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Around three years ago, mental health advocate and former Love Islander Dr Alex George found himself reaching burnout.
“I had gone out to The Nibbies Awards [the British Book Awards] – it’s a big honour to be nominated and it was for my children’s book, A Better Day,” the 35-year-old explains.
After what he calls an unexpected win, George gave his speech, left as soon as it was done and headed home. “I came home with my award to an empty flat,” he says.
“I knew I was getting up at 5:30am the next day to go film and I had a realisation that I was doing all of this, I had this amazing achievement, but no one to celebrate it with.
“That’s no victory. I think it’s a quite important lesson around priorities and if you overpour into one cup of your life – you end up neglecting others.”
As someone who has experienced burnout and a lack of balance, George, a former A&E doctor who participated in the 2018 season of ITV2’s reality show Love Island, says: “I often talk about having a certain amount of tokens each day for energy – sometimes when we overdo it, we end up in an energy debt.”
He explains the reason for this is the all-or-nothing mindset humans tend to have. “For example, something goes wrong in your day and you say it’s a terrible day. Or if things go well, it’s a brilliant day. In order to strike a balance, the truth is that life and living is in the middle, it’s in the grey and our health is like that, too.”
“It’s about that give or take,” says Wales-born George, who is now based in London. “Thinking of energy debt and tokens is quite useful. It’s what leads people to burnout – a mental, physical, emotional state of decompensation that happens after a long period of stress.
“It’s whereby you are giving more than you’re topping up. You’re constantly giving more than what you have capacity to give.”
George was diagnosed with ADHD and autism in 2022, and says he naturally overworks and has “intense hyperfocus”, which leads him to push and push, forgetting to do normal things that are good for him.
“I’ve now had to create quite good boundaries around things like protecting weekends as much as possible or finishing work at a reasonable time,” he adds.
“I’ve created boundaries to prevent that kind of thing happening,” George says, although he admits it is difficult and not easy to get right all the time.
After working “most hours under the sun”, and having little to no hobbies outside of work previously, George has now travelled lots, learned how to ride a motorbike and spends his spare time cycling around London or fishing with his dad.
“I also have time to be bored – which is a really underrated and important skill that we seem to have lost in modern life,” he says.
“I just create space on a Sunday morning to go for a coffee and sit in the park for a few hours. It is quite a deep life lesson, but you realise that most of the highlights of your life are the in-between moments.
“I found so much happiness in that stuff. I think it’s remembering that of course it’s fun to have plans and to do things, but there’s actually so much joy in a slow Sunday, going to the gym, doing your laundry. All that stuff sounds boring – society and social media likes to make a big deal of the highlights, but actually most of the stuff that’s fun is just so easy.”
George lost his 19-year-old brother Llŷr to suicide in 2020, and suggests that afterwards he forgot how important connection was for happiness. “I remember walking around the park in Battersea, watching life happen around me and people with their friends and family. I had isolated myself in the name of healing and it was contributing to a lot of my challenges,” he says.
“Human beings are not meant to be alone. So on a friendship level, but also on a relationship level, that sense of belonging is so powerful.”
George got engaged to his fiancée in Greece last month – “I think it’s beautiful to have a connection with someone and to have a feeling that you get a partnership and a team” – and is conscious to not lose a sense of balance over the summer.
“First of all, exercise is so important – just be careful particularly in the heat at the moment,” he warns.
“It’s not just good for your physical health and longevity, but it also increases your health span. So not just how long you live, but how health, fit and positive you feel.
“It’s also incredible for your mental health. I don’t believe it can cure everything, but it’s a huge part of the picture. As someone who has OCD, I find that exercise helps so much. It switches the mindset, it lifts you and gives you that feeling of positivity. Humans are not meant to be sedentary.”
George has partnered with Holland & Barrett for its summer wellness campaign, with research suggesting that more than a third of Brits feel intense, non-stop pressure to never miss an invite or turn down summer social plans with friends – and as a direct result of trying to keep up. Nearly three-quarters admit that a busy summer schedule negatively affects their body and wellness.
George adds that his ethos is “not about living less, it’s really about living more but it’s backing your bodies through that and making sure we do find that kind of balance”.
He says: “Don’t look for a silver bullet in life because there isn’t one. It’s about doing lots of little things consistently well.”
Holland & Barrett and Dr Alex George are helping people back their bodies this summer. With 70% of Brits saying a busy summer impacts their wellbeing, visit your local Holland & Barrett store for expert advice and products.
