Author of Beyond Pills
1.00pm UK Time
Goldster Book Club
Sarah Stacey is one of the most knowledgeable and experienced journalists in the field of health and wellbeing. Back in the 1990s, she witnessed the start of a paradigm shift in healthcare toward a more holistic approach, where complementary and alternative therapies were integrated with conventional medicine, together with a greater emphasis on lifestyle shifts including nutrition and exercise.
She has reported these topics for over three decades, first at the Daily Telegraph, the Daily and Sunday Express, and as long-time health editor of the Mail on Sunday YOU magazine. In 1994, she became the first chair of the Guild of Health Writers. On the Express she launched the first Mind, Body, Spirit section in a national newspaper. Also in the 1990s, she co-founded the Beauty Bible series of books and website, launching the Beauty Bible Awards - the only ones worldwide where hundreds of products were trialled by real women in real time.
More recently, Sarah has focused on the overprescribing of pharmaceutical drugs and the importance of non-medical alternatives, principally social prescribing and psychosocial support for problems such as loneliness, anxiety and depression, unsuitable housing and debt, which profoundly affect people's health.
In 2022, Sarah brought together a network of senior politicians and leading doctors to set up the College of Medicine Beyond Pills Campaign, which has now expanded to become the Beyond Pills All Party Parliamentary Group.
Sarah's experience is not only professional. In her twenties, she became addicted to alcohol and prescribed pills as well as a bunch of illegal drugs - which went along with living with a rock band in the Seventies. Group meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous showed her how to transform her life through the support of others who'd been through the same experience.
Some 45 years later, Sarah has interviewed many people who have transformed their lives and found purpose and happiness through different paths - one woman who had tried to end her life found that learning to draw and paint brought her into a new world. Another, who'd been deeply depressed for many years, was persuaded to join a choir - her 'social prescription' to health and wellbeing.
This is exactly the Goldster Way to Wellbeing. Join Sarah Stacey in this compelling Goldster Magazine Show with Humphrey Hawksley at 1pm Tuesday February 27th.
Leave a Reply