The Doctors' Guide To Slow Health

A change of pace is good for you. Here’s how to make sure taking it easy reboots your wellbeing

- Tanya Pearey

BE MINDFUL

Meditation and mindfulness (being in the here-and-now) have been shown to ease stress and anxiety by taking your mind off negative thoughts and help lower blood pressure. Try a morning meditation. Yoga teacher Kirsty Gallagher recommends this five-minute routine upon waking: Sit quietly and focus on breathing deeply in and out. If thoughts come into your mind, acknowledge them and let them go, returning your mind back to your breathing.

Try to take your time

Stroll, meditate, take a leisurely lunch and stop to smell the flowers – doctor’s orders.

That’s because not going full pelt really can make us happier and healthier, according to the experts. The number of heart attacks fell during lockdown, as our lives slowed and we had time to prioritise our health, says Woman’s Weekly GP Dr Gill Jenkins. ‘Studying people using Fitbit trackers has shown lower resting heart rates, increased average active minutes and increased sleep duration.’

We know that living life at 100mph damages our health. ‘Stress can trigger high blood pressure,’ says women’s health expert Dr Marilyn Glenville. ‘High cortisol levels prepare you for your fight-or-flight response, and your body assumes that it needs a higher blood pressure to cope with this. It holds back sodium (stopping you from excreting it through urine) and this salinates the blood. It’s the equivalent of overdosing on salt, which we know is linked to high blood pressure.’