Yoga, nutrition, organic food, health and wellness have become very stylish in recent years

Yoga, nutrition, organic food, health and wellness have become very stylish in recent years

When Gsy Life gave me the theme for this month; I'm sitting in Planet Organic on Tottenham Court Road, among a sea of ​​people rushing to bag their supplements, gluten-free crisps and organic vegetables. It's wall-to-wall with funky yoga mats or bulging gym bags slung over your shoulders. The queues are busy and the tills are full and there is a real buzz in the air. Not only are people embracing the new wellness trend, they also seem to be genuinely excited about taking care of themselves.

And yes, I feel stylish just being here! I have the 'gear' on and have just ordered my healthy and nutritious salad while taking a lunch break from training at a well-known London yoga studio, and yes, it feels good to sit back and watch it all relax in front of my eyes. I have spent much of my yoga career in and out of various global studios in all parts of the world, and ironically a leading yoga teacher based in LA recently told me how much she loved that London was "finally arriving"!

We are slowly but surely moving away from consuming large amounts of fast and processed foods that are packed to the brim with refined sugar and salt and let's be honest, a lot more synthetic garbage.

I mean, we've all been there - constantly checking our phones, ignoring the pain in our bodies and crying for rest, grabbing that quick snack or processed meal because, honestly, we just don't have the time to stop and prepare something healthy!

We have become a population where every time the phone beeps or we hear a new sound, cortisol hormone levels rise, but the thing is, our cortisol levels were originally designed to keep us in a flight or fight mode when we are out hunting, have a pretty scary encounter with a bear in the woods, not to respond to every aspect of our modern technology.

Our sleep quality has drastically deteriorated, our levels or medications to combat stress and anxiety have increased tenfold, and quite simply we are losing more and more contact with ourselves as people.

Now I'm not the person to think about how we should be, in fact I've personally been guilty of all of this - and shock horror, sometimes even with a studied level of consciousness. I know firsthand how checking our email first thing in the morning, shortly after we open our eyes, has become the norm. I worked in finance for 14 years and ignored my lower back pain, my stress levels constantly getting the best of me and at one point on a secondment in Asia. After a long day of watching our three flashing screens and observing market fluctuations in a range of reds and greens, it was easy to go to the local wine bar and stay there until we had completely blocked any signals that might slow the mind or body down.

So my point is that yoga, health and wellness are certainly stylish, but I hope that we practice becoming fully aware and continuing to take responsibility for our own health rather than becoming the next fad in the cycle of coolness or the newest thing and wellness.

When current trends are in fashion; We tend to change everything at once and curse ourselves when we “slip.” However, wouldn't it be wonderful if instead we just allowed these positive changes, in whatever form they manifest themselves, we just took care of ourselves a little better, committed to recognizing when we need to slow down and when we're feeling overwhelmed or just plain exhausted, and actually took the time to stop, even if just for a moment, perhaps to cook a healthy meal, as befits a click on escape in the form of Social media.

Personally, learning how to take care of myself in a gradual and easily digestible way gave me the opportunity to reflect and become much more mindful and, with practice, be a bit kinder to myself, which sometimes also means enjoying cocktails with the girls and not feeling guilty and certainly eating the last piece of cake!

In yoga we say that our practice is lifelong, we practice to improve our quality of life but not to be perfect. We practice for our body and our mind, not our ego.

And I truly hope with all my heart that people continue to educate themselves about the vast knowledge of nutrition and wellness that is everywhere right now.

We are also so blessed to live on an island full of thoughtful, kind, educated and knowledgeable teachers to guide us on our journey that we may need to open our eyes a little more to the current style trend in order to become sustainable. positive and balanced changes to live by.

And as a wise teacher once taught me, happiness means being free, and freedom means making choices.