.” And, as she reminds me, rest and spontaneity matter too.

Perhaps, then, the real test of my menu isn’t whether it gives me a dopamine hit. It’s whether it makes choosing the things that support my wellbeing feel a little easier.

Forget Dopamine. Here’s What I Put On My Wellbeing Menu

By no means do I think I’ve created the perfect menu for every mood and moment - I’m not sure such a thing exists. But after two weeks of putting mine to the test, I have this to report back: forget what’s supposed to “boost” your dopamine. Think instead about what your brain actually needs. What calms you? Give you energy? What makes you feel connected, gets you out of a rut or leaves you genuinely restored?

That’s the structure I’ve followed: how I want to feel, rather than which dopamine hit I’m chasing. If you’re looking for inspiration, these are the things I’ve found myself reaching for - hopefully to support myself on the harder days, rather than give me something else to optimise.

When I'm Overwhelmed

Being told to “just sit in silence” when you have the hum of 47 tabs open can feel less like self-care and more like psychological warfare. So, when I’m overwhelmed, I’m not necessarily looking for nothing; I’m looking for the right kind of something.

Warm Light: There’s something about switching off the big light and replacing it with a warm, low glow that makes my entire body exhale. I’m not claiming my bedside lamp is a neurological intervention; there’s good reason to think light matters: brighter, blue-enriched light can promote alertness, while dimmer, warmer light can feel far less disruptive. So, when the atmosphere needs a change, I reach for the little amber lamp rather than adding another blast of stimulation. No fancy wellness gadget required.

Pick up a book: When my world feels particularly noisy, I like giving my brain somewhere else to go. A good book lets me swap the 17 tabs currently open in my head for one fictional universe - preferably one involving other people’s problems.

Learn something while moving. When I’m not obsessively reading about the latest innovation in women’s health, my other great love is history. So, I’ll take the dog for a walk and put on a history podcast or audiobook. Somehow, teaching myself about a 16th-century monarch while picking up after my dog is enough to make the modern world feel considerably less urgent.

When I'm Restless

This is the category for when I’m not overwhelmed exactly - I’m just itchy. I need stimulation, but the kind that leaves me feeling satisfied rather than like I’ve spent 45 minutes scrolling.

Change my environment. Sometimes I don’t need a new activity; I just need to stop looking at the same four walls. A café, library, park or even a touch of people watching can be enough to give my brain a reset.

Journal. As a self-proclaimed journaling fanatic (a stationery shop hates to see me coming), I’ve put this one on a fairly high pedestal. Sometimes, I’ll give myself five minutes to write whatever is rattling around in my head; other times, I’ll spend an hour collaging a page. There’s no productivity goal here. It’s simply somewhere for my restless brain to put itself.

Make something. At the moment, that means watercolour painting. I am not, I should stress, particularly good at it, but perhaps that’s the point. There’s something wonderfully absorbing about giving your hands a task when your brain is desperate for entertainment.

When I Need To Recharge & Detach

The things I reach for when I don’t want to take in an influx of information, stimulation or productivity.

Give a hobby a time slot. Rather than waiting until I magically have “free time”, I set a timer and give one of my interests my full attention for a set period. There’s something really liberating about knowing I only have to do one thing for the next hour.

Start a project. I’ve recently started knitting again. I’m no expert - I can produce a scarf or blanket and little else - so I tend to pick a friend in need of either and give myself a deadline. It gives my brain something to work towards without the slightly exhausting requirement of it turning into a side hustle.

Book an exercise class. There’s something about having a commitment I actually have to show up for that switches my brain off. At the gym, I can spend 20 minutes wondering what I should train. In a class, someone else makes the decisions. My only job is to arrive and do what I’m told. Bliss.

Go outside. No headphones. Emphasis here on the no headphones. Sometimes, detaching means resisting the urge to fill every spare second with noise and companionship. A walk where I can hear the traffic, birds, my own footsteps - and, in my case, my dog yapping at every man in her peripheral area - can be surprisingly restorative.

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How do we know this? Consider this: when was the last time you reached for your phone? Chances are, it was within the past few minutes - and this constant dopamine-driven habit isn't doing us any favours. Our attention spans are worse than ever, and many people report feeling lower in mood after hours of doomscrolling than before.

While it's not entirely our fault - don't forget that back in March, Meta and YouTube were found to have deliberately designed apps to be addictive - the research is stark. Studies show that excessive screen time has negative implications not only for mental health, but physical wellbeing too (take a look at this research, from the Journal of Education and Health Promotion).

So, it's no surprise, then, that we're all on the hunt for ways to limit our scrolling - and it's a problem I've been increasingly confronted with amid the screen-time ban for kids that's due to come into force next year. There's nothing quite like children to force you to confront your flaws - and if I want them to be off screens more, I need to start leading by example.

This being said, I rely on my phone and my laptop for work, so I know it's unrealistic - and unnecessary - to go cold turkey and lock my screens away, but I also absolutely don't want to spend money breaking this habit with one of the plethora of device-blocking apps and gadgets on the market right now. There's only one thing for it: I'm going to have to try and summon up my own willpower and instil some expert-backed screen-time resets.

Would going old school with reducing scrolling work? Keep reading to find out what I would - and wouldn't recommend, but in the meantime, don't miss our wellbeing guides to improving joyspan, Blue Zone Mediterranean health tips and how to hack your longevity from home, plus - find out how one Health Writer got on when she tried a phone detox device for a month, here.

I Tried The 3 Science-Backed Screen-Time Resets Experts Swear By—My Review

What are screen-time resets?

Screen-time resets are pretty self-explanatory, but in case you missed it: they're all about intentional breaks from tech - no fancy gadgets required, and don't confuse them with digital detoxes, either.

"A screen-time reset is essentially a deliberate period away from phones, tablets, computers, televisions and other digital devices, with the aim of breaking up habitual or excessive screen use rather than necessarily trying to eliminate screens altogether," explains GP and medical advisor for IQ Doctor, Dr Suzanne Wylie. "I would generally frame it as a reset of our habits rather than a detox, because screens are now an unavoidable and often useful part of work, education, communication and everyday life.

"The important question is therefore less about achieving an arbitrary number of screen-free hours and more about whether screen use is beginning to displace things that are important for our physical and mental health, such as sleep, exercise, social interaction, time outdoors and proper rest."

What are the benefits of screen-time resets?

Keen to cut down your screen time and interested in knowing how it might make you feel? You're in the right place - and the benefits are compelling.

1. They encourage us to move

If there's one more disadvantage to prolonged screen time, it's that we're generally sedentary while working/watching/scrolling. It makes sense, then, that having some time out might just encourage us to move more.

"There are several potential benefits to screen-free resets," notes Dr Wylie. "One of the simplest is that regular breaks encourage us to get out of the chair and move, which is particularly relevant when so much work and leisure now involves sitting down. UK guidance encourages adults to reduce prolonged periods of sitting and to break them up with activity, even if that activity is simply standing up and walking around for a few minutes."

2. They can help improve our sleep

"Sleep is another particularly important reason to consider a reset, especially if someone has got into the habit of scrolling, watching programmes or checking messages late into the evening," shares Dr Wylie. "I often suggest starting with a simple screen-free period during the hour before bed, rather than trying to impose a complicated digital detox, as this gives the brain and body an opportunity to wind down and makes it easier to establish a consistent bedtime routine.

"NHS advice similarly recommends avoiding smartphones and screens in the hour before sleep when tiredness or sleep problems are an issue, and for children, keeping screens out of the bedroom and switching them off around an hour before bedtime can be particularly helpful."

3. They reduce eye strain and mental fatigue

Dry, tired eyes are an unwelcome side effect of screen time - having some time out is as good for our peepers as it is for our brain and body.

"Regular screen breaks can also reduce eye discomfort, headaches and the feeling of mental fatigue that can come from prolonged close-up screen work," shares Wylie. "Stepping away from devices can also create opportunities for conversation, fresh air, exercise, or simply doing something that does not demand our attention."

4. They improve connection and perspective

If you've ever taken a walk and left your phone at home, you may have noticed that by the time you get home, your brain has shifted away from the constant checking - leaving more time to think.

"Screen-free resets work to increase your mind-body connection," explains psychologist Eloise Skinner. "Where there are fewer distractions, it might be more possible to feel present in one's body. Additionally, there's an increased likelihood of connecting with those around you, as well as more present-moment awareness or mindful awareness. Put simply, it can help to make time feel more meaningful and as though it lasts longer, rather than slipping away.

"In addition, they help to restore a sense of perspective, allowing us to remember what matters, and increase our sense of autonomy - which is typically a central factor in feeling fulfilled in the long term."

Who are screen-time resets best for?

As touched on above, we could pretty much all benefit from a reduction in our screen time - but some of us in particular might find them invaluable.

"Screen-time resets can benefit almost anyone," notes Dr Wylie. "However, they are particularly worthwhile for people who find themselves reaching for their phone automatically, repeatedly checking social media or emails without really intending to, losing track of time online, using screens right up until bedtime, or noticing that screen use is taking the place of exercise, hobbies, family time or face-to-face conversation.

"They can also be useful for families, because having periods when everyone puts their devices away tends to be much easier than asking children to reduce their screen use while adults continue looking at their own phones."

This being said, there's no point in making screen time another thing to feel bad about, especially when so many of us rely on them for work.

"I would not, however, suggest that people feel guilty about necessary screen use for work, study or maintaining relationships," agrees Dr Wylie. "The objective should be healthier use rather than perfection."

What are the best ways to incorporate screen-free resets?

While it might sound like a challenge to have screen-free moments in the day, the key is to fill those pockets of time with something that really counts, and (hopefully) you won't even notice how long you've been off your phone.

Skinner advises that resets can include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Screen-free commuting (reading a book instead of checking emails, or even simply looking out the window and focusing on present-moment awareness).
• A few moments of simple breathwork or meditation through the day.
• Connected or IRL fitness classes, instead of live classes on a screen or following an online workout.
• Dedicated deep work sessions without notifications or checking emails - maybe even scheduling this into the calendar where possible, so that it's more likely to form a commitment.
• Choosing to get news through a paper rather than online notifications - can be especially good with the weekend papers, really taking time to absorb news instead of feeling panicked or overwhelmed by it.
• Nightly reset where you avoid all screens for around an hour before bed.

I tried these 3 science-backed screen-time resets for two weeks - and my focus and sleep improved tenfold

1. Screen-free mornings for focus and productivity

If the thought of not immediately reaching for your phone the second you wake up makes you break out in a cold sweat - listen up. I won't lie: I found it tough - not to mention, my friends and family found it frustrating - but for a week, I didn't check my phone or laptop for the first hour of the day. A completely tech-free hour might sound endless, but trust me when I say it sets you up for a way more productive day.

"A simple morning reset is one of my favourites," notes Dr Wylie. "You avoid looking at your phone for the first 20 to 30 minutes after waking. Instead, get up, open the curtains, have some water or breakfast, wash and dress, stretch, go outside briefly or simply start the day without immediately exposing yourself to a stream of notifications and social media. This can be particularly helpful for people who feel that their phone dictates the pace of their morning."

Instead of mindlessly picking up my phone every few minutes (ok, seconds) in the morning rush, I left it charging in the kitchen and spent some time sipping tea in the garden (dreamy - only really possible as the kids are off school right now), sorting washing, generally tidying and writing my lists for the day.

Suffice to say, I felt much better at the end of the hour than I would have, had I been juggling all these things and scrolling at the same time. As I got used to it, it could get to 10 am before I looked at a screen - unless I needed to log on for work - and there were days when I almost forgot entirely about it (cue a volley of messages and missed calls, naturally!)

I found it worked best for me to leave my phone downstairs overnight, too - this way, I wasn't tempted to pick it straight up on waking.

2. Screen-free nature walks for stress relief

I've said it before, but I'm so lucky to live in a beautiful part of the country with fields and woods right on my doorstep - making nature walks a wonderful part of my everyday life. However, I usually spend these walks (either with or without my dog) listening to a podcast, music or even (I know) replying to emails.

Not so this week. In order to manage this one, I did have to just leave my phone at home - going old school might only work for you if you have a partner at home with kids, or someone knows where you'll be - but it really is possible, and trust me when I say: you notice so much more when you're engaging with your surroundings instead of your tech.

"Nature walks without phones are one of my favourite screen-free resets," shares Skinner. "Try going with a friend or family member, or simply walking with increased attention on the surroundings."

3. Screen-free mealtimes for overall wellbeing

This is one I was actually quite relaxed about trying, as I attempt to have screen-free meals anyway. But focusing on it did make me realise that, in fact, I do reach for my phone without thinking - perhaps when one of the kids asks a question I'm not sure about, or I remember I've forgotten to order something/book someone into something/insert chore here.

"Another very practical reset is a screen-free meal, whether that is breakfast, lunch or dinner, where phones and television are switched off and put out of reach, giving people an opportunity to concentrate on the food and the people they are with," explains Dr Wylie. "For families, having a phone-free bedroom and a device-free meal can be much more sustainable than trying to impose a strict daily screen-time allowance."

In reality, while this did take some getting used to, after a couple of days it was pretty easy - and it gave me loads more credibility when asking my kids to follow suit, too.

Will I continue with my screen-free resets? In a word: yes. I absolutely noticed I felt calmer and had less of a sense of urgency - both signs my nervous system was shifting out of its constantly high-alert state - while I looked forward to my screen-free daily walk, too. Of course, it helps that the weather has been glorious - ask me again in November, and I might tell you a different story - but for now, these habits are working for me. And I haven't spent a single penny.

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Honestly - this is a good thing! Having the language to say this hurts me, I need something different, or this doesn’t feel healthy, is powerful. When I talk to my own mother about boundaries, she often responds with genuine awe: “Wow. I would never have thought to say that.” And she’s right. Previous generations didn’t quite have the same vocabulary for emotional needs as we do.

But what happens when the language designed to help us build healthier relationships starts to make friendship feel like something we need to constantly manage?

“Protect your peace” is the perfect example. The friend who cancels plans? Protecting her peace. The awkward conversation you’d rather avoid? Protecting your peace. The friendship that becomes too demanding? Yep, you guessed it: step back, mute the chat and call it a boundary.

Sometimes, that is exactly what we should do. But I can’t shake the feeling - are we also using the language of boundaries to sidestep what makes friendship meaningful: compromise, accountability, difficult conversations and the discomfort of being wrong? Have we simply learnt the language of psychology without understanding what it asks of us?

It’s something we’re all exploring openly. In April, the ‘But Are You Happy?’ podcast examined “weaponised boundaries”, while friendship writer Nina Badzin has argued that if everything becomes about protecting our own boundaries, friendship itself becomes rather difficult.

So, where is the line between protecting yourself and opting out of the messy business of being a friend? I wanted to find out when a boundary is genuinely necessary, when “protecting your peace” is actually avoidance - and whether, in our quest to have healthier relationships, we might occasionally be making friendships harder to maintain.

"Protecting Your Boundaries" Is One of 2026's Biggest Buzzphrases—Are We Using It Wrong?

What Does a Healthy Boundary Actually Look Like?

“A boundary is about deciding what you are and are not willing to participate in, and then acting accordingly,” explains psychologist Dr Sophie Mort. “It is about managing your own behaviour, rather than controlling somebody else’s.”

​It’s a deceptively simple distinction, and one that can get lost online. Boundaries are often presented as rules for other people: You can’t speak to me like that. You can’t expect this from me. If you upset me, you’re out.

“A healthier boundary sounds more like: If this conversation becomes disrespectful, I’m going to step away and come back to it later,” says Mort.

The difference? You can’t control what someone else does. You can decide what you do in response.

Mort cautions against confusing boundaries with the absence of discomfort. Healthy relationships involve disappointment, disagreement and difficult conversations; “a boundary isn’t designed to ensure we never feel uncomfortable, but to help us navigate those moments while respecting ourselves and the other person.”

So, what does a healthy boundary actually look like? Mort offers the example of a friend who regularly calls late at night when they’re upset. Rather than disappearing or deciding the friendship is “too much”, she suggests saying: “I love you and want to be there for you, but I can’t always do late-night calls. If I don’t answer, it’s not because I don’t care. I’ll get back to you when I can.”

Are You Protecting Your Peace - Or Avoiding the Problem?

Now, for those of us who have used “I’m protecting my peace” more than a few times - guilty- it might be time to disarm the phrase for a moment. What does it actually mean, and how do we know when it’s helping us rather than helping us avoid something?

​Clinical psychologist Sula Windgassen thinks the answer starts with being a little more honest about what’s happening underneath that urge to retreat.“Anxiety, guilt and fear often invoke automatic brain defaults that cause us to avoid,” she explains. “We have to do a little intentional work to turn towards the feelings and explore what they are and what thoughts underlie them.”

​Her advice is simple: How do I feel? What is making me feel this way? Then go one step further: what are you actually afraid might happen if you told this person what you need? From there, she suggests trying to problem-solve rather than disappearing altogether.

​Naturally, there’s science behind our instinct to dodge the difficult. Research on experiential avoidance suggests that we often try to escape uncomfortable thoughts and feelings because doing so offers immediate relief - even when avoidance can keep the underlying problem going.

​And that’s where “protecting my peace” can become complicated. Mort suggests we shouldn’t be too hasty to retire the phrase: “Sometimes, stepping away is exactly what we need. You might be too activated to have a productive conversation and need time to think.” The problem is when it becomes a way of making avoidance sound like emotional maturity. “There’s a difference between “I need a couple of days to calm down, then I want to talk” and “This is disturbing my peace, so I’m never discussing it.” One creates space to return to the relationship; the other can quietly become a way of opting out.

Has Therapy Speak Made Us Worse at Friendship?

Confession time: this feature has taken me down some rather fascinating social-media rabbit holes. But it has also made me think about just how much of our emotional vocabulary is now being shaped by our FYP.

​That’s the peculiar thing about TikTok: whatever you happen to be feeling that day, there’s probably a video waiting for you. Are you feeling overlooked? Here are five signs you’re in a one-sided friendship. Irritated? Perhaps you’re finally recognising a boundary violation. Having a bad Tuesday? Congratulations, you’ve just discovered the reason you are the way you are.

​And I’d say there’s something genuinely useful about that. But the algorithm isn’t exactly interested in nuance; it’s interested in whether you stop scrolling. Research suggests that can shape us, too: algorithmic recommendations can create “emotional feedback loops”, where our moods influence what we’re shown, which then shapes what we engage with. Another study found that highly viewed mental-health TikToks based on personal experiences attracted more engagement than those from healthcare professionals - raising revealing questions about how easily relatable anecdotes can start to feel like a psychological fact.

Which brings me back to friendship: what happens when we start applying all of this language to the people we love?

One expert I spoke to thinks this is where things can go awry: “People are grabbing the vocabulary without any of the framework that actually makes it mean something,” says Bea Chanda, licensed therapist.

“A 60-second reel can give you the word - trigger, boundary violation, unsafe - without the theory, context or nuance behind it. “And a word without the understanding behind it tends to just harden into a rule.”

The irony is that therapy language was supposed to help us understand ourselves and our relationships better. Instead, sometimes, we start talking to our friends like a textbook.

As Chanda highlights, “that doesn’t mean the language is wrong. Some relationships really are harmful, and having the words to recognise that can be life-changing. But perhaps these concepts are tools for exploration, not rules for enforcement.”

Note to self (and all our inner therapy voices): friendship needs room for people to get things wrong. To have an off week. To be complicated. Sometimes the more human response is “I’m hurt, can we talk?”, instead of saying ‘Thank you, next.”

How to Set a Boundary Without Losing the Friendship

So, where does this leave us in practice? What are we actually supposed to do when we need to set a boundary? With a therapy-approved phrase for every social scenario, it’s surprisingly easy to overthink the “right” response. Do I communicate? Take space? Set a boundary? Or just mute the group chat and hope for the best? It turns out the answer is far less complicated than we’ve made it.

Relationship therapist Aoife Drury says a genuinely nourishing friendship isn’t always one where you speak every day or see each other constantly. Instead, pay attention to how you feel within it. “A healthy friendship tends to involve a sense of safety, mutuality and acceptance,” she explains. “It can tolerate periods where one person has less capacity, and survive change without immediately interpreting it as rejection.”

“First things first, there should also be reciprocity,” says Mort, “alongside enough trust to tolerate disagreement, distance and the inevitable changes life throws at us. A good friendship allows you to be yourself, feel emotionally safe and know you don’t have to earn someone’s affection by being constantly available.”

Perhaps this is the bit we’ve forgotten amid all the talk of boundaries: a friendship doesn’t have to meet every need to be a good friendship.

We can expect our friends to support us without expecting them to be our therapist, social secretary, sounding board and 24-hour reassurance hotline. Healthy friendships involve interdependence: I can need you while still understanding that you are a separate person with your own limits.

There is, after all, a difference between having needs and expecting everyone else to organise themselves around them. A healthy boundary asks: What am I willing to participate in? Self-centredness asks: How should everyone else behave so that I never have to feel uncomfortable?

Which brings us back to boundaries. “Sometimes, a friend’s behaviour really does cross a line.” The trick, Mort says, is knowing the difference between an ordinary human limitation and a pattern that repeatedly leaves you feeling hurt, dismissed or depleted, and knowing that you’re allowed to say something about it without turning the friendship into psychological warfare.

TDLR: the healthiest boundary isn’t the one that gets you out of the relationship. Sometimes, it’s the one that gives the relationship a chance to become healthier.

MC'S Therapy-Speak Survival Kit

I realised I wasn't the only one feeling like this after Steven Bartlett told us that two glasses of wine had ruined the better part of a week for him last month (for MC UK's scoop on that controversy, check out our full take here). I, for one, have been fascinated by the response, and I'll be real: I've been watching the growing backlash against tracking, biohacking and constant self-improvement with a sense of relief.

Women like Liz Moody have been at the forefront of the conversation, vocalising her views on the downsides of optimisation culture. Then there's nutritionist Sarah Ann Macklin, who's explored what happens when our pursuit of health starts creating anxiety rather than alleviating it (relatable, much?). There's even an emerging "unquantified self" movement, which essentially encourages us to stop obsessing over the numbers and start paying attention to how we actually feel.

As someone who recently stopped wearing her Apple Watch because the sleep data became one more thing to worry about, I can relate. And so I started thinking: what would happen if I stopped trying so hard to be "well"? To be clear, I wasn't about to spend a month surviving on wine and takeaway in the name of rebelling against wellness culture. Instead, I wanted to strip things back – move when and how I fancied, eat intuitively, rest when I needed to, and generally embrace a good old-fashioned 80/20 approach to life.

So, for one month, that's exactly what I did. No tracking, no obsessing over whether I'd moved "enough", and no trying to squeeze every last health benefit out of my day. Could taking my foot off the wellness accelerator actually make me feel better? Keep reading to find out.

I opted out of wellness optimisation for a month–why it's one of the best things I've ever done

What is wellness optimisation?

First, let's talk about the difference between wellness and wellness optimisation. Jamie Janko is a breathwork expert, wellness educator and founder of Rewild Breathwork, and she makes an important distinction between the two.

"Wellness is about caring for ourselves, but optimisation suggests there is always something that could be improved. And this is where it can get tricky," she said to MC UK.

When we tag the word optimisation onto the end of wellness, the focus shifts towards improving, measuring and fine-tuning our healthy habits – think sleep scores, step counts, supplements, recovery metrics and carefully honed routines.

As stress, burnout and wellness coach Bianca Topham explains: "When we optimise something, we try to improve it to the best of our ability. Wellness optimisation therefore needs ongoing work, change, enhancing, adjusting and monitoring."

Are there any benefits to wellness optimisation?

Sounds pretty intense, right? Well, before we get into the drawbacks of wellness optimisation, it's worth noting that there could be some benefits here – with the right approach.

After all, paying attention to our wellbeing isn't a bad thing. "When we look after areas such as our sleep, movement, nutrition, stress and emotional wellbeing, it can have a positive knock-on effect on how we feel and function in other areas of our lives," Topham summarises.

There is a case for tracking here, too. Dr Divpreet Sacha of Her Holistic Health points out that "monitoring things like our steps, food or sleep makes you notice things about your own behaviour you'd otherwise miss." One 2018 study of 1,768 people found that self-monitoring can encourage us to reflect on our behaviour and become more aware of our health habits, for example.

And you don't necessarily need months of data to experience some benefit. A 2019 randomised trial found that wearing a fitness tracker for just two weeks had a "statistically small but significant" positive effect on participants' perceived physical health and sense of accomplishment.

So, wellness optimisation isn't inherently the villain of this story. The sweet spot seems to be using these tools to support how you feel, rather than allowing the numbers to dictate whether you've had a "good" or "bad" day.

What about the drawbacks?

And here's where things get complicated. There’s a pretty big difference between noticing that you feel better after eight hours of sleep and feeling like you've somehow failed because your watch awarded you a sleep score of 72. I know this one first-hand – it's precisely why I stopped wearing my Apple Watch to bed.

"The problem begins when awareness turns into surveillance, comparison and perfectionism – and a feeling there’s always something to fix," Janko tells me. Constantly tracking ourselves can, she says, create a kind of hypervigilance around our health, where suddenly nothing feels quite good enough.

Interestingly, the same 2018 study I mentioned above found downsides alongside the benefits of self-monitoring. Participants described tracking as tedious, demotivating and, in some cases, something that could encourage obsessive behaviour – a useful reminder that more information doesn't necessarily equal better wellbeing.

Sleep tracking offers a particularly interesting example. "There’s even a term that has emerged around it: orthosomnia," says Janko. Researchers first used the term in a 2017 paper after seeing patients become so preoccupied with perfecting the sleep data on their trackers that it appeared to increase sleep-related anxiety, making getting a good night's rest harder. Sounds a bit counterproductive, doesn't it?

And it's not just about the numbers. As Topham points out, trying to optimise everything can turn looking after ourselves into a heavy mental load. "Did I get quality sleep? Move enough? Eat correctly? Meditate? Get enough daylight? Have caffeine at the right time?" she says. "Too much of this can feel like looking after ourselves is a chore on yet another to-do list."

It also raises an interesting question about what healthy living actually looks like. The much-discussed Blue Zones framework, for example – those are the areas of the world with the highest concentration of centenarians, F.Y.I. – focuses on decidedly low-tech habits associated with healthy ageing. Think: natural everyday movement, strong social connections, a sense of purpose, nutritious food and ways of managing stress. While the Blue Zones concept itself has attracted some debate, those underlying lifestyle principles overlap heavily with established lifestyle-medicine recommendations.

In other words, a healthy life doesn't necessarily need to be a meticulously measured one.

Opting out of wellness optimisation for one month–my review

Weeks one and two

In a bid to embrace intuitive living, the first thing I did when starting my month-long experiment was to ditch the trackers. No step count, no sleep data, no checking whether I'd moved "enough" by the end of the day. I still made a point of getting outside for fresh air and moving regularly, but I tried to let wanting a walk be enough of a reason to take one. It probably doesn't come as a surprise to hear that this felt great.

Food got the same treatment. I'm aware that a savoury, protein-heavy breakfast might tick more nutrition boxes, but do you know what I actually want first thing in the morning? Granola, Greek yoghurt and berries. So that's what I started having. I also stopped expecting myself to conjure up fabulously nutritious dinners seven nights a week. Some evenings, a simple meal requiring minimal thought was exactly what I needed – and reducing even a little bit of daily decision-making felt freeing.

That didn't mean throwing everything I know about nutrition out of the window. I still ate plenty of whole foods and tried not to make ultra-processed foods the backbone of my diet, but if they cropped up? I didn't berate myself. The same applied to sleep. I went to bed when I felt tired and, perhaps more importantly, stopped conducting a post-mortem the following morning on exactly how many hours I'd managed. Slowly, the question of "have I done enough to be healthy today?" started being replaced by a much simpler one: how do I feel?

Weeks three and four

By the second half of the month, I was getting better at listening to what my mind and body actually wanted. Movement was one of the clearest examples. I'm usually very conscious of fitting strength training into my week – we've all heard by now how important maintaining muscle is – but on week three I realised I'd played tennis, gone swimming and been for a run without doing a single strength session.

Usually, this could have sent me on a spiral of doubt, but this time, I chose to listen to how I felt, which was good. I'd chosen three forms of exercise that I genuinely fancied doing, and I finished the week feeling energised rather than guilty about the workout I'd supposedly missed. I was surprised that giving myself permission to move intuitively meant I ended up doing more cardio than usual – who knows, maybe simplifying my choices had given me more energy than usual?

There were social wins, too. I drank a couple of glasses of wine in the garden with friends over dinner and can happily report that, contrary to Steven Bartlett's experience, my life was not derailed for the following three days. I enjoyed myself, went to bed, woke up and carried on with my life (revolutionary stuff).

By week four, I realised opting out of wellness optimisation hadn't made me abandon my health. If anything, I felt more connected to it. I was still moving, eating nourishing food, sleeping and getting outside – I just wasn't constantly evaluating how well I was doing these things. And that distinction, for me, turned out to be pretty profound.

If you've been finding healthy living just a little too much recently, I highly recommend you try a more intuitive approach. Trust yourself, and do what makes you feel good – it's worked wonders for me.

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They conclude manifestation "doesn't work for them." What's actually happening is that they were never taught the mechanics of it - because manifestation isn't a wish; it's closer to an equation, and most people are only doing half the maths.

If you've tried this before and felt nothing shift, it's probably one of these three things.

Manifesting Never Worked For You? I'm a Coach—These 3 Reasons May Be Why

Mistake number one: You're thinking it, not feeling it

Writing a list of what you want and reading it back to yourself occasionally isn't manifestation - it's wishful thinking. The step almost everyone skips is the felt sense of it.

Here's why that matters: your brain can't fully distinguish between something real and something vividly imagined. When you visualise in detail - not just the image, but how it feels in your body - you're building the same neural pathways you'd build if it were actually happening. That's not a metaphor; it's neuroscience. So if you visualise having a partner, the useful question isn't "what does that look like," it's "how does my body feel when I'm loved, understood, held?" Specificity in feeling is what makes the visualisation do anything at all.

There's a reason "feel it in your heart" isn't just a figure of speech, either. The heart has its own network of neurons - researchers call it the heart-brain - and it processes and responds to emotion independently of your head. When you drop into the feeling of what you want rather than just the thought of it, you're signalling from a place with real neurological weight, not just running a thought on a loop. What you're saying isn't what creates change. How you feel while you're saying it is.

Mistake number two: You're doing it once, not daily

A visualisation you do once a week, or once a month, isn't a strong enough signal to compete with years of limiting beliefs. You already have deeply wired beliefs about what's possible for you - beliefs that took a lifetime to build.

Undoing them with an occasional five minutes of visualising isn't going to out-signal that. This has to be a daily practice, even if it's just a few focused minutes, for the new pathway to actually take hold over the old one.

Mistake number three: You're being either too vague, or too rigid

This is the one that trips people up in opposite directions.

Too vague, and it's unusable - "I want to be married next year" is an outcome with no path attached, especially if you're not currently dating anyone. Your brain doesn't know what to visualise, so it defaults back to abstraction, and nothing lands. The fix is to get specific and put a timeline on it: not just "I want love," but the exact feeling of being with someone who makes you feel safe and understood, by a date you choose.

But then, once it's specific, you have to hold it loosely - because too rigid, you block the very thing you're trying to call in.

I can tell you this from my own life. My manifestation was to be living with my partner by the end of August, in a house with a garden and an open kitchen. I was specific about the details and the timeline on purpose - and then, almost immediately, my landlord gave me notice to move out. Everyone told us we'd never find a garden flat in central London on our timeline. We did - in Swiss Cottage. It came together slightly later than my original date, and in a different area than I'd first pictured, because I'd been quietly attached to one specific location out of habit, not necessity. The moment I let go of *how* it needed to happen, it worked out better than I'd planned: we're closer to my work, my clients, my opportunities. There's no such thing as impossible - only the ceiling of what you can currently imagine, and there's always more space beyond it than you think.

Be specific enough that your nervous system has something real to work with. Then let go of the exact shape it has to take.

The part almost no one talks about: the ego doesn’t get the credit

Here’s the piece that changed how I actually practise this. Your mind - your visualising, imagining, planning mind - is a genuinely useful tool. It’s how you get specific, how you feel something before it’s real, how you build the neural pathway in the first place. But it’s still just a tool, and every tool has a limit. Your mind can only construct a “dream life” out of material it already knows: what you’ve seen, experienced, been told is possible. That’s the ceiling.

What I’ve come to understand is that the ceiling of your ego’s best-case scenario is only the floor of your higher mind. The most elaborate, specific, ambitious version of what you can consciously picture isn’t the top of what’s available to you, it’s the entry point to it. The house we found, the timing, the way it actually worked out, none of it was something I could have engineered by visualising harder. I let go of how, stopped trying to manage every detail, and something more spacious than my own imagination met me there.

That’s the difference between manifesting from the ego and surrendering to something greater than it. The visualising still matters, it gets you to the threshold. But past that point, it’s not about pushing harder. It’s about trusting there’s more available than your own mind was ever going to be able to construct.

If you want support doing this properly:

This isn’t a one-and-done practice, and it’s genuinely harder to sustain alone. Inside The Heart Field Collective, we work with exactly this: weekly prompts to work with your higher self, a guided 15-minute manifestation meditation together every Friday, monthly mentoring, and full access to my library of sessions. People inside the community have seen real shifts within months, not years. It’s £28 a month, and you can join through the app.

You don’t need to wait long to start seeing change. You need the right practice, done consistently.

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When I was younger, it's fair to say I treated my friendships somewhat dismissively; easy to do when you think they'll always be around. While I always enjoyed hanging out with my mates, it wasn't until I had a traumatic friendship breakup in my mid 20s (IYKYK - the grief is real) that I really started to re-evaluate my relationship with those around me - and how I was taking them for granted.

And it's safe to say that I learned my lesson. These days, I'm lucky enough to have the very best friends I could ever have asked for. Some I've known since we were tiny at school, others I've made through the years at work, in the gym and at the school gates, among other places. I've got my solid ride-or-dies, ask no questions, help me bury the body (metaphorically speaking, of course) mates who are always there for me - and I never take them for granted.

This being said, there are obviously times when real life takes over, and I find myself not catching up with my besties as often - or as deeply - as we'd all like. The nights out never make it out of the group chat, and the chances of us all being free on the same weekend before 2030? Pretty much impossible. Throw kids and school holidays into the mix and before we know it, months have gone by without meaningful connection.

But if you can manage it, there's pretty solid scientific backing for giving your mates top billing. Research shows that adult friendship is positively correlated with wellbeing - and making effort to maintain our friendships also counts (check out this 2023 review of research studies, from the journal Frontiers in Psychology). But fascinatingly, the benefits don't end there, with further studies revealing a link between strong friendships and a reduced risk of mortality, improved health behaviours and lower risk of stroke (see this study, from the journal Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences).

So, when I was asked to treat my friendships like a wellness habit for a couple of months, I was all in. After all, if I can make time to work out, cook nutritious food and prioritise quality rest (a work in progress), why not promote hanging out with my friends to the top of my wellness list?

Would treating my friendships as a wellness habit for a month garner me any noticeable gains? Keep scrolling to find out - but while you're here, do check out Em the Nutritionist's top 5 wellness lessons she wishes she'd learned sooner, read all about one Health Writer's battle with health anxiety, and discover the simple, everyday habits that longevity researchers prioritise for healthy ageing, here.

I Treated Friendship Like a Wellness Habit for a Month—Here's What Happened

How is friendship connected to health and wellbeing?

It's well established that loneliness is a leading cause of ill health, with research showing that social isolation has a significant impact on both mental and physical health. Interestingly, it's also deeply rooted in our evolution.

"From an evolutionary perspective, human beings are fundamentally social," explains consultant psychologist Dr Louise Goddard Crawley. "For most of our history, belonging to a group wasn’t simply nice to have; it was essential for survival. Our brains and nervous systems evolved in that context, which helps explain why connection can feel so regulating, and why isolation can be genuinely painful."

It follows, then, that friendship is the perfect (but not only) antidote to this - there's a growing conversation around friendship as a protective factor for both emotional and physical health, and it's something that the experts wholeheartedly endorse, too.

"The mental health benefits of friendship are something we’ve all experienced," notes mental health nurse and coach Rosie Drage. "I know I feel ten times better after a few hours chatting with my best friends - but it’s about more than just mental wellbeing. Without friendships, we’re at risk of being more socially isolated, which can lead to poorer health outcomes too."

What are the benefits of prioritising friendships?

So, it's clear that friendships are unequivocally a good thing for all of us - but how might we notice the benefits of sharing our time, feelings and experiences with like-minded people? Let's take a look.

1. They keep us grounded

There's nothing quite like catching up with old friends - the ones who've known and loved you through all your various iterations and life stages. For those of us lucky enough to have long-standing friendships, this feeling of being deeply understood and accepted is incredibly grounding.

"Long-term friendship offers something that I think is quite profound," muses Dr Goddard Crawley. "Someone who has known you for decades becomes a keeper of your history. They remember versions of you that you may barely remember yourself. Who you were before the job, the relationship, the children, the difficult years, or whatever came next. There’s something enormously grounding about being known across all those different versions of yourself."

2. They help us to self-regulate

"We know that our physical and emotional wellbeing is interlinked," shares psychotherapist and counsellor Georgina Sturmer. "The presence of a support network in our lives can help us to feel calmer and can support us to manage our physical wellbeing when life gets difficult. Emotional and physical regulation isn’t just an internal process; we co-regulate our nervous system with those around us - meaning that the presence of others can help us to soothe ourselves, too."

3. They support healthy biological function

Yes, really. While the majority of friendship-related benefits are psychological, there are physiological advantages to having mates as well.

"Safe, positive relationships can reduce isolation, increase our sense of belonging, but they also help regulate our emotional and physiological responses to stress," shares psychotherapist and trauma coach Hannah McKimm. "Our nervous systems are constantly picking up and responding to signals from each other, often before we've consciously thought about it. Being with someone we trust can help our nervous system settle: we might notice our breathing slow, our shoulders drop, or our body soften. This can reduce the physical and emotional energy we're using to respond to potential threat, leaving more capacity for rest, recovery and everyday life."

4. They help us develop a sense of self

The people we choose to surround ourselves with become who we are, in many ways - the best friends will not only support us in the good times but (hopefully) challenge and question us in tougher times, too.

"From the moment we are born, we look to our caregivers for safety and security - and also to develop our sense of self, our sense of ‘who we are’ as people," Sturmer says. "And this continues through life; our friendships help us to feel known and understood, and to develop our sense of self."

5. Friendships help us through both good and bad times

"Friendship isn't only important when we're struggling," notes McKimm. "Joy, laughter, play, perspective and shared experiences are important parts of wellbeing too. When life is difficult, good friendships can also give us somewhere to share the emotional load."

I Treated Friendship Like a Wellness Habit for Two Months - Here Are My Honest Thoughts

Month one

If I'm being honest, this wasn't so much a challenge as a treat for me - as touched on above, I've long prioritised my friendships, and I'm well and truly reaping the rewards.

But that being said, being more intentional about making sure my friends are right at the top of my list has been a bit of a change for me. As a busy mum, I'm constantly putting the needs of my kids first, and - I won't lie - taking time to make sure I'm there for my friendships as well means there are moments when I have to weigh up who really needs me more, and this creates a bit of discomfort for me initially.

However, knowing how beneficial it is kind of helps - and it's not long before I'm leaning into seeing my friends a little more often and trying to open up to them more. Turns out, honesty breeds honesty, and chatting about our various struggles is more helpful than I'd anticipated. Usually, I'd wait until something has gone wrong to really get into the nitty-gritty of what's happening in my life - figuring that we all have things going on - but knowing that it's so good for us absolutely gives me the push I need.

That being said, it's not all about going deep. I'm not great at saying yes to more spontaneous outings, but I try and push my comfort zone, even agreeing to a spur of the moment catch up with a neighbour, which ends up being one of the loveliest evenings of the summer so far.

I've also planned some bigger nights out - a few close friends have had big birthdays this month, so celebrating them has been even more special than usual - and when the celebrations involve going to see Harry Styles on tour, let's just say I wouldn't miss it for the world! While I love hanging out with my little family, there's something so special about making these memories with my mates, too.

Month two

As the second month rolls around, I'm honestly enjoying this experiment so much. So far, I've had dinners, drinks, coffees, walks and more - and my cup feels well and truly filled. It's such a lovely feeling knowing that I can choose to spend my time with the most amazing people, and that they choose me right back - I highly recommend it.

Disclaimer, though - it does mean saying yes to a few more things than I'd usually have done, but looking back, I can honestly say that those times I was on the fence about something were all the ones that, in hindsight, I'm so glad I made the effort for.

As a natural introvert, I do have to push myself not to hibernate when I'm feeling tired, overwhelmed or stressed - and it's fair to say that I absolutely need (and crave) time by myself, but on the whole, I wouldn't change a single moment spent with my friends over the course of these two months. I've felt our relationships deepen, and I've also got so many fun plans to look forward to for the rest of the year now, too - turns out, putting things in the diary a few months ahead of time gives me a little dopamine boost on the daily.

I can't speak to any physical health benefits other than to say my Oura ring upgraded my resilience from strong (so already pretty good) to exceptional - and the only thing I can put it down to is treating my friendships as a wellness habit. Yes, I've had to be more vulnerable and let my guard down a little - but I can safely say it's been so worth it.

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Yes, really: 'micro recovery' is trending as an alternative to lengthy nervous system resets, and experts think it might just be as effective when it comes to boosting focus, resilience and mental clarity.

We're talking just a few moments of calm - nothing big, and nothing expensive. And the science here is compelling: research shows that micro breaks are effective in enhancing both wellbeing and performance (check out this study from the PLOS journal), while further studies reveal that if these breaks are combined with nature (termed 'green breaks'), the wellbeing benefits increase exponentially.

We're into it, and we're pretty sure you will be, too. Keep scrolling for all the details, but if you're in need of more wellbeing content, don't miss our guides to how to master emotional fitness, Blue Zone living, Mediterranean health tips and how to find joy - plus, find out how one Health Writer got on when she tried stacking her week with low-stimulation moments, here.

‘Micro-Recovery’ Is In: Your Guide

What is micro recovery?

Interested? The concept of micro recovery is refreshingly simple: quick, totally do-able mini breaks interspersed throughout the day, for your mind and body to decompress and restore.

"Micro recovery is just giving your mind and body small, intentional opportunities to come down from the day," explains psychotherapist, women's wellbeing expert and founder of Female Focused Therapy, Cheryl Kennedy MacDonald. "It might be 60 seconds of slow breathing, a short walk, moving away from screens or sitting quietly in the car before moving on with your day. You don’t need candles or a set organised morning - and that’s kind of the point."

How has the concept of micro recovery come about?

While the idea of taking mini resets during the day is really nothing new, the terminology around it has elevated it from a simple habit to a wellness trend - and it's the antithesis of the heavily curated hacks we're consumed by right now.

"I think micro recovery is part of a much bigger shift in how we’re starting to think about wellbeing," muses life coach and entrepreneur, Jo Irving. "For years we’ve been sold this idea of the perfect morning routine. Get up at 5 am, meditate, journal, exercise, drink loads of water and do all of these things before you’ve even started your day. And if you love doing that, brilliant. I meditate. I use breathwork. There are loads of things I do that support me. But I don’t think you can meditate for twenty minutes in the morning and then spend the next twelve hours completely stressed out, rushing from one thing to another and expect those twenty minutes to somehow cancel everything else out.

"That’s the bit I think we’re starting to understand. Recovery doesn’t only need to happen in the morning, at the weekend or when you finally go on holiday. We can bring little bits of it into our actual day."

What are the benefits of building micro recovery into our day?

Still sceptical? Allow us to set out the benefits of the trend.

1. They're accessible

Let's be clear: many wellbeing trends simply aren't compatible with everyday life, but micro recovery is all about small, achievable moments of calm, taking mental and physical rest from just another thing on our to-do list to something that, actually, we can all make time for.

"The idea of micro recovery is gaining popularity because over-the-top morning routines have become yet another thing we need to do,” shares Kennedy MacDonald. "Most of us don’t have three spare hours before work, and we don’t need another 12-step routine to fail to do. Instead, it's about taking brief pauses that help restore some of the attention and energy we naturally use throughout the day."

2. They spread calm through the whole day

To truly feel as if we're doing our frazzled nervous systems some good takes more than a spa break once a year - and micro recovery taps into this idea that our bodies and minds need (and deserve - we don't have to earn it!) rest regularly.

"A good morning routine is great, but 20 minutes of journalling at 6 am doesn’t counteract an entire day of rushing, screens and work," cautions Kennedy MacDonald. "Micro recovery spreads restoration across the day. It gives your nervous system repeated opportunities to move out of high alert, helping us notice when we’re clenching our jaw or barely breathing."

3. They boost resilience

Resilience is a vital component of mental wellbeing, and micro recovery is brilliant for boosting this skill.

"In terms of resilience, micro-breaks allow us to maintain a baseline of calm and presence," explains psychotherapist Eloise Skinner. "Over time, this means that future challenges don't make us feel as though we're 'on the edge', and easily tipped into fight or flight, or into a feeling of anxiety or overwhelm."

4. They enhance focus

Ever noticed the more stressed you are, the harder it is to concentrate? You're not imagining it. But as well as boosting resilience, micro recovery is useful for enhancing focus, too.

"Our attention is limited, and it’s common to jump from one task to the next, but this is tiring for the brain," notes holistic life coach Nichola Henderson. "Micro-recoveries offer a chance to pause and gain clarity, which can help productivity. As humans, we are not designed for ongoing activation, so moments of recovery can help us to stabilise, to reset."

5. They help reduce overwhelm

"Micro-recoveries can give the nervous system time to pause from sustained effort," shares Henderson. "Sometimes, this can prevent someone from tipping into overwhelm; sometimes this is enough to sustain attention and focus before the prefrontal cortex does not function optimally."

How to actively incorporate micro recovery into your day

Totally sold on the idea but not sure where to start? We've got you. Henderson recommends following these steps to cultivate tiny moments of calm:

• Start small. The best way to get started is to begin small. A micro moment of just a few minutes before your day starts might include some fresh air outside, a few deep mindful breaths, enjoying the smell of a good coffee, or a few stretches.
• Look for breaks. After this, for the first week, look for those natural moments where your mind and body authentically need a break – perhaps when you need a comfort break, when you lose concentration on a task, or you feel yourself getting stiff in your body. These are an invitation to incorporate a micro-recovery.
• Aim for authenticity. Take an extra couple of minutes to move, to breathe, to pause and notice what’s happening internally. The most sustainable habits are the ones which fit your lifestyle most authentically, so whenever that is in your day, invite the pause in.
• Stay flexible. Don’t get attached to particular times; keep it flexible, so the micro-recoveries may change and adapt over the week; that’s OK – keep it flexible, and go easy on yourself.

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Most of them walk out feeling better. Almost none of them walk out having got the full benefit because three quiet mistakes are undoing the work before it's had a chance to land.

If you've ever left a sauna feeling foggy instead of clear, or crashed hard by 4 pm after a session that was supposed to energise you, this is probably why.

3 Mistakes I See Every Sauna Client Making That Undermines Their Results

1. You're hydrating at the wrong time and with the wrong temperature

Most people think hydration means reaching for an electrolyte drink once they're already sweating, or gulping cold water afterwards to cool down. Both instincts feel logical in the moment. Both are working against you.

Here's what's actually happening: the moment you sit down in the heat, you start losing sodium, potassium and magnesium through sweat, fast. If you wait until you're already in the sauna to replace them, you're permanently playing catch-up; your body can't absorb and rebalance minerals as quickly as it's shedding them. That's the foggy, flat, slightly nauseous feeling people mistake for "detoxing." It's not detoxing. It's depletion.

Electrolytes work when they're already in your system before you start sweating, ideally about 30 minutes before you walk in. That way, your sodium and mineral levels are topped up and stable before the loss even begins, instead of trying to refill a tank that's already draining.

The cold water habit compounds the problem. During my advanced yoga training in India, we practised five hours a day in extreme heat and were never allowed to drink cold water, only warm, even mid-practice. It felt wrong at the time, and I remember being so annoyed and not enjoying drinking water. It isn't. Cold water has to be brought up to core body temperature before your body can actually absorb and use it, which slows everything down. Warm water skips that step and hydrates you significantly faster, which is exactly what you need when you're already losing fluid quickly.

You don't need an expensive electrolyte blend to fix this. A pinch of pink Himalayan salt and a squeeze of lime in warm water gives you the same sodium and mineral base, without the artificial flavouring most powders rely on.

2. You're rushing the transition, in and out of the cold

This is the one almost nobody thinks to control, and it's arguably the most important, because it's the difference between a session that regulates your nervous system and one that just shocks it.

Going from sauna heat straight into a cold plunge, with no pause, tells your body it's under threat rather than in a safe, deliberate practice. Your nervous system can't tell the difference between "chosen discomfort" and "danger" unless you give it a signal, and that signal is your breath.

Try this. Before you get in, take three slow breaths: inhale for a count of two, exhale for four to six. The extended exhale activates your vagus nerve and shifts you out of fight-or-flight before the cold even hits, so your body meets the plunge from a place of safety instead of alarm. Skip this, and the plunge becomes pure stress, which is why some people come out of cold water feeling worse, not better.

The exit matters just as much as the entry. Most people jump out of the cold plunge straight into the sauna again, or start moving and shaking it off immediately and end up dizzy, depleted, unwell. But there needs to be a pause here. Step out, sit, close your eyes, and don't move. You feel more when you move less. Stay with the sensation instead of shaking it off. If it feels uncertain, bring your palms to your heart space and find your heartbeat; it's an anchor back into the present moment, whatever you're feeling. That stillness is where the regulation actually completes. Skip it, and you've done half a practice.

3. You're setting yourself up for the crash

If you've ever felt incredible right after a sauna and then hit a wall a few hours later, this is almost always why, and it has nothing to do with the sauna "not working."

When your body feels depleted after heat and cold exposure, it asks for fast energy, which is why people instinctively reach for something sweet or carb-heavy. It works immediately and fails you a few hours later, because sugar spikes and drops fast, taking your energy down with it. What your body actually needs to sustain the clarity you just worked for is protein and fat, with carbohydrates in a smaller, supporting role.

The meal that follows a sauna or contrast session matters as much as the session itself. If you have time to sit down properly afterwards, go for something built around eggs, say, eggs with avocado and greens, or an omelette with smoked salmon paired with a slower-releasing carbohydrate like sourdough or sweet potato. That combination gives you sustained energy instead of a spike and a crash.

If you're squeezing a session into a workday and don't have time for a full meal, my two go-tos are a protein yoghurt or a banana with a handful of nuts. Neither will weigh you down, and both hold you steady until you can eat properly.

One more thing, if you take nothing else

The sauna is also a social space, and that's part of its value, but I'd gently challenge what people bring into it.

So often, connection in the sauna means talking about work, replaying the outside world inside the heat. Real connection doesn't need words. It can be a smile, a shared silence, simply being present with someone. Some of the most powerful moments I've witnessed in 500+ sessions have had nothing said at all.

If you want to experience this properly guided - the timing, the breath, the stillness - come find me. I run retreats built around exactly this, and you can see where and when on my Instagram.

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"Joy shouldn't be seen as a luxury; it's an important part of staying well," shares longevity expert, GP and founder of HUM2N, Dr Mohammed Enayat. "As a doctor, I see first-hand how emotional wellbeing influences physical health. People who feel connected, purposeful and able to enjoy life often cope better with stress, recover more quickly from illness and are more likely to look after their health in the long term."

The science stacks up here, too. Research reveals that, far from being an arbitrary concept, joy has a specific and measurable impact on wellbeing and resilience (check out this study, from the International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Wellbeing). And the benefits aren't purely emotional, either. Further studies (such as this one, from the European Heart Journal) show that, in fact, cultivating joy promotes enhanced physical health, specifically for the heart and circulatory system.

With this in mind, we've spoken with top longevity and psychology experts to find out why joy matters, and how to increase what's termed our joyspan. Keep scrolling for more, but while you're here, do check out our expert-led wellbeing guides to how to find joy, how to harness self-worth through manifestation and the longevity trends worth skipping, plus read all about how one Health Writer got on when she incorporated Blue Zone habits for a month to boost healthspan and longevity, here.

Joyspan Is The Wellness Buzzword To Pay Attention To This Year, According To Experts

What is joyspan?

So, what exactly is joyspan - and why is it important? You're probably used to hearing terms such as lifespan and healthspan - put simply, joyspan is just an extension of these principles, applied to how much joy you feel, and how long for.

"Joyspan is the idea of measuring how much of our lives we spend experiencing genuine joy, purpose and fulfilment, rather than simply how long we live," shares Dr Enayat. "We often talk about lifespan and, more recently, healthspan, the number of years we stay healthy, but joyspan reminds us that living well is about more than avoiding illness."

Sounds pretty good, right? And the experts believe that the term could be just as pivotal for our overall health and wellbeing as both health and lifespan. Originally coined by gerontologist Dr Kerry Burnight in her book Joyspan: A Short Guide To Enjoying Your Long Life, the term encompasses more than simply living longer - it's about quality of life and longevity of enjoyment.

But why does it matter so much? Psychotherapist at Coyne Medical, the aptly-named Dr Joy Conlon, explains. "Modern life has become incredibly efficient at helping us to survive and live longer, but not always at helping us feel alive inside," she tells MC UK. "Most people spend decades moving from one deadline to another: working to buy a house, dating to find a partner, parenting, paying endless bills and managing responsibilities. We are (necessarily) future-focused and multitasking.

"Our nervous system has adapted so well to this consistent focus on coping and surviving that it has gradually stopped noticing what feels good. We have deprioritised the things that bring us joy - and from a psychological perspective, this matters enormously. Our brains naturally pay more attention to problems than pleasures, in a concept known as negativity bias. This means that without consciously prioritising joyful experiences, many people can slowly drift into a life that feels productive, but emotionally flat."

What are the benefits of cultivating joyspan?

As touched on above, joyspan is crucial for both emotional and physical wellbeing. " Joy is not a luxury item; it's part of our psychological wellbeing," shares Dr Conlon. "People who experience more positive emotions tend to report lower stress, greater resilience, reduced anxiety, stronger relationships, better emotional regulation, improved creativity and higher life satisfaction.

"Positive emotions also help people recover more quickly after setbacks. Importantly, though, joy does not remove stress; it helps us bounce back from it."

Physiologically speaking, the benefits are also significant. "Physically, lower stress levels can help reduce blood pressure, improve immune function and support heart health," notes Dr Enayat. "People who feel happier are also more likely to stay active, eat well and stick to healthy routines, creating a positive cycle that benefits overall health."

Do some people naturally cultivate joyspan?

We know that in certain cultures, people tend to live longer, healthier lives - so, is there a link between these so-called 'Blue Zone' inhabitants and how much joy they're experiencing?

In a word: yes. "Some cultures appear to cultivate joy more naturally than others, not because life is easier, but because daily routines encourage connection and balance," shares Dr Conlon. "Researchers often point to the Blue Zones (regions where people live longer and healthier lives): Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia (Italy) and Ikaria (Greece) share several characteristics: strong family relationships, close communities, regular movement, shared meals, time outdoors, a slower pace of life and a clear sense of purpose, all of which help cultivate joy.

"Interestingly, none of these places focus on chasing happiness. Instead, they create lifestyles where joy naturally emerges. Countries such as Denmark and Finland also consistently rank highly in wellbeing research, partly because they place value on work-life balance, outdoor activities and spending time together."

How can we improve our joyspan?

While we can't offer you a Mediterranean postcode (trust us, we're working on it!), there are a number of expert-backed ways we can all boost our joyspan each and every day.

"Joy is not something we are simply born with or without," notes Dr Conlon. "Like any healthy habit, it can be nurtured and strengthened over time. Small, intentional changes to our daily lives can make a surprisingly big difference to how much joy we experience."

If you're ready to start seeking more joy, keep scrolling.

1. Make time and space for joy

We know what you're thinking: another thing to try and fit in. But hear us out: this doesn't (and really shouldn't) become yet another stick to beat ourselves with - we're talking just a few minutes, every day if possible.

"One of the simplest ways to increase your joyspan is to schedule joy into your diary," suggests Dr Conlon. "We carefully plan meetings, doctors’ appointments and gym sessions, yet many of us assume that joy will simply happen if we have time left over. More often than not, it does not. If spending time with friends, reading a good book, walking in nature or doing something creative makes you feel good, treat it as something worth protecting in your diary rather than something you will get around to one day."

2. Slow downand enjoy the small moments

Again, we get that this is so much easier said than done - so start small.

"Notice the small moments," says Dr Conlon. "Our brains are naturally wired to pay more attention to problems than pleasures, which means many joyful experiences pass us by unnoticed. Slowing down long enough to savour your morning coffee, appreciate the warmth of the sun, laugh during a conversation or notice the smell of freshly cut grass can have a powerful effect over time.

"Joy is rarely found in one big moment; it is usually built from hundreds of small ones."

3. Notice what drains you

Cultivating joy isn't just about allowing the good stuff in - it's also about learning to let go of what isn't serving you and your happiness.

"It's worth paying attention to what drains your energy," shares Dr Enayat. "Constantly checking emails, endlessly scrolling social media or always putting yourself last can slowly chip away at your wellbeing. Often, it's the small daily habits rather than the big life changes that have the greatest impact."

4. Connection is key

Book in that girls' night, pronto.

"Strong relationships are probably the biggest factor in creating more joy," shares Dr Enayat. "Spending time with people we care about has a huge impact on our wellbeing."

5. Rediscover play

Last but not least, try reconnecting with your inner child for a quick and instant joy boost.

"Finally, give yourself permission to play," suggests Dr Conlon. "Do things just for the sake of it. As children, we laugh, explore and play without feeling guilty, but as adults, many of us become so focused on being productive that we forget play has a purpose. Whether it is dancing in the kitchen, trying a new hobby, being creative or simply laughing until your sides hurt, playfulness is not a luxury or a sign of immaturity. It is one of the healthiest ways we can reconnect with ourselves and with the joy that already exists in everyday life."

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What It Feels Like Looking for Answers About Your Fertility

I used to think that getting older meant becoming more certain of yourself. At 15, I was steadfast in my decision not to have children. At 25, I wore that certainty almost as a badge of honour. At 35, I find myself utterly bamboozled, plagued by indecision, unable to answer what feels like one of adulthood's most fundamental questions.

I've lived in this state for the best part of five years now, and it seems to me that the harder I search for answers, the more they elude me.

"Whether I want kids is a secret I keep from myself—it is the greatest secret I keep from myself," Sheila Heti writes in Motherhood. A friend sent me the book from Japan after reading an essay I'd written about being 33 and unsure whether I wanted children. She'd taped that sentence to the front cover with a Post-it note.

"Will I ever know?" I'd written back then.

Over two years later, I'm more confused than ever.

It seems I'm not alone. "It's not something that's always at the forefront of my mind," one friend told me when I asked whether she felt similarly. "But it's always there."

Another friend had recently taken an AMH test; a blood test that measures Anti-Müllerian Hormone and is often misleadingly marketed with ominous taglines suggesting it can tell women "how long they've got left". In reality, it offers an indication of ovarian reserve and is mainly used in IVF to estimate how many eggs might be retrieved during treatment. What it can't tell you—and what no current test can—is whether those eggs are viable, or whether you'll ever need them.

Still, she'd found reassurance in her results. "It might give you some clarity," she suggested.

Clarity, rather than an egg count, was what I was searching for.

The World's Most Fertile Couple (Or So I Hoped)

I'd like to tell you that what followed was exhaustive research into the most reputable fertility clinics, spreadsheets comparing success rates and patient reviews.

Instead, the clinic found me. While reporting on the UK's fertility industry , I'd spoken to IVI London about the growing number of misconceptions women have about fertility. Later, they reached out to ask whether I'd be interested in experiencing their most comprehensive fertility assessment. I said yes.

On the surface, I didn't think I had particularly strong feelings about it. I was grateful for a job that occasionally grants me access to experiences I'd never otherwise be able to afford, especially on an editorial salary. The couple's fertility assessment would normally have cost hundreds of pounds, before the additional AMH blood test.

And yet I couldn't bring myself to book it. The clinic emailed every few weeks. I kicked the can down the road. Months passed. A new year arrived. "The Year of the Fire Horse is going to kick you into action," a friend joked when I admitted I'd still not arranged an appointment.

Eventually, I ran out of excuses.

Booking the assessment was easy. Neither my partner nor I needed to prepare in advance, and so all I did was harbour the secret fantasy that we'd be told we were the most fertile couple the clinic had ever seen.

"My God," I imagined the nurses gasping. "You two are so fertile it's a wonder you haven't had an accident yet."

Needless to say, this did not happen.

Good Swimmers, Great Expectations

I walked down Harley Street on an a bright morning towards IVI London's discreet entrance. By the time I arrived, my partner had already completed his part of the assessment. His sperm analysis was over before mine had even begun.

We were shown upstairs, where a nurse checked my BMI and blood pressure before leading us into the consultant's office. Before the examination began, we talked through the mechanics of fertility, and I was surprised by how little I actually knew.

Despite years reporting on women's health, often with a laser focus on the so-called "fertility cliff" and motherhood, so much of fertility remained a mystery. The conversation also seemed almost entirely directed towards my body; the egg rather than the sperm.

When my partner's results came back, I was relieved—and vaguely repulsed—to hear he had "good swimmers". Then I felt something else: pressure. He'd been given the all clear, now it felt as though everything rested with me.

Lying back on the bed, I watched as the ultrasound moved across the walls of my womb before darting from one ovary to the other. Every so often, the consultant would pause to point something out. I tried to hold onto the information, but another thought kept crowding out what the doctor was telling me: What if they find something?

The feeling reminded me of an investigative colonoscopy I'd had the previous year. Rationally, I knew this appointment was meant to reassure rather than alarm. But there's something about seeing the inside of your own body displayed on a screen that makes catastrophe feel inevitable.

The consultant talked us through what she was seeing. I had a small uterus, she explained, though not one that should cause concern. It was slightly triangular rather than T-shaped, but unless I experienced difficulties carrying a pregnancy, there was no reason to intervene. If problems ever did arise, some procedures could reshape it. Knowing there were options felt reassuring.

Then she counted the follicles on my ovaries: six on one, eight on the other. Instinctively, I knew those numbers were lower than I'd hoped.

Perhaps because my partner had already been told he had "good swimmers", I couldn't shake the feeling that he'd somehow passed his test while I hadn't. The consultant tried to assure me this wasn't how fertility worked; she'd be far more concerned by visible cysts or structural abnormalities than the number of follicles she'd counted.

And yet I knew I hadn't heard the last of those follicles.

The Advice I Wasn't Ready to Hear

Once we'd gone through the results in detail, those follicles appeared again. The consultant explained ovarian reserve and how follicles are used to estimate the number of eggs remaining. Every month, a group begins the process of maturing before one is released and the rest disappear.

Because of my follicle count, I was told it would probably take two or three retrieval cycles to freeze enough eggs to give myself the strongest chance of success in the future.

Then came the advice. It wasn't delivered dramatically or with any hint that something was wrong, but it was there: if I thought I might want children, I should freeze my eggs now.

If I thought I wanted more than one child, I definitely should.

Not because I was infertile or because there was cause for alarm. No, the answer was both simpler and somehow crueller: I should freeze my eggs because I am 35.

I hadn't expected to be so floored by that. Of course, I know that I'm 35, but like so many women my age, forced into a state of prolonged adolescence because of myriad reasons outside our control—graduating into a recession, stagnating wages, a housing crisis—I don't feel 35.

But I am. And that reminder stung.

Regardless of my results, regardless of how many follicles had appeared on the scan, regardless of the blood test I was still waiting for, the recommendation would almost certainly have been exactly the same.

Freeze now.

I felt that I was supposed to feel empowered, equipped with new information about my body. But although I understood my physiology better than I had 90 minutes earlier, I felt no closer to understanding myself.

The fear that time was running out had become more acute. The reassurance I'd hoped to find felt more elusive than ever, slippery like the jelly that had been squirted onto my stomach for the scan.

While I waited for my AMH blood test, another couple argued with a nurse in the waiting room about transporting frozen eggs overseas for a surrogate. The woman became increasingly frustrated. Her husband tried to calm her down.

It struck me then that every conversation taking place inside this Harley Street clinic was, in one way or another, about money. The consultation. The medication. The retrievals. The freezing. The storage. The possibility of IVF years from now. Even uncertainty, it seemed, came with a price tag.

I know that AMH tests don't do what they're so often marketed as doing. They can't tell you how long you've "got left", predict whether you'll conceive naturally or tell you if you'll ever become a mother.

I'd written an entire investigation into this myth that women are sold in pursuit of motherhood, and yet I still found myself desperately waiting for that number. I guess I hoped the results would show a surprisingly high egg reserve in defiance of my low follicle count, even though I knew it was the quality, not the quantity, that mattered.

I wanted something that could buy me more time.

The irony wasn't lost on me that I couldn't afford the one thing that, in some ways, could buy me more time—egg freezing—even though that, too, came with no guarantee.

Freezing my eggs would likely cost somewhere between £15,000 and £20,000. Money my partner and I are currently trying to save for a house deposit. Spending it on eggs that may never be used would almost certainly delay buying a home. Delaying buying a home would almost certainly delay having children. Delaying having children would only make those frozen eggs feel more necessary.

It felt like a perfect chicken-and-egg situation. Again, the irony did not escape me.

Without stable housing, I can't imagine bringing a child into the world. But waiting until I have that stability means my fertility continues to decline.

I already knew, walking into that clinic, that the biggest obstacle between me and motherhood wouldn't be biological. I walked out steadfast in the knowledge that it was financial.

The Price of Possibility

It's now been six months since the assessment. Largely, I feel the same as before I went: unsure whether I want children, but increasingly aware that time continues to move whether I've made my mind up or not.

The only real difference is that uncertainty has infiltrated my everyday life. Boozy summer nights, stressful weeks at work and my incessantly poor sleep all make me wonder whether I'm damaging eggs I haven't even decided I want to use.

I knew it was naïve to hope the assessment would give me answers. I knew I was simply trying to absolve myself of making my own decision and defer it for a little longer.

Everyone is asking why fertility rates are in decline, why "women aren't having babies". But not enough people are asking how exactly anyone is supposed to make this decision in a world where the timeline of our biology no longer matches the timeline of our lives.

That's the question that angrily flitted around my head as I left IVI London. And, unlike my follicle count, it's one no fertility test can answer.

Since the term was first coined in 2000, when demographer Michel Poulain and epidemiologist Gianni Pes drew circles on a map of Sardinian villages in blue pen, they’ve become quite famous - studied for the biological and lifestyle factors which contribute to their population’s long and healthy lives. It led to the creation of the Power Nine - nine common lifestyle habits said to be shared by these five populations, and which many have sought to live by in an effort to age well.

I’m one of those people. I try to stay active every day, invest in my close relationships, eat a mostly plant-based diet (more on this later), and if I’m honest, I’ve taken the existence of the blue zones at face value for some time. It makes sense that the people of Okinawa, Japan; Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California - with their lack of big city energy and pollution - would hold the secrets to ageing well, doesn’t it?

As it turns out, though, the research on the Blue Zones is built on some pretty shaky data. In fact, UCL researcher Dr Saul Newman won the Ig Nobel Prize in 2024 for his preprint paper debunking their entire existence. That paper has still not been published, but it does create a question mark over the reality of the Blue Zones.

So, with all that in mind, should we still be trying to live by the Power Nine habits? To find out, I spoke to leading longevity researchers, before drawing my own conclusions about which habits made a genuine difference to my wellbeing.

For more healthy ageing tips, check out our guides to strength training for longevity, how to protect your bone health and why we shouldn’t forget about our creative health. On the flip side, we’ve also got a candid guide to the longevity trends experts say you can skip.

I Tried Blue Zone Living: My review

What are the Power Nine Blue Zone habits?

Coined by explorer and National Geographic journalist Dan Buettner, the Power Nine are nine lifestyle principles said to contribute to the long, healthy lives of Blue Zone populations.

1. Build movement into your day-to-day life
2. Identify your purpose
3. Reduce stress
4. Eat to 80% fullness
5. Eat a mostly plant-based diet
6. Drink a glass of red wine a day
7. Seek out community and create a sense of belonging
8. Prioritise your family
9. Invest in friendships.

Importantly, longevity doctor Dr Rhea Kotecha says the Blue Zones themselves don’t need to exist for her to believe in the power nine. “The scientific community isn’t really divided on the habits; it’s divided on the data,” she explains. “Most of the behaviours stand up perfectly well on their own evidence, with or without the villages.”

Elliott Roy-Highley, medical director at preventative health studio Unbound, agrees. “We should promote these habits on their own scientific merits and drop the Blue Zone scaffolding.”

Are there genuine benefits to the Power Nine Blue Zone habits?

Without the Blue Zone branding, what’s so good about these nine principles?

Well, according to Dr Kotecha, it’s the ease with which we can integrate them into our lives that makes them so powerful. “These habits can be built into the architecture of life, without having to white-knuckle them through a strict regime,” she says. “Given that most health advice fails because nobody can keep it up, the power nine provides an important solution.”

Roy-Highley concurs. “Moving naturally, eating plants, developing routines to reduce daily stress, staying socially connected, finding purpose, eating moderately and prioritising loved ones - these have all been shown to be robust components of preventive and lifestyle medicine across numerous studies,” he explains.

Connection to others is particularly underrated, says Dr Kotecha. “We know from research that chronic loneliness carries a mortality risk roughly equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day - that’s not a sentence most people expect to read.”

Are there any risks to the Power Nine Habits?

Whilst by and large, the power nine principles are sound, both experts say that science has debunked the idea of ‘wine at five’.

“This is the one item where the recommendation now runs against the evidence,” says Roy-Highley, who points out that drinking alcohol increases the risk of over 200 conditions, including seven types of cancer. “The apparent protective effect of light drinking on overall mortality largely disappears once studies correct for the fact that many 'non-drinkers' are former drinkers who stopped because they were unwell,” he explains.

Dr Kotecha also makes a caveat to the idea of plant-based diets. “We want to build a plant-forward plate, rather than just empty it of meat,” she says. “Protein, B12, iron and vitamin D are all essential, especially in anyone past menopause. Without them, you trade one longevity-related problem for another.”

As such, both suggest using the power nine as guidelines, rather than strict rules. “Remember that having a multigenerational household, a walkable neighbourhood, and a supportive community aren’t always personal choices,” says Roy-Highley, who points out that these are often determined by societal structures beyond our control.

“One benefit of the Blue Zone framing is the recognition that the secret to longevity may not just be what the individual does, but also how the places, systems, and people around us create the right environments for living well for longer,” he concludes.

I Spent a Month Living By The Blue Zone Habits—Here’s What Actually Made a Difference

As the daughter of a Greek dad, I’ve been raised with the majority of the Power Nine Blue Zone habits built into my way of life. Plants have always made up the majority of our diet (I even had a six-year stint as a vegetarian), while moving my body every day and investing consistently in my family and friends are non-negotiables for my physical and mental health.

It means that, for the most part, this past month has been less about introducing new habits, and more about becoming conscious of what the habits I already rely on actually provide me with.

That said, there have been some important changes in the last month, predominantly relating to the 80% rule, finding my purpose and reducing my stress. Ahead, I outline how changes in these three areas have affected my health and happiness.

The 80% rule

I’m not afraid to say that over the years, I’ve had a very chequered relationship with food. I know many women will relate. I’ve cycled through various restrictive diets and iterations of trying to shrink my body, which, to this day, means that I struggle to tune in to my own internal cues of hunger and fullness. I’ll often find myself pushing myself to extreme hunger only to then eat way past fullness, as if in fear that I’ll never see food again.

All that made the idea of eating to 80% pretty daunting. I never want to slip back into restriction, so setting myself rules on the amount I could eat triggered initial alarm bells.

What I quickly discovered, however, is that when you remove rules about snacking between meals or coming back for seconds later if you’re still hungry, eating to 80% fullness isn’t a problem. It leaves you feeling less sluggish after a meal, less bloated or uncomfortable and actually encourages you not to allow yourself to reach the point of extreme hunger before eating.

Finding purpose

What can I say - I’m just a girl in my late twenties. Of course I struggle with my sense of purpose. Is my job meaningful enough, am I missing out by not being in a relationship, will I want a family one day, should I be travelling the world? These questions swim around my head almost daily.

And while I can’t tell you that I’ve got anywhere close to answering them in the last month, I have spent more time thinking about my passions, what I’m good at, and what makes life worthwhile. Things I’ve come up with include:

• raising awareness for women’s health through my job as a journalist
• giving people a safe, supportive space to move their bodies through my run club
• making time to expand my horizons by reading, researching topics I don’t know about and connecting with new people and perspectives

While I think this is probably a lifelong project, I’d highly recommend setting some regular time aside to think about your purpose - at the very least, it makes you feel like you’re getting closer to it.

Reducing stress

I’m naturally quite highly strung, which means I get stressed easily (yes, I’m an eldest daughter). Deadline pressure, too many emails, change of plans, a frosty text from a friend; these are all things which can set my brain whirring, and not in a good way.

My goal this month wasn’t to force permanent calm - it’s unrealistic and would just make me more stressed. Instead, it was to pay more attention to how my body felt under stress, to communicate it with those around me, and to carve out small moments of calm between the chaos of work, socialising and travel.

For me, that looked like eight hours of sleep, morning and evening reading, journaling, regular yoga and weekly therapy. These are just what works for me; for you it might look different, but I truly believe that tuning into your body, however you choose to do it, is the first step to managing stress. It takes practice, but trust me, it’s so worth it.

The verdict

Whether the Blue Zones exist is up for debate, but after this month, I honestly don’t think it matters. Like the experts, I’m fully on board with the idea that these nine habits are good principles to live by. Whether they really determine how long we’ll live, I can’t say, but they’ve certainly made my life feel better, and that’s really as much as we can hope for.

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The conversation surrounding it, at least the one presented on social media, leaves me conflicted. On one hand, many of us are overstimulated. Chronically connected. Subject to incessant notifications literally designed to activate our stress response.

At the same time, the online image of what a regulated nervous system looks like is somewhat misleading. It’s presented as an inner serenity; an ability to remain unfazed and unrushed by modern life. To do everything slowly and mindfully.

Not only does this risk becoming unrealistic and alienating to those with full-time jobs, caregiving responsibilities, financial and social pressures, it’s also not what we should be striving for. Because as I learned from psychotherapist and nervous system specialist, David Cornwell, back in April, nervous system regulation isn’t the same as permanent calm.

In fact, our nervous systems are designed to adapt. To move regularly between high and low stress states. Cortisol, so often blamed for everything from disrupted sleep to inflammation and cardiovascular issues, has been shown by research to actually be good for us, in moderation.

Instead, what we should actually be seeking is balance between high and low stimulation. A life that allows us to move fluidly through the gears of activation and stress. And it’s this balance which most of us are missing.

It’s why I decided to start peppering my week with intentional moments of low-stimulation. From dedicated reading hours to phone-free walks and hand-washing dishes, these tiny moments of mindful disconnection have become the reboot I so desperately needed, improving my mood, energy and attention.

To understand why they’ve been so powerful, and discover what my last two months of low-stimulation have looked like, read on. And if a regulated nervous system is on your list of goals for this year, you might also want to read our guides to somatic healing, EFT tapping and vagus nerve tuning. Plus, neuro-somatic coach Eva Syti shares the six things that women with regulated nervous systems do differently to feel their best.

Stacking My Week With Low-Stimulation Moments Helped Me Feel Happier, Calmer and More Productive—Here’s Why

What is a low-stimulation moment?

A low stimulation moment is exactly what it sounds like. “It’s a period of time where you intentionally reduce the amount of information your brain has to process,” says nutritionist and hormone specialist Hannah Alderson, who refers to these moments as ‘cortisol calmers’ in her new book, Everything I Know About Cortisol.

“Many of us move from emails to WhatsApp, podcasts, meetings, social media and Netflix without ever giving our nervous system a chance to recover,” she explains. “Cortisol calmers (or low stimulation moments) create those small pockets of recovery that our biology has always relied on.”

Cornwell agrees. “Low stimulation activities help to shift our nervous system from the fight-or-flight, sympathetic state to the rest-and-digest state.”

What these low stimulation moments look like is up to you. “It could be sitting outside with a cup of tea, taking a walk without your phone, reading a book, ice face dunking, practising slow breathing or simply looking out of the window for five minutes,” says Alderson.

What are the benefits of low-stimulation moments?

Low-stimulation moments are essentially a buffer against burnout, which makes them crucial for long-term health, happiness and productivity.

“Think of your nervous system like the gears of a car,” says Cornwell. “If a car is climbing a hill, it needs to drop into a lower gear. If it’s on a motorway, it needs to move into a higher gear. We are the same. We have to be able to move flexibly between different states of the nervous system depending on our surrounding circumstances. If you’re always stuck in top gear, you will burn out.”

Alderson agrees. “We know that chronic stress isn’t a response to one stressful event - it’s a result of never switching off from the overload of the modern world. When we build in moments of recovery, we support the natural rhythm of cortisol, which we call the diurnal daily pattern.”

Both experts say that small moments, rather than big gestures, are what matter.

“A few intentional pauses throughout the day may be more beneficial than waiting until you're completely burnt out before taking a holiday,” says Alderson, who points to research which shows that as little as 10 minutes of time spent in nature supports parasympathetic nervous system activity.

What are the signs of over-stimulation?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that our bodies really do speak to us, and that tuning into their frequency is one of the best things we can do for our wellbeing.

“Our bodies are remarkably good at letting us know when we've been living in ‘go mode’ for too long,” confirms Alderson, who shares the common symptoms of a body that’s craving some relief from stimulation.

• Feeling constantly wired but exhausted
• Menstrual issues, like disrupted cycles
• Struggling to switch your brain off, especially at night
• Feeling overwhelmed by small tasks that would normally feel manageable
• Snapping at loved ones or feeling emotionally reactive
• Reaching for caffeine, sugar or alcohol to get through the day
• Finding it difficult to concentrate or feeling mentally foggy
• Feeling guilty when you stop or rest

I’ve Been Building Low-Stimulation Moments Into My Week For Over A Month—And My Health and Happiness Has Surged

This latest bout of overstimulation was far from my first. It tends to creep up on me every few months when my workload increases and my boundaries around screentime slip.

Of course, it’s a vicious cycle. The more stimulated I become, the less energy I have to do things like read or go for a walk. All I want to do when the workday ends is scroll.

It’s why the introduction of low-stimulation moments had to be treated like a formal intervention—my own personal adult star chart, which began with limiting my screen time to working hours and starting to actually make use of my Waterstones rewards card.

Below, my favourite activities from the last two months.

Daily pages

Growing up, I was a total bookworm. Saturday morning trips to the library were a highlight of my week. And to this day, reading is one of the things I find most creatively energising and emotionally restorative.

Yet, when I find myself feeling frazzled, it’s the first thing to go. The idea of having to concentrate on the words in front of me just feels too taxing, so naturally I end up scrolling social media instead. Of course, that only leaves me more exhausted.

I’m sure plenty of you are nodding along, which is why, on day one of my low-stimulation challenge, I set myself a reading ritual. Every week, I gave myself a £10 allowance to buy a new book and committed to 20 minutes of reading, three times a day. The first slot is when I first wake up, in bed with a coffee. The second is after lunch before I reopen my laptop. And the third is last thing at night, when my phone has been put on charge outside the room.

Within days, this routine had become my favourite part of the day. I found it surprisingly easy to stick to. Always having a new book ready when I finished the one I was reading ensured that I never had empty time to fill with scrolling, and the low-stimulation start and ends to the day made an immediate difference to my sleep.

The best book I’ve read in the last two months? The Women by Kristin Hannah.

Watering the garden

One thing I’ve never been is green-fingered. I don’t have the patience nor the inclination to be a plant mum and have even been known to kill a cactus (impressive, I know).

But in the last few months I’ve been living with my dad, who is very proud of his garden. And since he splits his time between our house and his partner’s, it’s sometimes up to me to tend to the array of rose bushes, fig trees and wildflowers.

And you know what I’ve discovered? It’s actually really regulating. After dinner, when I’d usually slump in front of the TV, second-screening on social media, I take ten minutes to hang out with the plants. I like the sound of the water hitting their leaves and watching the soil turn from light to dark. It’s a moment where I’m absorbed in the job at hand, not distracted by the pull to multitask.

Phone-free walks

Movement is good for us - we know this. But sometimes the intensity of a run or the thrum of a busy gym is overstimulating in itself.

It’s why I’ve taken to walking - sometimes instead of, and sometimes as well as, a more formal workout.

The crucial thing? I leave my phone behind. If I don’t, the inevitable chime of a notification will have me checking WhatsApp or replying to emails for the entire duration of my time outdoors; my head glued to my chin, completely unaware of my surroundings.

Without my phone, I actually breathe. I take in what’s around me, I process my thoughts, I problem solve, I daydream, and I always come back calmer and clearer-headed than when I left. And I’m definitely more productive for the rest of the day.

Hand washing dishes

Last but not least, washing up. This one was borne out of necessity - we don’t have a dishwasher at my dad’s. Typically though, he washes, and I dry.

But when he’s away, it’s on me to do both, and actually, it’s become one of my most mindful moments. I turn whatever I’m watching or listening to off, I look out the window, and I take my time. Radical, I know.

Instead of rushing through it, scrubbing as fast as I can, I actually make the most of having my hands in the warm, soapy water, of the process of drying the plates and stacking them away afterwards. It’s a very satisfying routine - one you have to be absorbed in, since your hands are too wet to grab your phone between dishes.

As you can tell, low-stimulation moments are nothing groundbreaking. There were others: regular yoga, swimming and cooking from scratch, but these were the ones that left the biggest impression on me.

The best part? The recovery is fast. Within a week of these habits, I was feeling calmer, sleeping better and feeling more energised when I was working or socialising.

It requires boundaries and discipline, but it’s totally doable for all of us. And above all else, it’s proven to me that stress is not the enemy - it’s there to protect us, and we can work with it to achieve our goals, whilst staying healthy and happy in the process.

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And we get it: the topics of size, weight and weight loss are some of the most triggering, traumatic and loaded conversations out there, with emotions running high on both sides. But when we read that GLP-1s might have benefits beyond the numbers on the scales, we'll bite: we were intrigued.

While research into the drugs is in its early stages, there's evidence that GLP-1s are not only effective in helping us shed excess pounds but have potential metabolic gains, too. Studies (such as this one, from the journal Nature) suggest that GLP-1 use is associated with a reduced risk of cardiometabolic disorders, respiratory conditions, infectious illnesses and even dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Meanwhile, further research reveals that the drugs may have an anti-inflammatory effect, leading to them being (albeit tentatively) hailed as a potential longevity drug.

So, before making up our minds as to whether the advent of the GLP-1 is a miracle or a misogynistic marketing tool designed to keep us all obsessing over our size - or perhaps both - we consulted some trusted experts to hear their take. Keep scrolling to hear their thoughts - and don't miss our guides to glucose guarding, the longevity trends worth skipping and the best science-backed anti-inflammation tips. Plus, read MC UK Health Editor Ally's take on the claims that Ozempic can 'delay' ageing, here.

Do GLP-1s reduce inflammation and improve cardiometabolic health?

What are GLP-1s?

Before we really get into it, let's have a quick recap of what GLP-1s actually are.

"GLP-1 receptor agonists (known as GLP-1s) are a class of medicines that mimic a naturally occurring hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is released naturally by the body after eating," explains Dr Anju Verma, clinical lead for weight loss at Boots Online Doctor. "They work by helping to regulate appetite, increasing feelings of fullness, slowing the rate at which the stomach empties and reducing hunger. GLP-1 medicines can also help to regulate blood sugar levels."

"These medicines have been used for several years to support people living with type 2 diabetes, and some are now licensed for weight management in people who meet specific clinical criteria."

How do GLP-1s work?

Now for the science bit.

"GLP-1 receptor agonists (semaglutide) are medications that mimic the natural hormone humans release after eating, but with a much longer and stronger effect," explains Dr Charlie Cox, longevity doctor and cardiothoracic intensive care consultant at Reborne Longevity clinic. "They work on multiple levels at once: slowing gastric emptying, acting on appetite centres in the brain, and improving how the body handles insulin and blood sugar."

"Although the class is generally referred to as 'GLP-1s', newer drugs actually target more than one hormone at once. Tirzepatide (Mounjaro) is a dual agonist, acting on both GLP-1 and GIP (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide), another gut hormone involved in insulin release and fat metabolism. Combining the two seems to produce greater weight loss and metabolic benefit than GLP-1 alone."

What seems to be emerging now is what the experts call a third wave, which is the proactive use of GLP-1s as a preventative measure, rather than a cure.

"A third class is coming through trials now: triple agonists, adding a third hormone target (glucagon) on top of GLP-1 and GIP," continues Dr Cox. "Early data suggests even greater effect, though it's not yet licensed. Originally, this was developed for type 2 diabetes, then repurposed for weight management."

What are the benefits of GLP-1s?

Here's where things get really interesting. We know that GLP-1s were first developed as a treatment for type 2 diabetes, but over the past few years, their use has extended to private prescription (off-label) use to manage obesity and as a weight loss tool.

"GLP-1s trigger significant, sustained weight loss, but that's the least interesting part clinically speaking," notes Dr Cox. "Other benefits include improved insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control, even before major weight change, and a reduction in visceral fat - specifically, the fat around organs that drives most of the metabolic risk."

"Additionally, we're seeing a proven reduction in heart attack and stroke risk in high-risk patients; this is now backed by dedicated cardiovascular outcome trials, not just inferred from weight loss alone."

"Lastly, the drugs work effectively on appetite and food noise reduction. Patients often describe this as the biggest quality-of-life change. There is also emerging evidence for benefits in fatty liver disease, sleep apnoea, and joint load-related pain."

So, what about inflammation and heart health - should we all be taking GLP-1s?

The experts all agree that anecdotally, GLP-1s do seem to lower inflammation levels in the body.

"This is one of the most interesting areas of current GLP-1 research," notes Dr Cox. "Visceral fat is not just storage; it's an active endocrine organ, constantly releasing inflammatory signalling molecules. By reducing visceral fat, GLP-1s indirectly turn down this background inflammatory noise."

"This matters particularly for women, where chronic low-grade inflammation is closely linked to conditions like perimenopausal joint pain, migraine, and some autoimmune-adjacent symptoms."

This being said, there's still little research into how the drugs work to lower inflammation. "On the question of whether GLP-1s reduce inflammation, the answer is that it seems they do, but we don’t fully understand this mechanism yet," explains specialist dietician and director of City Dieticians, Sophie Medlin. "It could be simply that GLP-1s support us to make healthier ‘anti-inflammatory’ food choices, but it does seem there is more to it than that."

"GLP-1 could also reduce inflammation indirectly by improving insulin resistance, visceral fat and blood glucose, which are all pro-inflammatory in the body. It has also been shown that GLP-1s reduce CRP, a marker of inflammation."

"However, while we’re still unsure of the mechanism, we do need to be careful not to present GLP-1s as anti-inflammatory drugs."

What are the drawbacks of GLP-1s?

Taken at face value, it's undeniable that the research and medical advice for the drugs is compelling. But that's only part of the story: there are legitimate concerns over its off-label usage, and the impact this is having both on our health and our perception of what is (and isn't) healthy, when it comes to weight.

Our feeds are overrun with emaciated, frail-looking celebrities, and while we can't comment on their overall health and wellbeing, it's clear that where Hollywood leads, the general population follows - and in this case, this could end badly.

"What’s genuinely worrying right now is how many people already living with an eating disorder or disordered eating are ending up on these drugs," shares body image expert, positive psychology coach and author of Food Freedom, Elle Mace. "We're focusing on weight but missing what may be happening underneath. These aren’t medications that fix a broken relationship with food - they switch off the hunger signal. For someone who has spent years restricting, bingeing or battling with food, a GLP-1 can feel like the answer they’ve been searching for, while actually giving the eating disorder another tool to work with."

"We are prescribing powerful appetite-suppressing medications at scale, to a population that includes people they may not be appropriate for, without always asking the most important question first: what is someone’s relationship with food and their body?”

Additionally, experts warn that unless the drugs are accompanied by lifestyle and diet interventions (increasing protein intake and upping weight training being two of the most crucial), women in particular run the very real risk of exacerbating bone frailty (osteopenia and osteoporosis) and losing muscle mass (sarcopenia) at an even faster rate - both things we know accelerate as we age, as it is.

"Muscle loss is a real risk if these drugs are used without proper protein intake and resistance training," agrees Dr Cox. "Weight loss on these drugs can strip lean muscle mass as well as fat if you're not deliberate about protecting it."

"It's important to remember that these are prescription medications requiring proper medical assessment, monitoring, and follow-up, not something to source without oversight."

As is so often the case in health, there's also concern over the lack of research conducted on women in particular. "As with much of medicine, the major GLP-1 trials have historically enrolled more men than women," notes Dr Cox. 2This is partly because the big cardiovascular outcome trials recruited people at the highest baseline risk of heart attack and stroke, a group that skews male, particularly in mid-life.

"That means we have less direct data on how these drugs perform specifically in menopausal women, where hormonal changes already alter fat distribution, insulin sensitivity, and cardiovascular risk in their own right."

"We extrapolate from the wider evidence base, and it's reasonable to expect similar benefit, but this is exactly the group where closer monitoring and a properly individualised approach matter most, rather than assuming a one-size-fits-all response."

The upshot? It's an evolving picture: we'll know more in the coming years. For now, there are absolutely benefits to be gained from responsible GLP-1 use for many people, subject to medical supervision and suitability. As for the wider cultural conversation, only time will tell how this one plays out.

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Sweat drips down my stomach as I focus on my breathing. Desperate for distraction, I try counting the panels on the wall. I fail, and instead find myself watching heatwaves rippling through the air. The smell of timber and warm pine fills my nostrils. My necklace burns against my skin. And then a man in a pointed wool hat asks the love-hate question: "Shall I pour some water over the coals?"

I'm trying Camberwell's newest sauna, Urban Heat, a wellness opening that's become something of a staple in mine and my husband's weekly routine. A traditional Finnish design, their sauna sits at anything from 75°C to 85°C—though, thankfully, there are ice baths, too, meaning you can cool off between rounds.

As a Wellness Editor, I've been well aware of the boom in interest in saunas over the past few years—I get about five different invites to new openings across the city every week.

But truthfully, I'd written them off. There wasn't one near us, and a 40-minute tube ride home is enough to undo any sense of calm. Beyond that, I'm also not particularly well acquainted with the art of sitting still. Even when I'm having my weekly Sunday night everything bath, I'm replying to emails, making to-do lists for the week ahead, and bookmarking "must hear" podcast eps.

But after hearing a colleague rave about the restorative effects that saunas had on her physical and mental wellbeing, I booked a session. A ritual central to Finnish life that dates back over 2,000 years may have only just made it to London, but I couldn't wait to get stuck in.

That was six months ago—and we've been most weekends since. Keen to see how the practice has transformed my calm? Keep scrolling, and don't miss our sauna blanket review, infrared sauna review, and guide to the benefits of using a sauna while you're here.

This article is part of our 2026 Women in Sport special. For the full cover interview with Lioness Chloe Kelly, click here.

I've Recently Become a Sauna Convert—Here's Why

Why are saunas booming in popularity right now?

Speaking to Marie Claire UK previously, Jake Newport, a member of the British Sauna Society and CEO of Finnmark Sauna, explained that the boom in interest in saunas right now reflects a societal shift in how we're choosing to spend our free time. British culture has wellness at its core now - as I touched on in my recent fitness tourism article, we're craving experience, connection, and genuinely effective recovery practices.

“People are increasingly spending money on experiences that support their wellbeing, rather than going to the pub, because they offer a different kind of social connection,” he shared. “The rhythm of sitting together, slowing down, and stepping outside into the fresh air or cold water creates space for conversation and connection,” he says. “That’s a big part of why it’s resonating with so many people right now.”

What are the benefits of using a sauna?

There are a whole host of studies proving that using saunas regularly is good for both body and brain. The main benefits span improved cardiovascular health, neurocognitive health, stress regulation and sleep quality.

“Research has found that an evening sauna increased deep, slow-wave sleep by more than 70% in the first two hours of the night and by around 45% across the first six hours, compared with a night without sauna,” Newport goes on. “It also significantly reduced the amount of time people spent awake during the night.”

Not just that, but the heat of the sauna relaxes your muscles and improves circulation, with one recent UK-based studies from researchers at Oxford and Greenwich concluding that even monthly sauna sessions can boost your mental health - their hypothesis was that some of the benefit may come from the ritual and community aspect of sauna-going, not alongside the physical benefits of the heat itself.

“The heat encourages blood flow and oxygen delivery to muscles, which can help reduce soreness and stiffness,” says Newport, who cites a study published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. The researchers found that adding sauna sessions after training increased treadmill time to exhaustion by around 32%. In simple terms, the sauna “allowed people to run further and faster than they would if they didn’t sauna bathe,” he says.

Alanna Kit, neuroscientist and co-founder of Arc Community, adds: “When the body is exposed to heat, it activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is the same stress response triggered by anxiety, exercise, overwork, or emotional pressure. With regular practice, the sauna trains your nervous system to recognise that activation and return to equilibrium more efficiently. Over time, this builds our physiological resilience to stress.”

My Six Month-Long Sauna Journey

Months one to two:

Heading to the sauna for the first time, I'm not sure what to expect. I've checked what to pack on the website and have flip-flops, a towel, and toiletries for after our hour-long session. Reflecting on why I'm anxious about an hour spent unwinding, I realise that I haven't sat without screens, input, or noise for quite a long time.

I'm a marathon runner, you see, and a Health Editor at a heritage women's lifestyle magazine. Minutes are optimised; every second counts. Despite considering myself fairly healthy, somewhere along the way, I hadn't left much room for stillness.

That first sauna trip, I remember smiling around the ten-minute mark. Something shifted in me—no dramatic lightning bolt of clarity or wellness-influencer epiphany, rather, a small, quiet loosening, like I was finally exhaling after holding my breath for too long. My shoulders dropped. I unclenched my jaw. My brain went quiet.

Fast forward 60 minutes, and I feel like a floaty cloud. I'm physically less tense, mentally clearer, and unbelievably zen. As per Urban Heat's instructions, we do cycles of fifteen minutes in the sauna, followed by five minutes of ice bath, cold shower or ice plunge.

Week two, and I quickly learn just how much hotter the higher benches are. I plonk myself confidently on one of the top seats before realising that I can only make it to eight minutes—humbling, but a reminder that you need to accustom your body to the heat, as well as remember to respect the practice.

By the end of the first month, I'm actively looking forward to our weekly sauna session. I'm mid-marathon training block, and can actively feel the good that the heat is doing for my muscles and tired legs—while I can't afford weekly sports massages, a sauna trip feels like a close second, plus a more affordable (and less painful) way to give back to my body working so hard to bank the training miles.

Months three to four:

Come spring, and I'm faced with a highly stressful and busy few months, even by my standards. Work is busy, marathon training has ramped up, and I've been feeling a low-level hum of anxiety.

I realise that I've missed a few weeks of sauna visits because I've been so back-to-back with work, and book a session on the spot—my first solo session without my husband. I feel calmer with it in my calendar, and proud of myself for being proactive about my self-care and "me" time.

Come the weekend, I'm reminded of how grounding and soothing the whole experience can be. 60 minutes without a phone, screen, or any distractions is truly a gift in this day and age, and my body and mind are thanking me. Five minutes in, my brain is racing as much as I'm sweating. But come the ten-minute mark, I feel my mind starting to clear.

There's a particular kind of peace that only exists at 85 degrees, legs stuck to your towel and feet against a hot wooden floor. You can hear your heartbeat, your breathing, and the low murmur of other sauna attendees chatting about their week. It's cathartic, and the combination of the heat, your breath, and the beautiful realisation that there's no need to rush is the sort of instant reset it's hard to find in other wellness offerings.

I book a few more sessions for my husband and me on the spot, already excited to return.

Months five to six:

Come month five, and we're raving about our sauna experience so much to family and friends, we've made it a part of several weekends away. We visit saunas in Bristol, Brighton, and even Italy.

Italy is by far one of the most memorable—we're lucky enough to get to experience two traditional Aufguss rituals at Cape of Senses Hotel in Lake Garda and Sensoria Dolomites in the Dolomites. Both have the same underlying structure—a guided session where trained "Aufgussmeisters" place balls of ice infused with calming essential oils onto the hot stones. They then use a towel to waft the steamed scent around the sauna, resulting in a more heightened experience.

It's intense, choreographed, and rather spiritual—unlike anything we'd experienced before. I'm also in awe of the level of skill both of our practitioners show, and impressed to learn that there are only ten trained at that level in the whole of Italy.

Back in London, though, and we're still happy regulars at Urban Heat. They have social Friday sessions, guided workshops, and even breathwork lessons to teach you more about the ways mastering your breathing can impact your sauna experience.

Six months on, and I think it's evidence enough of how much I've loved our new Friday night ritual that we're still going. I'm pretty hard to impress when it comes to wellness trends—they need to be truly transformative, easy to incorporate into my day-to-day routine, and genuinely worth my time.

But the sauna, for us, has been all of that and more. I'm less achy, sleeping better, and my stress levels have gone down significantly (both my Garmin and Oura agree). Most of all, though, I love our little Friday wellness ritual—it's social enough to replace the pub, while being incredibly soothing at the same time.

I guess the Finns were right. Saunas aren't rooms built for comfort—they're rooms built for surrender, which, as it turns out, was exactly what I needed.

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What you might not know, however, is that lifting weights isn’t just about building up your muscles; it’s about protecting your bones, too. And that’s essential, because our bone health, despite being less visible than our muscle tone, is one of the leading contributors to longevity, especially amongst women.

In fact, new research shows that women with osteoporosis - a condition where bones become weaker, less dense and more fragile - may be at a 47% higher risk of death than women with normal bone density. And given that half of women over 50 will experience an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime, that warrants investigation.

Because the truth is, strength training isn’t the only way to protect our bones. There’s a wealth of other simple, daily habits that together can help us live healthier, for longer.

Ahead, two leading NHS doctors share everything you need to know about protecting your bone health. And if you’re looking for more longevity advice, we’ve also got guides to the healthiest habits for brain function, healthy ageing through midlife and the longevity trends doctors say you can avoid.

8 Simple Habits Every Woman Should Do To Protect Her Bone Health—Chosen By NHS Doctors

What is bone health?

Most of us could probably guess that having ‘healthy’ bones is important, but knowing what a healthy bone looks or feels like is, to me at least, less obvious. We tend to assume our bones are innately strong because they’re hard to the touch, but as Dr Jessica Little MBBS Bsc (hons) GPST explains, there’s a little more to it than that.

“Bones are living tissue, which means they are constantly being broken down and rebuilt throughout our lives,” she explains. “They need the right nutrients, regular movement and healthy hormone levels to stay strong.”

So far, so good. But what does ‘strong’ look like? Well, as Dr Little tells us, “healthy bones are those that have good density, a strong internal structure and a good ability to repair themselves.”

NHS doctor, Dr Amber Savary-Trathen, who specialises in women’s health, agrees, adding that whilst some of our bone density is genetic, a large part is also determined by lifestyle. “Smoking, exercise and diet all impact the strength and quality of our bones,” she explains.

As for whether it’s too early (or late) to start working on our bone health, Dr Little is clear. “Bone health isn't something we should only think about when we're older. The foundations for healthy bones are built in childhood and early adulthood, but the habits we have in our 30s, 40s and beyond still make a huge difference.”

Why is protecting our bone health important?

Bone health sits alongside cardiovascular health as one of the leading predictors of longevity in women. So, why does it have such an impact on our lifespan?

“Strong bones help us to stay active, independent and confident as we age,” says Dr Little when I put the question to her. “They allow us to keep walking the dog, lifting grandchildren, travelling with friends and exercising to maintain our cardiovascular health.”

Crucially, she also points out that stronger bones have a lower risk of fracture, which is one of the leading causes of hospitalisation and death in older adults. “Hip fractures in particular can be life-changing,” says Dr Little. “They're associated with loss of independence, longer hospital stays and an increased risk of complications in older adults.”

For women, this matters even more. Because oestrogen, which plays an essential role in bone health, rapidly declines when we go through menopause. “Oestrogen helps to protect our bones by slowing the rate at which they’re broken down,” explains Dr Little. “When oestrogen levels fall after menopause, bone loss can speed up dramatically.”

She’s right, of course. Studies show that women can lose up to 20% of their bone density in the five to seven years after menopause. “Women also tend to have smaller bones to begin with,” says Dr Little. “Couple that with the fact that we generally live longer, and there’s more time for bone loss to accumulate. It’s why osteoporosis disproportionately affects women.”

So far, this has all sounded pretty daunting, and I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to stop reading. But Dr Little has good news, too. “Bone health is one of those things where small, consistent habits really do add up,” she says. “The exercise you do today and the nutrition you prioritise now are investments in your future mobility and independence. These habits are also good for your cardiovascular health and overall ageing.”

So, without further ado, the habits Dr Little and Dr Savary-Trathen recommend you do to protect your bone health now, and in the future.

Doctors recommend—8 weekly habits to protect your bone health as you age

1. Regular strength training

“Bones respond to load,” says Dr Little, who explains that “resistance training tells your body that your skeleton needs to stay strong.”

That doesn’t mean you need to become a power lifter if that’s not your thing. “Even bodyweight exercises, resistance bands or dumbbells can make a real difference when done consistently,” says Dr Little.

2. Eat plenty of protein

“Protein makes up half the volume of bone,” says Dr Little. “This makes it easy to understand how important eating enough protein is for your bone health.”

And despite the good publicity protein has had in recent years, Dr Little says many women still don’t eat enough. “Prioritising protein at each meal will support both your muscle and bone health, which only becomes more important as we age,” she says.

If you’re unsure of how much protein you should be eating, this NHS fact sheet can help you to estimate your daily needs.

3. Incorporate high impact exercise

High-impact exercise has become a bit controversial in recent years, with some arguing that too much of it can be disruptive to women’s hormones.

But Dr Little is clear that doesn’t mean we should stop doing it altogether. “Bones love impact,” she says. “Things like stair climbing, dancing, tennis, jogging or hopping exercises stimulate bone-building.”

4. Eat calcium

“Calcium is essential for bone health, but most people can meet their daily needs through the food they eat,” says Dr Little, who recommends that we aim for around 700 mg per day. “Supplements are only recommended if you’re unable to meet this through your diet, or if you have a diagnosed deficiency,” she says.

When asked for some calcium-rich food inspiration, Dr Savary-Trathen has an extensive list. “Dairy, fortified plant milks, beans, tofu, green veg such as broccoli and nuts are all good sources,” she says.

5. Take Vitamin D

“Vitamin D actually helps your body absorb calcium,” explains Dr Savary-Trathen, who says that low vitamin D levels can lead to low calcium, which in turn can harm our bone health.

And whilst we’ll never encourage you to overload on supplements, both doctors say that Vitamin D is one that’s useful for most of us. “In the UK, where sunlight is at times pretty scarce, the NHS recommends that everyone consider a 10 microgram vitamin D supplement during autumn and winter,” says Dr Little, who adds that some people who get little sun exposure may benefit from it all year round. “This is one of the simplest things you can do for your long-term bone health, and you can buy it at your local chemist.”

6. Protect your muscles as much as your bones

“This is probably the most underrated tip,” says Dr Little, who uses the analogy of a tent to explain why she thinks so. “Think of your skeleton as the tent frame and your muscles as the guy ropes. The stronger and more balanced these ropes are, the more stable the whole structure becomes.”

It’s why she recommends yoga, Pilates and even standing on one leg, alongside standard strength training. “These activities challenge your balance and coordination, which reduces the chance of falls and protects your skeleton,” she says.

7. Be mindful of salt intake

This one might sound surprising, but Dr Savary-Trathen says it’s more important than we think. “Most people know too much salt is a threat to blood pressure, but it also makes your body lose more calcium through your urine,” she says. “Keeping your salt intake down will protect your bones as well as your heart.”

8. Minimise smoking and alcohol

In an ideal world, we’d avoid smoking and drinking altogether for a whole host of health reasons. But if nothing else, Dr Savary-Trathen says it’s important to cut down.

“Stopping smoking is one of the best things you can do for your skeleton,” she makes clear. “Smoking weakens the bones, with an effect that becomes higher the longer you have smoked. Alcohol, too, increases the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.”

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It’s nothing special (I’m far from the world of biohacking and extreme optimisation), but like many of us, I try to find ways to live healthily and happily where I can.

So when, back in March, I found myself feeling a little sluggish, foggy and unfulfilled, I was surprised. My alcohol intake wasn’t excessive; I was sleeping well and running regularly, so why did I feel like I was going through the motions, rather than really living?

One answer, as I’ve come to discover, was my neglected creative health, which research increasingly demonstrates is key to mental and emotional wellbeing, reduced inflammation and slower cellular ageing.

For the past three months, I’ve been treating creative activities as importantly as exercise, building them into my daily routine to see what they could do for my wellbeing. The results? Nothing short of transformative.

For my thoughts (and the expert take on the benefits of investing in your creative health), read on. There’s also more on this topic, and other unconventional routes to greater wellbeing, in our guides to frictionmaxxing, doodling and little treat culture.

What I Learnt From 3 Months Prioritising My Creative Health

What is creative health?

Whilst it would be easy to reduce creative health to colouring in for an hour or crocheting a hat, creative health scientist Katina Bajaj says the concept runs deeper than the individual acts themselves. Bajaj, who studies how creativity has disappeared from adult life, explains that “creative health is a pillar of well-being responsible for our vitality, curiosity and capacity for meaning-making.”

Unfortunately, she says, it’s “often left out of conversations about health and flourishing,” despite a body of research connecting creative expression to improvements in cognitive, emotional, physical and social well-being.

What are the longevity benefits of investing in your creative health?

Very often, creativity is considered a luxury in our day-to-day lives, but as Professor Daisy Fancourt, author of Art Cure: The Science of How The Arts Transform Our Health, explains, it shouldn’t be. “Arts engagement is a health-promoting behaviour similar to eating a healthy diet, getting physical activity and good sleep,” she says.

She has research to back her up. A landmark study led by Professor Fancourt at University College London found that people who did an arts activity at least once a week aged 4% more slowly than those who rarely engaged with the arts. Importantly, the effect remained even after accounting for factors like smoking, BMI and income and was similar to the impact of exercising at least once a week.

So, how does it work? Well, according to Professor Fancourt’s research, creative activities may prompt positive changes in brain proteins involved in reducing inflammation and keeping the brain healthy.

The researchers also found that those who were more engaged in the arts had a lower future risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, depression and dementia, building on previous research which has connected the arts with reduced risk of depression in teenagers.

What are the signs your creative health is suffering?

You might be wondering what shape your own creative health is in right now, and you’d be right to. And that’s because, whilst many of us may be experiencing symptoms of low creative health, we may not connect the dots ourselves.

“People might be experiencing physical or mental health challenges, but might not be conscious that engaging in the arts is a behaviour that could help them with their symptoms,” explains Professor Fancourt.

As for what these symptoms could look like, it could be a sense of unfulfillment in your day-to-day life. Or, as Bajaj explains, it could be a sense of going through the motions without fully living. “Creativity is what gives us vitality,” she explains. “When someone is lacking in creative health, they may feel robotic or like they’re on a hamster wheel.”

3 tips to start building your creative health:

So, what do we actually do to improve our creative health? Well, as Bajaj pointed out in her recent TED Talk, boosting your creativity doesn’t need to be tightly measured or prescribed. In fact, often this is the antithesis of what we’re searching for.

“Being creative isn’t something you have to wait to do later, once school or work is done,” she explains. Instead, it’s about “integrating it into the way we think, express ourselves, decompress and connect with community.”

The great news is that this means boosting our creative health doesn’t require us to have lots more stuff or to dedicate hours of time. It could be as simple as spending a few minutes doodling, daydreaming or singing. That said, the fact that it can be so easily woven into our day is also what makes it easy to fall off the radar.

Fortunately, Professor Fancourt has some habit-building tips.

1. Build a creative 5-a-day

“Try to work out what would be the equivalent of your 5-a-day in fruits and vegetables in creative activities,” she suggests. “Maybe that’s fifteen to 20 minutes of art, or timetabling an hour a week to take a creative class.”

2. Think about creative diversity

“Just like our diet, it’s important not just to have one creative ingredient, but to have a variety in our lives,” explains Professor Fancourt. “This is as important as frequency.”

3. Remember that you don’t have to be ‘good’

“Just like you don’t have to be a chef to cook good food, you don’t actually have to be good at the creative activity to experience the health benefits,” reassures Professor Fancourt. “A lot of the benefits actually come from participating, so it’s a good opportunity to try a new hobby.”

I’ve spent the last three months prioritising my creative health—and have become happier and more imaginative

I want to point out that the majority of things I’ve done during my three-month creative health experiment have been pretty unextraordinary. They’ve involved doodling sessions (something I’d picked up last year but let slide over the winter), getting inventive in the kitchen, building dedicated time into my day to daydream and pulling out my old drawing pads and pencils which had long been stuffed in the back of the cupboard.

But for the sake of time and your attention span, I’m going to focus on two core memories from the last three months that made the biggest impact on my creative health.

Studio sessions

At the end of March, in the depth of my creative rut, I attended a clay charm-making workshop with a grassroots community called Studio Sessions. Run by two women, Tyla and Iman, the idea is to build community and connection between strangers over the theme of arts and crafts.

Three things stood out to me about the evening. First, how nice it was to be utterly absorbed in something you’re objectively bad at. Patience isn’t my strong suit (I’m an Aries for those wondering), so the finicky nature of moulding tiny clay charms was always going to be a challenge. Once I got to work, however, the world seemed to fall away, and I was completely focused on creating my plasticine fried egg.

Second, having others around you whilst you’re being creative has an extra je nes se quois to it. There’s something about social connection and the arts which just seems to go together, providing an added boost to the positive feelings I got when I was being creative at home alone.

And third, how accomplished I felt at the end of the night. At 10 pm, when I’d usually be at home scrolling and starting to yawn, I felt energised and ready to keep chatting late into the evening. My brain was awash with ideas for projects, and problems I’d been mulling over seemed to have clearer solutions.

Nimi Collective

Towards the end of the three months, when my creative health was already in better shape thanks to the consistency of my home practices, I attended an art gallery walk around London with a community called Nimi Collective.

I’ve always loved art and like to draw at home, but I’ve never considered myself an art person (i.e. someone who frequents the Tate at the weekend and can reel off the famous painters from across history).

But as I discovered through speaking to Anh, a former investment banker who founded Nimi, that’s how a lot of people come to the community. “A lot of people who find Nimi are what I would call shadow creatives,” she tells me. “They were creative as children but now work stressful office jobs and somewhere along the way the outlet to be creative just disappeared. Nimi is where they come back to that part of themselves.”

Like my experience at Studio Sessions, the opportunity to be creative within a social environment was one of the defining elements of my day with the group at Nimi. Hearing the different perspectives on art broadened my horizons, challenged me to think differently and undoubtedly left me feeling more present, energised and brimming with ideas.

The verdict on creative health

I can’t speak for how all these new creative activities (which also included a spoken word evening and all-female comedy night) are affecting me on a cellular level - all that’s going on below the surface - but what I can say is that carving out time for my imagination and curiosity to run wild has made me feel happier and healthier than almost any more conventional wellness habit.

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If you can't even remember, then this one is for you. Because we're calling it: little treat culture might just be our favourite wellness hack ever. And, unusually for a TikTok health trend, it comes with some legitimate benefits, too.

An extension of the excellently-monikered 'lipstick effect' - a phenomenon coined by beauty empire magnate Leonard Lauder in 2001 - little treat culture is all about indulging ourselves on a daily, weekly or monthly basis (choose your poison!) with small, achievable and affordable luxuries that elevate our everyday into something just that little bit more special.

And, while research into the practice is somewhat limited, there is acknowledgement from experts that it can enhance mental health and wellbeing - check out this piece from The Conversation, by a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth, Kokho Jason Sit.

As a self-confessed treat obsessive (I even get a dopamine hit from simply adding to basket - no checking out required!), when I was asked to test out little treat culture for a month to see if it enhanced my wellbeing, it's safe to say I was delighted; I didn't need asking twice.

Keep scrolling to find out how I got on, but in the meantime, fellow shopping lovers might enjoy reading our guides to how to master emotional fitness, our favourite therapist-backed mental health habits and check out the emotional regulation habits of successful women, here.

Is Little Treat Culture the Antidote to Self-Optimisation for Boosting Wellbeing?

What is little treat culture?

We've touched on this above, but let's hear what the experts have to say.

"'Little treat culture’ describes the practice of intentionally creating small moments of pleasure, comfort, enjoyment, or reward throughout everyday life," explains Dr Steven Mahan-Taylor, clinical director and consultant clinical psychologist at London Bridge Therapy. "While social media often associates it with buying a coffee, pastry or small gift, the concept is much broader."

"A little treat might be reading a chapter of a novel before work, taking a bath on a Monday afternoon, sitting in the sun for ten minutes, lighting our favourite candle in the evening, having a favourite lunch, taking a scenic route home, or sharing a meaningful conversation with a friend."

Sounds good, right? And compared to the strict self-optimisation culture that's permeating our feeds (Steven Bartlett's claim that indulging in two glasses of wine 'ruined' his life for three days springs to mind), taking a moment each day to lean into what makes us happy has to be a good thing.

"Psychologically, little treat culture can be understood as a response to the increasing pressure many people feel to constantly optimise themselves," agrees Dr Mahan-Taylor. "Rather than viewing wellbeing as something achieved through rigid routines, productivity hacks, or endless self-improvement, little treat culture invites us to seek joy, pleasure and restoration in everyday moments."

What are the benefits of little treat culture?

If you need any more encouragement to get fully on board with the trend, listen up: there are a myriad of mental health benefits associated with maximising our daily joy.

1. It emotionally replenishes us

Emotional replenishment might not be high up on your list of self-care priorities, but hear this: taking care of your emotional wellbeing can help boost resilience when times get tough.

"One of the most significant benefits is that little treats can act as emotional replenishment," notes Dr Mahan-Taylor. "Many people move through their days focused on responsibilities, deadlines, and obligations, often postponing enjoyment until a future holiday, promotion, or milestone, or indeed waiting until there is a significant period of time to be able to really unwind."

2. It's accessible and achieveable

One of our favourite aspects of little treat culture is that there are no rules. It's all about what makes you feel happy, and that - inevitably - will vary from person to person. Furthermore, we're literally talking just a few minutes of your day - no need to book a whole spa weekend.

"Little treats aren’t too time-intensive," notes Dr Mahan-Taylor. "Small moments of pleasure help interrupt this pattern by reminding us that wellbeing is built day by day, moment to moment, not just during longer periods of time, which so few people have."

3. It helps counteract stress

There's no getting around it: life is stressful. There's always something to be ruminating on, but we know that stress is a huge contributor to the development of chronic disease, reduced immune function, poor sleep and worsened cognitive function.

And we know there's no point in us telling you to reduce your stress: sometimes (often) the best thing we can do is find ways to work with it; little treat culture might be the perfect antidote.

"Small treats can boost mood and provide a welcome break from the stresses and complexities of daily life," shares Veena Ugargol, cognitive behavioural therapist and yoga therapist at MoreYoga. "When we fully engage our senses in enjoyable experiences, we're often able to step away from worries and focus on the present moment."

4. It enhances emotional awareness

"Importantly, little treats can also help us notice and savour positive experiences," Dr Mahan-Taylor advises. "Many people are prone to adapting quickly to good things or focusing attention on problems. Intentionally pausing to enjoy something pleasant can strengthen feelings of gratitude and satisfaction.

"Additionally, moments of joy, pleasure, and comfort help broaden our emotional experience. According to psychologist Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-Build Theory, positive emotions expand our thinking, creativity, problem-solving abilities, and social connection. Small moments of joy can, therefore, have benefits that extend beyond the moment itself."

How to lean into little treat culture

At this point, we couldn't really be much more on board - so, how can we incorporate little treat culture into our lives, stat?

"The key is to broaden our understanding of what counts as a treat," notes Dr Mahan-Taylor. "It doesn’t need to involve spending money or consuming something.

"Useful questions to ask are:

• What gives me genuine pleasure or comfort?
• What helps me feel more present?
• What leaves me feeling restored rather than depleted?

Clearly, what works for one person might not be a treat to someone else, so the key is to find out what fills your cup.

"For some people, a treat might be ten uninterrupted minutes with a cup of tea," says Dr Mahan-Taylor. For others, it might be dancing in the kitchen, listening to a favourite podcast, taking a walk in nature or leaving work on time.

"The most effective little treats are often those that align with our personal values and needs rather than those we feel we 'should' enjoy."

I tried little treat culture for a month - and honestly? I feel happier and calmer than ever

Weeks one and two

To say I'm excited about giving little treat culture a whirl would be a massive understatement: even before the trial starts, I'm excited about which treats I'm planning for myself, which is evidence in itself that the idea works, right?

But that being said, as a self-confessed shopping lover, I have to have stern words with myself about how this is not carte blanche to 'treat' myself to that new watch and handbag I've been coveting for five years.

When I say I exercised monumental levels of self-restraint over the course of the first couple of weeks, I'm not exaggerating: I have the experts' advice ringing in my ears as I settle on a few things I know I'm going to love: lighting my special candle in the morning as I log on to work, really savouring that first sip of tea in the garden in the morning, and taking a moment in the evening to practice the piano (one of my greatest loves, which I rarely make time for!)

And it turns out, you don't have to be doing something entirely new to reap the rewards.

"It's also worth considering whether some of the things you're already doing could be reframed as treats," agrees Ugargol. "Cooking your favourite meal, spending an afternoon watching films or TV shows that you love, or enjoying an uninterrupted morning with a good book can all become meaningful treats when approached intentionally."

I even find the anticipation of watching my favourite shows enjoyable (let's just say, the new season of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders could not have come at a better time!)

By the end of the first week, I already feel a renewed sense of enthusiasm and lust for life: not to overstate it, but I really do feel as though I have more to look forward to; the challenge is helping me to recognise how many lovely things I already have in my life (but that handbag would fit in nicely too, just saying).

Weeks three and four

As I reach the halfway point of the challenge, it's safe to say I'm hooked. Once you're tuned into it, there are so many ways we can treat ourselves on the daily: my favourites so far have been (in no particular order!) a Sunday afternoon bath watching a film on my laptop (top tier treat), savouring a quick lunch with a friend rather than rushing and stressing, visiting a gallery (for free!) with friends and - in case you're concerned I've lost my shopping ability (the economy might not recover) I finally treated myself to replacing the bottle of perfume that smashed in my luggage on holiday last summer.

Another aspect of the experience that I hadn't previously considered was using my treat time wisely. I'll bite: I do have a gel nail habit (no regrets), but I usually spend the appointment juggling my phone from hand to hand while responding to emails and making to-do lists on my Notes app, which doesn't make for the most relaxing experience.

"One important thing is to be fully present when enjoying a treat so that you get the maximum benefit from it," shares Ugargol. "For example, if you treat yourself to a massage, allow yourself to really focus on the experience rather than mentally running through your to-do list."

Will I continue to seek out little treats, come the end of the month? Without a doubt. While it took a few days to quiet the noise in my brain telling me I didn't deserve the treat, once I'd leaned into the practice, I can honestly say I felt happier and more at ease than I have in a really long time.

So go ahead: treat yourself, it's good for you. And with that, I'm off to savour an iced coffee in the sun.

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