"I'm in my Moderation Era, and I've never been happier or healthier"

You might be interested in these lower-effort ways to improve your wellbeing, from kickstarting a fitness regime or choosing foods to fight fatigue to moderating your protein intake or avoiding fad food trends.

For years, if burning the candle at both ends was a person, it would have been me. I wore burnout like a badge of honour and played the 'life and soul of the party' role a little too convincingly. At the end of the year I would create punishing resolutions that I would almost certainly fail at because they were never quite built for real life.

Then a shock redundancy rattled my sense of identity, I hit my 30s, and a serious accident meant I had a lot of time reflecting on how I wanted my body, brain and life to feel going forward. Somewhere in all of that, I slipped quietly into what I call my moderation era, a concept that focuses on balance and sustainable habits as opposed to living life in extremes.

So, is this just maturity or something bigger? Among my friends, there’s a feeling our generation has lived through something unusually intense. We were raised on hustle culture, told success meant constant busyness, and sold the idea that the best years of our lives should involve bottomless brunches and striving endlessly for some shinier, thinner, fitter self. Then a pandemic hit, life got quieter, work felt more precarious, and mental health deteriorated at a much greater rate.

And it’s not just me. You can see this shift everywhere: people drinking less, choosing earlier nights, opting for walking outdoors versus annihilating themselves in HIIT classes, and prioritising how they feel over how they look. You just need to look at some of the biggest wellness trends of last year to see this shift. Like quiet quitting, where people began reassessing what healthy ambition actually looks like, or microshifting, the idea of working in flexible bursts around other non-work elements of your life. Dopamine menus gave language to activities that lifted people’s spirits, while 'slow living' came to the fore as people searched for meaning and balance in a fast-paced society.

Many of us have come to the same conclusion, that pushing and overdoing it doesn’t actually make us happier. And for me, that shift has shown up most clearly in the everyday habits that now shape my life.

Moderating alcohol

The biggest change I’ve made has been to how I drink. I haven’t stopped completely – full sobriety doesn’t suit my lifestyle – but I’m far more intentional in when and how I drink. Confronting your drinking habits can be uncomfortable, but you might notice unintentional rituals that go overlooked, like the automatic glass of wine after a stressful day, or seeking the buzz of a cocktail as a social comfort blanket.

A brilliant former colleague, Millie Gooch, founded the Sober Girl Society, and her guided journal Booze Less genuinely helped me reassess my habits (Rosamund Dean’s Mindful Drinking is also excellent).

The surprising thing? I actually enjoy drinking more now. There’s no ‘hangxiety’, I can count my hangovers this year on one hand, and my weekends feel like weekends. The evidence supports it: data shows younger adults are drinking far less than previous generations, and even modest reductions in alcohol are linked to better sleep, improved mood, lower anxiety and reduced long-term health risks.

Easier exercise

For most of my twenties, exercise was punishment, a transaction: burn calories, shrink body, be 'good'. I was much heavier then and forced myself through workouts that weren’t built for my body. My knees hurt, I felt breathless and embarrassed, and every session seemed to confirm that I was 'bad' at exercising.

I remember a bootcamp instructor once telling us we needed to “work hard enough to burn off breakfast”, and something in me recoiled. The idea that movement existed purely to erase nourishment felt wrong.

This ignited something in me, and I began researching weight training and resistance work. I chose this not because it changed how my body looked, but because it made me feel strong in it. And when I had my accident last summer and landed in hospital recovering from two major surgeries, that strength work mattered in ways I could never have predicted. Post-surgery, I developed an entirely new relationship with movement. Instead of pushing myself to exhaustion, then giving up (and repeating that vicious cycle), I focused on rebuilding well, improving form and mobility, lowering pain and showing up. I started celebrating the small things, like movement in my toes and standing on one leg.

In my moderation era, exercise doesn’t exist to punish, but instead acts as a huge marker of how I’m doing emotionally. When I’m overwhelmed, my routine slips, and when I’m steady, I can feel it in my training. I lift because it makes me feel powerful, grounded and genuinely proud of my body. There’s a practicality to this too. Research consistently shows that sustainable, moderate exercise routines are more likely to be maintained long-term (a notion sometimes referred to as the 'Goldilocks Zone'), while the NHS links resistance training to improved mobility, strength, bone health and mental wellbeing.

Eating enjoyably

I’m a 90s child who watched her mum endure slimming clubs, endless weigh-ins and fad diets, and I absorbed all of it. I’ve yo-yoed up and down most of my life, and I was determined entering my moderation era to regain control of my nutrition. As a survivor of WeightWatchers, where bananas and avocados were the enemy and your happiness for the week rested on a number, my relationship with food has taken years to untangle.

I began working with a nutritional therapist who helped me unpick that thinking. I wanted to lose weight and keep it off, but the only tools I’d ever had were restriction, guilt and a 'start again on Monday' mentality. She said something that rewired my brain: “You can’t sustainably change your body from a place of hatred. You have to learn to respect it first.”

So, I shifted my mindset. Not 'weight loss so I’m smaller', but 'weight loss so I feel better in my body' – and so I could walk further (ironic, given I later broke my leg), sweat less, sleep better, move more. I stopped chasing the fantasy version of myself and started caring for the real one I actually live in.

Moderation came next. I had to unlearn moralising food after years of it being 'good' or 'bad', and it takes time to undo that mindset. Now, I try to focus on consistency and balance over perfection, eating in a way that actually supports my life. I don’t categorise food anymore, instead I think of it in terms of how nutrient-dense something is. Some meals nourish me more and keep me fuller for longer, while some are just more joyful and celebratory. But both have a place in a sane, liveable life.

Moderation also meant relearning hunger and fullness cues – not easy when you’ve spent years overriding them due to deafening 'food noise'. Now, I try to focus on consistency over perfection. I don’t track everything like I used to (or negotiate with a slice of cake like my life depends on it). I eat, I notice how I feel, and I move on. Some weeks feel balanced, some don’t, and I no longer spiral when life isn’t textbook wellness-perfect.

Weight cycling, repeatedly losing and regaining weight, is linked in research to poorer mental health and potential metabolic and cardiovascular impact. Balanced, flexible eating tends to support wellbeing better.

Balancing work and life

The way we work is one of the biggest ways many are living in a more moderate and mindful way. It’s something I’m still working on. My relationship with ambition is complicated. I’ve always been driven and I love what I do, but for a long time my worth was tangled up in output.

I was one of those students in the incredibly earnest and now slightly embarrassing National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (abolished in 2010, probably for good reason), which in hindsight set me up for a lifetime of pressure. For years, my entire sense of self rested on how hard I worked, or the title in my email signature. And then I lost my job quite suddenly, just weeks before my wedding, and I went into free fall. Who was I if I wasn’t that person any more? I’d convinced myself I was irreplaceable. Spoiler: no one is.

People meant well when they said, “You’ll get something instantly,” but I didn’t. I went almost five months without steady work, my confidence eroding. And self-employment exposed every bad habit I’d ever had, particularly procrastination and burnout.

In the spirit of balance, I sought the help of a brilliant work coach, Sarah Cave, who helped me see that healthy ambition isn’t about speed or volume, but sustainability. And that’s where rest finally came in. It used to feel like an indulgence I had to earn. But now I go to bed earlier, finish work at a reasonable time (most of the time), and take days off. There’s solid science behind this. Chronic stress is linked with anxiety, poor sleep, immune issues and cardiovascular risk, while real rest helps regulate mood and our nervous system.

Moderation hasn’t dimmed my ambition or made me less passionate, but it has reframed what success looks like (and it’s not a rung on a career ladder). Instead, it’s great work-life balance and a job I love that doesn’t leave me on the brink of burnout.

So no, my moderation era hasn’t turned me into a beige version of myself. I haven’t stopped caring, or striving, or enjoying the good stuff. I’m still figuring it out. I still get it wrong. But I feel steadier, healthier and more myself than I ever did.