Helena Nicklin, Freelance drinks writer, TV presenter and co-founder of The Three Drinkers, Amazon Prime TV show (London, UK)

Years In Industry:
16 years. I cut my teeth selling wine in a London indie and learned the ropes there, watching my boss run tastings and drinking great stuff with customers. After that, I moved to ad sales at Decanter magazine where they put me through most of my WSET exams then worked on the commercial buying team at Corney & Barrow and got my diploma. It was here that I had the chance to design my own style of wine course in house and the response was so incredible that I left and set up my own tasting business, Winebird. The old actress in me loved having wine as a script and after years of trying to find TV shows to be in, I decided to create my own with the help of two other journos. Within 8 months, we'd gone from an idea to the launch of our pilot show for The Three Drinkers in 172 countries and 39 languages.  
 
My Biggest Challenge To Wellness: 
My biggest challenges fall into three areas:
1. Thinking that if people stop drinking, the party is over, even if the party is just me and my husband. I am working on challenging that belief at the moment.
2.  I have time challenges with small children who need me and my busy job, so I find it hard to prioritise self care, especially fitness.
3. Always having wine and spirits samples land on my doorstep. We never run out, and we love hosting. It gets messy.
 
How I Keep It Together To Stay Well:
Recently, I've tried to keep 4 days a week without booze and have started meditating again. I find it is slowly helping me to know when to stop once drinking has started and affords me that moment to remember to pause and drink water. I'm more careful of my diet than I used to be too. On a really busy day where my mind is all over the place, I do a 10 minute guided meditation with deep nose and belly breathing. If I get more time, I aim for a 20 minute TM using my mantra once a day, though it's not as often as I'd like. 
 
Keeping wellness with young kids in COVID, it is hard. When home schooling was happening, I had to get up super early and go to bed super late to get my work done. It was exhausting. What I did do was reduce my intake of alcohol, caffeine and take more care with my diet. I also had a great CBD bitters that I used in my (decaf) coffee in the morning which really did seem to help. One big thing that I still haven't quite mastered however, is accepting each day that I will achieve less work-wise and stop beating myself up for it. I'm better than I was on that front and my new morning affirmations seem to be having an effect when it comes to that and relishing this extra time with my children. 
 
You can connect with Helena on Instagram @HelenaSips and @TheThreeDrinkers , Twitter @TheWinebird , @HelenaSips and @The3drinkers or find Helena on helenanicklin.com and thethreedrinkers.com