Life's Booming

After life The question of the afterlife fascinates us all, whether shaped by science, spirituality or something in between. In this episode, we explore what happens at the end of life, and what might follow, in a conversation with psychic medium Debbie Malone and science writer and journalist Bianca Nogrady.  About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. From vivid, near-death experiences to the quiet moments before death, this episode looks at how people make sense of the unknown. You’ll hear how psychic mediums describe receiving messages from those who’ve passed, what it feels like to come back from the brink, and how the scientific community approaches questions of consciousness, the soul, and what defines the moment of death. Debbie Malone is one of Australia’s most recognised psychic mediums, with over three decades of experience connecting people to their loved ones in spirit. As a medium, author and spiritual teacher, she works with individuals and audiences seeking comfort and closure, and has also assisted police on high-profile investigations involving missing persons and unsolved crimes.  Bianca Nogrady is a journalist, author and science communicator who has spent more than a decade writing about death, dying and what it means to be mortal. Her book The End: The Human Experience of Death explores how cultures, clinicians, and individuals confront the reality of dying, and what we can learn from it.   If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube    Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: S06EP07 After life James: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine and this season we're talking about death. In this episode, well, this is a debate that's been going ever since we were alive. What happens after we die? No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, the question of the afterlife fascinates us all. James: With the help of my guests, I'll explore everything we know, or perhaps don't quite know, about it from both a spiritual and scientific perspective. Bianca Nogrady is an award winning science journalist and the author of The End, The Human Experience of Death, and Debbie Malone is a psychic medium who felt a spiritual awakening after a series of near-death experiences. James: Bianca, Debbie, welcome to Life's Booming. So, Debbie, this starts with you. You've had a lot of near-death experiences.  Debbie: Yes, I have. I had one at three and 13, then I had some, had another two in my early 20s. And then I had a miscarriage and then I woke up and started seeing murders and it was the backpacker murders, [that] was the first thing that I actually saw. James: What do you mean by seeing them?  Debbie: I was becoming a victim and I was being, you know, I was being attacked and murdered, in visions and dreams. At the time the backpacker murders was a really big thing on the news and I just thought I was watching TV too much. And then I started to see things before they happened on the news. I used to work at Fairfax community newspapers and I kept seeing all of these different visions and I spoke to one of the journalists and he said, why don't we do a story about you and just see what happens. And then it ended up, Ivan Milat's girlfriend, Chalinda Hughes contacted the newspaper and wanted to make contact. And I ended up, consequently, working on the case with the taskforce for quite a few, quite a few years.   James: Right. I feel I'm automatically going to go a bit glib, but you mean they go, okay, so Debbie, what's happened? What can we expect this weekend?  Debbie: Yeah. And it's, and it's funny cause it's not like that. Because it's, and me being the sceptic, all I wanted to do was to shut it down. I didn't want to do anything, have anything to do with it. I'd never had a reading. I didn't, you know, have tarot cards or anything like that. And when it started to happen, at first the police were quite sceptical and I had to speak to a few different officers and then they just said, just keep a diary. And they said, don't think about what you see, just write it down, put a date down. And when I had enough information, I would send it through to them. I can't say that I have solved cases, it's more like I'm a profiler. So I can see, I can describe things. And the thing is with, when it comes through, it can be the past, it can be the present, or it can be the future. So it's like pieces of a puzzle. It's almost like playing charades in a way. So you're hearing things and seeing things and you try and work it out.  James: So police weren't sceptical of this.  Debbie: Oh, some were, some were. And yeah, I've had some challenging experiences with them, but I've had some incredible officers that I've worked with, you know, during the time as well. And I just thought once I did something with the backpacker murders, it would all go away and I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. I kind of thought that would be it.  James: And by all go away, you mean the kind of visions you were having or you, you were getting a sense of, of… Are you, in this sense, are you someone who's seeing the future or are you someone who's seeing glimpses of the afterlife or something like that? Debbie: All of it. So the victims were coming to me, the two English girls were coming to me, and one of the visions was I could see somebody walking them into the forest, but I couldn't see who he was because I was seeing through his eyes. So they were walking away from me and they were kind of pleading with me to help them and then it would stop and then I would get a wall full of Polaroid images. And then it ended up, most of the images of the Polaroids were the other victims. But at the time, I didn't know. It was only later on when the case, you know, became solved – and some of those faces still haven't been, they haven't been linked to the case, so I think there's so many more. James: So going back to your near-death experiences. What did you see when that happened? What was your near-death experience?  Debbie: My most vivid one, when I was 34, I had to have a major operation and I told the doctors that I was going to die and they thought I was being stupid. And I said about the anesthetic and they didn't believe me. Anyway, when I went through, I woke up after the operation and I was in a higher dependency, but they put me on a morphine drip and I didn't know I was allergic to morphine. So they kept telling me to, you know, push the button. And when I did, I ended up having a lot of really horrible visions to start with, but then I went through to this beautiful place. It was like, it was like a rollercoaster. Like, I love the night sky, and it was like I went up, I felt like I was an astronaut without a craft and I just could see the universe and I felt very calm. And then it was a lot of movement. The movie Contact for me is very close to my experience. And then I suddenly went into like, I would call it like a black hole. Cause I kind of feel like it was a vortex and I got sucked into it. But then, the movement was getting faster and faster, it's a bit like being on a rollercoaster. And then I landed in this meadow and everything seemed more colorful than it is here. And the stupid part about it, there was a privet hedge, I remember that. And it was about this tall, and there's this, like this little gate and there were people in front of me and they all went ahead, and then there's people on the other side and they all seemed so happy and you know, it just seems so beautiful and just, I felt so loved and peaceful. Then I got to my turn to go through the little gate and they said, no, you can't. And I'm a bit like, you know, I'm not the person that pushes in at the deli line. So it's like, you know, it's my turn. I want to go through. And they said, no, no, no, you can't, turn around. So I turned around and it was like, I was up in the sky, and I could see my – it makes me cry nearly every time I talk about it – I could see down that my one-year-old daughter was in my husband's arm, my three-year-old son was beside him and my seven-year-old was there, and the two boys are saying, where's mummy, where's mummy, and he said, mummy's not coming back, mummy's in heaven now. And then suddenly I fell back down and I'm back into the hospital room and the nurse is shaking me and they're pulling the morphine drip out. And she said, what are you doing? And I said, Oh, you know, I'm going to the light. And she said, not on my shift, it's too much paperwork. [laughter] James: Oh, the New South Wales public health system, it'll fix you up at any time. When you did your book, Bianca, did you do, did you talk to people with near-death experience or did you cover that area?  Bianca: I did. I mean, the aim of my book was really to take, to kind of explore right up to the moment of death, but not beyond because I felt that my skills did not equip me to assess that in any kind of, in any form. But obviously people wit

LIFE’S BOOMING SERIES 6: Dying to Know Episode 6: Finding the funny side Many of us are embracing more humour following the death of a loved one. But how do we make space for laughter without feeling like we’re getting it wrong? Comedian Michelle Brasier and grief counsellor Marianne Bowdler share their experiences. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. In this episode, we explore the psychology behind our fear of death and how humour can help us face it. From heartfelt eulogies that land a laugh to finding the line between lightness and respect, we look at how Australians are using comedy to cope, connect and heal. Michelle Brasier is an award-winning comedian, writer and performer known for her sharp wit, musical talent and deeply personal storytelling. After losing both her father and brother to cancer, Michelle channelled her grief into her stage show Average Bear (on ABC iview), and book My Brother's Ashes are in a Sandwich Bag, which blend humour, vulnerability and hope.  Marianne Bowdler is the clinical services manager at Griefline, where she supports Australians experiencing grief, loss and trauma. She draws on years of experience to explain how laughter, when used thoughtfully, can offer relief, connection and healing. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube    Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: S06EP06 Finding the funny side James: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine and this season we're talking about death, but it's not all doom and gloom. On this episode we're going to embrace the funny side of grief. Forty-seven percent of the over 50s want to embrace more humor following the death of a loved one, according to an Australian senior's cost of death report. Helping us navigate this somewhat confusing terrain are two women who've built their careers around talking about death in very different ways. Marianne Bowdler is a grief counsellor and clinical services manager at Griefline, who's worked extensively supporting marginalised communities through bereavement, attachment and loss. And Michelle Brasier is a comedian, writer and actor. Her frank and fearless brand of cabaret comedy has never made death funnier and has taken her all the way to Broadway. Marianne, Michelle, welcome to Life's Booming.  James: What's Griefline? Who calls?  Marianne: Griefline, we interpret grief very broadly. So grief is any response to a loss. So we lose lots of things, don't we? Might be, you see a house flooding down the river after a flood, could be redundancy, could be bankruptcy, might've lost your keys, the dog might've gone missing, so anything.  James: Do people think to call you in that sort of thing?  Marianne: More and more they do, more and more, and also ecological grief, which is that kind of nostalgia that we have for how the climate used to be. Michelle: Oh no. Right. Yeah, right.  Marianne: And the landscape that was. And the beach that used to be at Byron.  James: Yeah, so it's sort of an existential grief.  Marianne: Grief is existential.  James: Yeah, yeah. And then what, what can you offer? What happens when I call?  Marianne: It's that annoying concept, isn't it? We hold space. It's about listening without judgment. And it's about enabling people to actually shine a torch into the darkness of the sorrow and the anguish that they might be experiencing.  James: Yeah.  Marianne: I mean, I think a lot of times you might be a young mom and you can't really be grieving because you've got to look after the kids. There's lots of times when you can't express your grief and it's quite helpful to be able to talk to a neutral third party who can be supportive.  James: Yeah. There'd be cultural issues as well in some cases. Yes. And who's on the end of the line, like who's listening?  Marianne: Our lovely band of volunteers. Yeah. So we have hundreds of volunteers and oftentimes it's someone who's been through a significant grief experience and therefore they know what it's like and they want to support somebody else. Or it might be students who are trying to learn something a bit beyond psychology, a bit more about existential things.  James: Yeah.  Michelle: Hmm.  James: Michelle, you know about grief?  Michelle: I know about grief. I'm an old hat at grief for such a young dog. I, yeah, I talk about this publicly all the time, but to do a little recap, we talk about this all the time. You and I, but I, my father was diagnosed when I was 18, with cancer and he died a week later. And shortly after that, my brother was diagnosed with a similar cancer and he died a few months later. And, I am now… assumed Lynch syndrome, which is a genetic… what's the word I'm looking for? Mutation. Yeah. Predisposition. It's a predisposition, to certain types of cancers. and so I'm always being poked and prodded and things, and getting things, you know, cut out, and early intervention, which is really lovely, but it means that grief has become a good friend of mine. And I make shows about all kinds of things, but one of my most successful shows, that you can watch on ABC iView that became my book, is called Average Bear. And it's about, it's about grief, but it's also about hope. And I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that grief is always a bad thing. And I think that it's a really wonderful way through something in a really wonderful way to honour something. So I try to make shows that are funny about things that are sad. James: Yeah. What did you even know of grief? I mean, there you are, 18, 19 years old. I mean, I'm thinking of 18, 19-year-old me. I wouldn't have had a clue. I would never even know what it was.  Michelle: I didn't know anything. I mean, I hadn't, my nan had passed away, but she'd had Alzheimer's for my whole life. And she died when I was quite young, oo I didn't really have any experience of grief except the dog. And even the dog, I had been told had gone to the farm, classic.  James: Right.  Michelle:And I truly thought that the dog had gone to the farm until I was about 26. And I went, Oh no! [laughter] But yeah, so I hadn't really had any, any life experience of grief. I hadn't really had any life experience at all. I mean, of course, I think, you know, it really hit me in the face. I had just gotten out of hospital myself cause I'd been in a fire, and had had third degree burns and had to learn to walk again. And I was surrounded by a lot of grief there, but I didn't know it was right around the corner for me. I saw people lose people all the time. And I was, you know, starting to wise up that maybe the world wasn't quite so simple, but when I lost my dad so fast, grief became a very fast, you know, friend and a big element of my life and something I was so interested in, because my friends weren't going through it. It was very strange. I think when you're young and you lose somebody. If you are the first one in your friendship group, it can be really isolating or you can choose to, you know, oh yeah. Make it a place of fun.  Marianne: It’s like you joined a club you didn't want to… Michelle: …the Dead Dad Club, as I call it. Yeah, yeah. James: Yeah, yeah. But you had no prep for it. I mean, it'd be something if you had cancer for a few years..  Michelle:…Yeah. James: You know, you'd, you'd have a chance to talk to you your mother about it, everybody about it, start to realise this was going to happen. You know, it must have been just like some, it'd be like a disease itself, wouldn't it?  Michelle: Well, it is. I mean, I think it just happens when it does happen so fast like that, it was an assault on the senses. And I have a chapter in my book that's called ‘the actual stages of grief’ because that's how I've experienced it. And I talk about how the world becomes small, like the world just closes in and you find yourself, you know, just assaulted by all these ideas and they don't feel real until you finally eat a piece of pizza again. And, you know, I think it, it was a really fast introduction into perspective and a really quick, life lesson in being curious and trying to open yourself up to as many experiences as you can because you don't know how long you have. And I mean, dad was just that, that was the canary in the coalmine. I didn't know it was going to lead to my brother and all the, you know, we didn't realise it was like a first domino. I was like, Oh, this is the bad thing that happens in my life. It didn't feel like a marker, but now it's very clear that that was the point where my life changed and continued to sort of tumble on down. But I'm still really grateful for, you know, the things that I've learned from grief and the way that I've learned to, to honour people.  James: Yeah. Marianne, can we prepare for grief? I mean, is it something that, it should be something that's part of all of our lives that we think about what this might mean, or is it just something that you, you're going to have to experience it when it happens

With most people now preferring to focus on celebrating life rather than mourning at funerals, we explore the new ways people are choosing to commemorate loved ones, and hear first hand experience of what it's like to grieve in the public eye, with acclaimed author Blanche d’Alpuget, widow of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, and experienced funeral and life celebrant Evelyn Calaunan. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Blanche d’Alpuget is an acclaimed Australian author and the widow of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke. In this episode, Blanche reflects on public and private rituals of mourning, what it means to say goodbye well, and how grief reshapes us. Her latest novel, The Bunny Club (her first murder mystery), is out now. Evelyn Calaunan is a celebrant who has conducted more than 600 ceremonies, including living funerals that are heartfelt gatherings held before death to honour a life while the person is still present. Drawing on her background in palliative care and community work, Evelyn helps individuals and families create ceremonies that are deeply personal.  If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube    Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: S06EP04 Going out with style James: Hi, I'm James Valentine. Welcome to Life's Booming. This season is Dying to Know. We're having the conversations that are often the hardest to have with people who've experienced life's one great certainty, death.  It touches everyone, but how we honor our loved ones in death is changing, with most of us now preferring to focus on celebrating life rather than mourning at funerals. So in this episode, we explore some of the new ways people are choosing to commemorate life, as well as hearing first hand experience of what it's like to grieve in the public eye. Generously sharing their professional and personal stories are our guests. Evelyn Calaunan is an experienced celebrant who specialises in living funerals. And Blanche d’Alpuget is an acclaimed author and widow of former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Evelyn Blanche, welcome to Life's Booming.  Blanche: Oh, thank you, James.  James: Evelyn, you describe yourself as an end of life celebrant. What exactly does that mean? What do you mean by end of life celebrant?  Evelyn: So I've done, I've done ceremonies, as well. I used to be a wedding celebrant and I've married a few couples where one of the partners was diagnosed with a terminal illness, so I would do the ceremony and that turned out to be sort of a life celebration and they just wanted to marry before one of them died. And then I've done a ceremony where the person was actually dying and we did it. The end of life sort of life celebration for him. And he passed away, I think, 10 days after, after the ceremony. That's why I think it's, it's best just to celebrate life now, like have those milestone birthdays or whatever birthday number you're turning and have a great party now - why wait till you have a diagnosis or a terminal illness that's looming? So it's important to have those, those celebrations now. However, in saying that, sometimes people are diagnosed and like, ‘Oh God, I didn't have that party. So I want to have something now.’  I did do a life celebration for my girlfriend who was diagnosed with cancer. And I did a little bit of a ceremony and a ritual and I shared a poem and I was getting a bit too sad for everybody there - cause we were really… It was like a 70s party, we were all dressed up and enjoying each other's company. And then after a while we could tell people were really getting upset because of her diagnosis. And then she came on the microphone. She said, ‘Okay, okay. That's enough, Evelyn, let's go on to karaoke’, you know, so, yeah,  It turned out to be a lovely celebration and she wanted to invite people there from all parts of her life and just be able to have a good party with them while she was still feeling well.  James: Yeah Yeah Evelyn: And I've done about 600 end of life ceremonies.  James: It just sounds like 600 sounds like a lot  Evelyn: Yeah, but in the context of 17 years, that's really not. James: I think the thing that struck me about that number was, does it get routine? Evelyn: Not really. I mean a lot of the script is or the script that I have – I mean, there's only so many ways you can say I'd like to welcome everyone here today. So I'll write a ceremony and I might say, ‘Oh, you know, Joe Blow leaves behind his loving sister’, and then the parents will come back and say, ‘Please take loving out, they couldn't stand each other!’  So, you know, there's a lot of adjectives that are changed because I kind of make my ceremonies quite flowery and people like to change that and make it more real. So yeah.  James: Blanche, you had the experience of, in a way, one of the biggest funerals and biggest moments of public grief in Australian life, the death of Bob Hawke and the funeral and memorial service of Bob Hawke. How much did you and Bob plan those events together?  Blanche: Not at all. No, no. That was all left up to me.  James: Right. So you planned those events. So my understanding is Bob knew he was dying, right? You knew it was, say, a year before, that kind of thing, you knew it was, it would, it must have been coming. Blanche: Well, you don't know exactly when. When he started dying, it just fell like an axe. It was very sudden, out of the blue, we were having dinner. And he was in a bad way. He was in a lot of pain from peripheral neuropathy, so he was on morphine tablets and the fentanyl patches. Obviously it was going to be at some stage, but suddenly we're having dinner and we finished dinner and he got up from dinner and he actually went into the living room and actually threw up and he was in enormous pain, suddenly. And he got on the floor and said, ‘Oh, it's unbearable. The pain's unbearable’. And I said to him, ‘Yes, Bob, you're dying.’ And that was, so that was the beginning.  James: How did he take that? Like, how did he take his death? So the, the imminence of his death?  Blanche: Well, he'd said all along, I have no fear of death. And I used to think all along, wait until you get there. [laughter] It's one thing, not fearing death. It's another thing fearing dying, and dying can be difficult. Being born is difficult, life is difficult, and dying can be difficult too. But then I think it's wonderful, when you actually… Because I believe in the spirit and the soul, and I've seen enough of people dying to be convinced of it, there's an absolutely uplifting feeling as, as it goes, as it leaves the body.  James: What did he believe, particularly at that point?  Blanche: I sort of badgered him with my ideas for 25 years, so [laughter]. He'd started off an agnostic and he was still probably agnostic, but when he died, he wasn't. I mean, I could see it on his face. He didn't say, ‘Oh my God, I can, I see heaven’. But there was such a heavenly look on his face. As I saw on my mother's face.  James: What do you see, Evelyn, the difference between, do you see a difference between those who are dying and have belief and faith and those who don’t. How does that express itself? How do you see it play out?  Evelyn: What I've seen or what I've experienced talking to families is that that they could see at the end that they, if they were quite sick, cause I always ask, I always ask my families, how was it the last few days? And they always say to me, that, you know, just about a few days before they died, they had this really lucid moment where they sat up and we had a really good conversation. And, and then a few days later, they passed away.  And another thing that I actually really would like to share is that most of the families, they get really upset if their person hasn't passed in front of them. They're waiting for that moment. But I have found in all of the many funerals I've done, I would say about 80%, if not more, the loved one usually passes away when someone will just go out to the toilet or go… I've had to explain that to families because they're, they're so upset. Like, ‘you know, I was sat there, I slept on, by the side, the side of the bed of my mother, and I was holding her hand and I, I just had to go to the toilet. I come back and she died on me’ - you know, but it's so common.   James: Why are you nodding Blanche? You heard this a lot too. Blanche:  Oh yes, it's very well known that because the loved one is hanging on emotionally, psychologically to the one who's dying. And so, the dying one can't leave, and that has to grab the moment. Do you agree with the Evelyn? Evelyn: Yeah I definitely agree with that, and I've heard the stories too many times to not discount that, and I think at the end of life, I thi

Matters of life and death Australia’s death care and funeral industry is big business. We meet death doula Dr Annetta Mallon and funeral industry adviser Martin Tobin, two caring and passionate business owners supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Dr Annetta Mallon is an end-of-life consultant, doula and educator and grief psychotherapist based in Tasmania. With decades of experience in trauma recovery and personal growth, Annetta helps people understand their rights and options at the end of life – especially those without a strong support network. Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business. He is founder of Funeral Direction, a consultancy supporting funeral homes and cemeteries across Australia and New Zealand. A former solicitor, Martin brings legal, strategic and business insight, and is focused on helping the industry evolve through innovation, education and long-term planning. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube    Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel at Myrtle & Pine Studios -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: S06EP03_Matters of Life and Death James: Hello, and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine, and this season, we're talking about death.  In this episode, we're talking about matters of life and death, well, the final matter, how we say goodbye. Death is big business, and Australia's death care and funeral industry is worth more than $2 billion. And with us are two entrepreneurs, two people who work in this area, supporting you and your loved ones through the last step on life’s journey. We're joined by Dr. Annetta Mallon, an end of life consultant, an educator, and also known as a death doula. And Martin Tobin is a recognised family name in the funeral business and is now an expert adviser on the global funeral industry. Annetta, Martin, welcome to Life's Booming.  So many places to start. I'm excited. And Martin, I'll start with you. What's it like when the family business is death?  Martin: Yeah, well, it's all I've ever known. When I was, you know, when I was born and grew up, I, we actually lived in a funeral parlour. Um, so when I was, for the first two or three years of my life, uh, the funeral parlour was downstairs. We lived upstairs.  So when it's all you've known, you don't think anything different of it. And I suppose all of my friends and sort of social groups when I was young and a teenager thought it was pretty quirky and funny, but for me, it was what I knew. My grandfather and his brother started our family business in the thirties. And by the time I came along, it was well, well and truly established.  I didn't really work directly in it straight away after leaving school, but it was always in the background. And so I've always been comfortable with it.  James: Yeah. But such an interesting thing. Like what's, what's the dinner time conversation. Did you have a good day, darling? Good deaths? Some good deaths?  Martin: Well, all of that. You know, I think that's the stereotype, isn't it, that funeral directors are a bit, sort of weird and severe and a bit morbid, but, but it's, it's far from the truth. You know, I think most people who work in funeral service, and the work that Annetta does, are really warm and loving and gregarious people because you have to have those qualities to really survive and thrive in, in what we do in that space. James: You kind of got to love life, Annetta.  Annetta: Absolutely. We are fiercely alive until we are dead. And I think that. Whether it's from the professional funeral side of things or more from consumer advocate and personal support side of things, coming in with a joke – why do we screw the coffin lids down so hard to keep the oncologist out. Great icebreaker: show up with cake. Make jokes, because most of us have a lot of laughter and love in our lives and it's important to leaven sorrow and, and grief. Martin: Yeah. Don't let death just drown out the…  James: What's the undertaker's joke?  Martin: Oh, there's so many. I mean, everyone used to, I used to get called Stiffy Tobin, that sort of stuff.  James: Stiffy, Tobin…  Martin: …you know, a bit. So a lot of funeral directors get called Stiffy.  Annetta: …that's a 1930s cartoon character, isn't it?  James: It's like, it's the, the Millers, the Millers and bakers are Dusty. You know, it's that, it's that era, isn't it? Annetta: You're a Tintin character.  James: Yeah, exactly.  Martin: Yeah. Luckily I wasn't, you know, I don't fit the stereotype of tall and gray. I'm sort of fairly short and not gray. And so when I joined our family business, I was quite young. So I was lucky I sort of didn't fit that stereotype. And back in the early 90s, there was very few women, very few people, young people, very few people from, from diverse backgrounds. So it's changed a lot really for the better in that sense. So there's no stereotypical funeral director now it's, it's a really, really diverse.  James: What's a, what's a doula? Annetta: Well, a doula is someone who supports life's transitions. So I've been a birth doula, and it's a very powerful energy when someone comes into the world, but it's really not my jam. I like the other transition, and I'm better at it.  I provide an awful lot of information for people who have questions like, what is this going to feel like? Should I be at home or should I be in the hospital? And the point of a lot of my conversations is not to provide answers, but to support people into recognising what's best for them, which I suspect is actually quite a lot of what Martin does, with the way that you work with businesses.  James: When do you turn up? Annetta: A piece of string question. I can turn up pre-need, so there's no terminal or life limiting diagnosis. There's a bit of a myth that we turn up magically, like a fairy, in the last 24 hours of life. That's not really great or optimal.  James: So, do some people get you, even if, well, I don't have a diagnosis, but I want to start working with a doula? Annetta: If you're a doula like me who does planning and can answer questions and help people prepare their documentation and their wishes, because that's not anything you want to be doing at the last minute and in cases where there's dementia and cognitive decline. It's too late then to get your planning in place. So I also help to support and foster family-wide and network-wide conversations so that everyone understands if someone's interested in assisted dying, let's talk about that. Does anyone have questions, for example. Or have you considered your pets in your planning? Are you including your grandchildren or just your children? Would you prefer to die in a medicalised environment, ideally, or in a home like environment?  James: So you can, yeah, so you're there at any point and really every circumstance is entirely different.  Annetta: It is, it's unique every single time.  James: Same for funerals?  Martin: Yeah, I mean, a funeral really should be a reflection of the person's life and interests and values and philosophies, and sometimes, you know, historically, traditionally, in say the last couple of hundred years that, that often revolved around their, their faith. So these days funerals are quite sort of open-ended, quite, quite unstructured, quite celebratory and people are trying to find some ritual in that and some meaning in that and, and that's the, that's the real change that's happening in funeral service.  You know, funerals have been going on for thousands of years. They're one of the early rituals of human, human existence. So, and they emanate from the human need to stop when someone from among us leaves us, and reflect on that person's life, to typically grieve that person, if they meant something to us. So that is, you know, invariably people feel sad, not always, but typically. And people have to then say, well, how do we, how do we move forward without this person? And then for a lot of people, that's incredibly difficult. Grief, grief is just our response to loss. You can't control it. You can't make it go away. So if you suppress it in the early days, it comes back to bite you later. So a funeral is a chance to gather, reflect, embrace the reality of the death and embrace the early stages of the grief, the pain that you'll often experience, and to receive support from your community and to let go of that person because they go from being with you to being a memory.  James: It's interesting the way you phrased it or the point of view you expressed there was to me it was the person closest to whoever's died, it's for them. And then it's for the community. It's not for us. Funeral's not for the guy that died. The funeral's for us. 

Dying well We’re all going to die, but how we acknowledge death and dying is a very personal experience. Award-winning journalist and author Tracey Spicer and anthropologist Dr Hannah Gould explore etiquette, rites and traditions to find out what makes a ‘good death’. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Tracey Spicer AM is a Walkley award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster. And she's an ambassador for Dying With Dignity. A vocal campaigner and advocate for voluntary assisted dying (VAD), Tracey penned a letter to her mother following her painful death in 1999. Dr Hannah Gould is an anthropologist who works in the areas of death, religion and material culture. She recently appeared on SBS documentary: Ray Martin: The Last Goodbye. Hannah’s research spans new traditions and technologies of Buddhist death rites, the lifecycle of religious materials, and modern lifestyle movements.  If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube    Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel  Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: James: We're all going to die. Happens to all of us. But how we acknowledge death and dying is of course a very personal experience. With our guest and our expert, we're going to explore the etiquette, the rites and traditions seen in Australia and around the world. Someone who knows a lot about the rites and traditions of death is Dr Hannah Gould, an anthropologist who works in the areas of death, religion and material culture. We're also going to be joined by Tracey Spicer, she’s a Walkley award-winning author, journalist and broadcaster. And she's an ambassador for Dying With Dignity. Tracey and Hannah, welcome. Thank you so much. Tracey: Hello.  James: Thank you for coming. Hannah Gould. Hello. Thank you for coming. Hannah: Thank you.  James: Fantastic. Let's talk death!  Tracey: Why not? There'll be lots of fun.  James: Do you laugh in the face of death?  Hannah: What else can you do? I mean, look, you know. Lots of sadness, lots of joy, every single emotion is reasonable, surely. I mean, it's like the question, the ultimate question of philosophy, of history, of every discipline. Every response is valid. Not always useful, or helpful.  James: Yeah. Yeah. Hannah: But valid. Tracey: Well, it's a universal topic of conversation and that's why I've always loved dark humour. Because you do have to laugh, otherwise what do you do?  James: I also think it's, it is the ultimate joke that we are all going to die, but we live like we're not going to. We live every day as though it's just not going to happen at all.  Tracey: Especially in Western society, I think other cultures have got it right and we're in such deep denial about it. It's detrimental to all of us.  James: Yeah. Now this is your area of expertise really, is that do other cultures have it right? Hannah: Everyone does it differently. Right or wrong is kind of a difficult thing to judge. I think certainly there's a big thing called, like, the denial of death thesis, right. And, and people like Ernest Becker, a lot of different philosophers and anthropologists and cultural, you know, analysis have looked at Western culture and gone, Oh my gosh, we are so invested in denying death, right. And whether that's through denying death by religions that say you're going to live forever, like, you know, don't worry, it's not the end. You'll pop off to heaven or whatever it is.  Or through, you know, great heroic myths. Yes, you'll die, but the nation will remember you forever. So, you know, you won't really die. You'll be a martyr.  Or contemporary, you know. Yes, you'll die, but have you seen how great the shopping is? You know, we can just ignore, we can deny death by being on Instagram and, you know, consuming, right, so, I think Western culture in particular, the way we've organised our society, allows us to not think about death. James: And we've organised death to be somewhere else, usually now. To be in a hospital, to be in palliative care somewhere. And they may be good, but they're not, they're not in the cottage, are they? They're not next to, not in the bedroom.  Hannah: Not in the bedroom. So, we know that, say, 70% of Australians wish to die at home. Only about 15% do. And that is a rate that is lower than all these other countries we like to compare ourselves. So Australians are more institutionalised in their death than places like Ireland, like New Zealand, the United States of America, even Canada. We tend, more than other countries, to die in institutions – aged care, hospitals, and hospices.  James: Yeah, right, right. The other way in which we deny death is, or the other way in which other cultures have a different attitude to death, will be that it'll either be more accepting – we are all going to die, will be part of their every day – or they may have a notion of reincarnation and coming back, which means that that's a very different attitude to death, really, than a, than a heaven and a hell.  Hannah: Yeah, it's not necessarily an end so much. I think that's kind of quite common in, say, you know, Buddhist or Hindu or other kind of dharmic religions, particularly Asian religions. And then, obviously, there's a lot of Asian religion that's part of Australian society, so that's also quite present in Australia.  But we can also have a kind of more secular idea about that. You know, a lot of these, a lot of my mum's generation in particular, have kind of a green environmental kind of reincarnation model where she will say, well, I don't particularly believe in heaven, but I do believe I'm going to become compost. Food for worms, you know, I'll come back as a tree or a flower or a tomato plant, you know, and that's, that's a kind of reincarnation of like reintegration into the natural environment, as it were.  So there are some kind of myths or stories we can tell ourselves that perhaps help us think about death more positively. James: I've got a, a friend of mine who'd be into her 80s has said, oh, funeral? Just put me up the top paddock, let the crows have a go.  Tracey: Yeah. My dad wants to be buried in a cardboard box, and I think that's a wonderful idea.  James: We all say that, don't we? That's a really common one as well. I hear that a lot on the radio. People will go, mate, just, I don't care, put me out with the, on the hard rubbish day.  Hannah: In the paddock, whatever it is… James: …the paddock, that’s the same sort of thing I said. You know, like, do we really want that, do you think?  Hannah: Oh, do we really want that? I do think Aussies are pretty pragmatic about death. I do think we have a certain streak in us that's kind of like, you know what, it's all a bit much fuss, it's all too much. You kind of even get these people who therefore say, don't have a funeral. You know, I really don't want to have a funeral. Please don't even, you know, no fuss. That can be kind of sad sometimes because I think it's some people kind of not acknowledging how many people love them and miss them.  James: Yeah.  Hannah: Um, but maybe it's also a bit of an Aussie humour, dry humour, that, that black humour again of kind of, you know, trying to laugh in the face of death. Why not?  Tracey: I would agree, but then we all get sucked in when we're in the funeral home, and they show you the cardboard box, and then they show you the glossy one that's 10 or 20 thousand dollars, and you think, did I really love that person that much, or should I do it? So it all feeds into what you were talking about before, that consumerism and overcommercialisation. James: Well, I also think sometimes, I would think it's about weddings. Weddings and funerals, well, who's it actually for?  Tracey: Yeah, yeah. Well it's a punctuation mark, isn't it? I'm a lifelong atheist, but  Tracey: I do enjoy, it sounds terrible, going to those kind of ceremonies, whether it's a funeral or a wedding, because it's important to celebrate or commemorate these changes, these huge changes. James: I love the sharing of stories at a funeral. People start talking.  Tracey: Well, you learn so much about someone's life that you may not have known. And also often they're rich for that dark humour.  I'll never forget my grandmother's funeral, who I was incredibly close to. And my father's new girlfriend loved my grandmother. She was so distraught she tried to throw herself into the hole in the ground on top when she was throwing the dirt in and I thought, well, that's intense.  James: That's good.  Tracey: That's, I've never seen that before. That's a first.  Hannah: Oh, I've seen that before.  Tracey: Have you?! Hannah: I will say that, you know, when you attend enough funerals or attend enough cremations for professional reasons, um, as it were, you kind of see everything, every range of human

Let’s talk about death, baby From breaking the stigma to understanding the conversations we need to have before we die, beloved broadcaster and advocate Andrew Denton and clinical psychologist Dr Kerrie Noonan dissect everything we should and shouldn’t say about death. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. Andrew Denton is renowned as a producer, comedian and Gold Logie-nominated TV presenter, but for the past decade he has been devoted to a very personal cause. He is the founder of Go Gentle Australia, a charity advocating for better end of life choices that was instrumental in passing voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws across Australia.  Senior clinical psychologist Dr Kerrie Noonan is director of the Death Literacy Institute; director of research, Western NSW Local Health District; and adjunct Associate Professor, Public Health Palliative Care Unit, La Trobe University. For the past 25 years she has been working to create a more death literate society, one where people and communities have the practical know-how needed to plan well and respond to dying, death and grief. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel -- Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains discussions about death, which may be triggering or upsetting for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. If you are struggling with the loss of a loved one, please know that you are not alone  and there are resources available. For additional support please contact Lifeline on 131 114 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636. TRANSCRIPT: James: Hello, and welcome to Life's Booming. I'm James Valentine, and this season, we're talking about death. Or, on this episode, why we don't talk about it enough. Death is really easy to talk about, but avoiding the subject just makes things even harder. From breaking the stigma to understanding the conversations we must have before we die, I'll be dissecting everything we should and shouldn't say about death with two fascinating minds. Andrew Denton is the founder of Go Gentle Australia. A charity advocating for better end of life choices, but you probably know him better from so many shows on our TV. And Dr Kerrie Noonan is a senior clinical psychologist and social researcher, determined to increase our death literacy. Kerrie, Andrew, thanks so much for joining us. Do you know one another?  Andrew: Yes we do. Yeah.  Kerrie: Yeah, along the way.  Andrew: We've had a few conversations about death, dying, literacy, all those things. Yeah.  James: How did you learn about death? Like when did you, and who did you go to talk to? When did you start thinking about it? Andrew: Well, I think you learn about death the way everybody does, which is you experience it. And the first time it happened to me, I made a documentary about teenagers with cancer, Canteen, the support group, and one of those young men died. And his parents very generously invited me to visit him as he was dying. And that was the first time I actually saw what death can be. And it was, it was very hard to see and then watching my own father die obviously was a profound moment for me because that was an unhappy death. But how I've learned about it since is, I imagine a bit like Kerrie. I've had thousands of hours of conversations with people who are dying and their families and their carers. And, I've learned so much about death I feel I've mastered it and can move on.  James: Yeah, true. That's right. Is that, is this what you mean by death literacy, that, that in some ways we just need to be talking about it more? Kerrie: It's, it's talking about it. That, that's one aspect. But it's, it's kind of developing your know-how and being able to put that know-how into practice. So, you can maybe talk about, maybe have some competency in terms of talking or maybe doing one element, related to death and dying. But, when you put it into practice, that's when death literacy kind of really comes to life. It kind of sits, some of the research we've done recently, it's evident that death literacy sits in networks, in-between people, within people, in communities, so it's not just about individuals.  James: I suppose I'm wondering about at what point we might have this, or there'd be a difference in death literacy with 20-year-olds than there would be with 80-year-olds, right? Kerrie: Yes, experience changes your death literacy. That's probably the strongest predictor. So we started this research looking at networks of care and how people kind of come together. And so where we're at now is we're looking at what are the predictors and what are the things that we understand so that we can understand more about how to make more death literacy, I guess. So an example, that's your question, well I can give a real example. When my mum was in hospital, we were, we needed someone to help us to move mum from the hospital to home because we wanted to take her home. And we couldn't get the health system or the medical system to do that. So I put an email out, a text message out to my friends who happened to work in the death space. And within an hour we had someone, within two hours, mum was home. And so. That took, you know, that set off a little chain of conversations, emails, texts. And while I was doing that, my brother was getting the medication sorted and other things sorted for my mum. So we really, we utilised, to bring my mum home, we utilised like every bit of knowledge and our networks to do that. James: But you were at the centre of, you know, you, you study this, you're a, you know, an advocate for it, and so you're at the centre of it. You would have a network. I mean, I don't know that I've got the same network. I'd, I could put it out to my friends and they'd go, we could bring wine. Oh, you know, like, I don't know that they'd, I don't know that they'd be that practical. Kerrie: But that's actually helpful too. You need your friends to turn up with wine and, and bread and whatever comforts. So we found that younger people, for example, so we've done two kind of national studies just to kind of demonstrate your point about younger people. Between, 2019, pre COVID, and 2023, we looked at the population and we looked at death literacy and how it changed. And we found that voluntary assisted dying and COVID had an impact on people's death literacy, particularly for the younger people, anyone who's experienced a death, anyone who's been through loss, has higher death literacy than people who haven't. And so, there's lots of things that contribute to that, but, COVID, I think, we're still kind of looking at the data, but certainly voluntary assisted dying because of the way that you need to kind of have conversations, you need to actually reach out to your networks, you need to talk to doctors, you know, there are actually lots of interactions in that that really stretch your skills and, your understanding. James: It's only a few generations back when death was very present in our life. The conversation about voluntary assisted dying has perhaps allowed us to have that conversation again. Have you seen that?  Andrew: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there's, there's a lovely, witty observation that in Victorian times they talked about death all the time and never about sex. And today it's the other way around. It's not that many generations ago where the body would lie in the house and there'd be a viewing in the house. And so it was, it was a more human thing, the way Kerrie's describing her friends helping her mother come home, that's a communal and human thing. And when I talk about voluntary assisted dying, I must and I want to bracket it with palliative care, because really, despite the fact politically they were oppositional during the legislative debate, they're very much on the same end of the spectrum, which is we're all going to die, and the concept of palliative care, which is also the same idea of voluntary assisted dying, is not, ‘Let's get you to the dying bit, but how do you live as well as you can while you are dying?’ And that dying process could be very short or it could be very long, it could be several years. You, usually you can't be really clear. So the whole point as Kerrie said about voluntary assisted dying and palliative care is you talk about these things. And interestingly, I think there's a paralysis around death, and you know, you said, well, my friends wouldn't know what to do, they'd bring wine, as Kerrie said, that's no bad thing. But if you put out a call to your friends to say, I need to move my fridge, somebody's going to say, I've got a ute.  James: Yes.  Andrew: …your need, perhaps, to leave hospital and go home, that's the same question… James: They might have a ute. Andrew: …It's just, it's just a human question, which is, I need help. And not only do we get paralysed in the face of death and assume that the experts have the answers, but the experts often get paralysed in the face of death. They don't know how to have those conversations either. So one of the things that voluntary assisted dying absolutely has done, and there was a, a

Join James Valentine for the sixth season of Life’s Booming: Dying to Know, our most unflinching yet. We’ll have the conversations that are hardest to have, ask the questions that are easy to ignore, and hear stories that will make you think differently about the one thing we’re all guaranteed to experience: Death. Featuring interviews with famous faces as well as experts in the space, we uncover what they know about what we can expect. There are hard truths, surprising discoveries, tears and even laughs. Nothing about death is off the table. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – lifesbooming@seniors.com.au  Watch Life’s Booming on YouTube    Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with AmpelSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Many of us put off creating or updating our wills, often because it feels like it's something that can be addressed later. But life is unpredictable, and having a current will is vital to protecting your loved ones and reflecting your wishes when the time comes. In this special episode, host James Valentine speaks to TV personality and keynote speaker Barry Du Bois about his very personal story, and hear from Safewill CEO and founder Adam Lubofsky about the importance of securing your legacy. About the episode - brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 31 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in between.  This special episode commemorates Australian Seniors inaugural Update Your Will Day on 20 October, and reminds Australians of the importance of protecting your legacy for the ones we leave behind. In 2011, keynote speaker and former The Living Room presenter Barry Du Bois sat in front of a team of doctors and heard the immortal words: it's time to put your affairs in order. Facing a cancer diagnosis, he turned his attention to securing his legacy for his family. Safewill founder and CEO Adam Lubofsky created his online platform to help Australians simplify the process of writing and updating their will. He shares some of the common will myths and reminds us all of the importance of regularly reviewing your will to ensure your estate plan is current, legally valid, and reflective of your intentions.  If you want to share your story to Life’s Booming, visit seniors.com.au/podcast. Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube  Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify:  Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts  For more information About Australian Seniors visit seniors.com.au/podcast. Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience AgencySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Here we delve into another aspect of our health that is often less spoken about: mental health. Older people are more likely to experience contributing factors to depression and anxiety, such as physical illness or personal loss, but how many seek help? In this episode, comedian Mary Coustas (aka Effie) shares her very personal story, and we get insight from clinical psychologist Dr Charlotte Keating on how to better care for your mental health. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in-between Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. Mary Coustas is one of Australia’s most loved actors, comedians & corporate speakers. In 1987 she became a member of the ground-breaking stage show ‘Wogs out of Work’, where her comic creation Effie was born. She is about to embark on a national tour, called UpYourselfness.  Dr Charlotte Keating is a clinical psychologist with a PhD in neuroscience, who runs her own private practice in Sydney's Lower North Shore. She is a passionate advocate for everyone's mental health, and has a particular interest in helping executives, parents, and young people. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au. Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube  Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency   Transcript: James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming Series 5 of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to. There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal? of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review, tell all your families and friends about it. And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you, let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're going to look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions. So think about those areas. And if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know. On this episode, we'll delve into another aspect of our health that is perhaps less spoken about, zeroing in on mental health. We'll be speaking to clinical psychologist Dr Charlotte Keating, who is currently practising in Sydney. But first, let's introduce someone you might know as Effie, comedian Mary Coustas. Well, hello. So we're going to talk some mental health. We're going to talk about these kind of things. What affects you as you get older, how you deal with it as you get older, what changes. What have you noticed, Mary?  Mary Coustas: Here's the thing. I love contrast. I love contradiction. I like all those things that when put together make for a more interesting mix. You feel more yourself, obviously, with age. You've worked through what matters and what doesn't, and hopefully you've found a healthy place to put what you've learned, either in practice or out there into the world. And I do it through laughter, mostly. But your body goes through something else that you should have anticipated, but you didn't. So I found the whole menopause thing really tricky, particularly for me, because when I was going through perimenopause, I was doing 10 years of IVF. So it was hard for me to know that I was going through perimenopause because I was taking IVF drugs, to have my now daughter. So then I missed that. And then I was much later, I came to motherhood late. And so then after I gave birth to my daughter, I was going through menopause, but you think because women are so accustomed to discomfort – and I'm not talking about marriage – sometimes it's that we don't connect the dots enough. So I thought it must be because I've just become a mother and the hormones from that, and I didn't realise it was the menopause thing. And the menopause thing plagues us in many different ways, but mentally it's a big one. It was the biggest one for me.  James Valentine: Before that, I mean, it's a bit of a cliche to say that the comedians are often doing that because of anxiety, because of various mental health issues. Were you that? Is Effie the outcome of that? Mary Coustas: No, I mean, yes, I had anxiety. I had a dying father. That doesn't help. Like he was unwell from before I was born. So that was the only true anxiety, apart from the racism that I encountered and then turned into a career.  James Valentine: Yeah. You mentioned that, like, Effie's a response to racism. I suppose I hadn't quite realised that. Explain how that came about.  Mary Coustas: Well, I was very confident growing up in a working class multicultural suburb. And then we moved as a family. My dad was very much a bigger picture sort of guy and said, we need to go where you can get a better education. And unfortunately that was in a very white area and I was the little seed. From the multigrain that made it into a very wide area. And I was spotted immediately. You know, everything about me. I was very into fashion. I had my Suzi Quatro haircut. I was on it. I paid a terrible price for that. For being different.  James Valentine: How old were you? Mary Coustas: I was nine. And it peaked I think a year or two in, and I just couldn't find a way to make it work for me. I was ostracised and it was tough. It was very, very tough because it was coinciding with my dad's health. And it was a very defining moment for me. And I hated the suburbs. I still get a little bit, oh god, I've got to get back to the inner. Because I feel like that's where we celebrate togetherness a bit more. We don't drive up a driveway and close the garage door and say goodbye to the day and everyone around us. I don't like that isolated feeling. So, the minute I stood on stage during my high school years, in musicals, which is ridiculous, I don't sing at all, but I mime brilliantly, I just went, okay, this is my stage, and this is where I can express myself. The Greeks built this thing thousands of years ago and they knew something and it's my thing and because I love the older generation so much and their stories, and this is beautifully folding into the conversation that we're having. I was never bored with that generation and what they'd experienced in their village stories and how they came to Australia and what that was like for them. So the marriage of that obsession with the older generation, with finding a healthy outlet to express the big noose that was hanging around my social neck, which was race, Wogs Out of Work happened.  I served Nick Giannopoulos as a waitress. He just graduated from acting school and so had I. I didn't know him. But then he told me, we went to the same primary school, the same Greek school. I mean, it was just so bizarre. And then Wogs Out of Work happened and that was the thing that changed the conversation in Australia. It was such a humongous stage show that really addressed the elephant in the cultural room and then discovered that the elephant was the best thing ever. And there were lots of elephants and there were giraffes and big lions and so I think the world has changed. Well, certainly mine has. And I think there are a lot of people out there that are now super confident. And Effie was the perfect way to illustrate a young girl like so many Greeks. On paper, Effie would appear as failed, I would imagine, her English isn't great. She's working class. She's primarily uneducated, she left at Year 10, went and studied hairdressing.  Walks into any room, whether it's with the prime minister in the room, which I've done a lot of, that high-end corporate stuff. Any room, any place feels worthy, feels relevant and still 35 years in, is that example of someone that is because of self love. It's funny because my current stage show is called Upyourselfness, and Effie, in that, says it's the only immunity we have left is to love who we are. And in the show prior to this one, this one is about political correctness and language. And as I said, Effie's never been great with language, but she's been great with feelings and demystifying things. The show before this one, Effie talked about lockdowns and COVID and she admitted to her own mental health issues. So I think she's a great mouthpiece for me to express so much of what I want to say about the world. She comes in a very animated form and I think people believe everything she says because it is based in truth, my truth. And then I wrap it up in her little boofy exterior and accent and put it out into the world. And so she was born out of necessity and out of my truth.  But yeah, I'm a very hyper sort of person, never been diagnosed with anything other than plenty of energy. And if I look at my mother who's 85, she's got plenty of it too.

In this episode we spotlight gut health, and all the normal, and more unusual, health issues connected to our digestive systems. We speak to clinical nutritionist and the author of The Gut Repair Plan, Sarah Di Lorenzo, plus Melbourne chef and founder of Made by Tobie, a home delivery meal service, Tobie Puttock. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in-between Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. Sarah Di Lorenzo is a clinical nutritionist and author of four books, including her latest, The Gut Repair Plan. She is resident nutritionist for Sunrise and Weekend Sunrise, and is passionate about sharing information about a healthy diet and eating the right foods to help with sleep, stress, weight loss, immunity, and slowing down the ageing process.  Chef Tobie Puttock began his career in Melbourne, before travelling and cooking around the world, including alongside good friend Jamie Oliver, who shared his passion for simply cooked food. His most recent focus is his own brand of frozen ready meals, Made by Tobie, with a focus on producing meals that aren’t harmful to us or the environment.   If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au. Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube  Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast  Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency   Transcript: James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming Series 5 of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to. There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal? of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review. Tell all your families and friends about it. And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you, let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're going to look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions. So, think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know. On this episode, Getting to the guts of it, we spotlight gut health, the normal, and the more unusual health issues connected to our digestive systems. We speak to clinical nutritionist and the author of The Gut Repair Plan, Sarah Di Lorenzo, plus Melbourne chef and founder of Made by Tobie, a home delivery meal service, Tobie Puttock. Sarah Di Lorenzo: Hi, thank you so much for having me.  James Valentine: Why are you a nutritionist? I can't even say it! Sarah Di Lorenzo: Nutritionist, a clinical nutritionist. Why? I started with my own gut health, really, was what drove me into becoming a clinical nutritionist. I just did really notice around the age of 15 that foods affected me differently. I noticed it with white bread in particular, and I would go home and say to my dad, who's a psychiatrist, a doctor, and I'd just say, I don't feel well when I eat that food. And he goes, oh yeah, yeah, we all feel like that from bread. It's probably a Greek thing, whatever. You'll be fine. Don't worry. And so I watched my dad always living his life bloated, and I was like, yeah, yeah, it's not great.  And then when I was in Italy when I was 18 for a few months, it was the most incredible experience that I clearly just couldn't enjoy, because I had gut issues, I had non-coeliac gluten insensitivity, self diagnosed. And then I ended up after that, when I came back at that young age, I was doing my science degree at Sydney Uni, I came back and I was like, I need to work on my gut because my quality of life is not great. And so it dominated my life and I just couldn't enjoy my life. And so that's what I started doing was working on my own gut and I'm 51. So that's like 30 years ago, more so 32 years ago, I started, I realised then, so I went through my own gut healing journey and have spent a lot of those younger years just looking at my own rest and retest, trying different foods, creating menus, creating diets, I just did it as a hobby and a passion.  And then I went on to study nutritional medicine after that, when I realised that it was really my calling. I feel like I'm a healer. I do. I've healed myself and now I want to heal everyone else. James Valentine: Now, let's go to chef Tobie. Hello Tobie.  Tobie Puttock: Hello, how are you today?  James Valentine: Thank you so much for joining us. It's fantastic to get some time with you. This is something that's close to you. You think about the gut a lot. Tobie Puttock: My wife, when we first met, she was very controlled by her stomach issues. So obviously all tied in with the gut. She had food poisoning when she was younger so badly she was hospitalised for a few days – not from my cooking! I didn't know her at this stage, it was in the UK, and it really screwed her gut up.  So I remember for the first about three or four years of our relationship, everything was dictated by that. And it was IBS basically. And I didn't really understand, I'd never met anyone with such an issue before. And, you know, we'd have dinner plans, we'd be all ready to go. And suddenly her stomach would start to feel uncomfortable and we'd have to cancel dinner. Our whole life revolved around the stomach issues and after being together a few years, I had the opportunity to write my first cookbook. We were living in the UK at the time, we came back to Australia and I met an amazing person named Dr Sue Shepherd. She goes under a different surname these days, but she is kind of a guru in the gut health space and she spent some time with my wife and basically together we adjusted her diet and she solved her own issues. So she no longer has IBS. James Valentine: That's great. And it's come on a lot, hasn't it? Our consciousness of the gut, eating for our gut biome, I would say it's a way of thinking about food that's come up about in the last decade or so. Tobie Puttock: Yeah, 100 per cent. Being in food for my career and my whole life revolves around food, I see things jumping in and out of fashion and gut health has been a huge fashionable topic for a long time, and now it seems to have mellowed out into actual just fact. People accept that your gut is super important and eating the right foods and gut health really can make a huge difference to your life. James Valentine: Yep. Well, let's plan a diet, a pantry for good gut health. What kind of dishes, what kind of ingredients do you focus on if you're thinking gut health?  Tobie Puttock: Well, first of all, I try and eat as little processed foods as possible. So I also have quite an empty pantry at most times, but obviously fermented foods are fantastic, I do a lot of fermenting. After I jump off here, I will be going to make sauerkraut this morning, but things like kimchi, most fermented foods, are fantastic. And then there's going to be, if you do have things like IBS, there's going to be a lot of trigger foods that will be quite acidic as well. But yeah, definitely for me, we have a lot of sort of robust greens, lots of cavolo nero, Tuscan kale, brussels sprouts and all the good stuff there. James Valentine: Right. I like that description of robust greens. These are the tough ones.  Tobie Puttock: All the brassicas. So we're steering, you know, I think things like cos lettuce are fantastic and they're sexy and rocket lettuce and all that kind of stuff. But I remember a few years ago, it was probably 2013, I made a big life change, I just got spat out of kitchens, I was probably quite unhealthy without realising it, I was just going through life as a lot of people did and I was insanely stressed. And I started doing a lot of yoga, and my wife, at the time, was seeing a personal trainer and trying to get shredded. And she was going to the personal trainer a couple of times a week, but coming home to eating my Italian food that I cook in restaurants, which I now wasn't cooking because I wasn't in restaurants. And she gave me a list, this amazing list of all the things we can have as much as we want of, things we should never have, and things we can have in moderation. And we started cooking from that list. And I should also pop in there that we tried to conceive and it didn't happen naturally. And they tried to tell us – well, they did tell us – that IVF would be the only way. And with a total diet overhaul cutting out all processed foods. And I don't want to say that kale saved our life or anything, but it kind of gave, you know, kind of did a little bit. I lost probably six kilos of body fat, my wife lost 10, and she wasn't big to begin with. We conceived naturally, and we kind of look at those as some of the fondest years of our life. And then we had a kid and started eat

Embarrassed about asking your doctor something? We’re doing it for you. Our experts are going to answer some of those concerns you might have that are a bit quirky, less dinner chat, more private google search type questions. Our expert doctors are getting the stigma out of the way and getting you on your way to a healthier life.  About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in-between Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. This episode, we hear from Sydney GP Dr Sam Hay. Also known as Dr Kiis, Sam is director of the Your Doctors network, health expert for Kidspot, and was host of Embarrassing Bodies Down Under and Amazing Medical Stories. You'll also hear from geriatrician Dr Simon Grof, who has been a consultant geriatrician at Victoria’s Eastern Health since 2014, and is Chief Medical Officer at Jewish Care Victoria, who talks through some questions of ageing in later life. And Dr Mohammad Jomaa is a Sport and Exercise Physician, who has a special interest in sports-related injuries and their management, and shares his advice on mobility and healthy exercise for over 50s, to maintain longevity.   If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au. Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast. Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency   Transcript: James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming, series five of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to. There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal? of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review. Tell all your families and friends about it.  And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you, let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're going to look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions. So think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know. On this episode of Life's Booming, we're tackling your frequently asked questions. Embarrassed about asking your doctor something? Today, we're going to do it for you. Our experts are going to answer some of those concerns you might have that are a bit quirky, a little bit less, “I can talk to my friends about this or at a dinner party”. It's more, I've got to get on Google and search this up on my own. Whether their patients voice them or not, together with our doctors, we're getting the stigma out of the way and we're getting you on your way to a healthier life. Some of you have sent in voice notes to ask us questions. Terrific, thank you so much. If you want to ask a question, you can visit the website or the link in the show notes and share a voice question. We're going to be chatting to Sydney GP, who's known as Dr Kiis, from army veteran to hit morning radio and director of the Your Doctors network: this is Dr Sam Hay. And you'll also hear from geriatrician Dr Simon Grof as well, and we'll talk about some questions of ageing in later life with him.  But first up, let's meet Sam. Sam, nice to meet you.  Sam Hay: Yeah, you too. How are you?  James Valentine: Yeah, very, very well. I suppose I'm thinking that the relationship with the GP changes as you age. You know, and unfortunately perhaps you start to get to know them really quite well. You see them a lot.  Sam Hay: Absolutely, I think for younger people, they don't fully understand what the worth of a good GP is to them. And then as people drift through their middle years, they certainly start to have more of a relationship.  James Valentine: So let's say post 50, what are the kind of things you'd recommend that we, that I should be coming to see the doctor, once a year, once every couple of years?   Sam Hay: I think there are some people out there who truly are looking after their health very, very well. They have no problems. They're very lean. They exercise a lot. They eat a great diet. They don't smoke. And they have literally nothing going on. And then they come and get a check-up and we literally find nothing. So those people, sure, they probably can go a couple of years between visits to the doctor. But in general, over the age of 50, I like to see patients every single year for a check-up because we want to pick up very early the major risk factors for the big things that are going to cause problems down the track, and those big ones are heart attacks, strokes and diabetes. James Valentine: And what do you pick up? What are you looking for?  Sam Hay: Well, we want to do a general check-up. And in that we're looking at blood pressure, weight, waist, from an examination perspective. Then we want to check the history, how are they going, how much exercise are they doing, what's their smoking, what's their general diet like, what are their stress levels, so where does mental health potentially fit into that. Pretty much all the time we'll do a set of blood tests, and once again, doing a general screen, but trying to pick up the big risk factors that come in, cholesterol, diabetes, a couple of other simple things. And then the major cancers that we need to be screening for. So your major community ones are going to be bowel cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, having a conversation with the doctor about prostate cancer screening. But then the last bit overall is we're going to look at somebody's family history. So what have they got in the family that might be putting them at more risk and does it influence all of those things? And do I have to do any other tests?  James Valentine: We've also, you know, again, I'd say if you're 50 and over, you've grown up with the notion you only see the doctor when you're sick. Sam Hay: Correct. And so it's people understanding that check-up is important. Even if the last three check-ups have been completely normal and fine, what we're trying to do is we're trying to pick up your cholesterol or your diabetes or your blood pressure or something else before it falls off a cliff. James Valentine: Yeah. This would make such a difference to you, wouldn't it, Simon, if we were all doing this in our 50s and 60s?  Simon Grof: Oh, absolutely. And I must reinforce that having a good GP is just the number one thing, I think. And we see that in hospitals all the time where some of our older people have not seen a GP for 40, 50 years; there's no-one regular, and just to have that touch point to call the GP who has that relationship and to get some of that background story is just so, so, so crucial. So, couldn't agree more.  James Valentine: Let's look at a few frequently asked questions. Do you see many 85-year-olds still smoking, Simon? Does anyone turn up? They're out for a sneaky… [inhales]. Simon Grof: People do smoke. Strangely enough, I had a virtual consultation the other day and I logged on. An 89-year-old lady, once again widowed, and she had the whole time during the hour-long consultation, and she kept on apologising saying, “I'm sorry it's a habit I can't give up.” James Valentine: And what are you seeing in smoking habits, because we are into a generation that have largely given up, you know, at 50 or 60 or so. Sam Hay: I've definitely seen a drop-off in cigarette smoking and an increase in vaping and a complete misunderstanding about the risks of vaping.  James Valentine: And what's being misunderstood? Sam Hay:  What I find fascinating is, what was it, 50 or 60 years ago, the government was endorsing cigarettes across the world. And then they realised, hang on a minute, these cause disease. And so that, all the governments had a massive flip.  And the community struggles to understand why the government won't endorse these things. Because we don't know the risks. And one of the biggest risks are that we don't really know what these chemicals do when they're vaporised and you inhale them. The second thing is, the majority of vapes that people are using come from underneath the counter, which means they're being produced in factories where you just don't know the chemicals that are in there. So yes, some of the vapes you can get from pharmacies, etc., are going to be more reliable and therefore, for want of a better word, safer, but it's all these other ones that we don't know about. And we are seeing injuries, there are people going to hospital, there are people dying, it's in the media. So it fascinates me that people are still seeking it out.  James Valentine: Yeah. I genuinely believe that anything positive that's being said about vaping is tobacco industry propaganda. But people do say, well, at least it's a way to get off s

The stigma around menopause is slowly peeling away, but many of us still suffer in silence. In this episode, we take a lighter look at the often unglamorous side-effects of menopause – from hot flushes and brain fog to facial hairs and mood swings – hearing from Aussie comedian Jean Kittson, who is living her best life on the other side, and getting the medical rundown from celebrity GP and passionate women’s health advocate Dr Ginni Mansberg. About the episode – brought to you by Australian Seniors. Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in-between Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. Jean Kittson has been entertaining audiences for decades with her wit and humour, both of which she brings to the fore in her candid and hilarious take on menopause, You're Still Hot to Me, the book she wished she had read during the momentous time in her life. Dr Ginni Mansberg is a well-known celebrity doctor based in Sydney, with television appearances in Embarrassing Bodies Down Under, Sunrise, The Morning Show, and Things You Can't Talk About on TV. She is also the author of The M Word: How to thrive in menopause. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note – Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify: Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast. About Australian Seniors Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency SSMR0502_240229_Menopause the other side_Final James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming Series 5 of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to. There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal? of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review, tell all your families and friends about it. And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you, let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're going to look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions. So think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know. When it comes to women's health in older years, it turns out that the hot flushes, the brain fog, the facial hair, the mood swings can all be linked back to the one thing and that's menopause. In this episode, Menopause the Other Side, let's take a look in some detail at the common symptoms, the experiences, and life on the other side of it. We'll get some answers about menopause, the ‘M’ word, from the queen of morning television, Dr Ginni Mansberg. But it gives me great pleasure to welcome, of course, to thispodcast as well, Jean Kittson, who wrote a fantastic book called You're Still Hot To Me, dealing with her experience and her research into menopause. Jean Kittson, hello. Jean Kittson: Hello, James.   James Valentine:Still so hot? Jean Kittson: Yes, I am, actually. Every now and then. James Valentine: Is this the 10th anniversary? Is it 10 years since you published? Jean Kittson: Yes, it is. 2014 it came out. It's into its sixth reprint now, something like that. Women still keep going through menopause. James Valentine: The book didn't fix it? Jean Kittson: No, that's right.And I thought I'd finish and everyone's finished. No, they're still going. Of course they're still experiencing menopause. And just the other night I was out with some younger women and they're still struggling. Trying to work out what the best way to handle it is and what treatment to get and they're still people pushing back around different treatments like HRT. I was really surprised. We've come on a lot more than we have 10 years ago, people are speaking about it, but there's still a lot of ignorance really, misinformation. James Valentine: It still seems to be an area of mystery, really, and half whispered truths. Oh well I've heard you should do this, and what about the other? Jean Kittson: Yes, I think people are still afraid it's going to impact on their work because the Australian Human Resources Institute did asurvey and they found that the majority of women would not mention menopause at work because they thought they'd be considered old, sidelined for leadership positions.With all the stigma still attached to menopausal women. So there's still a lot of, I don't want to talk about it in the workplace. And that of course translates to, I don't really want to talk about it at all. James Valentine: Yeah, and leading into it, let's say you're 30 or 40. You're not even thinking about it. Jean Kittson: No, well that's the thing, and yet when I was doing my book, I found that most of the women I randomly chose to interview were having their first hot flushes around 40, 42. And we're always told it's around 50, 52, 55, that area. But many, many women will start going through perimenopause, which is another part of menopause that I didn't even know existed until I went through menopause. So there's perimenopause that can start 10 years earlier. And some women are thinking, they’ll follow the Hollywood style. Oh, I’ll have a baby. She had a baby naturally at 50. So can I. I'll just keep putting it off. What? Well, was that a hot flush? What the hell? What am I going to do? You know, so it comes as a terrible shock. And I think there's a lot of things about women's bodies that need to be talked about more openly. Fertility, ovulation, menopause, all those sorts of things. James Valentine:Yeah. If only it happened to men. Jean Kittson: If only, we'd never hear the end of it. James Valentine: That's right, we'd have championships in it. Jean Kittson: Yeah, that's right. James Valentine:Set world records, all that kind of stuff. Jean Kittson:You'd have, you know, months off. Yeah. Menopause month off. James Valentine: Do you know, he's battling with menopause but still CEO. What a guy. Jean Kittson: That's right. Hang on, you can't talk to him for a moment. James Valentine: That's right, just wait. Jean Kittson:All the windows are open. James Valentine: He's a little bit emotional but come back tomorrow, he'll be fine. Jean Kittson: We were going to have a board meeting, it's cancelled. But don't worry about it, it’s menopause. James Valentine: What? Oh, that's fine, no worries. I went through it myself, man. On you go. Good on ya, chaps. Is it as simple as, like, it was happening to you and you found it difficult to find relevant information, what you needed to know? Jean Kittson: Oh yeah, that's why I wrote my book.I wrote the book I needed. I needed to find the facts out about menopause, and I found out so many other facts about my own body that had never been talked about. We're just sort of more primed, our whole body is primed to have sex when we ovulate rather than other times of the month. But we're told that women are just ready for it every day of the freaking week. James Valentine: Yeah, and let me clarify that. That was men who decided that one? Jean Kittson: Can't say it ain't so. Just because men don't understand women and don't like it when we get a little bit feisty, a little bit irritable, start giving our kids a burnt chop. You know, in the old days, we were diagnosed with climacteric insanity and locked up. And if men of a certain age got a little bit feisty, a little bit irritable, they were elected to parliament. James Valentine: That's right. That's very good. Dr Ginni Mansberg's with us. You've met! Jean Kittson: Yes, we have, Ginni, hello. Ginni Mansberg: Hello darling, how are you? Hello to both of you. James Valentine: Thank you so much for coming. Is this, like, I think what we've got to is, I'm sort of seeing, we shouldn't necessarily think about all these things as separate? It's the entire cycle of life and the entire fertility cycle of a woman that we should be discussing, not as though there's this thing that happens to people called menopause. Ginni Mansberg: Absolutely. I mean, a lot of people don't realise that menopause itself is a single day that happens 12 months from the first day of your last period. Only, you probably didn't know it was your last period at the time because your periods were all over the show, often for up to several years before you go into menopause proper. And we call that perimenopause. I call it hormone hell. Your hormones are giving you a triple pike with a half flip because they are going up and down like a yo-yo, and our brains and our bodies really don't like those fluctuating hormone levels. So often, exactly as Jean was saying, the worst of it comes in your mid to late 40s, not in your late 50s. That's not it at all. In fact, sometimes life gets a lot better on the other side of the rainbow after menopause. James Valentine: Hang on, just take me back. You said a single day, menopause is a single event. Ginni Ma

Changes to our joints, bones and muscles are often attributed simply to ageing ‘wear and tear’, but is that true? From creaky joints to hip and knee replacements, physiotherapist Rod Grof takes us through the top musculoskeletal risks as we age, while Logie-winning actor John Wood shares his own health story, and how health impacts his life. About the episode - brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in between. Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. Acting veteran John Wood is no stranger to treading the boards. From Rafferty’s Rules and Blue Heelers to comedy revue Senior Moments and Ensemble Theatre’s newest show, The Great Divide, John has been entertaining audiences for more than 40 years. Rod Grof is a Melbourne-based physiotherapist and principal of Platinum Physio. Experienced in treating a range of musculoskeletal injuries and conditions in clients across the lifespan, Rod helps his older patients to live more active lives, with less pain.   If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au. Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast. Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency   Transcript: James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming Series 5 of this most excellent and award winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series we're going to ask the question, is this normal? I mean, as we age, stuff happens to us. Our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to. There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal?, of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review, tell all your families and friends about it. And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you. Let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're gonna look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions. So think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know. From creaky joints to hip and knee replacements, let's find out the things that are really gonna affect our muscles and our bones, our musculoskeletal system. Someone who knows muscles a lot better than me is Melbourne based director of platinum physio, Rod Grof. Rod helps his older patients to live more active lives with less pain and he can share what commonly happens to our bodies as we age and also what we can do about it. But before we bring on Rod, let me introduce someone who's very familiar to you. You're gonna know him. He's a great guy and a marvellous actor. You got to know and love him in Blue Heelers. He's currently in the ensemble theatres The Logie winning actor. Hello, John Wood.  John Wood: Hello, James. How are you?  James Valentine: Good. You're a bit crook.  John Wood: Oh, I'm not that crook. I've had Rheumatoid arthritis for about the last 15 years and it sort of slows you down.  James Valentine: What did you first notice?  John Wood: Pains in the ankles, really. You know, quite severe pains in the ankles and difficulty getting around. And then I started to notice it in the hands, you know, like it was, you know, the knuckles were really swelling up and the hand was very difficult to move, but I also discovered I had Gout in, certainly in this hand, this hand I had an MRI done on and it was full of uric acid. James Valentine: Yeah, right. And were they, what did they say at the time, was that compounding, were they separate things or compounding one another?  John Wood: Well, they're separate and you take different medication for them both. I mean, you take allopurinol for the gout and methotrexate for the arthritis and I've started taking curcumin recently, which seems to settle things down a bit, and mersynofen.  And this week, I've had, I don't know why it's happened, but I seem to have something like bursitis. There's no lump or swelling or anything, but the elbow has been giving me jib James Valentine: It just happens. It's like, what do you do? It just happens, doesn't it? Everything starts to go a bit. How long a period, like from say the ankle pain to the joints, are we talking months, years?  John Wood: Not very long. It was, it just seems that I've got Rheumatoid everywhere. You know, like it's, apart from slowing me down a bit, it hasn't really affected my work, except for one occasion I auditioned for the Harry Potter musical and they had us marching up and down and across and sideways and doing all sorts of stuff and that was all fine, then this associate director from England said, now I want you all to fall down. And I said, I can't even get on the ground to play choo-choo trains with my grandkids. So I said, it's a big mistake getting me to fall down. He said, nevermind fall down anyway. So I fell down and I had to be helped up by Julie Forsyth and a couple of other women. James Valentine: And so it doesn't impede you that much, but it's painful. John Wood: It's always very painful. Yeah. But at the moment, it's not too bad. I guess you get used to it as time goes on. And I've been lucky that the methotrexate has stopped any, you know, the stuff that says swelling.  James Valentine: Yeah. It doesn't seem to be there.  John Wood: No, no. And you know, I remember seeing old ladies when I was a kid, you know, whose fingers were really gnarled and bent.  James Valentine: And sort of folded into a claw almost.  John Wood: Yeah, yeah.  James Valentine: It’s shocking. And so apart from the drugs, what else have you, what else have you tried? Exercise, diet?  John Wood: Oh I'm trying, I'm staying at Kirribilli at the moment of course, and it's a bloody long walk up to the shops at Milsons Point. Just about, you know, like I'm getting fitter.  James Valentine: Well let's bring in Rod. He's Director of Platinum Physio and he helps patients like you, you know, with, I suppose, the non chemical approach and trying to get that bloody long walk to maybe go a bit bloody further.  Rod, thanks for joining us. What are you hearing and what John's telling us? Rod Grof: I'm hearing a very common story. We have plenty of patients who come into our clinic with Rheumatoid arthritis. And you said John, 15 years ago was your onset of it. So often we hear that Rheumatoid arthritis’ onset is between the ages of 30 to 50 years of age.  And you're currently taking methotrexate: just for our listeners, that’s actually a immunosuppressant, so it's going to slow down the immune response and in turn reduce, hopefully reduce the inflammatory response as well. And starting in the ankles, that's fairly common, but more so starting in the hands and the feet is probably the first point. And then it progresses to the knees, the ankles and as you've mentioned now, the elbows.  James Valentine: You think the elbows are Rheumatoid?  Rod Grof: There's a very good chance that it would be, yes.  John Wood: Oh great, right.  Rod Grof: But again, without a proper assessment, we can't categorically tell you that. But just interestingly that you mentioned that, you know, when James asked you about the exercise side of things, there's some really great non pharmacological interventions, John, that you could really get involved in.  And one of them, which I could speak really highly about would be something called hydrotherapy, which is exercising in warm water at approximately 34 degrees Celsius, and just being able to really get a good workout and have a really targeted workout, which will address your muscles as well as your tendons and your ligaments that are ultimately affected by Rheumatoid arthritis to help improve things like your flexibility and we need to know, have you noticed that you've had changes in your flexibility, your mobility over the years?  John Wood: I’ve never been all that flexible. I had, I was told when I was in my early teens, I had back trouble and the doctor discovered that I had two L5 vertebrae and I, you know, like most men, I used to use my spine like a crane and just, you know.  James Valentine: And so is that like, so during the course of the rheumatoid arthritis, say the last 15 years, has anyone suggested exercise or anything apart from drugs? John Wood: Well, I was doing my own exercise. I was walking in the RACV club pool at a place called Healesville in Victoria. And it's really great exercise because it's 1. 2 meters deep. It's a heated pool. It's not heated to as warm as Rod suggested but, it's great. I mean, you know, walking through water and I used to do it. James Valentine: That was sort of self prescribed, wasn't it? You just thought this is good. John Wood: Yeah, yeah. I just thought this is, you know, like the water takes a bit of weight off the joints.  James Valentine: But no one has said at any point, you know, when you go back to get it checked or, you know, no

Linked to metabolism and even menopause, weight gain for many over 50s seems inevitable, but is it really? We ask celebrity GP Dr Brad McKay for his take, and speak to author Jacqui Hodder about how she overcame an expanding waistline to embark on a trip of a lifetime.  About the episode - brought to you by Australian Seniors.  Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in between. Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. Jacqui Hodder is a Melbourne-based writer and teacher who embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to track turtles in Costa Rica, documenting her journey in Turtling in Tortuguero. Overweight and prediabetic, she underwent a health and fitness overhaul to help her prepare, and keep up, on the month-long adventure.  Sydney-based GP Dr Brad McKay is an experienced TV and radio broadcaster, podcaster, columnist and author of Fake Medicine. He appears regularly on The Today Show, The Drum, ABC Radio, triple j, Triple M, has presented Catalyst on the ABC and hosts several medical podcasts for health professionals. He's also on the editorial board of The Medical Republic. If you have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast. Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, with Ampel Sonic Experience Agency Transcript:  James Valentine: Hello and welcome to Life's Booming series five of this most excellent and award-winning podcast. I'm James Valentine and in this series, we're going to ask the question, Is This Normal? I mean as we age stuff happens to us, our bodies change, things fall off, we get crook, stuff doesn't work as well as it used to. There's nothing we can do about it, we're getting older, we're ageing. But which bits are normal? Which bits do we have no control over? Which bits can we do something about? That's the kind of questions that we're going to be asking in this series, Is This Normal? of Life's Booming. Now, of course, if you enjoy this series, leave us a review, tell all your families and friends about it. And we want to hear from you as well. You can contribute to this. If you've got questions about things in particular that you want to know, perhaps there's some particular wear and tear happening to you. Let us know. We'd love to see if we can answer that question in the series. We're gonna look at things like menopause, gut health, mental health, lots of other burning questions. So, think about those areas and if there's something in there that's specific to you that you'd like us to cover, let us know. And now, on to this episode of Life's Booming, Middle age spread.  Weight gain weighs you down. Both literally, it's gonna weigh you down, slow your body down, and also mentally. You don't feel as good, you're sluggish. You probably don't like the way you look. Whether it's sitting there around your gut, or it's sitting there on your bottom, or it's making your legs fat, or wherever it's gathering. The gaining of weight is something that we all have to face as we get older. And it's not, often not pretty. And not really what we're hoping for. So, how do you lose weight? What do you have to do? Do you have to go off to the 6am bootcamp? Do you have to just eat beans for the rest of your life? What are you going to have to do about it? We've got two good people to talk to about this today. A regular on Australian television programs such as Today and The Project. Kiwi born, now Sydney based GP Dr Brad McKay is going to answer some of these questions and bring his medical knowledge and experience to this. But we've also got someone who's going to tell their story, and it's a very powerful tale. A few years ago, Melbourne author and teacher, Jacqui Hodder, was planning to go on a life changing trip. She wanted to head to Costa Rica, and she wanted to volunteer to help the turtle population there, to survive and to deal with all the threats that are happening to all the wildlife around the world. This was going to take a month. She was going to go there for a month. But it was going to be a physically demanding trip. So, she realised she was going to have to get fit and deal with this. But she'd also just had some big health news as well. It's a great story and inspiring.  James Valentine: Hello, Jacqui.  Jacqui: Hi, James. How are you? James Valentine: Yeah, good, good. Now, what do you usually do? What kind of work do you do? Jacqui: I'm a high school teacher. I teach English and I teach vocational education. And I also look after the careers in the school.  James Valentine: Okay. Oh, you're the career counsellor. Jacqui: I'm the career counsellor. That's right.  James Valentine: Okay, so we come to you, and you tell us, look, you really should be a physiotherapist and then we turn out to be astrophysicists, is that it? Jacqui: Well, the theory is these days, five different careers, not jobs, but careers in your lifetime.  James Valentine: Well, that's kind of you. You've got whole other careers as well, right? Jacqui: Absolutely. Yes. Done many different things over the years, for sure.  James Valentine: And tell me, you write as well.  Jacqui: I do. Yes. I've always wanted to write. I've written a little book about this journey, but also written some short stories and things like that as well. So yes, quite a lovely passion of mine for sure.  James Valentine: And it was, it was part of a writing project that led you to have to deal with some health issues.  Jacqui: Um, the way it came about, if you're happy for me to go on with the story, I was teaching a year nine civics education class, and we had a guest speaker come in who'd been to Costa Rica, and she had worked with a jaguar project in the jungles of Costa Rica, and she was putting all these images up on the board of armadillos and toucans and turtles that she'd worked with. This was at the end of the first year in lockdown in Melbourne, and it was via zoom. And I think something just spoke to me. I think that want for adventure, that, that exciting allure of something different than my house and being somewhere else really grabbed me. It just spoke to me. I thought that's really what I want to do. But obviously because we're on this program, I was quite overweight. I had some health issues. So the first challenge was, would I be able to do it? I had to be able to, according to the program I wanted to go and volunteer with, I had to be able to walk four to five hours on soft sand every night in the tropical humidity, plus, work with the turtles as well at night. So it was quite a physical program I was setting myself up for. So, I just turned 60, this was the beginning of January 2022, and I wanted to go for long service leave in the September. And so I set myself a goal of trying to get fit, fit enough to be able to walk those distances for that length of time. I had to also be able to walk eight to 12 kilometres on the soft sand as well, that was what the guidelines were. So I started off, and I remember my first session was down near where I live, walking down to the beach, along the beach, and then back up this set of stairs and panting quite remarkably as I got to the top, not sure if I'd make it. And that was the beginning.  James Valentine: It sounds like a big aim to me. It's like you've gone from sort of zero to a hundred. You're sort of, you're not going, ‘might just walk around the block’. It's like, I need to be able to rescue wildlife in Costa Rica. It sounds big. Jacqui: Exactly. Right. I just, I don't know. I don't know if you have those moments in your life where things just speak to you. And I was just like, I want to do this. That's something that was very clear in my mind, but I knew I had to get to a certain level of fitness to be able to do it, and I was quite overweight. I was probably about, probably reaching almost 100 kilos and I'm quite a small person. I was five, I'm five foot two and a half. Not was, but I am. So it was quite a challenge. Yes. So, I started with the fitness. I just knew I had that goal of making that distance for that length of time on the soft sand. That was the kind of significant part.  James Valentine: And nothing else up until then, nothing else had prompted you to want to lose weight, right?  Jacqui: Not quite true. I mean, I've been overweight. I've struggled with weight my whole life and I have tried various diets and I've lost weight, but it's always crept back on and that's the significant part for me. How do I keep it off? So, I knew I could lose weight if I really put my mind to it. At that stage, the goal wasn't so much to lose weight. It was to get fit enough to do the program. But when it got closer, I started to worry about keeping up with the young people because I knew there'd be young people on this experience. I knew I was going to be someone who, you know, was the oldest probably. So, I wanted to be able to keep up with the young people at night.  James Valentine: Don't we all? Jacqui: So, I got to April. And I was on holiday, and I was standing up from taking a photo of this family on the beach and I felt something go twang and it was my intercostals. So, I went to the physio and the physio said, she just laid it out for me, which was actually great for me. I didn't know I'd be able to take it so well. She

Join James Valentine as he explores the incredible stories of Aussie characters, from the adventurous to the love-struck. Across 30 inspirational episodes, Life’s Booming explores life, health, love, travel, and everything in between. Our bodies surprise us in ways we never thought possible as we age, so in series five of the Life’s Booming podcast – Is This Normal? – we’re settling in for honest chats with famous guests and noted experts about the ways our bodies behave as they age, discussing the issues and awkward questions you may be too embarrassed to ask yourself. If you' have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - lifesbooming@seniors.com.au Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast. About Australian Seniors Produced by Medium Rare Content Agency, in conjunction with Ampel Sonic Experience AgencySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After receiving a life-changing cancer diagnosis, award-winning surf writer, husband and father-of-two Tim Baker turned his attention to making peace with his mortality and living in the 'now'. If you' have any thoughts or questions and want to share your story to Life’s Booming, send us a voice note - click here Watch Life’s Booming on Youtube  Listen to Life's Booming on Apple Podcasts  Listen to Life's Booming on Spotify:  Listen to Life's Booming on Google Podcasts  For more information visit seniors.com.au/podcast. Produced by Medium Rare Content AgencySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How does anyone get drawn into a cult and how, when the extreme beliefs that have ruled their lives prove baseless, do they recover? Tune in as David Ayliffe shares the lessons from his own experience.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Rosemary Kariuki fled her home in Kenya, she arrived in Australia without support and struggled to understand her new culture. But the charismatic Local Hero soon found a way to connect with her community.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Todd Russell and Brant Webb were rescued after two weeks trapped in a Beaconsfield mine in 2006, it was seen as one of Australia’s greatest survival stories. But for Todd, that was only the start of his battle for survival.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the face of her worst nightmare, Bridget Sakr continues to draw on her faith to turn aside anger and instead focus on love and forgiveness to help deal with the trauma.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.