There’s a peculiar set of feelings that come with living in a big city. That duel sense of exhilaration and exhaustion, inspiration combined with spiritual depletion. The never-ending to-do list, work commitments, social arrangements, financial pressure. Put simply, for all it gives, urban life can also take a lot out of you.
When you do manage to claw some time back, one thing is for certain, you want to spend it wisely. But where do you start when it comes to wellbeing in your city?
This is what inspired Sally Lovett – a yoga teacher and author – to pen her own guide to wellbeing in London. The work is divided into five areas; central, south, east, north and west, each listing the best places to eat, relax and move in the capital.
It’s a comprehensive guide, detailing everything from opening hours and nearest train stations and bus stops for each place. Sally’s one proviso was that the places she featured had to be free from hefty joining fees and memberships.
Below, Sally has detailed her five favourite commitment-free wellbeing escapes in London.
1. The Wild Food Cafe, Covent Garden
Neal's Yard's raw-centric vegetarian and vegan cafe provides delicious plant-based cuisine and superfood smoothies – not to mention the best raw veggie burger in town. Bedecked with fluttering Himalayan prayer flags and abuzz with passionate vegetarian staff working from the open-plan kitchen, Wild Food Cafe is the perfect spot to refuel and escape the chaos of Covent Garden.
2. Castle Climbing Centre, Stoke Newington
Formerly Stoke Newington’s water pumping station, Castle Climbing Centre looms large on Green Lanes, resembling a majestic medieval castle. Open since 1995, this Hackney landmark is a premier climbing centre in the south-east of England, housing over 450 routes, plenty of bouldering surfaces to play with and a 100ft tower (originally the castle’s boiler chimney) to abseil down.
3. WAGfree café, Brixton Market
Tucked in a corner stall of Brixton village, WAGfree café serves gluten-free versions of some of the nation’s favourite foods. Indulge in freshly-made battered fish & chips, rustic loaves, quiches, chocolate brownies and treacle tarts. Slightly tight on space, if a table isn’t available, join the throngs of take-away customers who make their weekly, or sometimes daily, pilgrimage for a gluten-free fix.
4. The School of Life, Bloomsbury
Through classes, consultations and series of self-improvement books, The School of Life offers ideas and inspirations to live wisely and well. Covering sex, boredom, violence and many other meaty topics, no subject is left unturned on TSOL’s extensive curriculum. Proving its soaring popularity, TSOL is expanding to premises all over the world, attracting an international following of curious and hungry minds in the process.
5. The Life Centre, studios in Notting Hill and Islington
Almost 20 years since opening their first Notting Hill studio - this is one of London’s original yoga centres set in a kooky converted chapel, The Life Centre opened their double-storey spacious Islington studio in 2011. Offering yoga, Pilates, treatments and teacher training from some of the world’s best yoga teachers, The Life Centre maintains an authentic and genuinely yogic feel, without the pretentiousness found at some of London’s other yoga studios.
Sally Lovett is the author of Wellbeing in London, a guide to healthy and holistic places to eat, relax and work out in London. Sally is also a yoga teacher and founder of London yoga company, Stretching the City.
What are your top tips for wellbeing in your city, in London, but especially in other places? Leave a comment below to tell us about the great little yoga studios you know, the secret cafes, tip-top masseurs or free running clubs. If it’s good for you, we want to hear about it.
Interested in finding out more about how you can live better? Take a look at this month's Live Better challenge here.
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