Hi I am Dr Sally Bell, a medical doctor specialising in lifestyle medicine and women's health. I design and run wellness retreats at the Michelin-starred Hampton Manor and with my colleagues at Rooted Life, I advise organisations on wellness and speak regularly on BBC radio. I am also connected with the regenerative food and farming movement here in the UK, I firmly believe human health is linked to our connection and care of our landscape and ecosystems. 

The boring but essential bits about me include my credentials: I qualified in 1999 from Nottingham University with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (BMBS) and a Bachelor of Medical Science (BmedSci). I then trained as a General Practitioner and completed a Diploma in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. In 2016, to grow my expertise in root causes of disease, I completed The Institute of Functional Medicine's Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice Programme.

I’m interested in lifestyle medicine and am a member of the Society of Lifestyle Medicine here in the UK. In 2018, I completed training in the management of perimenopause with the Marion Gluck Academy.

However, it is my experience in life that has significantly shaped how I practice. Including when I was the patient! I believe I have something to learn from every situation, person, and nature herself.

I struggled twice with postnatal depression. Sadly, I had no idea how ill I had become and didn't have the knowledge I have now. I convinced myself that this was normal motherhood and it was my fault. It was a dark time for me.

In my mid-thirties, I developed some strange neurological symptoms and profound fatigue over many months; it was something that my GP dismissed. When eventually, I could not coordinate my legs on the treadmill - I got a referral to secondary care. Thank goodness for the NHS and their expert investigations. However, it left me with a disease label, no answers to why I was unwell and the prospect of lifelong medication. It was the tipping point for me in discovering a new approach to health, recovering my health initially, and 10 years on, I have seen many others regain their health too. My approach has moved away from treating diseases and managing symptoms to focusing on you. It taps into our body's inherent ability to heal and respects our unique makeup as women (we are not little men!). It draws on the foundations that underpin health; nutrition, sleep, rest, movement, breath and connection to self, others, and nature. It understands how our body, mind, and emotions are integrated. It offers a way to live that is synergistic to our genetic design.

I am also a mum to three wonderful daughters; this year we have faced the formidable challenge of one of them suffering from long Covid where the modern medical model has been unable to help. So my work is grounded in real life and I am committed to finding solutions that work, modelling self ￾care that will inspire it in their lives too.

So however you engage with my content - if that's here or in person, my heart is that it will serve you to live a wholehearted, authentic life.