Mental health coach completes second epic walk

Bhupinder Sandhu has now walked from London to Cardiff and London to Edinburgh to raise awareness of mental health issues

A mindfulness coach has completed his second nation to nation walk across the UK to raise awareness and funds for a mental health charity.

Bhupinder Sandhu from Gravesend, Kent, spent Christmas walking from London to Cardiff, having previously walked from London to Edinburgh.

Mr Sandhu hoped his latest walk will raise £10,000 for the charity Mind.

He told BBC Radio Sussex he wanted to show people suffering mental health problems "there are solutions".

"Mindfulness, you don't need much of it" he said, "start with one deep breath and you can do it yourself.

"We don't need to wait for external factors to help us, we can work on ourselves because it is our health, we should make it a priority for ourselves.

"Start with 10, 20, 30 seconds in the beginning, if we haven't done it for 10 seconds we can't do it for two minutes. Once we have done it for 10 seconds, we can do it for 20 seconds, and slowly build on that."

Bhupinder Sandhu is an experienced mindfulness coach

Mr Sandhu said his long distance walks provide the perfect opportunity to practice mindfulness.

"When you are out there for eight, nine hours, that's the best time.

"When I was going through the muddy fields if I'm not mindful I will hurt myself, when I was walking on the A40 if I'm not mindful a big lorry might run me over.

"You have to keep the focus for every microsecond when you are out there."

He is now planning his next distance walk in August 2025, from London to Paris.