#24. Matthew Remski. Interrogating Self Care Culture

****Join Katie on Oct 14th for a webinar with us on ⁠"What's stopping you from doing the thing?" Sign up here.⁠

Health technologies can measure our steps, sleep, heart rate, food and exercise. But what happens when those measurements begin to feel more authoritative than our own experience? Dr Rachael Kent is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy and Society at King’s College London, Co-Director of the Centre for Technology and the Body, and author of The Digital Health Self: Wellness, Tracking and Social Media. Rachael tells Andrew about the experience that led to her research: becoming critically ill after under-fuelling and over-exercising while following separate juicing and running apps. When she eventually turned her phone back on in hospital, her running app reminded her that it was time to go for a run. Their conversation moves from fitness trackers and the quantified self to the moralisation of health, social media’s growing role as an informal public-health platform, AI health advice, loneliness and the disappearance of affordable shared spaces. They also discuss conspirituality, the politics of online wellness, the appeal of certainty, and an optimisation culture in which there is always another number to improve, product to buy or part of ourselves to fix. Finally, they consider where responsibility should sit, what legal and collective action might achieve, and how we can protect our attention without turning resistance into another self-improvement project. Rachael’s work and the Kent v Apple collective action

Lydia Durkin George is a physiotherapist, researcher and former international kickboxer. She represented Great Britain for more than a decade and has since worked across the NHS, private practice and elite sport. She is also the founder of Form.at.Physio, an online physiotherapy practice supporting people across the UK. We wanted to have this conversation because pelvic health comes up regularly among women taking part in Strong for Life. People often assume that leaking, prolapse or other pelvic-floor symptoms mean strength training, running and higher-impact movement are no longer available to them. It is also personal for Gill. After having children, she stopped running partly because of leaking and gradually accepted that this was simply how things were now. Years later, working with a pelvic-health physiotherapist showed her that change was possible. The process - finding a starting point, gradually building capacity and working towards something meaningful - had much more in common with ordinary strength and movement training than she had realised. Gill and Lydia discuss what the pelvic floor is and what it does; symptoms that aren’t always recognised as pelvic-health issues; the difference between a weak and a non-relaxing pelvic floor; and what effective rehabilitation can involve. They also talk about the effect these symptoms can have on confidence, independence and everyday life, and how people can work towards returning to running, lifting and the activities that matter to them. This conversation provides general information and is not a substitute for an individual assessment or medical advice. If you are concerned about pelvic-health symptoms, speak to your GP or a suitably qualified pelvic-health physiotherapist.

How do you actually keep going? Last week we ran our webinar “What can you do in 20 minutes?” We covered what the research tells us about strength and impact for bone density, what an effective strength programme might actually look like, three movements we’d choose as a starting point, and how to add or take away challenge depending on where you are. Beforehand, we’d sent out a questionnaire asking what gets in the way. And well over half the answers came back to the same thing: consistency. How on earth do you keep going when life throws in its usual selection of spanners? We touched on it in the webinar, but there was much more we wanted to say. So this week’s podcast is the more detail. Andrew and I are VERY different when it comes to exercise. He can happily exercise by himself. I can’t. I need other people, whether that’s in person or online. I need people to show up with, talk to, hear their stories and generally make the whole thing part of something bigger than me and my good intentions. We talk about why short-term goals can be much more useful than the idea of training for “future you.” Training for your health in 20 years is absolutely valid, but it doesn't necessarily get you out of bed this morning. Something a few months away that feels exciting and just slightly out of reach might. We also look at the friction between fitness messaging, which so often puts everything on the individual, and what behaviour-change research tells us about how much our environment and social context influence what we actually do. And we look at a few models you can use to work out what's standing in your way, and what you might change to make exercise an easier choice rather than something you constantly have to make yourself do. Because motivation will only get any of us so far. How can you make it NEAR (Normal, Easy, Attractive, Routine)? Hope it’s helpful. You also get to meet Sarah the Cockerel, who makes himself known in the background. Here's the link to the webinar we ran. Seligman’s PERMA+ Model Explained: A Theory of Wellbeing The home of the COM-B Model NEAR Framework

At what age does playing outside start to feel embarrassing? Beth Kelley is a play researcher and anthropologist whose early research explored parkour as a form of free-form adult play. She has spent nearly 20 years thinking about how and why we play - and what happens when the environments and cultures around us make play increasingly difficult. We talk about risky play and parenting, why teenagers and adults can feel conspicuous playing in public, and how different cultures have created spaces where adult play is normal. Beth also tells the story of a video of herself playing on some bike racks that went viral - and why the reaction wasn't really about whether she was good or bad at it, but whether an adult should be doing it at all. That leads us into the fear of looking "cringe", why social media gives us endless examples of experts and spectacular failures but surprisingly little ordinary participation, and Beth's idea that play is a process rather than a performance. Towards the end, we talk about technology, community, why Beth chose to leave the tech industry, and the small acts of "rogue play" that can make our neighbourhoods feel like places we're allowed to play again.