This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hi, Joe, Wick's here. And I'm just popping up to tell you about my podcast, the BBC sounds you might know me as the body coach. My workout videos, You Might Know Me is the recipe guide for my Lean In 15 cookbooks.

Or more likely, you'll as the P with Joe Guy, the big curly hair who got people up and down the country jumping and moving and being silly billies all through lockdown, maybe even join me for a few sessions.

What you might not know about me though, is I'm not just obsessed with physical health and staying fit and eating right. I'm fascinated by how we stay on top of all aspects of our health and particularly our mental health, which is so important. Life isn't just about being healthy, it's about being happy, too. So in my podcast, I've come up with some of my favorite people and asked them about how they do it, what kind of things they do every day to stay feeling healthy, happy and inspired.

And I'm always looking for that one thing that makes life great and it's different for everybody.

You can hear Gordon Ramsay talk about his epic cycle marathons he does around Cómo Santa Santamonica. For him, being on the bike really calmed him down and resets his mind. Or you can have fun on talking about the one thing that she always does to cheer herself up. And that's music putting on her headphones and having a bit of a boogie to lift our mood and help her feel more on top of things. One of my favorite tips was from the legend that is Louis through.

And Louis has one pretty unusual habit that gets him through the day. He even does on the toiler. For my physical and mental well-being, I find that I a lot depends on how well I've slept. And as I've got older, I found that a little nap in the day if I can get away with it, which I can't always. But if if I feel in that post lunch dip, I have no real shame about going off to the loo at work if I have to.

This is embarrassing.

Leaning against the wall and having a little nap. Yeah. How did you know. Because I've done that.

I love enough. I actually think that a lot of people underestimate the importance of sleep. You know, I'm a dad now as well as I've got two kids on the you know, it's difficult at times. And when I had Marle that my little boy, I felt for the first time the the impact broken sleep had on my health, my mental health and my fitness. So I love a nap. You know, if I can get 20 minutes here, half an hour, I think it rejuvenates the mind.

I wouldn't even take that long. Like for me, I'd go for ten to fifteen. And actually, it's extraordinary. It almost turbochargers you.

So you go into the public toilet work at the BBC and you sit against the wall and you lean against the wall and you just have a little nap. Doesn't anyone knock on the door and try and get you out of there and stuff? Sometimes. But, you know, sometimes they do.

The BBC used to have these toilets where if you didn't move, it was like a ofter sort of three minutes or so the lights would go off.

OK, yes.

Sensor's they were motion activated lights, which was perfect because you just sat there.

And I can either go like this, I mean, illustrating it for you and Radioland of leaning my head forward or my chin or even like with a hand on my chin.

The hand on chin. Yeah. And then basically within a minute I'll be out. And then after about ten minutes, I would sort of wake up and be like, I'm ready to go.

Yeah. Fantastic.

Another person I spoke to is Robinson, who you might not know, but if you happen to have a pilot on board, then you definitely know who she is. She's an ultra marathon runner and the head coach for Peloton, and I just love her workouts.

What you may not know about Robyn is her amazing back story, the traumatic moment that got her into running in the first place. She was held hostage in a bar.

She was so brave and I couldn't believe how calm she was in such a difficult situation. She turned her trauma into something so positive and beautiful. And I find her energy really inspiring.

Really. This happened it completely randomly. I was just out with girlfriends on a Friday night in New York City and an hour into greeting them and catching up on our week, having girl talk.

A man with a gun walks in and holds the bar hostage. That was when I became acutely aware of mental health and and power and agency and how we are in charge of our stories.

Then I became a pseudo negotiator with the police outside and after a few hours, the hostage situation ended. But of course my life was impacted forever. That was a transformative experience.

Trauma survivors know and understand that the trauma is maybe desirable, but day one is waking up the next day and then the next day and then the next day needing to deal with it and sit with it.

And I didn't realize until I was in law school the following year how much that trauma had affected me. And that is why I started running, because I needed to run through that trauma.

So what was going through your mind during that incident in that bar in New York, if it felt like a movie, when time slows down and you become acutely aware, you're hyper aware of what's going on in front of you, but it doesn't feel real because oftentimes we're not very hyper aware about about what's going on in front of us.

So it felt like time was slowing down. And I I'll be honest, I wasn't I wasn't crying.

I wasn't hysterical in the moment because I knew I just needed to act. One of the things I'm fascinated by is where people's inspiration comes from for Robyn, it was that moment of trauma that kick started her journey and for other people might be something really small and insignificant, which gets you fired up about making your life a little bit better.

And you never know where that journey might take you.

One woman who can't seem to believe her luck in the way her life has turned out is Melissa Alcantara, who you might know better as Fitger email from Instagram. Her story is amazing. She used to be really unhappy. She had terrible postnatal depression, didn't like her body into all kinds of terrible diets. She was unfit, broke and miserable. But when she discovered fitness, it changed her life completely. She became a fitness hero and started putting together her own fitness programs to inspire other people.

But the biggest change of all happened when she was discovered out of nowhere by none other than Kim Kardashian.

I was a waitress in Brooklyn, like, how did she find me out of all of the fitness people, out of all the influencers, just somebody who didn't have any followers. And she was like, you know what, this girl, I want her to train me.

Seriously, you're at home and you get a message from Kim Kardashian saying, I've seen you on TV, whatever she imagined you can you come and train me and that. And the day before, you had booked a flight to go to Santa Monica anywhere in L.A.. Yeah.

So actually, just a month prior to that, we were set well, we bought a one way ticket as a family to come live in L.A. We were like, you know what? We don't know what's going to happen, what we're going to do, what our jobs are going to be. But it's sunny over there. We were so tired of being cold.

And she was like when she contacted me, she was like, hey, I know you live in in New York and I'm in California. I'll pay for you to come here for a few weeks. And I was like, in a few weeks I'll be living there and we just couldn't believe it. It was just like it was fate. Destiny, I don't know whatever you want to call it. And, you know, I've been trading her every day since then, since I moved here three years ago.

That's incredible. I mean, I just I love Kanala I amazing. So you're like hanging out Khania you've moved from New York la. Do you feel at home now like in L.A., you're part of Hollywood now. Like do you feel at home now.

Does it still feel quite strange. It's a little different. I mean my entire life has changed drastically and completely in the past three years.

Right before it came I wrote a workout program and I was selling it for fifty dollars, you know, every like two weeks maybe one person would buy it and we would jump up and down.

And then the first, when the first episode of the Kardashians came out in 2017, that was the episode I was on where Kim introduced me.

It's not anything I ever lived to work towards, you know, I just wanted to do the best for myself. And somehow that turned into just a ton of opportunities.

Now, I've always been into physical fitness, but my interest in mental health took a little bit longer to come around.

My brain goes a million miles an hour, and although I've heard about mindfulness and meditation, I just didn't think it was for me.

But then recently, Russell Brand said I had to try meditation just to see what it was like. And I can't believe the difference is made. Now, I'm super keen on meditation and I tell everyone I know to give it a go. Even if you don't think is right for you, you might be surprised. Well, if you have tried meditation, chances are you might have come across Headspace, the meditation app, and you might recognize the soothing voice of Andy Puddicombe, the man who guide you through the daily sessions.

But you might not know that Andy ran away to join a Buddhist monastery at 22 years old. He's a fully trained Buddhist monk, a circus performer and an absolutely lovely man who's passionate about getting meditation to a wider audience. In our chat, I told him about one of my most powerful experiences I had while meditating, and he told me about how emotional it can be.

Sometimes I've had some meditation. Do I sit down and I'm frustrated. I'm not enjoying it. I don't get anything out of it. It's kind of like a walk. And sometimes you do a training session, you really push and you feel great. Other times you don't.

But I've had a couple of really powerful moments where I did a meditation on letting go of negativity and also one on on gratitude. And I had this amazing feeling. So my dad was a really hard heroin addict when I was growing up and a lot of his friends died of overdoses. And when I had this meditation on these lovely thoughts came to me that I'm so proud of my dad and so grateful that he survived that addiction because I always felt was a weakness, you know, being an addict, you a weak person.

But he he came through that and he survived. So I had this amazing sense. I burst into tears basically, and I got off. I got up and I rang him and I this wonderful conversation myself. I'm really proud of you that you survived that. And I'm so grateful you're alive. And I've never had that thought.

And it's amazing to having that meditation. There was these thoughts and feelings right in the back of my mind that came forward. And it was a really positive thing. I love that.

That's beautiful. And it's an interesting thing. I think a lot of people assumed that meditation is all about just relaxing and, you know, almost unplugging from life.

I see really differently. Joan, the way I was taught to me was really different, Sasho, about plugging back in because most of the time we were absent. So how do we kind of be more present?

And when we are, we become more aware of those things, those thoughts and. Feelings that exist within us soul, but we don't really give time to acknowledge them or appreciate them, but within all of us there is a deep sense, I believe, of love, of gratitude, of appreciation. And it's just giving ourselves time to to feel that.

There's loads more I'd love to tell you about. I spoke to the chef, Jamie Oliver, about how he loves to kick back and play the drums, the actor David Harewood, about how much joy he gets from taking his dog for a walk. And the cyclist, Mark Cavendish, told me all about how he loved to chill out with some Lego. And there's more to come to. I'd love you to join me if you want to check it out.

Just search for the jokes podcast on BBC Sounds and please subscribe.