The Life Of Bryony - The Life of You – Dr. Alex George on Exercise, Nature and Joy

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Dr. Alex George is back to share the three things he absolutely cannot live without. These aren’t flashy wellness fads, but grounded, realistic practices that support his mental fitness, help him reset on tough days, and remind him that life can still feel joyful and expansive. We talk about why movement has become completely non‑negotiable for him, how a simple daily ritual changes the tone of his whole day, and the slightly surprising passion that makes him feel most alive.​ If you’re looking for doable ideas to weave into your own routine – without becoming a full‑time self‑improvement project – this episode is a very gentle place to start.BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEAlex’s new book ‘Am I Normal?’ is available to buy now.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Dr. Alex GeorgeProducer: Laura Elwood-CraigAssistant Producer: Tippi WillardStudio Manager: Sam ChisholmEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, lovely people, and welcome to the bonus edition of The Life of Briney. Today, the immutable Dr. Alex George is lifting the lid on the non-negotiables that keep him grounded and uplifted. Everyone should be exposed to nature. I think the modern problem that we have is that we've become associated with the planets. We are not an addition to the Earth. We are part of this world. My chat with Alex coming up right after this.

The life of you, the three things, Dr. Alex, that are crucial to your well-being. And as an expert on mental fitness, I'm expecting these are going to be really darn good. No pressure. I know. That is a lot of pressure, isn't it? What is the first thing that is absolutely like number one for your mental fitness? I think if you're going to bottle one thing and you're going to put it in actually in a pill and become a trillion overnight.

It would be exercise. If you're going to look at the benefits for longevity, the benefits for preventing illness, ill health mentally and physically, for building mental and physical fitness, and just general overall positivity, confidence, and psychological benefits, there's almost nothing that has the level of benefit

that exercise does. The evidence shows that it's a mixture of aerobics, a cardiovascular exercise, like walking, you know, fast-paced walk or a run, cycling, swimming, and a combination with resistance training. So something that causes you to work hard, to lift, move something, right? It could be lifting weights as a classic thing, but, you know, you could do, you know, holding, like, for example, like certain pose in yoga, anything that stresses the muscles in some way, you know, in some sort of way, people can do even at home with sitting, standing

exercises, some sort of, some sort of resistance. But what that does to you, and, you, and the resilience it builds within you is absolutely unmatched. You know, when you go for a run, you know this as a runner. When you kind of have that endorphin feeling afterwards, it can change a very miserable day into a much better one. You know, there's a great saying that one run can change your day, many runs can change your life. And I think it's absolutely true. And so what do you like to do, running? Running and weights. And like this is a period of time that I'm in my life. Like when I was in my kind of teens, it'd be like football and team sports and the playground. But with like life, it being busy, the accessible sports for me are going for a run

because I can do that socially, run with friends, you know, you can do run clubs, whatever, like all running your own. It's free, go outside of some trainers and go. That's why I love it. It's very low barrier to entry. And then I like lifting weights for different reasons. If I'm really needing a lift and I find the running really helps me. If I'm really frustrated, weights are just amazing.

You go and lift some weights and you just feel like, ah, get it out, you know. It feels really good. And I really encourage people, you know, this diet culture, this idea of like training for a goal, scrap all of that. Train because you're alive. Exercise because you're alive. And the good news is that because you've got a body. Because you have a body, move your body.

Like our bodies are not designed to sit still. You know, modern life puts us in these boxes literally that we live that are very comfortable, that we don't stress our body. The problem is, is these. non-stressed bodies that have been given ultra-processed food a lot of the time and not moving very much, it's making us sick. We live longer when we use the tools we have. So our brains are healthier for longer when we use them for longer. You use it or you lose it, right? Yeah. It's the same with your physical health. Your heart, your muscles, your bones are all healthier if you use

them. So please, you know, make sure that's part of your life. And for me, it's, you know, I haven't been perfect with it. There's been times I haven't exercised. But for me now, it's just like it's non-negotiable. Oh, it's heaven running. And do you know what? Even just say you, you love it, don't you? The fact that I say just said that would make me 10 years ago, how with laughter? I think that like, and it's great to build up with the ability and you can run big marathons if you want to, but you don't have to. If you just run a 5K runner, a 3K runner, it doesn't matter. And by the way, it's never too late to start. Like I genuinely, and I was, I've always been quite like into my kind of exercise and sport, but I've never.

been a runner, ever, was never a runner. And I was, I'm too tall. I'm too, like, bulky and heavy. I can't run. And when I started running, when I was, like, 21 stone overweight, I couldn't run, like, I couldn't run a kilometer, like, couldn't run half a kilometer. And then, like, within a few months, I was running 5K, no problem. So, like, it's an, I love running because you can be really crap. And if you haven't run before, haven't for long time, you're probably going to be a bit rubbish at it at the start. That's normal and fine. You know, but give it a couple of months, you'll be completely different. And you're also only competing against yourself? You're not going to be running as fast as, you know, these like ultra fast, like, you know, Olympic level runners. You're not even

going to run. Most people won't run as fast as club level runners. Like, I think, so I got to a point when I started running and I got to the point where I got a bit better and I started to become a competitive, and I want to be faster and faster. And thankfully, I've let that go now. I mean, it's never going to be quick runners. But I realize it's like, I'm suddenly turning this into a stick to beat myself with again. No, no, no. I'm not having this. This is supposed to be for my physical and mental health. So now I don't do that at all. I really do just run to enjoy it. Of course, like sometimes it feels nice. I feel really good. I'm going quick today. But that's all relative. I don't really care. I just want to go and run.

And do a lot. Music, running, done. And stop. Stop. Whenever you want to, just stop. I take, I stop and take a picture of like the ducks in the pond or whatever it'll be. Like, you know, and sometimes I'll run and I don't actually feel like going to fine. I'll have a coffee and then I'll, you know, walk a bit and then run a bit. I don't know. I just think it's trying, find. something you like doesn't have to be running, you might hate running, could be cycling, swimming, just find something that you enjoy enough to do a lot. That's a good important point, actually.

If you try and do something you really hate, you're never going to stick it to the rest of your life. You need to basically think, I want to find something that I'm kind of happy to do for the rest of my life. You don't have to enjoy it every time. You might often not want to put your trainings on and go outside or whatever the sport is, but find something that you're kind of reasonably happy to do for a long period of time. Because the goal is to do this stuff until you die. in an ideal world, you're 80 still doing it, right? Yeah.

Until the point where you might be as fast, you probably won't be, or whatever it is you're doing, you might be the same level, it doesn't matter, but you need to do something you can really stick out. Yoga, whatever, it doesn't matter what it is, just something that puts you out of breath, builds a bit of strength and resistance, and it's good for your brain. Number two, what's your second crucial thing? My morning walk, it's kind of the thing that I did first when I stopped drinking.

It was like, I'm going to go for water. every single morning forever. And I take my dog roller for a walk and I love it. It's amazingly grounding. You do a lot of saundering. You see people and think, okay, my problems aren't everything. Everyone's getting on with their days. Nature is funny enough, incredible.

So the fear center around our brain is called amygdala. And the amygdala in modern life is a lot bigger than it used to be. Why? Because it's constantly activated with worry. It's not the lions anymore. It's the emails that we're getting that triggered from the boss, the worry. You talked about, you talked about like stress and anxiety, and a lot of people are experiencing so much more worry and, you know, rumination than ever before. And this grows your abygdala, right?

Nature and being in nature shrinks it because it calms that part of the brain. And what we want to do in the mornings is downregulate the sphere center and upregulate our prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that goes, hmm, I've got this. I'm okay. And when you're outside, natural light and what that does hitting the back of your eyes and your brain and that feeling of being in the world, brings you back in the driving seat to start your day. So for me, going for a walk, I mean, that's why I started the stump cast, right? It's why I literally create a podcast, you know, walking and being outdoors,

is because it's one of the things of many that's become normal in modern life to sit inside and never be. Look at the pandemic. We literally just sat in. We wake up, roll out, go to your Zoom and you sit on a laptop all day. It's like a black mirror episodes, really, of what we were doing. It's not normal. We're supposed to be outside. We used to go to a cave to sleep.

We'd get up and be outside all day. You know, we don't have to be that extreme. No, that is my idea of heaven. Be in nature. Nature is just good for you. If I could do something where I could be outside all day, moving around. I should have started the Stompcast on an indoor podcast. You could be walking all day.

You wouldn't be saying that midwinter right now that I can tell you. The only only always says my hands are falling off. It becomes more like being outside in the winter, I think is almost even better because it's like when you get back here and you're like, wow, I'm such a legend. You know? Yeah. I think that's the joy of it. And walking in the rain.

So sometimes I don't want to go because it's raining and I still go. And I actually often feel better after a rainy walk than any other one because you feel accomplished as well. Yeah. You know, those raindrops ain't going to kill you. Also, what age does going for a walk become appealing? Because I remember as a child, my parents would be like, we're going to go for a walk now. And I'd be like, oh my God, I would rather sit in the suit. But how did you feel like this?

end of the walk. Do you remember? You probably, like, were you in the countryside? No, we weren't in the countryside. We were in like suburban London. Yeah, you ended in a park and had an ice cream or whatever. Often it would end up probably being different on the way back. But it's true. And my daughter on Saturday morning, I was like, should we go for a walk? And I had to basically take her, I had to say, we'll go, we'll walk to TK. Matt. That was how I had to get her out of the house. I think like different things come at different stages. Like when I was younger, that version of that was me climbing trees and playing in the fields. stuff like that. That was my equivalent of a walk. And actually the reason why I started doing it

again, because I thought, well, what do I do for comfort that was healthy when I was younger? If I'm not going to booze, I need to find something. I thought, well, I used to enjoy being in the fields. I can't have any fields or trees to climb, but I can go and walk in Batsy Park. So that's why I started doing. So I think it depends at different stages, but everyone should be exposed to nature. Like, as children, like the ideal thing is from a young age, to be playing in the mud, rolling around and, you know, just getting outside and building things and being amongst, like, animals and natures and plants and these things to build a feeling that you're connected

to the world. We have this strange thing as human beings and it's part of I think the modern problem that we have is that we've become associated with the planets. We are not an addition to the earth. We are part of this world which sounds like a line from the Lord of the Rings but we are actually as the as the who did it say

Legolas or someone said it, but we are part of this world. So you get up every morning. Oh, I'm decided actually. You get up every morning and you and you say your inspirational quotes from Lord of the Rings and then you go for a walk in Battersea Park. Battersy Park is a lovely park. Do you know people often say like the cities

there's no nature as all a jungle, you'll know this. London's got so many beautiful parks and it depends what kind of park you like, it's got everything. You know, Richmond Park, which obviously David Attenborough, so David Attenborough absolutely loves.

And then you've got kind of your urban ones like Battersea. You can find, you can find nature even in the kind of biggest of cities. Just look for it. But I would say like a morning walk every day, brilliant for dopamine levels, good for serotonin, great for grounding, great for reducing stress. Just do it every day. Go for a walk every morning. And if you're someone that struggles to sleep, one of the most important things is getting morning sunlight. People really underappreciate this. Like your brain needs to have the zero on the clock, right, the 24-hour circadian rhythm.

It needs to know when you start the dial, when the clock starts ticking. And the clock starts ticking when you get up because that's like, all right, I'm awake. We need to increase cortisol levels. Melatonin's low. But then we know 15 hours. later, the cortisol needs to drop and melaton needs to rise. But if you stay inside or jump in a car and drive to work and go indoors, how does your brain know when it's morning? Well, I mean, this morning, my brain, even though I went outside, would have struggled to know that it was morning because it just has not got light. Yes. And then the trick you have to do then is you do have to kind of head out like at 10 o'clock in the morning. Now, there's a couple of months in the UK when it's

dark when you arrive. You basically do need to go out for even five minutes. Just stand outside with your coffee. When you get your mid-morning coffee, just go outside, stand outside for five minutes. the natural light, and even look at the sun, turn your face to the sun, because the natural light, the back of your eyes, triggers that retinal pathway and says, okay, it is daylight, it is daylight. Otherwise, you know, it messes up your sleep. People who work indoors without windows often say they wake up three or four times in the night. The reason is that with every REM cycle, which is two or three hours long, they wake up because the brain's kind of like, maybe it's morning wakes them up. Doesn't know. So you need light to tell the brain, okay, it's okay, you can really sleep for eight hours now. Fantastic. That's interesting, isn't it? Okay, number three. Number three, I think it's having something in your life that is, that kind of makes you feel alive. And for me, that's motorcycle riding. I love, which is an irony being an AXA and E doctor. I understand. Swapping one, swapping booze for motorcycling.

I mean, it's better that you're not doing the both at the same time. Yeah, the two at the same time is very much not okay. And yeah, definitely don't do that. I definitely have found that riding motorcycles has been incredible for my mental health. I must say, I do ride pretty sensibly. I'm not a fast ride I cruise around. I love kind of the posy riding, turn up to a coffee shop, have a nice coffee, jump back on the bike, cruise down the lanes again. That's my style.

So do you go off into the countryside? Yeah, I love it just cruising on the lanes, looking up, looking around you. You feel really alive. And I like it because no one can call me. Yeah. I can't go on my phone for all this reasons. and I just feel alive. It's the closest to flying that anyone that's not a pilot's going to get.

Well, you can't feel the wind in your head, because you've got a helmet. But you do feel the wind on your body. And I do just think that it's just my thing. I do think everyone needs, people call it advice. It doesn't have to be a bad thing, but everyone needs something that is there, is that they selfishly indulge in. Like, what's yours? What is your thing that you do that is like now you're,

if you're going to like do something that makes you feel alive or have fun or just let loose. What is it? Running. Running is your thing. It's a bit tragic, isn't it? It's not, though. It's not because that's your... Going on holiday. Yeah. Holidays. Holidaying. Like, but without these things, like, what would be the point? You do actually need, you'd like, like, sometimes I think wellbeing can go a bit far where, like, you need to live such a, like a pure life that there's nothing that's, like, brings you, like, feeling of a live. Like, if you like, parachuting or bungee jumping, go and do that, if you, your version of a live can be going playing chess, I don't really care what it is.

Like, but you do need something that you just do for the pure enjoyment of doing. And that is motorcycle. There's no purpose for me riding motorcycles. I don't need it for transport. I do it because I like doing it. And I think everyone needs that. I'm not doing it to do it for a health purpose directly. And I'm not doing it to do a job.

And you're like tick list stuff. Like if you look at most things in your day, most of it's jobs, right? Even eating is technically something you need to do and get done. You need something on your list every day that it's not required. to do you do it because you want to do it. Going on holiday, I can't do that every day. No, but you can, but I always have to have it in the, it's got to be in the diary. You can plan it.

You can think about it. It's in the diary. You're looking at pictures of holidays. You're thinking about where you're going to go next. It is something that is there that you do because you want to. Yeah. You want to go and do this thing. And I do think that that people, you can relate that to joy.

You need joy in your life. So something for pure joy. Just for joy, just for the fun of doing. Because life is very serious. and without that it's too much. Okay, well, I'm going to go on holiday now. Where are you going to go? Cornwall. Do you want to come?

I'd love to. I'd be spent two years at med school there. It was fantastic. Well, you need to go there just for the joy of it then. Exactly. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Dr. Alex, for coming, the life of you. I love that Alex and I managed to turn our essentials into quite a long episode.

If any of those landed for you, I'd love to hear about it. You can always message me on Instagram at Life of Briny Pot. And if you enjoyed this bonus episode, you can give us a quick follow or leave a little review. It really helps other people find these conversations. But most importantly, take a deep breath. Do something joyful just for yourself. And I'll see you in the next episode.