Bodies on the Beach, Brains on High Alert Confidence, Clonidine & the Quiet Judgments of Midlife

You can love your life and still want something to change. But how do you make room for something different when you have bills, responsibilities and no guarantee it will work? Having just turned 49, I’m reflecting on work, losing someone far too young, and the assumption that there will always be more time. I share what I’m trying to build through Medication Clarity, the uncertainty of stepping outside my professional lane, and the difference between feeling tired and fulfilled, and tired an...

It’s my 49th birthday, and I’m feeling stronger than I did a year ago. After a family weekend at the Lonely Mountain Ultra, I’m reflecting on what it felt like to run my strongest race there yet, watch my children take on their own distances, and meet my husband at the finish of his 100-kilometre run. I’m also thinking about my friend, who kept going through a very tough day, and about the strength middle-aged women carry in all sorts of ways. From there, I turn to a question many women have ...

This week’s On the Mones is a little different. After a deeply disappointing week for Sydney Swans supporters, I wanted to talk about what happens when a club you’ve believed in, and whose values you thought reflected your own, lets you down. I’ve always bought into the idea that the Swans had a different kind of culture: one that respected women, welcomed the queer community and stood for something beyond football. So the recent scandal has felt surprisingly personal. But I also don’t want t...

I’m having coffee with my friends Sue and Richard, which means we inevitably end up discussing the important social questions of our time. Like: if you’re sitting in a quiet nail salon and another client is having a very loud phone conversation, are the rest of us now part of the call? Nothing she was saying was particularly private, but suddenly I, my nail technician and hers were all unwilling participants. Is that rude? Is it particularly rude to the nail technician, who can’t exactly get ...

What happens when On the Mones, Why Smart Women and The Skeptic Zone all end up around the same café table? You get Smart Moans Zone. Recorded at Calibrate Coffee, we’re joined by our very special guest Dr Angie from Atlanta, USA, for a conversation that somehow manages to cover cutting-edge medicine, pseudoscience, social etiquette and Australia’s noisiest birds. In this episode we chat about: The recent Four Corners investigation into peptides, including Dr Norman Swan’s reporting on the ra...