Meet the Project

Every project starts with an itch. Ours was a mild irritation with how health advice usually arrives: loud, urgent and slightly scolding. Walk ten thousand steps or else. Cut this food today. Buy the tracker, the powder, the special pillow. We wanted a corner of the web that said the opposite, quietly: most good habits are small, most bodies are different, and nobody needs to be shouted at to take a walk.

Why the name

Walking softly is partly literal. Walking is the activity we come back to most often, because it is cheap, flexible and available to a great many people in some form. It is also a description of the tone we aim for. We try to tread lightly around subjects that can be sensitive, such as weight, ageing, sleeplessness or low mood, and to leave room for the reader's own circumstances rather than flattening them into a single rule.

The people involved

I Walk Softly is run by a handful of writers and one editor who work on it alongside other jobs. We sign articles with pen names, partly to keep the focus on the writing and partly because none of us wants to become the brand. What we share is curiosity about everyday health and a strong dislike of overstated claims. We are not affiliated with a clinic, a gym chain, a food company or a supplement maker.

What we try to do differently

Slow over sensational

A headline that promises to transform your sleep in a week is easy to write and almost never true. We would rather describe a few adjustments that might help over a month, and say plainly that results vary.

Ordinary days first

Advice is only useful if it survives a wet Tuesday, a late train and a child with a cold. When we suggest a routine, we try to imagine it on a bad day, not just a good one.

Knowing where our knowledge stops

Some questions belong with a GP, a pharmacist or another qualified person who can actually examine you and look at your history. We say so, often, and our page on acting on health advice explains why.

Where the project is heading

We add articles slowly, filling gaps that readers point out and expanding the themes we already cover: movement, rest, food, measuring the body and the habits of the mind. Older pieces are reread and reworked when they start to feel thin. You can follow the reasoning behind our editing in the house rules, and the main about page sums up what the magazine covers.

If you have an idea for a topic, or think we have drifted from the gentle tone we promise, please tell us through the contact page. Small projects improve fastest when readers speak up.