20th July 2026

Newsletter Monday

Hello Reader,

By the time you are reading this I will be in sunny Denver.

But the path to getting away for a couple of weeks, has involved many lists.

Lists of jobs to finish. Lists of things to pack. Lists of invoices to send. Tax to pay. Videos to record. Newsletters to write. Kids to organise. Plants to water. Passports to remember. Chargers to find.

Then, naturally, I made another list so I wouldn’t forget any of the lists, plus a list for when I return.

I know some of you will know this drill.

It struck me that health has become a bit like this.

Somewhere along the way we’ve turned health into another never-ending to-do list, with the underlying message that if we don’t tick every box, doom awaits.

This time last year, I’d probably have let that get to me.

Not this year.

Over the last few weeks I’ve barely lifted weights compared with normal.

My walks have been shorter because it’s been so hot.

Life has simply been busy.

Once upon a time that would have become another source of stress. Breaking my own rules.

Instead, I’ve been doing something rather unexpected.

I’ve been learning to draw.

Now, before anyone gets carried away, I’m rubbish, and that is fine.

I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to persuade a rose to look vaguely rose-like on a piece of paper.

The rose won.

The reason I picked up a sketchbook was because I’d been listening to the audiobook Art Cure, by Daisy Fancourt.

If I’m honest, I started it hoping it would give me permission to spend time on a creative hobby by convincing me it was “good for my health.”

I do love to knock up a crocheted blanket here and there.

Well, it does make that case.

But that’s not what I took away from it.

Instead, it quietly changed my definition of health.

I call these books - 'Paradigm shifters'.

Through the research and the stories, the author argues that the arts don’t simply improve wellbeing. They change how we see the world. They interrupt the constant stream of news, fear, algorithms and optimisation that competes for our attention every waking hour.

For an hour in my garden, my only job was to really look at a rose.

Not photograph it.

Not post it.

Not optimise it.

Just notice it.

And that felt surprisingly calming.

As I listened, I found myself thinking about patients I’d looked after over the years. The dancer whose hip pain threatened her identity. The guitarist whose arthritis was stealing the use of his thumb. The painter whose Parkinson’s disease meant he could no longer create what he saw in his mind.

At the time I understood their diagnoses.

I’m not sure I fully understood what they were grieving.

We often talk about the arts as though they’re an optional extra. Something to fit in after the “important” things are done.

Yet we have good evidence that loneliness is profoundly damaging to health. We know that communities built around choirs, book clubs, amateur dramatics, crafting groups and painting classes give people friendship, purpose and belonging.

Health is often the consequence, not the objective.

I’ve spent years talking about strength because I genuinely believe it’s one of the best investments you can make in your future.

I still believe that.

But perhaps I’ve been asking the wrong follow-up question.

Not just how do we stay alive?

But what are we staying alive for?

Maybe health isn’t simply about squeezing every last drop out of our life expectancy.

Maybe it’s also about filling those years with things that make us notice the world a little more closely.

Ironically, by relaxing some of my own health “rules” over the last few weeks, I think I’ve actually become healthier.

Not because my resting heart rate has fallen.

Not because my muscles have suddenly grown.

But because, for an hour at a time, I’ve stopped trying to optimise everything and simply paid attention.

That’s a lesson I wasn’t expecting from a book called Art Cure.

It’s one I’ll be taking on holiday with me.

See you in a couple of weeks.