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  Interviewer info Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with aphasia, dysarthria, and other neurogenic conditions. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer. In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Dr. Liss Brunner about how clinicians can incorporate social media into their work with people with acquired brain injuries. Guest info Dr Melissa ‘Liss' Brunner is an early career researcher, lecturer at the University of Sydney, and a certified practicing speech pathologist with over twenty years of experience in supporting adults with swallowing and communication difficulties. Liss has clinical and research expertise in acquired neurologic disorders, particularly working with people who have experienced a stroke or traumatic brain injury (TBI). Diverse research experiences have enabled Liss to build specialist skills in qualitatively driven social media and digital health mixed methods research. Liss's doctoral research laid the necessary groundwork in understanding the complexity of the issues surrounding people with TBI using social media and how it may (or may not) be addressed during their rehabilitation. Listener Take-aways In today's episode you will: Understand how people with acquired brain injury use social media. Learn about barriers and facilitators for safe social media use after brain injury. Describe how speech-language pathologists can target social media use in rehab for people with acquired brain injury.   Edited Transcript Lyssa Rome Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.   I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Melissa or Liss Brunner. Liss is an early-career researcher, lecturer at the University of Sydney, and a certified practicing speech pathologist with over 20 years of experience in supporting adults with swallowing and communication difficulties. Liss has clinical and research expertise in acquired neurologic disorders, particularly working with people who have experienced a stroke or traumatic brain injury. She focuses on qualitatively driven social media and digital health mixed-methods research. Her doctoral research laid the necessary groundwork in understanding the complexity of the issues surrounding people with TBI using social media, and how it may or may not be addressed during their rehabilitation. Dr. Liss Brunner, welcome to the Aphasia Access podcast, I'm so glad to be talking with you.   Dr. Liss Brunner Thanks so much for having me. I'm really, really excited to be here and talk about one of my favorite things.   Lyssa Rome  Great. So I want to just start by asking you what made you want to study social media use among people with acquired brain injuries? And why is it important to study that?   Dr. Liss Brunner  I suppose I want to start by asking you a question, Lyssa, if that's alright. Okay. So, I mean, do you use social media?   Lyssa Rome  I do use social media.   Dr. Liss Brunner  And what are your favorite types of social media? And why do you use them? Hope you don't mind me asking.   Lyssa Rome  That's fine. So I primarily use two social media platforms. I use Facebook for professional reasons. There's a lot of networking amongst speech pathologists on Facebook. I also use it because I get some exercise classes there, so that's kind of nice. And then I also use Instagram, which I primarily go to to find out about knitting and sewing patterns, and to look for gardening ideas. So it's sort of more hobby-based for me.   Dr. Liss Brunner  Perfect. I love that. I mean, I use Facebook also, but it's mainly to stay in touch with like high school or uni friends and my family. And I also use Instagram, and like you lots of hobby-based stuff. I love watching videos around food. Always makes me hungry, but I still love it. But I also love seeing what people are reading. So I will also quite often post what I've just read and get ideas for books that I could be reading and things like that. And I use it a little bit professionally as well to share what I've been doing and what I've been working on. And I use Twitter or X, as it's now known, probably more so professionally. So I do a lot of sharing about the work that I'm doing in there. But I use a whole heap of other platforms, as well, and kind of all for different reasons.   If you think about it, over 60% of the world's population, actually, are active social media users. And we've just talked about how we use more than one platform. The average is actually seven different social media platforms for people who are active users. And so I got interested in supporting others in using social media, because I realized how integral it was starting to become, in my own life, and for the people around me.   After a brain injury, we know it happens like that in a split second. And it can happen to anyone at any age. And so after those brain injuries occur, people lose lots of their friends. And, you know, their relationships just aren't what they used to be. They're quite often strained. They're not as fun as they used to be. And it can be really hard and devastating, not just for that person, but everyone around them, as well. And so family and close friends can find it really challenging to stay connected in a really meaningful way. And you don't really realize how important that is until it changes. And so, in rehab, I really like to support people to build up their social communication skills, with different people, different places. And I really believe that these days, one of those places we need to consider is social media. It's great to stay connected, you can make new friends, you can practice your communication skills in different ways, you can just kind of be included. So you know, you can tell everyone what's going on in your life after injury, or you can ignore that and just talk about other things like gardening and food and stuff. You can use social media to be what you want it to be. So that's kind of why I got into it. And why I think it's important.   Lyssa Rome  It sounds like you've just described both how people use it before their injury, but then also some changes in use after their injury, for example, and think of in the States—I don't know if this is also true in Australia—there's Caring Bridge and Go Fund Me and other sorts of websites where people are sharing information about their rehab process and about what's going on with someone who's had a brain injury or another kind of illness. Tell us a little bit about how people with acquired brain injuries are using social media.   Dr. Liss Brunner Yeah, absolutely. I think this is one of the most interesting things to me is that I've interviewed lots of people after a brain injury about how they use social media. And just like many of us, they use a variety of platforms, they have individual preferences, they use them for different purposes. Some prefer Instagram, others prefer Facebook, others prefer online gaming with their friends. Many of them use social media for making and maintaining relationships. So that connection, others use it for altruism, so supporting others in need and sharing their experiences and strategies after a brain injury. But others also use it for advocacy, and activism. So sharing their experiences after brain injury to raise awareness, and reduce stigma that can be associated with it. Others are really active in contacting politicians and advocating for better support services and infrastructure. So they use it for a multitude of reasons. And it's quite often deeply personal, the way in which they do so.   Unfortunately, I did also find out that quite often, people kind of relearning to use social media, sort of through trial and error. So they don't necessarily get lots of support to do it. they've encountered lots of challenges in using it well, so they can have some difficulties with cognitive fatigue, or even just navigating the different social media platforms because they're quite often apt to change, so to speak.   Lyssa Rome RIght. Yeah. It sounds like they're both some real benefits to people with acquired brain injuries, but then also some risks involved. So maybe you could tell us a little bit more about some of those risks and some of the benefits for people with acquired brain injury using social media?   Dr. Liss Brunner  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll start with the good stuff. So there's lots of advantages to using social media. I mean, obviously, we can use it to create connections, we can totally use it for the entertainment factor—I do all the time. But it's also a huge source of information and news can be an absolutely wonderful platform for sharing information and advocating for awareness. As I've said, I think it's a really great way to share your thoughts and connect with others if you're feeling particularly isolated. And I know that for people after brain injury, who have difficulty with their social communication, there's lots of advantages in particular.   So some people may talk a lot more after their brain injury and some people may feel that they talk a bit too much. And so, you know, platforms like Twitter, or X, that have a shorter amount of space for you to make a post, that might mean that they have an opportunity to really work on limiting how much they say. And likewise, for those who have the opposite issue, and they kind of are more likely to struggle to find things to say, the same platform could be seen as a bit of a relief, because there's less pressure to write really long posts. So, you know, I think there are functions of the different social media platforms that can be really advantageous for people who have difficulties communicating.   For people who have difficulties concentrating in fast-paced conversations in person, the asynchronous approach of social media can be again, provide less pressure, they don't have to think and respond in the moment, they can actually take their time to do that. So that can provide a bit of relief as well. And I find in general, people are way more tolerant around incorrect spelling and grammar and things like that in social media. And you can type words, you can add pictures. I love using GIFs and memes and emoticons. So, you know, all of these things can be used to make communication easier in these platforms. So lots of advantages, I think that we could kind of really draw on to support people.   But obviously, there's also that downside, that darker side of social media, there's lots of risks. And it can be a really tricky space to navigate with and without a brain injury. And there's lots of concern, particularly from clinicians and family and friends around the real and sometimes perceived risks of using social media after a brain injury. So I've spoken to lots of clinicians and family members over the years. And they often tell me about how they're really worried about people being fairly vulnerable online, that they're at risk of being exploited, that they may ruin their own reputation by some of the things that they're saying online.   And quite often, as clinicians, I suppose we can act as gatekeepers in a way. And so there's often this really big focus on our duty of care in the clinical context, because we want to prevent harm, we want people to do well and not actually be hurt more. And so we can be really risk averse, I suppose. There can be this real sense of responsibility for minimizing all of the risks. And so there's lots of issues around people getting fixated on social media, and that might lead to cognitive fatigue. It could be that they're having negative mental health or emotional effects of what they're seeing in social media. They could start withdrawing from in-person interactions because they're spending a lot of time online.   I mentioned reputation management. So potentially people would say something online that will influence how other people perceive them. So whilst people are in post traumatic amnesia after a traumatic brain injury, they may regret posting something. Others have reported that their family members tell them that they're saying inappropriate things online and that's negatively affected their relationships. And sometimes it's affected their employment opportunities down the track as well. Others have had difficulties managing their finances and security due to difficulties with disinhibition and impulsivity. And so there's lots of concerns in particular around things like cyber scams and, and things like that.   Lyssa Rome  It sounds like the risks that a lot of us are faced with when we're using social media platforms. But even more so right, because of some of the issues specific to people with brain injuries that you've just described?   Dr. Liss Brunner Absolutely.   Lyssa Rome  I'm wondering what kind of barriers and facilitators there are to successful social media use? You mentioned clinicians, reluctance, or sort of concern about the risks? What are some of the other things that we should be thinking about?   Dr. Liss Brunner  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's lots of barriers. But there's also lots of facilitators as well, which is good. I've spoken about some of the risks, but some of the other barriers are sometimes quite immediate. So some people might have physical barriers to using social media. So their vision might have changed, their hand mobility, and fine motor control might have changed, or they might not be able to independently go and get their device. And so they might need someone to go and get it for them. Others may not have devices, or reliable internet access, particularly if they're in a hospital, sometimes internet access is restricted. So there's those actual accessibility issues.   In terms of the changes in cognitive communication, I think, a lot of what we can see in in person interactions—so when people are having a face to face conversation—those sorts of changes we see after a brain injury can often be influencing their online interactions just as much. So for example, after a traumatic brain injury, inattention, and being easily distracted, can be quite an issue for many. And so you might see this where someone will start responding to a post, but they'll get distracted, and they'll send, you know, a message that they either didn't mean to send or it wasn't complete, or it gets misinterpreted. And it can just unravel quite quickly.   Sometimes, you know, emotional control changes quite often after an acquired brain injury. So managing your feelings can be really challenging. So some people can get really overloaded by the amount of information in their social media feeds and timelines. Or they might get really overwhelmed when they're seeing negative or sad posts. Like, obviously, we're seeing lots of sad things and disturbing things in the news, in particular, online at the moment, there's lots of conflict around the world. So being able to manage your feelings can be really challenging if you're not conscious about the influence social media posts can have on you.   Sometimes, you know, there's issues in impulse control. And so some people will get sent friend requests and they will click accept without thinking, Oh, actually, do I know this person? Or do I want to have this person as a friend or, you know, posting before you think about what you're saying and how someone's going to take that and what the potential repercussions might be? It could be that, you know, people have difficulty finding the right words and that they may put words in that they're not wanting To say, and again, that can get misinterpreted.   The other thing is that there's lots of information. And so it's quite hard to find and constantly changing. And I feel like that can increase the demands on people's memory, and how they sort through and organize information. So that can be overwhelming and challenging as well.   On the flip side, there's lots of facilitators that we can harness for good to combat some of these things. And during my PhD, I identified five factors that influence social media use after a brain injury. And sometimes these things are barriers, and sometimes they're facilitators. So I think it's really quite helpful to think about things in this way.   And so the first factor is purpose. So it's really important to think about, if someone is motivated to use social media, what's motivating for them? It could be that they are wanting to practice their communication. It could be that they are wanting to connect. They might want to find a romantic partner. They might want to figure out who they are now, after their brain injury. It could be just to fill in time, right? So purpose really influences how someone uses social media.   The second factor, I think, relates to knowledge and experience. And so it's not just that person with a brain injury, but also the people around them. So some of the barriers can be that people aren't really clear on how to support people to use social media. And that could be because of their own experience and ability, and confidence. So all of those things can really influence how you use social media.   The big one, that third factor is caution, I think, you know, it's really critical to be aware of the risks, which I've spoken about, and how to navigate them.   The fourth factor is networks. And so it's really kind of thinking about who is your online network of people? So who do you want to contact? Who do you maybe not want to stay in contact with? And increasing opportunities to have really successful interactions with those people.   And the fifth concept is really around support. So trying to find structures that influence success in social media interactions. So giving people practical supports and resources, whether that's an actual person, or whether it's a training program, or practice, with someone setting them up with a PR so they can have someone to practice with regularly.   I think they're the five different factors that really influence how someone who's going to use social media, and whether they use it well, safely. And meaningfully, I suppose, because that's what you want it to be. The other thing that I think is really important, from a clinician perspective, in terms of facilitating use is to kind of be proactive. So rather than being reactive, and just only stepping in when problems happen is actually being a person that can support people with brain injury to use social media and asking those questions. So I feel like some of the research that I've been doing is really kind of been critical to try and find guidance for clinicians on how to do that, and how to have those conversations.   So I spoke about those five different factors. I reckon if, for example, you were wanting to think about someone's purpose in social media, really, you just need to identify what platforms they want to use? Why do they want to use them? What's going to be really meaningful for them? So writing that down and thinking: Okay, who are you connecting with in that? Why do you want to use it? How can we make that better for you? So it's a really nice way to just start those conversations.   Lyssa Rome  When I think about clinically sort of getting to know someone, part of it is who are you communicating with? Like, who are you having conversations with? And if we think a little bit more broadly, you know, it's not just conversations in person or over the phone. And so to take an inventory that really reflects the person's actual communication across all different kinds of settings, is really important. I'm curious how people with acquired brain injuries are using these different social media platforms, you sort of mentioned some of them along the way, as you've been discussing the risks and the benefits, etc. But I just wonder if you could say a little bit more about that.   Dr. Liss Brunner  Yeah, I mean, we've been doing a few different little studies looking at how brain injury is spoken about, and who's using it in different platforms. So we've done a study, study looking at Twitter, it was Twitter, then it's now called X, I suppose. But back then it was Twitter. And we kind of really just explored what was being said about brain injury. And actually, I found there were actually lots of people with brain injury using the platform to connect with others to share issues around their health, life after their injury, raising awareness, and also as a source of inspiration and hope. So both giving and receiving those messages. So that was really nice.   And then we've recently actually just completed some studies where we looked similarly, at YouTube and Instagram. And in both platforms, it was really clear that this is a space where people are sharing their stories of change. And because of the inherent functions of the platforms, they can share content that they make, or reshare, and a lot of it is quite visual. It really gives that person who's sharing the content, a lot more control over how they tell their stories. And I love seeing and hearing how people use social media to tell their stories. We're all so different. And even though there are similarities amongst the stories that people are telling about their brain injury, there's so much personalization and individuality. It's fantastic to see.   In some of the interviews that I've done, you know, one person told me about how they use Instagram to share their photos of the world so that they were a photographer before their injury. And since their injury, they see the world differently. And they're taking very different photos.   So I think everyone's using different platforms the way in which they want to, yeah, it's super interesting. Others have made using social media their vocation, so as a way of connecting with others who've had a brain injury and sharing, you know, tips and ideas to support recovery. And so that's kind of their job, and it's giving them that sense of purpose. Not just in using social media, but purpose in life and giving back and being able to feel like they have a sense of belonging and contribution. So, yeah, I find it super interesting. I love it.   Lyssa Rome Well, and one of the reasons that I was really drawn to your work and wanted to talk with you on this podcast is that it seems like at its heart, what you've been studying and working on is promoting and enabling life participation for people with acquired brain injuries for whom social media is an important life activity—either was already before the injury or is now after the injury. And, to me, it's just, it's so meaningful for people and to sort of turn our attention toward social media in this way, I think is great. So it makes me wonder, to what extent are rehab professionals, speech language pathologists and others, addressing social media use with their clients or their patients?   Dr. Liss Brunner This is a really hard answer to give. Because I'm speaking generally. And I know that, you know, we are very individual as clinicians as well. But when I used to talk about this, you know, I started more than a decade ago in this space, I would ask clinicians when I was talking at presentations, who's worked with clients on using social media, and I would maybe have one person put their hand up. Now, when I ask that question, the response is actually very different, and I would say, you know, the majority of people would indicate that they've worked on using social media in some way, shape, or form.   But I feel like we don't necessarily have lots of guidance on how to do that well. And so lots of clinicians have said to me that they feel kind of lost when it comes to using social media. Not everyone uses social media and some of us have our preferred platforms that we feel comfortable with and don't know anything about some of the other platforms, right? Some of us say using social media is just a bit of fun. And it's, you know, a bit of a distraction from real life. So we have lots of attitudes and beliefs around it.   And there's lots of challenges in addressing social media, because as I said, the platforms are constantly changing. And it's really hard to stay up-to-date. And so lots of people are really uncertain about all of those factors, and then they are, we've also got all of these medical and legal responsibilities, and we don't know where our boundaries are, in terms of navigating risks— whether we should be gatekeepers, or whether we should be just supporting people with information and education and coming in and supporting them if problems happen. Lots of people just basically want guidance, was what I heard. They want to know when to introduce the use of social media. They want to know when to let go of control of how people use it, and how to encourage really positive interactions. I feel like a lot of people have told me that because they're so uncertain, they tend to be mostly restrictive, rather than proactive. And so that restrictive practice occurs in lots of different ways.   So it could be encouraging, and helping families to keep devices at home and away from people who have a brain injury. It could be that they give people the devices, but they limit the internet connectivity, so they can't use them functionally. Or it could be that they manipulate the privacy settings. So it allows people just to lurk and watch other people's posts, but doesn't let them post and interact. And so, you know, there's often issues where family members are encouraged to monitor social media posts for appropriate content and things like that. And I find that's, you know, not ideal for anyone, really, no one wants to have to do that. And no one wants that to happen to them. And it can create lots more barriers to autonomy. I'm pretty sure if my parents were telling me what to do and what not to do in social media, I'd not have a great response. And I also feel if I tried to tell my kids what to do and what not to do, they'd probably go straight out and do what I told them not to do. Because as if I would not because I'm old. Right? And not cool. There's probably another word for cool now that I don't know.   You know, I think it's, it's really personal. It's tricky to navigate. And as clinicians, we've got to be really clear about what our attitudes and beliefs are and how they influence what we perceive as appropriate or inappropriate and how we navigate those conversations. I love referring people to the Mark Ylvisaker and Tim Feenye paper that's about Dobermans and Poodles. Because it really does push people to think about how we interact and influence people in our rehabilitation practices. So I think as clinicians, we want to be proactive, but we're just not quite clear on how we should do it.   Lyssa Rome In one of your papers, you wrote about how we as speech language pathologists can move from a sort of paternalistic attitude toward supporting the autonomy of our clients with acquired brain injury. And it's something I think about a lot, not necessarily just in this context of social media, but in all other kinds of ways. And I'm wondering if you could say a little bit more about that, and about how SLPs and other rehab professionals should be thinking about including social media training and the work we do?   Dr. Liss Brunner  Yeah, it's really tricky. Because, you know, we don't want to be restrictive. We don't want to be gatekeepers, we want to be supportive. And I feel like sometimes when we don't have guidance, from our evidence in the research or practical resources, we can flounder a little bit, particularly when we know there are so many risks associated with something like using social media. I think we can probably all acknowledge that restriction isn't the answer, because it doesn't set people up for real life. It doesn't give them opportunities to learn from mistakes, which is what we would do a lot of the time in real life.   I think one of the things that we can really do is harness the knowledge and skills of the person themselves, to help us as clinicians to know more about how they want to use social media, which platforms they're interested in, particularly if we've got no clue about how to use it ourselves. And so this could be a way to really educate ourselves, and kind of have more of a collaborative approach with that person. So you can set goals together, you can identify what's going to look like successful social media is to that person. How can we use what they did before their brain injury to guide us in terms of, is this something you want to get back to? Or do you want to do something different now? Those sorts of things. We can look for ways to provide them opportunities for participation, and give them some instructions on what might work really well. Let them go and try that. Give them education and really constructive feedback, so that they're working towards those positive interactions and trying to mitigate those risks in that really proactive way. Obviously, I think we need some policy around this, and guidance so that we can actively support people.   But I think probably one of the first things that we need to do is address social media goals in rehabilitation. And these can be informed by other successful brain injury rehabilitation approaches, you know, so we've got lots of information on functional rehabilitation, we know that more meaningful rehab is motivating and more likely to have better outcomes. And we could adopt strategies that have been used in rehab that support other activities that we feel are higher risk. So always I think of return to driving. You know, we support people, occupational therapists, support people to return to drive and I think that's inherently really dangerous. But we do it because we see it as a really important goal for people to return to after injury. I kind of feel that social media is kind of in a similar vein, we know there's risks, let's put education and practice in place to support them to do well.   Lyssa Rome  Speaking of education and practice, you've created a training program for people with acquired brain injuries on how they can start to successfully use social media. So can you describe that and tell us a little bit about that program?   Dr. Liss Brunner  Yeah, I mean, I worked as a clinician for many, many years before I got suckered into research and fell in love with it. And so I always want to think about the practical implications of the research that I'm doing, I want to provide resources and guidance. And so I was very lucky to be able to work with the team at Sydney Uni, and the University of Technology in Sydney, and brain Injury Australia. We were able to source some funding through a grant, which was fabulous. And we had this larger project called the Social Brain Toolkit. And part of that was developing social-ABI-lity. And so it meant that we were able to work with people who've had a brain injury, some family members, some clinicians, and other researchers to design this social-ABI-lity program. And essentially, it's a free online training program on how to use social media after brain injury.   Very simply, it's designed so that people with a brain injury can do it themselves, or they can do it with family or a friend or a clinician to support them. It takes about two to three hours to work through everything. And there's four modules, and so the modules are: What is social media;  staying safe in social media; how do I use social media; and who can I connect with in social media. And we've really used metacognitive principles to support people to make a plan for using social media in a way that really suits them. And so we wanted to give them ideas on staying safe. When using social media and cyber safety, even those, there's one module on staying safe. Cyber safety is actually threaded through all four modules, because it was such a priority for everyone that we spoke to. And it just provides people with opportunities to learn about using social media, and really promoting the idea of finding social media buddies and building up a support network in social media. So there's written info, there's videos, there's questions to work through, there's a printable worksheet, so people can write down and keep the messages of the four modules. And things like that.   We've run a pilot study, so that people could test out the prototype. And they found it was quite valuable. They thought it was really engaging and functional. They also told us what they didn't think was working. So we tweaked it, and hopefully made it better. And then we actually piloted that again, because we knew that just the training by itself was probably not going to achieve the best outcomes possible. We wanted to know whether group intervention would help. So we kind of got people to do the social-ABI-lity program, and also a peer practice group. So we set up the social-ABI-lity plus a social media practice group kind of thing. We set up some Facebook groups, because Facebook is one of the social media platforms that lets you set up a group and have private conversations. But you also don't necessarily have to be friends with everyone. So it meant people could keep their distance if they wanted to.   In this study, we ran two groups for 12 weeks. And we basically just gave them stuff to talk about and connect with in this Facebook group. We also added in occasional meetups on Zoom so that people could meet each other face-to-face, even though it was online. So, you know, at the same time, they could have conversations and get to know each other in that way and see each other's faces. And the two groups found that this was really beneficial. So they had more confidence in using social media and they were just thinking about using it in a very different way.   The other thing that we thought about though was we know that there's just this connection between people who've actually lived the path, rather than, you know, being directed by someone like me who hasn't raised this difference in connection. And so we wanted to know whether having a peer moderated group would actually change things. And so we've recently just run a peer-moderated group. And so we kind of sweet-talked two of our previous participants who were quite active in the groups and said, “Do you want to be part of our research team? Would you like to moderate a group? And we'll see what happens.” And so we negotiated with these two awesome people. And they ran the group for eight weeks. So we shortened it a little bit just to make it more feasible and test it out. And before we started the group, we met with our two peer moderators, and said, “What do you feel comfortable doing? What don't you feel comfortable doing?” And we negotiated our roles before we even started, and even though they weren't significant changes in confidence, or any of the quantitative data that we collected in terms of quality of life and things like that, the conversations that people had, were just, I'm going to use one of the moderators words “profound.” They were so different, they were more poignant, and deeper, the conversations that they had in these peer-moderated group, and the reflections that all of the participants had really showed that they connected on a really different level, which was quite lovely. Again, they found it was all feasible and engaging. But there was something about that added element of the peer moderators that made it extra awesome for the people involved, as well as for the peer moderators themselves, they just found that they had improved confidence and improved sense of self for being involved in it. So it was that sense of giving back that really made that group scene, which was really lovely.   Lyssa Rome  I think that that's so exciting. And it makes me wonder what else you're working on? And what's coming next.   Dr. Liss Brunner Yeah, I mean, there's so many ideas, and it's just a matter of actually making them happen. Lyssa, at the moment, were actually designing a social media communication assessment tool that we hope will really help not just clinicians, but also people with brain injury, to start this process of figuring out their purpose in using social media and what their goals might be. And so we're designing it with people with brain injury and clinicians around the world. So that hopefully, it will be really relevant to everyone to just start those conversations. So we hope to have the first version of this available to share freely, hopefully, by the end of the year—next year, definitely. But I'm really excited to see how that pans out. That's the first next step.   Lyssa Rome    Yeah. I think that that is really exciting. And it it, it reminds me of something else that you've written about, which is how SLPs can almost assess their own social media use or think about it, and step back and think about it in order to better help their clients in their social media goals. And I'm wondering if you could explain a little bit about that for our listeners.   Dr. Liss Brunner    This is some work that I actually really loved doing. I think one of the things that can really support how we're able to assist others in using social media is to be really aware of our own use of social media. And I think in this particular paper that you're referring to, it's like we use the metaphor of a garden. And we kind of encouraged people to think about their own use and purpose of using social media. And we used this very arty based approach to thinking about our professional social media identity. And so we kind of describe this process of visualizing your own social media garden. And so it's a metaphor you can use to think about your purpose and build a strategy around how you're going to achieve that. And I think it can be used to get kind of like this real understanding of what social media really means to you, and identify aspects of your own professional identity that are important and could be enriched through using social media. So I think, you know, if you're interested in not just how you use social media professionally, but also how you can help people clinically, in this paper, we really tried to provide another resource to outline strategies for using different techniques to build up your professional and clinical practice.   Lyssa Rome For me, as a clinician, I think one of the takeaways from this conversation and from reading your articles, which we will link to in the show notes, is this idea that we should be reflecting on our own social media use, and our own assumptions about social media use and its risks and its benefits. What other takeaways should listeners be thinking about—things that they can implement in their own clinical practice?   Dr. Liss Brunner    I couldn't agree more, Lyssa. I think reflecting on your own social media use is really powerful. I think it's a really good place to start. And I think then you can just start by having the conversation with people asking about why they use social media. Which platforms are you interested in? What do you want to get out of using social media? Who do you want to connect with? Just having those conversations, I think will give you very rich data to start making some decisions, having ideas around what goals could be targeted. I think, as you said, we'll put the link to some of my papers. But certainly the facilitators that I've mentioned in the AJSLP paper, can be kind of those five factors that can really guide you in thinking about the different aspects to consider around social media use. So you can kind of use that as a bit of a guide, until we're able to create and trial new resources to support that further.   I think there's probably three key resources that I typically recommend that people check out if they want to support people to use social media. I think the obvious one that I'll point out is the social-ABI-ity program. And we'll pop the link in there. I think the other thing that I'd like to mention is another free online training program called Cyberability. And this has actually been designed by some colleagues here in Australia at Monash University, led by Dr. Kate Gould. But it's been built in collaboration, again, with people with brain injury, but who have also been scammed online. So they've got that lived experience. And they contribute their strategies and tips and what they've learned from going through that experience in this training. So I'll make sure that we get the Cyberability training link for you as well. The other resource that I find really useful here in Australia, is that we've got the Australian eSafety Commissioner website. And it's actually been supported by our government to provide lots of advice and resources on staying safe online. And I think, for kids in particular, I can be really handy. So I don't particularly work with kids. But I find that some of the resources there are really good if you do work with children. And there's actually an eSafety guide. And so it actually lists all of the different social media platforms and talks about how to protect your information and report harmful content on those particular platforms. So I think that's a really handy tool for people to know about as well.   Lyssa Rome Those seem very useful. Thank you for bringing those to us. And again, we'll link to those resources. I am so glad to have had this chance to talk with you and I'm really looking forward to all of the exciting things that you're working on now. Dr. Liss Brunner, thanks so much for being a guest on this podcast.   Dr. Liss Brunner  Thank you so much for having me, Lyssa. It's been wonderful. I could talk about this stuff forever and a day. So I'm really pleased that we've had this opportunity. Thank you.   Lyssa Rome  And thanks also to our listeners. For the references and resources mentioned in today's show, please see our show notes. They're available on our website, www.aphasiaaccess.org. There, you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. Thanks again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access. For Aphasia Access Conversations, I'm Lyssa Rome.   Additional Resources Contact Liss: melissa.brunner@sydney.edu.au eSafety Commissioner: www.esafety.gov.au/ eSafety Guide to Staying Safe Online: www.esafety.gov.au/kids/I-want-hel…ing-safe-online Cyberability - free training on how to stay scam safe after brain injury: www.cyberability.org.au/ social-ABI-lity - free training on how to use social media after brain injury: abi-communication-lab.sydney.edu.au/courses…I-lity/ Brunner, M., Hemsley, B., Togher, L., Dann, S., & Palmer, S. (2021). Social media and people with traumatic brain injury: a metasynthesis of research informing a framework for rehabilitation clinical practice, policy, and training. American journal of speech-language pathology, 30(1), 19-33. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-20-00211 *Email Liss for a copy* Brunner M, Rietdijk R, Summers K, Southwell K, Avramovic P, Power E, Rushworth N, Togher L (2024) ‘It gives you encouragement because you're not alone': A pilot study of a multi-component social media skills intervention for people with acquired brain injury. (Invited paper for a Special Issue on SLT/P clinical management of traumatic brain injury across the lifespan), 59, 543–558. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12806 Brunner M, Rietdijk R, Avramovic P, Power E, Miao M, Rushworth N, MacLean L, Brookes AM, Togher L (2023). Developing social-ABI-lity: an online course to support safe use of social media for connection after acquired brain injury. AJSLP (Invited paper for a Special Issue of Select Papers from the International Cognitive-Communication Disorders Conference), 32(2S), 924-940. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_AJSLP-22-00099 Brunner M, Rietdijk R, Togher L (2022). Training resources targeting social media skills: A scoping review to inform rehabilitation for people who have an acquired brain injury. JMIR, 24(4), e35595. https://www.jmir.org/2022/4/e35595/ Brunner M, Bryant L, Turnbull H, Hemsley B (2022). Developing and sustaining a social media ecosystem in speech-language pathology: Using innovative qualitative methods to visualise and cultivate a social media garden. IJSLP (Special Issue on New perspectives, insights, and practices: Qualitative research innovations in Speech-Language Pathology), 24 (5), 558-569. https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2022.2069860 *Email Liss for a copy* Ylvisaker, M., & Feeney, T. (2000). Reflections on Dobermanns, poodles, and social rehabilitation for difficult-to-serve individuals with traumatic brain injury. Aphasiology, 14(4), 407–431. https://doi.org/10.1080/026870300401432   University of Sydney profile Acquired Brain Injury Communication Lab website Twitter/X @LissBEE_CPSP Mastodon @LissBEE LinkedIn Instagram Facebook

Sydney Uni has joined a movement for founding set of principles relating to AI and music creation. Fast stats/info: 25% of music producers are using AI (music business worldwide) 20% of independent artists have used AI music tools (Music Ally) YouTube Music (formerly Google Music) are adding an AI DJ Sydney University has joined a 50-strong coalition of supporters for a founding set of principles which outline the responsible use of AI in music creation. The founding document for these principles came back in March from two of the biggest companies in global music - Audio equipment manufacturer, Roland and label, Universal Music group The press release when this was launched labelled the collaboration between Roland and Universal “a strategic relationship in support of music artists and creators worldwide” They describe the campaign as “ a series of clarifying statements relating to the responsible use of AI in music creation, and will advocate their adoption across the music industry and creative community. The principles highlight the opportunity for innovation with AI in music production, composition, and songwriting while underscoring the need for transparency, equity, and community involvement.” Visit aiformusic.info if you want to see for yourself The seven core principles, or “clarifying statements,” are: We believe music is central to humanity. We believe humanity and music are inseparable. We believe that technology has long supported human artistic expression, and applied sustainably, AI will amplify human creativity. We believe that human-created works must be respected and protected. We believe that transparency is essential to responsible and trustworthy AI. We believe the perspectives of music artists, songwriters, and other creators must be sought after and respected. We are proud to help bring music to life. We also run through the recently announced festival lineups for Big Pineapple, Abilityfest, and NYE on the Hill. Thanks for listening! Be sure to subscribe for more content. Like Homebrewed on ⁠Facebook⁠ Follow Homebrewed on ⁠Instagram⁠ Watch our content on ⁠YouTube⁠ Check out our Spotify Playlists ⁠here⁠ Catch up on everything ⁠Homebrewed⁠ This episode was recorded on Darkingjung Land. Homebrewed is a podcast dedicated to supporting the Australian Music Industry. Cameron Smith and Eamonn Snow have been presenting Homebrewed since November 2017 and have received excellence awards and the admiration of local bands for their presentation of Homebrewed and their continued support of the Australian music scene. This podcast is designed so you can enjoy conversations with musicians, industry representatives and music media personalities.

Counter terrorism police have taken over the investigation into a stabbing at Sydney Uni-- which left a student with serious injuries. The P-M says Fatima Payman is "welcome" to re-join the Labor caucus if she agrees to follow party rules. And White Lotus fans could be in for a treat.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Counter terrorism police have taken over the investigation into a stabbing at Sydney Uni-- which left a student with serious injuries. The P-M says Fatima Payman is "welcome" to re-join the Labor caucus if she agrees to follow party rules. And White Lotus fans could be in for a treat.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Andy Smidt, a former lecturer at the University of Sydney, discusses her resignation due to increasing anti-Semitism and safety concerns, highlighting the distress and intimidation faced by Jewish staff and students on campus.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Julian Assange walks free following a deal with the US, Victoria gives the green light to a pill testing trial. Plus, Senator Michaelia Cash on calls to list the radical Islamist group linked to the Sydney Uni protests as a terror organisation.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Scientist Tanya Latty on how a single-cell organism, slime mould, can solve complex problems in some remarkable ways (R)

In this episode I speak with Tammy Huynh from Leaf An Impression. Tammy is a Horticulturist, Writer and also a presenter on Gardening Australia.She started studying Horticultural Science at Sydney Uni before getting a role working on the Better Homes and Gardens Magazine team.She was awarded Horticulturist of the year in 2021 by the Australian Institute of Horticulture, and also appeared on an episode of Gardening Australia creating a terrarium and kokedama before eventually being offered a presenting role.You can follow Tammy on Instagram @leaf_an_impressionYou can follow along with the projects we're currently working on via our Instagram page@instyle_gardens@thelandscapingpodcastYou can view each episode on our YouTube channel

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 eating junk food, and did the reverse of that because we were young parents – or new parents, I should say. Yeah.  James Valentine: Yeah. All hail kale, I say. So Sarah, what happens to our gut as we age? What are the sort of things we need to be aware of as we're 50, 60, 70? What's happening? Sarah Di Lorenzo: A lot's happening. I mean, I kind of noticed this when I thought, even myself, like it ages. It's as simple as our gut does age. We don't produce as much saliva as we used to. But if you think about eating, say a highly processed meal when you were young and be like, oh that was okay. Or even getting blind drunk when you were young. And then you think, well, that was okay. You go and now in your 50s, you go and eat a big processed meal and you're like, oh gosh, you kind of really do feel it. Or you go out and have a big night on the drink. The next day people will notice it.  James Valentine: The next two days.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: People notice it. They really feel it. So look, it ages. At the end of the day, when you really look at it, first of all, we don't, as I mentioned, there's just not as much saliva. People don't produce as much of the digestive enzymes, so like lactase, so people notice things like, oh I'll hear things in clinic, I just don't really seem to process dairy like I did when I was young. Well, cause you're not producing enough digestive enzymes, so it comes that whole process ages as well, and there's just, even the way our peristalsis, the whole system is… James Valentine: Is that swallowing? Sarah Di Lorenzo: Yes, swallowing issues, chewing. People tend to change their diet as they're older. If they've got things like dentures or dental issues, it can start right from there. So, the microbiome changes. The microbiome is the habitat which our microbiota live in. So I always explain that to people.  James Valentine: This is all the bacteria in our gut.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Bacteria, fungi, viruses.  James Valentine: This is the new thing. This is the newer discovery. This is not stuff we understood. You know, when you were first going, I don't feel so good.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Correct. Yeah, this is all new stuff and it is fabulous. When I was actually reading all this stuff and I was putting this book together, I'm just in awe of our gut. Like, I'm so impressed by it. I really am. The residents that live there, that I might point out, our gut bacteria, weigh two kilos. Yeah. Yeah.  James Valentine: Isn't that amazing? Two kilos of biomass of living stuff.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: I find that fascinating.  James Valentine: So like, do they change if we don't look after them?  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Correct.  James Valentine: Or do we need to do stuff? Are we trying to keep a youthful gut or do we need to understand our maturing gut? Sarah Di Lorenzo: Well, there is that, but look, we do need to take care of it. And this is one thing that I see as people age what they don't do is they don't create that diversity. So our gut bacteria love, love, love a diversity in our diet. So as we age, we tend to eat the same things every day. People have the same breakfast every day, the same lunch, the same dinner. They don't eat a lot.  Now, it's actually, and that's one of the biggest problems. So as you age, it's really important to make sure that you've got that diversity to feed that good bacteria in our gut. We want those colonies broad. We want to feed, because all the different bacteria do different things. Like we've got a bacteria, which is my favourite one, called akkermansia muciniphila. James Valentine: But that's easy for you to say. Say that again. It's a what?  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Akkermansia. It's my favourite bacteria. I love this bacteria. We want lots of it, so akkermansia muciniphila is one that keeps us at a healthy weight. And then you've got like bifidobacterium, which actually helps break down the food we eat. I know you're looking at, if anyone could see James right now! James Valentine: No, it's impressive. Okay, very, very good. It's like when people see birds and they use the Latin name. It's like, very good. Well done.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Now I've lost my train of thought. Yeah, sorry. Okay, as we age… James Valentine: Yeah, as we age. I think what I'm interested in is, like, with a lot of things we want to stay, we need to stay, youthful. Is our gut like that, or should we be allowing our gut to mature? Sarah Di Lorenzo: I would want to be keeping my gut as young as possible. Definitely. The other thing we forget is medications that people take as they age. So medications can really impact gut health. And we know that. People often take laxatives when they're older. There is actually this recent study that came out that showed that people who use laxatives – not stool-bulking laxatives, but actual laxatives – have a 51% increase in their risk of dementia, which shows that gut brain axis. So there's a lot of things that can, stress is a really big one. It can be stress with ageing, stress for whatever, that will impact gut health. But it is creating that diversity and we only eat I think, 75% of the adult population only eat from 12 different plant types over the course of the week. That's some research that I have seen. So one great thing that you can do to start to improve and feed all those different colonies down there, like akkermansia, and grow more of them, the one thing you can do is make sure, a little test you can do, is make sure you're eating 30 different plant species over the course of the week. James Valentine: And Tobie, how do you approach getting that diversity in the diet?  Tobie Puttock: Yeah, there's a lot to be said for it. General nutrition, I have a basic understanding of, but my main thing is making things taste good. Which is what I wanted to do with my book, The Chef Gets Healthy, which was about making everyday food. Because I think as a society, we tend to look for easy answers for big problems.  And I remember at one stage, the fried southern chicken burgers were trendy. And then on the other end of the scale, you had Pete Evans pushing these really super hardcore diets like the paleo diets. And I always think that the answers lie somewhere in the middle. You don't need to go to these extremes. James Valentine:  Okay. Well, give us some insights into what you do with these sort of things. Cause I think sometimes people say, look, the fermented foods, kimchi, sauerkraut, they're good. And then you should be eating more of the brassicas, the broccoli and the sprouts and all that sort of stuff. But if you're used to the steak and veg, if you're used to the pizza, you don't know what to do with this stuff. Tobie Puttock:  Yeah, it's true. And I believe that you can still eat all that. You just need to add in vegetables. So I think as a society we're getting better at this, but until recently we've eaten way too much protein. Aussies tend to eat beef or lamb, or similar sort, four to five nights a week and even more seven nights a week. I remember speaking to somebody saying, oh, you should have fish once or twice a week. And they had no idea. They never cooked fish. They had no idea of the health benefits of that as well. But my belief is that we need to pull back on eating meat, substantially, for so many reasons, you know starting with environmental, but also our health as well. So I believe a great diet and a lot of research has been done on this and proven, the Lancet report has shone some great light on this, which is that we should probably eat a vegetarian diet three to four nights a week. Eating meat is expensive, so you can save that money that you're not spending by cutting meat out of the diet three to four nights a week. And then when you do eat meat, eat a fantastic cut of meat that's sort of grass fed, comes from a reputable supplier, therefore we're not fuelling the inhumane farming trade. And you will notice huge differences. Now, simple ways to cook vegetables. I've worked in very technical kitchens and it's funny, because since I've been out of kitchens since 2012, I've often realised that cooking vegetables, the easiest way, is often the most flavoursome and nutrient-beneficent.  So, I grew up with a British father who grew up in a family which was often, I think, frozen vegetables, or vegetables that were cooked until all the chlorophylls and colours had gone out and they were grey. I do the polar opposite of that.  So, I'm not into a raw diet, but I think you need to cook vegetables until, for example, with kale. Let me talk you through one of my favourite quick dishes. So we do a breakfast, which is, baked eggs and kale, and fantastic. And my meat-eating friends who I've given this to just go bananas for it.  So it starts in a pan with a little bit of olive oil, and garlic and chili – so aglio e olio base – and you sauté that off over a low-to-medium heat until the garlic starts to soften and become translucent, at which stage you break in some kale – and cavolo nero, which is a type of Tuscan kale, is also fantastic. Even more robust leaves than the traditional green kale that we're familiar with now, with those stems which are really fibrous. I normally leave those out and keep them for a juice or similar, but they've got a lot going on, our body needs them, but for this particular dish, not the best. So break off the leaves, sauté them around, mix them through with the oil and the garlic and the chili until it just starts to green, at which stage you can crack a couple of eggs into there. And then normally over the top of that, I break some feta cheese into there, dabble a little bit of natural Greek yogurt, some hemp seeds, a little good pinch of sea salt and pepper, bung the whole thing into the oven just until the eggs are set. We're talking two, three minutes.  So you can make this whole dish, if you're good, in under 10 minutes. And it's got a lot going on there. You're going to get all that beautiful fibrous veg from the kale in there. And the protein from the eggs, the hemp seeds are fantastic, and the whole thing just tastes amazing. It's a delicious breakfast. But kale can be really, really easy to cook. I mean, it's as simple as sautéing it down for a couple of minutes.  James Valentine: So Sarah, tell us more about feeding our gut bacteria.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: So we want to feed these guys with prebiotics. So that's what they eat. Bacteria need these prebiotic-rich foods, which are the foods people just don't get enough of.  They might go and take probiotic supplements, but you need the pre's to feed the pro's. It's as simple as that. Prebiotic-rich foods, fibre, that we can't digest as humans, but the bacteria feast on them. And so we want all of those wonderful foods. Now things like asparagus, apples are great, onions, garlic, oats, and all great foods, sourdough is another good one. All excellent foods that we should really be eating. Leek, Jerusalem artichoke, they're all coming to my mind now. You can see my mind is flowing in with them. I've unlocked that part of my brain, which is full of prebiotic information and let it flow out. Yeah. So we need to actually feed them to grow. And in turn, their waste product, the bacteria waste, is what we as humans thrive on, it's critical for our overall health and wellness. And we call their waste, which is called a postbiotic, is actually a short-chain fatty acid, or it's called butyrate. So butyrate feeds our colon cells. It makes the wall of our gut strong and firm, which is what we want. We don't want it inflamed and leaky, where you get what's called leaky gut syndrome that leads into migraines and headaches. And so that's called post. I'm obsessed with butyrate. I just want so much butyrate. I would drink it. So you can see that's how it all kind of works.  James Valentine: Yeah. Yeah. And so we should be getting all this through foods, not through supplements, pills, little liquids, you know, things that are meant to sort of put it there. Just do it through the stuff that you eat? Sarah Di Lorenzo: Correct. But if you were, for example, someone who was taking a course of antibiotics, because the antibiotics, whilst they're amazing and they save lives and they wipe out the bad, they also wipe out the good. So if I was to have to go on a course about antibiotics, I would take probiotics, I would take them in supplement form, but I would also make sure I was feeding that, just having a bowl of oats for breakfast or having some asparagus, asparagus is a good one, or just throwing a lot of onion and garlic in my food, making up shots of different… just adding it in where you can. James Valentine: This is so much when we start to hear, the Mediterranean diet, that it covers all of these things, doesn't it? You cook with onion and garlic, there's oil on stuff. You will have sort of an oats or, you know, muesli type thing for breakfast or a cookie that's like that. This is the stuff.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Correct. And also all the legumes you forget that are so high in fibre. I think Westerners just forget about legumes. And they are…  James Valentine: This is your chickpea, your beans, all that sort of stuff.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Yes. Lentils and chickpeas and beans, and they dominate the Mediterranean diet and people shy away from them because when they eat them – and this is the whole problem with fibre. We don't eat enough fibre. That is a huge problem. Part of the ageing process is people just don't eat enough fibre. Because when you introduce fibre to people that aren't used to it, they get flatulent and distended. And they go, oh I've got FODMAPs or I've got this. And I'm like, no, no, no. You just had too much fibre, too quickly. You have to introduce fibre slowly to people to get them over it. That's what I've written. The four-week plan of my book is just that slow introduction of fibre so people don't get those symptoms.  But it is a common base of the Mediterranean diet and the gut bacteria, it's all about feeding these guys, making them happy, making them grow, making all the good ones grow. And in turn, supporting our health. It's pretty simple, but when you do the deep dive into it and look at all the different types of bacteria and as you can see, there's bacteria for mental health, bacteria for weight, bacteria for skin, bacteria for heart. And so we want lots of them, not just feeding one, which is why you can see that diversity is really important. James Valentine: So I suppose I'm thinking that we had a long period of time where we worried about the heart. You know, there was a lot of focus on the heart. The heart's the thing. You have to deal with that. And then we've had a period of time where, look, it's weight. Weight is most important. You know, you've got to keep the weight off and make sure that you're at the right weight and that sort of stuff. Is the gut just sort of the trend? Is it just the sort of the thing that everyone's talking about now? Because we're bored of talking about the heart or something like that. Is there more to it than that?  Sarah Di Lorenzo: I think that when you think about trends and fashions in health, like, okay, well, cardiovascular disease, clearly it's a leading cause of death and disability. So it's always going to be there. I do feel there are trends. I think trends are what you've got to be really careful of. Like at the end of the day, the heart's the centre, I mean, you have to take care of your heart health, and it still is that, it is the leading cause. And then weight is something that I feel it's evergreen. Look, at the end of the day, excess weight is inflammation, inflammation drives disease, it's just as simple as that. Any patient that comes into my clinic, and sits down, and, oh hi Sarah, look, I'm here for my menopause, my gut, my cardiovascular, and I've seen them 15 to 20 [times], and I will say to them, okay, I'm not going to sit here as your practitioner, and just do a treatment protocol for your cardiovascular condition.  Because you're carrying 15 kilos of weight.  So it all ties in together, so every single patient that sees me has to get to a healthy weight, because I know that it's so inflammatory. Adipose tissue is like this. It's big, it's proinflammatory cytokines, it is inflammation. Inflammation drives disease. And number-one of the diseases is depression. Before you start going to cardiovascular, diabetes, thyroid, arthritis, or before you even go down that path, metabolic syndrome, it is the driver. And as far as gut goes, people who are overweight have poor gut health. I'll tell you an exception to that though. So people who are overweight, talk to them about getting to a healthy weight and working on increasing that. The only exception would be, when I think, cause I'm right now, I'm just scanning all my patients that are currently in my clinic while I'm talking to you, is someone who would come in with H pylori [helicobacter pylori], and undiagnosed. So I had a lady who brought her husband in. And this is quite a funny story. They're both 45, great couple, no kids, living their best lives. They don't want kids because they're fabulous and they want to just travel and enjoy. She can't cope with the amount of times he farts in a day. So she's just like, he farts way too much. James Valentine: How many would be too much?  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Well, I'm going to ask, I'm going to do a pop quiz on you James. Okay. How many farts do you think we should be doing a day as humans?  James Valentine: I would go for around the dozen.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Not bad. Okay, 15 to 22, so yeah, you weren't far off. This guy was just farting all day. So I asked her that and she said it's constant. Like it's probably every five minutes. And she said it's actually ruining our marriage. I said, yeah, fair enough. And she can't sleep in the same room as this poor guy. So healthy weight, fit guy, Lebanese, so ate a lot of raw meat. I knew that there was something going on. I knew he had a parasite of some kind. So I just sent him off for a test, came back, he had helicobacter pylori. And so we cleared up the H pylori, their marriage is back on track.  James Valentine: And he's back to the 15 or 20 that we should all be doing… Sarah Di Lorenzo: …instead of doing about a thousand. So that would be the exception. And what I do see is people that come back in from travelling to places like Indonesia, who come back and they've had Bali Belly or different things, so they're the ones I also see, which again, where a parasite has impacted their gut, and it does ruin people's lives.   James Valentine: Let's say I'm 70, I've never done any of this. Can I change? Is my gut going to change? Is it all too late?  Sarah Di Lorenzo: It's never too late. I don't care, like actually, I had someone write to me this morning, because I did a post about how much I hate artificial sweeteners, and they said, is it too late? I've had my whole life living on Equal, and I drink Diet Coke every day, and I've got diabetes. No, it's never too late. I will always say, I will never give up. I will fight for someone's health to the end.  James Valentine: Tobie, for general gut health, if you're doing as you describe, you have two, three, four vegetable-based dishes a week, you're more conscious of eating some raw greens and that sort of stuff, you can have a pizza on Friday night? Yeah, you can have a glass of wine. It's not to say you've got to get rid of these things? Tobie Puttock: No, it's about balance for me. It's like, I still have Cadbury chocolate in the fridge. I love that stuff, but it's about the majority of the time eating as well as you can. And of course we know we sort of started to get into the realm of biohacking now. And we've got all these tech billionaires who will look you dead in the eye saying they're going to live to 150. And we've got, I forget the gentleman's name. He's reversing his age. He's a tech billionaire in Silicon Valley and he's now got the innards of about a 30-year-old and he's about 45 and he's going back about three years for every year. So there's a lot to be said for that. Now we know that through processed diets, this shortens your life,100%. And we don't even have all the data yet, but a lot of the processed foods and I get really worried about these younger generations who can't cook, they're all into the cooking shows and they love watching it as eye candy, but they can't cook, which for me is such a basic life skill. But if you look at all the oldest living people in the world without gut issues and all these kinds of things, they're eating very natural foods. They're in, you know, the Mediterranean, they're in Japan and they're eating just a lot of good produce.  James Valentine: Yeah. Now, coming back to you, Sarah, what are your thoughts on this? Sarah Di Lorenzo: So when I do gut repair work with people, the thing is, you get these people in, and I'll say, OK, so give me what are you eating today? I don't really know, I kind of, oh so you wing it, you ad lib the day. OK, so when I have an ad libber or someone who wings the day, all right, give me a 24-hour recall. So that's my next question. Oh, yesterday, oh, I had a couple of pieces of toast. Ah, a bit of jam, I don't know, I just had that on the fly, grabbed a coffee. Had some Arrowroots at work or at home with the wife watching, you know, more breakfast television. Oh, I don't know what we had. Oh, we had leftovers for lunch, that's right. Oh, my mum cooked, my wife cooked a spaghetti bolognese for the grandkids that came over in the afternoon. Oh, we had some bikkies or whatever. A bit of chocolate. They don't really know. And it's a lot of highly refined processed food, which is really dry, which really increases the production of insulin, which is driving disease, etc. So when I say to them, right, do my gut repair plan for four weeks, I am taking them from what they think is okay as a Western diet. They might even be having a white bread sandwich for lunch or a stir fry for dinner. To me, that's a Western diet. So when you take someone from that and you say, right, do all your food prep, get everything organised, start your program. And you put them on my program, which is a gluten-free program – number-one common allergen – first thing to go is headaches. And then you get that clarity of the thought instantly within three days you'll feel better. Energy, body systems working well, better sleep, better mood. And within three days, I'll get messages. I see her on my day three of the gut repair. I've gone to the toilet twice today, three times today, I had a really good night's sleep. I feel my energy's really up in three days. So you can see, as I mentioned in the beginning of our chat, eating rubbish food and going out and hammering yourself on the booze, you get that input, like you picked two days. So you think two days of healthy eating.  The gut does respond. So it will respond very quickly within three days. But to really overhaul it, I would say minimum three months. But it has to be lifelong.   James Valentine: Yeah. What a great conversation. We've been into the stool. We've farted a bit together. We have. We've got the boy working. Yeah. I love it. We've covered so much good ground. And yet all of it is in an area that we've really only just started to think about. We should be thinking about all the time. It's sort of one of the most simple things we can do, isn't it? Sarah Di Lorenzo: It's so basic.  James Valentine: It's really just, eat a lot of plants… Sarah Di Lorenzo: …eat well, avoid processed food,  James Valentine: …the stuff that comes in a package and it's processed, it's going to be bad for you.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Reassess your health, stay on top of it, diversity, plants, hydration, exercise, sleep well, stress management tools are really important for the gut brain axis, for the stress, taking care of your nervous system. It's never too late. It's never too late.  James Valentine: It's never too late. Get on with it. Happy gut, happy life.  Sarah Di Lorenzo: Absolutely. That's it. That's the foundation for everything.  James Valentine: Thank you to Sarah and Tobie for your delectable advice. You've satisfied our hunger for knowledge of a healthier gut. You've been listening to Life's Booming, brought to you by Australian Seniors.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Whilst growing up in Sydney, Natalie Bell (L: @Natalie Bell) fostered a passion for cattle through her high school's agriculture Show Team. Her journey continued with an Agricultural Science degree from Sydney Uni with honours in Livestock Production. She has worked across multiple sectors including a Parent Seed agronomist role in QLD and various roles within the domestic Pork industry. Currently based in Holbrook, NSW Natalie is a Business Analyst in the cattle industry. Natalie is also the founder of Hylo Ag, a sustainability start-up aiming to help the Australian livestock industry revolutionise on-farm plastic waste. Hylo Ag's innovative approach enables farmers, feedlots and abattoirs to recycle plastic ear tags. In her spare time, Natalie enjoys playing touch football, lawn bowls and flipping old furniture.   Don't forget to send us an email if you know of a story that we should tell at hello@generationag.com.au *Become a Patreon Partner* - https://patreon.com/generationag Find us here: Instagram: @generation.ag Twitter: @generation_ag Website: www.generationag.com.au

Die alljährliche Verleihung der Swiss Business Awards ist ein Höhepunkt in Leben der Schweizer Gemeinde in Australien. Jetzt war es wieder soweit und vor einer großen Zahl geladener Gäste in der Great Hall der Sydney Uni wurden die erfolgreichsten Unternehmen ausgezeichnet. Das Prädikat ‘Rising Star‘ ging an die kleine Niederlassung der Firma Curaprox in Adelaide. Geschäftsführer Erik Leinius sagt, was Curaprox besser macht.

Episode 6, season 2 with Bre Hoy Get to know your WallaroosThis episode we get an insight into the life of Bre Hoy.  Bre is a Loose Head Prop for the Wallaroos. Bre plays in the Super W for the NSW Waratahs and club rugby for Sydney Uni in the Jack Scott Cup as well as playing the 2023/24 season for the Mie Pearls in Japan. Bre made her debut for the Wallaroos in 2023 v England in game 1 of WXV, after joining the wider training group following her performance in Super w 2023. Bre has had a taste of full time rugby in Japan shortly after debuting for the Wallaroos. Having grown up in Coffs Harbour, NSW and making the move to Sydney in 2019 she has had a relatively quick rise to success but this is clearly due to her dedication and love for the game. Bre talks of how the chances she has taken have always lead to a more holistic and fulfilling life through the learnings from pushing the comfort zone. 

Oscar NominationsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, there is mention of severe homophobia, transphobia, and suicide. If any of the topics discussed is triggering for you, please seek help by visiting Lifeline's website at https://www.lifeline.org.au/ or by calling 13 11 14. You can also call QLife at 1800 184 527. Kim was in his teens when he came across a beat in Cronulla in Sydney where he experimented with his sexuality and later found out that he was bisexual. It was the 1970s and Conversion Therapy was promising to rid queer Christian folk from their bodily sins. Now Historian Kim Kemmis takes us through what it was like for him to undergo an exorcism, live in fear of AIDS and the accompanying stigma, and navigate feelings towards men now that he was a married man.  LINKS Find out about Kim's research at Sydney Uni https://bit.ly/48HJ48u Watch the Netflix doco "Pray Away" https://bit.ly/3S7Dh59 Watch Kim's suggestion "Boy Erased" https://bit.ly/42bYFL9 Email your own voice memos for your Episode Feedback or Nightmare Fuel to hello@itsalotpodcast.com  Review the podcast on Apple Podcasts https://bit.ly/ial-review   CREDITS  Host: Abbie Chatfield @abbiechatfield Guest: Kim Kemmis @kim.kemmisExecutive Producer: Lem Zakharia @lemzakhariaCo-Creative Producer: Oscar Gordon @oscargordon Social and Video Producer: Amy Code @amycode Managing Producer: Sam Cavanagh  Find more great podcasts like this at www.listnr.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode is a talk from an EU Public Meeting in Semester 2, 2023. Series: Unexpected Answers Speaker: Kit Ng Talk title: Perfectionism: A Paradox? Kit Ng graduated from Sydney Uni and worked as a Clinical Dietitian before embarking on theological studies. This is a topic close to her heart as she is a self-professed perfectionist. She hopes to share wisdom from life, research and the Bible to help other perfectionists. The talk was followed by a time of discussion and Q&A. To find out more about the Sydney Uni Evangelical Union, or to join us on campus, visit https://sydneyunieu.org.

This weeks guest is Sean Hedger (Hedge). Hedge is the Director of Rugby at IRAA. He coached Sydney Uni to a victory in the Shute Shield in 2022 and was also named joint Shute Shield coach of the year the same year. He has also coached extensively in Japan as well as Bond Uni and the Melbourne Rebels. During our chat we spoke about Flexibility of thought during your coaching and what are the Big Pocks for you and your team. Also how to create leadership within your team and how to drive peer to peer coaching . He also spoke about learning from other coaches as well as coaches in other sports. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/bullys-rugby-coaching/message

This week we are sitting down with Nick Crundall the CEO of Market Check a specialist grain marketing advisor.Nick grew up in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, his connection to agriculture was fairly minimal however today, he's determined to show kids just like him, the careers and opportunities in agriculture.Initially he wanted to be a real estate agent, it was the interest in economics that saw him apply for and be accepted to Agriculture Economics at Sydney Uni before a summer internship with Meat and Livestock Australia solidified his interest and passion in Agriculture.Since then, his career moves and interests have been well thought out, leaning on mentors, friends and the broader network to ultimately become a CEO in his mid-30's.In this episode we chat about: Leadership in an emerging agriculture business Career Advice and decision making Connecting Rural and Urban Australians The Vast opportunities in agriculture Building a career in agriculture in a capital city Communication, business strategy and team dynamics

This episode of Backchat delves into some of the new waste programs across Sydney, and how where you live across the LGAs could make a huge difference to what you can recycle, and how much it is going to cost you. Backchat producer Sana Shaikh explains in this week's wrap.  Next, with more and more young people questioning their reasons for drinking, stress and anxiety are emerging as some of the major players. Sydney University's Inroads program is an online, self-guided program for young adults who drink to reduce or cope with stress, nervousness or anxiety. Backchat chats to Dr Katrina Prior to understand how the Inroads program is helping young people. Finally, how would you rate the state of Sydney's live music scene? Post-Covid, NSW has lost over half of its live music venues and the scene is changing as a result. The NSW government has just announced a survey of artists and professionals working in the music industry, and Elise Chidiac from the Music Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) sheds some light.   Aired November 11, 2023. This episode of Backchat was produced by Holly Payne, Tanita Razaghi, Sana Shaikh and Eamonn Snow on Gadigal land.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr Hannah Gould from the Australian Death Studies Society, and Professor Alex Broom, Death Expert at Sydney Uni, take on this subject in the weekly debate segment.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sean Hedger Hedge is a decorated coach across Australia and Japan. Has coached in both the professional space and the club scenes. His time with the club rugby has coincidentally also been in the University space at Sydney Uni and Bond Uni. Hedge is a great chance taker as well as a provider of chances for others. We talk about why coaching, creating culture and where that starts from - on or off the field, why he helped me out and the superpower of sharing your time along with his expertise. The importance of clarity for all involved in executing a game plan or philosophy and the value of getting everyone committed to the same thing are two topics we explore. A great man and a great conversation.

(aired 09/09/2023) - We kick off this episode of Backchat with a look at Sydney's worsening housing woes. The Committee for Sydney has just released a new report dealing just how much this crisis is costing - and will continue to cost - our city. Estelle Grech is an urban planner with the Committee For Sydney, and she will be in studio to unpack some of the takeaways from their latest report. Next up, we're joined by Sydney author and PhD researcher, Anna Broinowski for a look into the world of Deepfakes. Are we doomed? Are there positives? We'll answer this and more in a fascinating conversation. Stay tuned for a follow up, too. Finally, we round things out with a special look at the Varroa mite outbreak that continues to devastate bee populations across NSW. Our own Holly Payne has spoken to Honey Bee Council CEO Danny LeFeuvre and Sydney Uni scientist Dr Emily Remnant for the lowdown.   This episode of Backchat was produced by Sumaiya Chowdhure, Holly Payne, Jostina Basta and Eamonn Snow.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

(aired 29/07/2023 - Bushfire season is upon us, and this week on Backchat we'll get started with a look at our preparedness. Outgoing Backchat producer Matt Le Guay will be in the hot seat to unpack how we're tracking and how much Indigenous cultural cool burning practices have been incorporated into our preparation. Next up - cash looks to eb going the way of the Dodo, but do we really understand what a totally cashless society would mean? You'll be hearing from Swinburne Uni's professor Steve Worthington and Ronald Mizen from the Australian Financial Review as they try to answer some of these questions. Finally - most of us watch or have watched porn. How much thought have you given to the ethics of the porn you consume? Sydney Uni has just released the results from a landmark global study examining the ethics of pornography, and we'll be diving into that research and the world of ethical porn via a report from Backchat reporter Nic Huntington.   This episode of Backchat was produced by Matt Le Guay, Sana Shaikh, Nic Huntington and Eamonn Snow.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guys I know I get excited about every single guest we're lucky to have on the show, but this week's is particularly special for so many reasons -      we've all had Matilda's fever -      before we even get to the Tilly's, this guest's journey is absolutely incredible -      she's basically Ang's ultimate idol so Ang actually joined in on this interview -      and she has barely done any other interviews and we are SO grateful that she said yes to the yayborhood because this is genuinely one of my favourite episodes in a long time! In fact, we enjoyed it so much and it was so jam packed with pearls of wisdom that we went longer than usual AND are coming back for part two because there's so much more we wanted to cover. I can't quite believe we're saying this but we are thrilled to welcome to seize the yay, the Matilda's team doctor, Dr Brandi Cole. She tells the story best herself so I won't go on too long in this intro but just quickly, there are few things Dr Brandi hasn't excelled in! Early in life, she began as an athlete herself being the former captain of the Australian Women's Oztag team, playing both touch and hockey for NSW in the past and being an Australian and World gold medalist in beach sprint relay in Surf Life Saving. She then dkid her undergrad in Physio at Sydney Uni in 2003, which is enough for many, but wen ont to then do Medicine in 2008 and become a Specialist Sport and Exercise Medicine Physician having gained fellowship of the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians in 2019. Dr Brandi completed a PhD on optimising the management of rotator cuff dysfunction through the University of New South Wales in 2018. And all this before she became the team doctor for the Matilda's INCLUDING at this recent captivating World Cup tournament (as well as working with Sydney FC and numerous mens and womens rugby teams). AND she's a Mum of two and has her own practice… like WHAT A WOMAN!!!   I could rave about this woman for hours, which I kind of did in this episode, so I'll stop myself there and let you enjoy. I hope you guys are as inspired by this one as we were!!!

This week we're bringing you stories from students at the Western Sydney University. The students have been studying the fundamentals of podcasting, giving them the expertise needed to produce their own podcast feature. Each story involves a unique topic and perspective but are all linked by an exploration about the way we as people relate to each other and the world around us...   The cost of the cost-of-living First, we face up to a discussion about how the cost of living crisis in Australia is impacting young people both at the moment and in the future. Produced by Riley Birt.   One of da boiiz Have you ever tried to fit-in so badly that you've made some questionable choices? Up next we hear the unexpected sacrifices Nico made as a young queer trying to  fit in with his heterosexual classmates.  Produced by Nico Bruni.   The Heart and Soul Podcast In our final story, Chris interviews friends and reflects on his life as part of a quest to find spiritual solitude. Produced by Chris Mallas.   These stories are student works, made for the subject Pitch: Podcasting Essentials at Western Sydney University facilitated by Dr Roger Dawkins, with special thanks to Tegan Nicholls for being the tutor in 2023. Find out more by searching for “2047 Pitch: Podcasting Essentials” at the Western Sydney Uni website.    All The Best credits: Production Manager: Phoebe Adler-Ryan Editorial Manager: Mell Chun Host: Madhuraa Prakash   Unheard Story Pitches Interested in making a story with All The Best? We've extended the deadline for "Unheard story" pitches until September 11th. Apply here: https://forms.gle/4ShMB5SAsPTJJpTS8See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Provocations 2023 forum was called “Material Girl: Why trans rights is class struggle,” which was a talk and discussion led by Sophie Cotton. Sophie Cotton is a National Tertiary Education Union representative at Sydney Uni and is on the Queer committee. She's been a staunch activist in the fight for trans rights and gender affirmation leave.Cotton argues that class struggle is an avenue to winning trans rights, and that gender and trans experiences are a material fact in response to Kathleen Stocks's transphobic book titled “Material Girls.” She recounts her experience in the NTEU and Sydney Uni bargaining campaign—fighting for gender affirmation leave.

Today I bring you part 2 of my conversation with Yaser Naseri, an Iranian refugee with a story to tell. Please, if you happen to have stumbled on this episode and have not listened to part 1 – head now to listen to Episode 36 then come back here and all will make sense. What an honour it was to listen to part 2 of Yaser Naseri's story as a refugee from Iran, part 2 starting with the day he arrived in Brisbane. You cannot not be moved by Yaser, not just his story but his attitude, his determination to make a life worth living, his desire and need to be a voice for all those who have lost their lives fleeing war, persecution and discrimination, and above all his hopes for the future. You can help his hopes and dreams become a reality by considering Yaser as your next Keynote Speaker. Please connect with him on LinkedIn (contact details below). Enjoy Here are some show notes The day Yaser arrived from Indonesia to Australia The refuges settlement process and Yaser's emotional response The journey to master the English language Yaser's volunteering experience and paying it forward for refugees From Brisbane to Sydney, an epiphany and the next chapter A day in the life of Yaser the University Student A shout out to TAFE counsellors and other support resources Careerseekers to the rescue Yaser's first internship The challenges in navigating new systems The transition from intern to full time employee The role of Yvonne Kelly and her social enterprise Glow Up Careers Pairing up to spread the message – Yvonne and Yaser's keynote speaking A call out to all organisations to consider hiring refugees How Yaser plans to use his story for good The appointment of Yaser as a National Refugee Ambassador for Australia (Refugee Council of Australia) Hopes and dreams for the future from a global perspective How hope can help us as we lead our families, community and business The challenge of maintaining hope Yaser returns to Indonesia If this story moves or inspires you, and I can't imagine it for one moment that it won't, then please share it far and wide - thank you. The podcast is available on all podcast platforms and on the BrainSmart website (details in comments) #hope #resilience #leadership #rawthenticleadership #refugeeswelcome #survival #podcast #rawthenticleadership The ABC article about the boat capsizing - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-19/hopes-fade-for-asylum-seekers/3737376 Yaser on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasernaseri/ Yaser on Instagram - @yasernaseri_ Careerseekers - http://www.careerseekers.org.au/ GlowUp Careers - https://glowupcareers.com/ Yvonne Kelly (Glow Up Careers) on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonnekelly1   Sydney Uni article - https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/05/26/from-devastation-to-a-dream-come-true.html   

This episode delves into the pressing issues of housing and immigration in Australia, featuring a conversation with renowned financial journalist, Alan Kohler. The discussion revolves around the impact of high immigration rates on housing demand and affordability, emphasizing the need for coordination between immigration and housing policies. The episode also highlights the supply-side factors contributing to the housing crisis, such as restrictions on housing development and protections for character housing and heritage. The host Gene Tunny suggests the need for a national debate and parliamentary inquiry into Australia's immigration rate and population growth to weigh the benefits of immigration against the challenges of housing and infrastructure. Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com or sending a voice message via https://www.speakpipe.com/economicsexplored. What's covered in EP191[00:01:58] Australia's housing crisis. [00:06:47] The need to coordinate immigration and housing. [00:08:00] Short-term vs long-term rental - the impact of AirBnB, etc. [00:13:05] Local governments and the housing shortage. [00:18:30] Drop in average housing size. [00:22:32] Increasing housing supply as a solution. [00:24:17] Immigration and housing affordability. [00:28:07] The pandemic response and the housing crisis.Links relevant to the conversationAlan Kohler's articles:Labor immigration and housing policies are an explosive mixAlan Kohler: Population growth equals economic growth, but for whom?RBA research on average household size:A New Measure of Average Household Size | Bulletin – March 2023 | RBAPrevious Economics Explored episodes on housing:Odd way to fix housing crisis proposed by Aus. Gov't: invest in stocks first w/ Dr Cameron Murray, Sydney Uni. – Economics ExploredThe high cost of housing and what to do about it w/ Peter Tulip, CIS – EP134 – Economics ExploredMissing Middle Housing podcast chat with Natalie Rayment of Wolter Consulting | Queensland Economy Watch    Australian Financial Review articles on housing:Housing supply crisis: How Auckland took on the NIMBYs and won1.3 million missing homes blamed on councils and NIMBYsThanks to Darren Brady Nelson for connecting Gene with Alan Kohler, to Obsidian Productions for mixing the episode and to the show's sponsor, Gene's consultancy business www.adepteconomics.com.au. Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

Analía Lazzari is a Zurich based interiors photographer and stylist, raised in Patagonia, on the shores of the Southern Atlantic Ocean. In 2001, she moved to Australia for love and things got busy. Raising children, working at Sydney Uni, studying Law… she found an escape in her design books and began styling and shooting friends' homes for fun. In Switzerland, she turned her passion for design into a career and founded Spaces for Life Interiors. Her work can be found in famous magazines like Das Ideale Heim, Raum & Wohnen, and other printed and digital publications. https://www.spacesforlifeinteriors.com Join the upcoming Online Book Readings “Living Without Fear”: https://swissmadestory.ch/readings BOOKS:

Have you ever considered, or are considering specialising, but you are put off by the journey of becoming a specialist? Usually the path to specialising means putting almost everything else aside for 3-5 years. But what if there was a different way? Dr Anna Dengate is a medicine specialist, and she's convinced that there could be an alternative path, and in this conversation she helps us to explore what that could look like. Anna's own career journey hasn't quite followed the the norm. After graduating from Sydney Uni in 2008 her path has meandered its way through several roles: intern, wife, resident, PhD candidate, GP vet, Member of ANZCVS, mum of 1, founding partner in a specialist hospital, Fellow of the ANZCVS, mum of 2, and resident supervisor. Most recently, Anna has been providing specialist medical and ultrasound services to GPs through her business The Vet's North. She also provides ongoing learning opportunities to wider groups of vets with teaching in ultrasound & online medical rounds, and has a new social impact project under development & is working on ways to integrate people with disabilities & traumatic backgrounds into the animal-care industry to increase diversity & inclusion. Join in for a conversation around what more inclusive residencies could look like, how Anna made it happen for herself, the importance of getting to know yourself for creating a career pathway that fills your bucket, finding the balance between pushing yourself enough for growth without reaching breaking point, and much much more. Topic list: 03:37 The relative rarity of female veterinary specialists with children. 04:16 Anna's journey through qualification, specialisation & having kids. 08:09 Having a newborn while studying. 11:59 Being prepared to fail. 13:38 Are institutions more supportive for part-time residencies now? 14:30 The barrier to specialising: to be a specialist or have a family? 15:05 Is specialising worth it? 16:31 More on barriers - from vet to specialist, the system is set up wrong. 18:18 Why can't we do it part-time? 20:18 The culture in specialist clinics that does not prioritise balance. 24:42 Givers, Takers & Matchers - who is the most successful? 25:56 The difference between successful vs unsuccessful Givers. 26:44 Can we change the profession & it's lack of boundaries, or is it up to us to know ourselves & our limits? 29:04 Coasting vs striving. 33:10 The benefits of making mistakes & getting to know yourself. 37:17 Negativity bias & how it affects the resilience in the vet industry. 48:37 Focussing on the positives & building resilience. 50:54 How empathy plays a role in resilience. 51:22 Empathy vs compassion - is empathy a bad thing? 53:47 Compassion fatigue vs burnout. 59:50 The connection between teaching & bureaucracy. 62:30 What's Anna excited about in the vet world? 67:49 Anna's education programs. 71:56 Anna's favourite podcasts. 73:28 How would Anna's career look different if she knew the things she knows now? 74:52 Anna's advice for new grads. Join our Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game & get your groove back with our up to date easy-to-consume clinical episodes at vvn.supercast.com.  Visit thevetvault.com for show notes & resources for this episode. Connect with us and other listeners through our Vet Vault Network community for episode highlights, chats, questions & support. Join LIVE in Adelaide on 31st May - RSVP here. Can't make it to Adelaide? Come join online here Artificial intelligence in vet industry LIVE June 1st, join us here Join us at Vets on Tour in Wanaka on 13 - 18 August 2023 Anna's Business - The Vet's North --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vet-vault/message

 Today two struggles from two different ends of the spectrum with the same issues at the core – pay and conditions.  First we hear from Tony Mavromatis, Victorian State Secretary of the AMWU, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union about the strike action by workers at the Visy Plant in the rural centre Shepparton in Victoria.  Support the strike fund:BANK: NABBSB: 082-057ACCOUNT NUMBER: 18-898-9948ACCOUNT NAME: AMWU Disaster Appeal AccountREFERENCE: Visy Shepp We follow up with a report on the NTEU, National Tertiary Education Union strike action at Sydney University on March 31 and to be repeated on April 5th in the longest eba negotiation in the University's history. 

The Australian Government has been having trouble getting its proposed Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) passed by the Senate. The policy looks odd. With some justification, the Australian Greens have commented: “In its current form the Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) legislation will see the housing crisis get worse. We can't fix the housing crisis by gambling money on the stock market and not guaranteeing a single cent will be spent on housing.” In their dissenting report on the bill, the Greens' cited the views of this episode's guest, Dr Cameron Murray. Cameron is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Henry Halloran Trust at the University of Sydney. Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com or sending a voice message via https://www.speakpipe.com/economicsexplored. About Dr Cameron MurrayDr Cameron Murray is Post-Doctoral Researcher at Henry Halloran Trust, The University of Sydney. He is an economist specialising in property and urban development, environmental economics, rent-seeking and corruption.Book: Rigged: How networks of powerful mates rip off everyday AustraliansWebsite: https://fresheconomicthinking.substack.com/  Twitter: @drcameronmurray What's covered in this bonus episodeCameron's submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill [2:39]What's going on with the Housing Australia Future Fund [5:02]The only reason you can make a premium is if you take risk [8:57]Why you need to separate the funding and the spending [10:36]Why doesn't the Future Fund just directly invest in new houses? [14:21]How governments are increasingly doing financially tricky things that don't make sense [19:23]Cameron's thoughts on the impact of the bill on the level of investment in housing [23:14]What's going on behind the scenes at Parliament House [26:18]Links relevant to the conversationCameron's submission to the inquiry into the Housing Australia Future Fund:https://fresheconomicthinking.substack.com/p/australias-housing-future-fund-myDirect link to Senate Committee inquiry report:https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/HousingPackageofBills/ReportHAFF inquiry home page:https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Economics/HousingPackageofBillsCreditsThanks to Obsidian Productions for mixing the episode and to the show's sponsor, Gene's consultancy business www.adepteconomics.com.au. Full transcripts are available a few days after the episode is first published at www.economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

Many thanks to Artist Ali Noble for your time. You can find out more about Ali on her website or instagram. Good luck with your Masters!Ali Noble's primary interest is the discourse of textiles; which she frequently explores alongside the aesthetics of abstract formalism and mysticism. Ali's current work, as part of her MFA research, is connected to an ongoing enquiry into the transgressive spirit of textile architecture, or curtains. Together, textiles and space provoke discussions that explore sensuality, transformation, normative domesticity, and time.https://www.alinoble.comhttps://www.instagram.com/alinoble11/

Professor Deborah Bateson from Sydney Uni's Faculty of Medicine and Health joined Philip Clark to discuss avoiding pregnancy.

Will Davidson Grove - Penrite Racing From the race track to your device with Tony Whitlock and Craig Revell on Inside Supercars Will Davidson has worked all across Europe in a variety of categories. Today we hear how a young engineer student from Sydney Uni, made his way to Formula E and Supercars, working with and for some of the biggest names in open wheel racing and how Supercars wasn't his first tintop category. Inside Supercars Podcast: Subscribe Apple Podcasts I ;Spotify I Google Podcasts Supported by: P1 Australia Link:P1 Australia The Gates RevLimiter – Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts I Spotify I Google Podcasts MusicCreative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com MusicComa-Media from Pixabay #RepcoSC #TCRAust #Supercars #Motorsport #ADL500

Will Davidson Grove - Penrite Racing From the race track to your device with Tony Whitlock and Craig Revell on Inside Supercars Will Davidson has worked all across Europe in a variety of categories. Today we hear how a young engineer student from Sydney Uni, made his way to Formula E and Supercars, working with and for some of the biggest names in open wheel racing and how Supercars wasn't his first tintop category. Inside Supercars Podcast: Subscribe Apple Podcasts I Spotify I Google Podcasts Supported by: P1 Australia Link:P1 Australia The Gates RevLimiter – Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts I Spotify I Google Podcasts MusicCreative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com MusicComa-Media from Pixabay #RepcoSC #TCRAust #Supercars #Motorsport #ADL500

Sydney Uni's woke anti-Freya agenda must be stopped! Emerald and Tom are joined by Josh Cullinan from the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union to discuss the new Industrial Relations bill before parliament (11:00). Is it bad and should the Greens support it? Then they move on to the recent Apple negotiations (39:03), including Australia's first ever national retail strike. Finally, a call to action (53:43). Full video version of this episode available on https://www.youtube.com/c/SeriousDangerAU  New Patreon episode just released - Tom and Emerald review Greens memes and some shit takes in the media. Is Joe Hildebrand getting dumber!? https://www.patreon.com/SeriousDangerAU  Subscribe on Patreon to support the show and check out all our bonus Patreon eps with guests like Wil Anderson, Cam Wilson, Tom Tanuki and Jon Kudelka, and deep dives into topics like CPAC, Aussie political sketch comedy, internal Greens party shenanigans, and whether a Greens government would lead to the apocalypse. Links - https://twitter.com/raffwu  https://twitter.com/joshcullinan  Explainer on the IR Bill https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/why-are-the-proposed-industrial-relations-laws-controversial-20221101-p5bup2.html  RAFFWU IR Bill response: https://raffwu.org.au/new-ir-laws-deliberately-attack-the-lowest-paid/  History of the Apple union movement - https://youtu.be/c9PjqmIG5ik  Join RAFFWU: https://raffwu.org.au/  Donate to the RAFFWU Welfare Support Fund for Apple Workers: https://chuffed.org/project/raffwu-at-apple  VICTORIA: Vic Greens campaign launch on 16 November http://contact-vic.greens.org.au/civicrm/mailing/url?u=501060&qid=206087678  Produced by Michael Griffin Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Patreon @SeriousDangerAU seriousdangerpod.comSupport the show: http://patreon.com/seriousdangerauSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sydney Uni coach and our former teammate Eoin Murray joins us from Saudi Arabia as they prepare to take on the IHF Super Globe, while we look back at the week's EURO Qualifiers and Sweden vs Denmark.

TAFE NSW is following the lead of Sydney Uni in a crackdown on those falsely identifying as Indigenous.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TAFE NSW is following the lead of Sydney Uni in a crackdown on those falsely identifying as Indigenous.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Fordham is applauding the University of Sydney's crackdown on students and staff who falsely identify as First Nations people without any proof.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Fordham is applauding the University of Sydney's crackdown on students and staff who falsely identify as First Nations people without any proof.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's Briefing is about returning artefacts to their rightful owners. From skulls to statues and super rare antiquities; nations, like Australia are starting to return artefacts to the countries they were stolen from. We're joined by Dr Craig Barker - an archaeologist, and the Manager of Education and Public Programs at the Chau Chak Wing Museum at Sydney Uni. Craig explains how and why the hand backs are occurring, and what role Australia has to play in correcting its injustices.  In today's Briefing, giving back stolen artefacts... and why there's more looting than ever in some parts of the world.   Headlines: - Higgins admits recording discussion with senior minister- Investigation launched into Thai mass shooting - More heavy rain adds to flood risks- Fraudster Caddick's $2m jewellery collection to be sold off Follow The Briefing: Instagram: @thebriefingpodcast Facebook: TheBriefingNewsAUTwitter: @TheBriefingAUSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In ‘the Warm Up', we discuss the a quote of how football doesn't create character, it reveals it. Do players bring character to the game or or does football create character out of players?This week on ‘the Huddle', we look at the Sydney Uni Lions with our guests Alex and Nona. We overview the organisation and its history. Stacey shows that she has a big part in the history. Alex and Nona talk about their careers, and why they chose their team and positions. Alex talks about her basketball, baseball, rugby and soccer background, and growing up around gridiron. Nona is an alumni of Sydney Uni, and took the chance when the women's team was created to play for her Alma Mater. She has come from a very different sporting background, coming into gridiron from cheerleading! We discuss the social aspects of the club and football in general. We look at how Alex was recruited to football and how player can “find their people” in a close knit football community. We check to see how the preseason is going. We ask how players can get in touch with the club. To end the week in ‘Rapid Fire', we discuss our early predictions for the best defence in GNSW. ~ Stacey, Bec and Kristy

We sit down with Current Sydney Uni Head Coach, Former Melbourne Rebels, Kobe Steelers, Kyuden Voltex, Kinetsu Liners, Reds and National Academy coach and all round good human, Sean Hedger.  We chatted through his journey from growing up in Darwin, a decade in Japan and all his Professional Coaching experiences.  Loved this chat as we dived into respecting the culture and DNA of the club your coaching, the massive importance of sharing to develop learning as a coach, the need for coaches to work with and learn from senior players and what he's building at Sydney Uni ahead of season 2022.

Brooklyn's News Update for 24.03.2022 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brooklyn's News Update for 24.03.2022 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sydney Uni has banned sex with staff members... But what rules do other Uni's have in place? #sydney #triplem See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dr. Jemma King is the founder of BioPsychAnalytics, a company specializing in advanced human performance optimization. Dr. King has been a consultant to Defense, the AIS, the Olympic swim team and is a research fellow at UQ and a lecturer to Sydney Uni's MBA program. Dr. King has recently paired up with WHOOP to conduct groundbreaking research on sleep and optimizing one's recovery while performing high strain levels. She works closely with the Australian Special Forces. She can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-jemma-king-76013328/?originalSubdomain=au***TIMESTAMPS***2:57 - WHOOP device and its ability to account for sleep debt12:35 - Sleep cycles (REM, SWS); humans being a strange creature not choosing to sleep; and naps20:20 - Alcohol and its effects on sleep and hormones; CBD, THC, and melatonin on sleep27:00 - Heart Variability and what that means on a WHOOP device (healthy vs unhealthy)33:00 - Techniques to help with sleeping: saunas, earplugs, cold temperature, journaling, etc. 42:30 - Lighting and issue with Blue-light blockers!47:10 - Cognitive deficiency from NOT sleeping53:00 - Consistent sleep times and oversleeping~YouTube EPISODES:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ/videos~Song provided by: Ayush Garg

Today's episode features Can you be more pacific co-host, Sydney Uni, NSW Waratahs and Wallaroos rep Ms Sera Naiqama! Sera shares her everyday story from her humble beginnings till now and shares how's she has become the person today.. and having an attitude of just doing it..Have a listen and enjoy! The everyday Fijian sharing their everyday story in the everyday world