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This week: My quest to become a morning person, Kim Kardashian's clairvoyant, and luxury plant consultants.

Hello and welcome to FluffMag!

The weekly newsletter about the fluff that gets you through the day.

Fluff is the “unserious” stuff like reality TV or social media trends that intellectuals love to call superficial. And maybe they’re right! But these things also set our group chats alight and tell us what’s going on culturally.

This newsletter will include pithy (if I do say so myself) spots on the topics that feed us, like movies, the state of the wellness industry, food trends, consumer brands, the Bravo network, the latest updates on Kimothée (it’s a tough one for me), and how Jonah Hill used therapy for evil.

It’s also about the things we do to try to feel good, whatever that means to each of us. As a health journalist, and Londoner on the wrong side of 25, I’ve been experimenting with my lifestyle over the last two years with the goal of trying to feel as happy as I can. Each week, I’ll share a short piece on something that I’m working on.

Ultimately, FluffMag is about learning something interesting about a topic you love and feeling reassured in the knowledge that we’re all just figuring it out.

I’m jumping straight in with my inaugural edition:

My quest to become a morning person

On Wednesday, I went to a hot yoga class at 7 a.m.

I never imagined I’d be able to say those words because I’m a far cry from what you’d call a morning person. Waking up has been a daily horror for me since I was a small child, and on several occasions, I got ready for school in under five minutes (from eyes closed in bed to fully dressed at the front door) after being woken up by the hooting of my friend’s mum’s car outside my house whose day it was to take us.

Starting my day in this fight or flight state, as tempting as it feels to wake up as close to the start of my working hours as possible, is frankly a shade or two away from hell. It’s left me feeling constantly low energy, anxious, and always a little disorientated.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve felt less and less able to carry on living my life in this nether zone, a state of consciousness that’s somewhere in between awake and asleep. But I have struggled to change my situation because I’m goddamn tired!

About a year ago, however, my odyssey to become a morning person began when my friend Ethan suggested I wake up early, make myself a tea, and read a book before work. We were living together at the time, and I was in awe of his dedication to showering, making peanut butter toast, and watching reels every morning before he left for work. It sounds so simple, but I saw it as a real act of love and care he was giving to himself and I felt sad I wasn’t doing the same for myself.

I start work at 9, and since then, I’ve done a pretty good job of waking up by at least 8:30, hopping out of bed, and going out to get a coffee. But recently, after coming back from a holiday in Sri Lanka and having the good kind of jet lag when you wake up early and fall asleep early, I’ve made strides in getting out of bed with time to spare, and I’m sorry to say it feels so good. I’m getting the same amount of sleep as before but I just feel so much more awake throughout the day.

I’ve been going to yoga classes and taking myself on long walks in the park before work. I feel like I’ve discovered some crazy hack (it’s literally just the morning) that makes life feel more expansive somehow. I think it’s probably mostly that I’m being more active and not starting my day by sending a rushed ‘morning’ slack message before I’ve even brushed my teeth, but either way I hope it continues.

Although living this way feels objectively better, I think you have to be ready for it and really want to do it for it to feel good. And maybe I hadn’t reached that stage until now.

If you can rally your inner troops and give it a go, I’d really recommend it.

The fluff you need to know:

• Love plants but don’t have green fingers? Fear not because you can now hire a plant consultant to tell you what type of plants will best suit your space and how to look after them. Luxury services go for as much as £20,000 and involve multiple house visits to gather as much information about the growing conditions as possible.

• Social saunas and ice baths are the latest wellness trend popping up all over London. Arc in Canary Wharf and Social Sauna in Peckham offer nighttime sessions complete with DJ sets, and you can buy a ticket for the Hackney saunas well into the evening.

• This one’s for all the Islington mums: Waitrose is set to open up to 100 new Little Waitrose stores by 2029. Organic hummus for everyone!

• Nara Smith, the 23-year-old tradwife influencer who makes things from scratch, has an Erewhon smoothie, fittingly titled ‘Wellness From Scratch.’ It contains sea moss, camu camu (?) and kefir. She’s the latest of a line of It girl’s to work with the California Goop-style grocery store and deli. Previous smoothie collabs have included Hailey Bieber, Emma Chamberlain, Bella Hadid, Olivia Rodrigo, Sofia Richie, Kendall Jenner, and Kourtney Kardashian.

• Speaking of It girls, I found out this week that you can have your tarot cards read by the same lady as Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, and Kate Hudson at Selfridge’s, no less! It costs minimum £100, but Kim said she was “the most exceptionally gifted clairvoyant I have ever met...” so it’s probably worth it.

• Finally, I leave you with a recommendation. In the airport on my way to Sri Lanka I bought a neck pillow and my god it’s amazing. It’s called The Ultimate 3.0 and it’s made by a brand called Go. It cost me £31, but I will never again fly without it.

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