Nervous Is Not Weak - Skydiving And The Midlife Edge With Anna Lea

What if the nerves you feel before something big aren’t weakness, but a sign that you’re ready? 

In this episode, army doctor, GP and world champion skydiver, Anna Lea shares what it takes to compete at world championship level in your forties and why midlife is an advantage, not a liability. 

This conversation isn’t just about adrenaline. It’s about what happens when ordinary women choose to do extraordinary things and discovering that midlife might be the thing that helps you to do it better. 

In this episode you'll learn: 

• Why feeling nervous isn't telling you what you think 
• How to train smarter in your forties and inspire those in their twenties
• How to stay active through life's changes including IVF treatment
• Why effort and outcome are not related

If midlife has left you questioning your strength, your confidence, or your edge, this conversation will help you see that growth doesn’t start with fearlessness, it starts with action. 

Find out more about Anna on Instagram @anna_j_lea

Follow the podcast on Instagram:  @unshrinkablemidlfemoves

Find out more about Onika on Instagram: @lifeopenedup

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

What does it take to fall out of a plane at 90 miles an hour and want to do it again? Meet Anna, army doctor, aesthetic medicine practitioner, and for the last 23 years, one of Britain's most decorated skydivers. She's competed at world championships, won nine world medals, and helped lead her team, not for the ordinary, to the top of the podium in 2022. Oh, and the average age of that winning team? 40. But this episode isn't about jumping out of planes. It's about what happens when you spend a lifetime pushing your body to its limits and what you discover when you're forced to change how you move. At 45, Anna is navigating IVF, a new solo discipline, and the very real question of what happens to your identity when sport has been the spine of everything you've built. The very real question of what happens to your identity when sport has been everything you've known. She tells us why she was being terrified. She tells us why being terrified before a jump is not a sign of weakness. Why she's stronger and faster in her 40s than her 20s, and why the and the unusual way she practices skydiving exits to improve her performance. Whether skydiving is on your bucket list or your absolutely not list, what Anna has to say about pushing past fear, getting stronger, and refusing to slow down at this time in her midlife is for every woman. Hi Anna, great to see you today. How are you? Very well, thank you. Really good, thank you. Enjoying the sunshine. I know. So you are going to be sharing your experience about skydiving with us today, and I can't wait to hear all about it. But before we get going, tell us a bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Super. So I'm Anna. I'm a army GP by trade. People say, What do you do? I'm like, I'm an army doctor. But then I'd say, no, I'm an aesthetic medicine doctor who does a bit of money and a lot of skydiving. And I do a lot of military work still too. So I'm a bit of a portfolio kind of person, though there are a lot of activity built into unfortunate to have military backgrounds. Activity in the movement has been really important throughout my career. Fitness and health has been really important, not just in myself, but obviously promoting with others as well as GP. I did 16 years in the regular army for the last five years, part-time army, and I've been skydiving as my main sport since 22, so 23 years now. Don't do the maths there. But skydiving is my main sport. And before that, when I was a youngster, I was like a lot of mining ponies, but running, catch athlon, which was running, mining, swimming, shooting, terrible shot. Okay, running, riding and terrible shots. How I joined the army, I'm not sure. But yeah, movement's always been an activity in sport that has always been part of my life, even as a youngster. We've always been an active family by being more competitive. Um my sister likes to be active, my parents like to be active, but I guess I've been the competitive one throughout, basically.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

That sounds amazing. So can you say that again? I missed the type of triathlon you do. You said riding.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

When I was younger in Pony Club, I did tethlon, which is running, riding, swimming, and shooting.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

So how does that work?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Is it a distance or you it was a like uh cross-country round running and swimming would be a distance, yeah, and then the shooting would be target pistol shooting. That was in my junior years, and then I also did mounted games. Sounds weird, it's not. It's team Jim Carla Jet Games, uh, represented Wales, then GB and rode the horse the year show in my teens. And again, that's quite an active discipline because you're holding vaulting on and off the pony. It's quite gymnastic. Competing at a level like that in my youth taught me a lot about sport, generally. A lot of disappointments there. If you don't win a medal or championships at that level in your teens, you take it emotionally harder. And I think that's matured my outlook with competing at a high level internationally in skydiving. So I think I took the hits better as a result. I took disappointments in sport better because I'd experienced peaks and troughs and challenges of sport in my youth. So it made me more robust, I think, coping with challenges both in sport but also in I think in career and life as well. I've still been army, as I said, for 20 odd years, and I'm on the army talented athlete support scheme, which is even though I'm a reservist, I'm quite busy with what I do a lot with the army, a lot of clinical and a lot of teaching skylining and organising skyline. But our athlete sports scheme, it's not money, but it's meant things like sports psychology, strength and condition coach. It's a natural lottery funded thing that works with Sport England, strength and condition coach, sports physique, sports nutritionists. But I do a lot sport and trying to encourage sport within the military as well. But the reason the military supports sport and encourages it because it's it makes us better in our day job, especially team sport, is the robustness, the fitness, the mental resilience, and it makes us better leaders and teamworkers. And so in my military green side, also my clinical side, working as a team in stressful situations when in war zones in the middle of Afghanistan, it's just the the qualities that sport develops in you is why the army supports it. And it's just been my ethos all the way through the last 40 years with these sport and movement and exercise.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yeah. So before we move on, again, I'm gonna go back to what you just dropped it in, and my mind's just like boom. The tetra triathlon, and then you said the mountain, what was mounted games, mounted on a booty. Sorry, I have never heard of either of those, so I feel really educated.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Tetrathlon run leads into, I guess, what would be the modern pentathlon that you'd see at the Olympics because that has riding, shooting, running, and then mounted games is team gymnastics, so like a relay races, team of four, and again that doing team sports at the age of from the age of 10, I think it's turned me into a relatively balanced supportive person.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah, definitely. And I think as a parent, it's one of those things that is so important. And again, like you, I've done sport on well, I did a lot of sport as a teenager and then stopped after university, and it gave me such a strong foundation. And I think it's a little bit of a shame now. I'm I'm not generalizing, but a lot of kids don't really want to move and they find team sports quite challenging. When you can reiterate and emphasize those benefits, I think that might make it a bit more attractive, hopefully. So tell us about your skydiving. How did you get into it?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

So I was inspired by the original Point Bake film, would say it's quite an old film, but it's Patrice Fazy, Keanu Reese, and there's quite a big skydiving scene in it. And I saw that and I thought, I want to do that, that's cool. So I looked into the options and I was an army medical student at the time, and I was on a one-month overseas trauma placement in Washington, DC, in the States, because Washington, you get lots of gunshot wounds, which thankfully we don't get too many of in the UK. And so I was on a placement over there to increase my gunshot wounds exposure as an army medical student because I'm going into the army straight after. And then I knew I'd saved a bit of money whilst I was over there. So I then flew down to Florida, camped on the parachute centre in a tent, and learned to skydive in 10 days. Ten days. 10 days intense, of course. So to get qualified, it's a minimum of 18 jumps. The British systems, American systems, very similar. I had to repeat a couple of my jumps, but that's normal. It wasn't the perfect jumper for a straight-off, but I had to repeat a couple of my levels. And yeah, you'd start with an instructor holding on to either side, you do it at eight hours of ground school, and then an instructor holding on to either side of you in three, four, and then you practice your pulls and you pulled your own parachute, and then they let go more and more, and then you have one-on-one instructors, and then you let these train devices. And I was petrified for the first 40 on the way up every single time. I'm like, Why am I doing this? On the way in the plane on the way up, and then I'd land, I'd go, that was awesome, and I'd go up again, like, why am I doing this? And it took me 40 to get over that crippling fear. And so when I'm teaching students now, because I'm an accelerated free fall instructor myself, so I teach people to Skylive, and I always go to say it's okay to be nervous, it's natural to be nervous, and I'd be worried if you weren't nervous, and that comes with any kind of extreme sport when you think that's a new challenge. It's okay to be nervous, it's showing that you've got respect for what's about to happen, and that's okay. So, especially with extreme sports, we'd be more worried if you didn't feel nervous because then you're having a bit of a disregard for what's going on, and it's important that you need to set yourself nervous, it's keeping us safe, it's keeping us alert. And then when I'm teaching Sky Irving, uh teaching for you for it's okay to be scared, it's okay. And then it's really satisfying seeing the progression when you see people for the first jump, never jumped, absolutely petrified, and then by the end of the 18th, 20th jumps, they're just running out the back of the plane and go, yay, and they love it. So I find that really satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

How did you get over the nervousness? Was it just repetition, or was it anything in particular you were telling yourself or you tried out?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

That was just a repetition and exposure, I think. And I was I was 21, 22 at the time that got on with it. I think now, because I'm a bit older and wiser, I'd probably be a lot more nervous about learning to skydive now. And whether I would learn to skydive now, I'm not sure. Vaguely, I sometimes see people teaching that uh a bit older than me, and then they they crack on, they get on with it, they do it, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

But it's something I have built about on and off for the years, and I think this is one of the few things age probably hasn't really affected it, it's just the practicality of doing it. So I think one day I will. But so, how did you get into competing?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

So I came back, came back to the UK after that, and then because I was in the army medical services, I then managed to get on a few military adventure training, two-week progression courses, whilst I still had time as a medical student, so learning upskilling, and then it made it a bit more accessible, and then I'm fortunate enough because again, I could jump at slightly reduced rates and I was getting paid a little bit as a student. I think otherwise it can be quite expensive to try and learn when you're younger. And then I got the initially involved in competing for the army medical services, and then I competed for the army team. But again, trying to compete for a military team is challenging because trying to get five of you in the same place at the same time when someone's not on exercise or deployed on operations was always a challenge. And then I was inspired by the previous British national team who are the previous female world champions about 15 years ago. I can't remember the exact year, but basically the current British national female team at the time, when I was just starting, then about 2008-2009, they won the world championships. And I could see then that oh wow, British teams can will the world championships, normal females can do this, and they were in my inspiration then. And then gradually this idea grew in my mind that I wanted to become world champion, I wanted to do it, and then I did army team up until about 2010, and then went on to 2012, and then went on to a civilian team. So I've been only military on our team, not for the ordinary, because having said having five military people pulled here, there and everywhere is challenging. So the British civilian team, and we made the diary work with a lot of hard work, a lot of self-funding, a lot of hard work and training, a lot of time away from people, and then we gradually built up. So our team, not for the ordinary, which is a previous sponsor of ours. We're not sponsored by them anymore, but we love the name. But in our 11th year, actually, is a team of various different iterations of lineup. But our most successful team lineup has arguably been the 2018-2022 lineup, and we're a really close bunch of mates. We'd spent so much time and money and emotional times together, and hot and sweaty, blood, sweat, and tears, that we're really, really close. And the shared goal, shared understanding, shared belief that we could do it. And so eventually, over the last 10 years, we've won 10 world medals, no, nine world medals and one European medal between us as a team. And we might still be going to the indoor world championships, the Winter World Champions next month. We're just trying to sort out our diaries. We've got the slop, we just need to sort out our diaries to get the and get everybody like ged up to do it. But yeah, we've got a really close team. Our 2022 lineup was a really successful team, and that's the year that we win the world championships in 2022.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

That is amazing. Let's take a step back. How do you train for these competitions? And what do the competitions entail? When you say formation, are you assessed on form? Is it like gymnastics or is it speed and form? Tell us a bit about how that works and the training.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, so there's various different disciplines in skydiving, world championships and female formation skydiving. So four will be jumping out of the plane together, plus Simon, our cameraman with the camera on his head, jumps out with us and he's filming it in free form. He's got a really tough job because he's got to make sure everything's in frame and he's got to make sure that's everything is looking is in frame because if we miss times it and it doesn't get us in the frame, then we lose points. So Simon is very much 100% we're a team of five, even though it's called four-way formation. We're a team of five, we're a very close team. And then a competition is 10 rounds. The night before a competition, the competition draw is drawn at the hat, and you get given a preset sequence of formations that you have to do, and you have to do as many formations as possible in 35 seconds. The clock starts when you exit the aircraft and you leave the aircraft joined together, holding on to each other, and you have to do as many formations in 35 seconds, and each team does the same sequence. So if you do 20 formations in 35 seconds, you get 20 points. You do 27 points, your formations you get 27 points, and then it's the total, and then the next jump is a different sequence, and you have to do as many as possible. So it's a sprint basically, and the the winner is the team that gets the most formations over the entire 10 jumps. So it's a power speed accuracy, it's not pointing your toes and looking pretty, it's no points of style, it's a power speed, and actually it's a sprint. So that's the discipline that we do. I also actually am now competing in speed, which is basically going head down as fast as possible. That's the average of your fastest three seconds of the jump, and then it's the average over eight jumps, basically. And that's counting European bronze. And if I go to world champs this year, and again, this is a something interesting that we'll talk about sure. But um, if I go to world champs this year, if I'm not pregnant about any of the year, because that's the big challenge with women in sports, then if I do go, then my aim will be world bronze, so a world medal in a new discipline, basically. Wow, good luck. So the training-wise, if the team stuff is a lot of training, so visualizing at home. So if you've got the free training or the home training when you're apart from each other, is gym work, cardiovascular fitness, so that you can on a heavy heavy jumping day after 12, 14 jumps a day, you're not hanging out, your brain's still working, so you can concentrate. Strength work, core strength to because you're throwing each other around the sky, you're moving people around the sky, upper body strength because you're moving people around the sky, leg strength for me, particularly for exits. I was gymnastic work, my box jumps to try and practice my exits. At one point when I was struggling with some exits, because I'm on the plane, I'm on the outside at the front, so I've got the massive prop blast when you're flying in at 90 miles an hour, but a big propeller prop blast I've got to bite against. So I was also jumping into a swimming pool on my side, practicing the exits without getting shouted by a lifeguard is always a challenge. You said jumping in the pool on your side, is that what you just said? Yeah, facting the exits into it into a swimming pool. Just to get the muscle memory, and then when we are together, wind tunnel training of the winter and wind tunnel itself is a discipline in itself. So, you know, the vertical wind tunnels, big fan of the top or the bottom, creates a floating panel of airs five in the UK now. So that's really good for training and also as a competition discipline in itself, because we're hopefully getting to indoor world cup next month. That's really good for training because we couldn't do 60 skydives in an afternoon of training because one minute of free four is equivalent of a skydive, so you can use that for tunnel training and then jumping as well. So the year we won, we did 550 jumps together as a team, as a team. We do five-day camps plus travel either side. So try to get at least 50 jumps to camp, and we did a month of training together. And that was a challenge because a finances expensive sport, the team budget was£110,000 between the four of us over 12 months between us all personal contribution, and that's after sponsorship, and then different people to contribute distant amounts depending on the people's personal financial situation. Trying to get people off work, so I'm a freelance now. The other two Van and Sean are freelance, but Kath is a full-time NHS dietitian, so we was like trying to squeeze her leave with the NHS. So those are some of the challenges, and then we had the challenges of some uncertainty if we were going to be allowed to compete, but we made those work, and then we just had the absolute belief that we can make it happen. And we had some challenges that year, but we brought us closer and we had that shared belief that it is possible and kept training and kept working and doing everything that we could in our spare time, visualizing training, strength work to make it happen. So you said the camps is that abroad? Yeah, chasing the sun because you need good weather. If you're gonna commit a week essentially six days, you need the good weather because you need not too windy and you need to be able to see the ground. You say most of the time over the winter in Dubai, and then in the summer it was Spain or Germany, and then a couple of camps in the UK once once we got into the summer. But otherwise, trying to train in the UK, unfortunately, it's just coming glorious today, but it can be challenging, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Okay, so that I've just taken on and learnt a whole load. So, what are the other challenges as you are competing training as an older lady? Are the rest of your team members a similar age, or does it vary quite a bit?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

It really varies actually. Of the NFTA 22 lineup, I was second oldest. So for variety of ages, so the average age that year was probably 14. The average age. Actually, last year when we competed at the indoor world championships, and we did really really well, actually, we became fifth behind three full-time professional teams, and we'd had mineral training, we'd had three hours of training, which is not much at all, and got beaten by some 25-year-old kids to full, and the other three teams are full-time pro teams. The average age of our team was 53. So I was the youngest. So we had that the corporate knowledge, so that balance. For example, the French national team, they'll all often be young pups, Chinese national team, young pups, but equally because they're well funded, so they can throw them straight in, get them training intensely. Because in British skylving it's mostly self-funded, that's why the average age tends to be a bit higher because you've uh gained that experience over time and having that flexibility of the funding because you might be earning a bit more as you've got a bit older. So the experience that we had between us as a team in that last year, even though we were the oldest team there, we really did not fly old, we flew a faster, we were rapid, and that was because it should show that we were still getting strong. Definitely. So, how has your training changed over the years? Has it changed much as you've aged or a little bit? So I've become wise with my training when I was younger, and even when I was at school, and during uni, I played rugby throughout, actually, one year for uni and five years for med school. Med school rugby was fine, I was one of the biggest on the team, and I broke other people and it didn't hurt too much. Uni rugby, there were some strong girls, and I was playing against some really strong girls, and that they've knocked out a bit more, so neither the season of that. But I think during uni and even during like my twenties and into my sort of probably early 30s, I was mostly running and my joints were getting away with it, but I wasn't necessarily so strong. I was running, I was keeping lean and light, and which is important for skydiving, but I wasn't necessarily as strong over the years. I've just become a bit wiser. I added in the strength work as well. In the end of last year, I was doing a huge amount of volume because my regiment that I'm attached to is a part of 16th Airssault Brigade, so the medical regiment that looks after the paratroopers basically. And paratroopers, guys in the parachute regiments and girls, they have one girl now. To become a paratrooper, you have to pass P Company, which is a very arduous course, there's a lot of running, a lot of carrying weights. The Marines have a very arduous course to become a marine. Paras have a very ardest course to be a para. And I wanted to give it a go because I'd always been surrounded by paras. I'd given it a go in my 20s when I was young in the regular army, but I wasn't fast enough on the mile and a half screening. I was doing my running and trying to get faster, but I wasn't looking after myself the global side, like still on the booze, I was still drinking, I wasn't doing enough strength training, I wasn't looking after myself well. So I didn't get past the screening phase to get onto that course. When I came back into it in my 40s and came reattached to that brigade, then I did it again. But I was doing far more strength work, explosive strength work, better nutrition, stopping the booze, getting on the creatine, which is so important for us for our power, looking after my nutrition, having actually excess support of really working my leg power and just generally strength, not just cardio. And also I did a lot of miles with 37 pounds on my back, so 17 kilos on my back, plus a weapon, a lot of miles on a course where most of the boys on that course were young enough with my sons. I was the only girl on that course, and they were all in their early 20s, basically. I did that course for attempts at I got all the way to end, but just never quite fast enough to get enough points to pass, which is heartbreaking because I'd put a huge amount of training and prep into it. But again, on the lighter side, because I'm smaller, I'm a female, I'm 5'8 and 61 kilos, 61, 63 kilos, depending on time of the month. Then even with all the strength work, I didn't quite have the power. And then a lot of the lads after said, So gut, it didn't pass, but you were such an inspiration. And I think it's partly because they're like, sugar, if Anna's still going, and she's 20 years older and she's she's beating us, I've gotta keep going, you know. But the difference was I was stronger and faster in my 40s and my 20s because more strength work, more nutrition. Because I was wiser, I've been fortunate not to have to alter from an injury prevention point of view, but just because I'd become wiser of what's gonna enhance my performance in that respect.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

That's really interesting. Speaking to a lot of women as part of the podcast, this seems to be the theme that we've somehow got so much stronger and fitter as we're older. Yeah. So, how many days a week do you train?

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Now at the stage where I'm enjoying doing exercise without getting shouted for fun. Like two years of solid army exercise getting shouted at me flaster. I need my boyfriend bless him because he's a parent. He'd be coming out on exercise with me, he's like, You want to do this? And so he would be shouting at me in a loving way. But now I'm enjoying doing like a couple of runs a week, maybe one CrossFit session week, and then a couple of student sessions a week. So maximum five hours a week, maximum. And it depends what I've got on work-wise, and also a massive challenge, and this is like what I alluded to earlier, is like try and start a family. It's now and ever for me because I'm quarter five, going through several cycles of IVF, and IVF is really tough on the lady. Obviously, physically, you're having the hormones, but also you're having to actually rest your body a bit. And when you're so used to activity, which is so good for mental health as well, having that adjustment and you've got these extra hormones, you can't exercise so much because you're trying to let your body do its good growing things. My poor other half. You had to cope with me, but my training has peaked and troffed, which has been challenging. But then I just now having a bit of time to train a bit more will give my body and brain a rest. That's suddenly the things with sport as well, as alluded to. If you suddenly get pregnant, which is a great thing, it obviously affects what your sports. We can keep stay active, and the national guidelines are that people can stay active at the levels that their bodies are used to, and the activity whilst we're pregnant is super important. But from a sports point of view, it's pretty difficult to commit to, especially to a team. That's why I haven't been able to commit to a four-way team. Because if I suddenly got pregnant, I have to say the girls, sorry, girls, I've got to start jumping because you that is the one thing you don't really want to keep doing whilst pregnant skydive is not a good idea. I've got a priority in my life now at the age of 45. So that's why I've gone into a solo discipline, but it's still a team approach because you're individuals, but you still work as a team within speed squad. That's obviously something that's significant for a lot of female athletes. We're at some point taking that pause to try and start a family and trying to have that balance of not over-training and over stressing your body. So at least your body becomes a welcoming place for stuff. That's been a really interesting reflections that I've had over the last couple of years of like having that balance of trying to let the body do what it's designed to do when we were so used to being really active and having to just calm down to be sensible active.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Yeah, it must be really difficult. Did you approach it through diarising and being really intentional with the sessions you were planning for the week, or was it a gradual thing?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

No, it's just fitting in and saying because previously when I was training at high density, I diarised it. So, I haven't got clients out. Oh, cool, I've got time for maybe half an hour run. Well, oh, actually, I've got a time for a full-hour session. I was still trying to make sure I do at least four sessions a week or something because that keeps me happy because we all know it's so good for our endorphins, and I'll get a bit grumpy if I don't do exercise. But for me, less so diarising it now just because I'm having to diarise sleep and all the stuff from a pregnancy point of view. But actually, if I wasn't having that aim, then yeah, for me, it would be definitely diarising. And often what I say, because obviously as a GP, I do a one-day week GP, and movement and exercise comes up in so many of my consultations, whether it's trying to lose weight or whether they've got all like movies. Like there was a recent article in the British Medical Journal last year about the effects of comparing different types of exercise with antidepressants when versus no treatments versus placebo. Actually, dance with the best natural antidepressant better than antidepressants. So I often bring that up with my sad patients, my depressed patients, or anxious patients. How much movement are you getting in? Dance around even it's just dancing around the kitchen like an idiot on your own. That's fine. Or dancing with the dog or the cat, but movement is so important. I bring that up as a GP with so many of my clients. And I'm not my aesthetic clients because my other job is aesthetics. Movement is so good for us in so many ways. Vitamin D and movement pretty much comes up in any consultation with me.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah. And that's really good to know because sometimes people feel the need to do something a bit more active, more structured. And dancing is and it's free, so even better. And it's feel good, and it's gonna be can usually be social, you know? Exactly. So hopefully, you will have your good news and you will get pregnant and start your family. Do you think you've come back to skydiving afterwards? Is that the intention, or you haven't thought that far?

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I mean, one of my close friends and teammates, she's had two, she did one more time chips whilst early pregnant. She did her son, I think, got about 50 jumps in euther. It's interesting. You see, a lot of ladies sometimes don't necessarily go back to the sky but go back to tunnel because tunnel is less risk and easier on the diary. So I've got some quite a few friends that since they've had kids, they do do less jumping and more tunnels just because lifestyle risk, you know, the different risk thresholds once they've got a responsibility to others. So I think often it's after the second they go, well, after one, they're like, Yeah, crack on. After two, they're like, actually, maybe not. So see how it goes. But I think I definitely would want to keep on tunnel competing, if not the sky, because it's been such a huge part of my life for 20 years, it's part of my identity.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

And that's what a lot of athletes say about if you take their sport away from them, who will they feel like afterwards? So, what would you say to somebody who's interested in starting skydiving or tunnel? What is it? Tunnel diving, tunneling. Winter flying. Yeah, wintering. Tunnel flying. What advice would you give to explore and have a go? Just do it.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

For for people interested in skydiving, you can do a tandem skydiv if you're strapped to instructor, and that's just a bit more of a one-day event. But equally, if you're not sure if you want to do it, that's a good introduction. And there's about 25 different parachute centres in the UK. If you Google British skydiving, where can I jump? And then there's a map, and you can see all the licensed skydive centres throughout the UK, then contact your local parachute centre and get going. And some people do a tandem first just to see if they like it. Some people just go, nah, I'm gonna commit and I'm gonna do it. If it's wind tunnel, there's wind tunnels in Bathing Stoke, the O2 in London, Manchester, there's one more and Milton Keynes. So, again, those are really good ways you can just like do five minutes or so to get you into it. And then the good thing about wind tunnels, you can do wind tunnels if you're young. So kids can go from the age of five and they learn so quick, so quick. You see kids in there as long as they can understand hand signals and they're not too scared. Sometimes they get a bit scared if they're four or five, it's a bit too scary. But you can do it uh up until the age of 18, 90, see older people in the tunnel because it's a lower risk than the sky. To learn to skydive in the UK, you have to be over 18 or over 16 with parental consent, or under 55 if you haven't done previous parent skydiving square solo skydiving experience before. And that's because we do learn a little slower when we're older, so that's why they say over 55 to learn to skydive say, but you can tandem again, that's any age, really as long as you're healthy. If you've got previous goes in medical conditions, sometimes you need a doctor's certificate. So I Google where can I skydive for jumping or essentially iFly UK for winter throughout the UK?

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Brilliant, thank you so much. So before we finish, one more question for you what would you say in a word or two movement means to you?

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Happiness, healthiness, longevity. Okay, because it's gonna make keep you healthy longer. The people I see in GP work and hostel work that such a variety of people. You see some people in their 80s who really fit and healthy. Okay, luck and genetics pays a part, but equally lifestyle, lifestyle plays a huge part, huge part. So by keeping your brain active and your body active, if that's the best thing that is controllable, then that'll keep your longevity and your well-being into later life. Because sometimes I see people in their 40s with obesity or smokers or alcohol-related issues, who their health is far worse than someone in their 80s. And that's why lifestyle and movement is so important for your long-term health and well-being.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Thank you so much, Anna, for this. This has been amazing and I know it will be inspirational for a lot of women. My pleasure. Let me tell the chat. And that's Anna, Army Doctor, World Champion, and living proof that your most powerful years might still be ahead of you. Before you go, here are the lessons from this conversation that are worth carrying with you. One, nerves aren't a warning sign, they're a green light. Anna was terrified for her first 40 jumps every single time, and she jumped anyway. Fear means you respect what you're doing. It means you're paying attention. The goal is never to stop feeling it, it was to go anyway. Two, strength is the thing most of us are missing. For years Anna ran, stayed lean, kept fit, and still wasn't reaching her potential. It wasn't until she added serious strength work, better nutrition, and cut the alcohol that she became faster and stronger in her 40s than in her 20s. If you're doing lots of cardio and no lifting, this is your nudge. Three, experience is an asset, not a consolation prize. Her team's average age at one competition was 53. They came fifth in the world behind three full-time professional teams. They didn't fly old. Corporate knowledge, composure under pressure, and decades of shared belief. That's not something a 25-year-old can buy. Four, movement is medicine. And the prescription is simpler than you think. As a GP, Anna brings it up almost every consultation. Low mood, move. Anxious, move. Can't face the gym, dance around your kitchen. Research now shows dance outperforms antidepressants as a mood intervention. Free, accessible, and it works. Five, the most successful athletes treat training like a meeting they can't cancel. When Anna was training at her peak, exercise went in the diary first. Non-negotiable, not squeezed around everything else. If your health keeps getting bumped for other priorities, it's not a time problem, it's a scheduling decision. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs a reminder that it's not too late to start, to compete, to get stronger, or simply to move. And if it inspired you, challenged you, I want to hear about it. Screenshot this episode, share your biggest takeaway on Instagram and tag us on Unstrinkable Midlife Moves. I'll be back next week. Until then, keep moving.