The Age-Well Project

IS WAKING AT NIGHT GOOD FOR THE BRAIN?

‘Insomnia is not bad itself. You can lie awake and think,’ wrote Muriel Spark in A Far Cry from Kensington. It’s a sentiment that’s been much on my mind over the last few years. A multi-billion pound sleep industry has done its very best to make us fear for our lives if we’re awake for...

How hormone health impacts ageing – and a thank you!

Annabel and I have been emailing each other back and forth about menopause recently as we’re both writing books that cover the topic, in very different ways. Annabel’s book about creative women and insomnia, touches on the subject, because menopause can impact sleep dramatically. Her book is out next year. My book is much more...

WHY WE SHOULD BE WALKING … BACKWARDS

There’s been lots of good news for walkers recently. A study published last month found that over-60s who walked between 6000 and 9000 steps a day cut their risk of heart disease (including strokes and heart attacks) by 40-50 percent, when compared to a more typical 2000 steps a day. In fact this study found...

How to help your heart age well on Valentine’s Day

Hearts may be everywhere for Valentine’s Day, but why don’t we use the festival of love to move past the big red emojis and focus on our actual hearts: the brilliant, beating organs that keep us alive? This is National Heart Month and we need to pay attention: coronary heart disease (when the arteries which...

THE ENDURING LESSONS OF GRIEF

My family had another Christmas of grieving this year. In our household, December is swiftly becoming synonymous with loss, absence and bereavement. But since my father died at Christmas two years’ ago (I wrote about the debilitating impact of grief here) , I’ve read many books and studies of grief. We’ve come a long way...