Hello, my name is Helen and I am an Integrative Ayurveda Mentor (I AM,) which is the name of my practice! I am based in Hastings, East Sussex.

My work centres on digestion and nutrition. In Ayurveda, digestion is
considered the foundation of health, and it’s where I see the clearest and
fastest changes. I also work with female health including menopause and perimenopause, skin
health, and the daily rituals and seasonal practices to keep people feeling steady through the year.

Ayurveda is a system for understanding your particular constitution, rather than applying the same advice out there that is given to everyone. Much of what I do is to help my clients work out what suits their body, their season, their lifestyle and then
make small changes that are practical enough and easy to follow.

How I came to Ayurveda

I came to Ayurveda during the hardest years of my life. It was a period of bereavement, family illness and the end of my marriage, arriving more or less at the same time.
I was grieving and overwhelmed. I ate whatever was quickest at whatever hour was convenient. I was drinking more than I should have, and was sleeping badly or not at all. I was in menopause, bloated, exhausted and running on empty.

I had stopped noticing how unwell I had let myself become.

A book on Ayurveda I’d owned for years turned out to be the thing that spoke to me — not as a diet or a set of rules, but as a way of understanding why I felt the way I did.

I began reading all I could, then taking some online short courses. I then found Dr Sam Watts, whose work makes Ayurveda
genuinely accessible to those of us living ordinary lives in the UK. I studied with him before taking his Clinical Diploma in Ayurveda, which I absolutely loved.

The ancient teachings of Ayurveda run deep, and make total sense to me. What it has given me is routine, rhythm, and a completely different relationship with food — not calories or restriction, but looking at the qualities of food, their
tastes, and what my particular constitution actually needs.

I sleep now. My body is settled and I am steadier than I’ve been in a long time.

Ayurveda didn’t fix my life; grief doesn’t work like that. But it gave me
something to stand on while I found my footing, and it’s still what I stand on today.

That’s why I do this work. I know what it is to be so overwhelmed that looking
after yourself feels like one more impossible task, and what it is to be handed
wisdom that is simple and true, and to return back to the ground.