Alice Hart-Davis

Meditate. It just helps with everything and makes me a nicer person to be around. I’ve been writing about wellness for decades, and had heard so much about the benefits of meditation was, but I couldn’t get into it. I tried tapes and courses, I’d tried staring into a candle-flame…

Then Andy Puddicombe launched Headspace in 2010 and I took to it like the proverbial duck to water. He makes it very, very simple. All you need to do is sit down and do it. It took a while for the penny to drop, that the point of meditation is that it is a practice.

Something you do for the sake of doing the practice, rather than, say, trying to learn to be ‘good’ at it. Now, I know that my mind, and my life, are a bit easier and less frantic if I just sit down and do it every morning. Preferably while wearing an LED red-light mask, to give my skin a boost and give me an extra reason for taking the time to sit still.

An honest and open approach to the topic of tweakments, aka cosmetic procedures like Botox and fillers. I know they’re not for everyone but for those who are curious, it isn’t helpful that so much shame and fear still hangs around these treatments.

Why is that a problem? Because it stops general discussion of medical aesthetics, and consequently people don’t realise how vital it is to educate themselves about procedures, and what they are and how they work, and to seek out a really good, experienced, medically trained aesthetic practitioner.

Unfortunately there is so little regulation of the whole tweakments area that it is perfectly legal for you or I or your next door neighbour to buy fillers and needles and set up shop injecting people, and that is causing a lot of problems. I’ll be helping you understand which procedures and products are good and worthwhile, and how to find great practitioners who do excellent work.

Don’t sit around wait to be asked. Be brave and find your voice. Learn to ask for help. Get better at saying no and setting boundaries. Find mentors. Don’t keep things for best.

Stay kind, and be kinder to yourself. Start meditating. Stop worrying about how you look, and what other people think. People-pleasing is a waste of energy, as is constant dieting. Dance more. If you hate a job, quit it.

Read How to Make Friends and Influence People (I still haven’t, but…) Know that you are enough, as you are. You don’t have to be good at stuff to be loved.

Wear sunscreen.

Find ways to give back. Accept that you are never going to feel like a real grown-up, even when you’re nearly 60… And don’t worry if this sounds like gibberish to you now, just mull it over from time to time…