Davina McCall: ‘what’s keeping me strong in 2024’
It’s been quite a year for Davina McCall – just days before her brain surgery, she told us the wellness practices she relies on to stay physically and mentally resilient
Any products in this article have been selected editorially however if you buy something we mention, we may earn commission
Davina McCall is in a reflective mood and, just days after we speak, it will become apparent – from an Instagram video – as to why. She’s about to have surgery for a rare (“three in a million”) benign brain tumour called a colloid cyst, spotted during a general health scan offered to her by a menopause company.
The 57-year-old had been sitting with this knowledge and debating her options for a few months. In hindsight, her wellness tips that we’re here to discuss for her 20th anniversary as brand ambassador Garnier, have a more contemplative feel than when we’ve met before.
Normally there’d be lots of jokes and goofing around to leaven the serious messaging about women’s midlife health and menopause, a national conversation that she almost single-handedly started with her 2021 and 2023 menopause documentaries. But when I ask where she is health-wise right now, there’s a pause and a deep breath.
“I can honestly say that mentally, I’m in the greatest place of my life,” she exhales.
View this post on Instagram
“I’m in a really reflective part of my life, where I enjoy sitting down with girlfriends or with my partner, Michael [Douglas, the hairstylist] and spending hours talking. It will always be around something either that we’re going through or that a friend’s going through. We will go ‘forensic’ on something and try and look at ways to take the heat out of it, the anger, the need to control outcomes. We try to think of what could help us come out of this situation as healthily as possible.”
She describes her life now as like “one big podcast,” and admits she launched her pod Begin Again this autumn as a way to have those big conversations with people who “are brilliant at what they do” and who have had a successful life-changing pivot. “I just think, What do I want to know? And then I go and find somebody who really knows a lot about that particular topic. And because I’ve got a big platform, it’s nice to use it to amplify other people’s voices, to help as many people as I can.”
She calls herself an “amplifier” – and her two million Instagram followers and podcast listeners would agree.
Lucky Garnier, then, for grabbing Davina as an ambassador 20 years ago, initially for Nutrisse permanent hair colour, £8 (which she genuinely uses, in shade 5 Mocha Brown). It’s a longer relationship than many marriages, and Davina puts her loyalty down to the fact that she feels like part of the team. They include her in product feedback, sending her serums and creams before they launch and asking her opinion (she once suggested that they needed to step up the cruelty-free conversation).
She likes that they are not ageist and don’t put her in the ‘grey hair’ slot just because she is over 50 with a totally white parting. All that has really changed in 20 years is that she has softened her shade from a black to a brown.
She uses Garnier Summer Body Gradual Tan Moisturiser, £5.99, the 3.5 % Vitamin C Serum, £9,09 and Micellar Water, £6.75 daily and is conscious that what she recommends needs to chime with the fact that times are tough. “Most people “don’t have a ton of money to spend on frivolous things.”
So what are the wellness wins that really deliver as she navigates her own health pivot? “I definitely view my body now as a temple, not as something where I’m trying to lose weight or gain weight,” she reflects. “I view the inside and the outside as one big miracle, and I’ve got to try and keep this miracle going.” And keep it going she does – the surgery was a success and she’s planning a return to work in January.
1. Make amends with heartfelt sorry
Saying a heartfelt sorry to someone you’ve wronged is one of the ‘12 steps’ that Davina learned at Narcotics Anonymous, which she’s visited since her twenties. It’s a practice that’s freeing and an idea she still lives by. “You make amends to people regardless of whether they want to hear your amends or not. Often, if someone’s really angry about something – when you’re a drug addict you do awful things, you let people down all the time – sometimes they’re not ready to forgive you because they think you’re an absolute arse, and you probably were.
“But if you apologise with real truth and honesty in your heart, you can let go of that feeling of ‘I was an awful arsehole’ and hope that one day they will understand that you really meant that apology, and they will be able to take it on board when they’re ready. But that’s not on you. You’ve kept your side of the street clean, and now hopefully you sow the seed. But nine times out of ten if you make an honest apology for something [people accept it].”
2. Get your endorphin high from an old-fashioned sauna
While she has yet to embrace the cold plunge, Davina has fallen in love with saunas. “They used to be too hot and too intense for me, but now I’m a bit like cold water swimmers, I’ve become evangelical. It’s like an enormous kind of surge of energy when you come out.
“There are so many health benefits of saunas. They say that people in Sweden who have four or more saunas a week [have a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and are healthier and happier].”
She and Michael are getting a small one for their garden, “an old-fashioned wood-burning one”.
3. Wake up with the light and take a mindful moment
Davina used to thrive on stress, and would wake up to a cortisol-spiking phone alarm and a jolting coffee. “Mindfulness was not something I’d ever properly understood. I was too busy and enjoyed being busy and I felt like stress was a badge of honour. But as I’ve got older, I’ve realised – and can almost feel – that stress is damaging.”
Meeting GP and podcaster Dr Rangan Chatterjee helped her understand why. He explained that every press of the snooze button set her up for another cortisol spike “and if you do that three or four times, by the time you’re drinking your coffee, which gives you more caffeine and energy, you are uber-stressed. I used to interpret that as ready for the day. Now I live my life completely differently”.
That means waking up with light and birdsong from a SAD lamp, the Phillips Lumie Sunrise Alarm, £39.99 (she bought one for her whole family). “Michael and I will have a coffee, and we’ll sit outside in snuggly dressing gowns and slippers and drink coffee together and be silent.
“Lots of people talk about feeling the light on your face, which helps your circadian rhythm, but I think we just enjoy the peace, listening to the birds.”
4. Make music and exercise your mood boosters
“Exercise and music are my mood-altering drugs,” says Davina, who always has playlists on hand that she can walk or run in time to. These get her over the hump that we all feel, of not wanting to exercise. “You know when you need to exercise, because it’s the time you least want to. And when I say exercise, I just mean be active. Take a brisk walk and if you want to make it more weight-bearing, get a weighted vest. They’re amazing,” she advises. But don’t run in it, she says, because they jig about too much.
“Go, be in nature, be active, do something! Because sitting around when you’re in a bad mood, you’re in a fug, you’re tired, just magnifies all of that. I’ve never ever regretted a workout.”
5. Vaginal oestrogen three times a week
Since 2022 vaginal oestrogen has been the only form of hormone replacement therapy available without prescription in the UK, and Davina is a fan – not just in her own HRT regime, but for all the women who don’t want to or can’t take HRT (for example post-breast cancer). “Vaginal oestrogen is completely safe, you can take it at any time during your life. You can start in your 80s or your 90s even,” she explains.
“If you have vaginal atrophy and your vagina is dry, you’re getting recurring UTIs, sex is painful, masturbation is painful, anything like that, you can start taking vaginal oestrogen. It’s just a little suppository, you put it inside your vagina using an applicator that you can wash and use again. The little tablet sticks to the wall of your vagina and kind of ‘melts’. It doesn’t leave any kind of discharge.
“You take it for two weeks at the beginning, and then kind of as often as you need. I take it three times a week and it’s changed my life.”
6. Cut down on processed meats and sugar
Davina’s eating has changed a lot – there’s more cooking from scratch and gone are the Warburton’s crumpets she used to have for breakfast. Processed meats have been (almost) axed. “I was salami girl, sausage girl… ham…pepperoni pizza. The World Health Organization classes processed meat the same as cigarettes – a class one carcinogen, and yet there are no health warnings in the supermarket. And it’s more dangerous, if we think of it in those terms, than hormone replacement therapy. But you wouldn’t think it to see the fuss that people make about being so terrified of taking HRT, but they might eat ham every day.”
Refined sugar too has been given the elbow. No more caramel Tunnock’s wafers (“my favourites”) or entire boxes of Maltesers at the theatre. “I used to eat a big box on my own, no problem, and would buy it knowing that my boyfriend didn’t really like them.” She finds the theatre “quite triggering” now and for that reason has to take peanuts with her.
“I really was a sugar addict, and I feel a lot better without refined sugar – I have fewer peaks and troughs and hunger pangs. When I had sugar, I used to feel hungry for bad shit!”
7. Practise radical letting go
I can’t help but think that this tip was front of mind for Davina, with her brain surgery just days away. How do you face the worst that can happen? Radical letting go is a new practice she has been trying. But what is it?
“It is where you truly and honestly let go of the outcome of anything that’s happening in your life, so it stops you from feeling nervous about anything.”
For example, this evening she’s going to karaoke and is worried about her singing voice. But she has given herself a talking-to. “I thought, If you sing really out of tune, what’s going to happen? Everybody will laugh. And how will that make you feel? And I thought to myself, Quite happy, because that will be funny. What am I worrying about? It doesn’t matter how I sing.”
And what about when her pet hate of being late makes her stressed? “I say to myself, Will the person at the other end understand that being on time is out of my control? Yes, they will, just let them know you’re going to be late. It doesn’t matter. Everything can wait, you’re OK. And it’s actually been amazing.”
Davina and Michael talking about their last podcast before her operation
Letting go can be hard, but in one of their forensic conversations, she and Michael talked about how to let go if the worst happened. Could they still radically let go? “Actually it’s not that hard, because all you have to do is just think forward – if this happens, it will be fine, if that happens, it will still be fine. What happens if I don’t work? I love my home more than anything, but what happens if I lose my home or my job, if telly stops? We’d still be alright – we all love each other. And sometimes when you think worst-case scenario, it’s quite helpful. You know what? We’d still be alright.”
