Hurried, harried, hyperconnected and heartsore.\u00a0 Sometimes even helpless. January can feel like a fairly flat month in terms of our mood and so this month, more than ever, it\u2019s important to take care of ourselves and nurture a strength of spirit that ensures we embrace the new year in a physically, but also mentally, sound condition.<\/p>\n
As far back as the fourth century the theologian and philosopher St Augustine was advocating spending time outdoors walking declaring \u2018solvitur ambulando,\u2019 literally \u2018it is solved by walking.\u2019<\/p>\n
His words have been echoed by countless others from fitness\u00a0 advocates, to naturalists such as Darwin and other contemporary philosophers like Nietsche. More recently they\u2019ve also been echoed by Rutland\u2019s own Julia Bradbury, who grew up here and retains family connections to England\u2019s smallest county, having fond memories of walking around the local countryside as a youngster with her father Michael.<\/p>\n
Julia\u2019s family life \u2013 she\u2019s a mum to three children \u2013 and her career in broadcasting have always seen her remaining busy, but in 2021 her established priorities were brought to a screaming halt with a diagnosis of breast cancer which saw her re-evaluate her life, with physical health and mental wellness taking priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to explore how seemingly small additions and new habits can have a profound on your physical health and your wellbeing,\u201d says Julia. \u201cI\u2019m not an academic or a doctor \u2013 aside from an honorary doctorate \u2013 and I\u2019m definitely not a scientist, but I do talk to such people in my new book all about the journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I do have are lived experiences, especially of walking being curative. I\u2019ve used walking to help me through breast cancer, but other traumas too, from IVF and miscarriage to grief, mental health issues and even a broken heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking in Rutland with my family is a joy, but I\u2019ve also been lucky during a career in broadcasting to have experienced trekking along the seaboard of the Indonesian Archipelago, through the\u00a0 rainforests of Australia and across the Mongolian deserts, as well as walking across a lot of the Greek island digging into my Mama Mou Chrissi\u2019s family history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those landscapes were wildly different, but what they had in common was their ability to be a backdrop for walking\u00a0 experiences which heal the body, calm the mind and lift the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need big landscapes or seat-of-the-pants travel adventures to benefit from such \u2018green therapy\u2019 though (I call it getting a dose of Vitamin N, for nature). Even walking in England\u2019s smallest county can help you to walk yourself happy and healthy, hence the book\u2019s title.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having re-evaluated everything from her diet to her breathing, Julia\u2019s combination of an interest in health, research and the fact that walking gives her pleasure to live better have all culminated in her latest book, Walk Yourself Happy.<\/p>\n
From the title you might be mistaken that it\u2019s simply a book of walking routes or one which just advocates exercise, but the book goes much further in its remit, encouraging consideration of diet, sleep, exercise and even breathing.<\/p>\n
Julia and Rutland<\/strong><\/p>\n From her roots in Rutland, Julia worked alongside sister Gina and her mother in a fashion business owned by the latter, before working for the London-based advertising agency Jaffe & Young.<\/p>\n The broadcasting landscape changed in the mid-1990s with the launch of new cable and satellite channels courtesy of enfants terrible of broadcasting from Kelvin MacKenzie who would go onto edit The Sun and Janet Street Porter, who helped to launch L!ve TV. Julia worked for Janet on the station as a presenter alongside Claudia\u00a0 Winkleman before joining GMTV as its celebrity correspondent based in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n From there, she presented the BBC consumer rights programme Watchdog and later other factual programming from Countryfile to many walking series from Railway Walks to Canal Walks, and ultimately Unforgettable Walks, plus a reboot of Wainright Walks, following in the footsteps of Alfred Wainright, retracing his favourite routes in the fells.<\/p>\n Julia and walking<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about walking is that you don\u2019t need incredible landscapes, fancy kit, a team leader or physical fitness and talent. To get started you just lace up your shoes and put one foot in front of the other.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was recently involved with the mental health charity Mind,\u00a0 challenged to encourage a group to pull on their wet weather gear and enjoy getting out in the darker winter months. Some people think that it\u2019s better to walk in spring and summer. Not me.\u00a0 I love a winter walk on a crisp chilly day, and I enjoy the freshness of the air when it\u2019s a bit soggy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTo be outside is to feel and experience life in the round. Being outside also means being around nature. When I\u2019m sharing space with a tree breathing in cold, cloudy air or staring at the fractal patterns of a pine cone I feel happy and in awe of the magic of nature, I feel content with my place in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always exercised but recovering from cancer has taught me that to keep our body systems working well, I need to commit to an hour of exercise at least four times a week.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat might sound daunting, but one in six deaths in the UK is caused by inactivity\u2026 physical activity won\u2019t kill you, but inactivity can. That\u2019s not to say that you have to exercise for a prescribed amount of time.\u201d \u201cEven getting outside for a shuffle around the garden is\u00a0 beneficial, and if all you can manage is ten minutes a few times a week then I encourage you to do just that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re physically more active, your heart is conditioned to beat slower and stronger, and it needs less oxygen to function well. Your arteries become springier, so they push your blood along more efficiently, and your levels of \u2018good\u2019 HIDL cholesterol rise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPhysical activity also helps prevent type two diabetes; when your muscles are used to working, they stay more receptive to insulin, the hormone that ushers blood sugar into the cells. If you\u2019re fit, blood sugar levels aren\u2019t as likely to creep up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn older age, physical activity can delay the slide of cognitive\u00a0 decline into dementia and, even after the process has started, exercise, alongside exposure to light at the right time of day, can improve certain aspects of thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMoving the body helps the brain, too. Several studies have found that exercise can reduce symptoms of depression, changing the brain in ways similar to antidepressant medication, which brings us to the subject of mindfulness and specifically breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n Julia and breathing<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no coincidence that much tuition of meditation, yoga or other mindfulness-related activities place a strong emphasis on breathing. You\u2019d be forgiven for thinking that you already know how to breathe. You\u2019re doing it now, and it\u2019s just opening your mouth and sucking in air, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cApparently not. We breathe unconsciously but often make three common mistakes. We breathe into the chest and upper body.\u00a0 We breathe through the mouth and we breathe too much.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLearning how to breathe is life-changing and can have a profound effect on our sense of well-being. On average we breathe in and out 25,000 times a day, but we don\u2019t necessarily take nutritional breaths. Breathing \u2018well\u2019 means doing so through your nose, which triggers the sinuses to release nitric oxide, a molecule which plays an essential role in absorbing oxygen. We can absorb 18% more oxygen\u00a0 breathing nasally than we do by breathing orally.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the book I cover breathing exercises, explore the fascinating differences in breathing in different cultures, and cover different breathing techniques like Ujjayi (victorious breath), Bhastrika\u00a0 (bellows breath) and chanting. Like proper sleep, and good nutrition, breathing is one of the pillars of a healthy life and it\u2019s free at the point of use, so it\u2019s remarkable that few of us know how to get the best out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Julia and diet<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cUntil a couple of years ago, I didn\u2019t give much thought to what I ate, nor how I ate it. I\u2019ve always been conscious of food quality but I didn\u2019t plan my meals or calculate how much protein I was eating or count my veggies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially when working outdoor or on travel shows for TV, my diet was a bacon sandwich \u2013 breakfast on the go \u2013 milk chocolate and millionaire\u2019s shortbread. Sometimes we\u2019d be on location for 18 days straight, and that\u2019s what I\u2019d eat for 18 days straight. Then in the\u00a0 evening at the end of filming the whole crew would descend on some lovely country pub and tuck into homemade pie, chunky chips or a big old steak followed by chocolate brownies or ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I look at that list now I shudder. Fried foods carry heart risks, in part because they provoke inflammation and they\u2019re often high in sodium as well as harmful saturated fats. The oil in\u00a0 which foods are fried commercially is often heated again and again. This can generate a variety of compounds, many of which have been reported as carcinogenic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThose sausages and pies are often made with processed meat, and all red meat contains a pigment called haems, which is broken down in the gut to form compounds (called N-nitroso compounds or NOCs), which are also known to cause cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen there\u2019s all the sugar. Sugar comes in many forms, and is\u00a0 hidden in foods that you wouldn\u2019t expect. It\u2019s not just in\u00a0 sweets, cakes and biscuits, but things like sauces, soups, fruit juices and meat products.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe average American now consumes approximately 126g of sugar a day. That is about ten tablespoons, and we\u2019re not far behind. There\u2019s a huge body of evidence about the damage too much sugar does to cardio-metabolic health and I certainly ate more than the recommended daily allowance of 24-30g sugar daily.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI stopped and switched to dark chocolate \u2013 over 70% cocoa solids \u2013 which was just one part of a huge overhaul of my diet that I\u00a0 undertook after my cancer diagnosis and mastectomy; quitting sugar saw me losing a lot of weight, very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not to say that chips are off the menu completely, but I do advocate the 80\/20 rule whereby for 80% of the time I eat healthy, whole foods and for the other 20% of the time, I treat myself or at least accept that I\u2019m doing the best in a world of processed foods and with a busy lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe also can\u2019t consider nutrition without talking about hydration. Estimates vary from six to eight glasses of day being recommended, and it is also possible to overhydrate, but usually we drink too little, which can reduce our cognitive performance, including memory, focus and creative thinking. Without proper hydration, your blood becomes viscous and harder to pump, and without proper hydration, none of the cells in your body can function.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an emerging awareness, too, of the danger of too many ultra-processed foods in our diet. These are replete with nasty\u00a0 chemicals that our microbes react badly to; processed foods deprive them of fibre and instead bombard them with artificial substances like sweeteners and emulsifiers designed to enhance texture and\u00a0 extend the shelf life of foods.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the book I speak to Professor Tim Spector OBE of King\u2019s\u00a0 College. Whilst he\u2019s no killjoy, he\u2019s acutely aware that 57% of an adult\u2019s diet and 70% of a child\u2019s diet in Britain today is now made up of processed food. Globally, poor nutrition still accounts for 11 million deaths every year and adds more to the burden of ill health than drugs, alcohol and tobacco combined.\u201d<\/p>\n The consumption of vegetables, legumes, fish, nuts, seeds and fruits is way below the level recommended by the World Health Organisation, and we are eating too much fat, processed meat,\u00a0 salt and sugar. But given the amount of processed food on our\u00a0 supermarket shelves, this isn\u2019t entirely our fault.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTim also says that we have to stop judging food by calories. \u2018They\u2019re nonsense,\u2019 he says. \u2018As a way of teaching people how to eat more healthily, they should be scrapped.\u2019 It\u2019s not about calories.\u00a0 It\u2019s not about fats and carbs and protein, either. It\u2019s about food\u00a0 quality. Each time you eat, if you\u2019re mindful of nourishing your gut microbes, supporting a healthy gut microbiome and eat a diet rich in fibre to keep your bacteria in balance, you can\u2019t go far wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Julia and sleep<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe ancient Greeks were great believers in sleep. Hypnos, the god of sleep was seen as the remover of pain, suffering and sorrow and the Greeks were confident that what sleep does for the body, dreams do for the mind, enabling it to rest and rejuvenate.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a philosophy reiterated in an old Irish proverb \u2013 I was born in Dublin so I feel qualified to use it \u2013 that \u2018a good lunch and a long sleep are the best cure in a doctor\u2019s book.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSleep has been researched and the science of sleep advanced\u00a0 enormously in the past two decades, and achieving good sleep\u00a0 hygiene by means of things like an evening stroll before settling in, cooler bedrooms, the avoidance of caffeine and avoiding pre-bedtime snacks as well as avoiding tech-induced anxiety by having a phone on your bedside table will all help to improve the quality of your sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBased on a control group of over 6,000 cases in five different\u00a0 countries, the International Agency on Cancer in Lyon also\u00a0 concluded that disrupted sleep patterns are \u2018probably carcinogenic to humans,\u2019 which is quite a terrifying prospect given the lack of\u00a0 consideration we give to the quality of our sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n Julia and the future<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cCancer saved my life, which may seem like a strange thing to say, but it opened my eyes to what I was doing to myself, pushing myself emotionally and physically to reach impossible goals. Re-examining my relationship with nutrition, sleep, exercise and breathwork was, I now realise, so important.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAfter my documentary Julia Bradbury: Breast Cancer & Me aired, many people have approached me when they\u2019ve seen me out and about or they\u2019ve messaged me to ask if I was OK. They\u2019ve all offered well-meaning thoughts with one of the most\u00a0 common being \u2018thank you for sharing your story, very brave,\u2019 but honestly, I\u2019m not brave.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think cancer saved my life. I got it and I had to make changes. The book explains how I did it, and I hope it might help others too. Fundamentally, I wrote it because I believe we can all walk ourselves happy, taking small steps and then big strides, through the glad days of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Walk Yourself Happy by Julia Bradbury is published by Piatkus, an imprint of Hachette and Little Brown. Available from all good local bookshops, personalised copy is available directly from Julia\u2019s website, The Outdoor Guide, \u00a325 www.theoutdoorguide.co.uk. The website also has a range of Julia\u2019s favourite walks by region and theme.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rutland\u2019s Julia Bradbury has always enjoyed a special relationship with the great outdoors, but since a breast cancer diagnosis in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[337,340,341,338,336,342,343,339],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights","tag-bradbury","tag-cancer","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-julian","tag-mindful","tag-mindfulness","tag-wellness"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1330,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}