Is country life really better for your health?
As Covid-19 drives many townies to consider rural life. Estelle Lee weighs up the pros and cons
Toying with the idea of rural living? You’re far from alone. With life now forced through the surreal prism of Covid, the threat of contagion and the side effects of lockdown have refocused priorities, putting health, family and home at the top of the agenda. If there’s one thing the virus is telling us, it’s that right now we need to be as well as we can possibly be.
So what does rude health look like post-lockdown? It’s not merely the ability to pound the streets, in spite of GPS now urgently prescribing daily walks to the less active. It’s what wellness experts have been sensibly and quietly broadcasting for ages – how well we sleep, feel, treat ourselves, our bodies and are connected to one another add up to good health in the round. So it is hardly a revelation that sworn townies are taking stock and considering moving to the country.
Many people are discovering that they don’t miss the stressful, exhausting and expensive slog of commuting. With Covid as a catalyst, the lustre of London and other cities as centralised powerhouses is much diminished minus normal social functioning. What’s the point, if you can’t do anything? Is it any wonder estate agents’ phones are ringing off the hook with families chasing a country chimney pot of their own? But is living in the country actually better for your health?
Cali Rand and Guyan Mitra moved to Somerset from Harlesden, north-west London, in August 2019, with their two daughters. Rand, a couture model turned landscape designer (cali-rand.com), was keen to find more freedom for their young family, not unlike her own childhood in rural Cambridgeshire. But the biggest surprise for her has been the reversal of long-term chronic back pain. “I was due to have surgery to remove my L4 and L5 bulging disks – something I’d had to think long and hard about.” But on moving, within months the pain had dissipated almost completely. “We couldn’t have predicted how being more relaxed would impact us all,” she says. Rand’s husband agrees that the shift has been huge. “We eat together as a family,” he says, “and think much more about where our food comes from.” Mitra adds: “In London, you can always tell what day of the week it is. People give off that manic energy which I don’t miss.”
Of course, many families decide to up sticks anyway when their kids are small. But considering it as an option at a much earlier stage may well be significant. Alison Lovett of thelatch.co.uk offers an individual breastfeeding support service for new mothers. According to Lovett, clients are more relaxed and freer in the country, which helps them feed successfully in those difficult and isolating early days. She adds: “When we know breastfeeding can help ward off obesity in children, it may well be that country life will be a contributing benefit to the health of women and children in the longer term.”
Two separate studies conducted in Ireland and Denmark suggest that less work-related stress, a drop in air pollution and a reduced exposure to infections are responsible for a
90 per cent reduction in premature births during the lockdown period. The implications that this has for neonatal and child health and the ongoing impacts for families, the NHS and society at large are enormous. If families are able to take control of even one of these factors at an earlier stage it may well have a protective effect that will influence their lives.
Rae Feather, an accessories and fashion designer, moved to Oxfordshire 15 years ago with her four children, a decision driven in part by a desire to return to her native Irish way of life. “Perhaps it’s something that comes with age, but I can honestly say I have never been more content, grounded and healthy than I am now,” she says. Yet she is realistic too about the life she has built and her need to keep a link to her old life. “I am quite private in terms of getting to know the community, something I’ve managed to do more of in lockdown. But I’m also someone for whom London has provided creative and artistic inspiration, and I don’t necessarily get that here.”
Like Feather, I have a fairly pragmatic view on life in the country. We moved to Somerset four years ago – a good decision much eased by our fortunate ability to work from home and a hankering for space to swing a dog and two boys. Like many before us we spent years weighing up house prices, schools and commutability alongside fresh air, space and whether we’d be suited to village life. I’m in no danger of sitting on the parish council and I often need to escape for time to myself in London, but are we healthier? Undoubtedly yes. My kids have space to play without needing to go to a park. I’m out walking dogs in the open countryside daily with calming views for miles, we eat produce from the area, zero takeaways and pick our own fruit from the garden in season.
We’re lucky enough to have a village shop and a post office, meaning that there was very little need to leave the village for weeks on end in lockdown. Passing the time of day with the odd neighbour on a dog walk felt precious.
From a community standpoint, being in the country can easily be an isolating experience if you let it. But I’ve learnt the difference between solitude (which I often crave) and loneliness when I feel disconnected.
We have a village doctor’s surgery and dispensary, meaning that it’s a short walk to see a familiar clinician, and as yet I’ve never had to wait for an appointment. Pressure on the hospitals here is infinitely less, too. Our local A&E is ranked number four in the country, and only yesterday we were seen, X-rayed and dispatched for a football-related injury in under an hour. Reports of patchy “postcode lottery” provision may well be the case within a chronically underfunded NHS, but in my experience we’ve had the primary and secondary healthcare as and when we’ve needed it.
From a personal point of view, there has been no magical transformation to total physical health. I am still a resistant exerciser. I consistently struggle with the lack of boundaries between work, home and larder. Unbelievably, and even with dog walks, I do (on average) 10,000 steps less than I would walk in London on a daily basis because of the need to drive absolutely everywhere.
Strength and mobility expert Andy Vincent (andyvincentpt.com) is emphatic that health is as much a mindset as anything else. He is clear that if you’re the kind of person who is consistently active in their life then you’re likely to continue that no matter where you are. “It’s often easy to put a city mentality on exercise,” he says. “There, you often don’t have to make much effort to put activity into the day and there are excellent workout spaces that help you get into the right frame of mind. But in fact, exercise is a very small part of the overall energy expenditure – we need to move around more than we are sedentary and consider how we fuel our bodies.”
And it’s true – desk-bound, working from home in the country, I have to be purposeful in my efforts to exercise. I simply don’t have hours on end to wander around the fields. “It’s about creating a habit, not making it really hard,” says Vincent. His tips for remote fitness? “Get it done early and build it into your day, or it won’t happen. Gamify it with health and fitness apps or equipment so you make yourself accountable.”
So will a move to the country make you a healthier person? Not necessarily, but if you’re motivated to create a less stressful, balanced existence with time to enjoy what life has to offer, you just might be.
‘We couldn’t have predicted how being more relaxed would impact us all’