Conversation starters

Secrets of the world's healthiest people, experiment with turning work into exercise, reasons not to give up leather trousers or coffee

It’s been a topsy turvy week. At the start of it I was informed I had a ‘hysterical immune system’ (a complicated tale of allergies, covid and rashes) then I interviewed an awesome acting legend from one of my favourite films, I swam with friendly ducks at our local lido (two of whom were faster than me), took 3 covid tests (all negative) and finally attempted Jivamukti yoga (not doing that again, no patience).

And I began the week in recovery from a two day hangover after Friday out with a group of some of my closest friends dancing for hours to 90s anthems, or ‘bangers’ as my teenage daughters call them. Everything from Oasis’s Don’t Look Back in Anger to Fat Boy Slim’s Praise You via most of Primal Scream. It was a blast, as they say and I whole heartedly recommend dancing as a cure for any midlife unravellings.

The Lads

Along the way this week I discovered some emotionally uplifting news via Dan Buettner, Dr Ellen Langer, Professor Tim Spector, style writer Kim France and Caroline Criado Perez. I thought I’d share these nuggets as a weekly digest of conversation starters;

Dan Buettner is an extremely entertaining best selling author, documentary maker and fellow of the American National Geographic. Dan and his team study the world’s Blue Zones where people live a healthier longer life with much vim and vigour. I just found him on Instagram and it really is like taking a happy pill. After telling me exercise doesn’t work (in the way we view it here, Phew!) I noted he explained the 5 rules to live a long and health life and I have accidentally adhered to all of them this week: they are to eat minimally processed diet, move regularly throughout your day, try to get 8 hours sleep a night, cultivate a strong sense of purpose and curate a circle of 4-5 friends you can depend on (and who know all the lyrics to Don’t Look Back In Anger).

Find out more here: Blue Zones

Dr Ellen Langer is the author of ‘Counter Clockwise: Mindful health and the power of possibility’: She is an expert on thinking yourself younger and her TED talk ‘Mindfulness Over Matter’ is brilliant, watch it now and then stop limiting yourself by accidentally behaving in a way society would expect a person of your age to behave. She has conducted many experiments to prove how we limit ourselves when we get stuck to this number of age. One experiment asked hotel maids who said they didn’t exercise to view their daily work as exercise instead of labour, when they did they all lost weight, got fitter and healthier, felt younger. It’s all in the book but I love the idea of perhaps never revealing my age in new situations then people cannot come to any conclusions about me before they've met me and ignoring it mentally myself as I go about my weekly shenanigans.

Watch the TED talk here Dr Ellen Langer

We interviewed Professor Tim Spector for our podcast Postcards From Midlife about the gut biome and it blew our minds. Not only did he confirm coffee is actually good for us (plant based you see) which made my heart sing as I would sooner give up booze than my coffee but he also told us that our gut biome does change as we age as women. There are specific changes in perimenopause and menopause. Tim studied menopause right at the beginning of his career, he is in his sixties now, so he knows his stuff.

Listen to Tim here The Gut Guru

I discovered writer Kim France this week as I researched my book on midlife and can’t think why I didn’t know about her before. A former glossy mag editor in the US she writes eloquently on why we absolutely do not have to ‘dress for our age’ and if I see one more piece in the UK press setting ridiculous rules for women around what they wear I will have to start refuting them one by one here. Her work on The Cut is very good, so buy a new bikini and treasure your leather pants after reading it.

Kim France, read her here Kim France on The Cut

I signed up to Caroline Criado Perez’s excellent newsletter Invisible Woman (because I am not angry enough with the patriarchy already) and discovered she now has a brilliant and informative podcast to go with it. IMO you can’t rant about inequality unless you know the facts and Perez has done all the work for you on that front so broaden your mind and sign up too.

Read it here: Newsletter

That’s it for this week folks….Coming Soon on the Candy Club there is some more parenting advice; a collaboration with neurologists on the midlife brain; mine and Tanya Shadrick’s monthly Wild Women reading recommendations and a long read on my own career highlights in glossy magazines. Take care.