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(Image credit: The Vault) Share Copy link Facebook X Pinterest Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter It's fair to say the wellness space is looking a little crowded right now. On one side of the pond, you've got the biohackers measuring every imaginable variable, optimising their nutrition to the specific macro, and basing their workouts on bucketloads of livestreamed data. Everything is being monitored, from sleep scores, to step counts, to supplement stacks; it's easy to feel behind if you're not tracking.
But, quietly, another tribe has emerged: the soft living, intuitive, anti-optimisation clan. They claim we've reached peak optimisation; they resent the stream of wellness ads barraging us on our social feeds, reject the notion that workouts should be a slog, and deliberately prioritise listening to how they feel over what a wearable tells them.
As a Health Editor at a global publication renowned for its wellness content, neither are "right" or "wrong". That's always been the issue with wellness—we can't seem to establish guidance from gospel, and don't trust ourselves and our bodies enough to know what works.
That's the conclusion I came to back in April, anyway, when I completed the 130th annual Boston Marathon. It was a race I'd trained to qualify for over nearly a decade; I knew above all else, I wanted to prioritise enjoyment over an arbitrary time or personal best.
I've worn my Garmin for my workouts for upwards of ten years now. But this was sometimes to my detriment—I can't tell you the number of race photos I've seen of myself where my eyes are glued to my watch, obsessively doing the mental maths of what my splits will equate to. This came to a head during the Valencia Marathon in December 2025, where I became so fixated on the measurements on my wrist that I pushed myself way too hard, ignoring how I my body actually felt and ending the race in a world of pain and with a pretty sizeable abdominal strain.
For Boston, I knew something had to change. So while I used my Garmin to inform my training, come race day, I turned it around completely, opting to run to feel, rather than letting a watch tell me how to pace my race. The result was a five-minute personal best, and a Championship Qualifying time of 3:08.
The impact of that decision, physically and mentally, is gargantuan. It restored my faith in my body's ability to do hard things, and it reaffirmed that, sometimes, a simpler approach is best. I'd spent years optimising every variable of my routine; what actually worked was far simpler.
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Naturally, my interest in the intuitive, anti-optimisation way of life was piqued. Enter a summer spent chatting to top experts about just that: the role of tech in our lives and, further, how important it is to develop your ability to listen to your body to reach the ultimate flow state.
Which led me to the question: what would happen if we deliberately stopped optimising every little corner of our lives? If we learned to let go and embraced spontaneity, joy, and connection alongside self-improvement?
Keep scrolling for the quiet, unglamorous ways women are switching off from relentless self-improvement, from unplugged mornings to phone-free walks, and why many experts believe doing less might be the most radical wellness trend of the year. Because the problem isn't data, technology or optimisation itself; it's when the tools designed to help us become the authority over how we feel.
I'll admit it: I over-optimised for the Valencia Marathon 2025. I obsessively tracked everything, from my sleep score, to my VO2 max, to my race day predictions in the months leading up to the race, pouring over the data and analysing it from all angles.
One small thing I forgot to optimise, though, was how I was feeling mentally about all that pressure to perform. I was so focused on living by the data that I never stopped to take stock of how I felt, leading to a pretty gnarly race.
Data is both a gift and a curse—when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
It made me question so much—it's hard to understand a "failure" of a race when, on paper, you've done everything right. But after months of reflection and discussion with experts, I came to a clear conclusion: sometimes our constant pursuit of "better" takes us further away from our end goal—something this 2024 study proves, discovering a link between regular sleep-tracker users and greater preoccupation with their sleep than non-users.
As Anthony Fletcher , Certified Biomechanics Specialist, Sports Scientist and Co-founder of the run coaching company OneTrack , says, "Data is both a gift and a curse—when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."
It also made me reassess my priorities more broadly and outside of my running—optimisation has infiltrated every part of our lives, from careers to relationships, workouts to parenting. The issue isn't wanting to be better; it's the idea that every area of our lives needs to be continually improved, and if you aren't doing that, you're failing.
I'm Type A, through and through, and swear by organisation and optimisation in all areas of my life. The low-level hum of anxiety that comes with that has always been part of my psyche; I just accepted that it was who I am.
Even wellbeing can start to feel like another set of KPIs you're failing to meet.
But this summer, I had a revelation. I let go a little. I stopped planning every aspect of my life down to the last second. I moved workouts around and, in some cases, missed them. I forgot to charge my Garmin. I went a few weeks without my supplements. I drank champagne every day on holiday. And spoiler alert: the low-level hum of anxiety finally lifted.
This isn't a case for throwing your wellness routine out the window; I'm a Health Editor, and looking after your mind and body is one of the most important things you can do. But it is a case for doing it in a way that fills your cup up, rather than emptying it, and being mindful of the ways you approach it, too (for example, this 2026 umbrella review concluded that those who wear fitness trackers were more active, but not necessarily happier, healthier, or better off in other areas, than those who didn't).
Anna Burgan, Founder of makeSpace , sums it up when we speak. "Even wellbeing can start to feel like another set of KPIs you're failing to meet. The trap for working parents is believing better optimisation will solve a capacity problem."
The beauty of taking a step back and assessing your wellness routine is that you can make the conscious decision to deep dive into what's working for you. It's not a rejection of ambition of self improvement, rather, the recognition that being on top of everything is humanly impossible all the time.
My Boston Marathon experience summed that up for me: I achieved a lifelong goal the second I took a step back.
At some point, there aren't more efficiencies to find. You don't need a better system; you need something to give.
As Lucy McGrath, Founder of Humanworks Consultancy, succinctly puts it, "If data fuels self-criticism instead of motivation, it's not serving you."
"At some point, there simply aren't more efficiencies to find. You don't need a better system; you need something to give," Burgan adds.
The answer here isn't to stop optimising, ditch your wearables, and give up on a healthy approach altogether. Rather, it's to approach it with grace, let your hair down sometimes, and use optimisation as guidelines, rather than set rules.
One important caveat, though, and a point that all of the experts that I spoke to for this piece stressed, is the importance of not making anti-optimisation the next measurable to fixate on. Because the moment we start measuring how successfully we're switching off, we've simply recreated the same culture we're trying to escape.
"It'll just become another movement that people will identify with and become fanatical about," sighs Fletcher.
"The minute switching off has a 'streak,' a 'badge,' or a 'you did 7 days phone-free' notification, it isn't rest anymore," agrees Burgan. "It's optimisation with a dopamine hit and a different job title."
Remember: genuine restoration doesn't have a scoreboard.
Wondering how to incorporate this into your day-to-day? Fletcher recommends identifying one thing you're currently the most invested in improving. Then, deliberately stop trying to improve it for a day.
The aim here isn't to lose progress or motivation—it's to get a sense of how it feels when you let go of the reins (likely uncomfortable at first—because, as Burgan puts it, "a number feels more objective than a feeling."). "The experiment isn't about the result of not optimising the thing; it's about the fear of breaking the habit," Flethcer goes on.
If data fuels self-criticism instead of motivation, it's not serving you.
Ultimately, nothing (should!) change in a day. But the learnings from it should be ample, for that very reason, and reinforce your self-trust, which is an invaluable tool and guiding force. Anti-optimisation isn't about ignoring useful information; it's about remembering that data is only one source, and acknowledging that your intuition is one of the greatest tools you have. "Rebuilding that internal signal is the more valuable skill. It's the one that still works when your phone's battery is dead," Burgan enthuses.
Keen to learn the quiet, unglamorous ways women are switching off from relentless self-improvement? From unplugged mornings to phone-free walks, discover the go-tos of some of my health heroines, below.
"I get up early, earlier than I need to, and go to a coffee shop before work to read my book. I don't tell anyone; I want this to be 20, 30, or 60 minutes that I just have to myself. I don't look at my phone or my work phone—I'm simply offline, and it really helps me to centre myself ."
"When I have a lot on, or I know the day is going to be busy. I can be quite hard on myself. Giving myself some time helps me get through the day when I know the day will be about others or work."
"It feels like my safe little haven because I don't have to deal with annoying emails, or texts, or anything in the 'real' world that stresses me at the moment. When I leave, I feel like I've had a moment to breathe and can take on the day, whatever comes my way."
"I'm an avid diary keeper and scrapbooker. I quite literally own five notebooks, all for different things! But this year, for some reason, I started feeling this pressure to scrapbook "aesthetically" and even to journal "aesthetically"—to the point where it stopped feeling like play and started feeling more like another self-optimisation tool I had to use. If I didn't do it, I felt like I was failing at being organised, productive, or my "best self"."
"So now, every morning, I sit in complete silence for 30 minutes and just write. Whatever I'm feeling. Whatever thoughts or anxieties are sitting in my head. I just get them down. And I purposely make it messy."
"I'm trying to go against that idea of perfection—that everything needs to be beautiful, organised, productive, or optimised—that I'd somehow stapled into my brain as a 'must'."
"It's been really freeing to remember that journaling doesn't have to look like anything. It just has to be something I escape into, for myself. No self-improvement in sight."
" A major thing I've aimed to optimise less this year is how I look . Allowing myself to not always look perfect—wearing my sweatpants, not shaving my armpits, going makeup-free, or letting the spot exist."
"If I'm breaking out, my body is telling me it's stressed in some way and needs to release, so instead of covering it up with makeup, I'm letting it be until it's ready to pass."
" Setting boundaries with social media has been huge for me this year . Watching everything else that everyone is doing makes you feel as though you aren't keeping up."
"When I switch off from that echo chamber for the first and last hour or two of the day, and replace it with a book or a walk, I feel such a significant shift in my mood; it's actually quite crazy."
" Going to therapy every week is my anti-optimisation . It's private, the antithesis of glamorous and not at all performative—an hour where I can be my ugliest self in how I look and feel, and yet I'm still accepted."
"It's the one thing that has actually shifted the dial on me feeling enough as I am, regardless of how many electrolytes I've drunk, PBs I've run, and no matter what my weight on the scales says or my relationship status implies."
A closing thought: Lifelong health, wellness, and longevity aren't about the perfect data scores, macronutrients or treatments. Life is about balance, but the goal is a healthy, strong, able body—to live well, for longer. "Learning how your body works is a lifelong pursuit, and there is a lot yet to be understood," shares Fletcher.
So next time you're stressing about a sleep score or crawling a menu for a calorie count, remember this from Burgan: "Genuine restoration doesn't have a scoreboard."
Ally Head Senior Health and Sustainability Editor Ally is Marie Claire UK's Senior Health and Sustainability Editor, a well-regarded wellness expert, ten-time marathoner, and Boston Qualifying runner.
Utilising her impressive skillset and exceptional quality of writing, she pens investigative, review and first-person pieces that consistently demonstrate flair and originality.
Ally manages a team of freelancers, oversees all commissioning and strategy for her pillars, and spearheads the brand's annual Women in Sport covers, interviewing and shooting the likes of Mary Earps, Millie Bright, and Ilona Maher. Shortlisted for three BSMEs and winning one in 2022, Ally lives and breathes her verticals: her eye for a story and connections within the wellness sphere are unrivalled. Follow Ally on Instagram for more.
Source: Fashion