Katie Melua on her mental breakdown - The Telegraph
Singer songwriter Katie Melua reveals how adapting her exercise and eating habits to match the changing seasons has helped her to restore her wellbeing
In a quiet tearoom near her home in Barnes, Katie Melua is discussing the joy of summer jogs, the best YouTube ballet workouts for autumn days, and the sensory pleasure of collecting seasonal wild herbs for supper.
This is not a conversation the British-Georgian singer, mellow and mindful at 34, would have had a decade ago. Back then she felt tired after a three-minute run and was so out of harmony with home cooking she once tried to fry a shepherd’s pie.
Music was her world – both a source of profound pleasure and an all-consuming infatuation – and she rarely pondered her own health. Surfing popular and critical acclaim, she had amassed a reported £18m by the age of 24. But in 2010 the hard work and endless tours triggered a wave of depression, paranoia and insomnia, culminating in a mental breakdown.
Melua spent six weeks in hospital but with the help of medication, therapy and family support she has since restored, and enhanced, her health.
“To be healthy is, for me, linked in with feeling happy about yourself,” explains Melua, whose famous black curls are neatly pinned back today. “You don’t want to feel like you are not looking good, or you are not feeling fit and healthy, or you are too tired. And also that you have enough of yourself to give everything you have committed yourself to. I feel healthy and happy when I am able to really concentrate on my work, but also equally when I am sitting with my husband (the ex-professional motorcyclist James Toseland) or with my mum and dad and I can give them myself in a meaningful way. That is my idea of ultimate health. Although I don’t know if I always achieve it.”
Pensive and precise in her conversation, Melua speaks candidly about her experiences. “When I had a mental breakdown I was 26 and the most important thing before that was my work. And I still adore it. But it was all that mattered and everything else was secondary: my relationship, my family, my own health. So since then I realise that because it was so bad and so frightening, nothing is worth it. And everything I got - which was the world really - none of it was worth anything as much as your health.”
The triggers for her mental illness – long work hours, fatigue, and a cocktail of self-imposed and external pressure – will be familiar to many. She was also traumatised by the suicide of a close friend. “There wasn’t one thing, a clear black and white, but different things mounted up,” she explains. “Throughout my 20s it was all about achieving and working as hard as possible. To the point that you don’t think twice about working in a music studio with no windows from 11 to 11. And you don’t bat an eyelid if you fly four times a week and do promo in a different city each time. So I don’t think I even thought about my health, except in just associating it with ‘looking good’. But you realise as you get older that you always look the most beautiful when you are happy.”
She was also haunted by an innate drive fostered since childhood. Born as Ketevan Melua in the troubled former Soviet state of Georgia, she moved to Belfast with her family when she was eight, before resettling in Surrey. “There is a certain thing that comes from being an immigrant kid and experiencing a childhood where you saw one path ahead where there were not many possibilities. Then coming to the UK and having a new concept of what life can be like made me work much harder. Living in this country was such an opportunity. It was like winning the lottery. It was not the industry forcing that mentality on me. It’s the result of witnessing what could happen if you give it your absolute best and then having the infrastructure to achieve that. But it did give me a feeling that I had to excel at everything.”
Following her breakdown, Melua discovered the restorative power of regular exercise and healthy eating, which nourished her sense of wellbeing and encouraged her to care for herself each day. Her newfound passion for fitness was inspired by her husband Toseland, the chiseled two-time World Superbike champion, whom she met in 2011. “James got me into running,” she admits. “At first I could barely run for a few minutes. But in the first year I did it nearly every day. I did my first 10k and I got really good. And then other things come into your life and you can’t keep up that level. I felt really bummed out by that. But I realised it is better to aim for ‘seasonal exercise’. It is completely fine to do what nature does, so in spring and summer I train as much as I can and then I bring it down over autumn and winter.”
This intriguing seasonal approach to fitness is the cornerstone of Melua’s health philosophy. Over spring and summer she enjoys cycling, running and swimming outside. During autumn and winter she switches to gym work or ballet fitness sessions. “I follow a YouTube channel which has a ballet class so I sit on a mat and I have my little headphones in,” she says. “Some of the most beautiful and youthful women I know are ballet dancers.”
Following a seasonal approach to exercise injects variety into her routine but it also neutralises the nagging pressure which can come from chasing personal bests or distances when the weather turns sour. “Thinking seasonally helps me avoid feeling: ‘Oh my God, I am not keeping up my goals.’ It gives me a much more realistic approach to my fitness. So this week I went running Monday and Wednesday and probably Friday too. But earlier this year, because the weather wasn’t good, I went to the gym three times a week instead. I didn’t always manage it. But that’s okay. Even if you think, ‘I’m not as fit as when I did my first 10k’, you think, ‘That’s okay. We are following the seasons now. I can relax with a swim and a bike ride instead.’”
She believes exercising outside has restored a more natural balance to her daily routine. Long days and nights spent inside brightly-lit recording studios had eroded her connection to the rhythms of the day. “We have gone super out of sync with the earth,” she warns. “I think part of my breakdown was because I was so out of touch with daylight and the seasons. One of the biggest turning points was moving away from being indoors all the time and training outdoors whenever I can.” Exercising outside also reminds her of the freedom she felt in childhood, when she would climb trees, run around the woods and surf on tree bark in the sea. “I love being out in nature. That is really important. It’s everything actually.”
This flexible approach involves following with the rhythms of her work schedule too. “I now accept that I have certain weeks or months when I can push myself, and other months when I can relax and prioritise other things.” She tries to exercise 3-4 times a week but has no strict regime. “Life isn’t like that. In society it is all about achievement and ‘the regime’ seems to be a powerful psychological force. But that pressure is actually unhelpful and you don’t always want to exercise if you put yourself under pressure.”
Melua adopts the same seasonal approach to her diet, focusing on fresh fruit and vegetables which are in sync with the natural cycles of production. Seasonal food for May includes broccoli, rocket, wild nettles and chives. “Collecting wild food is something I got into from a book (The Hunter-Gatherer Way) by Ffyona Campbell who walked through Australia and has lived with Aborigines and African bushmen. I have done a few walks with her. Last spring we collected chives. She always says how much nutrition is in wild food compared to agriculturally-produced food.”
Foraging is also a relaxing pursuit which reconnects her with the natural world. “There is nothing better than going out in nature, collecting food and then eating that. It is sensational. In the summer I collected seaweed which is so good for you. I make nettle tea, which you can get all over the place. I make a wild food salad with chives and hollyhock or have a baked potato with all of those herbs. It’s so lovely to come home with a basket and think: ‘I found this.’”
With her renewed focus on health, she says drugs are “off the table” and she has no interest in drink. Asked to recommend a healthy Georgian dish, she suggests ‘pkhali’. “It’s a beautiful spinach dish with walnuts and pomegranates, but the spinach turns it into a mouldable paste so you end up making finger food.”
In surprising contrast to the soothing tone of her music, when Melua felt trapped by work, travel and pressure, she enjoyed the escapist thrills of activities like paragliding, skydiving or swimming with sharks. Now grounded by pleasurable exercise, seasonal food and a healthier work-life balance, she no longer feels the lure of the extreme. “I used to love trying new things and called myself an adrenaline junkie,” she laughs. “But I think going on stage and singing a new song in front of thousands of people gives me enough of a kick.”
Ultimate Collection by Katie Melua is out now. Visit katiemelua.com
(C) The Daily Telegraph
Link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/katie-melua-seasonal-fitness-helped-recover-mental-breakdown/