It was a sunny Spring morning, and all I wanted was thicker curtains. The light was creeping in, taunting me with the big, bright world outside that I had no desire to be a part of. I was safe in my dingy bedroom. Dinner the night before had been a tub of mini brownies and chain-smoked cigarettes, all washed down with cheap white wine.
I was in my mid-twenties (I’m 33 now) and the only exercise I did was dancing in neon-lit basements, and my sleep swung from a couple of hours, in my post night out sweat, or staying in bed all day. Everything I ate was from a packet and this, I told myself, was perfectly fine. It was all I could manage. And all I could focus on were the anxieties gnawing through my brain like woodworm, leaving a trail of miserable, dopamine-devoid thoughts in their wake – and my efforts to block them out with melancholic indulgences.
So, when a kind friend travelled across London to my flat, detecting that I was once again in a bad place mentally (depression and anxiety are rude like that – it’s rarely a ‘one off’ situation, I’ve found), and suggested we go… on a walk, I was incredulous. Why would I want to leave the safety and semi-gloom of my pit? I asked her, as she perched on the edge of my bed, clutching a bag of ‘cheer up’ doughnuts that she’d bought on her way over.
Yet, after some more gentle persuasion, I relented. A walk it was. “But a walk to where?” I kept repeating, as I dithered in front of my wardrobe, unable to make any sort of decision. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s not about where,” she replied, offering me a doughnut that I ate mindlessly, noting the rest of the bag would serve as dinner later on. “It’s just about leaving this room for a while.”
The stroll we took, around the Camberwell park near my then-home, was the first bit of intentional exercise I’d taken in weeks. Months, possibly. At that point in time, my life consisted of Googling ‘What is the point of being alive?’ and not finding an answer, having heart-crushing anxiety attacks, uncontrollable emotions and deep periods of low mood, along with drinking heavily (at least) twice a week.
I’d oscillate between going to the GP to ask for help, being put on medication that I’d take for a few weeks and not bother to replace when the pack ran out, and ‘powering through’ nights out by sinking wine after wine after wine until I basically collapsed. That’s what being a happy, healthy and sociable person looks like. Right?
Written down like that, it seems wild to me that it took a further few years to spot the connection between my overly responsive nervous system and tattered mental health, and how I was spending my time. The thing is, lifestyle choices (what we eat, drink, how often we exercise, who we spend our time with and how much sleep we get) can - and should - play a huge part in maintaining good mental health. It’s not the whole solution, but it’s a crucial and often dismissed element. Especially as waitlists for professional help can feel never-ending (I was recently told it’d be eight months before I can access NHS therapy, after experiencing a bit of an anxiety relapse.)
Licensed psychologist, Dr Becky Spelman, agrees, saying locking in the basics should be just as prioritised as therapy, mindfulness routines and medication (if that’s what works for you). “Every World Mental Health Day, I find myself coming back to the same thought: in a world full of apps, advice, and endless information about wellbeing, we often forget the simplest things that can make us feel better,” she says.
These ‘simple things’, like sleep, movement, food, and connection “sound almost too easy, which is why they get overlooked,” Dr Spelman adds. “Yet these are the foundations of good mental health, and they’re often the first things to slip when life gets busy or stressful.”
Like me, Dr Spelman has experienced the difference firsthand that dedicating time and energy to these basics can make, confessing there was once a period in her life when, despite working in the mental health sector, she was “talking the talk, but not walking the walk” – working long hours, eating on the go and scrolling late into the night.
“It all felt ‘normal’, a quick distraction after a long day, until I noticed how drained and restless I felt,” Dr Spelman admits. Over time, she began setting boundaries around social media to improve her sleep.
Her focus returned, her anxiety settled and she found that exercising more – sometimes just taking a short walk between meetings – offered a mental reset opportunity. You needn’t run a marathon: in fact, research from ASICS and King's College London deduced that just 15 minutes of exercise per day can have a profoundly positive effect on mental health.
“Then came nutrition. I used to rely on whatever was convenient, but I started noticing how much better I felt when I ate real, balanced meals,” Dr Spelman says. “Our minds and bodies are connected in ways we often forget. When we eat well, we think and feel better.”
It’s something that BANT-registered nutritionist and functional medicine practitioner, VJ Hamilton, strongly agrees with, telling Cosmopolitan UK, “When we talk about mental health, the conversation often focuses on what’s happening in the mind, like therapy, medication, mindset work, and emotional healing. But what’s happening in the body plays an equally important role.”
Hamilton says she routinely sees clients in her clinic who suffer with low mood, anxiety and a lack of energy, and more often than not, they’ll simultaneously have gut issues playing out (whether they initially know it or not). “What’s happening in the gut can influence how we think and feel, while stress, trauma, and emotional strain can also disrupt gut function in very real, biological ways.” Diet is a key element here: stripping it back to whole foods, keeping watch for any sensitivities that could spark inflammation and scaling back on processed foods is a brilliant starting point.
Of course, Hamilton and Dr Spelman both affirm, food and fitness alone aren’t a silver bullet and it’s so important to stress that mental health challenges (sadly) won’t dissipate following one good night’s sleep or a plate of vegetables. “When you’re in a dark place, even tiny steps can feel impossible and that’s when therapy, medication, and proper support are so important,” Dr Spelman explains. “They help you reach a place where these changes start to feel doable.
“But once you feel a bit steadier, these small shifts really do add up. They keep you grounded. They give you structure. They remind you that even if you can’t control everything, you can control the way you take care of yourself day to day.”
As for how to start, Dr Spelman says take small steps and don’t pile the pressure on. “You don’t need to reinvent your life. Maybe it’s reducing your screen time, going for a short walk, or sitting down for a proper meal. Therapy helps us understand ourselves, but it’s what we do between sessions that keeps us well.
“When we take care of the basics: sleep, movement, food, and real human connection, we create the foundation we need to cope, heal, and grow.”
For me, it began with writing a list of small things to achieve each day, aiming for the gym just once a week and then building that up, taking a 15-month break from booze and ditching smoking for good. I made getting my 5-a-day a game, centring meals around fresh fruits and veggies as often as possible – and felt motivated by the obvious impact it had. I was lucky I could lean on family and friends for support while waiting patiently for therapy (before deciding it was worth the investment of paying to go private) and I realised I had to be more responsible for my own brain and body – as the two are more closely intertwined than I’d ever thought.
The bottom line? My rich-in-junk, low-in-vegetables diet was doing me no favours. Topped with booze, and sleepless nights, it was all just adding fuel to the mentally destructive cycles I’ve been grappling with since I was a teenager (which at one point culminated in a suicide attempt) – and when I started to make those much-needed lifestyle changes over the course of a few years, I found my mental health reaching a more stable place.
While I can’t say I now never experience ill mental health – in fact, this summer I found myself in the grips of major anxiety once again – I can say that having my foundational pillars of wellbeing in place, that I can return to time and time again, are one of the best tools in my arsenal (and which, when I let slide are often the precursor to a period of anxiety and low mood).
Therapy along the way has been incredibly helpful too and at times, short-term medications, but prioritising these ‘boring’ and too ‘simple’ cornerstones are what I have finally realised are what I have to do to remain in as good a headspace as possible. It’s not negotiable. If I fall off, I work hard to re-establish the routine. Because that routine is also a form of medicine.
I recently heard a great quote from Emily Johnson, better known online as the Arthritis Foodie, who often talks about the brain-body connection: “Your genes hold the bullets and your environment pulls the trigger”. She was speaking about it in the context of managing her autoimmune condition, rheumatoid arthritis, with diet, sleep, exercise and stress-reducing tactics, but it’s a sentiment that more than applies for other scenarios.
If, like me, you’re somebody with a predisposition towards poor mental health, the best piece of advice I can share this World Mental Health Day is to do all you can to get your foundations in check. It is not easy to motivate yourself to exercise when you feel like the walls are closing in on you.
When highly anxious or depressed, cooking a healthy meal can feel akin to being asked to hike Machu Picchu in 5-inch stilettos. Leaving alcohol on the shelf in favour of prioritising a full eight hours of sleep and an early doors yoga class will never be the plot of an exciting movie. But it goes such a long way towards getting you back on track – and it’s a part of the mental health conversation I’d love to have the volume cranked up on.
Start small, if you have to. Start slow, if you need. But you owe it to yourself to start… and say yes to that small walk. For me, it was the beginning of something truly powerful.
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When life is difficult, Samaritans are here – day or night, 365 days a year. You can call them for free on 116 123, email them at jo@samaritans.org, or visit samaritans.org to find your nearest branch.
Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC’s Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women’s Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
