The Mindful Baker, Tim Leach, Runs Mental Health Baking Workshops

13 years after life changing accident, baker Tim Leach aims to support other’s mental wellness through sourdough bread. What a ledge.

London based Tim is teh founder of The Mindful Baker initiative and has launched a workshop based around baking with sourdough to help improve the mental health of participants, 13 years after he himself, suffered a horrific skiing accident.

In 2007, Tim suffered life-changing injuries when he skied off a mountain in France, breaking his back, neck and ankle, and was induced into a coma for 3 weeks.

The accident meant he was unable to work for two years or pursue a career in law, having graduated from Bristol University, leading to depression and as a result, discovering the power of mindfulness.

This led Tim to qualify as a life coach and mindfulness instructor, discover baking and eventually combine the two by launching The Mindful Baker, introducing his clients to the linked concepts of baking sourdough and leading a mindful existence.

Tim Leach, said: “My main interest is to give people tools to help them in their everyday lives, so however you start the class, my aim is that when you leave you will feel empowered and knowledgeable to make changes to improve your life as well as learning a new skill to impress your friends in baking.

“Alongside the baking, multiple activities are integrated into each session with my skills as a life coach enabling this to be an interactive conversation, listening to and coaching individuals who are interested in this approach to move through areas in their life they feel stuck.”

Johnny, a client of The Mindful Baker, said: “What a great five hours with Tim learning all about mindfulness and how to bake a perfect sourdough. The class felt really personable and everything was provided. It was a great balance of chatting, learning to cook and understanding more about mindfulness without being too intense. Tim knows how to tailor the class depending on how deep you want to go. Totally recommended and best of all – the sourdough tastes amazing.”

Tim summarises, “Baking, and sourdough, in particular, has the ability to demonstrate the mental processes we all go through, using a tangible technique to illustrate it. It’s all very well explaining to people how their mindset may be negatively affecting them but by being able to explain it in a coordinated fashion, helps people to make sense of it. Sourdough takes 36 hours to make a loaf, I pre-prepare a section of it before the clients arrive but by the time they leave, taking with them an unbaked loaf which they have to bake the next day, helps them realise that nothing in life is instantaneous, they have to be patient and put the work in in order for it to bear fruit”.

The mindful baking course lasts for five hours, with participants leaving with a greater understanding of mindfulness and the potential to revolutionise their mindset – and of course, impressive sourdough baking skills!

Alongside the mindfulness courses, The Mindful Baker also runs sourdough pizza-making workshops and kids’ pizza parties, as well as mindfulness based life coaching.

I wanted to highlight this feel-good story as we need positivity more than ever. Baking always helps relieve stress for me too so this truly resonated.

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