The Wellness Breakdown

Rebounding requires using a trampoline or trampette to essentially jump up and down as a way to improve our fitness levels -  it certainly can elevate our heart rate! Fans of this type of exercise famously include Goldie Hawn who streamed her rebounding during the lock down days. However many proponents of rebounding also claim it may help to increase endorphins that may heighten our mood and pote...

The term ’nootropic’ is really an umbrella term for supplements (and certain meds) which can supposedly help to boost the brain’s performance and enhance cognitive functions. These may include specific vitamins, minerals, fatty acids or derived from plants, while others can be made from novel synthetic compounds in the case of prescription meds. Despite the soaring rise in popularity for these ’sm...

TRIGGER WARNING: Eating disorders are discussed in this episode  Calories are universally recognised as a means to measure the amount of energy in foods that are present on the pack of every food we buy. This has been used as a way to monitor the amount of energy we take in through our food and implemented in certain weight loss programmes. In more recent years it has gained a lot more popularity...

Liver cleanses and detoxes can be big business in the wellness industry. Essentially these various programmes or protocols are based around the notion that they promise to 'rid the body of various toxins’. Despite some quite bold claims there is virtually no scientific evidence to back this up. There are many different interpretations of what these cleanses look like including the ‘liver flus...

Acupuncture is based on an ancient Chinese medicine philosophy using needles to trigger specific points in order to influence areas of the body and to bring into alignment ‘qi’ which refers to the body’s life-giving force. Despite this sounding a little woo woo to some people the anecdotal evidence is vast and there are more and more scientific studies to demonstrate its effects on chronic pain, h...

Ultra-processed foods or UPF’s are foods that have undergone heavy processing using largely manufactured ingredients on industrial-scale levels. This usually means using methods like hydrogenation and moulding and chemical additives such as preservatives, stabilisers, emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners. These foods are typically calorie dense and low in nutritional value. Examples include crisp...

With the increased interest in the concept of fasting we wanted to push this to the extreme and explore water fasting - a type of fast during which you cannot consume anything other than water. There are a few reasons why people might fast including religious reasons as well as prepping for medical procedures but in the realms of health benefits it is most commonly used for weight loss and ‘detoxi...

Love them or loathe them Brussels sprouts are synonymous with Christmas and so we thought an entire episode dedicated to them would be suitably festive. They also pack a pretty mean punch flavour and nutrition wise being that they are high in powerful compounds such as Indole-3-carbinols and sulforaphane that have been linked to myriad positive health benefits. They are also rich in raffinose whic...

In this episode we rope Rose’s husband, the brilliant artist Jake Chapman, into a four week intensive yoga challenge to help address a long-standing injury. The rules: Jake has to follow an online yoga programme every day for 4 weeks using the infamous ‘yoga with Adrienne’. Can getting his ‘ommm’ on help Jake to be more aware of taking care of his body and support injury recovery? You don’t want t...

Hyberbaric Oxygen Treatment (HBOT) has been associated with improving a diverse range of conditions, mostly used for post surgical and injury recovery. More recently though it is being used to provide anti-inflammatory and immune support in conditions such as asthma. Essentially it involves sitting or lying in a pressurised chamber and breathing in approximately 95% of concentrated oxygen under at...

Strength training has become a lot more popular with the rise of so called ‘Fitspos’ on social media and the hashtag ‘gains’. Vanity aside though strength training has myriad health benefits in that it can help to protect joints from injury, maintain and improve bone density and muscle mass, as well increased range of mobility. Given its increased rise in health and fitness we wanted to put this t...

Well to be clear we are not talking about the hallucinogenic ones but medicinal mushrooms that include reishi, cordyceps and lion’s mane to name a few. These medicinal mushrooms have been around for centuries and traditionally used for their health promoting benefits including helping to manage stress and anxiety, reduce inflammation and even heralded as promoting longevity. Scientific studies tel...

Collagen has been knocking around for some years and often with some outlandish claims, as well as a whole lot of products on the market which makes it really tricky to navigate. We wanted to get to the real potential benefits for collagen and the how’s, why’s and when to take it, so for this week we are delighted to invite Kate Prince, founder, and Jo Woodhurst, in-house nutritionist at Ancient &...

Like Dry Jan, Sober October, is nothing particularly new. However there is a massively rising trend is the amount of people that are deciding to shun alcohol altogether and opt for a completely sober life. You guys don’t need us to tell you that excessive alcohol consumption has some really negative health associations so can these periods of abstinence help to reset our relationship with it? Or c...

Many of us are familiar with the mantra ‘5-a-day’ and whilst that takes into account the amount of fruit and veg we should be eating it is missing a key component when it comes to gut health which is diversity.  We know that the path to a healthier and happier gut is one that is diverse as this feeds many more good microbes in our microbiome. The way to achieve this is eating a wide variety of pla...

The concept of manifestation is essentially the act of bringing into reality the outcomes that you desire. More recently manifestation has been popularised by books like The Law of Attraction and The Secret. Some will refer to manifestation as simply woo woo and pseudoscience but others disagree so is there a more nuanced way to think about this?  We wanted to find out and as such Rose is taking o...

As we are in a global climate catastrophe it is vital that all of us actively strive to change our lifestyle and food practices to feed into a more sustainable system. Much of this means minimising the volume and toxicity of our waste as well as conserving as much and as many resources as we can to help support the health of our planet and everything that lives on it. Whilst both of us try to foll...

It wouldn’t be The Wellness Breakdown if we didn’t push some of these challenges to the extreme and the first episode of the new season is really going there!  You might be familiar with high-protein diets or even the Paleo (aka caveman diet) but you may not have heard of the Carnivore diet which focuses only on meat, essentially foods that either ‘walk, swim or fly’.   This is the challenge that...

The supplements industry is booming and shockingly not very regulated. This can leave it super confusing as a consumer on knowing what to buy and whether you need to buy them at all. This is why we are absolutely thrilled to have founder of LYMA life, Lucy Goff, onto the podcast to literally help sort the men from the boys. This woman REALLY knows her stuff when it comes to supplements. She create...

Many of us have grabbed a bag of frozen peas or an ice-pack to help reduce inflammation and swelling which means we have pretty much all used cryotherapy at some point.  Using localised extreme cold is nothing new in terms of its medicinal application for injuries after all. However whole-body cryotherapy is taking this to another level and this is what we investigate in this episode as Eve challe...

In this episode we investigate whether going under the needle can actually work as a non-invasive facelift and this time it is Eve taking on the challenge.  Microneedling has been rapidly gaining popularity and is a minimally invasive treatment that can help to stimulate the production of collagen and hence its link to helping to lift, tighten and resurface the skin to name a few of its associated...

Do you know what foods spike your blood sugar? In this episode we've asked renowned journalist Kate Spicer to strap on a blood glucose monitor and find out. Kate is always up for a health challenge and with a critical eye on these things, we thought she would be perfect to test this gadget out. CGM (Continuous glucose monitoring) has typically been associated with diabetic patients as a way t...

'Is 10k steps the magic number?' In this episode we dig into whether 10k steps is really how much we should be walking every day and this time Eve challenges Rose to get her walking boots on.  Many of us have been lead to believe that we should be hitting the magic number of 10,000 steps per day to keep fit and healthy. However contrary to what we might have been told this number actuall...

It is our second guest of the season and this time Eve has roped in her wonderful mate Morgan for this better zzz's challenge.  Morgan is very open with the fact that he has suffered with disrupted sleep for many years and so we thought he would really appreciate us trying to boost his snoozing habits.  Sleep, or the lack thereof, is something that many of us can relate to. With our 24-hour l...

In this episode Rose sets Eve the challenge of a 3-day juice fast. Juice fasting is something that over the past decade or so has sparked a LOT of attention. Many advocates of the practice believe that it can have incredible benefits and link its association to a myriad of positive health benefits. However others reckon it's just a load of baloney and with copious bogus claims.   The rules: E...