When I was young, I hated any form of exercise. That was part of a general hatred towards my body, with its general softness and roundness that appeared in adolescence alongside all the other joys that make being that age especially exciting.

My mum desperately tried to get me to do some exercise. Every Saturday morning, she drove me to a tennis lesson (and has since admitted how much of a pain that was for her, someone who had quite the active social life and would have preferred a lie-in instead). Every Saturday morning I stood on the court and put all my efforts into moving as little as possible to hit the ball for half an hour, before going back home to my self-hatred.

By 16, we all agreed that it was time to stop the tennis lessons for everyone’s sake. We agreed to try the gym instead, which I signed up for with my best friend. We got driven there, sat at the gym’s reception and chatted, and then were collected an hour later. I honestly don’t remember what we told our mums we did, but it probably amounted to something like a grunt, which is teenage for ‘good’ or ‘leave me alone’.

The pattern continues to early adulthood, with various unsuccessful attempts to actually go to the gym, and summers of going to the seaside but never actually setting foot on the beach, let alone swimming.

These days, going to the beach means going in the water and swimming so far out and for so long that my husband relies on checking for my red hair to ensure I’m still alive. These days, I’m happiest in the water or going for walks or making shapes on my mat. I hate running, but I also love it because it helps me get out of my head and release all the overthinking, negativity and overwhelm. I’ve even, shock horror, on occasion considered trying tennis or its trendy cousin, padel, again (I haven’t and probably never will).

Was yoga the gateway to this change? In my mid-20s, I signed up for a beginners Ashtanga course at a well-respected yoga studio in London that recently closed its doors, and loved it so much that I never stopped. My practice varies from year to year and season to season – I’ve written before about how right now I am more drawn to yin and restorative because I’m doing a lot of running and strength training, so a strong practice is not what I need from my yoga. But it’s always there.

Perhaps yoga gave me a glimpse of what it’s like to feel good in your body.

I know I’m not alone here. There is research showing that yoga can help us become more engaged with our health and to want to adopt a healthier lifestyle and broader broader health-promoting behaviours. This might resonate – research participants noted that they became more aware of their bodies, which meant that they noticed unhealthy behaviours and therefore had the opportunity to change them

Does this resonate? Is this something you experienced, with yoga or something else?

Try this

A short practice to connect with our body and explore it through writing; as always, approach it with friendly curiosity:

• Roll your shoulders back three times, and forward three times

• Circle your wrists three times

• Interlace your fingers and push the palms of your hands away from your chest, stretching the backs of your shoulders

• Interlace your fingers again, this time behind you, and squeeze your shoulder blades together

• Bring your hands together, rub them against each other, then place them on your chest, one hand on top of the other

• Close your eyes or soften them and simply feel your breath and the connection of hands with chest. Stay here for 2 minutes, or more if you like.

• When you finish, grab a pen and something to write on and make a list of things you noticed and things that surprised you

Let me know what you noticed in the comments.

Enjoyed this? I’m in the planning stage of an embodied writing circle for next year, a monthly space using Yoga Nidra and freewriting to play with creativity and gather insights. If you are intrigued, join the interest list and be the first to find out about it.

Workshops

Unwind and release: yin and self-massage workshop

A beautiful combination of myofascial release (self-massage with tennis balls) and yin poses to open up the body and release tension. We’ll explore different yin poses and the effects that self-massage has on each pose. We’ll end our practice with a deeply relaxing yoga nidra session.
Sunday 15 November, 2–4pm, at Sol Centre (N19)

Book to unwind

There are two parts to my answer.

1. Because people want quick, easy, simple answers and get bored when you offer nuance and complexity

2. Because I’m a scientist and could never promote something that I know is nonsense

Plus, it feels like a lot of work…

A few weeks ago, I had that stressful moment at the airport of my bag not arriving with me. Even more frustrating because I knew my bag had actually arrived with me (thank you Airtag) but somehow disappeared. What had happened was that someone mistook it for their bag (despite the two bags looking very different) – and to cut a long story short, I thankfully got it back after a few hours. The reason I share this story is that after a bit of snooping I discovered that said person was a wellness influencer. One with over 100,000 instagram followers, including some people I know. Ironically, they too recently posted about autumn journalling on Instagram.

I was pondering the alternative reality where I too had thousands of followers, when another conversation brought me to the conclusions I shared at the start of this post.

In this case, I got asked for advice on how to increase parasympathetic activation to tackle fatigue. The former is a phrase that every yoga teacher knows but somehow has seeped into normal discussion due to wellness influencers, alongside things like increased cortisol (which someone asked me about recently too) and how to boost your immune system (trust me, you don’t want it boosted, you want it balanced).

The thing is, I can just say: do yoga or another slow, mind–body practice. Or, do some breathing exercises, in particular long exhales, which are thought to activate the vagus nerve. These are all things that may activate the parasympathetic nervous system and bring you back to balance.

But the reality is that you need to do these things over a period of time. You need to practice regularly. You can’t just do them once and then all your problems are solved. (as an aside, you really don’t want to just have an active parasympathetic nervous system because you will basically be asleep all the time.) So they need to be things that you can stick to.

So instead, I asked: “What makes you feel relaxed?”

Is it listening to music? Is it having a bath? Is it having a massage? Do that. Commit to your self-care, whatever that looks like, but do it regularly. Unless medically indicated, multivitamins and supplements are unlikely to solve your problems. Most people don’t need them. I will admit to taking magnesium for sleep, but I don’t know that my magnesium gummies do anything beyond tasting nice and a bit of placebo effect.

My answer was apparently underwhelming. I guess I should have suggested a specific yoga prescription instead (“try these 3 things to definitely feel energetic within 3 days”). Or used some sort of energy field-reading machine to decide on a yoga prescription (don’t get me started on that one).

Or used tarot and oracle cards. Oh wait, maybe I should do that.

(should I?)

Workshops

A beautiful combination of myofascial release (self-massage with tennis balls) and yin poses to open up the body and release tension. We'll explore different yin poses and the effects that self-massage has on each pose. We'll end our practice with a deeply relaxing yoga nidra session.

Accessible for all levels. Bring massage balls if you have them, but tennis balls will be available.

Don’t miss the early bird rate and book by Sunday 18th October

Book me in

Yoga or sciency highlights

• I recently read “Savasana: between life and death” (personal interest and for my dissertation) and now I’m inspired to bring more savasana to my life and my teaching. Definitely not skipping it again!

• I’m never disappointed when I visit the Wellcome Collection, and the recent ‘Coming of age’ exhibition was no different. Lots of questions about what it means to get older, and fun artefacts from the past that remind us that we are not unique in trying to look younger.

• The Nobel prize for physiology and medicine has been awarded for the very cool discovery of optogenetics, which allows us to visualise the brain in very precise ways.

Mind–body science highlights

Yoga and other self-management strategies that help with menstrual cycle symptoms

Speaking of making recommendations – this systematic review looked at studies exploring the effectiveness of different self-management strategies for menstrual cycle symptoms (including cramps, bloating, heavy bleeding and low mood). Yoga was effective at reducing symptoms across all the studies, so it’s worth considering if you suffer from such symptoms. Other exercise was also useful, as were some supplements (eg vitamin D and zinc). The usual caveats apply, and it might be that yoga stood out because there were more studies on yoga than other physical practices.

Yoga and tai chi for balance

A couple of systematic reviews have both concluded that mind–body practices like yoga and tai chi are helpful for balance among the elderly. One focuses on tai chi specifically and the other on all mind–body practices, including tai chi and yoga. Both conclude that these practices improve balance overall, including static balance (ie when you are standing still) and dynamic balance (ie when you are moving, for example when you are walking). In both cases, they find that practice of around 1 hour is likely optimal.

Notably, the most recent review found that the practices are more effective in pre-frail adults compared with frail adults. Basically, start before you become frail, although you can still get benefits if you are already frail.

Mind–body exercises help with depression in the elderly

Another mind–body systematic review in the elderly, this time focusing on depression. Hilariously, this includes square dancing as an intervention (although I shouldn’t laugh, I’m sure it requires a lot of coordination). Tai chi actually fared the best among all the interventions, although it did have the most studies again so I’m not sure how accurate this is. Yoga also helps, but the authors of this study comment on the fact that it might not be very accessible to a lot of older people with mobility issues and doesn’t offer the same level of community interaction, which annoys me slightly because yoga can offer that too in the right settings (those of you who teach community classes for the elderly will know this).

It feels like a cliche to write this, but autumn is undoubtedly a season of changes. From our childhood conditioning of the start of the school year, to the very obvious changes in nature around us as leaves fall and trees turn rust, autumn signals transition and a letting go of the openness and carefree nature of summer.

It can also be a period of rushing and busyness, as all of these changes happen (again, cue childhood conditioning of the start of the school year and everything that goes with that) and we start to prepare ourselves for winter.

Often it can be helpful to give ourselves permission to pause and give our bodies and minds a bit more time to absorb and go through this transition.

I’m very excited to be running a workshop next Sunday, welcoming autumn through movement, stillness and embodied writing (or journalling if you prefer the term). Writing in particular can be helpful to make sense of our experience of the changes of autumn and putting this into words.

There are a few spots remaining for our small and intimate gathering, which will include:

• Gentle yoga, followed by still and introspective yin yoga

• A guided autumnal meditation of yoga nidra, infused with mindful words and images

• Plus time to reflect after each practice, through guided journalling (using prompts) and small group discussions (with optional sharing)

When

Sunday 4 October, 2–4pm

Where

The beautiful, light-filled studio Sol Centre

216 Fairbridge Road
London, N19 3HT

Cost

£35 (but contact me if price is an issue)

Let's welcome autumn together

A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching an introduction to yoga nidra for a cohort of 200hr yoga students. I talked about the usual insights I’ve gathered over the years, regarding the evidence on mental health, sleep and wellbeing more broadly. And then, one of the students asked:

That’s kind of an exciting question to receive because it’s a space that also really intrigues me. I had to contain myself from going on and on about this and stay focused on the content I had to deliver.

As a writer, I have experimented with yoga nidra as part of my process. For example, while I was writing a novel (a novel that I never finished but that’s a conversation for another time, perhaps one I will pick up again in the future), I used to join an online co-writing group in the afternoon. I always started my writing hour with yoga nidra, and then with a clearer mind and a bit of dozy inspiration got into my novel writing. Just yesterday, I followed a short practice and then worked on a poem for my poetry group tomorrow (a poem about the vagus nerve!). And I’ve included yoga nidra as a key step in the creative therapeutic writing process that I’ve designed for my MSc dissertation.

So, is there something about yoga nidra that could help creativity?

Writers, and I’m sure other artists too, use embodied practices as part of their process, whether that’s going for a walk or practicing a short meditation.

Yoga nidra-catalysed writing has some interesting parallels with automatic writing, a surrealist practice for creativity that aimed to tap into the unconscious (or subconscious) – just visit this link and scroll down to where the method is described. It sounds very similar to yoga nidra followed by free-writing (or drawing or other art-making).

Recently, a study actually evaluated the effects of yoga nidra on creativity (among other, more usual things like wellbeing). Their research suggests that yoga nidra could help us be more creative – after 3 weeks of yoga nidra, their admittedly small group of participants showed improvements in creativity scores across a variety of different tests.

Why might yoga nidra support creativity?

Altered state of consciousness: There is some evidence (albeit small) that yoga nidra leads to an altered state of consciousness, with brain wave changes aligned with rich imagination, creativity and problem solving (theta and delta waves).

Silencing our inner editor: This yoga nidra state (which might parallel what the surrealists were trying to achieve in their practice), could help support different ways of thinking, including suppressing our constant inner critic and allowing us to create more freely.

Increasing divergent thinking: This term can be confusing because of its similarity to neurodivergence. But all it means is the type of thinking that’s aligned with our ability to to brainstorm and think of lots of ideas and/or solutions. The other type of thinking is called convergent thinking, and it’s what we use to problem-solve (ie it’s much more focused).

Improved mood: Yoga nidra has been shown to improve our mood and make us feel more positive when practiced consistently. It is possible that this might enhance creativity.

I’ve run a number of workshops before that have tapped into yoga nidra as an entry point to creative exploration. Participants have told me that they found that the sense of calm and focus helped them engage very deeply with the writing exercises. And have been surprised by what they have come up with!

Want to try for yourself?

Welcoming autumn – a yoga and wellbeing writing workshop

There is still time to book and join me in an exploration of the interface between embodied practices (including yoga nidra) and gentle reflective writing. All will be infused with mindful words and prompts from poetry specifically selected for autumn.

• Everyone is welcome, no yoga or writing experience necessary

• Writing can be whatever you want it to be: words, phrases, doodles, scratchings on the page, or if you want to play with another creative practice you can

• Sharing of writing will be completely optional

Sunday 4 October, 2–4pm, at Sol Centre (N19)

Early bird (£28) extended to 20 September; full price £35

Let's play together

Unwind and release: yin and self-massage workshop

A beautiful combination of myofascial release (self-massage with tennis balls) and yin poses to open up the body and release tension. We’ll explore different yin poses and the effects that self-massage has on each pose. We’ll end our practice with a deeply relaxing yoga nidra session.

Early bird (£28) ends 18 October

Sunday 15 November, 2–4pm, at Sol Centre (N19)

Book to unwind

Last weekend I was lucky enough to make it to Paris for Rock en Seine and see the Cure for the second time this summer (2+ hours of amazing music!) alongside lots of other great bands (including new-to-me bands, which is the fun of festivals). I say lucky because it was sold out, my friend got us tickets on the resale site, they sent us the wrong tickets, and then just as we were about to cancel the whole trip she managed to get us tickets for the right dates on the resale site. Phew!

Towards the end of the set, they played “The last day of summer”, more or less marking the end of what I’m sure we can agree has been an intense weather summer. And despite our constant complaining about how hot it’s been (and how can anyone say climate change isn’t real because, seriously, just look around), despite our prayers for much-needed rain, I felt a strong sense of sadness and grief for another summer finishing.

I can’t help it. I’m a summer baby after all. Last summer, I wrote a poem about my dying sunflowers as a way to capture this summer ending grief (you can read it on the Phases issue of Field notes, including the science that loosely inspired it).

It’s interesting to pause and notice how we respond to these changes, not just cognitively but also in our bodies. In yoga, and especially in the practice of focusing, there’s an invitation to approach these feelings gently and with friendly curiosity – this means, not trying to change them or make them go away, but sit with them and maybe even listen to what they might have to say. Often, writing them down can be a helpful way to indulge this curiosity.

If you are intrigued by focusing, I recommend this introduction to focusing course, which starts in a few weeks.

Let’s try this together

A short autumn reflection writing practice (you can do this seated or standing); approach it with friendly curiosity:

• Roll your shoulders back three times, and forward three times

• Circle your wrists three times, and then your ankles three times

• Take a big breath in and lift your arms up to point to the ceiling, then when you breathe out, bend your body and arms towards the right

• Take another big breath in, bring your arms back to point to the ceiling, then when you breathe out, bend your body and arms towards the left

• Bring your shoulders to your ears, and then drop them down with a strong exhale; try this twice

• Close your eyes or soften them and just feel your breath coming in and out without trying to change it, counting down from 10 every time you exhale. Repeat 3 times (so 3 rounds of 10 exhales, 30 breaths) or more if you like.

• When you finish, grab a pen and something to write on and make a list of 10 things you associate with autumn, then pick 1 and write about that for 3 minutes (or more), incorporating sensations you might notice in your body as you write

• OR you can try an AUTUMN acrostic: write AUTUMN vertically down on the left side of your page, and then use each letter as the first letter of a word or a longer line

Let me know what you noticed.

Enjoyed this? I’ve got an autumn yoga and reflective writing workshop coming up in October. See below for details.

Workshops!

Welcoming autumn – a yoga and wellbeing writing workshop

Transition into autumn with a workshop of grounding, embodied practices. We'll start with a gentle yoga session, then drop into the stillness of yin yoga, followed by yoga nidra, a practice of deep rest. All will be infused with mindful words and prompts from poetry specifically selected for autumn. We'll close with some reflective writing (using prompts) to capture the feeling of the practice and of autumn into words. Sharing of writing will be completely optional.

Sunday 4 October, 2–4pm, at Sol Centre (N19)

Early bird ends 13 September!

Step into autumn

Unwind and release: yin and self-massage workshop

A beautiful combination of myofascial release (self-massage with tennis balls) and yin poses to open up the body and release tension. We'll explore different yin poses and the effects that self-massage has on each pose. We'll end our practice with a deeply relaxing yoga nidra session.
Sunday 15 November, 2–4pm, at Sol Centre (N19)

Book to unwind

In other news…

• Next year is dissertation year for my MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes – which for me will look at exploring existential questions through a lens of yoga, focusing and poetry therapy. I am thinking of starting a new publication to write about that (and somehow keep the topics a little more separate). Is this something you would be interested in reading?

• One of my poems has been published in an anthology! A very interesting concept, as we all used the same last line but have produced such different writing. If you like short prose and poetry, you can buy it here. (I get zero royalties, just the joy of being in an anthology)

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Mind–body science highlights

Yoga nidra and music therapy both help mental health and wellbeing

This is a question I often have – is yoga nidra any different to lying down and listening to relaxing music? This study suggests that there probably isn’t a huge difference. The scientists compared the two but specifically for patients who had been recently hospitalised for COVID-19. Both yoga nidra and music therapy helped the patients sleep and feel psychologically better, and both were better than standard care. Music therapy was better for improving sleep though, and yoga nidra a little better at improving wellbeing. This was a fairly small study (30 participants in each intervention, 90 in total), and participants had to practice yoga nidra or music therapy every day for 30 minutes, which is quite a lot.

Strong evidence that physical activity, including yoga, could help with peri- and post-natal depression

In an analysis of other reviews (a meta-meta-analysis, which means it’s even stronger than a normal meta-analysis of research studies), yoga was found to help reduce symptoms of depression during pregnancy (perinatal depression) and after birth (postnatal depression). Similar results were found for walking and ‘mixed physical activity’. There is less evidence in anxiety (ie there have been way more studies in depression than in anxiety), but the authors conclude that the effects are likely to be similar.

Mind–body practices (and mindfulness) help in PMS

This systematic review presents preliminary evidence that yoga, Qi Gong and mindfulness-based interventions (mindfulness-based stress reduction, or MBSR, specifically) can all be beneficial for pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS). Some of the things they looked at were blood pressure, inflammation, pain and mental health (including anxiety) – regulation of stress is likely a key part of why they help (as always). I’m sharing the image from the paper, where they’ve summarized how they think these practices could help BUT I do have huge caveats; while this was a systematic review (ie the strongest type of evidence), it only analysed a very small number of studies.

Until next time!

I love attending talks and conferences because I always leave with renewed excitement about the topic. So it’s no surprise that I left the most recent Yoga Research Network half-day conference “The role of Yoga in Psychological Therapy”, organised by Westminster University, feeling driven to help more people discover mind–body practices as a way to support their mental health.

I was excited to actually bump into some familiar faces, including my lovely teacher colleague from Sol centre.

I would distill the day down to this simple message: psychological conditions don’t just involve the mind, but also the body. Anxiety (which was the focus of this conference) is strongly tied with the stress response (a biological response). Stress and overwhelm are obviously tied with the stress response. Depression has links to inflammation. Ignoring the body in psychological therapy misses out half the picture.

I’ll share an example. I actually have tons from my own experience, but I wanted to share this one because it was just so impactful for me to watch what a difference embodiment made for someone else right in front of my eyes (I hope they won’t mind me sharing).

I practice focusing, an embodied practice like yoga that invites dialoguing with sensations in the body, and getting insights (and hopefully release) on what’s going on. My focusing partner (focusing is practiced in pairs) was struggling that day, and the simple invitation of placing a gentle hand on their chest and staying with their breath was apparently more effective than the talk therapy they’d had that day.

Beyond the experiential, the clinical evidence for yoga and other mind–body practices in this space is growing, and so I’ll echo the sentiment that guidelines and recommendations really need to be updated to include things beyond CBT.

The Minded Institute is trying to organise an evidence collection to support bringing yoga for the treatment of GAD, or generalised anxiety disorder, into the NICE guidelines). You can get in touch with them directly if you are involved in research or other evidence collection in this space.

Conference highlights

Sat Bir Singh Khalsa

Talked about clinical research in anxiety (and specifically GAD, which is the most prevalent mental health condition in the UK). This includes his group’s work exploring the effectiveness of (Kundalini) yoga and CBT for GAD, which I’ve written about before here, here and most recently here (this used to be a paid post but I’ve made it free for all).

As a quick summary:

• Both yoga and CBT are effective for GAD

• CBT tends to be more effective than yoga (but that doesn’t mean that yoga is not good, because, as he noted, CBT is only effective for some anyway)

• Adding yoga to CBT makes it even more effective than CBT alone

Melissa O’Shea

Discussed work that her group has done on integrating yoga to CBT for various psychological conditions, including anxiety, which has shown promising results. Of particular interest was work indicating, again, that adding yoga to CBT makes it more effective than CBT alone, likely due to the added mindfulness element.

Alison Bennets

Presented her interesting model that parallels specific elements of yoga practice (the yamas and the niyamas) with the general mental health processes needed to drive psychological improvement. In essence, it directly compares how yoga creates these mental changes to how traditional talk therapy works.

Kielsey Wiemer

Built on what was discussed at the start of the day by exploring how therapeutic yoga elements can be incorporated into CBT practice, and her informal evidence from training CBT students that this helps transform their practice. One thing that really stayed with me from this talk is how important it is to ground at the start of a therapy session, and probably any session – I’ve found this helpful personally and also when I’ve led writing for wellbeing sessions.

Let’s try something together

Just a short grounding and reflection practice for you to try:

• Take three rolls of your shoulders back, and three rolls of your shoulders forwards

• Bring your shoulders to your ears, and then drop them down with a strong exhale; try this twice

• Close your eyes or soften then and just feel your breath coming in and our without trying to change it, counting down from 10 every time you exhale. Repeat 3 times (so 3 rounds of 10 exhales, 30 breaths) or more if you like.

• When you finish, grab a pen and something to write on and make a list of things you noticed. For example:

  • Softening in my shoulders

  • A cloudy sensation around my head

  • A lightness in my hands

  • The light behind my eyelids

Coming up…

Yin 200hour teacher training

I’m teaching two sessions on this exciting teacher training next month. If you are a student on this course, I’ll see you there for more on stress and the immune system, and on yoga nidra.

Workshops

I have two workshops coming up at Sol centre, details coming soon but briefly:

• Yoga, yoga nidra and reflective writing (October)

• Yoga and self-massage/myofascial release (November)

Until next time!

Last weekend was the end of the taught part of my MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes.

When I decided to sign up 2 years ago, I knew it was a bit of a crazy thing to do. In fact, I couldn’t help but think about a Facebook post just over 10 years ago, while I was studying for exams for MSc number 2, where I had asked for someone to remind me of that moment the next time I decided to embark on an MSc. My dad had volunteered to challenge me if he was still alive – double irony of course, because he wasn’t around to stop me; and his death, and how much writing helped me through it, was what made me decide to sign up.

It sounds like a cliche to say that it has been a transformative experience, but it’s true. I’ve had similar experiences on various yoga teacher trainings and retreats, when you connect very strongly with those around you, especially when the teacher creates the right kind of space (most of you are yoga teachers so you’ll know what I am talking about).

The reality is, this was more. A big part of it was the writing itself, putting emotions into words, making them real, concrete, letting them go. But sharing – sharing your words, your writing, means sharing your inner a world in a way that I personally can’t do verbally. It means being and feeling really seen. (by the most amazing group of women by the way, who I am grateful for for being there with me the past 2 years)

Some of the valuable things I learned (the text in quotes is from a writing exercise we did on our last day):

• That sharing writing is a key part of the therapeutic process; “sharing is half, if not more, of the act, that it makes you feel seen”

• That writing can be an embodied practice, more so when it’s combined with something like yoga, and this can be an interesting way to explore your inner world

• “That learning is my purpose”, so really, when I sign up for the next thing, I can’t help myself (sorry dad, you made a geek)

• “That identities are fluid, and who you were doesn’t have to define who you are”

I’m going to miss our weekends, especially the in-person ones, and all the writing and creative output. But I’m excited for my dissertation next year too – the last bullet refers to my journey in picking a topic for my dissertation research, and allowing myself to not be scientist and instead do something different.

News, workshops, etc

Sleep and yoga

I wrote an article for MoreYoga on how yoga can support our sleep, with a few ideas on what you could do to incorporate more sleep-supporting yoga in your life.

Read it

Workshops

Nothing through the summer, but a couple of things coming up in the autumn/winter at Sol Centre! (including some yoga–writing elements)

I’m also exploring the idea of doing some online yoga–writing workshops, per your feedback last time.

Mind–body science highlights

Mind–body practices and exercise are all effective for anxiety and depression

This was a systematic review and meta-analysis consolidating the findings of studies looking at physical activity on depression and anxiety. The activities were: yoga, Tai Chi, pilates, resistance training, aerobic exercise, combined exercise, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT; this is apparently things like jogging and swimming). All were effective for anxiety and depression, although highly notable that yoga was among the top three most effective interventions (the other two being HIIT and MICT). But overall, it seems, unsurprisingly, that physical activity is good for mental health and it might be worth sticking to whichever one you prefer.

Yoga might be a good idea for those living in nursing homes

This is a tiny study but interesting, because they found that participants who practiced yoga (18) twice a week for 10 weeks felt less depressed and had improvements in their heart rate variability scores (a measure of resilience), compared with those who did nothing (control group, also 18 participants). Obviously it would be better to run a larger study to confirm this finding, but it does mean that gentle yoga classes in nursing homes could help support mental wellbeing.

Mind–body practices may help perinatal women sleep better

Speaking of sleep – this systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that mind–body practices (mindfulness, yoga and pilates) helped to improve sleep among perinatal women (ie women who are pregnant or up to one year after giving birth). This is good news as sleep is often disturbed in this group. However, the authors put forward the usual caveats of low-quality studies and low certainty of the evidence. (still, likely worth trying anyway)

Until next month!

A while back a student approached me, sharing that she hadn’t practiced for a couple of days and could really feel it. “Do you practice every day?” she asked.

In a conversation with a friend, I was asked, “How often do you actually practice, not including yoga nidra?”

These questions come up often. People assume that, as a yoga teacher, I have a very strict, physical, active and daily practice. Some of my teacher friends certainly do. The other day, two teacher friends shared the classes they had taken over the previous week (daily, and mostly very active). I know others (ashtangis mostly) have a strong daily self-practice.

Which makes me feel a bit guilty about my own practice. Or it used to anyway.

For a while, I too had a strong, almost daily practice.

But at some point I realised I probably needed to do some cardio as yoga really doesn’t raise my heart rate. So I started running. A reluctant runner, I go through phases of running a lot, like last summer (where I thought I might start training for a half after managing 14K runs), and running a bit (like today, a short 3.5K).

I also realised that I need to do more strength training, especially as I get older. So I started doing that too, and these days that’s twice a week of mostly weight lifting. (In case you’re wondering, yoga has made me strong too. I seem to have the strongest core out of everyone who goes to that class.)

So, while I do enjoy a physical practice (that’s what got me into yoga in the first place), right now what I need is a bit slower and gentler to balance out my other activities. Like a short, somatics-style practice in the morning (before my journalling) and yin before bed (or in bed, which is what I’ve been doing recently). Or a simple pranayama and meditation (which I am bad at sticking to but I do try). And of course, yoga nidra.

How has your practice changed over the years?

News/updates/etc

Actually, not that much to report. I’ve been very busy with work and travel (hence the lack of newsletter last month), so a lot of my projects are on hold right now. But here’s a list of things I’m working on/exploring:

• A mind–body journal, which combines short embodied practices and journalling prompts to encourage a deeper inner sense and body connection. More on this soon! (just need to have a teeny bit more time, sigh)

• An embodied writing therapy approach that combines yoga nidra, poetry and something called focusing, which is amazing and I will write about at some other point. This is currently my MSc dissertation idea, and I’ll be looking for willing participants (more on this again soon, but if you are interested do drop me a note)

Plus brainstorming ideas for workshops and other offerings. I’ve put a little poll below – Substack has turned it into a riddle by cutting the ends off but hopefully you get the idea.

Mind–body research highlights

Yoga nidra helps with menstrual disorders

A systematic review and meta-analysis concludes that yoga nidra can be helpful for women who experience menstrual disorders, including improvements in quality of life. BUT this isn’t open-access, which means I only have access to the abstract. Which is veeeerrrry annoying because the abstract doesn’t specify exactly what they found yoga nidra to be helpful for, or what studies they used. (If you do have access, please please send it to me. I’m planning to join IAYT and should get access to it with that, but I don’t at the moment).

Yoga can help improve quality of life in breast cancer

Another systematic review, this time looking specifically at yoga for cancer – the evidence suggests that yoga is effective at improving quality of life in this population (as were all the interventions tested, including Qi Gong, resistance and aerobic training). Yoga in particular appeared to have a more targeted effect on psychological wellbeing. Tai chi seemed to be the most effective of the mind–body interventions.

Yoga (and Qi Gong) for depression

Yet another review (this time an umbrella one, which synthesizes systematic reviews) – this looked at the effectiveness of mind–body activities on depression in older adults. Qi gong was particularly effective here and was deemed to have the most meaningful effect (ie the most consistent across studies), although both yoga and tai chi could help reduce depression in this population (but had more varied results).

Yoga in healthcare – opinions

This might be of interest to anyone working in healthcare or with an interest in healthcare. It’s a survey of US yoga professionals, exploring their views on yoga in healthcare.

Until next month! (I hope)

During the pandemic, I spent a lot of time thinking about the science of yoga, as those of you who’ve been reading my work for a while know (and if you don’t, I have a back catalogue of blog posts for you). I also did a lot of yoga teacher trainings. Two would be pivotal in shaping my interests today. One would teach me about the science that I spent 3 years doing a PhD in, finally marrying some of my interests.

The science was psychoneuroimmunology, which marries psychology, neuroscience and immunology. If you’ve been here before (or been to any of the workshops I have been running with Melanie Cooper), you know what an obsession this is.

Yoga and the mind–body connection

In simple terms, psychoneuroimmunology is the mind–body connection: experiencing stress (psychological or physical) activates the stress response in our body, which influences our immune system. This triggers inflammation, which is a response that is normally helpful for keeping us healthy by clearing out pathogens and other harms, but when it becomes chronic it can lead to a number of health problems, including heart disease, metabolic disease like type 2 diabetes and neurodegeneration. These are themselves ‘stressors’, creating a feedback loop that keeps this response going.

The reason I became excited was learning that yoga practices can disrupt this cycle and support our health and wellbeing. I’ve written extensively before about the wealth of evidence showing that yoga practices can help to tackle psychological stress as well as mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, but also direct evidence that they can help to reduce inflammation, which in part explains why they have beneficial effects across a wide range of health conditions.

I’ve written more about this here.

Moving beyond yoga: writing as a mind–body practice

When I first started my MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (or badly named CWTP), I didn’t intend to fall back down in the mind–body rabbit hole. My interest had been mainly driven by the mental health benefits I experienced through writing, primarily poetry and journaling, in particular working through my grief after my dad died and my general existential dread and death anxiety.

Converting an experience into language can support mental health

And yet, somehow, I was pulled back in. Just like with yoga practices, there is evidence that writing can have mental health benefits, in particular in the context of stress, anxiety and depression.

James Pennebaker’s seminal work, for example, showed that writing about a difficult event can help to soften challenging emotions. Pennebaker developed an intervention called ‘expressive writing’, which involves writing for 20 minutes, for 4 consecutive days, about a stressful, difficult or traumatic experience. Others have evolved this into enhanced expressive writing (which is done alongside therapy) and positive expressive writing (which involves writing about positive emotions or things you are grateful for, a common intervention in positive psychology).

I’ve tried it myself: after a difficult experience (not traumatic but stressful), I wrote about it every day in my journal. By day 3 I was kind of done with it – it no longer felt as intense as it did when I started.

Pennebaker has put forward many reasons for this. Beyond simply translating an experience into language, it could help to offer insights into why something may have happened, it could offer closure, and, in my opinion crucial, distance and perspective. The latter is similar to the “view from above” stoicism exercise, where watching an experience from a distance can help to give you perspective and lessen the impact of whatever is troubling you.

Writing and sharing can improve our physical wellbeing

We took a small detour, but now we’re back to psychoneuroimmunology.

Because, Pennebaker and others have found that writing practices also influence the physical element of wellbeing, in particular the immune system.

For example, studies testing creative and expressive writing have reported enhanced immune function and health benefits such as reduced symptoms in conditions like arthritis and asthma (which are driven by overactive immune responses). Studies have also found improved responses among patients who were HIV-positive (see, for example, here).

Why would writing have such effects? It’s the mind–body connection in action.

Just like yoga, this kind of writing works on our stress response, essentially influencing our mind to then work on our bodies. Putting emotions into words, reframing negative feelings and sharing with others can make us feel better, regulating the stress response and bringing our immune system back to balance (which then hopefully means better health overall).

And, just like yoga, a (therapeutic) writing practice could help to make us more resilient – one study found that a bibliotherapy intervention (that’s book therapy, which is probably the best kind of therapy that ever existed) improved resilience among university students.

Of course, as usual, I have massive caveats. The studies are, like usual, small and not very rigorous. There is also some evidence that the inconsistencies between studies are driven by whether the writing was self-led or guided by a facilitator (which likely influences inconsistencies in yoga studies too).

But still, how about that? All the things that Rachel loves, coming together: yoga, writing and immunology!

What happens when you combine the two?

This post came about because I’ve been thinking about my MSc research.

Now, there is a different world, probably one where I’m about 10 years younger (I assume that’s when psychoneuroimmunology became a thing) where I research the psychoneuroimmunology of writing and of combining writing and yoga practices.

In reality, it’s been almost 20 years (gulp!) since I set foot in a lab, and I wouldn’t trust myself with a pipette or a centrifuge (and obviously there’s the practicalities of not having a lab, funding or a research advisor).

So I’ve had to tame my expectations and refocus on the qualities that working from the body could bring to writing, and how this could affect our wellbeing.

I will be looking for participants, so if you’re up for it, let me know!

On that note – I am planning something exciting that hopefully I’ll get my shit together and finish soon. But in the meantime, if you fancy trying out some embodied writing, here’s a little sneak peek:

• If possible, start standing, but you can also do this seated. Roll your ankles, point and flex your toes.

• Come up onto your tiptoes a few times, really feeling the contact of your feet when you come down.

• Press them down firmly on the ground, spreading your toes, finding a sense of rooting.

• Now close your eyes and bring your attention to your feet. Notice any sensations that come up. Stay here for 3 minutes, or more if you like. You can stand in a mountain pose or you can sit.

• Now open your eyes and pick up your pen or pencil. Use the prompt “Grounded feels like” and start writing.

I had a moment a few weeks ago when I thought I was done with the yoga world. Like seriously so so over it. So over the:

• Bad pay

• The constant marketing

• The Instagram personas (or pressure to be one)

• The trendy class types (that you somehow feel that you need to train in and teach to be relevant)

• The auditions/cover lists for ever/here’s a class at 6am/the please-give-me-a-class feeling of losing confidence ie becoming a completely different person to how you are among normal humans

Ok so something did happen that pushed me over the edge. I wrote a rant poem about it (which I thought about turning to a real poem but haven’t, yet anyway) because expressive writing is a fabulous tool to let go of emotions.

I considered giving up teaching.

And then I concluded that I love it too much, despite it being such a bitch. Or maybe it’s the sunk–cost fallacy (the feeling of sticking with something because you’ve invested a ton of time or money on it already, aka a sunk cost).

Maybe it’s the yoga world. Or maybe it’s just winter, because seriously this lack of sunshine and constant rain has been a real drag this year.

Any other yoga teachers feel this way?

Mind–body journalling sneak peak

Apologies for the ranty post this month. I blame the weather.

But here’s something to make up for it. I’ve been playing with a project idea that combines embodied movement (yoga-inspired) and journalling, and I’ve been enjoying it loads. It’s added a new, interesting quality to my morning journalling and I think has helped my mood overall despite my earlier comments.

Want to give it a go? I’ll be posting more about it soon, but if you want a little taster:

Let’s create some space in our body.

• Take 5 circles with your neck one direction, and then the other direction

• Roll your shoulders back 5 times, and forward 5 times

• Float your arms up with an inhale, and on the exhale bend to the right, stretching your side. Then inhale back to centre, and on the exhale bend to the left. Do that 2 more times.

• Now close your eyes, and notice the feeling of space on your upper body. Sit with this feeling for a couple of minutes.

Writing prompt ideas:

Write for 5 minutes, without thinking about it or stopping to edit using one or both of the prompts below (or something else that resonates)

• I notice… Describe sensations in your upper back and chest, including textures, colours, possibilities.

• Spacious feels like….

News

I’m teaching a couple of sessions in this exciting 200 hour yin yoga teacher training, starting next month!

If you love yin yoga and want to teach it, but don’t want to do a regular 200 hour teacher training and then wait to do a further yin training, this one’s for you.

My teaching will be focused on yoga and stress, as well as an introduction to yoga nidra, with an emphasis on the simple 10-minute practice that I’ve talked about at length previously.

Tell me more

Mind–body research highlights

Not a lot of interesting work this month but here are a couple of things to look at:

Yoga nidra and body scan effective for pain management

This study compared the immediate and 24-hour effects of a single 45-minute session of yoga nidra versus body scan meditation on 23 adults with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Both interventions led to significant reductions in pain intensity and pain-related anxiety that were sustained for 24 hours. But yoga nidra was better at improving wellbeing that the body scan. Important to note that this is a tiny tiny sample size, and a single session (instead of running multiple sessions over several weeks, the standard being repeating at least three times).

Sound meditation for a sharp mind?

One for the sound meditation enthusiasts. Researchers looked at how a specific type of rhythmic sound meditation affects the brain compared to just sitting quietly. Using brain scans (EEG), they discovered that the meditation actually dialed down activity across all types of brain waves, especially in the areas responsible for focus and decision-making. Nearly everyone in the sound meditation group felt much more awake and alert, whereas those who rested just felt tired. This suggests that listening to rhythmic sounds during meditation can help quiet the brain while keeping the mind sharp and focused. But again, tiny study (15 participants) and all male.

Until next time!

Despite being tired and having to wake up extra early for my MSc today (Saturday), and despite it being super cold outside again (feels like sub-zero), I went for a run this morning. The sun was actually shinning for a change (see photo, it’s been very elusive in London this year); and that plus listening to nu metal meant that by the end of my run I felt a lot more positive than when I went out. In fact, a lot more positive than I’ve been feeling all week.

Nu metal is always my music of choice when I need to feel better, especially when I’m running. And according to the book I’m currently reading, this kind of music can actually help to improve mood, at least if you like it (here’s also a TED talk on this topic, the focus is heavy metal, but assuming same conclusions apply).

The book in question is the Art Cure, which has been a fascinating look into how art affects our health and wellbeing, including our physiology. Music is a key part of that, whether it’s classical, pop, indie disco or metal. For many of us it’s an important emotional companion, can help us get into our bodies more and also improve our ‘performance’ (which to be fair is not something I care about that much but I do think I run faster when I’m listening to music than when I am listening to a podcast or book).

The latter two points are a bit of a nod to why I personally love music alongside my yoga practice, and why for a long time I loved a certain kind of yoga style (4 beat) that relies heavily on a musically soundtrack to synchronise breath and movement.

In many ways, well-selected music helps to enter into a flow state more easily and be fully immersed in the body and practice.

Are you a yoga purist (no music) or do you find that music enhances your practice?

News, updates etc

If you joined the Creative Reset, thank you! I hope you enjoyed playing with yoga nidra and creativity. I’d love to hear how to make this more accessible to more of you, so I’d be grateful for some feedback.

New Insight Timer course!

I’ve recorded a new course for Insight Timer, which includes four practices aiming to help with your sleep. Check it out, alongside my other two courses.

If you don’t subscribe to Insight Timer, don’t worry, I have quite a few free tracks on there, including two brand new ones (here and here) that are specifically designed for sleep – they are over 8 hours long to keep you company through the night.

New class starts soon

My new Monday night yin class starts on the 23rd of February at the beautiful Sol Centre. If you live in North London, check out the free classes on the opening weekend, and don’t miss out on the special offers over the next few weeks.

Mind–body science highlights

Mind–body practices improve stress and more among healthcare workers

This review article consolidates the findings of studies on the effects of different mind–body interventions (eg yoga, MBSR, breathwork) among healthcare workers who had reported feeling very stressed. Overall, mind–body interventions had positive effects on stress, and longer programmes (8–12 weeks) improved heart rate and blood pressure (but surprisingly not heart rate variability). The usual caveats apply, including the fact that the studies were very variable.

Yoga nidra helps reduce post-partum depression

This is actually not a bad-sized study, and it was controlled, which is always good news. The study included 100 women, 50 of which received 8 yoga nidra sessions over 4 days (so practicing twice a day, 30 minutes each time), and 50 of which received nothing (control group). The group that received yoga nidra showed a significant reduction in depression, as measured by a depression questionnaire (EPDS), and their depression score was also significantly lower than that of the control group.

Yoga-led gut microbiota changes in Alzheimer’s

Now, I’m not going to lie, I’m quite sceptical of this one – it’s a small study (33 participants only), and I don’t have access to the paper so I can only read the abstract. But I’m sharing it because it’s quite interesting (and perhaps someone will at some point do a larger study that is more convincing).

Patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease practiced yoga for an hour every day for 12 weeks. After the 12 weeks, they showed improvements in their cognition (thinking) and a reduction in depression. What’s more interesting though is that they also had changes to the diversity of their gut microbiota towards ‘normal’ and more similar to the control group, which did not have Alzheimer’s and were cognitively healthy. This links yoga to healthy changes in the gut microbiota, and a healthy gut microbiota to improvements in cognition and depression.

Until next month!

We’re doing things the wrong way round this month – I really wanted to write a longer post about one of last month’s studies and simply ran out of time in January.

The study tried to answer a rather big question: what should you be doing to improve your wellbeing?

What even is wellbeing?

This was actually a question in a survey I recently completed and a question we discussed in my MSc. What was interesting was that, in the latter case (and I imagine the former too), we all defined wellbeing differently. My instinctive response in both cases was a bit of a self-fulfilling mind–body answer, ie that wellbeing is a combination of physical and mental health, which impacts our quality of life.

But the definition can be wider than this (And in hindsight, when I think about it, I wonder how I landed on such a narrow definition. Perhaps I am too literal).

For example, some models of wellbeing focus on a sense of purpose or meaning in life (this is called the eudaimonic model of wellbeing, from the greek for ‘good spirit’). The positive psychology model of wellbeing, called PERMA, incorporates social connection and relationships into wellbeing (PERMA includes positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment). This is also in line with the Harvard study on happiness. I guess in these cases, what the models are trying to do is highlight what ingredients need to be in place to achieve wellbeing as a state.

The authors of this study have developed their own model of wellbeing, called GENIAL, which incorporates our relationship with the environment alongside self and community as key determinants of wellbeing – a very holistic way of looking at wellbeing!

We have summarized well-being as a connection to the self, others and planet

What interventions are best at supporting our wellbeing?

One of the key drivers of this study is that often we look at interventions in a very dualistic way, which means that we separate out interventions that help out physical health or our mental health and ignore the fact that the two are connected.

But if you are here, you probably already recognise how connected our minds and our bodies are. For example, I’ve written a lot about how yoga practices help to improve our mental health (for example, managing our stress or anxiety), which in turn helps to support a healthier immune system. In reality the distinction between so-called ‘psychological’ interventions (like gratitude lists or cognitive behavioural therapy) and ‘physical’ interventions (like exercise or mind–body activities including yoga) is a little blurry.

So what these researchers did is look at all types of interventions, and evaluate the evidence behind them (and against their GENIAL model) through a systematic review and meta-analysis. This is a super-powerful type of study because it combines and re-analyses the findings of lots of studies, which makes the results much more convincing (especially given that, as we know, in many cases studies do tend to be small and badly designed). In this case, this was 183 studies out of an initial pool of around 9,000.

Physical exercise combined with psychological interventions is best, but yoga is pretty impressive too

You may remember this graph from last month – essentially, the further away from 0, the best the intervention is in terms of being effective at improving our wellbeing.

There are a few points worth pulling out here:

Most of these interventions are effective at improving our wellbeing, which means that they are all worth doing and also that there are many ways to get to a wellbeing outcome. The nature-based interventions didn’t do so well but the authors believe this might have more to do with the quality of the evidence they analysed than an actual effect of nature-based interventions.

Yoga and mindfulness do really well. You can see that they are very much at the top of this graph. You can also see that mindfulness has the biggest body of evidence (this is the number of participants on the very right), which gives me even more confidence in the finding.

Exercise and psychological interventions were overall the best. Note that this specifically included walking plus something else (eg walking and meditation or walking and positive psychology), so not ‘hard’ exercise but perhaps more mindful exercise.

Which also brings me to the point of yoga – I wonder how much of yoga’s success here is because it combines the mind and the body, just like ‘exercise and psychological’. In other words, is yoga good for our wellbeing because it works on both our physical and our psychological wellbeing?

Is a key part of wellbeing bringing the mind and body together?

I also wonder whether part of the success of yoga practices, at least in some contexts, is that there is a social element to them. I recognise that many people practice at home or alone; but equally one thing I love about the classes I teach in person is seeing everyone come together, chat (I frequently have to shoosh them to start the class!) and share their practice.A while ago I wrote a post along similar lines, about how yoga community could help our immune system.

So there you have it. In the authors’ words:

physical exercise combined with psychological intervention (EXPSY), yoga (YOGA), mindfulness (MIND), compassion-based interventions (COMPAS), exercise (EX), single PPIs (PPI), multitheoretical psychological interventions (COMB) and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) were ranked as the most effective treatments.

Wellbeing is a complicated thing to define I think, which is highlighted by how many different definitions and frameworks scientists have come up with.

I’d say my take-home message from this is that taking care of my wellbeing means taking care of my mind and my body. Which is reassuring because that’s how I’d defined it in the first place. (or that might just be my bias showing up, haha!)

Equally, this does feel encouraging for my explorations of combining yoga practices with writing for wellbeing, which is a type of psychological intervention and might have an even stronger effect than yoga alone (similar to exercise and psychological).

How do you define wellbeing?

And which of these practices resonate the most with you?

The creative reset: last chance to join

Want to see how some of this translates to action? The creative reset combines yoga nidra (a yoga practice) and writing for wellbeing, to explore creativity and be open to whatever comes up.

There are two more sessions of the creative reset left, and I don’t know when I’ll run this again. So if you were interested in playing with yoga nidra and writing, I’d love to see you there!

I'm interested

I’ve been playing a lot with combining mind–body practices with my writing to see what might happen. I had a feeling, from my own experiences, that ‘getting in my body’ (for lack of a better word) before writing had some sort of interesting and strange effect.

But what was even more exciting was running three workshops and seeing how these practices affected other people’s writing too!

Why would that be?

Refocusing the mind. Mind–body practices can be a way to change the focus and potentially prime the mind towards writing. Many writers use such practices as a short ritual before writing.

Getting out of the head. This is me. I’m in my head a lot (no, I mean A LOT). In my own morning pages practice, for example, I frequently notice that I get stuck in dwelling or planning the day as a way to manage my anxiety. Bringing in the body, writing about how things feel and exploring ideas with all the senses can be a way to get unstuck from this pattern. There is also the intriguing possibility that physically opening up the body (through gentle movement and stretching) can create a metaphorical opening in writing. This may help relieve any feelings of being stuck.

Not being critical and self-censoring. A mind–body practice can bring a mindful quality to your writing (or other creative activity), which included being non-judgemental about what is coming up. To steal someone else’s wording, it frees us from “the anxiety of imperfection”. We write whatever comes up without judging it or analysing it, without worrying about things like grammar, spelling, or trying to think of the right way to say what we want, the best image, rhyme or metaphor.

Divergent thinking. This is the type of thinking mind we use to come up with lots of ideas (eg when we brainstorm). Mind–body practices may help tap into this type of thinking by encouraging more free-flowing ideation.

Curious?

I’ll be posting more on this in the future, including some specific mind–body journalling prompts.

But how about joining a group of like-minded individuals and exploring this together?

The creative reset

For three Mondays in February, we’ll come together and spark our creativity. I ran test versions of this workshop already and I was blown away by what happened.

Want to play?

The creative reset combines the deep rest of yoga nidra (which many of love anyway) with creative prompts to inspire your writing (or other creative practice if you like). There will be time to chat and share your work if you want to (but it’s totally optional).

Details

• Three Mondays in February (2/2, 9/2,16/2)

• 6-7pm GMT

• Live online on Zoom

More info and booking details here.

The start of the year tends to drive us to reflect on the year that’s passed and set intentions and goals for the year ahead. I’m not going to pretend to be a unique snowflake that is immune to this very human tendency.

I don’t need to reflect much to know that 2025 was better than 2024 because, well, I didn’t lose a parent (or anyone close to me) this time. But beyond that, I was intrigued to explore this a bit more.

So, on January 1st I created two lists, one with the things I ‘achieved’ (for lack of a better word) and one with the things I didn’t manage to do in the previous year.

This was partly inspired by a book I’m reading called “Life of one’s own”, one chapter of which is all about the writer’s use of lists and journal writing as a way to understand what makes her happy. It’s also rather fascinating to read all of her ‘discoveries’, which so closely reflect how I feel despite the book being written almost 100 years ago (it’s made me really appreciate the commonality of human experience across space and time).

I fully expected the second list to be longer than the first; negativity bias means that most of us tend to remember the negative things about a situation, and I’m probably more negativity-inclined than most too. And yet, making the lists surprised me.

Things I did in 2025

• Ran 14K (longest distance I’ve ever ran) and consistently ran 10K through the summer

• Managed to do a forearm stand (or pincha) and to hold it comfortably, including leg movements

• Ran my first yoga and creative writing workshop, plus two mind–body and writing workshops as part of my MSc that I hope to bring to the world soon

• Got two new yoga classes

• Made a steady and good amount of money through the year, giving me more confidence that my business may be viable

• Went on three holidays, including two places I’d never been to (Sicily with my mum, and south of France)

• Discovered focusing practice

Things I didn’t do in 2025

• Publish much poetry-wise (and instead got lots of rejections)

• Finish novel number 2 (I think it’s actually now dead but who knows)

• Make money on Substack

Now, some of these things may seem silly, but despite this, items on list 1 are all things that made me happy (and yes, I acknowledge that they are pretty goal-oriented but I guess I’m more motivated by tangible things). By doing this, I was able to see very clearly that, actually, 2025 was not a bad year at all. So what if my writing didn’t go as far as I wanted? So what if I had to pivot or cancel ideas I had?

This exercise reminds me a bit of the positive psychology practice of making gratitude lists (see, for example, here) – the process may help us recognise that, actually, things are better than they seem to be and tackle negativity bias.

I wrote a post about writing and poetry therapy for another Substack. Here it is in case you missed it.

Try this yourself.

Take a moment to ground, maybe taking a few deep breaths, exhaling out from the mouth, maybe closing your eyes and tuning in to your body and your breath. You don’t need to do this for very long, just a couple of minutes can be a very powerful way of letting go of the busyness.

Then — write your lists slow and mindfully.

Maybe you pick different lists to the ones I wrote (eg things I liked and things I didn’t like, things that made me feel happy and things that made me feel not so happy).

Maybe yours are more weighted towards the negative; that’s also completely fine. I’m definitely not an advocate for forced positivity.

Then when you’re done take a moment to re-read everything on your ‘positive’ list, bring it back to your mind, notice how it makes you feel, and where you feel this in your body. See if you can keep this feeling for the rest of your day.

Let me know how you found this.

Leave a comment

I’ll be doing another journalling week later in January, with mind–body prompts similar to these — are you in?

News, workshops etc

Making space: yin and myofascial release

Last few places remaining for my yin and myofascial release workshop, aka self-massage with tennis balls.

In this deeply restorative workshop, we’ll combine the targeted pressure of myofascial release (using tennis balls) with the long-held, meditative stillness of yin yoga. This powerful pairing may help to release stubborn knots and patterns of tension in your body, leaving you feeling more spacious.

We’ll close our practice with yoga nidra, a guided meditation to help you feel even more relaxed.

Perfect for all levels—no experience necessary. Please bring two tennis balls.

I want to relax

The creative reset: deep rest for divergent thinking

I’m planning a workshop series for the new year that will use embodied practices like yoga nidra to access the type of thinking we use to come up with new creative ideas. More details soon – sign-up to the interest list and be the first to hear about it, plus you’ll get a special discount. This is just an interest list, you are not committing to booking anything!

I'm interested

New class alert! Monday night yin

I’m going to be teaching yin and yoga nidra on Monday nights at a beautiful new studio near Finsbury park starting late January/early February. (I can’t believe the photographer got such a good photo of me, the super un-photogenic person!)

Find out more about the studio

Mind–body science highlights

Let’s talk gut microbiota

Did you attend last month’s workshop on the gut microbiota? Then you might find this article of interest, which covers the negative effects of disrupting our gut microbiota and what we can do to bring it back to balance. Of note is the rather short section on lifestyle modifications, including yoga and meditation, as a way to manage stress and thereby improve our gut health.

Would you be interested in attending if we run this again in the new year? We recognise now that the day was rather shitty, so we are discussing a potential re-run.

Exercise keeps our brain healthy

It’s the start of the year, which means the usual January frenzy in activity uptake (possibly slightly hampered this year by the snow and ice on the ground). If you needed a bit more convincing, this editorial covers a wide variety of effects of exercise on our brain health, such as our memory, cognitive function and mental health. From a mind–body perspective, this includes improvements in attention with Tai Chi, as well as the neural changes that happen in the brain during Tai Chi and mindfulness (for those into neuroscience and neuroimaging).

What makes us feel well?

This is a rather big question! This systematic review and meta-analysis attempts to address it by looking at studies evaluating interventions to improve our wellbeing. It’s interesting to see that pretty much everything was found to have an effect (see image below), with yoga and mindfulness being near the top. Note that positive psychology interventions (which include the gratitude lists I mentioned earlier) also feature on this list (they're called MMPI).

Until next month!

There’s a parallel universe out there where I’m a known expert in the gut microbiota.

Perhaps, while immersed into the subject in my Nature Reviews Microbiology days I decide to write a book about it, before everyone else jumped that bandwagon (we’re talking early 2010s so around the time that Gut came out, which was probably the first book to really cause any interest). Perhaps I weave in my own experiences of getting my gut microbiota sequenced back in 2015, excitedly waiting for the results for what seemed like a very long time, only to be slightly disappointed because, as I recall, it was just a report of what species they detected, without much information on what things meant. (this is way way before Zoe and other similar services turned this into a proper business model).

Or instead, perhaps in 2019 I take a risk, quit my full-time stable job and go for a freelance science writer role in a company called “Project Sapiens”, a company that explodes during the pandemic to become what many of us know as Zoe.

(Do you also wonder about the sliding doors moments in your life and what the parallel version of you is like? Are they happier? More fulfilled?)

The field has transformed so much over these past 15 years. And although none of these futures did happen for me, I do feel grateful to have played a teeny tiny part in it, to have met some very interesting people, commissioned some very cool articles (this being my proudest commission in my whole editorial career) and written some interesting pieces (like this).

Why do I think it’s cool? Think about it — there’s a whole world of microorganisms living in your body, most of them in your gut. They help you digest your food, make vitamins for you, they help your immune system develop, keep your metabolism going (or not) and even influence your mood and behaviour.

There’s an episode of Futurama I always think about when I think about this, where Fry eats a worm-infested sandwich, which transforms him into a smarter, healthier and just better version of himself. That just says it all.

Intrigued? Join me on the 13th of December to find out more about your gut microbiota and how it influences your health and vice versa. Details below.

Workshops

The gut microbiota

Did I whet your appetite? Join me in a whirlwind tour of the word of the gut microbiota, it’s connection to our immune system, and links to mind–body practices like yoga. You can tell how much I enjoy this subject, and it’s been so much fun putting together my talk. We’ll cover:

• What the gut microbiota is (and why I insist on calling it microbiota and not microbiome)

• The interplay with stress and inflammation, and what this means for our health

• How mind–body practices could help balance things out by tackling stress

Plus tips and tricks on practices for yourself and your teaching, and a yoga practice led by Melanie Cooper. It will be a pre-Christmas treat!

Saturday 13th December, 2–4pm on Zoom

Now we know that this is a bit of a crazy busy time of the year — while we’d love to see your faces live, you can simply sign up and get the recording to complete in your own time after the busyness is over. (and if you need extra time, just ask)

Yes please!

This is the last workshop of the year (and possibly ever) so don’t miss out! Join the science yoga club. (oh wait, maybe I should make that a thing?)

Making space: yin and myofascial release

Start the year feeling spacious with the deep release of yin and myofascial release.

In this deeply restorative workshop, we’ll combine the targeted pressure of myofascial release (using tennis balls) with the long-held, meditative stillness of yin yoga. This powerful pairing may help to release stubborn knots and patterns of tension in your body, leaving you feeling more spacious.

We’ll close our practice with yoga nidra, a guided meditation to help you feel even more relaxed.

Perfect for all levels—no experience necessary. Please bring two tennis balls.

I want to relax

I wrote a post about writing and poetry therapy for another Substack. Here it is in case you missed it.

The creative reset: deep rest for divergent thinking

I’m planning a workshop series for the new year that will use embodied practices like yoga nidra to access the type of thinking we use to come up with new creative ideas. More details soon – sign-up to the interest list and be the first to hear about it, plus you’ll get a special discount. This is just an interest list, you are not committing to booking anything!

I'm interested

Mind–body science highlights

If you made it all the way here, congrats! Your prize is some cool science in the mind–body space.

What we all suspected – yoga nidra is good for our mental health

Exciting to see a systematic review on the effects of yoga nidra on stess, anxiety and depression. Looking at existing research, the authors conclude that yoga nidra is highly effective as a complementary therapy for mental health. The practice resulted in significant reductions in symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression when compared to both control groups and non-treatment conditions. They conclude that it’s a promising, accessible and lost-cost tool for managing the global mental health crisis. (but as per usual, more and better research is needed)

Yoga may help with women’s cancers

This systematic review examined the benefits of yoga interventions for those diagnosed with gynaecological cancers (such as ovarian or cervical cancer). Researchers found that yoga, especially meditative forms like pranayama and yoga nidra, helped reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress during and after cancer treatment. The practice also showed modest benefits for improving overall quality of life and reducing fatigue. So promising, but as usual there is a need for standardised clinical trials to confirm these results and fully integrate yoga into supportive cancer care.

Yoga and other movement practices helps sleep among the elderly

We talked a lot about sleep last month, and here’s a bit more you for – this study analyzed data from over 5,000 older adults to find the best way to use exercise to combat poor sleep. Researchers found that exercise significantly improves sleep quality, often producing clinically meaningful results within 5 weeks. While combined aerobic and resistance training was ranked the most effective type of exercise, yoga was also identified as a beneficial form of intervention. The findings support current public health guidelines, encouraging older adults to use regular, appropriately dosed exercise to enhance their sleep and overall quality of life.

That’s it for now, see you in January!

The other day I was talking to a friend about sleep, which probably doesn’t even sound weird anymore. He said he had slept for about 8 hours the night before and felt great for the first time in ages. We compared our sleep tracking, which might have once sounded niche but how many of us now track our sleep with an Oura, an Apple watch, a Whoop band or some other specialist sleep-tracking device?

(Not that I’m competitive or anything, but mine were far far superior, even accounting for using different sleep tracking devices. 7 hours a night at a minimum, usually closer to 7.5 hours, and that doesn’t include the sleep interruption by cuddly kitties that I complain about but actually love).

Sleep is finally getting the recognition it deserves in our health and wellbeing. Regardless of whether you track your sleep or do things to support your sleep, most of us recognise that how we sleep affects how we feel both physically and mentally.

Sleep affects our mental and physical health

The advice is to aim for 7 hours of sleep every night, which puts me bang on the perfect sleeping time spot. Anything less than that is considered reduced or disturbed sleep. (also, note that much more sleep every night is also considered a bit disturbed unless you are sick or child/young adult).

The most obvious sleep disruption symptom is of course tiredness. If you don’t sleep enough one night (because, for example, you’re sick, or stressed, or went to bed at 7am after a night out – oh those were the days), you will be tired the next day. You will also, obviously, feel sleepy, and most likely cranky, which means that you’re irritable and possibly even feeling a bit low.

Now, one or two nights of this most of us can tolerate. But when we consistantly sleep for fewer hours a night (which at this point is called chronic sleep deprivation), then we put ourselves at risk of developing a number of health conditions, including:

• Cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure

• Metabolic disease

• Anxiety

• Psychosis

• Neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s

This is because disturbed sleep is basically a stressor, and so comes with all the same issues as experiencing chronic stress (which includes excessive inflammation, as you’ll see below).

Part of the negative effects of disturbed sleep are because it messes up our immune system

Disturbed sleep has been linked with changes in the immune system that affect how well it works.

As a reminder, our immune system is our defense against pathogens (which may include viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites) and also against rogue cells that go on to become cancer cells. It is tightly regulated through a complicated network of cells and responses (including the cells that won this year’s Nobel prize in physiology and medicine, called regulatory T cells). This is because an overactive or not-well controlled immune system can lead to unecessary inflammation (which can cause damage to our organs) and even autoimmune disease (which includes conditions where our immune system directly attacks our bodies, like our pancreas in type 1 diabetes, and our gut in Crohn’s disease).

When we don’t sleep well, our immune system doesn’t work as well as it should, which makes us more susceptible to:

• Infections, including common bacterial and viral infections like colds and gastroenteritis

• Clearing out rogue cells that become cancer, with research finding links with breast, colorectal and prostate cancer

• Conditions of excessive inflammation, including neurodegenerative diseases Alzheimer’s and metabolic diseases

And, per this last point, you won’t be surprised to know that disturbed sleep also leads to increased levels of inflammation in the body – which is how we end up with conditions of inflammation being associated with reduced sleep.

Which puts the immune system at the centre of the health conditions linked with disturbed sleep (and basically reinforces my thinking that the immune system is the centre of everything important).

Yoga and other mind–body practices can help with sleep

It’s a cliche piece of advice, but exercise does help improve our sleep (it’s a cliche for a reason). But does it matter what you do? And does yoga help?

Yes, I know, I spoiled it with the title. There is research suggesting that yoga and other mind–body practices can help support better sleep, for example: in women, cancer survivors and the elderly.

A recent systematic review and metanalysis (accessible summary of the study here) actually tried to figure out what kind of exercise is best for sleep. As a reminder, these are the most powerful types of studies because they analyse all existing research to come up with their conclusions. In this case, they analysed 22 existing studies, with a total of over 1,000 participants (which is also a way to help draw broad conclusions in fields like yoga research, where studies are small).

They found that yoga, tai chi, walking and jogging were the most effective types of exercise or physical activity to help us sleep better. In particular, yoga was most effective at improving total sleep time. It also helped us sleep more efficiently and fall asleep more quickly.

From Bu et al (2025) . The further away from zero, the more effective the intervention. Here, the graph shows that yoga was the most effective at improving total sleep time.

It’s not 100% clear why yoga can help us sleep better (and more), but some ideas include:

• Yoga helps us feel more relaxed, which supports our sleep

• Yoga helps to improve our mental health, including anxiety and depression (both of which may interfere with our sleep)

• And just generally improves our mood

“With its focus on body awareness, controlled breathing, and attentional training, yoga may alter brain activity, thereby alleviating anxiety and depressive symptoms which often interfere with a good night’s sleep”

Bu et al (2025)

Is yoga indirectly supporting our immunity by helping us sleep better?

I started the year sharing my slight obsession with psychoneuroimmunology (or PNI), and specifically research that has shown that yoga can help to manage inflammation. In this case, I argued that yoga practices help to directly reduce inflammation by working on the body’s stress pathways; in other words, helping us feel less stressed, which reduced inflammation (which I also wrote about here).

But I wonder whether the effects of yoga on sleep are part of this equation too; yoga helps us sleep better, which then means reduced inflammation and better health overall (as inflammation seems to be involved in most chronic conditions in some way).

The answer is likely a combination of the two, and I can’t think of a way that you could study this to tease the two apart.

And the usual question – how much and what?

As per usual, research has been variable. Studies have evaluated different styles of yoga (including Iyengar, Hatha, restorative, and other mind–body practices like Tai Chi and Qi Gong). They’ve also designed the interventions that mean practicing once weekly to daily.

Most of the studies (and by most I’m referring to a small number) seem to test practicing twice a week, which to me seems like a manageable target for most people.

There’s also a whole load I could write about yoga nidra and sleep, but I’ll leave that for another time.

In terms of style, maybe the answer is to find something that you like and that also includes different types of yoga practice, including breathing, physical practice and stillness or meditation.

Update: This is going to be the last paid Substack. I may reinstate this at some point in the future, but for now will be taking a break. Thank you sooooo much for supporting me in 2025, I’m so grateful!

NOTE: If you got this post already, I’m sorry. It was meant to send on Monday morning and it says it did, but no one received it so no idea what happened.

It’s common (almost cliche) to worry about your memory after a certain age. Or about your brain function more broadly.

Like when you forget someone’s name, someone you know and who you see often and talk about often, but their name disappears somewhere in the chaos of 90s pop songs or unecessary knowledge of North London postcodes (yes, I can name the location of each postcode, it’s my Mastermind subject).

Or when you are teaching a yoga class and somehow in the midst of it you have what feels like a complete blanking moment and you can’t remember what you are doing or what you just taught on the other side (or what a pose is even called).

Or, in a more cognitive confusion than memory loss, you realise that you have gotten your weekends completely mixed up, and are actually supposed to be in your MSc and not casually drinking your coffee before a long run (yes, that was a big shock).

What I can’t tell is whether these things happen more as we get older or whether we notice them more because we expect them to happen more. I certainly left my keys on the front door a few times in my 20s or put food back on top of the fridge rather than the fridge itself.

In any case, what was reassuring was listening to the excellent Ologies podcast on my run the other day, and specifically this episode on mnemology (or the study of memory). Spoiler – a lot of it is because our minds are busy and distracted. And also because of stress. There were mentions of the HPA axis and cortisol, and all that usual stress stuff that I talk about when I teach about yoga and the immune system.

It seems that things that help us manage stress (meditation is mentioned in the podcast) may also help us with memory. In fact, I’ve written briefly about this before in the context of ageing – yoga and other mind–body practices helped with cognitive (or brain) function, including memory. Any of you who trained with Melanie and Jennie on yoga nidra may remember the many yoga nidras we did in the training, which were partly there to help us remember the course theory.

So for now, I’m going to reassure myself that my memory is probably fine because in reality I can still teach three classes in a row without having to refer back to notes (or even writing any of them down in the first place). It’s just, I have a lot of things to juggle and my brain sometimes needs a rest. And perhaps a bit more meditation and yoga nidra to help keep it happy.

Next paid post has been delayed but I will write it soon, alongside most likely one on memory because I’m now intrigued to read more.

News etc

New class alert!

I’ve got a new class at the studio where I did my yoga teacher training, which holds a special place in my heart. If you like hot yoga (or want to try it) and live in North London, join me in Crouch End for Hot Yoga Vinyasa Essentials every Thursday at 12.30pm at 3Tribes.

Workshop – the gut microbiota

Last workshop of the year! Don’t miss out on this last Yoga and the Immune System workshop for 2025 (and most likely the last one ever). This time we’ll be talking about another favourite subject, the gut microbiota (and I’ll explain why I’m calling it microbiota and NOT microbiome too).

Saturday 13th December, 2–4pm

Live online on Zoom (or recording available)

I'm in!

Mind–body science highlights

Yoga may help improve immunity

This smalll study (35 participants) found that a 10-week yoga programme helped to improve immunity among medical students; immunity here was specifically levels of antibodies, which are key parts of the immune responses. The yoga programme was 90 minutes and included meditation, physical postures (asana) and breathing (pranayama). Their levels of ‘good cholesterol’ (HDL) were also increased, but most of the other studied factors did not change in a meaningful way (including LDL, or ‘bad cholesterol’). (Image is from the study, Chauhan et al 2025).

Better sleep with yoga nidra

This isn’t news if you’ve been reading me for a while – this systematic review looked at studies of yoga nidra and sleep. They included six studies (randomised controlled trials) in their analysis and concluded that yoga nidra may help to improve sleep, including sleep time and sleep quality. But they flag the usual caveats.

Sleep, yoga nidra, breathing and chanting

More yoga nidra and sleep (October must have been the month for it!), this time in the form of this short letter (which I think is fairly accessible so worth a read it you are interested) – this is not a research study, but a short summary of findings on this topic. Also interesting if you are into chanting.

I will be writing about yoga and sleep for the next paid Substack post, so if this is interesting but the language is inaccessible, fear not!

I’m going to be honest with you.

I’ve been delaying writing this newsletter because I’ve been struggling to settle on what exactly to write about. I wonder if opinion journalists have the same issues when the deadline for their column is looming. I remember an episode of Sex and the city, where Carrie has lost so much inspiration, she starts writing about finding the perfect french fries.

In my case, it’s not about loss of inspiration (although my workload has meant little headspace for anything other than work).

It’s mainly because my head is obsessing over:

• Self-care again (boring) and my constant busyness and the noticing that I can’t actually tolerate not being busy right now because I’ve gotten so used to it

• The realisation I had last weekend at my "Yin and myofascial release” training with Jennie and Melanie that I really need to practice more yin (and also that actually I really want to teach more yin because it makes me feel calmer)

• The realisation I had (during a yin class, said yin training, and during a focusing course I’m doing, which I’d love to write about sometime) that actually, even when you are a yoga teacher and you can basically teach yourself, it’s so fucking nice when you are a student and someone else is holding space for you

So instead of all of that, I’ll just share how exciting it was to hear that the Nobel prize for physiology and medicine was awarded to three immunologists! This is for their discovery of a specific immune cell type, called a regulatory T cell, whose role it is to regulate immune responses. In other words, it acts as a sort of guard to stop immune responses from happening when they are not supposed to (and therefore to prevent autoimmunity). You can read a more detailed explanation of them here if you like.

I suppose there’s a certain sense of circling back to my earlier list – maybe regulatory T cells are the self-care T cells. They tell the immune system when it needs to slow down, stop fighting and basically just chill. And that is very cool.

News, updates etc

Workshop!

More immunology, yay! Melanie and I are running our second workshop this year, this time on the topic of sleep. I think the content is really cool (if I may say so myself, haha!).

• How sleep is super important for a healthy immune system

• What happens to our immune system when our sleep is messed up

• How yoga helps us sleep better (and maybe helps our immune system this way too)

Don’t miss out, book your spot now! You will get a recording so no issues if you can’t make it on the day (and do reach out if you need more time to look at it).

I’m also planning to write a long post about this content after the workshop, and even though it’s for paid subscribers only, I’m offering it for free to everyone who signs up! (you may need to message me though)

Yes please!

New class alert!

(Sorry, too many exclamation points today).

I’m joining the teaching team at 3Tribes, which is where I did my training so has a special place in my heart. Join me every Thursday at 12.30pm for Hot vinyasa essentials (suitable for beginners). Starts 6 November.

(I’m resisting adding another exclamation point here).

Mind–body research highlights

Yoga helps us sleep better?

Speaking of sleep – this review article analysed research studies on the effects of exercise on sleep. They concluded that yoga was the most effective ‘exercise’ type to support sleep, with twice a week being the optimal frequency. BUT I don’t have access to the full article so take this with a big pinch of salt.

Exercise helps relieve depression in menopausal women

This systematic review and meta-analysis looked studies on the effects of exercise on depression among menopausal women. Exercise included mind–body activities like yoga and tai chi, and in fact these were the most effective out of all the modalities they looked at. Every brief sessions (of any kind of exercise) offered meaningful effects, so it’s definitely worth incorporating some sort of exercise (or mind–body activity in particular) in this context. And to be honest, in any context! But note that they only analysed 16 studies (which is a small number for a systematic review).

Thoughts on hot yoga?

I’m starting a new (hot yoga) class soon, so I should probably read this more thoroughly. But if you are interested, the meta-analysis found health benefits from hot yoga (eg cardiovascular and mental health benefits), but also some negative effects too (eg heart problems including heart attacks and skin problems). The main thing is that there is no evidence it’s better than non-hot yoga so it’s more about what you personally enjoy (and will stick to). If you are interested, I’ve written about this before.

Until next month!

We’ve all been there – a friend/colleague/random person we met on the bus/yoga student tells us that they are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, anxious. We listen, trying desperately hard to keep quiet and let them talk (fighting the urge to share how stressed we also are about all the things we have to do).

And then we suggest:

• Have you tried meditating?

• Have you tried yoga?

• Have you tried speaking to someone, a therapist perhaps?

• Maybe you need to do more exercise? It’s meant to help with mental health

• Have you thought about a relaxing hobby you could try? I heard knitting is relaxing (it is, but also sometimes it isn’t, ask any knitter who has made a mistake in a lace pattern without using a lifeline and has to fight with the need for perfection and ripping back many many rows to fix it vs accepting it as it is. it’s fucking strussful).

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

Our tendency is to suggest to others that they do more to manage their stress and overwhelm.

While I don’t think any of us challenges this and needs evidence to back up what I just said, there is actually a fascinating study that confirms this.

We are more likely to suggest adding something new to one’s life to tackle a mental health challenge than to suggest that they do less – probably because we think adding is more effective (which is what the study indicates too). The authors suggest that another reason is that an addition is a tangible solution we can offer to someone, whereas doing less is, well, less tangible.

This is also more likely to happen when we advise strangers than friends, probably because the type of advice I listed above is kind of generic (even a GP recommended yoga to me once to help with my anxiety). It’s the type of advice you see in every wellbeing article or article about mental health, and has become common wisdom. When we advise friends, we know more about their lives and are more able to tailor our advice to them.

Apparently, ChatGPT and other similar models are exactly the same. I tested this myself asking specifically about stress and overwhelm, and both ChatGPT and Gemini suggested:

• Meditation

• Journalling

• Exercise

• Breathing exercises

• And new hobbies

Among other things. (probably because they use the information they find online, where other humans like us are advising others to do more to tackle their mental health concerns).

As a side note, I should say that the nature of the advice did somewhat depend on the ‘harm’ (ie not everything was about doing more to feel less stressed). For example, if the harm was something like gambling, participants were more likely to recommend a ‘subtractive’ solution, ie to stop gambling. Which, of course, makes sense.

A lot of these solutions are great, BUT

Now there’s yet another thing we need to be doing, on top of the many things we are juggling. Potentially, it’s another thing we are failing at because it drops down our priority list.

(This is me and meditation by the way. I am definitely failing at it, again. But this study is making me feel like it’s ok to fail here.)

Managing our own mental health and wellbeing becomes even more stressful because we have more to do, and more to fail at.

Could some practices fall under doing less?

I had to fight the tendency to write a heading about the ‘radical idea’ of doing less, because it’s such a cliche, talking about radical ideas. And really, it’s not a radical idea at all. It’s so basic, we’ve forgotten that it might help to not add more to our to-do list.

But I was also thinking that for many of us, this is really fucking hard. We are so driven to be constantly doing, that not having a long to-do list is torture. So perhaps we need a compromise. Perhaps practices like yin, like restorative, like yoga nidra are a way to do less, while still feeling that we are doing.

Maybe this defeats the point, I don’t know.

What do you think?

Do less, with a Friday night wind-down

If you are near North London, I’ll be guiding my yin & yoga nidra class (plus poetry, as always) only for the month of October.

I’m running this as a 5-week course, although some drop-in spots will be available, so do let me know if you want to join that way. There are only 8 spots available, so book yours now.

Let's go!

Sleep, immunity & yoga

This workshop will explore the ultimate ‘do-less’ – sleep! – and how it affects our immune system. And, obviously, how yoga ties into everything.

As always, the accessible science talk will be followed by a supportive yoga practice, and tips and tricks on how to incorporate the learnings into your teaching and practice.

Book me in!

A giraffe

When you feel better from this — and you will — it will be quiet and unremarkable, like walking into the next room. It might sting a little, like warmth leaking into cold-numbed hands. When you feel better, it will be the slow clearing of static from the radio. It will be a film set when the director yells cut! When you feel better, you will take: a plastic spoon for your coffee foam, free chocolates from the gleaming oak reception desk, the bus on sunny days, your own sweet time. When you feel better, it will be like walking barefoot on cool, smooth planks of wood, still damp from last night’s rain. It will be the holy silence when the tap stops dripping. The moment a map finally starts to make sense. When you feel better, you will still suffer, but your sadness will be graspable, roadworthy, have handlebars. When you feel better, you will not always be happy, but when happiness does come, it will be long-legged, sun-dappled: a giraffe.

–– Bryony Littlefair

Quick prompt

Close your eyes for a moment, and notice what you feel in your body after reading this. Maybe there’s a word or two, a phrase, a mood, that come up. Write them down, even if they make no sense.

If joy were an animal, what would it be?

Without thinking about it at all, start to write about joy as an animal. What kind of animal is it? What does it fur or plumage look like? What sounds does it make? Keep writing for 3 minutes.