The Wellness Scoop - Cortisol, Cardio & The Everyday Habits Protecting Your Brain

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

This week on The Wellness Scoop, we’re looking at the small, everyday habits that may influence our long-term health more than we think. From early research on stress hormones and cancer biology to new data on heart disease risk in men and women, we break down what the science actually shows and where the nuance matters. We revisit dementia prevention through a wider lens, exploring lifelong learning, oral health and cognitive engagement, and what they tell us about how closely the brain is connected to the rest of the body. We also unpack the gender gap in exercise habits and what it means for heart health. In our trends section, we explore fibre layering versus fibremaxxing and why variety may matter more than totals for gut health. We finish with practical, evidence-based sleep tips, because quality rest underpins everything from stress resilience to metabolic health. Recommendations: Shawn Achor on Super Soul Order your copy of Ella's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Pre-order your copy of Rhi's upcoming book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Fibre Formula⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your twice weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we're both here as your host. I'm Melamels. And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know that it can be really overwhelming and confusing. And that's why this podcast is here to cut through the noise and make healthier living, simple, fun and personal. And I'm very excited to say this is officially episode 97 of the Wellness Scoop, which means we're three episodes away from 100 episodes and I don't know something about that feels mega to me it is mega I felt like when

we hit our year anniversary and this I feel like it's definitely the start of really hopefully good things to come we can continue to be that positive space for yorks I know ella and I just want to acknowledge a few things don't we yeah I mean look we want to be a I don't say safe space but a happy place for you guys a place of respite of inspiration of empowerment but obviously the, you know, chat about health and wellness doesn't exist in a vacuum. You know, the world operates around us. And I think it was just important to,

we record this a week in advance. We're recording morning of the 2nd of March, but we're just super aware that there are enormous geopolitical tensions, eruptions, shifts happening right now. The world feels incredibly unstable. And we just want to kind of send huge love. We know we have listeners all over the world. We're going to have listeners listening in affected countries,

people feeling really nice. of us and we just wanted to say we are thinking of you we are aware of kind of how frightening and unknown the world feels right now and we just want to send a lot of love to you all yeah we really do we know you listen everywhere around the world and we are sending all of our wishes and thoughts with you and we think you're incredibly brave so welcome to our space today the wellness scoop let's have a chat about some things to take our mind off everything and what's coming up in today's show ella okay we have some very interesting new research that's just come out on cortisol, stress and cancer cells. So we're going to talk

about what that means and what it doesn't mean, of course. We've got some new data that suggest men may need nearly twice as much exercise as women for the same heart benefits, which is super interesting. The link between brain health oral hygiene and everyday cognitive habits that's a bit more of a deep dive into some of the dementia bits we were talking about last week and why we need to brush our teeth. We are going to talk about fiber layering versus fibromaxing. So the First trend was fibre maxing, apparently the new big trend is fibre layering, all fibre stuff, so it's what music to reuse is, and whether diversity is the smarter gut health strategy. And then finally, we have a few tips and tricks on how to fall asleep faster.

And of course, why sleep is the foundation of long-term health. Having not slept really for the last few weeks, I find that very concerned to highlight. Do you know what? I feel like sleep is that thing that you've either got it or you don't. And it's so concerning, isn't it? And you read it everywhere. So let's hope this is going to be a good trend and some good tips that we can unpack to help us all with that. Ella, how has your week been?

Yeah, my week's been good. We had a really family-filled weekend, which was so nice. Had my father-in-law, my sister-in-law, her husband and her daughter, everyone over yesterday. You know, it's just, I think one of the really lovely things for me since we moved is being able to host people and have people over and really spend that more kind of concentration. time with people that matter so much to us. And it's just, like, spring is weird, isn't it? Because it was the first day of spring yesterday and it was part of me. It's like, oh my gosh, the sun's coming out. The daffodils are here. It feels a little bit of warm and like spring in the air. But equally, yeah, as we said, then you're kind of open the news and you're like, goodness,

me, are we still going to be here when we get to summer. So it's slightly odd, weird juxtaposition. It is. Do you know what I always struggle with at this point is I almost have this guilt feeling for, I mean, have to live our everyday lives, but I do struggle with it very much. I struggle having a career that means, you know, I do post things online sometimes. You know, I'm going to a big conference this week. I'm speaking at an obesity conference and sometimes just everyday life just feels a little bit. I think heavier, but then we have to continue. And it's a really difficult place and position to be. And I think for everybody listening, I'm sure you all feel the same. Everyone wishes they could just do something. I totally agree. I want to hear what you're talking

about an obesity conference in one sec. I will say, I listened to this podcast last week, and it's by a, it's on Oprah's Super Soul, which actually I don't normally listen to, but someone else recommended this. And it was with someone called Sean Anker or Sean Acker. I can't remember how you say his son of. Anyway, he's one of the foremost experts, Harvard educated on happiness and positive psychology and the kind of psychology behind happiness. And he was talking about two things. The first is that really to cultivate happiness, we have to, essentially there's a kind of element of discipline in it and like the idea which I've always really like that you've got to show yourself you're worth it like these teeny teeny habits you know whether it's

waking up in the morning not scrolling but instead opening the window looking outside taking a deep breath making a cup of coffee sipping it you know and just think oh this is nice doing one thing for your health maybe that's a probiotic you take or it's your vitamin d or you make yourself a healthy smoothie or whatever it is but you kind of you show yourself from the outset that like I'm going to do those little things to take care of myself. I matter. I'm worth taking care of and being really consistent in that, which I love. But the other thing that he talked about was that actually they showed in just 21 days, so three weeks, taking two minutes to write down your gratitude list.

So three things you really feel grateful for. And then also a further two minutes to write down a meaningful moment from your day, something that actually mattered, has been shown to turn a low-level pessimist into a low-level optimist in just 21 days. Yeah. And it's funny because I used to do that for a little while and I loved it. And I started doing it again last week after I listened to this. Just I got a little note pad by my bed.

And it's so nice. And what he said is basically by doing that, you live the experience again and you kind of embody your body with these feelings. And there could be such small things. You know, we started, I love reading with my kids. We finished Charlie in the Chocolate Factory recently. And they loved it. We've just started on Matilda.

It was just like that little faces while we were talking. about Matilda and like how hilarious they thought some of it was when Matilda super glues the hat to the dad's head. I don't know. It's just these little moments of your day, but really reflecting on them. Anyway, I'll pop the podcast in the show notes. I really recommend it. But it just if you're feeling funky, it's such an easy thing to do and it's really nice. Gratitude is so important, though. I think you're right. It's one of those things that happiness isn't a permanent state, is it? And I feel like every day, if we all practiced gratitude and what's relative to us, it would really help 100% Yeah, so interesting. So what are you talking about at the obesity conference? Do you know, I need to actually go through that today. So I haven't had much time to prepare what it's going to be. I know that I'm leading the nutrition workshop there. So it's a big more kind of a few hours, you know, where I'll be speaking to lots of different scientists delegates and just giving also food examples from my books. Obviously my books out in three days, everyone, which is so exciting. It is exciting. It is exciting. It just feels

strange talking about it like you said and Joe what's really you know how passionate I am about this and we've made some real headway recently in the conversation around fibre and thank you to the wellness group listeners anyone that's pre-ordered or orders it makes it makes a humongous difference because I genuinely feel that with the movement we've got behind it and if I can show that books like this do well that we can actually try and advocate for more fiber rich meals in schools and we can actually get some groundwork up change when it comes to nutrition policy. And there are things that are changing. And yeah, it's out in three days, everyone.

The fiber formula, if you could pre-order, that would be amazing. But like I said, it feels strange talking about it, Ella. Yeah, well, you should be super proud of it. It's an unbelievable book. Yeah, it's been a lot of work, everyone. But I think that moves us on nicely to the health headlines today that matter. Okay, so if you're new to the show, and we've had loads of new listeners, this recently. So welcome, guys. It is such a pleasure to have you here. In this section every week,

we look at what are the big stories that you would have read on all the different news outlets that you subscribe to or that you read. Maybe they've been picked up on socials, on Sky News, BBC, wherever it is. And we're going to pick our three favorites every week or the three that we think are most helpful or relevant or confusing for you and break them down. So we have also an extra pickup from last week. So we were talking about dementia last week and about that amazing new research showing that lifelong reading, writing, learning, that kind of investment in your intellectual stimulation can lower your risk of dementia by nearly 40% and delay onset by up to five years. So absolutely mega. And then this week, there was another piece of the puzzle, which was there was a huge conference in the US. And experts there

were talking about that poor oral health might be linked to higher risk of dementia and more than 50 other conditions from arthritis to bowel disease or whole plethora of things. Do you know, we've had this discussion around oral health for many years when it comes to brain health. And finally, it's like you said, putting the pieces in the puzzle together with the research. But it feels like it's never really made the news. Well, there was that headline about flossing and dementia last year. But you're right, it's not mainstream knowledge. I mean, we, but then we have to put everything into perspective and say, you know, the food you eat still probably has more weight or, you know, look at all these things, but all these factors combined. And what a privilege, oral health is, again, we,

This is another factor that you're right. It should be discussed. Yeah, so regular flossing was linked to a reduced risk of dementia, potentially lowering it by 10 to 20%, which is absolutely extraordinary. I hate flossing my teeth. So I really need to take that as inspired. Well, I've got the wire, you know, behind your teeth. So I have to go to the hygienist because I've got the wire. And I've got really tiny gaps between my bottom teeth. It was really hard to get the floss in. I had to buy a special one and even that wasn't enough. So I bought a water. pick a water thing. Oh yeah. And I try that. I mean, I don't know. At home dentals.

Yeah, there you go. We're all trying it out here. So the idea with this piece of the puzzle essentially is that the theory comes that bacteria from inflamed gums because you haven't been looking after them properly, both in terms of brushing your teeth and flossing, can enter the bloodstream and that can cause chronic inflammation or contribute to chronic inflammation over time and potentially even cross the blood brain barrier, which can influence cognitive decline. So it's not that not cleaning your teeth one day is going to have that, but kind of cumulatively over time,

you can then get that bacterial buildup. Super interesting. You know, this is discussing adults, but I just want to put a little shout out out there as a reminder for children's dental health because we have one of the highest rates again in Europe of children under the age of five having tooth decay. And again, it's dietary lead and, of course, oral hygiene.

So it's something that it is an issue. And I think if parents knew, you know, that it's linked to their brain health, not just their teeth. I mean, the teeth should be enough, surely. You don't want your child in hospital having an operation for tooth decay, which is really sad. It's very interesting, everyone. Let's just a little reminder to brush our teeth longer. I'm pretty sure that tooth decay is the number one reason that children have to have anaesthetic. Yeah, roughly a quarter of five-year-olds experienced tooth decay, affecting, on average, three to four teeth.

in this country and it is the most common reason for hospital emissions in children age five to nine predominantly by high sugar consumption, poor oral hygiene and yeah deep inequality. So again, it's a privileged conversation here. There's so much to discuss. I will say trying to clean your children's teeth is really a battle. Do you know what I've done? Everyone listening, I'm so sorry if this is too much, but I've got a toothbrush station downstairs and in the upstairs bathroom because they don't want to run back upstairs to do their teeth. So I just, I just, just do it downstairs with the toothbrush station. I've got it in the kitchen.

There you go. Yeah. It's easier, isn't it? Straight after. I'm so glad we've discussed this. I feel seen. Yeah, I've ever in the kitchen and bought frozen toothbrushes as the incentive.

There you go. Exactly. There's some good toothbrushes out there. But we'll move on to the fact that the, you know, another headline that we've got on dementia here actually links to older generations too and that running around after grandchildren can keep people's brain sharp. I saw a lot of this.

I wish my parents did listen because I don't have much childcare support. But you know what? If you are a grandparent and you're helping with childcare, you are amazing and helping yourself. Yeah, so there was some research that analysed about 3,000 English grandparents. And they were showing that helping with homework, playing games, preparing meals for your grandchildren can help starve off cognitive decline, particularly for grandmothers, which is so interesting. I think it makes sense because you hear of those studies where you're, you know, you retire and your health to suddenly rapidly deteriorates. I think I think it must be mental health, first of all, a sense of purpose. And then probably just the fact that you have to keep active

and keep moving. What do you think? No, I totally agree. It's absolutely fascinating. The research was led from a university in the Netherlands. And as I said, they were looking at about 3,000 grandparents and doing different surveys and cognitive tests between 2016 and 2022. And interestingly, it didn't actually matter quite how many hours they spent with the grandchildren. Doing these things was just the fact that they did it. And as they said, it was things like helping with homework, playing games, preparing meals, driving grandchildren to school or activities, caring for them when they're ill, watching them overnight. And those who were actively involved in that caregiving showed a slower decline in memory over the six-year period

compared to those who didn't. A similar pattern was seen in verbal fluency, which measures quite how quickly and flexibly the brain retrieves information. So pretty cool, huh? Grandparents have often children maintain all those skills better over time. I think it's fantastic. And also, I think it just goes to show that as a human race, we've evolved to, there's elements of the human being that we can't ignore, the fact we are meant to care for others, we have social interaction.

We do need to keep testing our memory. You know, you see a lot of people saying, oh, I took up piano or Suduco. You know, that week we were talking about different hobbies you can do to stimulate your brain health. I love Sudoku. Honestly, me too. And then sometimes I'm sat there with my oldest maths homework. He's only a new one. And I'm having to literally question myself going,

is that what the question's asking? Like, it's taking me a while to actually compute it because I have not done maths in so many years. And now I do wonder if we need it as much. Because obviously we have AI and we have everything online. But it definitely tests your brain, Ella. It really does. And I think all of this and our next headline is just that we always have it.

And I think it's such an important part for the both of us when we think about health and wellness being so 360 and that it's so easy to kind of reduce it down to eating broccoli and eating protein and, you know, lifting a weight. And obviously those things are super important. I'm not discounting them. But it's just that it doesn't exist in a vacuum and not cleaning your teeth and not kind of being actively involved in your community. All of these things are detrimental to your health. And so it's just, and I always think it's such a nice reminder, like maybe, maybe you. you've got loads going on in your life right now. And you're struggling with making healthy meals

or you've got to just grab and go a lot of the time because you're travelling for work or whatever it is, just normal life. And it's just important to know, like that's not the only marker or measure of your health. Like invest in those other bits of your health, going for a walk, engaging your brain, stimulating, learning, connecting with other people because all of that counts for so much for our long-term health. And that's something I'm also going to bring up at this obesity conference on Wednesday. It's the 360 degree. Obviously, my area there is nutrition, but even just mentioning the fact that it's hard to stick to healthy behavior change or nutritional advocacy, you know, just sticking to a diet that works for you. Often, social situations occur.

Where do you go out for lunch together? What do you consider the norm? What's in your home environment? All of these factors play such a role with our health and wellness. And I love that we've started with toothbrushing, you know. Me too. Yeah. I think it just shows, Yeah, as I said, health and wellness is so much more than just what's on our plate, although what's on our plate is very important. Can I mention one thing that I saw over the weekend on social media to do with this health and wellness conversation? It was actually on the diary of a CEO podcast, you know, the clickbait viral dangerous headlines.

Super clickbaity. Honestly, this one was shocking. And for the first time I actually had to comment underneath it because I just end up getting, you know, pulled it. It was about pregnancy, nutrition. and it was basically saying 90% of mothers aren't eating well in pregnancy. I mean, the stat was pulled out of nowhere and essentially saying the orange juice again is as bad as Coke, Coca-Cola, and the women who don't eat well in pregnancy are basically giving their babies chronic diseases later on in life.

It was just, it was such a terribly worded from someone that's not a pregnancy expert or a nutritionist and is no qualifications in the area whatsoever. And the fear that it would have spread Ella to anyone that is pregnant has been, couldn't eat well in that first trimester or throughout the entire pregnancy. It was as if it was this easy choice people have to make. And it was really shocking. And we get so many emails into hello at wellness hyphen scoop.com if you want to get in touch about pregnancy and people worrying because they feel so awful. And they just can't eat their normal diets. And I know you and I have both had those experiences in the past.

I mean, with my first pregnancy, I literally just ate different varieties of potatoes for five months, like crisps, chips. The nausea is so debilitating. If you've got hyperamesis and you can't keep any fluids down. And do you know what? It was such a terrible clickbait, Ella, headline. I think it's unethical. And in my opinion, as a health profession, I'm sure many others, our job is to not panic people and fear people. And the fact that clip was put out there, I think it does more harm than good.

So anyway, everybody, wellness is not viral clickbait clicks, is what I'm trying to say. It is about what we're discussing today. And our next headline is about meditation. Yes, it is. Obviously, I'm in my kind of, yeah, big interest in more like that 360 side of health at the moment. So it's call my eye. But it's super interesting. So the headline when this headline in particular comes from the telegraph, although it was

picked up everywhere, meditating twice a day can reduce the spread of cancer. Patients may be told to cut stress to prevent high cortisol levels, which could, and I emphasize could, be linked to tumor growth. And this was a report on research that was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. And it was really interesting. This is, just to clarify from the outset, this is super, super early stage ideation. They're presenting research. They haven't gone through all the steps yet.

This is super, super, super early stage. This is just a kind of premise to now be explored from very, very, very early stage research. But to this point of health being 360, I think it's very, very interesting. I think what's really important to remember, like Ella just said, 360, is that stress is linked to so much. We know stress is linked to hypertension, heart disease. It makes perfect sense in our body. It's not good for us.

We know this with chronic inflammation. And they were presenting research that said that those who have cancer, if they meditate each morning and evening, so that's twice a day, could reduce the chance of it spreading. So twice daily attempts to reduce stress, they basically prevent those cancer cells becoming more robust than metastasis, the spreading of it, and it becoming harder to treat Ella. So, I mean, meditation takes different shapes and forms, doesn't it? It's not just sitting there first of all and imagining white light for everybody. No, there's so many different ways to do meditation and it's kind of just sitting still and literally just breathing with your thoughts is

really difficult which I think it is for so many of us you know A there's so many guided practices breath works really interesting because obviously you're counting your breath so it's so effective at calming down your nervous system reducing stress but it's also a little bit more active which can be helpful but you can also do you know kind of mindfulness practices where you go for a walk and obviously you don't take your phone on this but say 20 minutes and you just focus on all your senses. So really focus, like, how does it feel as your feet touch the ground? Like, can you really feel your feet on the pavement or on the grass wherever you're walking? Like, what can you smell? What can you really feel? Like, can you feel the breeze on your palms of your hands, kind of going

next to your ears? What can you see? And not just like literally right in front of you, but like, can you again see like the breeze rustling the leaves? Like you just really engage all of your senses and kind of feel it deeply. And that can be so effective. So yeah, you don't have to just kind of sit and like Kumbaya, lots of different versions. But like you just said, Ella, for so many people, that their weekdays are stressful, because, you know, remember the commute I described in the morning, you've rushed to get out the door,

you're pounding concrete, you see no, you know, nature if you're going through a community in the city. So perhaps those grounding techniques when you get to your office or you sit down or you'll start your day at work, that's even helpful, isn't it? Just to try and ground yourself when you get to that zone. Oh my gosh, literally just sit in your desk, chair, you don't have to close your eyes, but just like feel rooted, like feel again your feet

on the ground, your butt on the seat, your back maybe resting against something and just like sit for 20, 30 seconds and just like be in your body, like connect your mind and your body back together. I also think there's links into the work that you've discussed before and that I used to do back in the day on breath work because you can do that anywhere. Totally. You can literally just like consciously as you do that, just start feeling your breath. Just like breathe slowly. breathe deeply, like feel the air when it actually gets into your belly into the bottom of your ribs. Like you literally just feel that your belly's rising and your ribs are expanding and then your ribs are deflating and your belly is softening. And just, again, just you don't even need to do

kind of any specific practices. Just slow it down through your nose, out through your nose. And it's amazing. Just a minute of, as I said, like feel yourself in the chair, your feet on the ground. Do you know, I can imagine because when we did our live event, last year, we had Cordelia do a breath work session. And even on stage in front of 800 people, I nearly fell asleep. I remember doing the breathing. It was so powerful. But here in the, we've got Dr. Kimberly Bussie from Midwestern University. And she presented this research, exploring how cortisol affects cancer cells and said it is very important to be clear about what's involved here, that the experiments were conducted on cancer cells in a lab and not in patients.

And like Ella said, it's really early research. And we have to remember you can't always apply in vitro so in the laboratory to everyday life. But the cortisol levels used corresponded to what people normally see every day, you know, our peaks and our troughs. And that's where they started with this research. Exactly. And then what they did is they grew cancer cells under three different conditions. So they had one batch of these cancer cells that acted as a normal control group. Then they had a second batch of the cancer cells that were exposed to cortisol continuously for four weeks.

and a third batch that was exposed to cortisol and then had the hormone removed. And that allowed the team to observe the short term and more persistent effects of cortisol or stress hormone exposure, which is really interesting. And it's important to say as well, what they're sort of starting to see in these early findings as well often is that cortisol's our stress hormone can remain really stubbornly high in some people with cancer, whereas as we said in a kind of healthy individual, it would rise and fall across the day. But they're starting to see potentially that it can be.

remaining quite high. And what they saw is that the cells in this case, in this experiment that were exposed to sustained cortisol, appeared to be more resistant and more motile, which means that they were more capable of moving and therefore potentially invading up the tissues and spreading. And that persistent exposure against the stress hormone were also associated with changes in gene expression, which is just a suggestion, but the suggestion that cortisol might influence long-term cancer cell behaviour and therefore the response to therapy. So this Dr. Boussi has re-refered to who was reporting on this, she said, our data suggests that cortisol might be important in the spread of cancer within the body. Our data is consistent with the literature that suggests that

psychological stress, particularly if it's chronic, is a contributing factor to both the development of cancer and the response to cancer therapy. Also, cancer is stressful. You know, you said, of course, patients have elevated levels because your body's undergoing either treatment or a immune response, you know, that there's a lot going on there. And it makes perfect sense that the cortisol levels are different in patients of cancer. So if we can isolate that and look into that more, that's really, really interesting. And cortisol, we have to remember, isn't inherently bad. I think it's important to just break down why cortisol has a purpose, you know, our fight or flight response. It basically essentially helps us perform better as well. You know,

athletes need cortisol to stand on that start line and hear that firing gun and off they go. And you know, we need it. Short-term increases are normal and adaptive, but, you know, when it's chronic and constantly sustained, even in everyday life, we're probably increasing our risk of disease with stress, which is well researched, you know, every single day, the stressful commute, the constant noises, the inability to switch off from life, sometimes that can lead to chronic stress levels. So even though it's early research, I think it's a little reminder for us all as human beings to try and preserve ourselves a little bit more. Yeah, I totally agree. I think this is super interesting potentially in this example, but it's, as we said, very, very early research. And it's not to say it's anyone's fault for not controlling their stress or anything goodness me now. But I think if we zoom out and look at this, as you said, in the context of all the information that we have on the impact of stress, I think it is a really effective reminder for all of us that ultimately, obviously no one can just eliminate stress. Stress exists. That's absolutely fine. The key thing is to try and do.

the little things that helps us have a kind of quote unquote healthier baseline. And so we do have a stressful day. We have an argument with a partner. You know, we have a nightmare with our kids or with our commute or a really stressful deadline at work or at university or whatever it is. But you can then come back from it. And I think the challenge comes when we don't have those tools and techniques in our lives where we can't then refine that baseline. And as I said, obviously, I really enjoy breath, work and meditation, things like that. I know it's not for everyone. But mindful coloring, baking, running, swimming. Music, listening to music, singing, anything you can do.

Listening to music, playing music. There's a walk outside, as I said, like I'm just immersing yourself in nature, nature bathing, forest bathing, as people call it, all of these things. It doesn't have to just be sitting with cross legs meditating, although give it a go. At Desjardin, our business is helping yours. We're here to support your business through every stage of growth, from your first pitch to your first acquisition.

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that's 96% are not getting enough fibre. It's one of the lowest figures in the world. And I couldn't ignore it. So we've spent years obsessing over protein and other trends. And I'm delighted to share that after a year in the making, my new book, the fibre formula, is available to pre-order. I have answered every question from gut health and energy, cancers and heart disease to aging skin longevity and even microplastics. Built on over a decade of clinical research, it gives you my fiber formula, 30 grams of fiber a day, 30 different plants a week, 30 choose, and 30 minute meals plus 60 delicious minimally processed recipes to make it doable. I've done the hard work, so the protein, fiber and plant,

are all laid out for you. I'm a small fish in a very big murky pond of wellness books and so your pre-orders really do matter and they help my message reach more people. If you head to the link in the show notes or any bookstore or on Amazon where you can get 15% off and a lowest price pre-order guarantee. I really can't wait to touch on our next headline. I think it's fascinating, Ella. Yeah, it's really interesting. We have a very food light episode this week. I've just realized. Makes a nice change. You know, you can all order my book for Thursday. Yeah, exactly. Get cooking. Fibber Rich recipes, guys. We'll come on to some fiber in a minute. But men need twice as much exercise as women to lower heart disease risk. Research suggests sex-specific

strategies after analysis of cardiovascular health improvements. So that headline in particular comes from The Guardian, but again, this is the sort of thing that picked up everywhere. It actually came out a couple of months ago, but we didn't have time to include it in an episode, but had been more. really wanting to. This came out at Ziamen University in China, who both said that correctly, and they were analysing activity tracker data from more than 85,000 adults. And again, this comes from the UK Biobank. Yeah, everyone, the UK Biobank just gives and gives everybody. This study is fantastic. First of all, 85,000 individuals is humongous and middle-aged adults, and they followed them for eight years. The core findings were pretty straightforward. Women achieved the same level of heart protection with half the amount of weekly exercise compared to men.

Now, I want to draw in this so many reasons why this could be in a minute. But at the current recommended minimum of we've got in this country 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, that's NHS guidance. I know it varies around the world, but roughly everyone's on that level. Women had a 22% lower risk of developing heart disease and men had a 17% low risk. There's not too much in it there. But when activity levels increased, this is when the gap happened, the difference really showed through. So at around 250 minutes per week, women reduced their coronary heart disease risk by 30%.

But men needed 530 minutes per week to have the same 30% reduction. So to reach that similar level, men needed twice as much exercise. Yeah. So to get 30% reduced risk of coronary heart disease, men needed over twice. the amount of time spent exercising, which is so interesting, isn't it? Ultimately, I think there's so many factors, first of all. Estrogen is heart protective. And we know that this is on a middle-aged sample group,

but I'd like to know how many women are in menopause, not in menopause. What are you comparing it to here? There's so many factors because we know that's heart protective, and that's why when women hit menopause, their risk of heart disease goes up as well. We've also got to look at average lifestyle Now, this is a very generic thing to say, but women often around the world are the primary caregivers.

They are more likely to be more active in everyday tasks as well as those additional workouts per week. And we still, I know that times have changed and there is a lot more. Well, sadly, not enough. No, there should be. There should be more equality. Women do a lot more in general, I think, in the home still. There's a lot of physical labour. But anyway, when we get back to this research.

I'm just going to jump in there and I have just checked those facts. Women still perform significantly more domestic labour than men, averaging four to eight hours more time spent doing domestic labour than men. I mean, it just doesn't surprise me. Even stood over a hob cooking as you stood up longer than someone that sat down and, you know, doing the washing, all sorts of things. It's a lot, everybody. Do you want any more details on this?

Go on. Give me more. 72% of women say they do the majority of household tasks, but just 18% of men agree with them on that. Women do 36 hours of household tasks per week, which is nine hours more than men. Nine hours more standing up, walking around, as you said, whether that's cooking, ironing, like putting stuff away in colours, all of it, you know, that's busy.

It is busy, everybody. You have one more good one on it. Give it to me, Ella. Couples who don't share that load equally. So the women who are doing nine hours more than the men, argue about it five times per month on average. I mean, yeah. Welcome to the real world.

This is exactly it. But I'm trying to just explain that the nuances and the gender gap, obviously there's biological nuances, but there's also everyday life physical reasons. And I just wanted to give one example there of why perhaps that could be. But anyway, this really focused on heart protection, like I've just said. So women are less likely than men to meet the recommended activity targets, which is also interesting.

But men generally have higher overall physical fitness levels. So we still got that in society. And I wonder why, because do women have the time to go out and hit the target? So it is a big conversation here because to get to work out or go for a walk and leave your family at home is a luxury. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's really interesting. And I know there's been a lot of work on this over the last few years or decade is there a belief that only men get heart disease or cardiovascular disease. I feel like that was the kind of general sense, like men get heart attacks.

And it's obviously not true in any shape or form. and I think there's been a lot of work to publicise that because one in three women, apparently, globally. It's the largest killer for women. It's crazy. And I still think there's a kind of predominant belief that heart disease affects men more than it affects women. And it's just not true, which I think was a really important part of this. And interesting, as you said, really, like if we look at kind of British government data again, you look at aerobic exercise, so that's your 150 minutes of that a week.

70% of British men meet that guideline, only 59% of women manager. For muscle, strength training, 29% of women meet the targets. 36% of men meet the targets. So many, many, many more men are hitting the British government guidelines and how much exercise to do. Now, as we're seeing here, they actually maybe need to do more than that. But women aren't doing that. So I think it's really important, A, to say we do need to exercise more collectively, but B, that cardiovascular benefit element of it is so important and it's so important to emphasize

that women really need this just as much as man. I think it also goes back. Gosh, I've gone off on a gender divide thing here. But I think on stereotypes of what fitness looks like, stereotypes from what women do versus men, especially when it comes to still lifting weights and things that are incredibly important, it's still intimidating to walk into a weight section in the gym, to be quite frankly honest. I think so for a woman. Me too.

I think there's so much change. I mean, we're just getting there. It's just becoming normal to see women walking around the gym as much as men. And how crazy is that? You know, one of the people I love is, I love her for lots of reasons I really admire her. But Elizabeth Day, if you follow her on Instagram, she's always posting about her, like, pull-ups and things like that. Is she? I love that.

I love, like, strong, successful women showing that element of themselves. Oh, talking of strong successful women, Ashley James, I adore her, and she does so many amazing segments discussing things. It's controversial because she discusses controversial topics. But she's all about trying to get women, you know, just equal in society and all the different load that we share and why it still obviously isn't equal. But look, let's go back to this particular study. It was observational. And just to remember, observational data is always hard often to get cause and effect.

It's like watching what someone eats, writing down a food die and trying to remember it all as well. It's really difficult. You know, they used wearable activity trackers, rather. than simple self-reporting. So that does strengthen the findings somewhat, but we know that up to 40% of those are inaccurate as well. So take it with a bit of inspo to just get more movement for men and women, because we're all not meeting the activity targets each week.

I'm definitely not meeting the activity targets each week as well. So we just need to be more nimble, Ella. I'll tell you one thing, and don't take this a smug. Let me get to the end of the sentence, please, guys. But I am now hitting the activity targets. Of course, you're walking your dogs every day. For sure, but I'm really kind of consciously exercising. I'm doing sort of like strength, sort of body weight training, maybe twice a week.

I'm doing yoga two or three times a week. And I'm walking my dogs. I'm really active at the moment. That's the most consistently active I've probably ever been in my life, certainly since before I had children a long, long time ago. And I also just say this is a super anecdotal, but obviously, again, we know there's so much evidence between exercise and mood. I cannot tell you the difference on my mood on the regular exercise. It's, oh my gosh, I know it's privileged to be able to do it. But it's just kind of reaffirming that link as well.

Gosh, it feels like I just feel so happy for it. I think it's really inspiring, actually. And I get it when sometimes, you know, people say, oh, time as an excuse. It's not. Genuinely, sometimes you don't have time to exercise. I don't like it when PTs say that. You can always make time. I'm sorry, you try having a family owning a business and doing it all and making time for it.

Sometimes you've got to preserve your sleep. you've got to preserve the other areas of mental health or well-being. Like we've discussed dental health and all sorts today. You know, there's other areas. Gotta make time to floss. It's got to make time to floss and drawing your picture book, everybody. Like, how can we do it all? But we can all try and walk a few more steps.

We can try and walk up the escalator instead of standing to the right. We can try and do those small tweakments in the washroom this morning. I hate it. But you know what? I try and squat down to pick up the washing and pick it up again. and it's those little things, Ella. Yeah, and don't underestimate, you know, finding a 10-minute YouTube video

that you absolutely love, and that for you might be yoga, might be hit, it might be all sorts of things, Pilates, but like don't underestimate a 10-minute, quick online at home. Super effective. I agree. So, Ella, let's move on to what is trending in wellness. Okay, this is Ruiz kind of trend.

Right, we are talking about fiber layering versus fiber maxing. So I'm sure you guys might remember a few months ago, we talked about this trend that went nuts on TikTok called fibre maxing. And essentially, it was a very simple goal. Push your intake closer and then weigh over the recommended 30 grams of fiber a day. Just max your fiber more, more, more, more, more. Obviously, the intention of that is inherently positive, more fiber.

Generally speaking, is great. But I guess a few kind of challenges with it. One, if you don't need much fiber, and we know 96% of the country don't eat enough fiber, and you suddenly double or triple it, obviously you can have bloating, kind of digestive, discomfort. Someone's called it digestive drama when I was researching this. I like that digestive drama. Yeah, like digestive drama. And then

also is that thing where you could eat four apples and that would be fibre maxing because you've got loads but you're not getting the diversity. So I think fibre layering is maybe an evolution of fibre maxing that takes a slightly different approach but I think you would say is more beneficial.

Yeah, of course. I just want to say one thing. We kind of made history this weekend with the first ever headline on the front page of Red magazine saying, Fiber, could it be sexy? And it's the first time I've ever seen the words Fiber and Sexy together ever in the history of the world of the media. So I was very, very proud. Fibber is having a rebrand.

Yeah, it's having a rebrand. A glow up. It's basically plant-based diet. You know, let's get more plants and whole grains in. And this is fantastic. But I agree of you. One type of fiber is never the solution. It's diversity.

It's having a balance. diet, not just a boring, let's just have the same fruit multiple times a day. For sure. And we're actually going to dive into this on Thursday, so we won't do too much on it today. But I think it then got lots of trends like Sillium Huss and things like that. And really kind of just getting in as much fiber as possible as opposed to, not necessarily always, but like taking fiber supplements as opposed to having that diversity. So, and we're going to talk about Sillium Huss on Thursday. Yeah. So we'll save that for the Thursday because it's a huge topic. And like we said, it's going to explode. We're already.

seeing it absolutely everywhere. But if you want to practically just try this and build habits gradually, it's a really sensible approach. It's just start, start low and slow. Yeah, it's literally layer in fibre. So instead of kind of loading up and maxing on it, it's the idea that you're kind of layering it in, you're spreading out different types of fibre across the day. So you're layering into your meals, grains, seeds, nuts, veggies, legumes, fruit into all your meals. And so you're really kind of shifting about, yeah, the layering. So it's all about the kind of diversity, which is where the science is so interesting, because obviously all our different plants have different types of fibre and soluble fiber, insoluble fiber, resistant starch, as we talked about

last week. And all of these different things, plus all of their different polyphenols and the oxidants, all the rest of it, are feeding different strains of our gut bacteria and helping our bodies. And so when you're layering in all these different types of fiber and all these different types of plants with all these beneficial properties across the day, across the week, you are having this huge health impact and you're really going to have more chance of increasing your microbial diversity, which we know it's so important for our health. And it's really associated with obviously both badded gut health, but then also long-term metabolic health. Let's break it down to just looking at, you know, fibre layering is your bowl of porridge in the morning. It's let's layer up with some extra

seeds. Let's layer up again with some fruit. Then the next day you could layer up with seeds, fruits and nuts and then the next day after that you can add in some different types of grains. Well, and I think then you're looking at your supper and you've made like your favorite chicken curry that you make every week, but you're like, oh, I'm fiber layering. So I'm going to add in some greens. I've got Cavalonerero where I've got spinach in the fridge. I'm going to add that in or I'm going to add in some peppers or whatever it is, some baby corn. Some lentils to your soup.

That's what my one of my team messaged me Pam the other day. She's like, really, I've just added lentils to my soup. it's a game changer. So honestly, little things, and they don't break the bank because actually it's much cheaper to buy loads of pulses and fibre plant foods like that in bulk because they're dry goods. They keep in the dry cupboard. You know, they last a long time.

We're not asking you to spend a fortune on fresh produce every single day because we have to remember, you know, this isn't about buying an expensive punnet of like grapes every single day in different colours. It is literally about what you can do within your remit. And then just a few kind of practice. take homes if you want to try fiber layering, start low and slow. So like, don't go from 10, 15 grams of fiber a day to 30 overnight. So just little bits here and there, add it up over the next month or two. Make sure you're having loads of water because fiber obviously acts a bit like

a sponge. So you need lots of fluids to make it more comfortable through your digestive system and poo it all out, basically. Think about the layers, which I really like instead of your total. So you're not chasing a number, but you're just thinking about adding in all those different layers, layer up little bits of fiber in each meal over time. So you don't need to overhaul your whole diet to do that. That is not a kind of full restructuring. It's just, as we said, lentils into sauces or pastas or soups, some seeds on your yogurt or your porridge, some extra veggies and meals you already enjoy. Spread it out as well across the day. So it's just little bits of each meal, each snack. It's not about perfection as always, just small layers, diverse additions. And I think

fiber layering is 10 out of 10. I love that. 10 out of 10. So let's move on to trend number two, which is how to fall asleep in five minutes, because let's face it, don't we all want to be able to do that? This was a piece in the telegraph recently after a UGov poll that found that 77% of us in Britain aim for eight hours of sleep, but only 25% of us get it. I mean, I can relate to that, Ella. Me too. Honestly, my kids have, because we were doing this building work, project at home and which we are guys we are nearly finished with i can't even believe it um i'm not recording my bedroom today no she's actually at a proper desk i'm not a desk it's unbelievable but our kids have slept in our room now for three months and so we then moved them back into their room and they

just they just refused to be evicted or one of them comes in and then and then i'm finally about to sleep in two minutes so so the next one comes in anyways it's very sweet but i feel so tired they finally got into sleep in their own bed night all night and guess what the dogs were awake for two hours you were just like oh my god oh do you know what kept me up last night i heard i actually got out of bed to try and see it and realized i didn't have my glasses on through the window i think it was a badger really what did they sound like so it was a different noise to fox any wildlife lovers please let me know but it was such a strange noise i've never heard it before but then when i opened the window it made quite a loud noise and i heard like the claws with the paws like scuttle off down the side but it was so loud it must have been like

1 o'clock in the morning. It woke me up outside. Interesting. I know. I wish I had a not a wildlife night camp. Anyway, there's loads of reasons why we don't sleep. Stress, I think, is a big one. Anxiety that keeps us up. Late night doom scrolling. You might have a pet like my cat's just wandered in the room. She's going to try and ruin the microphone. You know, there's so many reasons why we don't sleep. So the average healthy adult apparently should take about 15 to 20 minutes to drift off. And the sweet spot is about 7 to 9 hours total an I. But the key thing here is actually, actually just about quality sleep. And so anyway, they had a handful of tips in there for better sleep that we thought would be a nice place to end because who doesn't need that? We both need it.

Oh my goodness, we do. And the first one is great because now it's spring over here and wherever you are in the world, get natural light first thing in the morning, in whatever way, shape or form you can. Because that helps kickstart our clock, your circadian rhythm, that internal body clock, getting outside early, just a short walk, anything signals to your brain that the day has started, which does help you feel sleep here at bedtime. Exactly that. And you want to be careful with naps. So a short nap around 20 minutes.

I'm not sure who gets to do that, but early in the afternoon can improve alertness. But don't nap too late in the day. It's danger zone. It can't delay your sleep onset. Also, interestingly, they have shown in various different studies that it works for some people, but exercising too close to bed,

one, like a vigorous workout, I don't mean a walk, or a little yoga stretch, but a vigorous workout within one or two hours before bedtime can actually delay sleep because a raises core body temperature and stimulates adrenaline, which is super interesting. I have always found this interesting. You know people say you're either a night owl or a morning lark.

And some people just prefer, don't they, to work out in the evening. Or it's the only time you have in your day, let's be honest. It's the only time you can do it, you can't do it before works, you have to do it after. But I just don't go if that's my only time stop because I can't. I definitely know I am a morning type of worker out. Ella, I definitely don't adapt well and I don't sleep. It's like if I get off stage in the evening, it takes me a good hour and a half

to calm down enough to even think and contemplate about sleep. Oh my God, I was so fired up after watching Bridgeton last night. I watched it last night too. We should save this for our extra scoop. But yeah, we're all about that at the moment. God, it's good. Also, now the weather's changing. Keep your bedroom cool.

And sleep experts do suggest that the ideal bedroom temperature is about 16 to 18 degrees. So actually a lot cooler than I like. I probably love a 20-21-degree room. Oh, do I like a really cold room, actually? I do like the window open when it's summer and I just get a breeze. Me too, but then my hay fever is like, er. And then you get the foxes or the badgers.

See, that's the thing. Actually, in London, I used to get that too. Foxes everywhere. Yeah, way more foxes. Yeah. And then the other ones, stick to your routine. We know that our circadian rhythm, our internal clock. It loves consistent going to bed and waking up.

It just thrives on that predictability. So focus on that. Winding down really helps. Maybe it's a bath for you. Maybe it's a few minutes of calm, breathing or something. Maybe it's reading your book. Whatever it is.

But little sleep prep ritual can signal to your nervous system. It's safe to relax and chill out. And on that managing stress before bed. So, you know, there was a study, for example, in 2015, in JAMA, internal medicine showed mindfulness practices, can improve sleep quality because it calms the nervous system. So as I said, that might just be avoided.

the news or stressful emails or doom scrolling, it might be some mindfulness, it might be your gratitude list, which is such a nice thing to do before bed. But anything to reduce pre-sleep anxiety, like right now with what's happening in the world, checking the news just before bed is probably not going to help. I agree because we have, you know, sleep does count. You know, a 22 study that we had found that consistently sleeping fewer than five hours a night. I mean, look, I know this happens to us sometimes we can't avoid it but it is strongly associated with high risks of all sorts of things heart disease cancer depression diabetes then again in jammer internal medicine showed that people who sleep less consume more calories and crave higher fat foods and we know with less sleep your

ghrelins all over the place your leptin your peptide hormones those are your hunger and fullness hormones yes your hunger and fullness hormones are completely dysregulated discombobulated everything feels much harder when you haven't had sleep. Again, sleep is becoming, I think, a privilege, Ella, actually. And it's one of those things that when we can get it. Let's just go for it. I love it. So sleep more if you can. Layer in some nuts, seeds and fiber. Try it some mindfulness and get exercising. Yeah, get moving and try and make your daily chores and just positively think of them as movement. Everyone, thank you so much for tuning in today. And we are sending love to everyone out there and we cannot wait for you to join us on Thursday for our extra scoop.

Bye guys. Have a lovely day. Bye.