I was given an aromatherapy kit for Christmas - a burner and a bottle of lavender oil. You put a few drops of the oil on the burner and leave it in your room overnight, and it is supposed to calm and relax you. And I found it did. I woke feeling quite refreshed, so now I use it whenever I have trouble sleeping.
I have a personal trainer, Newton. He’s very hard on me and makes me do the exercises I ought to do but don’t like doing. He manages to cram into an hour what I would probably take a few hours to achieve.
One of my hobbies is parachuting. I have done quite a lot on Blue Peter in the past two years and found it to be an activity that, although it sounds stressful, is actually the opposite. It’s good fun and it certainly concentrates the mind.
When you jump out of a plane, you will obviously feel a degree of stress, but when you are free-falling you are in total control of your destiny - no one else can get at you. I know this sounds bizarre, but it really is stress-relieving. And when you land and you have done everything right, that feeling of achievement and elation is a big relief.
Stuart Miles was talking to Pamela Coleman
