Amanda's Wellbeing Podcast

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported Vibrant Lives Podcast...I've had a blast speaking with amazing guests from all over the world and creating a platform where health promoting advice is delivered to you in a friendly and easy to understand format. It's time for me to take a six month break from podcasting and reassess where I'm heading with my podcast, and with my life generally. You can still listen to all my episodes on your favourite podcasting platform or find them on my website at: https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/podcasts/

I feel lucky to be able to share Zane Landin’s story with you on Vibrant Lives Podcast. Zane has many strings to his (young) bow but the message that came through very clearly in our discussion was the importance of empathy, storytelling and positivism.  For me, this episode was insightful because inclusion, acceptance and understanding are at the forefront of the minds of Zane and his peers.   Zane is a mental health and disability advocate, a queer rights activist, entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Positive Vibes Magazine, a digital magazine dedicated to telling authentic stories about mental health, wellness and inspiration.   Our discussion ranges over the importance of identity - Zane himself identifies as Hispanic, queer and disabled. We discuss how he experiences these identities and then we cover intersectionality, the interconnection between different identities.   In 2022, Zane was selected as one of 30 young people to attend the inaugural Mental Health Youth Action Forum

I am pretty excited about this episode with Sarah Rusbatch. Sarah is a Health and Wellbeing Coach, Sobriety and Grey Area Drinking Coach, Motivational Speaker and all round inspiring person!   Sarah was the consummate party girl - always ready for a drink and a big night out with friends. Gradually, Sarah found her drinking, and efforts to moderate it, were consuming her mental space, causing her some regrets and that alcohol was ultimately taking more from her than it was giving. Sarah had fallen into a pattern of drinking known as “grey area drinking”  (more on what that actually means in the episode). After attempts to quit alcohol and then relapses to her former drinking patterns, Sarah quite alcohol for good in April 2019 and the benefits to Sarah’s health, her energy levels and her relationships have continued to flow.     Sarah transformed her own life and has now helped thousands of women change their relationship with alcohol or quit drinking for good. She is an

This week I have a fascinating and informative discussion with Sports and Orthopaedic Physical Therapist, Rick Olderman. Rick has dedicated his career to solving the puzzle of chronic musculoskeletal pain and has developed a unique approach to eliminating pain without medication.  In Rick’s experience, the medical and allied health professions are excellent at identifying  and isolating damaged tissue and treating it. However, they are not necessarily excellent and understanding why the tissue was damaged in the first place. As a result, chronic pain can often remain unresolved. Rick focuses on how forces act on the structures in our bodies and if your patterns of movement are dysfunctional, these forces can act in such a way as to cause chronic pain. Understanding the architecture of our bodies and how to change dysfunctional movement patterns is at the core of Rick work. He has developed a system Fixing You to help you eliminate pain without medication. If you’ve experienced physical p

Adaptogens are herbal supplements that can help the body adapt to stress and maintain balance. Adaptogens have an impressive array of health benefits from helping us conserve vitality as we age, enhancing mental performance and improving physical endurance. Adaptogens have been used for centuries in traditional medicine and scientists are starting to understand how these precious little gems work. Some of the most well known ones are - Ashwagandha, Panax ginseng, Rhodiola rosea, Schisandra and Cordyceps. SIGN UP TO MY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER Do you want to be better informed about some of the latest developments in health and wellbeing?  Is that a "yes"? Sign up here (scroll to bottom of the page): https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/  HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THE PODCAST Please tell your friends about the podcast and share it with them. Follow me on Instagram @vibrant_lives_podcast Follow my Facebook page: @vibrantlivespodcast If you could rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts, that would be supe

A warm welcome to the first Vibrant Lives Podcast episode of 2023 and it is a wonderful one, both touching and informative. My guest this week is Karena Kilcoyne, a defence lawyer turned author and spiritual teacher. Karena helps people process trauma and shame. Often the experience of trauma leads us to tell ourselves stories about ourselves that can profoundly affect how we are in the world. For example, if we felt abandoned as a child, we might believe that we are unworthy of love and that can play out in all sorts of destructive behaviours. Our stories can hinder us from finding joy in life or forming loving relationships. Karena generously shares her own experience of childhood trauma that included her father going to prison and, at the age of 12, having to look after her siblings and become the "parent" in her household.  I'll say no more here - tune in to my conversation with Karena to hear this uplifting, courageous and life affirming episode. KARENA KILCOYNE   Karena's website: ht

Amanda reflects on 2022 a year that was underwhelming and tinged with sadness but punctuated with some bright spots. She gives a run-down of the five most popular episodes and shares some of her learnings. Vibrant lives Podcast wishes you a happy, healthy fun and safe festive season. TOP 5 EPISODES OF 2022  1st - Treating teen acne and nurturing mature skin with skin expert, dermatologist Dr Emma Ryan: https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/podcasts/emma-ryan/ 2nd - Getting around men's mental health with resilience trainer and former Special Forces Soldier, Nathan Bolton: https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/podcasts/nathan-bolton/ 3rd - Five Minute Food Facts - Eggs; https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/podcasts/eggs/ Equal 4th - The power of positive psychology to enhance you happiness and wellbeing with Life Coach, Steph Noon: https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/podcasts/stephanie-noon/ Equal 4th - The future you - artificial intelligence and your health with Harry Glorikian: https://vibrantlives

This week I have a wide-ranging conversation with Marie Rowland, Psychotherapist and Director of Talking Matters, a private therapy practice where she helps clients work though matters from relationship conflicts, managing stress and anxiety to notions of success including self-image and social relevance.   Marie and I discuss what she refers to as the “other pandemic" of stress, sadness and loneliness and how COVID both contributed to and brought that into focus. We also discuss emotional pain, part of the human condition, and how you can build your emotional immunity. Marie shares some really helpful tools with us. My favourite one is to show up because we all know this can be hard at times but if we continue to show up for ourselves, step by step we make progress towards our goals. All those small steps add up over time.   We end our conversation wth a discussion of Stoicism. If you want to learn something about the Stoics and how ancient wisdom is so relevant in the modern world, this is a

I simply adored my discussion with yoga instructor, Veronique Ory of Yoga with Veronique. If you need some prompting to show up in your life with love and compassion, to remember self-love, please listen to my chat with Veronique because it will make you feel really good.   Veronique’s journey towards yoga is an interesting one. She studied Theatre at Russell Sage College in New York and worked in that space for years, including 17 years at the helm of her own theatre company, Athena Theatre Company. As many of us can appreciate, making a living in independent (off-Broadway) theatre is financially precarious and all the passion and dedication in the world cannot overcome the need to fund raise. Yoga was an antidote for Veronique to relieve the stress of that part of her job. In fact, Veronique was so taken by how yoga made her feel both on and off the mat that eventually, she wanted to help others find that stillness and happiness so she trained to become a yoga instructor.   Veronique has a u

The Blue Zones are communities around the world where people live to a ripe old age and in relatively good heath. In the Blue Zones, the proportion of 90 to 100-year-olds to the overall population is unusually high. The concept and classification of the BZ came about through a National Geographic expedition led by Dan Beuttner to investigate communities around the world that live longer and better and understand what common factors enhanced longevity in those populations. The BZ researchers distilled 9 features common across the BZ areas coined the “Power Nine”. In this podcast, I set out what the nine factors are are and talk briefly to each one. They include incorporating movement into your daily life, eating a diet made up of plenty of plants and legumes and avoiding processed foods, knowing your purpose and putting your loved ones first. Personally, I am a fan of the Blue Zones literature because a lot of the principles are firmly based in common sense and generations of wi

Over the course of a lifetime, a menstruating women will use between 5 and 15 thousand tampons and pads. Most of those will end up in landfill as plastic waste - standard tampons take about 500 years to break down. That means, the world's first ever tampon is still on this planet. What if we could do period care differently?  Enter Hello Period, the world's first sustainable period company that offers reusable products - cups, discs, pads and period underpants. Hello Period was co-founded by today's guest, Robyn McLean. This is a story about innovation, about looking after our planet and about how an idea became a successful business. ROBYN McLEAN Hello Period website: https://helloperiod.com/ How to use videos: https://helloperiod.com/pages/how-to-use-a-reusable-menstrual-cup MAGIC MIND Magic Mind Website: https://magicmind.co/ Discount code: vibrant20 SIGN UP TO MY MONTHLY NEWSLETTER Do you want to be better informed about some of the latest developments in health and wellbeing?  Is

Do you ever feel defeated by the clutter in your life? Where do you even start the decluttering process?   The good news is that this week’s guest, Sandra Lane, is a Professional Organiser and Productivity Specialist and she shares with us some useful, practical tips to tackle that clutter - both physical and mental.   Our discussion ranges from why we accumulate so much stuff and the negative impact all that stuff can have on our physical and mental wellbeing to the liberating and empowering feeling of taking steps to deal with clutter. Sandra talks us through how to deal with our clutter and what I liked most about this conversation is her practical focus. Not all of us can achieve the minimalist dream i.e. pack away all our earthly belongings into boxes only to liberate the exact thing we need, say a kitchen knife or a shoe, when we need it. Sandra’s approach is a realistic one for busy people in busy households.    We also talk about digital clutter, a problem so many of us

I have been looking forward to my discussion with Celeste Ferraris OLY for a while now and it did not disappoint!   Celeste is a Clinical Nutritionist with a special interest in the gut microbiome and how food affects mood. Celeste gives us a really good overview of the gut microbiome, what our gut bacteria do for us and what can happen when our bacteria is out of balance.   Celeste’s current research for her PhD is about the association between a liking for salty foods and depression, stress and anxiety. It is a fascinating area including how we experience taste and how our neurotransmitters many be involved. In terms of future implications of Celeste’s research, alternation in taste may be used as a screening tool for mood disorders, like depression. Reliable, non-invasive screening tools are important as screening can lead to diagnosis and then treatment.   We also discuss Celeste's Olympic and Commonwealth Games success as a synchronised swimmer. It may be one of the lesser know

How do we know what matters in our lives and how do we achieve what matters?   This week’s guest, Dr Tabitha Healey, helps people identify what matters to them and sets them on a path to achieving it. After 20 years as a medical oncologist, for reasons you’ll learn in our discussion, Tabitha switched careers and became an Executive, Leadership and Wellbeing Coach and a Clinical Hypnotherapist.   Tabitha has looked after people at their most vulnerable, she’s tended to people near death and learned some valuable life lessons throughout which she shares with us and which inform her coaching business. We learn about the importance of self-care and how that can look, how to set boundaries around using our time and why that is important.   The burgeoning area of medical hypnosis is a true passion for Tabitha. The application is vast from treating anxiety and chronic pain, helping people to quit smoking to dealing with trauma. The more we learn about the power of the human brain, th

Eating insects is not new; in many cultures insects have traditionally made up an important component of people's diets supplying protein and good fats. What is an emerging area of scientific research though, is using insects as fodder for production animals.   My guest this week, Senior Research Scientist Dr Kristy Digiacomo, is very well acquainted with her research subjects, black soldier flies. Kristy entertainingly talks us through how the larvae of these flies, fed on food waste, can be converted into high quality fodder for production animals and it seems they find it delicious!   We humans produce so much waste, particularly food waste. The ingenuity of growing insects on all our waste is that a low value product (e.g. supermarket waste) that cannot be fed directly to animals becomes a high value, safe food for animals via insects. A very neat circular economy can be created and it's a big win for sustainability, the crux of what scientists like Kristy are seeking to advance.   Kristy c

The term “fitspo” refers to “fitness inspiration” but is it really inspiring to see fitspos?   I delve into the question with Dr Ivanka Prichard, Associate Professor and health psychologist at Flinders University, South Australia. Ivanka ’s interests include the interaction between body image, exercise and eating behaviour. We discuss factors influencing body image and the ramifications of having a positive or negative body image.   Ivanka’s recent research examines the impact of different forms of #fitspiration imagery on body image and mood in young women. She shares her insights plus practical how to approach this tend as a critical consumer.   MY FREE GUIDE 5 Common Nutrition Myths Debunked: https://vibrantlivespodcast.com/free-guide/   IVANKA PRICHARD PhD   Ivanka’s researcher profile: https://www.flinders.edu.au/people/ivanka.prichard   Twitter handle: @IvankaPrichard   LINKS MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE

Plant based dairy milk alternatives have exploded in popularity which is great news for people with allergies to dairy or lactose intolerance. For many of us, we choose them because they taste good and some of them, like oat milk, have better environmental credentials than cow's milk. Alternative milks have quite different nutrition profiles so it is helpful to know how your favourite milk stacks up when it comes to protein, energy or carbohydrate content. In this Five Minute Food Facts episode I break all that information down for you so you can choose the milk (or milks) that best suit your needs.

When we think of cancer research we often conjure images of test tubes, microscopes and lab coats. What are they doing, those brainy scientific researchers, and what are they finding out?   Today, I take you behind the scenes with biomedical scientist, Associate Professor Dr Susan Woods, who shares with us some of the ground-breaking and truly inspiring research taking place in her lab at Adelaide University Medical School. Susi specialises in gut (including bowel) cancer research. Her focus includes finding new ways to detect early stage bowel cancer because, as highlighted in my episode with Nick Lee OAM, when detected early, 95% of bowel cancer can be cured. Susi and her team are also looking at how to target treatment in later stage bowel cancer to act only on the cancer and reduce the unwanted side effects of current available treatments like chemotherapy.   Despite the heavy subject matter, my conversation with Susi left me feeling optimistic because of the amazing work she and her team do but

As we know, staying active is so important for physical and mental health. Unfortunately though, women are much less likely to play team sport than men and by the age of 15, nearly one-third of girls will stop playing club sport.   There are numerous reasons for this, such as inappropriate (or non-existent) women’s changing facilities and fewer female role models. Yet many of the reasons like wearing the right sports bra and understanding your menstrual cycle, can be addressed with some basic knowledge. Understanding how a good sports bra should fit and function is really important to reduce breast bounce that can damage breast tissue and to increase comfort. Knowing what is happening to your hormones during menstruation and how you feel in during your cycle is vital and validating.   My guest this week, Dr Katherine Grellman, Sports and Exercise Physician Registrar, who has a special interest in female athlete health, expertly talks us through these issues and more.   This episode is not

Bowel cancer is also known as the "silent killer” because sometimes it can be asymptomatic, particularly in the early stages of the disease. After lung cancer, bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related death in Australia. But, it shouldn’t be. If caught early, 99% of treatments are successful.Nick Lee OAM, my guest this week, is on a mission to empower Australians to prevent bowl cancer through the Jodi Lee Foundation, which he set up after the death of his wife, Jodi, from bowel cancer in 2010. Since then, the Jodi Lee Foundation has saved countless lives by raising awareness about bowel cancer and encouraging people to take a simple screening test.I found my conversation with Nick really moving but also uplifting - he’s done so much good in our world.JODI LEE FOUNDATIONJodi Lee Foundation: https://jodileefoundation.org.auSocial media handle: @jodileefoundationBowel Cancer Sympton Checker: https://jodileefoundation.org.au/awareness-campaigns/symptom-checker/Trust Your Gut campaign: https