When you reach the end of something, I find it easy to reflect. But when you can reflect on a task that at first felt like it was an obligation and a burden and then see the opportunity to turn it into a task that rewards you, that lets you explore and learn and create and even tap into old skills that you thought were long past – then it takes on a whole new meaning and ironically begins to deliver you energy rather than taking it away from you.

Why should our older persons be denied access to necessary services simply on the basis of age and the assumption that they may not provide beneficial life outcomes? Essentially are we saying that the quality of life for our older persons does not impact on our social conscious? Do we not hav a duty to ensure older Australians have access to health care in the latter stages of their life?

AntiViral therapy and medication has been used and reserched and explored since the early 60’s and already has allowed us to be able to treat diseases, such as HIV, Herpes, Hepatits etc in ways that we are able to control them and their spread without necessarily destroying them completely.

For some of us (not all) this is vital movement practice that we may neglect if we opt for the easiest path. Make up and crinkled shirts asides, getting a bit hot under the collar when we go to the workplace IS A GOOD THING. Making the most of our ambulation means we get some movement happening and there is such a call for this in our daily lives. So in light of this - are personal E Vehicles a good or bad thing for our health?

The BRACE is something that powerlifters and olympic lifters talk about a lot as it is an integral part of being able to perform heavy lifting and 1RM max lifts. But using breath is something that dancers and yoga practitioners have been espousing for decades. So when do you use what? When do we brace and perhaps more importantly, when do we breath, and do we breathe in or out? Let’s unravel some of the mysteries around breathing and bracing.

Certain situations have contributed to a mistrust in touch and an awareness of ‘overstepping’ the bounds of physical contact which has created a reduction in touch and how we interact socially. Decades of sexual misconduct finally being brought out in the open, encouragement by medical schools to enforce a ‘no touch trend’, foster carers being instructed to avoid touch in order to mitigate potential liability is all helping to reinforce a ‘no touch’ society. And now with COVID-19 fears, this has compounded the situation where touch in our daily lives is reducing and becoming more rare.

Our developed vaccines and antibiotics have been our go to for disease for 100 years, killing diseases like pneumonia and Urinary Tract Infections, Malaria etc. But our greatest weapon has for the past 50 years been slowly getting weaker and less effective. Antibiotics are now losing the power to combat infections and we are now scrambling to find a better way to deal with our old foes of bacteria and viruses.

“Sitting is death”. Perhaps a little blunt and curt but this sums up our issue that to sit is to be immobile and mobility is a key to keeping us functioning and healthy. This is a fundamental truth. If we fail to move there are a whole heap of other complications that affect our health on a fundamental level. From cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory disease… you could go on and on. But we do have to sit, and sometimes stand for long periods of time. It’s inevitable.

So how do we do it well?

Being involved in the Happiness for Cynics podcast has reinforced my beliefs that I was on a good path and the right direction with the things that I had already bought into and the practices that I have aspired to include in my daily, weekly and yearly life. It’s nice to think that I managed to get onto these things fairly along in my journey through life and whilst some of my wide eyed, naive innocence has been replaced with a hefty sense of realism and documented evidentiary support - ultimately I am still coming out with the same understandings. I’ve been able to now back up my thoughts and opinions with science based facts and research that shows that the yoga loving free spirit that I’ve always tried to be, is actually a good perspective with which to view the world

The onset of dementia has implications on our physical self with symptoms of mobility, stability and spatial awareness being main concerns with sufferers. As degenerative change takes hold, daily tasks such as eating, moving on our own and even swallowing can become affected and ultimately creates a life threatening condition. It is not that our body is unable to keep going, but our brain has become unable to co-ordinate the intricacies of function that allow us to be independent.

PTSD is a clinical disease that upsets our mental health after traumatic incidents or periods. It is not only soldiers that this research has included but also Refugees and Asylum Seekers are included as some of the most affected persons with PTSD. It can also be applied to those who have ‘witnessed’ trauma and not necessarily been involved in the trauma. The advent of large industrial accidents with trains and highly powerful machinery is said to also have been at the advent of this condition at the dawn of the Industrial era.

Sleep is a major part of our body rejuvenation processing allowing us to give our vital organs, tissues and brain rest and rejuvenation and how we heal soft tissues and create neuorons that help with our brain function. According to Dr Michael Twery at the National Institute of Health in Maryland United States, sleep “affects growth and stress hormones, our immune system, appetite, breathing, blood pressure and cardiovascular health” It also plays a huge role in our consolidation of memory and enhances learning capacity and retention.

Traditionally, post surgery or injury was to have bed rest and remain as dormant as possible to help the body to recover. However, what research has found is that putting people to bed for 3 weeks reduces 30% of heart size and general overall fitness. The medical community now believes getting up and getting moving is the best medicine for chronic disease owing to the systemic benefits that exercise gets the body primed to help

Simply, a microbiome is a collection of microorganisms living in a particular environment. Microbiomes exist in various sections of our body but the big exploration is in the microbiome housed in our gut, mouth and skin. This microbiology in every individual has been the subject of global exploration as we begin to understand the link between the power our microbiomes have on our health and well being. Bacteria, fungi and viruses are all present in our microbiome and not all of these are bad (think E.Coli, Salmonella or Chlamydia). We need bacteria and fungi in our guts to keep the balance of our microbiome healthy. And it’s not just our intestinal tract that needs this - our skin needs it to constantly battle the elements that it is exposed to and there is also research investigating the link between how our microbiomes affect the way our brain functions.

In the western world, we tend to have so much access to dietary factors and choices of abundance that sometimes those choices lead to particular issues such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, cholesterol and type II diabetes. It is natural in a society that starts to develop wealth that the makeup of disease changes from poverty to affluence. Issues such as malnutrition and low caloric dietary intake give way to conditions of increased sugar content, fats and meat that bring with it certain conditions such as higher cholesterol and insulin toxicity. These Diseases of Affluence are a natural progression as a society moves from poverty to wealth.

So what of Multivitamins? Are you one of the people who are predisposed to picking up a pack of Women’s Health Pills at the supermarket as a way to supercharge your body against the stresses of modern living? The question begs to be asked - is it really helping? According to sources in leading scientific journals, the decision is inconclusive. Dietary intake of minerals and nutrients plays a huge role in our health, longevity and in battling diseases and illness. Supplementing these with synthesized vitamins doesn’t necessarily equal better health.

Moral panic comes about when ‘a feeling of fear spread among many people that some evil threatens the well-being of society.’ In times of uncertainty and a threatening situation such as war, terrorism or genocide, a fear that spreads across a mass of the population can often result in hysteria of evil, usually followed by violence and hostility towards those thought responsible.

Chronic Pain is an issue that is being more widely explored in our current contemporary expansion and definitions of pain. The old attitude of ‘having a bex and a lie down’ no longer suffices in diagnosis in the contemporary realm and we are fast becoming more atune to the nature of chronic pain and the social and fiscal effects it has on us as a society.

For 17% of the population in Australia snuffles and sneezes, runny eyes and red noses become the order of the day as the sun begins to blaze across our southern skies. And yet oddly enough, Australia has a peculiar relationship with allergens and irritable stimulations of our orifices. Oddly for Australians, hayfever is not necessarily the cause of our woes and worrysome noses at this time. Our unique antipodean location has a rather different take on the allergy season in that our allergens are not necessarily just limited to the spring season.

We use our hands a lot. They are the way that we interact with the world around us and how we are able to carry out our daily tasks and functions. The wrists are one of the vital connections between our hands and our bodies. Without them the vast dexterity of our hands is lost. Wrists flex, extend, rotate, supinate, pronate and basically encompass every possible movement you can have. They are a highly flexible and adaptable joint and remarkably co-ordinated and complex. It serves as the bridge between our hand and our forearm and all the way to our shoulder. In definition of human movement (mobiliser vs stabiliser) the wrist is a mobiliser allowing movement and facilitating movement through the entire arm chain.