I am referring to the food myths that started then and we are still living by them – to our detriment. Some of the information handed out by the powers that be are undeniably good for us; eat more fruit and veg, exercise more, don’t smoke.

But some bad ones have remained.

Here are my top 3 bug bears.

1. Put down the Low-Fat Option.

WE NEED FAT.

Good Fat is an integral part of every cell membrane in our body, helping them stay flexible and responsive. Healthy Fat supports hormone production. Our brains need fat. They are needed for memory, concentration, mood and learning. Our nerves need fat to make sure signalling and communication is on point. We need fat to absorb Vit A, D, E and K. These vitamins are involved in our immune health, bone health, eyesight and blood clotting.

Healthy fats do not make you fat. Sugar, ultra processed foods, refined carbs are much more likely to do the damage.

There are bad fats, which we should avoid but even with these, avoiding is as much about the damage they do to our health as it is about making you fat. In the 80’s margarine was marketed as healthier than butter. A product with industrial processing, hydrogenated oils, artificial colouring, emulsifiers, versus a product with one ingredient and had been eaten for thousands of years. Go figure!

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Once the fat is removed, low fat producers fill the gap with other crap to make them palatable and addictive. Ladles of sugars, flavourings, sweeteners, starches, thickeners.

As a rule, stick to whole food fats such as olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish and butter. Avoid industrially engineered fats found in crisps, biscuits, supermarket croissants, protein bars etc.

Fat makes food more satisfying, fat slows stomach emptying and helps signal fullness. Hmm… this sounds like something else very popular on the market right now….

Don’t get me started on Cholesterol and it being made the bad guy – that is a rant coming on another day.

By eliminating fat and making us fear them the 80’s seriously affected our health.

2. Counting Calories and not nutrients

This culture is so deeply ingrained that anyone who lived through the 80’s will find this very hard to shake off. Calorie-counting receipe books and diet clubs were all the rage. The calorie which is a simple measure of energy was turned into the only way to measure what we were consuming. Nutrients didn’t even make it to the table.

This is how we end up being overweight and malnourished at the same time.

A zero coke instead of handful of walnuts, a cereal bar with over 20 ingredients over an egg, toast and marmalade in trade of full-fat Greek yoghurt, berries and seeds.

Rather than counting calories we need to think about foods fibre content, the vitamins and minerals provided, how much protein, healthy fats it contains, is it processed, will it support my gut.

This is how we provide nourishment, to our bodies, brain, gut, cells. Calories do not tell us the effect of the food on our body.

3. Cereals and yoghurts – desserts masquerading as good food choices

Not all cereals and yoghurts are bad, there are some really great options.

But man oh man – there are some bad ones. Some of the popular cereals that we feed our kids every day, thinking we are doing the right thing, have more sugar than many desserts. Flavoured yoghurt is the same. Yoghurt used to be made with milk, beneficial bacteria and time. It was rich in protein, calcium, healthy fats and probiotics. Now the majority have added sugar, fruit concentrates, flavourings and starches. We are trying to choose the healthy option, but it has been sabotaged. We need to make informed choices with these products.

Rather than reading the front of a packet selling us ‘High Protein’ ‘Source of Calcium’ or images of happy healthy families

tucking in, let’s look at the ingredients at the back. If it reads like a chemistry book, ingredients we don’t recognise and contains lots of sugar – in its many guises (eg anything ending in ‘ose’ glucose, fructose etc, fruit juice concentrate, syrups) – steer clear.

In a nutshell, let your leg warmers be neon pink, not your yoghurt.

Last year I was at a meeting in a large UK town. I was finished by 9am. I wanted some breakfast, a fresh snack and a good coffee. I walked up and down the main high street and all through its shopping centre. I could not find one establishment that sold something freshly baked or something cooked with fresh produce. It was either something that had come out of plastic packaging or was a processed form of breakfast. There wasn’t a fruit and veg store, a fresh food bakery – nada.

In a generation so much has changed. When my mum was a kid processed food wasn’t even a thing. Bread was made from 3 ingredients, you only ate foods in season, plastic wrapping wasn’t used. Nowadays you are made to feel radical if you go processed free, try to eat locally sourced, in season food and want to avoid plastic. We have to go to extreme measures to do what a generation ago was normal.

Real food, Whole food, Organic Foods, Clean Food, Single Ingredient Food (eg an apple!), Farm Fresh food. We now have new vocab to describe what a generation ago was…..Food.

Processed food manufacturers are happy for us to believe that fresh and real food is prohibitively expensive. Some most definitely are. But we have many options that are affordable (see our £1.19 challenge on insta – for the price of a McDonalds burger you can get some great fresh options).

The catch usually isn’t cost, though it’s convenience.

Fast foods started slowly nudging their way in to our zeitgeist from the 50’s. Shrink-wrapped produce, home fridges and freezers all extended the time lines of food storage. This was a game changer to households. Daily trips to the shop were replaced by the weekly ‘Big Shop’, microwave meals became en vogue. Tempted by the dream of less prepping and cooking time, we were freed up. Allegedly. By the 1980s, the plastic-wrapped weekly shop we all recognise today was pretty much locked in.

And we now live in an era that doesn’t prioritise food prepping and cooking. Convenience is not only King but completely normalised. Prepping and cooking has been de-valued as a time resource, lost in the economy driven, time is money culture. But all those wonderful cooking and baking shows on TV show me that there must still be a great love of prepping, cooking and baking our own food – why would we happily watch others doing it for hours if there wasn’t an interest? So, how do we get from watching fab meals being cooked on TV to doing it ourselves in our kitchens? To start with we have to: Keep it Simple.

And annoying as it may be, particularly with food, planning is the only option.

So what do we actually plan around to reach those good health goals?

Having studied wellness and nutrition for decades, and seen trends come and go, the same simple things keep coming up. Whether it’s diet for heart health, anti-dementia, preventing diabetes, weight loss - these are the simple things that research keeps proving work:

1. Real food, little to no processed Shop at the edges of the supermarket, where the fridge, the veg and the actual food live; the middle aisles are mostly packaging with snacks inside. Cook once, eat twice: double the batch, tomorrow’s lunch sorts itself. A well-stocked cupboard (beans, eggs, frozen veg, decent olive oil) beats a takeaway on both speed and price.

2. Movement You don’t need a gym membership and lycra (unless you fancy it). You need to move often, not heroically. Get off the bus a stop early. Take the scenic route. Have your next catch-up as a walk instead of a coffee. Bodies were built to potter - so potter.

3. Socialise Research now shows loneliness is as bad for us as a fairly serious smoking habit, which is a horrifying fact and also brilliant news, because the “cure” is just… seeing people. Say yes to the thing. Make the plan. Ring your mate.

4. Managing stress Your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a sabre-toothed tiger and 47 unread emails, it just feels alarm. So give it the occasional break. Put the phone in another room for an hour (the twitch you feel is the point). Step outside. Breathe like you mean it. Boring, free, works.

5. Engagement / purpose The people who thrive into their 90s almost all have one thing in common: a reason to get up. A project, a garden, a grandchild, a cause, a choir. Purpose is protective. So guard the things that light you up like they’re medicine. Because, rather wonderfully, they are.

The above should not cost us more time or money or feel like another thing to do. Talk and walk with a friend and you’ve bagged movement, connection, stress relief and fresh air in one go. Buy one, get three free! Find those habits that pull double/triple duty. Being healthy and vital maybe hasn’t necessarily got harder but it is easier to pass by. The wins - Real food, moving about, your people, a calm-ish nervous system and something to care about. Simple. Not always easy but simple.

So, which one will you start with?

What is this ‘metabolic health’ that keeps popping up? And should we care?

One of my patients asked me recently whether ‘metabolic health’ was just a rebrand on being healthy. In a nutshell - yes. But excitingly it allows us to understanding our health, with data. This can give us a window to what is happening inside our body – ideally before things go wrong.

And that may be that moment, before serious illness takes hold, that can make the insight transformative for our current and future health and vitality.

It starts with a beautiful word

The word metabolism comes from the Greek metabolē, meaning “change” or “transformation.” I love this. It fills me with a sense of potential; the idea that nothing is fixed, that the body is always capable of shifting.

In biology, metabolism refers to all the chemical reactions that keep us alive: converting food into energy, building tissues, regulating hormones, repairing cells, detoxifying. It is, quite literally, the process of being alive.

When we talk about metabolic health, we’re asking: how well are all those actions and reactions working?

The five markers

Clinicians mostly assess metabolic health by looking at five key measurements. When all five sit within healthy ranges, without the need for medication - this is considered good metabolic health:

1. Blood sugar (fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity)

2. Blood pressure

3. Triglycerides (blood fats)

4. HDL cholesterol (the “good” kind)

5. Waist circumference (a proxy for visceral fat)

When all five are optimal, cells respond well to insulin, energy is stored and released efficiently, and inflammation is kept low. When they’re not, those systems start to misfire, creating often low grade symptoms, long before a diagnosis appears.

Research from the United States, where the largest studies have been done, suggests that as few as 1 in 8 adults is fully metabolically healthy. Not people who are visibly unwell but the likes of you and me, going about our lives, feeling vaguely off but can’t quite put their finger on why.

The moment your doctor says “there’s nothing wrong”.

This is where metabolic health becomes, for me, one of the most important concepts in modern healthcare.

There is a stage, referred to as subclinical, where the body is struggling but formal disease hasn’t yet declared itself. Symptoms are below the line where a clinical disease diagnosis can be made, sometimes even thought of or detected. You go to your GP feeling exhausted, brain fog, bloated, low. The tests come back. Everything is “normal”, your GP says ‘there is nothing wrong’.

Then why do you still feel like crap?

Because the tests most commonly run in standard care are designed to detect established disease, not early dysfunction. They will catch diabetes once it’s diabetes. They won’t catch the years of creeping insulin resistance that preceded it.

This is the dis-ease state. I use that hyphen deliberately. Not disease, but a lack of ease within the body. This is a signal and an opportunity to start looking more closely. We don’t wake up one morning with a disease. We will have been gradually building up to this over months and years. Sometimes decades.

Understanding your metabolic markers can catch this early. It can be the difference between a targeted lifestyle intervention and a lifetime of medication. And is the time when mum’s saying of ‘a stitch in time saves nine’ comes into its own.

Going deeper

There is a growing range of tools available: full blood panels, stool analysis, hormone testing, continuous glucose monitors, diagnostic wearables and other data-gathering options that can help build a detailed map of what’s happening metabolically.

They can start to be costly but for anyone who has been told “your results are fine” while continuing to feel rubbish they can be a revelation and revolution, helping you take back control of your health, vitality and wellbeing. The expensive tests however, are not essential

.

Five things that move the needle

You don’t need a clinic full of tests to start improving your metabolic health. These five things have the most evidence behind them:

1. Eat real food, regularly Cut out snacking where you can and aim for three proper meals a day built around fresh, whole ingredients. Reducing processed food is one of the single most powerful steps you can take — for your gut, your blood sugar, and your energy levels.

2. Move your body, in a way that is enjoyable for you. Exercise keeps blood sugar balanced, supports cardiovascular and immune health, and does remarkable things for mental clarity. If you can get outside while you do it, even better. Try and find the thing that works for you.

3. Prioritise sleep Aiming to be in bed by 10pm is ideal, though for many people, genuinely impossible. If you work standard hours, try to be asleep by midnight at the latest, and reduce screen time in the hour before bed. Poor sleep is one of the most underestimated drivers of metabolic dysfunction.

4. Be aware and beware of your stress Chronic stress raises cortisol, which raises blood sugar, which over time drives insulin resistance. It is a direct, physiological pathway to poor metabolic health, not just a feeling. If you struggle with the relentless pressure of a never-ending to-do list, I recommend Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks. It reframes our relationship with time and busyness in a way that I absolutely love and can relate to.

5. Know your numbers If you are feeling off ask your GP to get some bloods done, and/or a fasting glucose, a lipid panel, and a blood pressure reading. These are basic, accessible, and give you a starting point. You can’t improve what you can’t see.

The body is always capable of change. One of the underlying tenets of Osteopathy is ‘given the correct environment the body will always strive to heal itself.’ Let’s give it the correct environment.

Working towards our best Metabolic health, our best vitality and life, is in the small, consistent steps we take each day. The same systems that tip towards dysfunction can, with the right conditions, tip back. Small, consistent changes are sometimes all it takes.

Metabolē =

transformation.

The body is changing every second of every day. So the question is not whether change is happening, but in which direction?

What is the small change you will make to start tipping the change in the right direction?

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In my mid-40s I was hospitalised with Ulcerative Colitis. After some serious medication got me out of hospital, I spent the next two years changing how I lived to help my body heal. Cleaner food, almost no alcohol. Less sprinting from one stressful thing to another and running permanently on empty. Looking back, I think those changes also helped set me up for a much easier menopause.

Over this period I learnt that the liver is The Don in relation to all things hormonal, stress and recovery. We often think of the liver as the organ that helps with detox but it is so much more than that.

Let me introduce you to your new BFF: The Lovely Liver

For thousands of years, traditional medical systems have viewed the liver as far more than a detox organ. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the liver is associated with the smooth flow of energy, emotions and hormones throughout the body, and linked with feelings such as frustration, irritability and feeling stuck. In Ayurveda, it is connected to transformation, metabolic fire and inflammation. Interestingly, modern science is now revealing just how interconnected the liver truly is; influencing not only detoxification, but also blood sugar balance, immunity, stress hormones, inflammation and oestrogen metabolism. Different systems may use different language, but many have arrived at a similar conclusion: the liver sits at the centre of resilience, balance and vitality.

The liver is the body’s processing plant. It regulates blood sugar, produces bile for digestion, stores vitamins and minerals, filters toxins, metabolises medication, supports the immune system, and plays a major role in overall hormonal balance.

And it regenerates! The liver has an incredible capacity for recovery. Before severe disease kicks in, it can adapt, rebalance and repair. We just need to give it the right support: regular movement, great food and stress management.

Your liver and stress

We are increasingly aware of the negative effects of long-term cortisol activation, the hormone released when we are stressed. The liver helps to metabolise and deactivate cortisol, preventing excess amounts from circulating. Long-term elevation of cortisol can have significant effects on many of the systems that help us thrive, including sleep, blood sugar regulation, immune function, digestion, mood, weight distribution and hormonal balance. Over time, this may contribute to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), now one of the most common liver conditions worldwide.

Poor liver function reduces the efficient breakdown and clearance of cortisol and other hormones, potentially prolonging the body’s stress response and contributing to fatigue, anxiety and hormonal imbalance. Supporting liver health through good sleep, movement, blood sugar balance, nutrient-rich foods and stress management may therefore benefit not only detoxification and metabolism, but also our resilience, energy and emotional wellbeing.

How is this connected to blood sugar?

The liver deactivates cortisol, but it also works in reverse. It is a regulating system, which is great when it works well. When insulin levels are chronically elevated, from blood sugar dysregulation, excess visceral fat, or a high-sugar diet, it upregulates an enzyme in the liver that converts inactive cortisol back into its active form. This means more active cortisol signalling throughout the body which in turn raises blood sugar, which raises insulin, which produces more cortisol. A self-reinforcing loop, with the liver sitting right at the centre of it.

The liver is also central to blood sugar regulation more broadly. After eating, it stores excess glucose. If blood sugar drops, it releases it back into the bloodstream to keep the brain and body fuelled. But if blood sugar regulation becomes disrupted, through stress, poor sleep, processed foods or insulin resistance the liver releases excessive glucose back into the bloodstream. Over time this can lead to chronically elevated insulin levels, increased fat storage, and is another driver of NAFLD.

Why cholesterol isn’t the villain

Cholesterol gets a lot of bad press, but it is essential for life and a major step in hormone production and balance. Every cell membrane in the body relies on it, and importantly, cholesterol is the precursor for all of our steroid hormones; oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone and cortisol, as well as vitamin D. The body uses cholesterol as the raw material from which these hormones are made. The issue is therefore not cholesterol itself, but any imbalance, inflammation, oxidation, and how efficiently it is being processed and transported within the body.

This helps us understand why supporting the liver during transitional times such as stress, hormonal shifts, eg menopause, can be the game changer that helps us thrive and rebound with energy and vitality. Women navigating hormonal transitions often find that supporting the liver, rather than focusing solely on hormones directly, is the piece that makes everything else work better.

How to show your liver some love

Our liver deserves our love and appreciation. It is not simply detoxing last night’s cheeky glass of wine. It is a hormonal processing plant, a metabolic regulator, and a frontline responder to every stressful day you have ever had. The great news is that it is one of the most resilient organs in the body, remarkably capable of recovery when you give it the right conditions.

Top tips for supporting your liver

Prioritise blood sugar balance. The liver plays a huge role in regulating blood sugar. Excessive sugar spikes, ultra-processed foods and constant grazing place extra strain on the liver and contribute to insulin resistance and fatty liver changes over time.

Eat enough protein and fibre. Protein provides the amino acids needed for detoxification pathways, while fibre helps bind and remove waste products and excess hormones through the gut.

Include bitter and cruciferous foods. Rocket, watercress, chicory, broccoli, kale and cauliflower contain compounds that support bile flow and healthy oestrogen metabolism. A small bitter salad before a main meal is one of the simplest things you can do for your liver every day.

Move your body regularly. Exercise improves insulin sensitivity, supports fat metabolism, and helps reset the cortisol-blood sugar loop. A brisk walk, a swim, a yoga class will do it.

Support your microbiome. Gut health and liver health are deeply connected. A healthy, diverse microbiome helps reduce inflammation and improves hormone and toxin clearance. This helps keep oestrogen moving out rather than circulating back around.

Don’t underestimate sleep. The liver performs many of its repair and metabolic functions while we sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation is strongly linked with metabolic dysfunction and inflammation.

Manage stress where possible. Chronic stress and elevated cortisol negatively affect liver function, blood sugar regulation and fat storage. Sometimes supporting the liver is not about another supplement, it is about creating more recovery and less overload.

Go gently with alcohol and ultra-processed foods. The liver is resilient and regenerative, but it is not invincible. Consistent overload over time can eventually impair its ability to repair and regulate effectively.

Hydrate well. Adequate hydration supports circulation, digestion, detoxification and the elimination of waste products.

Remember: the liver can regenerate. One of the most hopeful things about the liver is its extraordinary capacity to heal. Small, consistent habits, repeated regularly,

will always have a far greater impact than any extreme detox or quick fix. The liver doesn’t need a January cleanse. It needs a life it can work with.

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It is an absolute that we will have to wait at some point in our lives. Public transport, medical results, appointments, holiday, partner. Often excruciating, sometimes exciting. What does it mean for our physiology? Can it be a good thing? And what can understanding it teach us?

My childhood, teens and adulthood seemed to be punctuated with moments of waiting. As a very young child my dad worked abroad, often for 6 months to a year. I have the distinct memory of waiting for him to be home. Looking at planes flying overhead – wondering if he was on them (we lived under the Heathrow flight path – I was looking up a lot!). Through my teens as a late developer and into adulthood; I didn’t start the work I love until nearly 30, didn’t have kids until nearly 40. I wasn’t waiting per se but there was uncertainty over what would happen.

Waiting can be a double-egded sword. There are many instances when it is stressful and debilitating. For example, when there is an unknown diagnosis and we are waiting for medical results. It has been shown that the wait can more stressful than even the most serious of results. Researcher Kate McSweeny talks about studies that have asked women who have gone through treatment for breast cancer, what was the hardest part of that experience? Many of them said it was the period of uncertainty that preceded the diagnosis, not the diagnosis or even the treatment.

Much of stress in waiting is around the uncertainty of the outcome or future. A UCL study published in Nature Communications where the participants received a painful shock found that when there was a 50% chance of a painful shock it was more stressful than a 100% certainty of one — in other words, knowing something bad is definitely coming is less stressful than not knowing at all. Can you imagine, we would rather know we were going to have a painful shock rather than the uncertainty of ‘maybe’ receiving one.

Neuroscience research shows the brain responds to uncertainty in a manner similar to actual danger, activating cortisol and stress hormones that can heighten anxiety, impair cognition, and disrupt sleep. Where can we look for inspirations of ‘how to wait’?

Emotional regulation and the ‘why’

For me, Nelson Mandela is the definition of waiting in grace. Following from his years in confinement, he did not lead with anger or bitterness. How did he achieve this? He wrote: “Prison is itself a tremendous education in the need for patience and perseverance. It is, above all, a test of one’s commitment.” What seems to have protected him was a combination of emotional regulation and equally important, purpose. His waiting had a ‘why’. Researchers have surmised that his capacity to regulate emotion rather than suppress or ignite it was central to his psychological survival.

Often in clinic, when a patient is given a timeline or an understanding of their condition or cause of pain, layers of angst caused by the uncertainty of the future fall away. Most people could work through even the worst of situations, financial crisis, illness, pain if they KNEW it was going to be fine at some point in the future. It is the unknown in the maelstrom of the waiting that increases the discomfort.

Waiting is not always negative.

Conversely, waiting can help build excitement. Waiting for our summer holiday, a concert, a friends wedding; remember Christmas as a kid? That anticipatory excitement in waiting is all part the of full experience. Neuroimaging research shows the brain’s key reward processing region is activated during anticipation of reward, reflecting the “wanting” component of pleasure. In other words, looking forward to something has real neurological effects.

Being in a queue, waiting at the bus stop, doctors waiting room; The phone has changed our relationship with waiting. Having your phone to scroll through can make a waiting room delay a bit more bearable. But it also means we have lost those micro moments when we may have had to reflect on our day or process conversations. This may be fine but in not creating those moments; allowing that bit of downtime to pause and reflect, may also be adding to the fullness and overwhelm that is endemic.

Waiting is inevitable. Modern life teaches us that waiting is an interruption, a waste of our time, or a discomfort that needs distracting or avoiding. But waiting is not empty. Mind wandering is not wasted time, it is mental processing, where thoughts can settle and reconnect. Some of our creativity, resilience and emotional regulation is formed in these moments, between things.

Not every wait needs to be optimised. Waiting can swing from painful, fearful and uncertain to exciting and full of possibilities but the waiting itself could be part of the experience.

It may be the waiting that gets us ready for what is coming next.

I had one of those conversations last week that stays with you. A close friend, deep in perimenopause, was trying to describe how she felt. Super Anxious. Flat.

I knew exactly what she meant, because I’d been there. But my version was slightly different: I had stopped feeling joy.

Not dramatically. No crisis, no breakdown. I just stopped feeling that background hum of delight at being alive that I’d always taken for granted. I’m a natural optimist, bordering on the delusional mostly - so its absence was noticeable. For a few years I assumed this was simply the new me. The post-joy version. Hormones flatline, emotions get parked, and apparently this is adulthood now.

But hooray - it wasn’t permanent. The experience, did however make me curious about joy in a way I hadn’t been before.

We don’t really give joy much airtime

In clinic our conversations about health revolve around sleep, stress, nutrition, movement. All important. But joy?

It barely gets a mention. In a culture obsessed with optimising everything, there’s something almost embarrassing about joy. Is it too soft? too unquantifiable? too unproductive?

We’re on the hamster wheel: work hard, organise everything, exercise dutifully, crash out. Repeat. The moments of small delight that punctuate the day:

a good song on at the exact right moment, a really nice cup of tea, a dog doing something ridiculous, the parking fairy coming through with a timely space, we register them for a half-second and move straight on.

Which is a shame. Because it turns out we probably shouldn’t.

The biology of small moments

Here’ is the great news and why we have to embrace those moments - joy isn’t a fluffy bonus emotion. It has biological power.

When we experience positive vibes, joy - even briefly, even mildly - the nervous system sits up. The bit in control of relaxing, rest and repair; the parasympathetic branch (governed in part by the vagus nerve) gets a nudge. Heart rate variability shifts. Cortisol gets a little relief from its relentless campaign. Immune markers respond. The body, in a very literal sense, uses these moments.

The psychologist Barbara Fredrickson has spent decades on this, developing what she calls the broaden-and-build theory: positive emotions don’t just feel good in the moment, they build psychological and physiological resources over time. They quite literally expand how we think and function. Small inputs, compounded.

What this means practically is that we’re not looking for fireworks. We’re not trying to manufacture euphoria or engineer peak experiences. We’re looking for the small stuff;

sun through the trees, a toddler waving at a random dog, the traffic lights going your way, a friendly stranger interaction

and actually letting it register. Noticing it. Allowing it to land, and wallow in it for a few moments rather than rushing straight past to the next thing on the list.

The guilt problem

Something I’ve noticed, and I suspect I’m not alone in this: there’s a low-level guilt that attaches to joy. Like you haven’t quite earned it, or you shouldn’t be enjoying yourself when there’s so much to do. Hustle culture has a lot to answer for here. Always having to be productive and purposeful. It’s a bit telling - the fact I feel better knowing there is science to back up the importance of feeling moments of joy - ‘oooo that means its productive and purposeful to feel it!’

We don’t have to feel guilty. But since we’re here: the science does back it up.

A small practice

I’m not going to suggest a joy journal or a gratitude app, we want it to be super easy, low barriers to entry! So

let’s do this: start noticing. That’s all. Just let the small good things actually arrive rather than glossing over them in the rush.

The cumulative effect, over time, is real. And on even the most thoroughly rubbish of days, there’s usually something, even something infinitesimally small that offers a little perk of joy if you’re looking for it.

Grab it. Start collecting joy.

Maybe joy isn’t something we need to find. Maybe it’s something we need to stop brushing past.

What things have brought you joy this week?

Butter melting on toast

Longer sunny days

Toddler chat

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SPACE

‘You haven’t left any buffer mate!’

Have you listened to Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe on Parenting Hell? They are hilarious. You don’t have to be a parent to appreciate this fabulous show. One of the things Rob frequently chastises Josh about is his lack of buffer in the day. Something many of us will be familiar with, rushing from one meeting or obligation to another. Squeezing in a food shop between emails and phone calls. Trying to do a 20 minute workout between meetings. Zero down time. Zero space.

The importance of space cannot be overstated. Space is required for optimum function in everything - from the atoms in our cells to the structure of the universe. Without space we cannot heal, repair and regenerate.

In other contexts, we see space as a premium in our daily lives. Money buys you space. Houses with more space, parking spaces, bigger cars. Space is one of the things that distinguishes a value holiday from a premium holiday. Picture our lower budget holidays: sunbeds crowded around the pool, there may or may not be enough for all the people in the hotel, got to get down there early to get your towels down – we’ve all been there! Premium holidays are all about the space, from abundance of sunloungers with lots of space around to your own beachside villa with your own sun loungers and an abundance of space.

Last week a patient was describing how her counselling sessions were great because they allowed ‘space’ in her week. Her weeks ran from one to the other, with a crazy busy job and a full on family life. Her counselling sessions were the one time in her week where she had space. It gave her permission to go slower, to be more introspective and quite literally, space to breathe.

Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, writes about our inability to rest. He discusses how our productivity culture is the cause of this. We are sold the idea that if we just get organised enough, optimise enough, clear the to-do list enough, we will finally arrive at a place of spaciousness and ease. But that moment never comes. Productivity culture is not a solution to the overwhelm of modern life; it is the cause of it. We have forgotten, Burkeman suggests, that we are not here to optimise. We are here to live. And living requires space that has no purpose other than itself.

Daily in clinic I see burnout, exhaustion and overwhelm. These can all present differently, anxiety, chronic illness, sudden illness, fatigue, insomnia, hormone disruption. We say we need “space to think”. We ask for space. And yet, in practice, we structure our lives in a way that removes it almost entirely. Or the opposite of space, we feel swamped, crushed with responsibility, squeezed for time.

In physics space is not empty in a meaningless way. Space is not passive - it is what permits organisation, separation, and change over time. It’s what allows for formation of stars, movement, structure, and evolution. Without space, everything collapses into density and chaos. In our bodies it allows for movement, fluids to circulate, tissues to move and regulate. When space is lost, whether that’s physical, temporal, or neurological, the systems become less adaptable, more strained, and more prone to dysfunction. And in the human body, healing requires shifts into states of recovery—parasympathetic activity, tissue relaxation, adequate circulation, sleep.

Creating space (in real life)

So what does creating space actually look like?

Not a dramatic life overhaul. Not a silent retreat (unless that’s your thing). More often, it’s subtle shifts that restore rhythm to a system that has become continuous.

One of the simplest and most overlooked is ‘leaving buffer.’

Research in cognitive science shows that the brain does not switch tasks cleanly. What’s known as attention residue (Leroy, 2009) means part of your mind remains engaged in the previous task when you move too quickly to the next. Without space between activities, cognitive load accumulates, reducing clarity, efficiency and ultimately increasing stress.

That “ten minutes between things” is not wasted time. It is neurological reset.

In sports science, this principle is well understood. Adaptation doesn’t happen during the workout itself, but in the recovery that follows. Training places a controlled stress on the body, and it is only with adequate rest that repair and strengthening take place. Without that space, performance plateaus, injury risk rises, and the body begins to struggle rather than adapt.

Even breathing reflects this. Slower, more spacious breathing patterns have been shown to increase vagal tone and shift the body toward parasympathetic dominance (Jerath et al., 2006), supporting digestion, immune function and repair.

And perhaps most importantly, sleep. During sleep, the brain quite literally clears metabolic waste via the glymphatic system (Xie et al., 2013). No space in the day often translates to compromised space at night—and reduced recovery as a result.

A different way of thinking about space

We often think of space as something we earn. Something we will get to once everything else is done. But biology doesn’t work like that. Space is not the reward at the end.

It is the condition that makes everything else work.

A gentle invitation

So rather than asking, “How do I fit everything in?” It may be more useful to ask:

What might change physically, mentally, emotionally if even a small amount of space was reintroduced?

Because healing doesn’t usually begin with doing more. It begins with allowing more space. Space isn’t what’s left when everything is done. It’s what allows anything to work at all. And often, it’s the very thing we need most—but give ourselves the least.

Leave some buffer mate.

Oooooo …. That’s sore, but a nice sore.

Where are we going with this article, I hear you ask?!

Understanding pain and when to listen to it and when to ignore it is important while recovering from an injury, healing from an illness or progressing in our fitness journey.

I come from a long line of ‘just get on with it’ people. Stoic. Practical. Resilient. And this that mindset has its place. That attitude helps you get through tough times, enables you to get s**t done when the going gets tough (or even when it’s just downright boring – thinking housework, food shopping, life admin etc).

However, the same mindset may be quietly driving a lot of modern chronic pain.

Ignoring or not understanding our pain can lead to symptoms getting worse, illness elevating from major to minor, habits of repressing our emotions and eventually a detachment from what is going on in our body.

The ‘nice pain’

In clinic, I often hear patients say, “Ooooh, that’s sore… but in a good way.” And absolutely, there is a type of pain that is productive. A stretch or a release. A sense that something restricted is beginning to move again.

You breathe through it, and afterwards things feel easier. This is called adaptive stress and without it, the body doesn’t change. It is often the result of improved blood flow, nervous system engagement without overwhelm and appropriate tissue loading.

The problem with ‘no pain, no gain’

But there are many times when the ‘no pain, no gain’ mantra does us no good. We have a responsibility to ourselves to help work out the sweet spot between ‘nice pain’ when it can be beneficial and the ‘no pain, no gain’ that can lead us to further injury or more serious illness.

I have just come back from a coached swimming session. In our last drill we had to do a number of lengths, breathing every 5 strokes – OMG – it hurt and was mildly alarming at points. But I also knew that this discomfort was good for me, it was helping build lung capacity and improve cardio-vascular fitness. As well as get my stroke faster so I could get to breath 5 more quickly!

NEWSFLASH: Pain is not a reliable measure of progress OR tissue damage.

What?!?

We’ve misunderstood pain for years. Pain isn’t a badge of honour. But it isn’t always a red light either, it’s a signal. And most of us were never taught how to read it.

Understanding Pain

Pain is not always direct measure of damage. It is the brain’s way of protecting you, like an alarm system. The alarm can go off when there is a real threat OR when it suspects something is awry.

It takes into account – body signals, past experiences, stress levels, sleep, emotions and beliefs about pain. Modern pain science, particularly the work of Professor Lorimer Moseley and David Butler has shown us that:

Pain is an output of the brain, and frequently not a direct measure of tissue damage.

Which means:

• You can have a lot of pain with very little structural issue

• You can have significant structural change with very little pain

I see this a lot in clinic:

• Someone “puts their back out” bending forward - severe pain, extremely debilitating and frightening but weirdly - minimal damage

• Someone can have large disc bulges on MRI and experience no pain at all

The takeaway: Pain is - Real, Protective and Useful.

But it is not always – accurate or a measure of damage.

Stress, cortisol, and why pushing harder isn’t always better

Cortisol often gets a bad reputation, but it’s a naturally occuring hormone and it is normal for it to rise and fall throughout the day. It helps us wake up, feel alert, and respond to challenges. In short bursts, it’s incredibly useful – essential in fact.

The problem isn’t cortisol itself. The problem is cortisol and ongoing stress. When the body is under stress it produces more cortisol. These chronically high cortisol levels are associated with:

• Reduced recovery

• Increased inflammation

• Poor sleep

• Heightened pain sensitivity

Research in stress physiology and pain (including work by McEwen and others on allostatic load) shows that when the system is under constant strain, it becomes more reactive. So when we layer in our : Busy lives, Emotional stress and High-intensity training the body doesn’t get stronger - it gets more sensitive.

At that point, pushing through pain isn’t resilience.

It’s overload.

Two patients, two very different answers

One patient, a woman in her 50s—lifelong fitness fan - runner, HIIT classes, always pushed hard.

But recently she had experienced:

• More injuries

• More fatigue

• More anxiety

So she did what had always worked - She trained harder and fasted for longer.

But her physiology had changed. Hormonal shifts had among other things, increased cortisol sensitivity and thereby reduced recovery capacity. Resulting in recurring injuries and difficulty shifting weight.

Her body didn’t need more intensity. It needed safety. For her, healing came from doing less and eating at regular intervals.

Another patient?

A patient frustrated that his fitness had plateaued. He worked out regularly and had the same routine for years and no progress.

He didn’t need less. He needed more challenge. More load. More intensity. More adaptation.

He needed to feel discomfort again—the right kind. He did this and very quickly saw results. Through the grimaces!

So if it isn’t damage - what is it?

The nervous system can become super-sensitised to all messages going in. The volume gets turned up, the body becomes more protective and small inputs feels bigger. Something widely described in pain research as central sensitisation (see work by Clifford Woolf and others).

Avoiding movement can reinforce the problem.

For some people, healing means doing less. For others, it means doing more, just carefully.

In a sensitised system, we often need to:

• Reintroduce movement gradually

• Build confidence

• Show the brain that movement is safe

This is known as graded exposure - a well-established approach in pain rehabilitation.

If we wait for zero pain before moving we might never start.

Athletes vs beginners — same body, different interpretation

A great way to show this is comparing Athletes and beginners.

Athletes are not superhuman. They’ve just learned something most people haven’t, how to interpret discomfort accurately.

They feel:

• Burning muscles

• Effort

• Fatigue

And their brain says: “This is safe. This is progress.”

Whereas someone new to movement may feel the same sensations and think: “Oh, this can’t be right. I should stop.”

Same input. Different interpretation. Different experience of pain.

Pain, fitness, and fear — a reality check

Athletes aren’t stronger because they feel less pain. They’re stronger because they’ve learned which pain is safe to move through (not always – even they get it wrong, as they frequently push to the limits)

The danger of both extremes.

Some people push through everything, some avoid anything uncomfortable. Both can lead to ongoing pain.

Some of us need to learn to stop, others, we need to learn to start! Healing sits in the middle.

You’ve heard of Arnica, right? This is my usual ‘way in’ when introducing patients to Homeopathy. Some people have never heard of it, some love it, others out right dismiss it. I have found it to be very controversial, and can evoke quite strong reactions in people, positive and negative.

I once posted about the benefits of a Homeopathic remedy on Facebook and someone appeared from the depths of the internet to strongly inform me that all Homeopaths are charlatans, out for money, and should be avoided at all costs. I can assure you, Homeopaths don’t go into it for the money. They study thousands of remedies over years of training and yet you don’t hear the words ‘loaded’ and ‘Homeopath’ in the same sentence! Pharmaceutical executives… that might be a different story.

So yes - homeopathy can be controversial.

There are currently two main issues that prevent a wider acceptance of Homeopathy. To build confidence we need a better understanding of how it works, with plausible mechanisms and to we need to get a strong, robust body of evidence that reproduces clinical effects. At present, the evidence base for Homeopathy remains mixed, and no widely accepted mechanism has been demonstrated. However, the consistency of clinical reports over 100’s of years suggests that further high-quality research is warranted to better understand what may be occurring, for whom and how.

More recently in a research paper that was an overview of numerous studies (Hamre et al., 2023) reported ‘significant positive effects of homeopathy beyond placebo’, suggesting that measurable effects may exist within the literature. The authors do acknowledge that results vary depending on how the data is analysed, and that consistency remains a challenge. It highlights how strongly outcomes depend on study selection and quality, as per all studies. This reflects the broader challenge in Homeopathy research but is a fascinating space nonetheless that hopefully invites curiosity.

History shows us that medicine does not always need to fully understand how something works before it is widely adopted, aspirin and anaesthetics being a classic example. What drove their adoption wasn’t always a clear mechanism - it was consistent, observable effect.

Case reports have played a crucial role in the development of modern medicine, often acting as early warning signals or the first clues to new discoveries. For example, the link between thalidomide and birth defects, and the early identification of AIDS, both began with clinicians noticing unusual patterns in individual patients. Even Penicillin evolved from early use involved case-based observations, with dramatic recoveries from infection and this helped drive further research and trial, resulting in our current changed world of infection recovery and survival as a result.

Homeopathy has case reports in plentiful abundance. It could not have survived over 200 years, through waves of criticism, without people repeatedly observing meaningful changes. Case reports generate hypotheses, they don’t prove cause and effect which is why well-designed research is still essential.

Another issue for Homeopathy, and probably one of the reasons it appeals to me - is it challenges fundamental assumptions, (e.g. dose–response relationships, high dilutions, molecular presence). This however, sets the bar higher -

Without a mechanism, you need very strong clinical effects
Without consistent strong effects, you need a very convincing mechanism

Ideally, both. For now, while we’re still figuring that out, let’s stay curious. Medicine has a long history of catching up with what clinicians quietly observe first.

On a practical note - You don’t need hundreds of remedies to begin using Homeopathy at home or when travelling. In fact, a small, well-chosen kit of 10 remedies can cover many of the everyday bumps, colds, and upsets we see in family life. Keep it simple.

Here are my recommendations for Top Ten Remedies to have and try at home (I also take them with me every time I travel):

1. Arnica - bruises, bumps, after accidents, good for straight after injuries, can help reduce swelling. One homeopathic books cites “Trauma in all its forms”.

2. Belladona – my go to when one of the kids has a temperature. Also sudden onset hot, ret, inflamed.

3. Aconite – first sign of a cough/cold/inflammation, take this one. Also the go-to if someone has had a shock or a fright.

4. Chamomilla – this is a great calming remedy, if bad tempered, cross or irritable it can be really helpful (I hear you ordering a bucket load already!). Also great for the pain of teething.

5. Pulsatilla – I often think of this one when kids don’t want to leave their mums, tearful and clingy, separation anxiety. Also great for ear infections, sinusitis,

6. Nux Vomica – hangovers, over indulgence, overwork, nausea, insomnia. It’s a good one to help support the digestive system and help with liver detox

7. Rhus tox – Stiff, sore, worse on first movement, better once you get going. Think sprains, strains, overuse, and some arthritic patterns.

8. Bryonia – Dry, painful symptoms. Worse for movement, better for rest. Dry coughs, headaches, thirst.

9. Apis – Swelling, redness, heat—think bites, stings, allergic-type reactions.

10. Silica – The splinter hero. If you have children, this one earns its place in the kit very quickly. This remedy helps them force them out. I have seen this work time and time again!

Homeopathy is a wonderful support for many ailments and can often be used safely at home. However, it’s important to seek medical advice if symptoms are severe, persistent, worsening, or if you are at all unsure — particularly with babies, high fevers, breathing difficulties, or significant injury. Used in this way, Homeopathy sits beautifully alongside conventional medical care, offering gentle support while ensuring safety is always prioritised.

Bibliogragphy

Hamre, H.J., Glockmann, A., von Ammon, K., Riley, D.S., & Kiene, H. (2023)
Efficacy of homoeopathic treatment: Systematic review of meta-analyses of randomised placebo-controlled homoeopathy trials for any indication
Published in: Systematic Reviews, 12, 191
DOI: 10.1186/s13643-023-02313-2

Lotus Materia Medica. Robin Murphy. Third revised Edition

My husband works in the sports industry and this morning he asked me to look at a product to work out its value and potential efficacy. It’s something I get asked a lot in clinic too. Supplements can be amazing and used at the right time, for the right duration can be potent in getting us to optimal health, healing and recovery.

But it is a supplement minefield out there.

Walk into any health shop or even supermarket and you’ll find shelves lined with supplements full of promises. Better energy, better sleep, better skin, better hormones – the list goes on. Vitamins, probiotics, prebiotics, electrolytes, liver detox, hormone balance, skin support. How do we make sense of it all?

There are a few things that don’t quite make it onto the label - or into the glossy marketing. And there are more questions - what if taking more isn’t the answer? Perhaps more importantly, what if taking the wrong thing, for too long, is working against us?

So what do we actually need to know to make good decisions? From the many conversations I’ve had in clinic over the years, below are the core foundations and key principles I come back to - a few simple things to consider when deciding which supplements to take.

In the UK, supplements are regulated as foods rather than medicines. That means they don’t have to prove clinical effectiveness before they reach the shelf. Ingredients and doses should be listed, but the quality, the form of the nutrient, and how well it can actually be absorbed can vary enormously. Two products can look almost identical on the label but behave very differently in the body.

Our stomach is not just a holding bay. It is a powerful defence barrier. Its job is to break things down, neutralise potential threats, and create the conditions in our food to help determine what can be absorbed further down the line.

Some supplements don’t survive that journey intact. Others are altered along the way. And some never get absorbed in any meaningful amount at all. For a supplement to work, it has to survive digestion, be released from its capsule or tablet, pass through the gut wall and then actually be usable by the body. This is what we mean by supplements or foods being bioavailable – how much of what you take or eat can actually be absorbed and/or made use of.

Crucially, before adding something in, it’s often worth asking what might need taking out. Is the ongoing stress, ultra-processed food, or simply the pace we’re living at creating your symptoms. All of these place a load on the body, affecting how well we digest, absorb nutrients, and clear what we no longer need. This extra load frequently leads to the issues we are trying to treat with supplements.

Rather than getting lost in the detail, here are my three top tips when choosing a supplement:

• Which supplement do you need—and why?
  What are you trying to address? Fatigue, constipation, skin issues, poor sleep, hormonal problems? Then gently keep asking ‘Why?’ For example Fatigue; why am I tired? low iron, poor sleep, blood sugar swings, stress, or simply not eating enough protein. Keep going until the answer feels like it lands somewhere real - even if it’s not the most convenient answer.
  
  Where possible, it can be helpful to have a clearer understanding of what’s going on under the surface. In some cases, this might mean simple testing—blood tests for iron, B12 or vitamin D, or occasionally stool testing for a more exhaustive list of markers. This doesn’t need to be overcomplicated, but having a clearer picture can help guide more targeted and effective support.
  
  Some supplements are best used when there is a known or strongly suspected deficiency, rather than taken “just in case.” It doesn’t mean we need to test everything, but it does mean being thoughtful about what we’re adding in. Supplements can support a system, but they rarely fix the root cause on their own—so understanding the ‘why’ is always the most valuable place to start.

• What’s actually in it?
  Always turn the packet over. Beyond the headline ingredient, many supplements contain binders, fillers, stabilisers, sweeteners and coatings. They make supplements easier to produce and last longer, but they don’t always sit passively in the body. Some can affect how well a nutrient is released and absorbed, others can irritate the gut or simply add to the body’s processing load. This is of particular importance when multiple supplements are taken daily. A good rule of thumb is that if the ingredient list looks complicated, pause. Simpler is usually better: fewer ingredients, words you recognise, clearly labelled doses, and forms the body can use.

• How long should you take it for?
  This is where balance is key. For some people taking supplements daily is a nuisance, while others stay on the same ones for years. In reality, supplements are best thought of as tools rather than habits. They can help correct a deficiency or support the body during a period of stress, but they are not always designed to be taken indefinitely. The body is adaptive—if we continually supply something externally, it can begin to adjust its own internal regulation. So it’s worth checking in from time to time: do I still need this? And if I needed it in the first place, what else might help address that underlying cause?

I like to think of supplements as a nudge – supporting the body at the right time, for the right reason. Problems can arise when that nudge becomes a constant push.

Things I see in clinic

Magnesium:

One patient comes to mind who arrived saying she felt completely exhausted—but at the same time, couldn’t switch off. She described herself as “wired but tired.” Sleep was broken, her shoulders and neck were constantly tight, and headaches had become a regular part of her week.

Nothing dramatic showed up in her history, but her nervous system was clearly under strain - too much going on for too long, without enough opportunity to properly come down.

We made some simple changes around her evening routine and breathing, and alongside that introduced a gentle magnesium supplement in the evenings.

Over the next few weeks, things began to shift. Sleep became deeper and more settled, the constant muscle tension eased, and the headaches became far less frequent. She didn’t feel “knocked out” or sedated—just calmer, more able to switch off. This enabled her to re-charge and restore in her down time, resulting in her feeling more like herself again.

In this case, the magnesium wasn’t forcing anything or overriding the system—it was simply giving the body a bit of what it needed to do its job more effectively.

As a side note - not everyone tolerates oral magnesium particularly well—it can sometimes upset the gut or cause loose stools. In those cases, alternatives such as Epsom salt baths can still be helpful. While we don’t fully rely on absorption through the skin, the combination of warmth, relaxation and the magnesium salts themselves can support the body in a similar way, helping muscles soften and the nervous system begin to settle.

Vitamin D

Another patient comes to mind who had been taking high-dose vitamin D for quite some time. Like many people, she had started during Covid, when there was a strong push around immune support, and had simply continued—partly out of habit, and partly because it felt like a sensible thing to do.

Over time, she began to feel a little “off.” Nothing dramatic, but a general sense of fatigue, some digestive discomfort, and a feeling that things just weren’t quite right. She was doing all the right things otherwise—eating well, moving regularly—so it didn’t immediately make sense.

When something doesn’t quite add up, it’s often worth stepping back and checking the basics. In this case, we arranged a simple blood test to look at her vitamin D levels, along with calcium.

Her vitamin D came back higher than we would ideally like to see, and her calcium was sitting towards the upper end of normal. Not dangerous, but enough to suggest that the balance was starting to shift.

We paused the supplement, made a few gentle adjustments to her diet and hydration, and allowed things to settle.

Over the following weeks, her energy began to improve, her digestion felt more comfortable, and that vague sense of “not quite right” lifted.

This is not to say vitamin D isn’t important—it absolutely is, and many people do benefit from supplementation, particularly in the UK. But it’s a good example of how something helpful in one context can become unhelpful when taken longer than needed, or at a dose that no longer matches what the body requires.

A simple blood test—looking at serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, and ideally calcium alongside it—can give a clear picture of where you are, and help guide whether supplementation is needed, and at what dose.

Sometimes it’s not about adding more in, but about knowing when to pause.

Vit C

A different example, and one I see work very well in practice, is Vitamin C. When someone feels that first shift—slightly run down, a scratchy throat, that sense that something is brewing—a short course of higher-dose vitamin C can be incredibly supportive. Vitamin C plays a key role in immune function, supporting white blood cell activity and acting as an antioxidant during times of increased stress on the body. There is good evidence that while it may not prevent illness in the general population, it can reduce the duration and severity of symptoms, particularly when taken at the onset.

Used in this way—short term, responsive, and alongside rest and nourishment—it can help the body do what it is already trying to do, rather than overriding it. And importantly, once the system has settled, it’s something that can then be stepped away from again.

It’s less about taking something every day “just in case,” and more about knowing when to step in and support the body when it needs it most. Ideally, most of what we need comes from food—whole, minimally processed, seasonal where possible, and as close to how nature intended. The body tends to recognise and handle this far more easily than isolated nutrients in a capsule.

Your body is beautifully intelligent—but it wasn’t designed to process a chemistry set.
The closer we stay to what it recognises, the better it tends to respond.

Bloating

One of those things that happens so often we’ve quietly filed it under “normal”.
But as I say in clinic (on repeat), just because something is common doesn’t make it normal. For some it happens occasionally, for others it’s daily — either way it can be miserable.

We’re talking:

• clothes suddenly not fitting by 3pm

• that heavy, uncomfortable, “I can’t quite stand up straight” feeling

• low energy, brain fog, general ugh

And here’s the bit that often gets missed — bloating can also be a sign that we’re not properly absorbing our food. So even if your diet looks great on paper, your body might not be getting what it needs, resulting in a number of symptoms including fatigue, brain fog and irritability.

The good news (there is some)

There are lots of reasons why we bloat. Which can feel overwhelming but actually means there are lots of ways to improve it. Let’s start with the simplest (and most ignored).

1. You might just be eating like you’re in a race

Case in point: my 15-year-old.

That girl can finish a full meal before I’ve even located my fork. And she’s not alone.

One of the first things I learned during my nutrition training was this:

- Digestion doesn’t start in your stomach. It starts before you even take a bite.

When you:

• look at your food

• smell it

• anticipate it

  your brain signals your digestive system to get going. Enzymes start flowing, your stomach prepares, your whole system gears up. Then comes chewing. And here’s where most of us fall down. If we rush, barely chew, and swallow chunks of food, those digestive juices don’t stand a chance. Instead of being properly broken down and absorbed, food sits… lingers… and ferments.

Welcome to : bloating, wind, unpredictable poo.

There’s a health approach in Austria (the Mayr Method) that suggests chewing up to 50 times per mouthful. Fifty - Even soup!.

I suggested this at home once. My husband (fastest eater in the West) looked like I’d asked him to climb Everest. But even he admitted, slowing down helped. Not necessarily 50 chew but more than three is a solid start!

2. Eating on the go = confused digestion

We’ve normalised eating:

• in the car

• at our desks

• while answering emails

• mid-scroll

But your body? It can’t keep up. When you slow down and actually sit, look, chew, and notice your food, two important things happen:

1. Your digestion improves because enzymes that break down food have time to be triggered and can therefor work more effectively.

2. Your brain has time to register fullness. There’s a reason many cultures encourage stopping at around 80% full (the Japanese call this Hara Hachi Bu). It gives your body time to catch up with what you’ve eaten, rather than overshooting and feeling stuffed (and bloated).

3. Breathing (yes, really)

This is where my Osteopath hat comes on. Your diaphragm; your main breathing muscle, sits right above your digestive organs.

When you breathe well:

• your rib cage expands

• your diaphragm moves fully

And this creates a gentle internal massage for your digestive system. This helps food move through and decreases the chance of fermentation (and therefore bloating).

Now add posture into the mix. If you’re slumped over a laptop, collapsed on the sofa, or eating hunched forward, you’re literally compressing your digestive organs. Less space. Less movement. Slower transit.

So:
👉 Sit up (not rigid, just supported)
👉 Breathe into your ribs, not just your chest
👉 Give your insides a bit of room to do their thing

4. Stress – the digestion killer!

This one is huge. Your body has two main modes:

• Fight or flight (go, do, survive)

• Rest and digest (repair, absorb, restore)

We all seem to be constantly busy, rushing, juggling, slightly (or very) stressed. Living in this continued fight or flight means that resting and digesting, is all put on the back burner. This results in poor digestion, slower gut movement and more bloating.

Your body will not fully digest or heal if it never feels safe enough to switch off. Small changes can help;

• sitting down properly to eat

• taking a few slow breaths before meals

• not eating when stressed

5. Hormones

If you’ve ever thought, “Why am I more bloated at certain times of the month?” you’re not imagining it. Hormonal shifts can affect:

• gut movement

• water retention

• sensitivity to certain foods

Tracking patterns can be really helpful here. Once you see when things worsen, you can adjust food choices, support digestion more intentionally AND stop second-guessing yourself

6. Food intolerances (when the basics aren’t enough)

This is where things can get a bit… overzealous. Yes - food intolerances exist but we don’t need to eliminate half the supermarket immediately.

Always start with the basics (above).If things still aren’t improving, then it’s reasonable to explore further. Two common culprits:

• Gluten – can trigger inflammation in the gut lining, affecting absorption and causing bloating

• Dairy – lactose can be difficult to digest for many adults, leading to gas and discomfort

You won’t become deficient by removing these if you’re eating a varied, whole-food diet. If you do trial eliminations:
👉 Do it one at a time
👉 Give it a few weeks
👉 Notice properly

Other potential triggers include:

• high fructose foods (apples, honey, certain sweeteners)

• onions, garlic, beans (high FODMAP foods)

Working with a Nutritional Therapist here can save a lot of guesswork (and unnecessary restriction).

7. Your microbiome – the tiny ecosystem running the show

Last but my no means least - Inside your gut lives a whole community of bacteria (trillions of them), often referred to as your microbiome. We want a good balance here, not just “good vs bad” bacteria, but a diverse, well-behaved mix that knows how to do its job.

When that balance is off (often after stress, antibiotics, illness, or a very limited diet), certain bacteria can start to overgrow and ferment food more than they should. This leads to gas, bloating, discomfort and other digestive nonsense.

So how do we support it?

👉 Feed it well – lots of different plant foods (aim for variety over perfection), fibre, colourful veg
👉 Include fermented foods – live yoghurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi (start gently if you’re sensitive)
👉 Don’t fear all bacteria – a bit of dirt, fresh air, normal life exposure is helpful
👉 Be mindful with antibiotics – sometimes essential, but they do wipe things out broadly, so gut support afterwards matters

Please note - if your gut is already very reactive, suddenly adding loads of fibre or fermented foods can make bloating worse before it gets better. Slow and steady wins here.

Things I see in clinic

This is the bit I love — real people, real shifts.

• The “nothing works” teenager
A teen struggling with bloating, low energy, pale, dark circles — written off as “just being a teenager”. We looked closely at her lifestyle, diet and exercise. She was generally eating well and loved her sport. But she also craved pasta and bread. Weirdly cravings are often a sign that we can’t tolerate something. We removed gluten. I’ll be honest – she wasn’t happy with me, but VERY quickly her energy improved, bloating stopped and her mood lifted. Over months her weight stabilised to one she was happy with.

• The asthmatic with bloating and pelvic pain
A 60 year old lady long-term rib restriction, poor diaphragm movement, probably due to her asthma but was also presenting with bloating and a pelvic floor pain that she couldn’t get rid of. After assessing the mechanics of her rib cage, tension in the abdominal fascia we spent a month working on her rib cage, breathing and abdominal fascia. At the end the bloating had stopped and her pelvic pain had gone.

Sometimes it’s not just what you eat — it’s how your body is functioning. It isn’t broken, it’s communicating.

A few simple hacks to start with

Tip 1:
Eat without distractions.
Look at your food.
Chew more than you think you need to.

Tip 2:
If needed, trial removing gluten (then dairy, then others — one at a time).

Tip 3:
Move your body.
Walking, yoga, swimming, running — all help stimulate gut movement.

And why bother?

Well, it’s free… and it might even save your life.

My 15-year-old was recently talking about the bloating symptoms she regularly experiences. She even asked my advice on how to stop it (a heady moment for a mum of a teenager). But she also mentioned that most of her school friends experience bloating too — and that they all see it as normal. Just a side effect of eating, life, or whatever explanation they’ve come up with.

When I explained that bloating is often a sign that something in the body isn’t doing its job properly, she point-blank refused to believe me. In full teenage mode she declared:

“It’s normal. It happens to everyone. It’s not a big deal”

Well… no. It doesn’t happen to everyone. And it is a big deal!

More on bloating in my next post. For now, back to being in our body.

When did ignoring what our body is telling us become normal? When did the body’s little tell-tale signs that something isn’t right become things we just brush aside?

I see reflections of this every week in clinic. People ignoring fatigue, pain, skin complaints, digestive issues — all treated as things to be tolerated. Often explained away as getting older, having a busy life, or “it runs in the family.”

Sometimes this happens out of fear:

• What if there is something serious going on?

• What can I do even if there is a problem?

And sometimes it’s simply that we struggle to look after number one when we’re busy looking after everyone else.

More worryingly though, I think it’s become cultural. We’ve moved so far away from trusting our instincts — and the wisdom of the people around us — that we no longer listen to what our bodies are telling us. We’re busy. We push through symptoms and just crack on.

And while there can be something admirable about stoicism, it should come from awareness — not avoidance.

If things get really bad, we might end up having an invasive test or procedure that shows something is irritated, inflamed, overworking or underperforming. At that point medication or further treatment is often required to suppress the symptoms. And of course, modern medicine has an incredibly important place.

But those early signals from the body — the ones we ignored along the way — often hold the clues that could have prevented things escalating in the first place.

Listening is where it starts.

When does it hurt?
When do I get that headache?
When does my knee flare up?
When do my stools become loose?
How stressed have I been?
How much exercise have I taken?

Be your own detective.

Small lifestyle changes can make an enormous difference.

Things I See in Clinic

Here are a few real examples from my clinic where small understandings made a huge difference.

The runner with ankle pain

A woman came in with ankle pain and numbness in her foot. Running was her passion, but she hadn’t been able to run for months and had a surgical consultation booked in a few weeks.

We went through the usual movement and neurological tests, but also talked about her daily habits — work, routine, lifestyle.

She worked from home on her sofa and had a habit of sitting with one leg tucked underneath her. That position was twisting and compressing her foot for hours each day.

Once she stopped sitting like that, the ankle pain resolved within a week. She was back running — and the surgical consultation was no longer needed.

Coffee and blood pressure

A 55-year-old man came in with high blood pressure and had been prescribed medication.

He had a demanding job and a very full life. But as we talked more, it emerged that he was drinking between seven and ten cups of coffee a day.

He cut down to one cup (there were some headaches while he detoxed the caffeine), began paying more attention to his stress levels, and started walking in nature regularly.

I kid you not — his blood pressure normalised.

His GP was delighted, and over time they reduced his medication.

Constipation and headaches

I’ve also seen many patients with constipation and headaches whose symptoms improve dramatically simply by moving more, drinking more water, and reducing tea and coffee.

Sometimes the body just needs the basics.

Prolonged symptoms should always be checked by a doctor. But while you wait, making small lifestyle changes can make dramatic positive changes.

More often than not, the answer lies somewhere in how we’re living.

And the earlier we notice the signals and make small adjustments, the less likely we are to need major interventions down the line.

As my mum would say: A stitch in time saves nine.

A couple of simple hacks

Try setting an alarm on your phone once or twice a day.

When it goes off, take three slow breaths. As you breathe out, bring your awareness to your body and notice where you might be holding tension or stress.

Attending classes such as Pilates or yoga — or any form of exercise — can also help reconnect you with your body. You might suddenly realise you can’t lift both arms equally, or that one leg feels weaker than the other.

Understanding how we are moving and interfacing with the world is the first step.

Because ultimately, you are your own first-call physician.

In my next post I’ll come back to the topic my teenage daughter raised — bloating — and why it’s one of the most common signals the body sends when something isn’t quite right