As a medical journalist, I’ve written my fair share of stories about life-saving clinical breakthroughs – not least those of which I’ve had personal experience. Without groundbreaking catheter ablation and an internal defibrillator, I wouldn’t be alive today. 

I’ve focussed on the impact of sharing the medical breakthroughs that transform healthcare in high income countries – as in my story about the dramatic impact of the humble pulse oximeter in rural Mongolia; more often, I’ve tracked failures such as the shameful obstacles to global Covid vaccine production. 

But good health, I’ve concluded, is so much about the decisions you make – especially as you get older. I’ve been among the first to cover stories about: safely managing the menopause; low carb versus refined carbs. On a basic misunderstanding of the causes of chronic pain (and non-duality of mind and body)has triggered. he oxycontin scandal in the US. I’m passionate about patient safety, a systems approach that should be day to day practice in hospitals. I’ve written several stories about the horrors that occur without a safe systems approach in health and healthcare – tragically common in obstetrics, a continuing story.

Now I’ve taken all this a step further , engaging with practitioner work myself. I’m in my final (fourth) year of internationally recognised training as a practitioner in Feldenkrais Method – and setting up practice in West Hampstead in 2024. 

A Feldenkrais lesson involves a series of gentle, guided moves that can bring ease, efficiency and elegance to people’s lives.

The big surprise for me is the overlap between what’s I’ve written about as a journalist over several decades and the Feldenkrais Method.  Back in 2002, I wrote in the Guardian about a ‘new’ approach to chronic pain that – as with the Feldenkrais Method - challenges the duality of mind and body. In 2007, I wrote about neuroplasticity at the the World Memory Championships for the FT – an emerging science at that time yet fully understood by Moshe Feldenkrais – who put it at th heart of the Feldenkrais Method launched in the 1950s. In 2018, I reported on a Dutch scheme to reduce injuries in older people by teaching them judo-style falling, a scheme that would no doubt have been approved by Moshe Feldenkrais who popularised judo in post-war Europe. What’s more, systems thinking, at the core of safe healthcare, is also central to the Feldenkrais Method: the more we allow our bodies and minds to work in an integrated way through Feldenkrais work, the safer we’ll be to enjoy lightness and ease. 

As a newbie Feldenkrais practitioner, completing a four- year internationally recognised training in 2024, I’m planning classes online and in person in North West London.