We managed to grab hold of busy fempreneur Sara Palmer Hussey to ask her to share her experience of lockdown life and share her tips for optimal wellbeing.

Please share something/s that you’ve learnt about yourself during lockdown that you weren’t aware of before. 

I have learnt that I enjoy isolation! I love being with people, but solitude offers the peace I need to let the dust settle around me to see life more clearly. I don’t see enough of the people I really care about as work commitments and distance often get in the way, so, in the future, I’m going to aim for a healthier balance between nurturing those relationships that enrich life and spending time alone. During lockdown, I learnt that I have to prioritise what I really care about. A potentially life-threatening virus has made me evaluate how I spend my time and what I want to contribute before my time is up. I finally completed and launched my book, The Bodybliss Protocol (available on Amazon), which is the culmination of years of research into weight management. For years I have known that the key to healthy weight lies not in the misery of dieting, but in realigning metabolism, timing, psychology and nutrition. I had devised a really easy system to follow to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight and I knew that it was an important protocol to share with all the people struggling with weight issues, but it always got relegated to the bottom of my to-do list. During lockdown, stepping off the crazy treadmill that life becomes (rushing from one appointment to another, juggling commitments, meeting deadlines) gave me the space to complete this book and plan for future projects that get lost in the urgency of every day demands.

How have you managed your wellbeing over the last 4 months of lockdown?  

I got covid19 in early March and it was a reality check for me that I was not practising what I preach. I wasn’t making time for wellbeing and I wasn’t balancing my stress, I was just storming through my days trying to get as much done as possible. Covid forced me to stop and just take care of myself. Luckily, the acute stage only lasted a couple of days, but I forced myself to take a week off afterwards to fully relax and recover. I credit the all-round, all-in-one, ultimate supplement Magnessence® for giving strong, comprehensive support to my immune system to fight off this novel virus. I also took long baths with Epsom salts, short walks in the sunshine, ate lots of soup (lentil or chickpea concoctions with lots of vegetables, turmeric, garlic and cayenne pepper), did the short HIIT exercise routine from my book The Bodybliss Protocol and I meditated (I’m not good at actually meditating, for me it’s more a form of prayer or a quiet conversation with myself or just an appreciation for the parts of life for which I’m really grateful). Fear and stress are factors that increase our vulnerability to any illness, so cultivating the ability to relax the mind and body is huge for our wellbeing. I also watched a lot of great tv in the evenings, which certainly helped me relax, tune out all the mental chatter, laugh (a great medicine) and often get inspiration. Recommendations would include The Last Dance, The Morning Show, After Life, Modern Family and most recently Black is King.

As a health and wellbeing product formulator what would you say are the non negotiable Vitamins/ herbs etc…for optimal wellness and immunity?

No diet can be perfect, so it’s impossible to be sure that you have all bases covered in terms of the vitamins and minerals that are daily essentials. Even with the best diet, soil depletion means that food no longer contains the nutrition it once did, stress, illness and poor gut health can also compromise nutritional intake, so a well-calibrated, scientifically-formulated multi-vitamin is a good back-up plan. Magnessence® contains all the vitamins and minerals for optimum health as well as some really potent botanicals, such as turmeric, resveratrol, gotu kola, beetroot, alfalfa, lutein, quercetin, astragalus and chlorella. The crucial nutrients for the healthy functioning of the body’s immune system are the vitamins A, C, D, B6, B9 and B12 and the minerals zinc, copper and selenium. Vitamins A, B2, B3 and biotin are also essential for maintaining healthy mucous membranes, which form part of the body’s first line of defence.

So, for optimal wellness and immunity, it is essential to provide the body with all the nutrients it needs to function well, which means to defend itself against potentially harmful pathogens, to repair damage and maintain youthful efficiency. The body is unbelievably equipped to do all these things remarkably well, but it needs the right support from us in terms of good nutrition (diet and supplements), exercise and rest.

There are also many herbs that can provide valuable assistance to the body in maintaining optimal health. Herbs contain amazing phytonutrients, polyphenols such as bioflavonoids, that deliver antioxidant and anti-inflammatory support among countless other benefits. Some of my favourites include turmeric, green tea, quercetin, gotu kola, resveratrol and chlorella. Amino acids, the body’s building blocks, are also powerful, health-enhancing nutrients. I add acetyl-l-carnitine, taurine and citrulline to my diet.

All of the above nutrients can be found in the supplements Magnessence® and Bodybliss® from Firebird® visit the website here