People’s mental health goes downhill after repeated climate disasters – it’s an issue of social equity
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Across Australia, communities are grappling with climate disasters that are striking more frequently and with greater intensity. Bushfires, floods and cyclones are no longer one-off events. And this pattern is predicted to worsen due to climate change.
As it becomes more common to face climate disasters again and again, what does this mean for the mental health and wellbeing of people affected?
In a new study published today in the Lancet Public Health, we found experiencing repeated disasters leads to more severe and sustained effects on mental health compared to experiencing a single disaster.
What we did in our study
We drew on ten years of Australian data (2009–19) from the nationally representative Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey.
Specifically, our study involved data from 1,511 people who experienced at least one disaster. We tracked them from the year before the first disaster, at the first disaster, and, where applicable, each subsequent disaster, and a few years after each disaster.
We also included 3,880 people who did not experience disasters during this time but shared similar demographic, socioeconomic, health and place-based characteristics for comparison.
We measured exposure to climate disasters based on whether respondents reported a weather-related disaster (for example, flood, bushfire or cyclone) damaged or destroyed their home in the previous year.
The mental health outcomes were measured using two questionnaires commonly administered to assess depression and anxiety disorders (the 5-item mental health inventory) and psychological distress (the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale).
Cumulative effects
Our results show mental health declines became more severe with repeated disasters.
The graph below plots the mental health trajectories for everyone in our study who experienced at least one disaster, and the control group who did not experience any disasters. We looked at a maximum of three disasters in the study due to data availability.
It shows experiencing one disaster led to a decline in mental health during the disaster year, followed by a recovery to pre-disaster levels in the post-disaster period.
However, with repeated disasters, mental health trajectories declined further and it took longer to recover to pre-disaster levels.
We also found experiencing an additional disaster close to a previous disaster (for example, one or two years apart) was linked to greater mental health declines than disasters that were spaced further apart.
Some risk factors
We observed that certain factors consistently shaped mental health outcomes. For instance, having social support was consistently a protective factor, while having a long-term health condition consistently increased the risk of poorer mental health. This was true regardless of the number of disasters someone experienced.
On the other hand, some risk factors became stronger with each disaster. In particular, households with lower incomes, those in rural areas, and younger people appeared to experience greater effects of cumulative disasters.
There are some limitations to our research. For example, the data we had did not detail the type or severity of each disaster. It also was limited in what it could tell us about the mental health effects of three or more disasters.
Nonetheless, our study provides novel insights into the mental health consequences of multiple climate disasters. This highlights the need for better support for communities facing an increasing number of emergencies.
Our findings also align with other studies that have observed increasing risk to mental health with multiple disasters.
At the same time, our findings add a new perspective by showing how trajectories can change over time. People’s mental health often recovers to pre-disaster levels after a single disaster, but repeat disasters can delay or halt this recovery.
Why might repeated disasters lead to worse mental health?
Repeated disasters, especially when they occur in close succession, can lead to cumulative stress driven by trauma and uncertainty. This can create a reinforcing cycle. People already facing social disadvantages – such as poor health and low income – are more likely to be exposed to disasters. In turn, these events disproportionately affect those facing existing disadvantages.
The result is a compounding effect that can contribute to worsening mental health outcomes and slower recovery over multiple disasters. This means disasters are an issue of social equity and must be considered in efforts to reduce poverty and improve social outcomes, as well as health outcomes.
Repeated disasters in particular can drain financial, social and community resources. They can exacerbate existing strain on household savings, disrupted social ties due to displacement, and reduced access to services after disasters – especially in rural areas.
What can we do to support people through multiple disasters?
We need to transform the way we think about disasters. It’s estimated children born today will experience up to seven times the number of extreme weather events across their lifetimes than someone born in 1960.
We are starting to get a better picture of what people need to recover from climate disasters. Our research points to the need for clinical services (for example, GPs) to screen for past disaster exposures in mental health assessments.
Emergency services need to plan services to reach at-risk groups during disasters. They also need to ensure recovery planning considers the effects of past disasters, for example by making sure support programs are not just tied to one disaster, but can be used across multiple.
The current approach to emergency services that looks at “one disaster at a time” doesn’t work anymore. As the climate continues to change, we urgently need to consider the effects of multiple disasters in public health, welfare and disaster services.
Ang Li, ARC DECRA and Senior Research Fellow, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne and Claire Leppold, Research Fellow, Disaster, Climate & Adversity Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Rapamycin Can Slow Aging By 20% (But Watch Out)
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Rapamycin’s Pros & Cons
Rapamycin is generally heralded as a wonderdrug that (according to best evidence so far) can slow down aging, potentially adding decades to human lifespan—and yes, healthspan.
It comes from a kind of soil bacteria, which in turn comes from the island of Rapa Nui (a Chilean territory best known for its monumental moai statues), hence the name rapamycin.
Does it work?
Yes! Probably! With catches!
Like most drugs that are tested for longevity-inducing properties, research in humans is very slow. Of course for drugs in general, they must go through in vitro and in vivo animal testing first before they can progress to human randomized clinical trials, but for longevity-inducing drugs, it’s tricky to even test in humans, without waiting entire human lifetimes for the results.
Nevertheless, mouse studies are promising:
Rapamycin: An InhibiTOR of Aging Emerges From the Soil of Easter Island
(“Easter Island” is another name given to the island of Rapa Nui)
That’s not a keysmash in the middle there, it’s a reference to rapamycin’s inhibitory effect on the kinase mechanistic target of rapamycin, sometimes called the mammalian target of rapamycin, and either way generally abbreviated to “mTOR”—also known as “FK506-binding protein 12-rapamycin-associated protein 1” or “FRAP1“ to its friends, but we’re going to stick with “mTOR”.
What’s relevant about this is that mTOR regulates cell growth, cell proliferation, cell motility, cell survival, protein synthesis, autophagy, and transcription.
Don’t those words usually get associated with cancer?
They do indeed! Rapamycin and its analogs have well-demonstrated anti-cancer potential:
❝Rapamycin, the naturally occurring inhibitor of mTOR, along with a number of recently developed rapamycin analogs (rapalogs) consisting of synthetically derived compounds containing minor chemical modifications to the parent structure, inhibit the growth of cell lines derived from multiple tumor types in vitro, and tumor models in vivo.
Results from clinical trials indicate that the rapalogs may be useful for the treatment of subsets of certain types of cancer.❞
…and as such, gets used sometimes as an anticancer drug—especially against renal cancer. See also:
Research perspective: Cancer prevention with rapamycin
What’s the catch?
Aside from the fact that its longevity-inducing effects are not yet proven in humans, the mouse models find its longevity effects to be sex-specific, extending the life of male mice but not female ones:
Rapamycin‐mediated mouse lifespan extension: Late‐life dosage regimes with sex‐specific effects
One hypothesis about this is that it may have at least partially to do with rapamycin’s immunomodulatory effect, bearing in mind that estrogen is immune-enhancing and testosterone is immunosuppressant.
And rapamycin? That’s another catch: it is an immunosuppressant.
This goes in rapamycin’s favor for its use to avoiding rejection when it comes to some transplants (most notably including for kidneys), though the very same immunosuppressant effect is a reason it is contraindicated for certain other transplants (such as in liver or lung transplants), where it can lead to an unacceptable increase in risk of lymphoma and other malignancies:
Prescribing Information: Rapamune, Sirolimus Solution / Sirolimus Tablet
(Sirolimus is another name for rapamycin, and Rapamune is a brand name)
What does this mean for the future?
Researchers think that rapamycin may be able to extend human lifespan to a more comfortable 120–125 years, but acknowledge there’s quite a jump to get there from the current mouse studies, and given the current drawbacks of sex-specificity and immunosuppression:
Advances in anti-aging: Rapamycin shows potential to extend lifespan and improve health
Noteworthily, rapamycin has also shown promise in simultaneously staving off certain diseases associated most strongly with aging, including Alzheimer’s and cardiac disease—or even, starting earlier, to delay menopause, in turn kicking back everything else that has an uptick in risk peri- or post-menopause:
Effect of Rapamycin in Ovarian Aging (Rapamycin)
👆 an upcoming study whose results are thus not yet published, but this is to give an idea of where research is currently at. See also:
Pilot Study Evaluates Weekly Pill to Slow Ovarian Aging, Delay Menopause
Where can I try it?
Not from Amazon, that’s for sure!
It’s still tightly regulated, but you can speak with your physician, especially if you are at risk of cancer, especially if kidney cancer, about potentially being prescribed it as a preventative—they will be able to advise about safety and applicability in your personal case.
Alternatively, you can try getting your name on the list for upcoming studies, like the one above. ClinicalTrials.gov is a great place to watch out for those.
Meanwhile, take care!
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Cost of living: if you can’t afford as much fresh produce, are canned veggies or frozen fruit just as good?
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The cost of living crisis is affecting how we spend our money. For many people, this means tightening the budget on the weekly supermarket shop.
One victim may be fresh fruit and vegetables. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suggests Australians were consuming fewer fruit and vegetables in 2022–23 than the year before.
The cost of living is likely compounding a problem that exists already – on the whole, Australians don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables. Australian dietary guidelines recommend people aged nine and older should consume two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables each day for optimal health. But in 2022 the ABS reported only 4% of Australians met the recommendations for both fruit and vegetable consumption.
Fruit and vegetables are crucial for a healthy, balanced diet, providing a range of vitamins and minerals as well as fibre.
If you can’t afford as much fresh produce at the moment, there are other ways to ensure you still get the benefits of these food groups. You might even be able to increase your intake of fruit and vegetables.
New Africa/Shutterstock Frozen
Fresh produce is often touted as being the most nutritious (think of the old adage “fresh is best”). But this is not necessarily true.
Nutrients can decline in transit from the paddock to your kitchen, and while the produce is stored in your fridge. Frozen vegetables may actually be higher in some nutrients such as vitamin C and E as they are snap frozen very close to the time of harvest. Variations in transport and storage can affect this slightly.
Minerals such as calcium, iron and magnesium stay at similar levels in frozen produce compared to fresh.
Another advantage to frozen vegetables and fruit is the potential to reduce food waste, as you can use only what you need at the time.
Freezing preserves the nutritional quality of vegetables and increases their shelf life. Tohid Hashemkhani/Pexels As well as buying frozen fruit and vegetables from the supermarket, you can freeze produce yourself at home if you have an oversupply from the garden, or when produce may be cheaper.
A quick blanching prior to freezing can improve the safety and quality of the produce. This is when food is briefly submerged in boiling water or steamed for a short time.
Frozen vegetables won’t be suitable for salads but can be eaten roasted or steamed and used for soups, stews, casseroles, curries, pies and quiches. Frozen fruits can be added to breakfast dishes (with cereal or youghurt) or used in cooking for fruit pies and cakes, for example.
Canned
Canned vegetables and fruit similarly often offer a cheaper alternative to fresh produce. They’re also very convenient to have on hand. The canning process is the preservation technique, so there’s no need to add any additional preservatives, including salt.
Due to the cooking process, levels of heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamin C will decline a little compared to fresh produce. When you’re using canned vegetables in a hot dish, you can add them later in the cooking process to reduce the amount of nutrient loss.
To minimise waste, you can freeze the portion you don’t need.
Fermented
Fermented vegetables are another good option. Angela Khebou/Unsplash Fermentation has recently come into fashion, but it’s actually one of the oldest food processing and preservation techniques.
Fermentation largely retains the vitamins and minerals in fresh vegetables. But fermentation may also enhance the food’s nutritional profile by creating new nutrients and allowing existing ones to be absorbed more easily.
Further, fermented foods contain probiotics, which are beneficial for our gut microbiome.
5 other tips to get your fresh fix
Although alternatives to fresh such as canned or frozen fruit and vegetables are good substitutes, if you’re looking to get more fresh produce into your diet on a tight budget, here are some things you can do.
1. Buy in season
Based on supply and demand principles, buying local seasonal vegetables and fruit will always be cheaper than those that are imported out of season from other countries.
2. Don’t shun the ugly fruit and vegetables
Most supermarkets now sell “ugly” fruit and vegetables, that are not physically perfect in some way. This does not affect the levels of nutrients in them at all, or their taste.
Buying fruit and vegetables during the right season will be cheaper. August de Richelieu/Pexels 3. Reduce waste
On average, an Australian household throws out A$2,000–$2,500 worth of food every year. Fruit, vegetables and bagged salad are the three of the top five foods thrown out in our homes. So properly managing fresh produce could help you save money (and benefit the environment).
To minimise waste, plan your meals and shopping ahead of time. And if you don’t think you’re going to get to eat the fruit and vegetables you have before they go off, freeze them.
4. Swap and share
There are many websites and apps which offer the opportunity to swap or even pick up free fresh produce if people have more than they need. Some local councils are also encouraging swaps on their websites, so dig around and see what you can find in your local area.
5. Gardening
Regardless of how small your garden is you can always plant produce in pots. Herbs, rocket, cherry tomatoes, chillies and strawberries all grow well. In the long run, these will offset some of your cost on fresh produce.
Plus, when you have put the effort in to grow your own produce, you are less likely to waste it.
Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Why Many Women Hear “All is Fine” For Years Before a Chronic Diagnosis
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You feel a niggling pain in your pelvis from time to time. It’s probably hormonal, you tell yourself. That’s what the doctors tell you, too. You get another opinion when things seem worse, only to be told all is fine. You suffer through years of gastrointestinal distress and back pain before you get a diagnosis. Endometriosis.
According to 2026 UN News, endometriosis affects around 190 million people globally. Its diagnosis can take between, hold your breath, four and 12 years.
And that’s hardly the only condition facing diagnostic delays for women. Autoimmune diseases, heart problems, and even migraines are not officially diagnosed until after we have suffered for long, painful durations.
Unsurprisingly, these delays leave many women exhausted and excluded from help. Our symptoms are normalized, and treatment is delayed until the condition has worsened. Managing day-to-day life and staying mentally balanced can get very draining in such circumstances. It gets worse as we age, because aging brings its own health challenges.
So, what’s going on with these ridiculous diagnostic delays? More importantly, what can we do about them?
Women Aren’t Part of Many Medical Research Studies
Uncomfortable, yes, but also true. Historically, many healthcare studies have prioritized diseases affecting men and left women out of the fold. Many samples underrepresent women, which skews the results and hinders our understanding of how these conditions affect them. Sadly, the trend continues to a large extent.
A 2024 JAMA Network study highlighted that in trials evaluating medical devices, only one-third of the participants were women. Another article published in 2025 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine noted that women are still underrepresented in cardiovascular trials.
The bottom line is that we lack adequate knowledge of how certain conditions may show up in women. Consider heart problems. While chest pain is the classic sign in men, the Mayo Clinic notes that women are more likely to experience nausea and neck or back pain.
Amid missing gender-focused research, it is no wonder that we face diagnostic delays. And since we don’t even study the response of women to a healthcare intervention, we have no way to assess the differences in response. This means delays that extend to finding the right treatment or medication after you finally get the diagnosis.
Tendency to Normalize, Minimize, and Ignore
This problem prevails on many levels. A March 2026 survey by Mumsnet, a UK-based forum for parents, found that many women perceived the NHS (National Health Service) as institutionally misogynistic.
The consensus seems to be that several female patients are frequently dismissed or ignored, and their symptoms are not taken seriously. As many as 64% of the respondents said that the practitioners explicitly told them their pain was “in their head”.
“For more than a decade, women on Mumsnet have described the same pattern: pain minimised, symptoms dismissed and a constant need to fight simply to be heard.” – Justine Roberts, Founder, Mumsnet.
How many of us have heard jokes about “that time of month” repeatedly? (The good thing about being post-menopausal is that at least these sexist jokes reduce!) So many symptoms reported by women are brushed off as imaginary or stress-related.
But wait. The problem, as we said, also exists on other levels. We may start believing the lies. Perhaps the problem is not real. Perhaps nothing can be done about it. Good luck getting a diagnosis and treatment with these ideas bogging you down.
It’s No Fun Growing Older With Illness
Growing older can be fun in many ways, but dealing with chronic illness is surely not one of them. Thankfully, some small but significant changes are on the horizon.
A few researchers actively focus on building a balanced sample that does not ignore women. Medical science is growing to address the needs of women across their lifespan, from gynecological issues to mental wellness.
That said, improving diagnosis also depends on how healthcare professionals are trained. A growing emphasis on women’s health is influencing medical and nursing education. For example, some ACNP programs online equip acute care nurse practitioners to understand how to support older adults with chronic conditions. This includes those that affect women disproportionately.
The goal is to help everyone access appropriate assessment and receive a timely diagnosis, so care can begin. As Rockhurst University notes, professionals must understand the risk factors, prevention, and follow-up care for patients.
This implies evidence-based guidelines must cover the whole spectrum of healthcare, regardless of gender or other sociocultural factors.
Apart from the sensitization of the medical profession, concrete change also demands personal investment. This means:
- Pushing for a deeper examination of your symptoms.
- Seeking a second or third opinion when your gut says something is amiss.
- Refusing to have your pain dismissed because of patronizing comments or prejudices.
Here, we should also remember that medical judgment can sometimes be inaccurate because of reasons outside anyone’s direct (or deliberate) control. Symptoms overlapping. An incorrect assessment result. Missed appointments and changing physicians.
A BBC feature discusses how a woman’s endometriosis was misinterpreted as anxiety. It took her 27 years to be diagnosed. Now that’s some cautionary tale.
FAQs
1. Which health conditions are likely to be diagnosed late in women?
Endometriosis, heart disease, and PCOS are often diagnosed years after women first feel symptoms. Some women struggle to get a diagnosis for migraine and lupus, along with other autoimmune diseases.
2. What should I do if my symptoms are always dismissed?
This can be a frustrating situation. If your symptoms persist and impact your daily life, consider keeping a record of them. Then, ask for a clear explanation of what the doctors have ruled out. Don’t hesitate to get a referral or second opinion.
3. Does a delayed diagnosis necessarily mean that the doctors made a mistake?
No. Sometimes, chronic illnesses appear as symptoms that overlap with other, more common conditions. This makes diagnosis difficult. However, if you have persistent symptoms or develop new ones, you deserve reassessment.
Women and Chronic Illness: Taking Control
Your symptoms are normalized. Do not dismiss your own pain.Don’t let clinicians avoid deeper investigation. Symptoms are repeatedly described as hormonal or stress-related. Track symptoms over time to show patterns that are easy to miss in a single visit. Feeling unsure whether symptoms are “serious enough” Trust persistence of symptoms that interfere with daily life, even if initial tests seem normal. Lack of clear answers after testing Ask whether a referral to a specialist is appropriate. Let’s Put an End to Medical Tardiness
All the little delights of life can seem difficult to access when your health does not cooperate. A headache makes everything worse; back pain makes those travel plans seem like too much to handle. It’s high time we stop suffering from preventable and manageable conditions only because of medical diagnostic delays.
Not every symptom may signal an underlying problem, but that doesn’t mean we must endure complacency and self-defeating attitudes. If anything is wrong, getting to it quicker is crucial to enjoying a higher quality of life.
Disclosure: this is a sponsored article, but its content has been checked by your usual 10almonds writing staff and has met with our approval. We wouldn’t publish it otherwise!
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Why do some young people use Xanax recreationally? What are the risks?
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Anecdotal reports from some professionals have prompted concerns about young people using prescription benzodiazepines such as Xanax for recreational use.
Border force detections of these drugs have almost doubled in the past five years, further fuelling the worry.
So why do young people use them, and how do the harms differ to those used as prescribed by a doctor?
Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock What are benzodiazepines?
You might know this large group of drugs by their trade names. Valium (diazepam), Xanax (alprazolam), Normison (temazepam) and Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) are just a few examples. Sometimes they’re referred to as minor tranquillisers or, colloquially, as “benzos”.
They increase the neurotransmitter gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA reduces activity in the brain, producing feelings of relaxation and sedation.
Unwanted side effects include drowsiness, dizziness and problems with coordination.
Benzodiazepines used to be widely prescribed for long-term management of anxiety and insomnia. They are still prescribed for these conditions, but less commonly, and are also sometimes used as part of the treatment for cancer, epilepsy and alcohol withdrawal.
Long-term use can lead to tolerance: when the effect wears off over time. So you need to use more over time to get the same effect. This can lead to dependence: when your body becomes reliant on the drug. There is a very high risk of dependence with these drugs.
When you stop taking benzodiazepines, you may experience withdrawal symptoms. For those who are dependent, the withdrawal can be long and difficult, lasting for several months or more.
So now they are only recommended for a few weeks at most for specific short-term conditions.
How do people get them? And how does it make them feel?
Benzodiazepines for non-medical use are typically either diverted from legitimate prescriptions or purchased from illicit drug markets including online.
Some illegally obtained benzodiazepines look like prescription medicines but are counterfeit pills that may contain fentanyl, nitazenes (both synthetic opioids) or other potent substances which can significantly increase the risk of accidental overdose and death.
When used recreationally, benzodiazepines are usually taken at higher doses than those typically prescribed, so there are even greater risks.
The effect young people are looking for in using these drugs is a feeling of profound relaxation, reduced inhibition, euphoria and a feeling of detachment from one’s surroundings. Others use them to enhance social experiences or manage the “comedown” from stimulant drugs like MDMA.
There are risks associated with using at these levels, including memory loss, impaired judgement, and risky behaviour, like unsafe sex or driving.
Some people report doing things they would not normally do when affected by high doses of benzodiazepines. There are cases of people committing crimes they can’t remember.
When taken at higher doses or combined with other depressant drugs such as alcohol or opioids, they can also cause respiratory depression, which prevents your lungs from getting enough oxygen. In extreme cases, it can lead to unconsciousness and even death.
Using a high dose also increases risk of tolerance and dependence.
Is recreational use growing?
The data we have about non-prescribed benzodiazepine use among young people is patchy and difficult to interpret.
The National Drug Strategy Household Survey 2022–23 estimates around 0.5% of 14 to 17 year olds and and 3% of 18 to 24 year olds have used a benzodiazepine for non medical purposes at least once in the past year.
The Australian Secondary Schools Survey 2022–23 reports that 11% of secondary school students they surveyed had used benzodiazepines in the past year. However they note this figure may include a sizeable proportion of students who have been prescribed benzodiazepines but have inadvertently reported using them recreationally.
In both surveys, use has remained fairly stable for the past two decades. So only a small percentage of young people have used benzodiazepines without a prescription and it doesn’t seem to be increasing significantly.
Reports of more young people using benzodiazepines recreationally might just reflect greater comfort among young people in talking about drugs and drug problems, which is a positive thing.
Prescribing of benzodiazepines to adolescents or young adults has also declined since 2012.
What can you do to reduce the risks?
To reduce the risk of problems, including dependence, benzodiazepines should be used for the shortest duration possible at the lowest effective dose.
Benzodiazepines should not be taken with other medicines without speaking to a doctor or pharmacist.
You should not drink alcohol or take illicit drugs at the same time as using benzodiazepines.
Benzodiazepines shouldn’t be taken with other medicines, without the go-ahead from your doctor or pharmacist. Cloudy Design/Shutterstock Counterfeit benzodiazepines are increasingly being detected in the community. They are more dangerous than pharmaceutical benzodiazepines because there is no quality control and they may contain unexpected and dangerous substances.
Drug checking services can help people identify what is in substances they intend to take. It also gives them an opportunity to speak to a health professional before they use. People often discard their drugs after they find out what they contain and speak to someone about drug harms.
If people are using benzodiazepines without a prescription to self manage stress, anxiety or insomnia, this may indicate a more serious underlying condition. Psychological therapies such as cognitive behaviour therapy, including mindfulness-based approaches, are very effective in addressing these symptoms and are more effective long term solutions.
Lifestyle modifications – such as improving exercise, diet and sleep – can also be helpful.
There are also other medications with a much lower risk of dependence that can be used to treat anxiety and insomnia.
If you or someone you know needs help with benzodiazepine use, Reconnexions can help. It’s a counselling and support service for people who use benzodiazepines.
Alternatively, CounsellingOnline is a good place to get information and referral for treatment of benzodiazepine dependence. Or speak to your GP. The Sleep Health Foundation has some great resources if you are having trouble with sleep.
Nicole Lee, Adjunct Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne based), Curtin University and Suzanne Nielsen, Professor and Deputy Director, Monash Addiction Research Centre, Monash University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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We Hope This Email Blows Your Tits Clean Off
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The Right Kind Of “Email Hacks”!
Are you a Gmailer or an Outlookista? Whatever your preference, you’re probably facing many of the same challenges that most of us face in our work and personal lives:
Email’s greatest strength (its ease of accessibility) brings about its greatest problem (our inboxes are cluttered and chaotic), not to mention that each of us are usually managing a whole flock of email addresses.
Sometimes we put productivity resources up against each other; that’s not what we’re going to do today! Each of these can play a role alongside each other; grab as many as will make your life easier:
ProtonMail: this is an email client; it’s the nicest, simplest, easiest, free email client that doesn’t track, let alone share, everything you do.
Bonus: there also exists ProtonCalendar (it’s a calendar that doesn’t share your data), ProtonDrive (it’s a cloud storage provider that doesn’t share your data) and, because they’re indeed serious about your privacy, ProtonVPN (it’s a VPN that, of course, doesn’t share your data).
Clean Email: maybe you’re stuck with the email provider you have. It happens. But it doesn’t have to be a chaotic mess. This tool will make tidying your email (and keeping it tidy!) a simplified dream.
See How Clean Your Email Can Get With Just A Few Clicks!
Right Inbox: a Gmail extension with many useful features, including read receipts, emails scheduled for later (e.g: time your email to send at 7am to look like a morning lark when in fact you’re peacefully snoozing), add unforwardable “For Your Eyes Only” notes to emails, and more.
Power Up Your Gmail With The Right Inbox Extension!
Email Finder: find the verified work email address of any person, so long as you know what company you’re looking for them in! No more “I thought it was lastname.firstname@ and it was firstname.lastname@”, no more “the wrong John Smith”, no more “undelivered” bounceback notices. Just: your email delivered.
Never Hear From The Mailer Daemon Again, With Email Finder!
Unroll.me: love your subscriptions, but hate the clutter? Unroll.me aggregates them for you in a virtual roll-up, with an “unroll” button to read them.
Get What You Really Want From Your Subscriptions, With Unroll.Me!
On which note, anything you’d like to hear more of from us? Let us know! You can always just hit reply, or use the feedback widget at the bottom of this email
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The Menopause Brain – by Dr. Lisa Mosconi
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With her PhD in neuroscience and nuclear medicine (a branch of radiology, used for certain types of brain scans, amongst other purposes), whereas many authors will mention “brain fog” as a symptom of menopause, Dr. Mosconi can (and will) point to a shadowy patch on a brain scan and say “that’s the brain fog, there”.
And so on for many other symptoms of menopause that are commonly dismissed as “all in your head”, notwithstanding that “in your head” is the worst place for a problem to be. You keep almost your entire self in there!
Dr. Mosconi covers how hormones influence not just our moods in a superficial way, but also change the structure of our brain over time.
Importantly, she also gives an outline of how to stay on the ball; what things to watch out for when your doctor probably won’t, and what things to ask for when your doctor probably won’t suggest them.
Bottom line: if menopause is a thing in your life (or honestly, even if it isn’t but you are running on estrogen rather than testosterone), then this is a book for you.
Click here to check out The Menopause Brain, and look after yours!
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