Cooking for two – or twenty or more – didn’t faze me. I loved making meals. I also enjoyed baking; barbecuing; making jam and generally playing with food and creating in the kitchen. Then, everything changed. Mealtimes come round with increasing monotony. And, dare I say it, with increasing stress. My world has shrunk a …
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Since I recently discovered that chronic pain is not a life-or-death sentence, I feel like a new convert. Or like someone who’s fallen in love or given up a forty-a-day cigarette habit. I’m grateful that a casual conversation over coffee led to a new way of looking at life. An achievement at any age! This …
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Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to modify its connections or re-wire itself. There’s a chapter in my PhD thesis, submitted in the mid 2000, which deals with this remarkable new discovery. The science spans many disciplines, including physics, biology, psychology and ethnology. My chapter talks about the importance of memory in memoir-writing. …
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WA borders will open to the rest of Australia and the world in a few weeks. Western Australians argue about whether this should happen now or later. Some of us would prefer to remain ‘in our cave’ or ‘under the doona’, as our detractors say. We’ve been safe for two years. Some of us like …
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Better health can be achieved by most of us. It doesn’t matter where we start. In COVID-19 times and at other stressful periods in life, however, we can take extra care. The better our general health, the more likely our immune systems are to work efficiently when called on. Australians have been relatively lucky. Until …
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Hobbies include the activities people do for fun or relaxation. Everyone needs an escape from their usual daily occupation, work or boredom. Hobbies fill this space. They range from sport and exercise, craft, art and puzzles to developing new skills in any field that interests us. A hobby or two or more provide the changes …
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Masking-up in Western Australia has been with us on and off for months. After a year of freedom from this practice, at first we found it hard. And it continues to be a difficult duty we perform for our own good and that of others. However, older women seem to have a more difficult time …
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Practising kindness really can improve our wellbeing. We all know that eating a healthy diet, exercising and getting enough sleep are essential for our health. So, too, are not smoking or drinking too much alcohol. And, as scientists have recently discovered, getting up and moving rather than sitting too long provides benefits. So does improving …
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I started nursing sixty years ago this week at Royal Perth Hospital. What a milestone! It was winter, 1955. Winters were wetter then, and seemed colder.
Walking speed, so it seems, can be a predictor of a person’s life expectancy. Much like vital signs such as pulse and blood pressure. Or how much a person weighs and how much alcohol they drink or exercise they do. Last year, medical scientists labelled loneliness as a useful predictor of a person’s health and …
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