Profile

Hej Hej from Sweden!

I’m Helen, I’m 26 years old and I live in Östersund (pronounced eurgh-ster-sund!) in Northern Sweden!

I’ve lived in Sweden since August 2015. It’s pretty cool here – and by cool I mean very cold! Last winter it was around -20 degrees Celsius outside for most of January! The plus side of that is that we have lots of snow, which makes for a fun-filled winter of skiing in the nearby mountains and ice skating on frozen lakes! I love adventure sports – skiing and skating in the winter and rock climbing and mountain biking in the summer. But my main competitive sport is orienteering, which has taken me to some pretty cool places over the years. I think I have competed in orienteering races in 11 different countries so far!

A little about how I came to be where I am today: I grew up in Gloucestershire and I’ll admit I was a bit of a swot at school. My other passion was sport and as I got into my teens I became more serious about competing in orienteering and the heptathlon. When I came to apply to university, I couldn’t decide whether to study Sports Science or Physiology. In the end, I decided I was really interested in how our bodies work, both in sport and more generally, so I chose to study Physiology. After studying for my PhD in North Wales (Bangor University – an awesome place to go if you love the mountains and adventure sports as I do!) I took the plunge and applied for my current job in Sweden.

I work as a researcher and lecturer at Mid Sweden University. As well as teaching Sports Science to our students, I also work with winter sports athletes and coaches at the Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre.

As an exercise physiologist I am interested in the way that our bodies respond and adapt to exercise. For many elite athletes, there is a fine line between ‘peak form’ and training too much so that they become tired, unwell or injured. How much training is the right amount? How long should we allow for recovery in between training sessions? Are there any special foods that will help athletes to stay healthy? How can athletes avoid getting sick before a big competition? These are the sorts of questions I am working hard to find answers to. Of course, the answers are not straightforward!

After arriving at work and checking/replying to emails, I’ll go downstairs to the staff kitchen for a fika. ‘Fika’ is the swedish term for ‘a coffee break, with friends or colleagues, sometimes involving cake’. Fika breaks are an institution in Sweden. I meet my colleagues for around 20 minutes at 9.30am each day. Sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about our plans for the weekend, and it’s a great chance to have a quick discussion with someone about an idea or problem that isn’t big enough to make it worthwhile scheduling a whole meeting.

After that, it’s on to the day’s work. My working days are very varied. Sometimes I’ll be with our students, giving lectures or running practicals in the lab. These classes require some preparation, so other days I’ll need to prepare, mark work or write exams. The student study modules that are 5 weeks long, so I spend 5 weeks seeing them almost every day, before they move on to study a different topic with a different lecturer.

When the students are off studying other subjects, I spend my time on research. Research studies take several months to complete, so sometimes my day involves reading and planning, sometimes I’ll be in the lab collecting my data, and then when all that’s done I’ll need to spend some time to write it up into a coherent scientific research paper.

One of the things I love about my job is how varied it is! It’s pretty hard to describe a typical day, because every day and every month brings new ideas and challenges!