Broadcaster Vick Hope learned the hard way to have some balance. In the early days of her radio career she says she probably experienced burnout.

“I was basically not sleeping enough, not eating well, drinking probably too much,” says the 35-year-old. “I was 27 so there was no notion of balance at all.”

Newcastle-born Hope – who now co-hosts the BBC Radio 1 drivetime show Going Home with Vick, Katie and Jamie, along with Katie Thistleton and Jamie Laing, and joined Countryfile as a new presenter in March – did “every job under the sun” while she was trying to make a name for herself.

“I didn’t know the word ‘no’. I think in 2018, I took three days off – including weekends – the whole year. I was getting up at 4am every day [for the Capital Breakfast show, alongside Roman Kemp]. I got to a point where I hadn’t seen my family for so long.

“It was a matter of course that I cancelled family holidays, going up to Newcastle, missed weddings… because I had to work all the time,” says Hope, who is married to DJ Calvin Harris.

“You feel like, if you stop, the wheels are going to come off. But the truth is, if you keep going, the wheels will come off anyway.”

The overwhelm resulted in physical symptoms too – “I remember collapsing. I was with my mum and I was like, wow, I don’t think I can move. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. She was like, you’ve exhausted yourself. She asked, ‘What are you chasing?’

“It needed to get to that for me to realise it had gone too far.”

Now an ambassador for beauty supplement brand Perfectil, Hope prioritises her wellbeing, and a big part of that has been holding boundaries – “and realising that the world doesn’t end if you say no.”

She says: “In an industry that feels very competitive from the beginning, you think that you’re being pitted against each other, that there’s only space for one person who shares your interests or who looks similar to you. As you work more you realise that’s not actually the case. You can carve your own.”

Famously private about her relationship with husband Harris (real name Adam Richard Wiles, who she married in 2023), Hope says that the boundary is “a self-help tool” for her. “My private life is my private life, my personal life is my personal life – it’s sacred.”

Her appointment as a permanent Countryfile presenter brings her back to her roots, she says, having spent much of her childhood in rural Northumberland.

“I grew up swimming in lakes and climbing trees and collecting eggs from the chickens, and we grew a lot of our own fruit and veg. It’s a lifestyle that I look back on really fondly, and do see in my future as well. We didn’t have a TV growing up, we didn’t play computer games, we were outside all the time – and so it’s in my DNA.”

Working in radio involves a lot of “windowless rooms and studios”, so getting a dose of nature is “transformative”, she says. “All it takes – if I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, if I’m almost feeling a bit claustrophobic – is just a few minutes outside, to have a walk, to breathe deeply, to see green.

“You can go days without taking yourself outside, and you don’t notice it until it’s too late and you’re wondering why you’re feeling so groggy, or why your mind is clouded. I even notice that I get my words a bit more jumbled, I can’t quite I can’t articulate myself as well if I haven’t got that clarity.”

Nature is one of, what she calls, her ‘micro-rituals’ to feel good day-to-day, as well as putting on a song and dancing in her kitchen, guided breathwork and journaling.

Mental and physical health are “inexorably intertwined”, she says. “If I haven’t exercised and got those endorphins going and taken that time for myself, then I will feel dimmer, you don’t feel as bright.”

Nutrition has taken a bigger place too. “I used to be terrible,” Hope says. “I used to not eat breakfast. And I was wondering why I didn’t have enough energy. I’d be going to work at 4:45am and then just drinking several coffees before it even got to 6am.

“I guess my blood sugar was spiking, my cortisol was spiking, and then I was having a crash, usually around 11am, and then trying to fuel up with more coffee.

“It’s been a learning curve, learning what my body needs in terms of nutrition, and it’s really just protein in the morning. It’s so simple.”

Therapy, which she originally started at 21 after losing someone close to her, has been “transformative”, and now she checks in with her therapist every couple of weeks.

“I didn’t realise I needed to talk, I’d been feeling down for a while,” she says. “Rather than muddling through in my mind, on my own, talking to someone else can help me validate the fact that it’s a natural feeling – and it will come in waves. It’s not going to be linear.

“It’s not going to be something that’s sorted out just like that, but it’s OK to feel all the things – there are no positive and negative feelings. A healthy mind actually feels all the emotions, it’s just knowing what to do with that when they come.

“I’m a person who feels things very deeply, I’ve always been quite emotional,” she says, but the big change through therapy has been, “seeing that as a strength rather than a weakness”.

Vick Hope is brand ambassador for beauty supplement brand Perfectil

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