Movement strengthens my mind as much as my body highlights Linda Barker

Linda Barker is busy. Perhaps the best-known interior designer in the UK after huge success in Changing Rooms, subsequent offers saw her star in I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!, Splash and Brand New House.

Linda is a regular on Lorraine and This Morning, writes books about interior design and home crafts, columns for newspapers and magazines and performs live craft and home decorating demonstrations.

Keeping fit and healthy is imperative to Linda’s high-profile career as well as her personal life, as she and her husband have embarked on a massive house renovation, doing much of the work themselves.

Physical activity has always played an important part of Linda’s life. From yoga and gym work to cycling and hiking, she has it all going on. Her latest exercise of choice? Wild swimming.

“Since the middle of the first lockdown in May 2020, I have been wild swimming in a nearby lake,” Linda enthuses. “There’s so much research showing swimming in cold water has tremendous health benefits and it is simply exhilarating. In the summer months I swim for around 50 minutes, but as the water gets colder in autumn and winter, I can manage shorter stints.

“Wild swimming is an interesting mental exercise as the fundamental reaction is to leave the water when it is very cold. It is about focus, mind over matter, and the endorphin hit is amazing and very addictive.”  

Knee surgery

It was during a televised diving competition – Splash – that Linda was told by the team of physiotherapists that something was wrong with her knee.

“I damaged my knee in an accident when I was in my twenties and had no idea I’d ripped my anterior cruciate ligament,” she remembers. “I was lucky not to experience the overwhelming pain that affects many others. But it did mean a knee arthroscopy a few years ago. I’m not sure that the joint can ever fully recover from knee surgery; instead I’ve learned to live with it and although the knee swells sometimes, it doesn’t hold me back. Instead of running, I now go to the gym, cycle, swim and practise yoga.”  

Passions

Linda discovered yoga in her late thirties and hasn’t looked back.

“A friend gave me a yoga CD which I took everywhere with me,” she says. “Whether I was working away from home and living out of hotel rooms or staying with friends for the weekend – the CD would come too. Since then I’ve been to heaps of classes and now use Zoom. Yoga is key to my life; it give me strength of mind as well as body.” Months in lockdown meant Linda could spend more time than ever on one of her other passions: growing her own food.

“However tiny your outside space, even just a windowsill is enough to grow plants and it’s so good for mental health,” she says. “I like to grow what we eat and love cooking from scratch. I’m lucky that I’m so fond of vegetables as it isn’t a struggle to eat well.

“I do take vitamins and supplements when I remember (Revive Active, Coenzyme Q10, L-arginine and multivitamins) but I don’t feel guilty if I miss them out.”      

Projects

A guru when it comes to interiors, Linda enjoys working with high profile brands, recently collaborating with Terrys Fabrics on a new app that lets people visualise how a blind will look on a window.

The pandemic meant that the press launch Linda and her team were planning for her own paint range (Linda Barker Paints) had to be curtailed. Instead the range enjoyed a quiet entry into the world of interiors where it has enjoyed a surge of interest thanks to the demand for home improvements.

“The colour palette brings the outdoors inside,” Linda explains. The range is designed to be healthy, healing and tactile.”

But her interests extend further still, and Linda is not shy of the bigger picture.

“I work with Emmaus, an incredible homelessness charity that gives people a home, meaningful work, training and a sense of belonging. Help for Heroes, is another wonderful charity that helps wounded veterans and their families to recover and get on with their lives.

“The pandemic has shifted so many aspects of life for almost everybody, and the suffering that many people have endured is heartbreaking. Now more than ever we need to look out for each other, family, friends, neighbours and strangers.”

First published 2021

Photo credit: Paul Craig

PS Did you know that Arthritis Digest Magazine is labelled the best UK Arthritis blog from thousands of blogs on the web ranked by traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness?