It was 1983, I was obsessed with Adam Ant, and roller boots were my main mode of transport. The legends are true: children really were feral at that time, and I was at the extreme end of being free to roam, even by 80s standards.
I spotted a hand-drawn poster for a keep-fit class at the bus stop on my way to school. So I skated through the Peckham rain that Saturday to a village hall that smelled like an old bookshop, and gave the lady in the leotard my 50p. She let me stay. I loved it. Odd little child as I was, I went every week.
Earlier that month, for my ninth birthday, I’d received a Jane Fonda exercise video, one of the first of its kind. I was instantly obsessed. As soon as I was old enough, I trained to be an instructor. I’ve stuck around through all the fads and trends: aerobics, dance, step, HIIT, circuits, Insanity, Pilates, functional training, and later yoga, mindfulness, breathwork, meditation and mobility.
I’ve genuinely loved all of it and happily chugged the Kool-Aid, particularly Les Mills flavour. At its height, I couldn’t squeeze the people turning up for Zumba into the venues I’d hired. I emptied enough from my big box of money one month to buy a car outright.
I collect instructor qualifications like other people my age collect vinyl, and I still call it a hobby that’s got wildly out of hand. Doing the sums, it seems I’ve said “Great to have you here, my name’s Tanya” to more than a quarter of a million participants over the decades.
So those are my receipts.
Programmes have appeared, disappeared and made ironic retro comebacks in different neon leggings, often hailed as the future of fitness. I’ve noticed that something can be fashionable, enjoyable and commercially successful without necessarily delivering everything it claims.
I adore a spa. Sometimes feeling good is enough, without needing a scientific explanation or peer-reviewed study to justify it. But when we’re talking about improving health, wellbeing or performance, I want to know what works, for whom, under what circumstances and whether it’s worth the time and effort involved.
After all these years, I’m less interested in how many wellbeing activities we can squeeze into our lives and more interested in how we organise our lives in the first place.
It’s all me, me, me.
I have always encouraged people to put the things that keep them healthy in their calendars first, then arrange their professional, social and family lives around them as far as possible. It's a different way of thinking; many of us grow up believing that money and status are measures of success. I've always measured it in health and happiness, but I know how annoying that is for people.
I still teach a couple of classes most days. Some are energetic dance and fitness sessions, others are meditation, breathwork, stretching and mobility.
My reasons are fairly selfish.
Firstly, I have to turn up. If I’m not feeling it today, opting out isn't an option. Secondly, it gives my brain something unrelated to the rest of my work to concentrate on. Remembering choreography, choosing music and guiding people through meditation all require a different sort of attention.
Thirdly, if I didn’t get paid for it, I’d pay for it. I get to do things I enjoy, listen to music I like and spend time with people whose company I value. It’s all about me. Not really. But also, it is.
I meet hundreds of people every week, many for the first time, from different backgrounds, professions and walks of life. I’ve effectively arranged for networking to come to me, and I get a workout while I’m at it. It keeps me mentally and socially limber as well. When other people might be at the pub quiz, I’m choosing music, learning choreography, reading the latest research and planning a meditation session.
The trouble with finding time
Sometimes people say, “It’s alright for you,” and honestly, that’s not unfair.
I’ve deliberately arranged my life to accommodate the things I enjoy and that keep me healthy. Teaching group fitness was once reasonably well paid. The pay stayed the same, but the world didn’t, and now it largely just funds me getting the use of various gyms and swanky spas. If it were my entire professional life, I’d have to hide out in one of the spas at night because I couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
We know our health matters, but knowing it and giving it the attention it deserves are different things. Times are tough, bills are high, families need support, houses need to be run, and deadlines need to be met. Looking after ourselves can easily become dependent on whatever time remains. And as Parkinson observed, things have a remarkable ability to expand into whatever time we make available for them.
Shiny, 23-year-old personal trainers may not always appreciate the full extent of this. God love them.
Which brings us to workplace wellbeing. Organisations can offer all sorts of opportunities to look after ourselves, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people have the time, inclination or circumstances to use them.
Tickling round the edges
I was talking to a friend recently about Human Upgrade and our work with organisations.
“Oh, we’ve got something similar at our place. We have a sound bath on the last Friday of every month. Although I haven’t managed to go yet. I’ve got so much on. Looks good though.”
I quite like a sound bath. Amy, my co-founder at Human Upgrade, doesn’t. We once booked a sound bath for a retreat we hosted. Everyone was in hammocks in a beautiful wooden roundhouse next to a roaring fire. In theory, it doesn’t get more relaxing than that. Most enjoyed it. Four didn’t, and one found it actively alarming.
On the retreat, it was a nice extra. Enjoyment and relaxation have value in their own right, but even in those idyllic surroundings, the experience wasn’t for everybody. No disrespect to my friends employer. They’ve provided a nice opportunity she hasn’t taken up, for reasons I can guess at.
What interested me was that she immediately recognised a monthly sound bath as something similar to what we do.
We work in health and wellbeing, and we’ve certainly delivered our share of workshops and activities. I've spent much of my adult life doing exactly that. But experience has also taught me that offering an activity and supporting someone's health aren't necessarily the same thing.
At Human Upgrade, we’re interested in the whole picture: how people organise their time, look after their health, manage competing demands, communicate, maintain relationships and make decisions. We provide a framework for examining those things and making useful changes. Sometimes an additional activity helps. If you've got the capacity for it.
Workplace wellbeing can easily become synonymous with the yoga class, the canteen heart health special or the meditation app.
All legitimate offerings, but provision, participation, enjoyment and benefit are four different things. There's also an important distinction between providing opportunities for relaxation and examining the working conditions that might be contributing to someone's stress.
I also see quite a few senior executives in my hypnotherapy practice, usually because they're struggling with stress and the demands of their working lives. And it's hardly an isolated problem. According to the Health and Safety Executive, an estimated 964,000 workers experienced work-related stress, depression or anxiety in Great Britain in 2024/25, accounting for 22.1 million lost working days.
My friend, meanwhile, is still stressed and, from what she’s told me, bordering on burnout. Perhaps she’d enjoy the sound bath if she went. Perhaps it would give her an hour of much-needed relaxation. But more fundamental still is understanding what’s leaving her so depleted in the first place.
A sound bath might be a lovely way to spend an hour.
But what about all the hours in between?
The ordinary business of living
Today's wellbeing landscape would be almost unrecognisable to the grown-ups dodging children on roller boots in 1983. We've become much better at providing opportunities for people to 'do' wellbeing.
But our health and wellbeing are shaped by the ordinary circumstances of our lives, and adding another activity to the calendar doesn't necessarily address those circumstances. Whether we feel safe, heard and valued, the quality of our relationships, how much influence we have over our own lives and whether our circumstances allow us to meet our needs all deserve attention alongside how we move, what we eat and how we sleep.
And none of these things exists independently. Someone who's exhausted may struggle to exercise. Someone who’s working unpredictable hours may find regular meals or sleep difficult. Financial worries can affect relationships, and difficult relationships can affect almost everything else.
For individuals, that might mean examining where their time goes, which commitments support their health and which make things more difficult. For organisations, it means looking beyond the wellbeing calendar. Workload, autonomy, communication, relationships and management practices all influence people's experience of work and their opportunities to look after themselves.
The Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards identify demands, control, support, relationships, role and change as key areas of work design associated with work-related stress. An organisation can provide excellent wellbeing benefits while still having problems in those areas. Both deserve attention, but they serve different purposes.
Of course, there will always be things outside our control. People become ill, circumstances change, and neither personal habits nor workplace policies can solve every problem. But we can get much better at understanding what is happening before deciding what might help.
My roller boots have long since been hung up, although I still spend a surprising amount of my life in Lycra. I still love teaching classes, exploring new approaches and sharing experiences that make people feel good. That enthusiasm hasn't diminished since my first encounter with the lady in the leotard.
But after all these years, I'm increasingly interested in what happens outside the class, workshop or treatment room.
Perhaps it's time we spent a little less time doing wellbeing and a little more time understanding what keeps us well.
Sources and further reading
Health and Safety Executive (2025). Work-related stress, depression or anxiety statistics in Great Britain, 2025.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overview.htm
Health and Safety Executive. Management Standards for work-related stress.