We go to a Yoga class given by a family friend. My mum, sister, Greg and I hurtle there late, feeling very frazzled and are taken into a dark room to stretch. I've never done Yoga because I have the attention span of a much younger millennial, but two hours without my phone doing deep breathing is actually quite nice, though I insist on running home because I'm still unsure if what I did would count as exercise. I am a brainwashed running idiot. At home, I eat pitta and hummus and imbibe my life-giving Diet Coke before we go out for dinner, where I eat so much truffle pasta and tiramisu that I fall into an uncomfortable indigestion sleep where I dream about moving to Richmond. I have never wanted to move to Richmond. It probably means I want a baby. I assume every dream post-35 means I subconsciously want a baby.” Sunday Normally I was writing from about 9pm 'til 2am every day. Most of the day is taken up by other things, my husband goes to bed really early and I can't sleep until about 2am. So, when he goes to bed, I have a glass of wine, start writing and I don’t go to bed until really late. It's ridiculous and it’s not a normal way of living your life, but that’s how I wrote Jog On as well. It’s the only way I can do it and it’s the time of day when my head is quiet enough. And for this book, it worked quite nicely weirdly - writing a book about murder sitting there in the dark on your own. What role does reading play in your life? Truth - I actually nearly stopped reading this with a 2 chapters left because for some reason it didn't really resonate with me. I still don’t know why running was the tool I opted for in the midst of misery. I’d never done strenuous exercise before. But I had spent a lifetime holding at bay the need to run away – from my mind, from my negative thoughts; from the worries that built up and calcified, layer upon layer, until they were too strong to chip away at. Maybe the sudden urge to run was a physical manifestation of this desire to escape my own brain. I guess I just wanted to do it for real. Despite the unbearable sadness, the end of her marriage provided a tipping point. “When he left it was a catalyst. I had to move forward and break out of this,” Bella explains.

After a decade of settling for merely ‘managing’, I’d found the thing that broke me out of it: I’d found running. Photograph: Thomas Butler/The Guardian In the years that followed, Bella’s anxiety escalated and she became bound by rituals; avoiding particular letters, numbers, colours and songs, and only travelling to self-designated ‘safe’ places. “There were loads of places I couldn’t go because I would panic on my own. You then become slightly agoraphobic – the world outside feels scary-unsafe,” she explains. Since starting her exercise path, Bella has had a discussion with a lot of people for whom running has made a huge difference –such as Sara, a young mother who discovered that jogging relieved her postnatal depression. Sara had been self-harming in an attempt to feel something again after delivering after her baby. However, running offered Sara a healthier method to do this. Nowadays, the only pain Sara inflicts on herself comprises jogging on an icy winter’s day or accepting the burn after an extreme workout session. According to her, running is worth it. When she discusses how jogging transformed her life, some individuals are cynical. Some people mention that she might have gotten better notwithstanding. However, science claims that workout does have an actual and useful effect on mental health. I found this book so helpful! As someone who suffers from anxiety and is a (very) amateur runner, this book helped me better understand how running can help quiet my brain chatter. I found the honesty about mental health really refreshing and learned a lot about other forms of anxiety. It also inspired me to get out and run on days when I really didn’t want to!I went into this book expecting a focus on running for newbies and its benefits to mental health that the author experienced. At worst, I’ve looked in the mirror at my own face and not recognised it to be me, and not just because I had terrible hair and bad skin that morning. It’s a strange and awful experience. When I was trapped in a fug of anxiety and depression in my early 20s, disassociation made it feel as though the people around me were actors in a bad reality show. I couldn’t connect with loved ones; everything felt fake and staged.

She was very nervous to visit a gym or a park; therefore, she discovered a private alleyway near her home instead. She simply succeeded to run for just three minutes that evening she started, and she did more of walking in between. However, later on; she discovered something extraordinary: she hadn’t cried for a complete quarter of an hour. There is no magical remedy for anxiety. There’s no medication you can use or work out you can do that will ensure that you never feel bothered or unhappy again. However, a running regime can assist you to cope with your symptoms and offer you the tools to live a more satisfying life. Therefore, tie your sneakers lace, and let go of your anxiety by allowing your body to fly down a – preferably nature-filled – path. I've forgotten to drink water so I drink about eight glasses and then wonder why I need to pee so much during the night' Friday However, the sedentary group hadn’t formed these connections. This shows that, at a neurological level, exercise prepares us to deal with stress better. It definitely assisted Bella.I spent my 20s enjoying journalism but also knowing ‘I have slightly stumbled into this’. I knew lots of journalists, my dad was a journalist. I did it without thinking about it. And then I thought, ‘I don’t really know where I’m gonna go with this, because I’m not my dad ...’” She left journalism aged 33, to write Jog On and says that writing the book “felt like the beginning of my life”.

I got shin splints, which hurt like hell. I ran too fast and had to stop after wheezing uncontrollably. Photograph: Thomas Butler/The Guardian She had an insight during those early jogs. Whenever she ran, she became less sad, and her mind got quieter. For those few minutes of physical workout, she wasn’t thinking about her divorce or her husband dating other people. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t thinking about it that much at all. After years of her brain tying itself up in knots with frightening, intrusive feelings, this quietness was a big relief. As a very keen runner I was drawn to this book for that reason, however after reading it I felt it was better aimed at those struggling with their mental health than the hard core runner. I’m very fortunate to have never suffered with these issues so a lot of the text was a little wasted on me. Enjoy the beauty around you Your anxiety can make you introverted, forcing your brain to see negative, scary things instead of your surroundings. Nearly every time I go for a run, I stop to take a longer look at a building, a poster, a sunset. My phone is full of photos of weird street names, beautiful views, and dogs I see along the way.Chapter 5 – Working out in nature offers your mental health an additional boost –a thing Bella personally felt. It’s a sad reality that 26% of the entire adults in England do lesser than 30 minutes of exercise per week. Also, the data reveal that women work out less than men. The cause for this gender imbalance may be seen in the preconceived notions we have about working out. Research has revealed that a lot of women and girls see sports as competitive, aggressive, and incompatible with being feminine. The side notes of other peoples' stories, and stats and general development of science of mind and body needing to be in sync was really good but yes, I didn't really enjoy it. I also feel that there were bits glossed out on - about food, about her strength training, all alluded to in a few sentences and then moved on. I procrastinate for an hour, then I head out to run. I don't eat breakfast, because I've experimented with this before running and it doesn't make me run faster or longer. It just makes me hungry halfway through. I chew bubblegum throughout my runs, which are typically about 12k. I run like Forrest Gump – no planned route, just meandering through bits of London I've not seen in a while. Sometimes that means a loop, mostly it means running somewhere stupidly far away and having to get the tube home.

Together with the hormonal as well as cognitive advantages, there’s also proof that exercise transforms us on a much deeper, neurological level. A current study examined mice that lived in a stressful surrounding. So, some of these mice were permitted to exercise regularly, whereas the other mice were not allowed to exercise at all. Later, the researchers found out that, the active stressed mice had formed new connections in their hippocampus – the part of the brain in charge of emotions. As a matter of fact, OCD begins with worrying thoughts. A mother that has OCD might unexpectedly reason, “What if I killed my daughter?” Now, though thoughts such as these are alarming, they are not abnormal. As a matter of fact, various studies reveal that every one of us experiences random negative feelings such as this occasionally. As we can notice, not the entire obstacles that hinder people from running can be stopped by just willpower. Some of them need institutions as well as policymakers to think of how workout can be made accessible to everyone.

She did this whole thing to try and handle her extreme anxiety. However, unsurprisingly, these coping methods were not effective. Rather, things got worse. She began going through disassociation – a frightening symptom of anxiety that makes sufferers feel disconnected from their environments. At times, the sufferer develops compulsive behaviors as well–thinking that these behaviors are the only means to stop bad thoughts from becoming a reality. Bella used to think that the only means to stop her mom from dying was to switch off light switches in a certain manner. This made Bella use hours turning lights on and off until she sensed she had done it properly. Bella’s brilliant love letter to running turns into an extraordinarily brave and frank account of her battle with anxiety. A compassionate and important book’ Joe Lycett Start small If leaving your safe places makes you feel vulnerable, do a loop of your road. Run that road until you feel confident you can go to the next one. It all counts, and it’s important you don’t push yourself too fast. Listen to your body. However, what can be done if you stay in a city or town? Don’t stress–various studies have revealed that you don’t constantly have to work out in nature to get the advantages of it. Extraordinarily, research done by the University of Essex has discovered that just viewing images of lush, natural landscapes while you work out is sufficient to increase your self-esteem and decrease your blood pressure!