Roji 001: When Did Being Well Become Another Thing to Do Well?
On sleep scores, summits and remembering what feeling good feels like.
By Yuji, Co-Founder, 34 Rumgally
My mornings go something like this: the alarm goes off at 5:50am. My husband gets up, goes downstairs, returns approximately eight minutes later with two coffees.
I take a sip, ask him how he slept.
He checks his Garmin. “Ugh, not well,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Only 73.”
I roll my eyes. “You don’t need tech to tell you how well rested your own body feels.”
Then I reach for my calorie-counting app to work out whether I’m allowed breakfast, pop a couple of NMN supplements. Are you there, collagen? It’s me, Yuji.
Tuesday, off to a great start.
We humans have long searched for the fountain of youth.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, dating from c.2100-c.1200 BCE, tells of the titular character travelling to the Mouth of the Rivers to find Utnapishtim, immortal hero of the flood myth, who directs him to find The Old-Man-Will-Be-Made-Young plant that grows at the bottom of the sea. Gilgamesh gets close, but then a snake steals the plant, and the man returns home still a mere mortal.
In the 4th century CE, Alexander the Great embarks on a similar quest to find the mystical water of life. And who could forget Juan Ponce de León, the Spanish explorer whose name is most famously linked to the fountain of youth? Juan was told of magic waters that would reverse aging and heal sickness and, in the 16th century, he set sail in search of it.
Instead, he found Florida.
(Which is also great—after all, Florida gave us the Kennedy Space Center, Disney World and Channing Tatum.)
Fast forward to today, and we’re closer than ever to the elusive elixir. We have sleep scores, readiness scores, biological age testing, continuous glucose monitors, Botox, peptides, hormone patches, longevity clinics, NAD+ drips, vitamin IVs, and EBOO. We can track, test, tweak, infuse and biohack our way towards immortality, one Direct Debit at a time.
To be clear, none of this stuff is bad. In fact, much of it has helped people feel more energetic, motivated, and informed. But, somewhere in our search for the fount, being well has started to feel suspiciously like work. We’re so busy measuring whether we’re doing well that we forget to ask whether we’re actually feeling good.
The Global Wellness Summit’s 2026 Future of Wellness report summarised it best, this phenomenon they called over-optimization: “never before has health been so measurable—and never before has it felt so psychologically demanding... wellbeing has shifted from something we feel to something we perform correctly. Therapists warn that data-driven wellness can tip from motivation into fixation, turning insight into pressure.”
Which got me thinking: when was the last time I felt genuinely, properly good? Spoiler: the answer wasn’t at the bottom of a bottle of Ashwagandha root.
Last summer, my (sleep score-obsessed) husband and I took our two children up Whistler Mountain. At the bottom, we asked a volunteer whether the climb would be doable for our young kids. “Only one way to find out,” she said.
Five minutes in, my six-year-old sat down. “My feet hurt.” Meanwhile, my eight-year-old lurched toward a cliff edge, peering over. “We’re already so high up. The rocks look so jagged down there. Awesome!”
Off to a great start.
“Water, anyone?” I squeaked out, trying to lure my child back from the ledge.
There were steep drops. There were cliffs. Glaciers. Slips and falls on rocky paths. Pit stops for snacks. God, so many snacks. Three hours later, we were at the summit. Then, there was the business of making it back down.
Back in the village after, we strolled into a pub, because it looked like a place with space and also with food, both of which were essential in that moment. Let me tell you, that first sip of cold beer, and that first bite of burger—I’m pretty sure St. Peter himself serves that exact combination at the pearly gates of heaven.
For the record, I have no idea how many calories were in either.
I also have no idea how many steps we took.
No idea what my heart rate was.
I don’t remember any of us giving a damn, actually, whether Garmin thought we’d had a productive day.
But one thing I will always remember: my sons, landing on solid ground again, staring up at the mountain behind them in awe and saying, to no one in particular, “Wow, we climbed that.”
Core memory, formed.
The thing is, Gilgamesh might almost have found immorality, but being a parent has done the opposite for me: it has sharpened my sense of mortality, making it ever more acute. Someday, when I am indistinguishable from a mountain or the sea or the air around them, I hope I will have instilled in my children the drive to chase this: going somewhere; doing something, even a hard thing; especially a hard thing. People to do the thing with. Staring at a mountain in wonder. Food they can’t help devouring. In other words, living.
So, if we know this is what being well feels like, why don’t we just do more… of that?
Because, well, there’s living, and then there’s life.
Most of us do not live next to a mountain, or the seaside, or a salsa club, or a golf course, or whatever it is that gets you going. And even if we did, what none of us ever seem to have is time. Time: the only rule that truly can’t be broken, the only real constraint that can never be removed. Most of us have obligations. Jobs. Children. Elderly relatives needing care. 23 messages on the class WhatsApp reminding us that—once again—we forgot about World Book Day.
But what does fit in the diary: a jolt on your wrist. You’ve hit your steps target. A tick on the screen. You’ve achieved your macros. An IV drip protocol. You’ve bought yourself a bit more time (maybe). It’s not a perfect substitute for living, but it might be an extension, or at least a confirmation.
Perhaps there’s a deeper psychological need, too: the desire to feel safe in this inherently uncertain endeavour of being human.
Back in London, not a mountain in sight, I am at my co-founder Robbie’s gym, a hidden gem where the aesthetic is “bomb shelter” but the planks are three decades long, and the endorphins are served on tap. In a world where the very notion of “gym” is synonymous with matching sets, sweaty selfies and spirulina smoothies, this place feels refreshingly honest.
I go there, mainly, because Robbie is good. Like, really good. Let’s be honest, I am une femme d’un certain âge, two C-sections under my belt (literally), prone to the odd knee flare-up and debilitating lower back twinge. Regardless of whether there are two participants or twelve around, Robbie will notice the tiniest, almost imperceptible wince or sharp intake of breath, and he’s over like a shot. “Are you okay?” “Is it your left knee?” “Here’s something else to try instead.”
It’s not even just vigilance, either. In all the time I’ve been going, I have never once seen Robbie forget names. Injuries. In-jokes. Kids’ favourite sports. His vibe is infectious: this is the only group gym session I’ve ever been to where everyone talks to each other, asks after one another, cheers each other on.
No tracking. No biometrics. No fountain of youth. Only the reminder, for 45 excruciating minutes, of your fundamental—imperfect, unquantifiable—humanity.
When Robbie asked me to partner with him in building 34 Rumgally, drawing on his experience with Fotheringham Retreats and other bespoke wellness offerings he provides to private clients all over the world, it was a no-brainer, because our philosophies on what it means to live well are so aligned. We want to bottle up that feeling you feel when you’ve lived loudly and messily, and make it actually accessible for real people living real lives.
Forget two weeks of silence somewhere with only a what.three.words address. We’re talking short, convenient escapes that slot into a busy schedule. Or, fairytale outings where you can bring the kids—but we’ll help you feed and occupy them. Or, wild swimming, reckless abandon, and the reminder that the best part of youth wasn’t smooth skin; it was not needing permission to be yourself.
After a 34 Rumgally retreat, you might still check your sleep score. You might still count your calories; I probably will. But I don’t think the point is to abandon the numbers. Perhaps it’s to remember that the numbers are supposed to serve us, not the other way around. Perhaps, on occasion, we must put the quest for immortality aside, to give way to the pursuit of just being mortal.
Tomorrow morning, when my husband beams that he slept a 97, perhaps I’ll leave my phone on the bedside table. Maybe I will leave the supplements untouched. Instead, I just might take another sip of coffee and ask him, “What’s for breakfast?”