November 2026 News

November 2026 News

How are you? If you’re feeling rather worn down, you are not alone. So many people find this last quarter of the year long and intense, with shorter, darker days, colder weather and the slow creep towards Christmas both a blessing and a burden.

If you are struggling with keeping going, take a look at my latest blog here, explaining what sensory processing sensitivity is. You might recognise yourself, and if you do, there are some tips on how to manage your energy a little better.

To cheer you up, here’s a fabulous recipe for a delicious breakfast or brunch. Breakfast is the meal most people I work with struggle with when it comes to getting in the all-important 25–30 grams of protein, which helps keep energy levels more balanced and sugar cravings at bay for the rest of the day.

Savoury Cottage Cheese Breakfast Pancakes

Serves 1 generously | Ready in about 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 eggs

• 100 g cottage cheese

• 1 tbsp ground flaxseed

• 1 tbsp oat flour or finely ground oats

• Pinch of sea salt and black pepper

• Small handful of chopped chives or spring onion

• Butter or olive oil for cooking

To serve

Top with one or two of:

• Wilted spinach or rocket

• Sliced avocado

• Smoked salmon

• A spoonful of Greek yoghurt

• Sautéed mushrooms

• A poached or fried egg if you want an especially substantial breakfast

• Chilli flakes, fresh herbs or a squeeze of lemon

Method

1. Whisk the eggs and cottage cheese together with a fork, or briefly blitz until fairly smooth.

2. Stir in the flaxseed, oats, seasoning and chives.

3. Heat a little butter or olive oil in a frying pan.

4. Spoon in 2–3 small pancakes and cook over a medium heat for about 2–3 minutes on each side, until golden and cooked through.

5. Pile onto a plate and add your chosen savoury toppings.

These can be eaten on their own or, to make a more substantial, shareable brunch, serve them with garlicky mushrooms, wilted spinach and a soft fried egg on top.

This is proper warming comfort food while also being filling and ticking my non-negotiable boxes of protein + fibre + healthy fats.

In other news ... What are we breathing inside our homes?

I am becoming increasingly interested in the quality of the air inside our homes.

We all understand the risks and causes of environmental pollution in cities and industrial areas, but what about the chemicals and particles swirling around our homes that we may be breathing in for much of the day — and all of the night?

From candles, scented or otherwise, and synthetic air fresheners, plug-ins and sprays, to fragranced laundry detergents and fabric conditioners, household cleaning products and many of the products we put on our skin, there can be a surprising mixture of airborne chemicals and pollutants inside the average home.

Individually, exposures may be small, but together they contribute to the overall load our lungs, eyes and bodies have to deal with.

I recently invested in a small air purifier. I live on the edge of a small town, literally surrounded by a vast amount of woodland, and I have very little in the house that is scented other than the judicious use of essential oils.

However, when I was at the optician for a check-up, my ophthalmologist, who lives near me, mentioned just how many wood burners and open fires there are in homes around us. Wood smoke contains fine particulate matter and some of the same combustion-related pollutants produced by traffic and other forms of burning.

As we have our doors and windows open for much of the year, I thought I should take this a little more seriously. After all, it isn’t just our lungs that are exposed to the air around us — our eyes are too. To my great relief, my air purifier shows that the air quality in the house is generally really good.

However, when I had it in the kitchen while I was gently pan-frying some fish, it suddenly went into super-charge mode! Yes — simply cooking fish and vegetables in a pan caused a dramatic rise in what the monitor was detecting.

Cooking, particularly frying, grilling, browning and cooking at higher temperatures, can release fine and ultrafine particles, along with gases known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and, depending on the food, fat and temperature, compounds including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Generally, the higher the heat and the longer the cooking, the greater the potential emissions.

I say this not to scare you, but simply to make you aware, so that you can do what you can to minimise some of the small but potentially significant exposures that may challenge our health over the long term.

If you don’t have an air purifier, make sure you have good ventilation when cooking, particularly when frying, grilling, browning or crisping food. Use your extractor fan if you have one and, when practical, open a window.

And do bear in mind that if you have animals or little people in the house, they may be more affected by strong fragrances, smoke and airborne irritants.

A fragranced fabric conditioner, an air freshener, perhaps a lick of fresh paint, a new carpet that is off-gassing and dinner frying on the hob may each seem fairly insignificant on their own. Put them all together, though, and that can be quite a cocktail for little lungs, eyes, skin and immune systems to grapple with.

As with so many things in health, we don’t need to live in fear of our environment, we just need to be a little more aware of it and make small changes that can make a big difference over time.