stop over-optimising and return to basics

why your wellness routine is making you more stressed, not less

The wellness industry (ironically, something this article is a part of) has spent the last decade selling us a version of health that fits neatly into an excel spreadsheet. Not only this, but it shouts and screams at you that something new is wrong every week.

Since the beginning of Strength in Wellness, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at how this relentless focus on optimisation is actually backfiring, creating even more stress, even more allostatic load and leaves us feeling burnt out and confused. Why isn’t this optimisation fixing me? Or pointing me in the right direction? Shouldn’t this be making my life easier and more automatic?

The argument is simple: pushing for ‘peak wellness’ has become a source of performance anxiety, it’s turned our natural biological rhythms into data points we feel pressured to correct and fit neatly into a perfect linear graph. Instead of listening intuitively we look at dashboards and ask AIs.

I’m not saying optimisation is terrible and this isn’t an AI-bashing post. I’m just saying we should be using these things as a starting point, a hint, rather than basing our entire lives and routines around them. The research clearly shows constant surveillance is making us anxious, disrupting our sleep and overloading our nervous systems.

Most people assume that more data inherently leads to better health. But for most, it’s just the opposite. A primary example is orthosomnia, a term clinicians use to describe patients who are so obsessive over their sleep scores they actually develop insomnia.

(As a girlie obsessed with having a perfect 100 sleep score, this was quite scary for me to read. Maybe I’ll take the tracker off a new nights a week and give my poor nervous system a real break!)

If you’ve ever under slept and had a sleep score below 80 yet felt incredible and wide awake, you’ll understand. People often believe their wearable data more than their own subjective sense of being well-rested. We mistake these gadgets for being medical-grade tools, rather than what they actually are: a nudge to move a little more and sleep a little earlier.

It’s no wonder people are pushing back on numbers and spreadsheets and burnout in favour of feeling more connected with themselves again. Fine Homes and Living Magazine recently published an article about the home being a “recovery environment”. Whilst the piece is aimed towards those who can afford luxury wellness, I think there are some core learning for us to take from it. Turning your bedroom into a sanctuary isn’t expensive. I can polish my sides, hoover my carpet, put on some fresh sheets and light a candle and it immediately feels calmer and I can truly relax.

Mood lighting in your shower, scented candles in your bedroom, small warm-toned lights to set the mood and some lemon water will do the trick. It’s cheap, it’s easy and it feels luxury.

My hope for this article is for you to see how the industry relies on you feeling overwhelmed by what it already offers, “requiring” you to buy into it even more to quiet that overwhelm. True recovery doesn’t need more high-tech intervention. It starts with reducing the load and embracing low-effort, high-return rituals that and simple and inexpensive. Only after this would I recommend adding something new and more complicated.

You are a body, not a biometric profile, and sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is leave yourself alone.

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I’m not a doctor, dietician, or licensed nutritionist. Everything in this article is based on the scientific sources linked throughout and is intended for informational purposes only. If you’re considering changes to your diet, supplements, or lifestyle, please consult a qualified professional first. What works for one person may not work for another.

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Thank you Sam Tahan for inspiring this article! I really do recommend having a read of The Well-Informed Digest, it’s where I first read about turning homes into a recovery space.

If you want to improve your sleep score without stressing over numbers, this is the article for you:

sleep built by science

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