Woman's Hour - Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Jenny Harries answers your questions

Episode Date: March 26, 2020

Dr Jenny Harries, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England has become a familiar face and reassuring voice at the regular press conferences from Number 10 over the last couple of weeks. Today she joins Jenni to talk about the latest advice and information about the coronavirus pandemic and answers questions posed by our listeners. We've been hearing a lot from medical experts, politicians and commentators recently. But how is Covid-19 affecting regular Woman's Hour listeners? Over the coming weeks, we're going to be following a range of families and individuals and asking them for their take on the unprecedented situation we currently find ourselves in. Then - once it's all over - we'll have a unique social record of the coronavirus crisis from the perspective of women. To kick it all off, Jenni speaks to mum of two, Mercy Haruna. Why do we choose the clothes we do? In her new book, ‘Dress Your Best Life’, the American fashion psychologist Dawnn Karen explains how our clothing is the ‘connective tissue’ between the physical and emotional. She joins Jenni to discuss how our clothes do the talking.A lot of people suddenly have extra time on their hands, either from the lack of a commute because they're now working from home, the loss of a social life or from not being able to work at all. So once you've cast a critical eye over your bookshelf and binged on box-sets, why not take up that hobby you've always meant to start - or indeed return to. Jenni asks nature writer Emma Mitchell, journalist Almara Abgarian and Woman’s Hour listener Rhiannon Jenkins for their top picks of activities that can be easily accessed - from learning a language, to mastering macrame and drawing a leaf.Presenter - Jenni Murray Producer - Anna Lacey Guest - Dr Jenny Harries Guest - Mercy Haruna Guest - Dawnn Karen Guest - Emma Mitchell Guest - Almara Abgarian Guest - Rhiannon Jenkins

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Thursday's edition of Woman's Hour on the 26th of March. You may well be sitting at home and still be in your pyjamas or the scruffy stuff you reserve only for yourself and the family. Maybe the fashion psychologist Dawn Caron will persuade you it's worth making an effort. She's the author of Dress Your Best Life. You may be busy with children to look after and work to do from home, or you may have more time to fill than usual. We've ideas for activities with which to occupy those extra hours. And we've heard a lot from politicians, medical analysts and commentators,

but how is COVID-19 affecting you? We begin a series of conversations which, when it's all over, will create a unique social record of the experience of women in such a crisis. Now whenever there is a crisis that has the whole nation longing for information, one person seems to come to the fore. Some of you may remember Ian MacDonald, who was the spokesman for the Ministry of Defence during the Falklands War. Every night we tuned in to listen to the information he delivered and we trusted him implicitly. Well, this time it's Dr Jenny Harris, who in such a short time has become a trusted household name. She's the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England. She advises the government on science and medicine in public health and has experience in Ebola and Novichok.

She joins us from Westminster. Jenny, what overall is our position compared with, say, Italy or Spain? When are we likely to reach a peak of cases? Good morning, Jenny, and it's good to be on the programme. I think this depends on how successful we are. And I probably ought to start this programme just by exhorting all your listeners to keep doing what most people are doing and ensuring they do keep their distance and they stay at home whenever they can, because that is the critical intervention that we can all do to move the peak of this forward. It won't be evident for probably two or three weeks to see whether we are seeing a shift in that curve. And of course, if we are are successful it is a moving feast. We will

be pushing it forward and pushing it down to ensure that most people who are accessing our services can just get into the system and use our health and social care systems. So it's a moving feast really and I would be very unwise to put a specific time period on, but we'll be looking very carefully in two or three weeks' time to see how successful we've all been. How surprised are you at the youth of two of the victims on today's front pages, 121 and 136? Yes, very, very sad, and obviously thoughts go out to the families of those victims. Obviously, I'm a medical professional, and I wouldn't comment on the precise clinical details of either of them. But I think it is a jolt I think to many people probably in this country how serious this condition is. We still need to hold on to the basic facts.

We are still very confident that overall 1% of the population are at risk of death, if you like, the very high end fatality rate. So that still means that 99% of us overall will have an illness and recover. So we need to keep this in proportion. But I think what those two deaths have done is just signalled to people the reality of this. We will very sadly have more deaths. Most of them will be in the elderly and the vulnerable by far. But we will have a few in these younger age groups where there are no underlying medical conditions. I mean, I would say that probably not considered very often by the population that we do have occasional deaths like this from flu. So we need to keep this in mind.

It's not just this illness, but certainly it's a very sad reminder of just how important it is that we do our social distancing measures. Now, several listeners who were obviously invited to pose questions to you asked whether the rules we now have were introduced too late. Were they? I'm very confident they weren't. I think I've had lots of questions that I'm sure your listeners will have seen on what this country was doing. Why weren't we going into lockdown when others did? I think what I just want to highlight to listeners is this country has consistently run its policy in relation to managing this incident entirely based on science. The medical profession scientists have had complete free access, if you like, to influence policy. And as a professional, I feel extremely comfortable with this. When we look at other countries who have announced sudden lockdowns, for example,

when you look at what they mean by lockdown, it's not entirely clear. Sometimes it's created problems. So if we look at northern Italy, for example, where there was a sudden lockdown, people who lived in the south and worked in the north suddenly rushed off down to the south of the country. And we are now starting to see the problems arising there where their case, maximum safety for our population at the point in the epidemic curve where we know it will have the greatest effect. How long do you reckon it's going to last, this lockdown? So that's difficult. I think you will have heard the Prime Minister say we'll review in three weeks time. We clearly don't want people to have to change their lifestyles in the way that they are currently having to do for very good reasons any longer than is necessary but

equally we want to make sure we do not lift those measures sooner and find that we have a sudden upsurge and our efforts will have been wasted. So I think what we will be doing is looking in two or three weeks time, we're always monitoring the data and we'll have more of that as we go forward. And I think overall, though, we're looking at a sort of scenario over a sort of six month period, but not necessarily with a lockdown of this level going on throughout that time, we're likely to be able to raise some of the measures as we go forward and keep it in a very controlled pattern. There's inevitably been a lot of interest from

listeners in the tests that have been announced. Two we've heard about, one to check if you have it, another to test for antibodies. How soon will they be available? So there is some testing on both of those grounds now. It's not that we don't know how to do it. So I think they're for two different reasons. But why have they not been widespread then? This is another question that's been coming in. To staff on the front line of the NHS. So the tests have been prioritised very carefully to ensure that we use them where we have them

to maximise the clinical benefit to patients as the priority and to manage any outbreaks in particularly risky environments. So this would be things like care homes or prisons. And I'm sure your listeners will understand that that's where we have very vulnerable groups or the potential for infection to spread more readily. The other group, which is the one we're talking about, which is right at the top of our list, is our health and our care workers. It's really important for two reasons that we understand what their status is. Obviously, the first one is if they know they have it now, we know they should not be at work and they will not be a risk to patients but equally

if we know they do not have it it means that there are more people in the workforce boosting the capacity in the NHS so that's the the here and now one but equally it actually takes other people out of work who don't need to be their families and the antibody test the have you had it test means that we will get a good idea of what the longer term resilience in our health services as well. So once we've identified somebody in this outbreak and we're sure they have had the disease and recovered, we know that we can almost place them in vulnerable situations where they will not be vulnerable. And those, for example, high risk patients can be assured they will not be vulnerable and those for example high risk patients can be assured they will not be catching infection so they are right at the top of our priority list but we do need to keep

boosting up our capacity. Lots of questions came to us about personal protection equipment and ventilators we've heard you know there are new ventilators coming but it sounds like they won't be here for a long time. What real progress is being made on those two issues? So if I do the ventilators first, perhaps. So the estimates are, if we're looking, we plan ahead. We always do. We're looking eventually perhaps for around 25,000 ventilators.

There are eight out there you'll have heard today. And I know this might sound strange to perhaps an average listener who associates Dyson with Hoovers. And we're talking about ventilators. But of course, they have promised 10,000. But not for a few weeks. And what we do know is that we have capacity in our critical care units at the moment. There is nobody who is being restricted from any access to ventilators. And so this work has been going on for many weeks. And we've reached out to industry. And many industrial companies have come back to the government. And there are other plans in place as well. I mean clearly there are commercial sensitivities about this so all of these

discussions will not be sitting in the public domain but I can assure your listeners that there has been a huge amount of work and in fact obviously as we've seen with a company like Dyson although it may not be a normal association between a sort of a hoover and a ventilator, of course, they have absolutely expert engineers. And any of the equipment that is produced will have to pass stringent safety and functionality tests. Two very specific questions, which you may be able to answer fairly quickly. One is the concern about how long the virus lasts on supermarket products. That's one.

And the other is people spitting in the street. People have been saying to us, look, you know, cyclists and runners have been observed spitting. How dangerous are they? So first, the supermarket products. Supermarkets. So are we talking supermarket products as in food products? I think packaging, anything that you might need to buy. I mean the normal thing here is whether this is coronavirus season or flu season we should always

all be taking good hygiene practice so washing your hands regularly. The reason we've had such a push on that as a nation, as a social media campaign, is because that prevents the introduction of any virus, whether it be flu or whether it be coronavirus now, onto the mucous membrane, so your eyes, your nose or your mouth. So whatever you're handling, wherever you're handling it, if you practice good hand hygiene, there will not be a problem. But in terms of how long the virus lasts, it's usually, if it's outdoors, it will be less, maybe up to 24 hours because it gets degraded, if you like, by ultraviolet or by different

changes in temperature. On a soft surface, we, again, about 24 hours and on a hard surface, it lasts a bit longer, probably about 48. You'll see much of our guidance is very precautionary so we say after 72 hours it's very unlikely that there's any viable virus that means something that could transmit infection but the real the real sort of trick here is to make sure that people always practice good hand hygiene wash your hands much more thoroughly and more frequently than we have been for at least 20 seconds. And the cyclists and runners who are spitting? Well, I have a problem with this. So from a public health perspective, one of the issues with spitting, and in fact I'm pretty confident we still have an ancient public health law about it,

is because in the early days it was a significant way of spreading tuberculosis. So certainly it is not a good habit at all and I'd strongly advise everybody to stop doing it. One final question, Jenny. How are you coping with having become a household name overnight? Well, I'm not sure I'm entirely, until your introduction, I'm not entirely sure I realised I was. I think I'm just on a day-to-day basis getting on with my job.

And that's what I'm going to continue to do. Dr Jenny Harris, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. So we're all full of questions about how this crisis will progress. And we're grateful for the expertise of women like Dr Harris. But what about those of us who have no role in the virus other than to do what we're grateful for the expertise of women like Dr Harry's. But what about those of us who have no role in the virus other than to do what we're told, try not to catch it or pass it on to anybody else? Well, over the coming weeks,

we'll be talking to a number of women who listen regularly to Woman's Hour about how they're dealing with what's going on. When it's all over, we'll have a unique social record of its impact on women across the UK. To begin, I'm joined by Mercy Haruna, who has two young children, lives in Kent, and whose husband manages the staff who stock the shop at their local Morrison's. Mercy, how have the restrictions affected your life? Hi Jenny thanks for having me. The restrictions

how they affected my life mainly I've had to well keep my children at home. Before this I stayed at home and freelanced so that part really hasn't changed but then having the kids with me 24-7 is the major part is the major change yet how is being required to stay at home different from choosing to stay at home with your children it's it's very different mentally so while you know while i drop when i drop my kids at school i could go for a coffee or something now i don't have that option they're with me 24 7 and um it's just having that freedom taken away from you it's it's so different mentally feels like I'm in prison in a way now I mentioned your husband Chris um who has a very important job

currently um on the first line of trying to keep the supermarket stocked. How is he coping with that responsibility and you and the kids all being at home? It's very challenging. He told me that initially the shops really struggled with the stockpiling and everything. They just weren't ready for just how much stock they would need to get in. And so there was one night where there were no tissues in stock.

But now they're getting on top of it and they're working as hard as they can to make sure we all have our supplies. And then in terms of him being out there while we're at home, it's very nerve wracking when he comes home. I have him scrub his hands thoroughly because I just don't know

what he's come in contact with. It's really, it freaks me out. But really, there's nothing I can do because his job is important. So he's out at night and comes back in the morning. Is that right? Yes. Yeah, correct. And is there anything positive about this? I mean, do you get first pick of any food or toilet paper you need?

Yes. Yes, but we're not greedy but you know surprisingly they're just there's not as much stuff as you would imagine that there there would be and so even they have to be conscious of how much they can keep for themselves um they have started to open the shops like other shops. They've started to open for NHS staff and more vulnerable people for an hour in the mornings. But yeah, apart from that, we don't really get much more than anyone else, to be honest. Now, your children are a boy of six and a girl of three. How much of what's going on do they understand? My son's very curious my daughter not so much

she just goes by whatever her brother does um the other day he asked me some questions about what coronavirus or cv is and i put on a youtube video to explain how it came about and he was just so fascinated by it all i guess it's a learning experience for him as well. Is he frightened? I'm not really sure. I don't think so. Not the way that I am. I take on all the fear for him, I suppose. He's not frightened. He's aware that it's a serious situation and he has to wash his hands and his sister has to wash her hands. But I don't think he really has a really deep understanding of what's going on. Now, you have family living abroad. How are they coping? Well, they're coping all right. They live in Nigeria and at the moment

things are not down the way they are here. There's still a lot of people on the streets. There's a lot of people who don't understand the gravity of what's going on. But the government is trying their best to get as much information as possible. There's so many broadcasts on WhatsApp, people trying to educate each other and make sure that everyone's doing their bit. In terms of me being, I'm nervous every day about the fact that they're out there and in such an unpredictable situation. They're in danger.

And them not being close to me, just it really is, it's a difficult situation for me. But we do the best we can. We chat, you know, on WhatsApp every day, we video call, and that's keeping us as positive as possible. What good have you found is coming as a result of what's going on? I mean, most people are worried and anxious, but are there good things that are coming out of it too? Yes, I believe that one of the best things

that could happen from this is just being able to reconnect with people that you perhaps haven't been connected with for a while because, you know, the rat race, life is so crazy. But, you know, you're at home now and you have all this time. I've had quite a few WhatsApp video conferences and Zoom conferences with my friends,

catching up with people I haven't talked to in a while. I've also picked up new old projects that I discarded. It's just a chance to kind of reconnect back to maybe just things that seem ordinary, but things that we would have ignored in the rat race and the craziness of life. Mercy Haruna, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning. And of course, we want lots more like Mercy to take part. If you'd like to contribute to the series, we would love to hear from you. You may be in a care home, you may be a nurse, you may be living in a multi-generational family. We're looking for women from all walks of

life and all over the country if that sounds like you then please get in touch with us through the woman's hour website and contribute to this social diary that we're trying to put together now still to come in today's program if like most people you are at home either working looking after children or with nothing much to do, how to fill the extra time you may have to yourself. Three women bring lots of ideas for hobbies and activities to keep you going, and, of course, the serial, the fourth episode of Absent. Now, I'm obviously in the Woman's Hour studio, togged out in the usual clean, casual, stripy, tidy top and black leggings.

If I were at home right now, I'd probably be wearing the scruffy jeans and sweater that the dogs are allowed to sit on. And I sort of picture you at home in similarly not-quite-right-for-work stuff. Or maybe if you're really chilled, you're still in your pyjamas. Why do we choose the clothes we do is the question behind a book called Dress Your Best Life by the American fashion psychologist Dawn Caron. Dawn, why did a psychologist, a therapist, which is what you're trained to be,

begin to turn her attention to clothes? Yes. So I actually had an incident that occurred. I experienced a sexual assault while I was attending uni to be a psychologist. And I basically did not want to talk. And I found myself wanting to express my pain and heal myself through my clothing. And so I realized perhaps I'm on to something. And this modality led me to pioneering the new fashion psychology field. What did you do about your clothing after that terrible experience? Yes, so I began to wear elaborate gowns. I remember to class I would wear like an Audrey Hepburn type of 1950s look.

So I did some elaborate outfits that probably you wouldn't wear to uni when people were wearing, you know, a pullover or a hoodie. I was wearing a gown. So I actually used it to enhance my mood, if you will. Now, you talk in the book about two essential fashion philosophies, mood illustration and mood enhancement. What do you mean by those two things? Yes, so this is the foundation of my fashion psychology field. Mood illustration dress is dressing to perpetuate one's current mood and mood enhancement dress is dressing to optimize one's mood. So a lot of times we go to our closets

and we have this feeling of I have nothing to wear. And so I realized that we are on autopilot and we're just not really in tune with ourselves. So I tell my clients and I tell my students before they they're inundated with this overwhelming feeling of nothing to wear and feeling frustrated and anxious just to determine how they feel at that moment and dress accordingly. Or if they don't want to wear that feeling, perhaps dressing to wear a feeling that will be proven most beneficial. So to try to enhance their mood, if you will. What does what you're wearing for this interview say about you? Obviously, I can't see you. You're many, many say about you obviously I can't see you you're you're many many miles away uh and you can't see me either so what are you wearing so I am currently wearing um a a slip dress and um a silk kimono robe um within my home. As you know, we are social distancing, or I would say physical distancing

right now. And so I like to wear like silk things within my home to make me feel very royal during such tragic times. So what mood were you in when you put those things on today? Yes, so I was feeling very elegant, feeling very royal regal-like. And so I wanted to do this interview and feel very poised and confident. So it's allowing me to do so within my home as opposed to wearing, you know, my glad rags or my pajamas, right? I wouldn't really feel as confident.

And you say in the book that animal prints enhance mood. Why? Yes, yes, animal prints. when I typically wear a leopard print, I feel as if I can encounter anything that comes my way. So research has shown even wearing the color red has effects on the brain and how we feel. So colors and prints, they have an effect on how we are perceived and how they make us feel. You have a chapter which is headed Your Woke Wardrobe. What do you mean To dress woke. Well, this colloquialism, woke, right? It's been thrown around, but I thought it would be a cool chapter to end, address your best life, my book. So dressing woke in a time where we are pushing for inclusivity.

We're not tolerating discrimination of all sorts in Hollywood and the music industry and the fashion industry across the board. And so I was just wanting to put out there to be mindful of how we wear things. So the Kardashians, they do a lot of cultural appropriation. They love, let's say, black culture. And they typically wear something urban, let's say, a hairstyle. And then they end up, you know, giving it another term, giving it another name, it another name right so it's all about we can share in other people's cultures and and wear like i can wear a silk kimono right but um just being mindful of the cultural context behind that wardrobe choice um so if it's not from your culture um just kind of read up on the history of that garment um before, you know, exploit it, if you will.

In the first line of the book, you write that clothes can actually lift you out of despair. What should people who are forced to be at home and maybe feeling despairing be thinking about how they're dressed and what difference would it make to them? Yes. So I would say, you know, it's great to be in your pajamas for three days in a row. But after a while, you know, it can become quite depressing, especially because we can't leave our homes. So I would say, you know, if you can't go out on a date with your significant other, you dress up in your homes and you have a date within your home. So wear different outfits throughout your day to break up the monotony so that you're not in this melancholy state. I can just hear a lot of people listening saying, oh, my goodness, this is so trivial.

You know, why are we encouraging people to go out and buy more clothes we should be saving and not buying more clothes and we shouldn't be worrying about clothes what do you say to people who say come on this isn't real science yes um well i get it a lot and so i'm not encouraging people to engage in the cliche, quote unquote, retail therapy, if you will. So I'm not into compulsive shopping. I'm very much into going out to, you know, buy everything that you see. It's not into compulsive spending. It's all about just being in tune with how you feel and then dressing accordingly. So whether you're dressing to heal yourself or dressing to express yourself, I mean, if clothes didn't matter, we would all walk around naked. And that's basically not the case. Dawn, Karen, thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning.

And I'll just mention again that the name of the book is Dress Your Best Life. And let us know actually what you are wearing at home. And how does it make you feel if you wear something different? Do you feel different? We'd love to know. Now, you may be very, very busy. Busier than you've ever been with a job to do from home, children to occupy and food stocks to replenish. Or you may be home alone doing your best to obey the new rules and you have more time on your hands than you've ever had. So, when you've tidied up, listened to the radio, read a book, watched a bit of telly, then what? Well, brimming with ideas for seeing time on your

hands as a gift are Rhiannon Jenkins, who's a regular listener to Woman's Hour, Almira Abgarian, who's a journalist with The Metro, and Emma Mitchell, who's a naturalist and the author and illustrator of A Wild Remedy. So Emma, what do you recommend for someone who's anxious where activity may be able to help? What should they do? Well, we are, oh hello Jenny, we are permitted one walk outside the house every day, one piece of exercise and it's spring out there. There are signs of spring. There's birdsong building by the day.

There's blossom and seedlings to see. And if you take a walk somewhere green among trees and plants, and that might be a bit of waste ground. It might be a park park hopefully a park where you're you know away from at least two meters away from others away from spitting cyclists yes let's avoid that um then you will actually get a benefit many benefits in fact to your both both your physiology and your um neurochemistry by being out there not only can you sort of start to

maybe identify maybe a bird song or a plant and I post on my social media really regularly about you know what you can look out for but you will also actually be calmed. And there's a great body of research that shows that literally within 15 minutes of being outside among trees and plants, your anxiety will diminish and your mood will be lifted. Now, Almara, I know there are lots of online tutorials springing up. What sort of structured activity would you recommend that you can find I think for free in these tutorials hello yes so um there's actually quite a lot going on um I'm all for you know relaxing at home and doing nothing that's what you want to do but it is a great time to sort of pick up a university class at the open university they're all free uh you know in the

arts health politics. You can do sort of more relaxing things with your friends so have a house party and then do cocktail making or cake decoration. If you wanted to learn how to trim your beard you could do that. This is an online party

with your friend isn't it? They're all in different places. So you're only drinking the cocktail at home on your own and they're doing it in their own homes right just wanted to be clear about that no no of course so everything is in self-isolation um but it's all done online but at least that way you you know you have an activity and once obviously chatting to your friends online is lovely but even that the conversation can stagnate after a while you might feel like you know you want to do something instead.

And then you could bake together as well. Or, you know, the aforementioned cocktail making. But there's honestly there's so much going on right now. And because, you know, there's a lot of kindness right now in the world. So everyone's offering these for free. And there's also a lot of fitness stuff as well you know yoga and whatnot but yeah I think there's it's a proper opportunity to you know engage your mind because really if you're suffering from any kind of mental health issue or just overall feeling a bit you know stir crazy then it will help you distract yourself and it's fun as well now Rhiannon I

happen to know you're learning a language. How are you managing to do that? Well, it's very early stages, admittedly. It was sort of an on-a-whim thing. One of my friends that I've met at some international improv festivals lives in Israel, and this year some of us from the UK were supposed to be going to Tel Aviv in April. Obviously, that's now not happening. And I was kind of joking with him, talking to him on Facebook saying, Oh, you know, for next year, if I if I come, I should learn some Hebrew. And he was like, right, what do you want to learn um so I said well you know the basics it'd

be nice to know hello goodbye please and thank you uh and obviously the alphabet uh yeah the alphabet's kind of difficult isn't it in Hebrew because it's it's very different very different how are you managing with that uh it's uh it's tricky, trickier than I anticipated. Yeah, there's no vowels. So that is sort of guesswork. And yeah, there's lots of sounds that don't really have a direct translation with the Latin alphabet. So I think at some point uh me and elad were planning to talk over skype so i can actually listen to him because looking at things written down is um it's tricky yeah well at least you can do it online can't you so so that's one way of doing it um i i think as well you've been thinking of learning to play an instrument, which can't be easy by yourself.

And of course, it seems you have one in the house. So what what's your progress on the instrument? Well, so I'm I'm very lucky. I'm staying with two of my friends in London because I didn't have anywhere to live when I got sent back from Italy. And they have a keyboard and a guitar in the house. And I was I was sat at their kitchen table doing some work. And because I'm I'm a performer and I sing as part of my work, I was looking at the keyboard thinking, oh, you know, I could do more work if I could accompany myself. But I've downloaded an app called Musician where you sort of follow along with online tutorials for the piano, for the guitar. I think you can also do it for other instruments as well.

But, yeah, again, it's just we're so lucky to have technology because you use the app the app listens to what you're playing and says nope that was that was supposed to be an e and you played a d um and you can watch videos and uh follow along with someone playing with you uh yeah it's really smart now emma there are other creative things that i'm sure people are keen to do how can you begin to do something that you thought you know i would really love to do that i don't think i'm very good at it say you'd like to become an artist and you want to learn to draw how would you do that i think it's um starting simply is the best plan. I mean, I don't think you should perhaps suddenly expect to be... Leonardo.

Exactly. Just find whatever you have around the house, a bit of paper and a pencil. I think that just starting to make marks on it, just starting to do some lines or some doodles. Doodles are fantastic, and they have actually been shown to improve mental health by bringing calm but if you do have a garden if you're lucky enough to have a garden just go outside and pick a leaf um hopefully later on

today i'll be putting on the woman's uh uh instagram a little tutorial so you just want to sort of look at it very very carefully in lots of detail and in fact if you turn a leaf over on the back there's usually a beautiful pattern of veins and again there's research that shows that looking at that kind of pattern like branches or you know the skeleton of a tree or the veins of a leaf can bring calm so you just need to look sort of very simply draw an outline two curves that come to a point at the top and then go from there it's just step by step that's what happened that's what I did when I started to draw again back in around 2015 or so. So Almara you have now baked cakes with your

friends you have made cocktails and had a an online party with your friends what are you now keen to try um sounds like a pretty good evening to me um i mean there's a lot of things that you can do obviously on your own as well so there's things i think that are quite beneficial such as first aid or you can learn about nutrition to you know make make the most of what food you've got at home so the lunch box doctor she's known on facebook is hosting nutrition classes where you can take you know all those stockpiled goods that you've got um and then make sure that you're getting all the nutrients you actually need uh but there's honestly there's no end to things to do you could take an art class you could do macrame at home, you know, learn to knit.

You can do beer tasting. I mean, there really is no end. You like your consumption, don't you? Cakes, cocktails and beer. You know what? I can't, sadly, I can't bake because I haven't got an oven. So I'm stuck with my microwave. Almira, not everybody is as adept with technology as you appear to be.

How easy is it to learn something new these days without online assistance? I think you still can. I mean, if you've got your phone, you could always ring someone and do a video chat. But again, that is technology. It can be quite difficult, if you you know you don't have access to anything at all if you are elderly perhaps and you don't have access to a computer but I mean a lot of companies offer sort of how-to guides so you basically you know you'd buy a missing kit online and it comes with a how-to guide for instance you can do at home

or you know if you live in a house share and you're all, you know, obviously hanging out together and you can because neither of you are ill, you're not self-isolating within the home, then you can teach each other things. You've all got skills, so talk amongst yourselves and see, you know, what can you teach your friend. Rhiannon, how much do you reckon we're in danger of trying to take on too much?

Listening to Amara there, I was thinking, ooh, do you know know i've got a whole load of needlepoint that never actually got finished i could go back and and pick that up again and then thinking do i really have time to do that yeah i i mean i'm now in the process of learning two instruments and a language and going running and doing yoga every day so maybe I'm a bit of a jack of all trades anyway but I suppose it depends on how you learn and how long your concentration span is because for me I sort of need to switch between things a lot to keep interested. Otherwise, my mind just wanders and I stop concentrating. So, yeah, I suppose it depends how deep you want your knowledge to be of one particular thing. I quite like having a sparing knowledge of lots of different things.

And the languages will come in useful, as indeed will playing the keyboard. Absolutely. So, Rhiannon Jenkinskins almara abgarian and emma mitchell thank you all very much indeed for being with us and if you've taken up something new you can tweet us or of course you can email us we'd love to hear what you're up to lots of response from you on my conversation with dr j Harries. Jen said, Thank you to Dr Harries for doing a wonderful job,

especially considering the pressure she must be under. She's clear, informative and reassuring. So impressed. Nicky Clark said, It was good to hear Jenny addressing concerns about people spitting in the streets. It's a health risk and her advice is for people to just stop doing that.

The Corona Diaries. We've already heard from lots of you. Please do get in touch if you'd like to take part. Jana wrote, day seven of coronavirus and recovering slowly. Feeling very weak and lacking in energy, my husband suggested he made me a bed up in the garden. I donned my dressing gown, boots and sunglasses and retired to the garden. The bees were buzzing in a small blossom tree and the blackbird hopping around waiting for a worm. It didn't take long for me to feel connected to the healing powers of the natural world, so much so, I shall be repeating the experience this afternoon. On dress your best life, some of you thought it a little frivolous to be thinking about clothing at this time, but lots of you welcomed it as a lifeline to normality. Sir William said during

the coronavirus crisis, my husband of 48 years and I are dressing for dinner every friday evening a change from our gardening clothes thank you for your wonderful program rocchio bonilla pulido says if i don't get changed into clothes to work from home my brain is not in the proper mood for your mental health i reckon it's vital and philippa from Brighton said, I'm ditching the bra for three months. Bliss. And then suggestions on how to fill up your time when there's so much of it around. Judith Garner said, I enjoy baking, but as I live on my own, I shouldn't be eating lots of cakes, scones, biscuits, etc. Even if I freeze it, I know it's there. June Jones says I'm doing online yoga, learning Welsh and settling myself a task each week. My daughter is starting to learn

sign language. When things get back to normal we want to have achieved something new. Now do join me tomorrow when we'll be discussing exercise at home, and we'd really like to know what you're doing to keep moving. Are you finding new ways to keep fit? You know how to contact us. You email us through the contacts page on the Woman's Hour website, or at BBC Woman's Hour on Twitter. Join me tomorrow, two minutes past 10. Bye-bye. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.