About Me

I qualified as a medical doctor in 2004 with an intercalated degree in Neuroscience (2001) from University College London. I completed postgraduate training in psychiatry in 2009 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Education with Distinction in 2015. I am a member of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine (BSLM) and became a Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician and Chair of the BSLM Mental Health Special Interest Group in 2020. I am also a retired yoga teacher and have completed a coaching and mentoring qualification (ILM5) and a certificate in public mental health.

I grew up in the Worcestershire  countryside and found living in the hustle and bustle of London as a student really challenging. To manage the stress of city living I would walk and run in the parks as often as possible and spend time in the countryside at weekends. I noticed a powerful effect of exercising in nature on my mind, health and well-being, leading to me feeling calmer, more relaxed and better able to withstand stress and upheaval. I also began practising yoga as a student and found the benefits of improving my strength, flexibility and balance quite extraordinary - I really began to appreciate my body for how it felt and what it could learn to do rather than for how it looked, and this was revelatory. I also learned the power of yoga and meditation for calming an anxious mind and the benefits of slow, deep, rhythmic breathing on my nervous system. All of these benefits of yoga and meditation are borne out in scientific research.

I am interested in the mind-body connection and how improving the health of the body improves the health of the mind and vice versa. I have become aware that so often in medicine we are treating symptoms of ill health without paying enough attention to lifestyle factors such as nutrition, sleep, sedentariness, urbanicity, psychosocial stress, caffeine, smoking and alcohol, for example. 

Making a few simple changes to our lifestyles can have an enormous impact on our health, long-term health outcomes and quality of life. Although these changes may be simple they can be difficult to implement without the right guidance and motivation. Much of my work focuses on training other healthcare professionals to have impactful conversations with their patients, to improve individual and population health - the ripple effect cannot be underestimated!