In this episode I chat to Kelly Keating: executive coach, master's student, and founder of new festival kid on the block, Wild and Wiser, a festival for women redefining success in midlife.

Kelly spent almost 30 years in corporate life before leaving at 47 to build a portfolio career around coaching, creativity, and connection. In this conversation, Kelly shares the story behind her reinvention, what finally pushed her to go all in, and why she decided to put on a festival.

Key topics covered

• Kelly's squiggly career path from a grammar school girl labelled as "naughty" to account director, RNLI transformation lead, flexible working champion in financial services, and startup, before going all in on coaching
• discovering a love of facilitation and bringing people together to improve systems using lean methodology
• Flexible working advocacy and championing job sharing long before COVID, training hundreds of managers on job design
• Her "fluid career": Kelly references the concept from Colin Newland: blending multiple strands of interest rather than following a linear path
• The pivot point when her father died unexpectedly at 70, which became the catalyst: "What am I waiting for? Life isn't a practice run."
• Why put on a festival? The convergence of Kelly's love of festivals, her wedding venue in Wareham Forest, the "Aspiring Women" network she'd built over 15 years, and a desire to amplify brilliant female voices
• The Wild and Wiser ethos: by women, for women; embracing nature, intuition, and the wisdom you've always had

About Wild and Wiser Festival

• Dates: 19–20 September 2026
• Location: Wareham Forest, Dorset (glamping, camping, and day tickets available

Links & resources

• Wild and Wiser festival: wildandwiser.co.uk
• Instagram: @wildandwiser
• Use Emma's code WWWKD10_EMMAT at checkout for a 10% discount on a weekend ticket 

If life keeps speeding up and the demands keep stacking up (kids, parents, work, your own busy brain) then this one's for you.

In this episode I interview speaker, writer and self-development expert Lily Silverton about her book Prioritize This: A Practical Guide for Thriving in a World That Won't Slow Down.

We dig into three chapters that land hardest for the midlife squeezed middle: stress, overwhelm, and procrastination and some practical, brain-based tools for each. Lily is candid about her own experiences navigating the combination of a seriously ill father and young children, and why she has no time for self-help advice written for people with no heed for the demands of real life.

We discuss:

• The two most robust, evidence-backed interventions — movement and social connection.
• Building your own bespoke stress toolkit (the "pick and mix", not the prescriptive programme)
• SITs and SATs: stress-inducing vs stress-alleviating thoughts, and turning the dial down on catastrophising
• The multitasking myth — why it's really task switching, and what each switch costs you
• Three questions to cut through overwhelm
• Procrastination as emotional management, not time management - aka "what feeling am I avoiding?"
• AI, the hamster wheel, and whether technology will actually save us time...

Resources and Links:

• Lily's books: Prioritize This and The Priorities Method journal
• Exercises and downloads at the Prioritize This website: https://www.prioritisethis.com/
• Instagram: @lily_silverton
• Website: lilysilverton.com
• Substack: https://prioritisethis.substack.com/

Don't forget you can find out how to work with me and the back archive of this podcast at www.thetripleshift.org/starthere - and if you enjoyed this episode please do write us a short review to help others discover Middling Along!

In this episode I talk to best-selling author, stylist and former journalist Samantha Harman about her book Just Get Dressed: Why You Have Nothing to Wear and What to Do About It — a styling book with no pictures and no body-shape rules, built instead around the inner work most of us avoid. It's a conversation about generational trauma, the prehistoric brain, the martyrdom of the women in the squeezed middle, and why getting dressed in the morning is so flipping hard.

What we cover:

• Why "nothing to wear" is never about a lack of clothes... and what your wardrobe is actually a manifestation of (beliefs, identity, class, politics, generational trauma)
• The problem with the personal styling industry: more rules, more prescription, more exhaustion
• Epigenetics and the prehistoric brain — why being a visible woman registers as dangerous, and why the fabulous outfit stays on the hanger
• Clothing as a business tool — and why men have always been allowed to use it while women get judged for it
• The "bag of potatoes" meeting: how an ill-fitting supermarket shirt quietly costs you authority, presence and opportunity
• The compare-and-despair cycle and the social-media misery machine: and the reminder that all of it, even "authentic" personal brands, is marketing
• Enclothed cognition: why what you wear changes the actions you take (and how you handle Barry from accounts)
• Midlife as an opportunity, not a decline — finances, time, intelligence, and finding the rooms with brilliant women in them
• Two exercises from the book: meeting the 5-year-old who's really running your wardrobe, and the letter from your 90-year-old self
• Emotional spending, scarcity tactics and how retailers weaponise your feelings — plus the fast-fashion harm hiding behind "retail therapy"
• The wardrobe edit as a non-negotiable business activity — and the one thing to do first: get rid of what you hate

Find Samantha here:

• Just Get Dressed: Why You Have Nothing to Wear and What to Do About It - available on Amaz*n, or justgetdressed.com
• https://www.instagram.com/styleeditoruk/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-harman-style-editor/

Enjoyed this episode? 

Follow Middling Along wherever you listen, and consider leaving a review — it genuinely helps other midlife women find the show. For weekly research and commentary on midlife wellbeing, subscribe to Emma's Substack, The Messy Middle: https://middlingalong.substack.com/

In this conversation, Emma and Alex explore:

• How his company, Alexander Clementine pivoted from a sustainable fashion focus into women's health after customer reviews and his own mum's breast cancer journey revealed an unmet need
• Why use seaweed (and specifically Icelandic seaweed harvested every four years) to make a fabric naturally antibacterial, anti-odour, temperature-regulating, moisture-wicking, hypoallergenic and rich in antioxidants
• The environmental case against synthetic underwear, and why fibres made from petrochemicals are particularly concerning in a menopause context (carcinogens, hormone disruptors, trapped heat and moisture)
• "Menopause-washing" — how to read the label and spot brands cashing in without using fabrics that actually help
• How the underwear helps with external-facing symptoms of menopause — hot flushes, heightened sensitivity, dry and itchy skin, vulval discomfort — and where it fits in breast cancer recovery (two-to-four weeks post-surgery, not as an immediate post-surgical compression bra)
• Why Alex believes men need to be part of the menopause conversation — and the response he's had from men his own age (spoiler: most know nothing about it)

• Alexander Clementine website: alexanderclementine.com
• Instagram: @alexanderclementine (search Alexander Clementine)
• Check out my earlier conversation with Jo and Rob, authors of Burning Up, Frozen Out — a book aimed at men with frameworks for having menopause conversations: https://www.thetripleshift.org/podcast/burning-up-frozen-out 

Note: Alex kindly gifted me a sample crop bra to try ahead of recording — there's no paid sponsorship, and as regular listeners know, I rarely talk about products on the podcast unless I've used them myself.

To find out more about ways to work with me please check out www.thetripleshift.org/starthere

You'll find me on Substack too https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

This week I'm joined by Lucy Standing, founder of Brave Starts, co-author of Age Against the Machine: New Rules for Working in an Ageist World, Telegraph careers columnist, and contributor to OECD policy on older workers. Lucy is sharp, evidence-led, and refreshingly impatient with the way the labour market wastes people in their 50s and 60s.

We talk about:

• Why retirement as we know it is a 1940s solution being applied to a problem that no longer exists

• The difference between fluid intelligence (peaks at 19) and crystallised intelligence (peaks in your late 40s and 50s) — and why most hiring still measures the wrong one

• The OECD-backed Generation study where 89% of older hires performed at or above expectations, against hiring managers' predictions

• Why "I want to do something more purposeful" is the dominant driver for workers over 50 — and money ranks sixth

• Why the jobs board model is broken if you're trying to pivot, and what to do instead (hint: stop hitting "easy apply")

• The would-be hotelier who almost spent his life savings on a Lake District boutique — and the two days that saved him

• Why we'll happily pay £30k for a degree but balk at paying for two days of practical experience in the field we're considering

• The 82-year-old woman whose letter changed how Lucy thinks about loneliness, work, and contribution

If you've ever felt invisible in the job market after 50, been told you're "overqualified," or watched a brilliant friend get screened out by an applicant tracking system, this one's for you.

Links:

• Age Against the Machine: New Rules for Working in an Ageist World — by Lucy Standing, Maggie Evans and Martin Hyde, out now in paperback [https://www.waterstones.com/book/age-against-the-machine/lucy-standing/martin-hyde/9783111706894]

• Brave Starts: bravestarts.com  

• Lucy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucystanding/

You can find me, and the full podcast archive over at www.thetripleshift.org/starthere

Don't forget to subscribe to my Substack too: https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Joe Warner is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author, and former editorial director of Men’s Fitness magazine. He has spent more than two decades working across print, digital and broadcast media, writing extensively about men’s and women’s health, fitness and wellbeing.

Rob Kemp is a freelance journalist and author of seven non-fiction books, including the Amazon-bestselling The Expectant Dad’s Survival Guide, The New Dad’s Survival Guide and The Good Guys: 50 Heroes Who Changed the World with Kindness. He has written about men’s health, parenting and sports for more than 30 years.

• Why Joe and Rob wrote Burning Up, Frozen Out
• The parallels Rob noticed between supporting a partner through pregnancy and supporting a partner through perimenopause
• Why men often default to “fixer” mode – and the relief that comes from learning they don’t have to fix anything
• Moving from a solutions mindset to a support mindset
• The “midlife logistics company” problem: how couples stop talking to each other and start just managing schedules
• The Midlife MOT – a weekly check-in tool for couples to score how they’re feeling physically and mentally, and use it as a springboard for conversation
• The Traffic Light List – a green/amber/red exercise to uncover what your partner loves, tolerates and can’t stand (including in the bedroom)
• Active listening vs jumping into solutions: “Do you want help, a hug, or to be heard?”
• How men can be the “Sherlock Holmes” who spots perimenopause symptoms before their partner does
• The disconnect around sex and intimacy in midlife: why men often seek connection through sex, while women need connection before sex
• Spontaneous vs responsive desire, and the idea of the “sizzle” – giving intimacy time to build
• Lowered tolerance in perimenopause: why “she’s changed” is the wrong framing
• Being a co-advocate at GP appointments and the chapter on “Dealing with the Doctor”
• Rob’s biggest surprise: how poorly the medical profession has served women presenting with menopause symptoms
• Joe’s biggest surprise: how empowered he felt once he had the knowledge to actually help

1. You don’t have to fix it. Shifting from a solutions mindset to a support mindset is the single most powerful change a man can make.
2. A little education goes a long way. Understanding what’s actually happening hormonally helps men take symptoms seriously, respond with empathy, and spot what’s going on – sometimes before their partner does.
3. Communication is a skill, not a talent. It needs practice, just like anything else. The book provides a menu of practical tools and phrases you can pick and choose from.
4. Make time sacred. A weekly coffee, a walk, a Midlife MOT check-in – carving out regular, low-pressure time to talk is the single habit that every expert Jo and Rob spoke to swore by.
5. You’re not alone. Isolation makes everything harder. This is something couples go through together, and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

“Once they read in the book that their job isn’t to fix anything, you can almost see the weight of the world lift off their shoulders.”

– Joe Warner

“All I said to her was, can I make you a cup of tea? That’s all I had.”

– Rob Kemp

• Burning Up, Frozen Out: https://www.johnmurraypress.co.uk/titles/joe-warner/burning-up-frozen-out/9781399826655/
• com – includes a free download of Chapter 4 (on men and the midlife crisis) and the Midlife MOT tool
• Also mentioned: Listen by Dr Kathryn Mannix; Rebel Bodies by Sarah Graham

If you think your partner could benefit from this conversation, send them a link to this episode and to the book. And if you’ve read Burning Up, Frozen Out, Joe and Rob would love to hear from you – get in touch via burningupfrozenout.com.

If you'd like to find out more about my work, or how to work with me, please visit www.thetripleshift.org/starthere 

In this episode I speak to Poorna Bell — award-winning journalist, author, and former UK executive editor for HuffPost — to talk about her new book She Wanted More, the cultural shift happening among women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and why the conversation around midlife needs to change.

Poorna describes the atmosphere before her 40th birthday as apocalyptic, with friends talking about it like the end of the world, and society treating 40 as a cliff edge. Surprisingly, to her, the world didn't end. In fact, things got better. Over the five years since, she's watched her life move on an upwards trajectory, something society never told her was possible. She Wanted More is her response to that gap between what women are told about midlife and what actually happens when you're in it.

Poorna noticed women all around her in their 40s, 50s, and 60s making fundamentally different choices than previous generations. Whether that was questioning relationships, redefining career success, opting out of motherhood, or choosing to remain single after divorce. The traditional markers of success (money, power, nuclear family structures) are being interrogated. Women are asking: What do I actually want? What is purpose for me?

This isn't a book prescribing one way to live. It's about creating agency — doing an inventory of your life and asking yourself: What do I need to feel power and intention in my own life?

Poorna advocates for reclaiming the word ‘climacteric’ because it better captures the magnitude of what's happening in the menopause transition. It sounds dramatic because it is dramatic.

She describes her own symptoms as "giant stingrays carrying dread, despair, and fear" — a visceral image that will resonate with anyone who's experienced perimenopausal anxiety and that pervasive sense of doom.

Poorna surveyed around 1,000 women for the book, and one surprising finding was the fear younger women now have about perimenopause. Media coverage has skewed heavily negative, and many women in their 20s and 30s are genuinely terrified. Poorna's response? We need balance. Yes, some women have brutal experiences. But many don't. The goal isn't to sugarcoat it or pretend it's all wonderful, but to give women the full picture so they can prepare without catastrophizing.

Poorna quotes Ashley Kelch in the book: "The most disruptive act in midlife isn't leaving your job or your relationship. It's leaving behind the version of yourself that you created in order to survive."

For Poorna, that meant shedding the version of herself that was palatable, agreeable, and constantly performing. She describes younger Poorna as someone who would say yes to everything, who prioritized being liked over being authentic. Midlife gave her permission to stop. She's learned to listen to her body's signals, to say no without guilt, to recognize when she simply doesn't have the spoons for something, and to honour that without shame.

The global anti-aging market is set to be worth $80 billion in four years. Poorna calls it "the same shit, repackaged" — a relentless marketing machine selling women the idea that looking young is the only way to remain valuable. And yet, when she asked the women she surveyed what getting older meant to them, not one mentioned looks. They talked about freedom, contentment, peacefulness, having options.

So how do we opt out of this pressure? Poorna's advice: stop engaging with the narratives that don't serve you. Unfollow accounts that make you feel inadequate. Surround yourself with images and stories of women who are thriving in midlife on their own terms. Representation matters — and we have more control over our media diet than we think.

One of the most moving parts of the book is Poorna's conversation with her own mother about her early life before becoming a mother. Her mother had a place at university. Everything was paid for. But her grandfather wouldn't let her go because it would have meant living with a family he didn't approve of. Later, when her mother's employer suggested she take auditor exams, her father dismissed it: "You're going back to India to get married soon, so there's no point."

Listening to her mother recount this, Poorna felt rage. She could see the brightness, the potential, the intelligence — and the loss of what could have been. That conversation made Poorna softer and more compassionate with her mother. She now asks anyone whose mother is still around: have that conversation. Ask about their life before you were on the scene. Their answers won't be defensive because they're not connected to you as a person — they're just telling you their story. It's precious.

Key Takeaways:

1. Midlife isn't a cliff edge. Society lies. Your 40s, 50s, and 60s can be an upwards trajectory if you let them be.
2. Question the definitions of success you've inherited. Money and power aren't the only measures. What does success mean to you?
3. Let go of the version of yourself you created to survive. Midlife is permission to stop performing and start being.
4. Listen to your body's signals. If you don't have the spoons, you don't have the spoons. Honour that.
5. Opt out of anti-aging narratives that don't serve you. Curate your media diet. Surround yourself with images of women thriving in midlife.
6. Talk to your mother about her early life. If she's still around and you have a relationship with her, ask about who she was before you existed. You'll learn something profound.

• Instagram, Threads, and TikTok: @poornabell
• She Wanted More https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/she-wanted-more-reimagine-your-future-and-live-by-your-rules-poorna-bell/2eea99431a408200?ean=9781785122835&next=t&next=t&affiliate=11357 
• Also check out her previous book Stronger — pairs beautifully with this one

Ways to work & connect with me:

Coaching 1-1 http://www.thetripleshift.org  

Menopause in the workplace support at www.managingthemenopause.com 

Subscribe to my newsletter at https://middlingalong.substack.com/  

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

Am I too sensitive? Too ambitious? Too angry? Too loud? Too quiet? Too complicated to be loved as I am? Too much? Not enough?

In this episode, I sit down with Sophie Jane Lee, journalist, author of Beyond Palatable: A Manifesto for Unapologetic Women, and founder of Electric Peach, to talk about what it really means to stop performing, start listening to yourself, and reclaim your right to take up space.

Sophie names the cultural trap that's crushing our generation of women: we were promised we could have it all, but what we actually got was the expectation to do it all… badass boss at work, doting mother at the school gates, generous keeper of family birthdays, the woman who never stops and never sits still. Meanwhile, the unpaid emotional labour hasn't shifted. We're performing strength and independence while internalising our exhaustion as personal failure, when it's actually systemic oppression dressed up as empowerment.

This quote from Sophie in the book pretty much sums up much of how I feel on the daily: “We need to stop saying women can have it all. We don’t want it all. We want someone else to take some of the burden and give us a fucking break.”

Sophie chose the word palatable deliberately. Unlikability is about the impact you have on others: it's reactive, aggressive, and still shaped by external expectations. Palatability is about the energy you carry within yourself. It's the constant self-constricting, the dulling down, the fitting into outdated moulds. Moving beyond palatable doesn't mean you have to burn your bra at dawn or become brash and confrontational. It can be quiet, considered, spacious. It's about taking up space in your way, on your terms.

Sophie reframes people-pleasing not as a personal weakness to "recover" from, but as a nervous system response (the fawn response to feeling unsafe). Demonising yourself for a survival mechanism you learned as a child is the opposite of self-care. The goal isn't to become unlikable or stop caring about others. It's to stop abandoning yourself in the process.

Forget "if it's not a fuck yes, it's a fuck no." Sophie offers something far more grounded: tune into your body's wisdom. When your shoulders hunch, your stomach roils, your chest tightens? That's your nervous system telling you something. Not every social anxiety means you should shut yourself away, but constantly putting yourself into dysregulation because you're overriding your body's signals is unsustainable. Learn to pause. Check in. Ask yourself: Do I really want to do this? Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes it's "I'll do this, but I'll resource myself first."

What will you learn from the book?

Your innate worth is not negotiable. Your right to experience joy is real. The more you abandon your own needs, ignore your body, override your internal navigation system, the more you disconnect from joy, from yourself, from others. Sophie wants to start a revolution of unapologetic women who shine their light in their own unique way. Not because it's radical or rebellious, but because happy people aren't mean. When we self-resource, when we allow ourselves our fullest expression, we rise together.

How to Become More Unapologetic in Your Own Life:

1. Notice the performance. Where are you performing the role of "good girl," "perfect mother," "always-on professional"? What's the cost to your nervous system?
2. Stop demonising your people-pleasing. It's not a flaw. It's a response to feeling unsafe. Treat it with compassion, not shame.
3. Listen to your body's signals. Your body knows before your brain catches up. Learn to recognise the embodied no. You don't have to override it every time, you get to choose.
4. Practice nervous system regulation. Breathe out longer than you breathe in. Pause before responding. Resource yourself before you walk into situations that dysregulate you.
5. Cultivate self-worth as a lifelong practice. Believe you have as much right to a part of the pie as anyone else. Stop leaving nothing for yourself.
6. Take up space in your own way. You don't have to be loud or bold. Unapologetic can be quiet. Unapologetic can be considered. It just has to be true to you.
7. Remember: your healing makes way for others. When you stop abandoning yourself, you give other women permission to do the same. We rise together.

This is for those who’ve shrunk themselves to fit in. For our younger selves. And for the girls growing up in a world of filters, pressure, and impossible standards.

Find out more about Sophie, her work, and the book at: 

• https://beyondpalatable.com/  (includes resources and workbook materials)
• Join the Unapologetic Voices Marathon event on 2nd March here; https://electric-peach.kit.com/d19d48107c (free) 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophieturton/ 
• Instagram: @electricpeachstudios

Find out more about Emma, her coaching, and how to work with her at www.thetripleshift.org/starthere 

In this episode I chat with Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, a global expert on 21st-century leadership, gender and generational balance, longevity, and the future of work.

We explore the Four Quarter Lives framework (Q1 Grow, Q2 Achieving, Q3 Becoming, Q4 Harvesting), why lifespans are getting longer, and what that means for individuals, teams, and organizations.

Our conversation covers practical changes for workplaces, the reframing of aging beyond decline, how to approach risk in midlife, and how to design careers and communities for longer, more purposeful lives. The episode includes guidance on leadership strategy, intergenerational collaboration, and personal planning for a longer horizon.

Key takeaways

- The Four Quarter Lives framework reframes a 100-year life into four 25-year phases: Grow (Q1), Achieving (Q2), Becoming (Q3), Harvesting (Q4). This helps individuals and organizations plan for longer, more varied careers.

- Achieving (Q2) is not the endpoint; Q3 is a peak period for meaningful work, mentorship, and legacy-building, especially for women who have faced traditional juggling pressures.

- Q4 is not decline; it’s a time for legacy, contribution, and intergenerational engagement. As lifespans extend, many will shift toward continued purpose, learning, and mentoring.

- Ageism and DEI shouldn’t be the starting frame for addressing aging in organizations. Instead, demographics should be integrated into strategic planning at the executive level to influence talent, markets, and long-term resilience.

- Midlife is a critical transition - often mischaracterized as a crisis. A proactive “midlife rethink” helps people plan for a longer horizon and avoid stagnation.

- Intergenerational connections are valuable. Practical ideas like Generations Over Dinner can foster mutual understanding and collaboration across age groups.

- The conversation emphasizes resilience and opportunity: risk should be reframed as choosing growth over clinging to a status quo that no longer aligns with longer, healthier lifespans.

Resources and links mentioned

- Four Quarter Lives podcast: https://www.avivahwittenbergcox.com/podcasts/4-quarter-lives 

- Elderberries Substack: https://elderberries.substack.com/ 

- 20 First: https://20-first.com/ 

- Generations Over Dinner: https://www.generationsoverdinner.com/  — a practical way to connect different age groups

- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-correspondent-virginia-evans/7732977 

Who should listen

- Midcareer professionals (especially those in their 40s–60s) planning for longer, more varied career lives

- Leaders and HR/talent professionals shaping long-term workforce strategy and age-inclusive growth

- Anyone interested in reframing aging, intergenerational collaboration, and longevity as a positive opportunity

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org / www.managingthemenpause.com 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Kate is the founder of Your Future Fit, has always loved fitness and training - but for years it was something she squeezed in around a demanding corporate career and family life. Then, during lockdown and shortly after turning 50, she decided it was time for change. After a 25-year career in HR, she retrained as a Personal Trainer, wanting a role that made her jump out of bed in the mornings and truly embrace midlife. 

Kate knew exactly who she wanted to help: peri- and post-menopausal women navigating the same challenges she’d faced herself. Her goal is to help women not just get through this stage of life, but thrive – despite the challenges.

In 2025 Kate launched her own strength-training app, Lift for Life, designed for women over 40 who want to build muscle, support bone health, and future-proof their bodies while feeling their best right now but for whom 1-1 personal training isn’t accessible. She also shares plenty of clear, practical fitness advice and midlife wellbeing insights with her engaged community on Instagram, helping women everywhere discover that it’s never too late to get strong.

Key themes and takeaways

• Why strength training matters in midlife
  • Strength training supports bone density, joint health, posture, daily activities, and overall well-being.
  • There’s a strong mental health component: increased resilience and a greater sense of control during a period when life can feel unpredictable.
  • The goal is long-term health and a future you’ll thank yourself for, not a quick fix.
• Starting small and making it doable
  • Begin with short, manageable workouts—10 minutes is a practical starting point.
  • Home-based training reduces intimidation and makes consistency more feasible.
  • Minimal equipment needed: a mat and a pair of dumbbells (plus space at home).
• How to structure an early program
  • Focus on slow, controlled movements and proper technique to prevent injuries.
  • Prioritize progressive overload over time: gradually increase weight or the load of exercises as you get stronger.
  • Understand that progress may be gradual; even small improvements accumulate over weeks and months.
• The benefits of time-boxed, consistent practice
  • Short, regular sessions are more sustainable than sporadic longer workouts.
  • A consistent routine helps compound benefits in daily life and mood.
• Addressing gym anxiety and accessibility
  • Training at home eliminates common barriers (gym intimidation, schedule constraints, travel time).
  • Most people don’t need fancy equipment; the right program and technique matter more than gear.
• Lift for Life: what it offers
  • Foundations: a 20–30 minute, three-workout-per-week program centered on technique and safe, slow movements.
  • Momentum: an advanced stage for those ready to progress beyond Foundations.
  • Progressive programming and accountability: workouts are purposefully programmed (not random) to ensure progressive overload over time.
  • Monthly intake with community support: a welcoming, non-pressured culture that emphasizes kindness to oneself and sustainable habit formation.
  • Minimal equipment and home-friendly structure: designed to be easy to join and fit into busy midlife lives.
  • Emphasis on community: accountability and social motivation help people show up consistently.
• Mindset and sustainability
  • The approach encourages treating workouts like brushing teeth: non-negotiable, integrated into weekly life.
  • If motivation wanes, use strategies like committing to 10 minutes and allowing yourself to stop if you truly need to, then continue if you feel up to it.
  • Self-talk matters: replace harsh internal narratives with supportive, encouraging language.
• Practical tips Kate shares for beginners
  • Start with 10-minute workouts at home, using a mat and light dumbbells.
  • Schedule workouts in your diary (e.g., Monday, Wednesday, Saturday) and aim for consistency, with flexibility when life gets busy.
  • Focus on technique first; quality over quantity prevents injury and builds a solid foundation.
  • Don’t compare yourself to others in classes or on social media—focus on your own pace and progress.
  • Build gradually: as strength and confidence grow, you can extend workouts to 20–30 minutes and increase resistance.
• Long-term benefits and “health pension”
  • The cumulative effect of regular strength work improves bone health, posture, energy, and daily functioning.
  • Prioritizing midlife strength training sets up better health outcomes for later decades, including easier mobility and better quality of life.

Resources mentioned

If you’re listening and considering a move toward stronger midlife fitness, Lift for Life offers a structured, approachable path with a focus on safety, consistency, and long-term health.

Ongoing Discount Offer - for Middling Along listeners Kate has kindly offered you access to Life for Life for £49 per month for as long as you stay (usually £59 per month).  The next intake starts on 12th January 2026 (and there are monthly intakes if now is not the right time for you!)

https://kate-oakley.boonpage.com/lift-for-life?promo_code=save10pp

https://www.yourfuturefit.com

https://www.instagram.com/yourfuturefit

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

Ways to work with me:

Coaching with me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

Menopause in the workplace support at www.managingthemenopause.com 

And don’t forget to:

Subscribe to my newsletter at https://middlingalong.substack.com/  

Check our over 100 podcast episodes in the archive at www.middlingalong.com

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

We explore the rise of eating disorders, the impact of the pandemic, and how social media and diet culture shape young people’s relationship with food and their bodies.

The conversation offers practical, compassionate guidance for parents and caregivers on talking with children and teens about nutrition, body image, and healthy eating patterns. Anna is the author of How to Talk to Children About Food, and shares actionable strategies for conversations at home, signs to watch for, and when to seek professional help.

Key takeaways

- Eating disorders are increasing, with the pandemic cited as a major contributing factor. Social and cultural pressures around weight have intensified with the introduction of weight-loss medications and pervasive diet messaging on social media. A large portion of nutrition guidance consumed by young people comes from platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where most content is not accurate.

- Adolescence involves two key developmental tasks: separation from caregivers and individuation (forming a sense of self). COVID-era restrictions disrupted these processes, which, alongside heightened emotions and risk messaging, created an opportunity for disordered eating to flourish.

- Language matters when talking about food. Be specific and neutral rather than labeling foods as “healthy” or “unhealthy.” Avoid fear-based or punitive messaging (e.g., “that will make you fat”). Emphasize balance, variety, and the overall pattern of the diet rather than single meals.

- Create a healthy home food environment. Allow for a range of foods at home, avoid using food as a reward or punishment, and be cautious about restricting foods. This supports self-regulation and reduces the likelihood of binge-eating cycles driven by deprivation.

- Focus on body function and acceptance, not appearance. There are billions of unique bodies, and variation is normal. Encourage body acceptance and appreciation for what the body does (movement, health, energy) rather than how it looks. It’s realistic to acknowledge that not everyone feels positive about their body every day.

- Support for puberty and body changes. Hormonal fluctuations and evolving bodies during adolescence can be unsettling. Discuss differences in energy needs, portions, and activity levels openly, and acknowledge that it’s normal for bodies to change at different rates.

- Handling trends with curiosity. Teens may be drawn to gym culture and protein supplements. It’s useful to explore the evidence together, rather than dismissing interest. Encourage evidence-based choices and avoid pressuring or shaming.

- Early signs of potential eating disorders. Watch for significant changes in eating patterns (skipping meals, cutting out whole food groups), increased anxiety around meals, extreme weight changes, and irregular periods in girls. If you notice these signs, approach with curiosity and seek help promptly.

- Initial steps if you’re concerned. Start with careful observation over a short period, then have a non-judgmental conversation. If concerns persist, consult a GP for baseline checks (weight, height, bloods) and consider seeing a psychologist or ED specialist. Early intervention is preferable to waiting for illness to become severe.

- Treatment principles and parental roles. In anorexia, parents may need to support structured eating as part of recovery. In binge patterns, reducing restriction helps, since hunger drives cravings. Special situations like ARFID require expert assessment and tailored exposure-based strategies. The NHS and ED services are under-resourced, so timely engagement with healthcare providers is crucial.

- When to seek specialist help. If concerns persist, especially with weight changes, food avoidance, or distress around eating, connect with a healthcare professional early. A qualified psychologist or dietitian with ED experience can offer targeted guidance and support.

Resources 

Anna Colton’s book How to Talk to Children About Food is a practical primer for parents. 

You can follow her on https://www.instagram.com/drannacolton  search for The Food Psychologist on TikTok and her LinkedIn is https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-anna-colton-79975521/  for evidence-based insights and ongoing discussions about eating, weight, and body image.

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We discuss the idea of a ‘care partner’ rather than ‘carer’ and practical strategies for maintaining brain health across midlife and into older age. We dive into cognitive reserve, modifiable dementia risk factors, and how to support both the person with dementia and those caring for them, with an emphasis on curiosity, autonomy, and joy.

Key topics 

  - Sabina’s new book Still Me blends professional knowledge with personal experience caring for her own mother with dementia.

  - The shift from “carer” to “care partner” to support autonomy and reduce paternalism.

  - The importance of allowing people with dementia to participate in decisions that affect their day-to-day life.

  - The risk of disempowerment when we do tasks for the person rather than with them.

  - Understanding different dementia trajectories and the role of family in decision making.

  - Cognitive reserve and how engaging the brain can delay symptom onset (reserves of brain function can delay symptoms even with pathology present).

  - The 14 modifiable risk factors (including obesity, smoking, hearing loss, social isolation, depression) and how lifestyle changes help brain health.

  - The brain–heart health link: heart health, diet, exercise, and the risk of cognitive decline.

  - The value of social engagement and mentally stimulating activities for a healthy brain.

  - The problematic role of isolation and the importance of meaningful social connections.

  - Don’t force diagnoses on someone who isn’t ready; plan for the future with nuance and care.

  - Encouraging curiosity about the person’s experiences and responses.

  - Advice for those newly diagnosed, including gradual acceptance, planning, finances, and power of attorney. Plus, the really lovely idea of creating a notebook of preferences to honour the person’s likes and dislikes whilst they still have agency.

Sabina’s website: sabinabrennan.ie 

Books:

  - Still Me 

  - Beating Brain Fog

  - 100 Days to a Younger Brain

Podcast: Super Brain: https://sabinabrennan.ie/super-brain-podcast/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org / www.managingthemenpause.com 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/

Join us as we unpack Hannah’s journey from teaching to running her own business, the strengths-based framework at the heart of The Purpose Pursuit, and practical tools like the seven personality types and the walk–talk values framework. We explore how the pandemic sparked a digital pivot, the importance of boundaries to avoid burnout, and how small, incremental shifts can steer life toward greater alignment. 

What You’ll Learn

- How to pivot gracefully: with lessons about not needing a master plan and being open to opportunity.

- The core of Hannah’s approach: a strengths-based lens that helps people understand what energizes them and how to use those strengths effectively.

- The seven strengths-based types: Achiever, Thinker, Connector, Impactor, Believer, Explorer (and how your top three types shape your approach to work and life).

- Hannah’s walk–talk values framework: a practical way to assess whether your values are aligned with your actions 

- How burnout can be tied to overusing strengths: recognizing overdrive and building boundaries to protect energy.

- The role of small, consistent shifts: tiny daily changes compound over time and move you toward your desired destination.

- Practical, reader-friendly tools: exercises and a roadmap in The Purpose Pursuit to coach yourself—and even help others—through transition moments.

Practical Takeaways

- Start with your top three strengths and carry them through your daily decisions and projects.

- Choose up to five core values and use the walk–talk axis to assess how well you live them out.

- Embrace small, consistent changes; they compound into meaningful life shifts over time.

Resources and Links

The Purpose Pursuit by Hannah Miller https://dk.com/products/9780241756331-the-purpose-pursuit  The book hits bookshops on December 4; pre-orders are open now

Hannah’s Website: hellosidekick.co

@hellohannahmiller on Instagram

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org / www.managingthemenpause.com / www.holdingupthesky.com 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

• Carents began as an information website in 2020 to provide objective, non-commercial guidance for carers who were overwhelmed by sales-led options. It has expanded to include a thriving community, proactive information delivery (emails, e-booklets, webinars), and access to wider expertise, all offered for free.
• The research highlights the distinctive challenges of caring for older adults at home, including managing two homes, long travel for care, and a substantial emotional load. In their ‘Carents in the Workplace’ study, 71% of respondents reduced hours, changed roles, or left work due to caregiving responsibilities, underscoring the economic and personal impact.
• National data show about 60% of carers are women (40% men), with women often taking on the heavier, more time-consuming tasks. Increasingly, caregivers juggle multiple generations (so-called ‘club sandwich carers’), menopause-related health issues, and retirement/pension implications—creating long-term health and financial inequality. There are currently 1.5 million sandwich carers in the UK.
• The number of adults aged over 85 is projected to DOUBLE over the next 15 years - putting additional strain on the NHS, social care, individuals and families.
• Carents is free to access, offering both peer support and practical resources (legal basics, care service selection, dementia info, arthritis care, etc.). In five years the platform has grown to 7,000+ community members and 55,000+ email subscribers. 
• Jackie continues to push for systemic improvements in how society, workplaces, and services recognize and support carers, including workplace rights and flexible arrangements.

Visit carents.co.uk to access information, join the community, or participate in events and webinars. 

You can also reach Jackie at hello@carents.co.uk

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org / www.managingthemenpause.com / www.holdingupthesky.com 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Key quotes

• “Don’t try and do it all on your own. Get the right stakeholders involved. Have a steering group, a co-chair, and a sponsor.”
• “Pick off the low hanging fruit. Pick off the stuff that you can do and implement quickly.”
• “It’s a war, not a battle.” (on sustaining momentum and not letting initiatives stall)
• “Education and information was absolutely key.” (on the foundation for successful engagement)
• “Language matters. Be direct and transparent about what menopause is.” (on avoiding euphemisms and building credibility)
• “We can’t mandate everything in a joint venture, so we rely on leadership visibility and storytelling to drive engagement.”

Practical takeaways for HR & wellbeing teams:

• Start with a steering group: bring cross-functional representation (HR/ER, facilities, IT, wellbeing/D&I) and appoint a co-chair to share the load.
• Secure an advocate sponsor: a trusted, visible leader in the business to champion the initiative.
• Listen first: let people’s needs drive the program; avoid overloading participants with campaigns before trust is built.
• Use language that’s clear and factual: don’t shy away from the terminology of menopause and related symptoms.
• Connect with external expertise: partner with specialists to provide credible education and resources. 
• Implement quick wins: pick “low hanging fruit” that deliver tangible benefits. 
• Align with broader wellbeing and D&I goals: link the initiative to accreditation (Wellbeing of Women Workplace pledge) and overall staff welfare programs.
• Consider store-level realities: in retail, tailor adjustments to individual roles (e.g., door duty vs. back office) and support teams accordingly.
• Support managers with tools and training: give managers a framework for having compassionate, validating conversations.
• Provide holistic support: combine access to private care, wellbeing apps (Headspace), and flexible adjustments to support employees.

Three actionable next steps you can take

• Create a cross-functional steering group and appoint a co-chair and a sponsor to lead a menopause initiative in your organization.
• Sign up for the Wellbeing of Women Workplace pledge and plan an introductory menopause education session with an external expert.
• Start a candid conversation with your HR/ER team about how to support line managers in having empathetic, validated conversations about menopause with their teams; aim to roll out basic manager training.

Resources:

Connect with Lou over on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lou-furby-49290844/

For menopause training and awareness sessions: www.managingthemenopause.com

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

The conversation dives into unlearning decades of conditioning, rebuilding an “operating system” that prioritizes calm and self-care, and reconfiguring the ways women deploy their various forms of capital (human, social, financial, political) to support each other. Erin also walks through practical strategies for boundaries, managing expectations within family and work circles, and the daily actions that accumulate into meaningful cultural change. We end with practical takeaways for listeners to start hyping other women and creating a more supportive, less competitive ecosystem.

Key takeaways

• Unlearning and rewiring your operating system takes time and deliberate effort. It’s not overnight, but small, daily shifts accumulate into lasting change.
• Hype is active and transactional: hype requires action. It’s about transferring capital (not just admiration) to support other women and yourself.
• The hype economy rests on four forms of capital:
  • Human capital: your experience, expertise, and knowledge you can share.
  • Social capital: your network and the introductions you can make.
  • Political capital: your reputation and platform.
  • Financial capital: money and investments you can deploy.
• Boundaries are powerful and often resisted by others who benefited from your lack of boundaries. Erin shares this quote from Emma Gannon: “The only people who get upset when you start setting boundaries are the ones who benefited from you not having them.”
• It’s possible to reparent and renegotiate relationships with family (especially parents) as you evolve. This can be painful but is often essential for long-term wellbeing.
• The “could, should, would” framework helps decision-making:
  • Could: are you capable of doing this?
  • Should: does it serve a greater goal or bring usefulness?
  • Would: would you still choose this option given your values and desires?
• Owning your worth and choosing yourself is a form of radical self-respect that challenges intergenerational patterns of self-sacrifice.
• Reclaiming unpaid labor and boundaries can free substantial time and energy, enabling more impactful engagement with work and family.
• Gatekeeping among women is common but counterproductive; sharing knowledge and opportunities strengthens everyone.
• Real conversations with close family (even when difficult) can accelerate healing and transformation. If direct dialogue isn’t possible, writing or voice recordings can help you process and release trauma.

Suggested actions for listeners

• Do a personal life audit: where are you depleted, and where do you feel energized? Reallocate time and energy away from draining activities toward high-leverage, fulfilling ones.
• Practice boundary-setting: start with small steps and observe who reacts; use boundaries as a compass for where your time and energy should go.
• Identify and deploy your own four forms of capital to support other women (and invite them to contribute to you in return).
• Read or listen to Hype Women to understand the practical frameworks Erin shares and apply them to your own life.

Hype Women: Breaking Free from Mean Girls, Patriarchy and Systems Silencing You (out 7 October in the UK and October 14 in the US)

https://www.hypewomen.com/about

https://www.waterstones.com/book/hype-women/erin-gallagher/9781394329502

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

Where to find me:

Join me over at www.holdingupthesky.com 

Book in coaching with me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

Find my menopause in the workplace support at www.managingthemenopause.com 

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

Follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

Or subscribe to my weekly(ish) Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/  

We explore the realities of building businesses as women plus the latest research behind internalized misogyny (the internal dialogue and conditioning that influences how women value their work and themselves).

Join us as we take a tour through Nicky’s career pivots, from launching an events business to starting a unisex kids’ clothing brand during the pandemic, to launching her own podcast and the birth of The Wilder Collective.

We delve into reframing success beyond money and status and the reality of balancing entrepreneurship with life, expectations, and authenticity...

We’re lucky enough to get an early insight into the gloriously titled ‘Good Girl Economics’ research Nicky has been conducting over the summer with (past guest of the podcast) Leila Ainge which aims to quantify and illuminate how women price their services and perceive other women’s success. 

You can find Nicky at:

thewildercollective.co.uk 

https://www.instagram.com/wilder.ones 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicky-denson-elliott-44103418/?skipRedirect=true 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

Where to find me:

Join me over at www.holdingupthesky.com 

Book in coaching with me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

Find my menopause in the workplace support at www.managingthemenopause.com 

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

Follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

Or subscribe to my weekly(ish) Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/  

You’re exhausted from being all things to all people. Madly juggling parenting, elder care, job, health. Maybe you’re also supporting your young adults who aren’t quite ‘fully fledged’.

If you feel like you’re constantly teetering on the brink of burnout and playing ‘Whack-a-Mole’ with possible peri/menopause symptoms…

You're in the right place!

Sadly since this episode aired, we have had to temporarily close the Holding Up The Sky project, but if you want to register to hear more and be notified when we relaunch please visit www.holdingupthesky.com

Love, Emma and Lisa x

• Postmenopausal Zest: coined by Margaret Mead, this concept refers to a renewed sense of purpose and clarity that many women experience after menopause. Jane emphasizes the importance of authenticity during this stage, encouraging women to pursue what truly lights them up.
• The Third Stage of Women’s Careers: This stage is characterized by a shift from “work you need to do” to “work you want to do.” Jane highlights the importance of leveraging past experiences and networks when transitioning into new ventures.
• Entrepreneurship Among Women: The fastest-growing cohort of entrepreneurs is women in their fifties. Jane encourages bravery and proactivity, urging women to draw on their strengths and reach out to their networks.
• Navigating Empty Nest Syndrome: Acknowledging the psychological transition when children leave home can help women focus on their own identities and aspirations.
• Investing in Intangible Assets: Jane discusses the concept of investing in productive, vitality, and transformational assets to enhance longevity and fulfilment in life. Self-knowledge and community involvement are crucial for successful transformation.
• Finding Purpose: The Japanese concept of "Ikigai" is introduced as a framework for finding purpose by combining what you love, what you’re good at, and what contributes to others. Jane shares practical exercises like free writing to help individuals discover their purpose.
• The Gender Pension Gap: Women often retire with significantly less in pension savings compared to men, primarily due to salary disparities and career breaks. Jane stresses the importance of considering pension wealth in life planning, especially during major life transitions like divorce.
• Redefining Retirement: The traditional binary view of work and retirement is evolving; people are exploring varied paths that may include part-time work, entrepreneurship, or new hobbies. Planning for retirement should focus on creating a fulfilling and personalized experience.

• Jane’s Website: Kangaroo Coaching – where you can find resources and a workbook for self-reflection: https://kangaroocoaching.net/from-retired-to-redefined 
• Jane’s Book: What Next? The Savvy Woman's Guide to Redefining Retirement – available from September 9, 2025
• Exploratory Writing by Alison Jones – a resource for reflective writing practices.

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

Want to work with me?

Join me over at www.holdingupthesky.com 

Coaching with me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

Menopause in the workplace support at www.managingthemenopause.com 

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

Follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

Or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We explore how hormonal changes, stress, and life pressures intertwine, impacting women's mental and physical well-being during midlife.

Rachel shares her Masters research on the lived experiences of professional women navigating burnout during perimenopause, revealing key themes like loss of identity, the importance of support, and pathways to empowerment. If you're curious about recognizing burnout, understanding hormonal impacts, or seeking ways to thrive through midlife, this episode is packed with valuable insights and hope.

Key Points & Takeaways:

• Burnout & Perimenopause Overlap: Many women experience symptoms like exhaustion, brain fog, and emotional detachment during perimenopause, often exacerbated by stress and life pressures. These symptoms can be mistaken for other issues, leading to confusion and delayed support.
• The Role of Hormones: Fluctuating oestrogen, progesterone, and testosterone levels during perimenopause impact brain function, resilience, and stress management, making women more vulnerable to burnout.
• Research Insights: Rachael's qualitative research with 15 women uncovered four key themes, including the "lost in transition" feeling—women feeling a loss of identity and grappling with the invisible pressures of work and life.
• Challenges in Diagnosis: Many women struggle to get clear answers, often being misdiagnosed or told their symptoms are due to stress or depression. Blood tests may not always provide clarity in perimenopause.
• Pathways to Empowerment: Supportive interventions like hormone replacement therapy (HRT), coaching, counseling, and building community can help women regain confidence, set boundaries, and re-evaluate their lives.
• The Power of Community & Support: Normalizing conversations about menopause and burnout, creating safe spaces, and sharing stories can reduce stigma and foster resilience.
• Hope & Positive Change: Many women find empowerment and renewed confidence after navigating these challenges, often emerging with clearer boundaries, stronger self-awareness, and a sense of freedom.

Connect with Rachael and learn more about her work at Manchester Menopause Hive (https://manchestermenopausehive.co.uk/) and via The Burnout Revolution podcast and Substack newsletter (https://rachaelchrystal.substack.com/podcast) 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

Want to work with me?

Join me over at www.holdingupthesky.com - our new community for women navigating the "midlife collision"

Coaching with me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

Menopause in the workplace support at www.managingthemenopause.com 

Connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

Follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

Or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/  

Key Topics Covered:

• The motivation behind Jacqueline’s book, Strong: The Definitive Guide to Active Ageing
• Why strength training is vital for women in midlife and beyond
• The relationship between menopause, aging, and health risks like cardiovascular disease and bone loss
• Practical tips for beginners: starting with walking, bodyweight exercises, and resistance bands
• Debunking myths about strength training and muscle bulk
• How to adapt training during injuries and health challenges
• The importance of visualizing your future self and setting meaningful goals
• Fun ways to stay active, including dance and outdoor activities
• Building a sustainable, enjoyable fitness routine with support and accountability

Resources:

Jacqueline’s website: https://www.hergardengym.co.uk/ 

Jacqueline’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hergardengym 

Strong: The Definitive Guide to Active Ageing  https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/strong-the-definitive-guide-to-active-ageing-jacqueline-hooton-2?variant=41459815219278

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org / www.managingthemenpause.com / www.holdingupthesky.com 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Key Topics Covered:

• Why confidence often hides behind other development themes
• The concept of humble confidence — aligning your capabilities with your self-view
• The importance of realistic, grounded self-assessment
• Common misconceptions about confidence and success
• The impact of societal norms and gender differences on confidence
• Recognizing and managing internal saboteurs like comparisonitis and perfectionism
• Practical exercises to strengthen your confidence muscle
• Handling external setbacks and life's inevitable challenges
• The power of awareness, language, and self-compassion in building confidence

Special Highlights:

• The "full stop" technique to combat negative self-talk
• Naming your inner critic (sorry Nigel!) for greater self-awareness
• Embracing the idea that confidence fluctuates — it’s normal to feel confident sometimes and doubtful others
• Insights from The Authority Gap on gender and confidence

Julie’s book Coach Yourself Confident is a finalist for a prestigious business book award, with a special Kindle offer for just 99p until mid-August 2025: https://mybook.to/CYC-eb

Connect with Julie:

• Website: talentsprout.co.uk
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-smith-talent-sprout/ 

Resources:

• Download Tara Mohr’s cheat sheet on minimizing language in emails: https://www.taramohr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Before-You-Hit-Send-Checklist-Tara-Mohr.pdf 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/

Inside this episode:

- The cultural messaging that has shaped women’s perceptions of what they should be and do  

- How societal expectations around gender roles have evolved over the last century  

- The concept of the "third job" women undertake (beyond work and family) and its impact on health and happiness  

- Practical tips for setting boundaries, delegating, and embracing your authentic self  

- How to challenge the "good girl" persona and prioritize your well-being  

- The importance of engaging men and boys in creating more equitable relationships and societal norms  

- Strategies to support working mothers, carers, and those with dual roles in the workplace  

- The science of happiness and how behaviours can boost well-being  

So can we have it all? [Spoiler alert: probably not, or at least, not all at the same time…]

You can find out more at https://gisellegoodwin.com  and take the quiz to discover your next steps: https://dashboard.mailerlite.com/forms/1137296/136174346959848534/share 

Follow Giselle on Instagram: @GiselleGoodwinWrites

Find Giselle on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisellegoodwin 

Buy a copy of Can Women Really Have It All at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/106877861X?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_4W08MB5PP8KRT2X7XZRV& 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org and www.managingthemenpause.com 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/

In this episode, Emma shares her top hacks and hints to make healthy eating achievable and enjoyable. Discover the magic of storage p*rn—yes, beautiful food prep that motivates you! Learn how to tweak and swap ingredients to keep meals exciting, even if you're cooking for fussier family members.

Emma emphasizes that imperfection is okay: it's what we do most of the time that truly counts. If aiming for three perfect meals a day feels daunting, start small: focus on getting a nutritious breakfast right, and build from there.

Plus, Emma reveals her favourite quick recipes and lunchtime ideas, along with her top time-saving hacks, shortcuts, and must-have gadgets that make healthy cooking a breeze—all designed to fit into busy, overwhelmed schedules and ready in 30 minutes or less!

And don’t miss her tip on Myota, a gentle fibre supplement that supports gut health without fuss.

Whether you're looking to overhaul your diet or just find simple ways to eat better without the stress, this episode is packed with practical advice to help you thrive.

Tune in and get inspired to make nourishing, fuss-free meals part of your everyday life!

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at http://www.thetripleshift.org  

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Over the past decade, Sara’s journey has been nothing short of remarkable. From barely being able to walk in her fifties to reclaiming an active, outdoor life amidst the stunning landscapes of the Lake District, she’s navigated major surgeries, embarked on solo campervan adventures through Scotland, and published not one but two compelling books: The Cold Fix and her debut novel, The Winter of Our Lives.  

In this episode, Sara shares her transformative story of resilience, discovery, and connection. Discover how cold water swimming became a powerful tool for overcoming anxiety and reconnecting with nature—and yourself. She reveals creative ways to get your own "Cold Fix," the importance of community, and how immersing in nature can shift your perspective on aging, confidence, and what’s possible.  

Sara also discusses her solo adventures, including a campervan journey that taught her invaluable lessons about adapting, slowing down, and embracing the present. Plus, she explores her dream of moving to France and how health scares helped her realize what truly matters—less stuff, more experience, and the freedom of just being.  

Whether you're a seasoned swimmer or curious about taking the plunge for the first time, Sara’s insights will inspire you to step outside your comfort zone, reconnect with nature, and discover your own limits and capabilities.  

You can find Sara and her beautiful images of wild swimming at https://www.instagram.com/bumblebarnes/?hl=en

Sara’s books:

The Cold Fix (Vertebrate Adventure Books, 2022)

The Winter of Our Lives (HarperCollins, 2023) 

(and for the interview with Siobhan Daniels I mention in this episode, check out: https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-13-siobhan-daniels-on-the-retirement-rebellion-and-her-solo-vanlife-travels-around-the-uk/) 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org  

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/  

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ 

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/  

What You’ll Learn:

• The mission behind Investing in Women and how it supports both women and forward-thinking employers.
• Elizabeth’s journey in the recruitment industry, including her experiences at one of the Big 4 firms and a leading UK recruitment agency.
• Insights into the benefits of flexible work arrangements and how they can help close the gender pay gap.
• A behind-the-scenes look at Elizabeth’s debut book, Flex, a dynamic guide for anyone seeking to build a successful career on their own terms.
• Tips for career pivots, including how to leverage your network and build relevant skills when transitioning to a new industry.

Key Highlights:

• Discover the challenges faced by parents in the job market and how Investing in Women addresses these issues.
• Hear Elizabeth’s thoughts on the importance of hybrid roles and flexibility in today’s workplace.
• Learn about Subject Access Requests (SAR) and how they can empower individuals who have faced redundancy.
• Elizabeth shares her top advice for those considering a career change, including the significance of crafting thoughtful cover letters and documenting achievements.

You can get your own copy of Flex: Smart Strategies to Build a Successful Career Around Your Life at https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Flex-by-Elizabeth-Willetts/9781394267798

Find Elizabeth at https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-willetts/ and sign up to her newsletter and/or job board at https://investinginwomen.co.uk/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

In this moving and emotional interview, Lucy talks us through the surreal process of finding out about Brian’s diagnosis and navigating the speed of his illness and ultimately his death just a short time later. She describes the impact on her and her children of losing the husband and father they adored, and then being rocked again by dealing with both an empty nest as her children left home, and the compounded grief of losing the job (and second ‘work family’) that had kept her steady through her bereavement. 

Lucy talks honestly about how isolated, invisible, and abandoned she felt at this time in her life, but also the subsequent reinvention after her long dark night of the soul, and finding hope and renewed sense of identity through her new business venture River Light Press. 

Listen in to hear Lucy’s advice for anyone grappling with difficult times right now, and be inspired by her heroine’s journey to light and a new life. 

You can find Lucy at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucymelville and River Light Press at https://www.aurorametro.com/river-light-press/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

I start by asking Lauren what does confidence means to her personally and how she has learned to cultivate it?

Lauren describes confidence, not as a lack of doubt or feeling ready, but learning to show up and speak up even when full of doubt. She is, she says, still on a confidence journey. The world is not a place that is kind to confident women - she is continually unlearning, reconnecting with her gift for being onstage and inspiring others, and saying yes to hard things before feeling ready for them. Confidence differs across our lives and it’s vital we all can see that being modelled to us. 

We might appear very confident to others, but just because they can’t see our inner critic or our fears, doesn’t mean they’re not there. We all have moments of self doubt and nervousness, and confident people don’t feel confident all the time…

Lauren explains how the Upfront Bonds work: impressively, the average salary increase post-attendance is 46%, and 82% of attendees are more likely to apply for a job they wouldn’t have applied for before the Bond. 

Lauren also talks about past career mistakes: rather than failures, she sees these as lessons in disguise, data, insights, information, and opportunities to be better and grow. 

We also discuss her upcoming book “Taylor Meets The Trick” which aims to help children and families understand the patriarchy and was inspired by her son Atlas, who has long blonde hair and is often mistaken for a girl. Taylor learns about the rules for boys and rules for girls, and through the book starts challenging the neat little boxes that we are expected to fit into. There are also guides and resources at the end to support adults to continue the conversation.

Tune in to listen to all of this, plus Lauren’s experience of moving to Sweden, her advice for anyone with a young family thinking about moving to another country, and what she would change if we gave her a magic wand! 

You can find out more about Lauren and her work at Upfront by visiting  https://www.weareupfront.com/, and https://www.instagram.com/upfrontglobal/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

After being diagnosed with breast cancer aged 48, she was put into a chemically-induced menopause and plunged immediately into a maelstrom of hot flashes, mood swings, brain fog, depression and more. 

She felt like she was falling apart….but Elizabeth has used her experience to fuel her creativity and created a brilliant photojournalism project that includes self-portraits, images of friends (depicting their own symptoms and struggles), images from different cultures around the world, and images of prominent activists and medics working in the menopause space. 

Tune in to find out more about Elizabeth’s personal experience of menopause, her creative processes, and the insights she has gained from her work with women in other cultures and countries. 

You can find the series at https://www.elizabethdalziel.com/index  

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We begin our discussion by exploring the recent trend of larger companies implementing Return to Office (RTO) policies and the public’s reactions to these changes. Christine references U.S. research indicating that 43% of Americans would prefer to divorce their partner rather than return to the office full-time! She highlights that flexibility is often sacrificed for what she terms “endless contactability,” where employees feel compelled to check emails late into the evening. Unfortunately, many older male leaders, who have benefited from traditional work models, struggle to understand this shift. Christine also cites research by Nick Bloom, which shows that since the pandemic, companies have begun hiring from broader geographical areas, resulting in doubled commute times and making full-time office work less appealing. She predicts that we will see a variety of working arrangements tailored to each company's brand and talent pool.

In terms of making the most of time spent in the office, Chistine’s advice is to be strategic about using that time: use it to build strong networks, figure out ‘who do I want a relationship with?’, ‘how do I build that?’ 

We hear a lot now about the importance of personal branding and I ask Christine for her advice on how to do this when we have been socialised not to brag about our achievements and doing it gives us the ick? First of all, she suggests we initially have to accept and get comfortable with the fact that some people just won’t be ‘our people.’  Her second piece of advice is to imagine talking about ourselves to our friends - if what we’re saying feels uncomfortable it’s probably too showy, but if you talk about what you’re good at and it’s objectively true, then go for it! If you can, use humour, and vulnerability always tends to endear your audience to you. 

I ask Christine about AI in the workplace and where she sees this having the most impact on the workplace in the next 5 years. 

Her response was that some jobs will require people who can manage the AI in combination with very strong technical skills (using AI to enhance what they are doing already), many other roles will require strong communication skills, ability to make ethical decisions, and to be able to strategize.

I was interested late last year when I saw Christine talking about how she and her husband use an adapted version of the ‘Workshop your life’ methodology to plan out their year ahead. As Christine advises, we need to stop seeing work and life as separate and start to view it as one system and think about the whole and how it all fits together.  Doing this exercise once a year helps them to tackle tricky issues but not in the heat of the moment and get aligned so that they are not constantly bumping up against negotiating those difficult conversations when flashpoints occur. I’ve included a few links below in case you feel like giving it a try yourself! 

We conclude by discussing the current trends Christine and her team are exploring, particularly the rising unpredictability, polarization, and stress levels in today’s world. In uncertain times, people tend to adopt black-and-white thinking, become more anxious, and prioritize immediate concerns. Therefore, the role of leaders is crucial; they must provide reassurance, clarity, and effective communication.

You can find more on Christine and her work at https://www.armstrongpartners.co.uk/ and if you fancy watching her weekly vlogs, sign up to her newsletter, or watch via her LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thechristinearmstrong/ 

Find out more about how to Workshop your Life here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/relationships-are-the-source-of-results_workshop-your-life-9-exercises-for-high-quality-activity-7271839576732712960-LkXo/  

The Year Compass (https://yearcompass.com/) is another good option. 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Her book Myths of Menopause was published at the end of 2024 and Nicky has taken a novel approach to the subject, using the theme of Greek mythology, with Athena, goddess of wisdom as the cover star!  

The book itself brings together chapters from a wide range of experts in their individual fields, from brain health to bone health to exercise. Nicky and I discuss some of the most prevalent myths of menopause in this episode, not least the negativity around menopause and the ‘narrative of decline’ that links in to the pervasive gendered ageism in society (or Western society at least!). We discuss lifestyle changes and the temptation to believe in (and spend money on) ‘quick fixes’ that are out there. 

We also touch on myths around HRT, risks relating to breast cancer, and the under-emphasis on cardiovascular disease, which ultimately causes the deaths of many more women each year.  Nicky also offers advice for those who are under 45 and struggling with symptoms but not being listened to by their doctor. 

You can find out more about Nicky at https://nickykeayfitness.com/ and Myths of Menopause is available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Myths-Menopause-Increasing-Wisdom-Sequoia/dp/1914110404 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We start with chatting about Carla’s own brushes with overwhelm, and move on to examine how overwhelm and burnout are linked, plus Carla’s experience of early menopause and why menopause can often contribute to feelings of overwhelm. 

Carla tells us a few of her strategies for managing overwhelm including:

• Normalising that most people feel overwhelm at some point in their lives. No one is giving 100% all the time.
• Figuring out what we might be able to ‘care less’ about at times we might be struggling.
• Coping with company cultures that have a tendency to keep overloading employees: I love Carla’s suggested wording “that sounds amazing, we are fully committed at the moment, so if we are going to start doing that what are we going to stop, to make the space for that?”
• How to avoid over committing - how many ‘shoulds’ are real and how many are our own expectations of ourselves or perceived expectations of others.
• Unless it’s a ‘hell yes!” don’t commit to things on the spot - buy yourself some time to think about it before saying yes and then regretting it (or worse, resenting them!).

We also cover ‘non-promotable tasks’ in the workplace (aka office housework), as well as the differences in the types of feedback that men and women get in the workplace. Coincidentally, the same day I wrote these shownotes, I came across these stats from a recent report: About 76% of top-performing working women received negative feedback from their bosses compared to just 2% of high-achieving men (according to a new report from management software company Textio, which analysed stats performance reviews for more than 23,000 workers across over 250 organisations). About 88% of these outstanding women workers receive feedback on their personalities, while the same is true for only 12% of their male counterparts, according to the report.

As Carla rightly points out, prioritizing our own needs is not selfish. Many of us feel uncomfortable advocating for ourselves (in and out fo work), but the only person that’s going to be the best advocate for you, is YOU! (I wish I had understood this better in my 20s and 30s…and 40s!).

You can find Carla at https://carlamiller.co.uk/ and if you want to work on ‘how to say no’ then why not sign up for her free 5 day “how to say No” challenge at carlamillertraining.com/sayno 

And if you struggle with people-pleasing behaviours, you might also find this episode with Nat Lue helpful: https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-natalie-lue-helps-us-discover-the-joy-of-saying-no/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Just five years ago, Lyndsey was planning to retire early from her role as CEO of an HR firm when a special assignment lit a fire in her imagination. She was shocked that the hundreds of retired bankers she recruited for that assignment almost all agreed that retiring had been a huge mistake…

The statistics are quite stark: by 2030 50% of the UK workforce will be 50 and over (and in places like Spain, Italy, and Germany they are already almost hitting that marker). 

Over 50s now are healthier and wealthier than previous generations: we don’t dress or think like our parents did and mostly don’t want the same things - but society (and the world of work) has not caught up with this…

Listen in to our fascinating chat to find out more about:

• 100 year lives and how many of us will want or need a more harmonious and blended life phase of work and life in our Third Quarter (50-75) and potentially even into our Fourth Quarter;
• How the over 50s are the only growth talent pool and the only growth consumer pool;
• How, despite the extent to which advertising is skewed to youth (at present), 75% of all wealth is held by 50-70 year olds and by 2040 62p of every pound spent online in the UK, will be spent by an over-50 consumer (brands take note!);
• Why companies who ‘get it’ are seeing great results from mirroring demographics across customer service roles, product design, marketing, and advertising, and focusing on multigenerational teams;
• The work 55/Redefined is doing to smash inaccurate stereotypes around older workers: for example, the data shows that over 50s are 200% less likely to take a day off sick and five times less likely to leave for another job within their first 18 months in a company than employees under 30;
• Why we are all underestimating our own longevity by decades: a 40 year old now will have a life life expectancy of 98!
• The massive benefits that come from creating blended intergenerational teams;
• The need for a radical shift in working patterns, since flexibility is THE number one thing that would keep people in work for longer (whether that is in order for them to balance caring responsibilities, change careers, find better work life balance or spend time travelling) - and that mindset shift will need to come from both companies and individuals;
• How mindset shifts around salaries, prestige and self-worth will also open up opportunities for change and growth in our Third (and Fourth) Quarter;
• Lyndsey also shares the example of her own brother, who, after 30 years working in supermarket retail, has retrained as an audiologist in his late 40s and started an entirely new career 

If you want further inspiration and examples of people who have pivoted and careers check out https://life-redefined.co/ 

If you’d like to check out roles from employers that are actively hiring over 50s take a look at https://jobs-redefined.co/ 

If your organization wants to read the research and reports created by Lyndsey’s team (or work with them), check out https://work-redefined.co/ 

You can follow Lyndsey herself on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndsey-simpson-045b034/?originalSubdomain=uk

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

In a week of overwhelming world political developments, this podcast feels particularly timely...

This time I welcome Nahid de Belgeonne: Nahid has had a varied career having previously worked fashion, publishing, technology and wellness.  During her perimenopause, she swapped bricks and mortar studios in central London for her online clinic and now lives by the sea.

Her Soothe Programme helps women recover from Burnout, anxiety and trauma and she has translated all her expertise into a book called ‘Soothe, the book your nervous system has been longing for.’  

Nahid talks to me about her own struggles with chronic anxiety, stress-related skin conditions, neuralgia, and almost dying from gangrenous appendicitis because she refused to listen to her own body - and subsequently learning how to ‘rewire’ the brain through movement.  Her in-depth research into why certain things work and why they are good for you led her to write ‘Soothe’ and the programme it is based on. 

Listen to our chat to find out more about:

• How we are conditioned to do more, and more, and more…putting ourselves at the bottom of the priority list;
• How if you regulate yourself you also non-verbally regulate those around you - a win-win;
• How important it is to carve out time when your brain is not being constantly stimulated;
• How, if you are wholly engaged with what you are doing, your levels of contentment go up;
• That you feed information to your brain through your senses, interoception - listening in to the signals your body is sending you;
• Why we need to internalize our comfort instead of externalizing it;
• Why we need to be dealing with microstressors as they happen throughout the day instead of saving them all up and trying to ‘deal’ with them at the end of the day. 
• What the seemingly simple act of rocking can do for our bodies and brains.

As Nahid says in the book: “The brain’s job is to keep us alive by budgeting our resources…Your brain is constantly predicting what will happen to you next…”

Our brains are working so incredibly hard in the modern world aren’t they? Did you know that our visual distance gets fixed if sitting all day looking at a screen, which sends alarm signals to the brain. Walking in green spaces is a great antidote, even just for a short period of time - but walking in general is also helpful, the way our eyes move when we walk is also calming for our brains!  

Nahid also suggests that we treat your phones as a rare and precious commodity rather than an appendage! The importance of social connections and interactions for a healthy nervous system cannot be underestimated...there's so much more in this episode I'd love you to discover.  

For now, I’ll leave you with my favourite quote from the book:

“...what if ambition, speed and acquisition were not the only human goals? What if we also valued sensing, exploring, learning, the beauty of the process, resting, creating, pausing, resetting, repairing, calibrating, or even compassionately being?” 

You can find more about Nahid’s work on her website:

www.thehumanmethod.co.uk 

Buy the book at https://www.waterstones.com/book/soothe/nahid-de-belgeonne/9781800817104 

You can find her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehumanmethoduk/ 

You can also find her on Substack: https://nahiddebelgeonne.substack.com/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

A former director at EY, Victoria is a bestselling author and an international speaker on unretirement, personal branding and using LinkedIn strategically as well as on leadership and women on boards. Through Next-Up, she is on a mission to combat age discrimination and get society and employers to value and invest in 50+ employees and use their skills to create the workforce of the future.

Shockingly fewer than 1 in 10 organizations are tackling ageism as part of their EDI strategy and age discrimination is rife. 

Victoria quotes hearing from an HR Director at an event that they personally “won’t even look at an applicant’s CV if they’ve worked in one organization for 20-30 years” - and they’re surely not alone… It seems ageism is the one ‘ism’ that no-one is really cracking down on - though Victoria fully expects discrimination cases to increase in the near future. 

Despite very well-publicized stats that the share of the population aged 50 and older will increase from 37% in 2020 to 45% in 2050 and widespread skills shortages, many recruiters are still blatantly discriminating against older applicants, and when Victoria posts (as she regularly does) on LinkedIn, she is deluged with hundreds of examples of individuals who have first hand experience of that discrimination. 

Next-Up is tackling this in range of ways, with progressive employers, and Victoria mentions a few that are leading the charge, like Unilever (their ‘U work’ model provides a basic contract and benefits, and then employees can contract on top of that for projects of all sizes and shapes that fit with their individual circumstances), and Fullers Brewery who are using Restless to recruit older workers and combat skills shortages. 

With multi-generational workforces of five (and soon seven) generations in the workplace, companies need to figure out how to manage the differing needs of all employees for whom traditional 9-5 models just do not work. Also to focus on multi-generational working – purposefully designing boards, projects and everyday work with generations threaded through it all.

Victoria also offers her pointers for what older workers can do to ensure that we are not being 'left behind' which include:

• Taking advantage of free courses to upskill in tech, and AI in particular, since older individuals have a key role to play in helping companies better understand AI and the places where it needs to be refined - a huge opportunity;
• Data and cyber risks - again , lots of free courses;
• Being mindful of the language we use: avoid saying things like “oh we didn’t do it like that in my day;”
• Respecting, mentoring, and forging relationships with younger people;
• Being curious and cultivating a growth mindset.

She also shares her advice for finding ‘age inclusive’ employers and her dream for a future where Unretirement means people retain long term relationships with their employers wherein they come back to to mentor colleagues, companies make use of their valuable knowledge and use them as an interim resource – to cover holidays, maternity leave and more; and individuals retain purpose and value in their work. 

You can find Victoria at https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoriatomlinson/ and Next-Up at  https://www.next-up.com/

https://restless.co.uk/ is the other organization that Victoria mentions.

Find out more about U Work at https://www.unilever.com/sustainability/future-of-work/future-workplace/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Our guest, Dr Beth Thomas, GP, British Menopause Society accredited specialist at Everything Menopause, and clinical lead at Managing the Menopause, shares her expert insights on the complexities of menopause treatment, the importance of individualized care, and the implications of the documentary on both healthcare providers and women seeking menopause support.

This episode covers

• A brief look at the documentary’s critique of a prominent menopause clinic and its implications for the wider industry.
• Beth explains the current British Menopause Society (BMS) and NICE guidelines for oestrogen dosing. Risks of oestrogen doses beyond current guidelines, and why individualized care is essential.
• Common issues with absorption and how switching between patches, gels, and sprays can improve outcomes for some women.
• Discussion of the challenges faced by women in accessing quality menopause care through the NHS.
• The need for more research and clinical trials on HRT and menopause treatments.
• The importance of patient consent and shared decision-making.
• Recognizing that HRT is not a cure-all and the value of a holistic approach during the menopause transition.

Links and Resources:

• Watch the BBC Panorama Documentary on BBC iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023jdn 
• Advice on HRT: https://www.womens-health-concern.org/help-and-advice/factsheets/ 
• Previous interview with Paula Rastrick, a participant in the Panorama documentary: https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-paula-rastrick-on-our-brain-body-connection-in-perimenopause-could-you-be-an-hsp/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Having previously survived two encounters with cancer, last year, with no warning, she suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm that very nearly killed her. Despite this, she recovered and went on to finish her PhD exploring the experiences of post-menopausal women.  

We start off with me asking Stella to explain what existential psychotherapy is (because I definitely had no clue!). She outlines the approach as asking clients, “what choices have you made; what choices do you want to keep making; what choices are you making because you believe you have no choice; where do you want to change; and where are you right now?”  

We also talk about how her second round of breast cancer felt like “a big slap in the face,” having made a subconscious deal with the Universe that trading the loss of her fertility due to aggressive cancer treatment would allow her to fully recover and continue to live cancer-free. 

We move on to discuss the dearth of “post-menopausal” voices in the Menosphere - something I hope the podcast can go some way to addressing even in small part. The “industry” doesn’t want to hear from happy, satisfied, thriving post-menopausal women, Stella points out, because then we won’t buy in to needing to be “fixed” in quite the same way… As she herself can attest: “It’s better ‘out the other side’…”!  On the flip side, her theory is that as regards the diverse voices we’re not hearing (the women who aren’t talking about their symptoms) their voices are absent not because they aren’t experiencing symptoms but because other, even harder stuff is going on in their lives. When people haven’t needed to deal with difficulties in life before, then menopause comes as a shock. She also argues that perhaps the anger and anxiety that often accompany menopause are valid responses to being surrounded by patriarchy, sexism and misogyny? 

We also look at different global experiences of menopause: she cites research that compared Highland Mayan Guatemalan women to those in the US - where despite similar levels of osteoporosis, the Guatemalan women had no fractures due to diet and lifestyle differences (high calcium in their water, exercise throughout life (carrying water for miles well into their 70s), and absence of alcohol. (They also call their hot flushes: “the rising of the animal spirit” which I think perhaps should be a ‘thing’ here too!). What else can we learn from other cultures - especially where older adults are treated with respect - but also what can we learn from studying those who have ‘sailed though’ menopause - what were they doing differently in earlier life that might be influencing their experiences? 

We move on to confronting our own internalized ageism and finding our own ways to age on our own terms - to articulate what we want from our ‘one wild and precious life.’  Flexing those “I want” muscles doesn’t always come easily - and as we agree towards the end of our chat…We don’t have to figure it all out overnight!

You can find out more about Stella and her work at https://stelladuffytherapy.co.uk/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Kate’s new book is a lovingly created year-long journal which can be started at any point in your perimenopause journey and builds on her writing around the different seasons of pre/peri- and post-menopause in Second Spring (although you certainly don’t need to have read this to use the Journal). Within you’ll find journaling prompts and guides that help you figure out which of the different types of seasonal self-care are right for you as you navigate the rollercoaster of perimenopause.

As Kate herself outlines, there’s no time in our lives where the prompt “How can I be kinder to myself?” is not appropriate, but perimenopause is surely one time where we desperately need to allow ourselves more kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness. 

She describes perimenopause as a process of refinement - showing us what isn’t working for us, what is not serving us in life. 

In this sense the Journal is a helpful vehicle for us to be able to look back over a period of time and see how we have developed our self-kindness practices. 

The positives of perimenopause - which are much more available to us when we are well rested - include getting clear on our needs and how to get our needs met - which can be easier said than done given we have (generally) been socialized to put our needs last. Processing this can reveal to us the gap between who we actually are and how we have sold ourselves short.  The act of writing things down in a journal helps us build the muscle of articulating what we need. This practice - of accepting our vulnerability and strength, claiming lost parts of ourselves - takes time and however we choose to deal with perimenopause (whether we take HRT or not), this inner process is still likely to be going on…  We joke about ‘enforced rest and respite’ for perimenopausal folk (we can dream!) - but the journal really is a framework for enabling what our minds and bodies are calling out for. 

The Perimenopause Journal also gives you access to some of Kate’s fantastic yoga nidra meditations (accessible using the QR codes in the book) for 20-minute doses of deep restorative rest, as well as intention-setting meditations each month. 

We unpack a little of my skepticism around moon phases which are used as an anchor in the journal - Kate gently explains why exploring and noting how we feel in relation to the phases of the moon can be supportive especially once the rhythm of other cycles has gone. 

I love Kate’s description of the journal as “a soft-lined nest for you to rest in’ - and who would not want that! 

You can find out more about Kate’s work and writing (and access her free resource library, including some yoga nidra recordings) at

www.katecodrington.co.uk

The Perimenopause Journal is published by David and Charles: https://www.davidandcharles.com/books/diaries-letters-journals/the-perimenopause-journal-9781446313589/

Second Spring is available in paperback: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/second-spring-kate-codrington/5752562?ean=9780008469771

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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Cathy’s latest novel Sisterhood is - of course - about two sisters - Lou and Toni. Lou is someone who habitually puts herself last…until the events that unfold at her 50th birthday party push her to stop pleasing other people and decide to finally put herself first.

This prompts us to discuss how commonly those of us coming up to 50 are prompted to examine our lives, sometimes interrogating what we have been putting up with and questioning, asking ourselves… “What am I for?”

Cathy also talks about her own treatment for cancer - another life inflection point that makes you question everything…

We move on to talk about the appeal of historical novels and Cathy is kind enough to share a few recommendations for books that she has loved recently: the Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard (https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/fiction/cazalet-chronicles-books-in-order) and A Discovery of Witches https://deborahharkness.com/all-souls-world-home/the-all-souls-world-books/  (and I mention one of my all time favourite historical novels: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/the-needle-in-the-blood/) 

Cathy calls out the misogyny and snobbishness around fiction written ‘by women, for women, about women’s lives’ and we touch on the evolution of the so-called ‘chick lit’ writers now hitting their 50s and writing about this new age and stage of their lives.

We also head off on a few tangents, reminiscing about carefree pre-Internet times and 80s fashion!

Find out more about Sisterhood at https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/sisterhood-cathy-kelly?variant=40276782973006 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

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We talk about the genesis of her sex-tech business MakeLoveNotPorn.tv: a place for ‘socialising, normalising and destigmatising real-world sex’ and Cindy reminds us that when we don’t talk about sex ‘porn becomes sex education by default’... I was fascinated to learn more about MLNP - from the rigorous checking and vetting processes that all content and comments pass through to create safe spaces for all concerned, how empowering and healing many of the ‘stars’ find the process of sharing their videos, to hearing about how hard it is for sex-tech businesses to attract funding (prompting their current round of equity crowdfunding: see https://wefunder.com/makelovenotporn/ if you want to find out more). 

For those of us who do have kids, particularly younger children, the ready availability of pornographic content online is a huge concern - Cindy’s next goal is to fund https://www.makelovenotporn.academy/ to create a platform for age-appropriate sex-education for individuals of all ages that will also serve as a way for sex educators to make a living from providing their content (currently most struggle against platforms that censor even educational content). (This: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/27/more-than-300m-children-victims-of-online-sexual-abuse-every-year is the article I refer to in the course of this episode - shocking statistics and a stark reminder that we can’t afford to be complacent in talking to our children about sex, no matter how tricky we may find those conversations. Cindy shares with us her two tips for how to navigate those conversations - advice that I know I’ll definitely find hugely useful. 

Last of all we cover ageism in the advertising industry and Cindy’s determination to change societal attitudes towards ageing - creating a culture where ‘living older’ is aspirational and ads are created by and for older audiences and as a result. Music to my ears!

You can find Cindy at https://www.instagram.com/cindygallop and MLNP at https://makelovenotporn.tv/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

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She joins us to discuss the recent research the company funded to investigate disparities in access to menopause support: for example, just 5% of black women are on HRT vs 20% of white women, and individuals in areas of social deprivation are significantly less likely to be prescribed the newer, safer forms of HRT. 

We also cover some of Tina’s ongoing frustrations at the lack of prioritization and funding available for women’s healthcare - such as the fact that NHS England developed a public health campaign for menopause that was never launched due to lack of funding.

Would it surprise you to know that the UK currently has the largest gender health gap in the G20? We also have a staggering 35% gender pension gap.

The report, published in April 2024 interviewed a range of clinicians and allied healthcare professionals, and is available to download at:  https://www.theramex.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Theramex_Tackling-Unequal-Access-to-Menopause-Care.pdf - we discuss the five recommendations that the report concludes with, including better training for GPs and other allied healthcare professionals, and the creation of a national formulary to end the current postcode lottery whereby some newer HRT is available in some areas but not others.

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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We covered so much in such a short space of time!  We started by talking about the impact of localised (vaginal) oestrogen vs what systemic HRT does - both for GSM (genito-urinary syndrome of menopause) and for sexual dysfunction.  For anyone wanting to know more about GSM, or pass information on to their GP, Angela recommends the British Society of Sexual Medicine consensus statement on GSM that’s available on their website (linked below). 

She goes on to explain that there is no increase in recurrence risk for oestrogen receptor positive breast cancers when using localized oestrogen to treat symptoms (and that it can be used alongside letrozole and tamoxifen). We discuss the need for patients to be able to make an informed choice about risks vs benefits, which can be challenging when healthcare professionals are not taught to understand the impact that GSM and sexual dysfunction can have on quality of life - certainly male sexual dysfunction gets a lot more attention and usually pretty rapid treatment! 

We move on to discuss ‘sex tech’ and the burgeoning menopause ‘market’ in this area, including laser therapy (TLDR: more research needed, long term effects not known, it’s expensive, and vaginal oestrogen would be more effective in the majority of cases).

Angela gives an overview of what self-care practices can be helpful for someone struggling with GSM - listen in to find out some very little known information about the clitoris (and how to keep it healthy) that was totally news to me! She also explains that a range of prescription medicines (in particular antidepressants, but also antihistamines, and blood pressure medication) can mess with our sexual responsiveness, so could be something to discuss with our healthcare provider. 

For anyone struggling that wants to find out more, or support them in advocating for better care, Angela recommended a wide range of resources listed here: 

Mind The Gap, by Karen Gurney

Better Sex Through Mindfulness, by Lori Brotto

Becoming Clitorate, by Laurie Mintz ​​

Institute for Psychosexual Medicine website directory of practitioners https://www.ipm.org.uk/patients/specialists/ 

COSRT https://www.cosrt.org.uk/ - list of therapists 

British Society for  Sexual Medicine (email admin@bssm.org.uk and ask for a local practitioner) 

Menopause-ull webinars ​​ https://www.mnetwork.org.uk/resources/recorded-webinars/ 

You might also be interested in our testosterone episode with Dr Katie Barber: https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-dr-katie-barber-helps-us-get-to-grips-with-testosterone-dos-and-donts/ 

You can find Angela online at  ​https://spicedpearhealth.co.uk/ and https://www.instagram.com/spicedpearhealth/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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We begin with an explanation of what CBT is and how it works for anyone who is not familiar with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  Simona explains little more on the different types of CBT, and her experience is that ‘third wave’ CBT approaches seem to work best with those experiencing perimenopause symptoms.

The draft NICE guidelines issues at the end of 2023 caused quite a media stir with the increased focus on CBT as a treatment for menopause. We discuss why the headlines were misleading and how CBT can help with hot flushes and sleep disturbances, as well as psychological and emotional symptoms. As Simona outlines, even individuals who are taking HRT sometimes struggle with their mental health and access to CBT can be helpful. Medication alone cannot address struggles with confidence, self esteem, self-worth, and identity.

We delve deeper into menopause as a psychological developmental stage - just as pregnancy and puberty (see Lisa Mosconi’s book The Menopause Brain for more on this). In all these life stages our brains are remodelling themselves - we are updating who we are and our perspective on the world…a process some of us will navigate on our own or with support of our own networks of support, and some of us may need a little extra help and support from professional - space where we can safely explore these topics.

Simona explains that the way we think about physical symptoms can amplify the symptoms themselves…CBT helps us look at the kinds of stories we tell ourselves and write new ones. It can support us to make meaningful change in areas that help us regulate our bodies and thereby mitigate symptom severity. 

Unfortunately as Simona highlights, the types of CBT available on the NHS are not always tailored to the needs of women going through the menopause and that can lead to sub-optimal experiences when people do choose to pursue CBT as an option. We end by agreeing that there is certainly scope for more practitioners to be trained in menopause-informed CBT practices. 

You can find Simona at https://www.menopausecbtclinic.co.uk/ and https://www.instagram.com/menopausecbtclinic 

If you enjoy the podcast and would like to help me keep it running (on a shoestring!) please consider buying me a ‘virtual coffee’ at Ko-fi.com/middlingalong - or you can support me in a non-monetary way by sharing this episode, or writing a short review online! 

If your workplace wants to become more ‘menopause friendly’ then please let them know about the work I do at http://www.managingthemenopause.com 

You can also find me over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and https://www.instagram.com/managingthemenopause  

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

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Susan’s latest book The Power Decade  takes us through how to thrive after menopause, and focuses on the ‘window of opportunity’ we have in, and soon after, menopause to take action to prevent the chronic diseases of aging – such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and dementia. 

In countries where the average age of menopause is 51, and the average life expectancy is 83, we’re potentially living half our adult lives in a post-menopausal state. The Power Decade explains the impacts of the menopause transition on our metabolic health, heart health, bone health, and brain health. 

Susan talks about the ‘protective cloak’ that our reproductive hormones wrap us in pre-menopause, and how the drop in those hormones impacts all areas of our health, helping us understand the changes that happen in the body and what we need to do to remain healthy. She quotes The Lancet as calling menopause “a cardiometabolic turning point for women” - so I ask her to explain more about cardiometabolic health and why it becomes so important to keep top of mind post-menopause.

Her book is peppered with interviews with postmenopausal women who are thriving, explaining what they have done to get there, providing a sense of hope and renewal, and showing us that post-menopause can be a positive time where we experience a ‘rebound’ and renewed energy. 

You can find Susan at www.susansaundershealth.com  and on Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/susansaundershealth/ 

The Power Decade: 

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-power-decade-how-to-thrive-after-menopause-susan-saunders/7644592?ean=9781472291615 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

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We discuss the increase in midlife female protagonists - that TV is doing so well with the likes of Sarah Lancashire in Happy Valley. Fiction has been somewhat catching up over the last five years, showcasing the issues facing women in midlife for Gen X who have grown up on Bridget Jones novels. Midlife as a time of re-evaluation and reinvention, opportunities and change, is fertile pasture for novelists…

Tracy talks through her process of learning to become an author, and gives us some tips for anyone listening who is thinking about writing a book. We also discuss Tracy's recent favourite reads and what she is looking forward to delving into next.

The Time of Her Life is out now in paperback (https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-time-of-her-life/tracy-bloom/9780008619114) if you’re looking for your next holiday read, and Tracy’s next book, The Secret Santa Project will be out later in 2024 (available to preorder at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Santa-Project-heartwarming-friendship/dp/000861914X)

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

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We start by delving into why Leila prefers to talk about imposter phenomenon or imposter feelings, rather than imposter syndrome and review the origins of the term ‘imposter’ in this context.  We move on to how Leila approaches and interrogates her own imposter feelings, when they arise - beginning with her first imposter experience with a small baby in the NICU and then fairly soon after, the arrival of anxiety in perimenopause.

Leila’s advice on managing imposter feelings includes: interrogate your current surroundings and context - who are you around at that moment? What’s different? What is this environment giving or not giving you? What else is going on for you? 

It’s easy to feel like you’ll always feel like this, but actually imposter is a transient feeling…it comes and goes. 

We talk about social comparison and context collapse, particularly in the technology and online sphere, and the problems that stem from the speed at which we adopt technology - we don’t have the ground rules!  We also touch on navigating online spaces with the myriad individuals and relationships to factor in - and how a lack of objectivity can cause us to struggle.

Often in online spaces there is a bit of ‘shiny new thing’ syndrome! 

We discuss the importance of establishing boundaries around how we use online spaces and compare the experiences of using LinkedIn and Instagram - should we be putting more responsibility back on to platform providers?

We move on to the positive side of comparison for women in business - finding ‘pockets of belonging’ where we can be authentic and gain objectivity. 

We wrap up by looking at the topic of Leila’s PhD: ‘what do we get out of being online?’ - and I ask Leila what it’s like to start a PhD in later life! 

I do hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed chatting to Leila - who is a friend as well as an interviewee! You can find Leila and her brilliant podcast at https://www.leilaainge.co.uk/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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If you’ve ever wondered what an ‘intimacy coach’ actually does - well now’s your chance to find out! In this warm and wide-ranging interview we cover topics including:

• patterns of disconnect and waning of desire in longer term relationships;
• how little we are taught when we are growing up around expressing our desires (especially if socialized as female), and how Emerald works to provide the skills, tools, and language for us to manage our emotions and express those desires - and boundaries;
• new relationships in midlife are a chance to avoid repeating same patterns and mistakes and learn about our needs (and see the link below to the work of Dr. Evelin Molina Dacker and the STARS Talk Emerald refers to here);
• sex and intimacy doesn’t happen in a vacuum - all relationships take work, even the one we have with ourselves, and it’s easy to fall into not prioritizing intimacy, especially if we happen to have children around the house!;
• different tools and techniques that Emerald uses, including the Wheel of Consent, the Three Minute Game, the Yes/No/Maybe Game, and Waking the Hands (and listen to this part to learn the term ‘desire smuggling’ and what it means!);
• spontaneous desire - and why scheduling time for intimacy is essential.

I hope you enjoy this episode, if you want to find out more about working with Emerald you can find her at  http://www.rootedpleasure.com

Here are some of the resources mentioned in this episode:

Wheel of Consent: https://bettymartin.org/category/wheel-of-consent/

STARS Talk: https://www.maketimeforthetalk.com/

Emily Nagosaki - Come Together https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/712001/come-together-by-emily-nagoski-phd/

Cyndi Darnell - Sex When you Don’t Feel Like It - https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538161708/Sex-When-You-Don%27t-Feel-Like-It-The-Truth-about-Mismatched-Libido-and-Rediscovering-Desire

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

In the course of this wide-ranging conversation that focuses on our gut microbiome we cover:

• why understanding the interaction of our sex hormones with the microbiome is a burgeoning area of science and how everything in the body is connected in series of complex feedback cycles; 
• The key role of decreasing oestrogen in inflammation: leading to depression, anxiety, aches and pains, and gastrointestinal issues;
• How our microbiome changes pre- to post-menopause (post-menopause the female microbiome tends to look much more like it would in men);
• The important of butyrate and why a healthy gut barrier is so important;
• Why we should consider ‘priming’ the body to consume fibre with fermented foods;
• The long-term chronic health implications of not getting enough dietary fibre, which are often not felt immediately but accumulate over decades;
• How fecal transplants are being used to repopulate the gut microbiome - early studies have shown promise in menopause symptom treatment but more research is needed;
• That HRT appears to ‘rescue’ gut dysbiosis (reduce inflammatory bacteria, more balanced microbiome);
• The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis (aka how your body senses stress): - cortisol keeps you alert and anxious, but the system can be hijacked by inflammatory bacteria, neuroinflammation triggers the HPA axis causing elevated anxiety, i.e. there is no reason to be anxious but the body is on high alert;
• Why acetominophen (paracetamol) can cause liver cirrhosis with excessive consumption in certain people;
• How antibiotics wipe out other useful bugs that keep resistant strains under check, and how ‘problem’ strains thrive on high sugar and high saturated fat (and why your diet in the run up to an operation could make a huge difference);
• Exposure to microbes in nature and the potential impacts of bacteria in soil that have an antidepressant effect;
• ‘Gut feelings’: how the state of our gut can impact our decision-making abilities, and that changes in microbiome can impact how hungry we are, our propensity to snack, and even our choice choice of snacks…eg sugar cravings;
• How 80% of serotonin is made in gut, but that it is actually a  serotonin precursor that can pass out of the gut into the body to then be made into serotonin by other cells - although the relationships between levels of serotonin in the gut and the brain is not currently understood. 

Listen to the end to find out about the research study that Professor Gilbert would  most like to run if he had no constraints! 

You can find our more about Professor Jack Gilbert’s work at:

https://gilbertlab.ucsd.edu/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

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Petra has trained over 700 Menopause Yoga teachers in 40+ countries and is the author of the book ‘Menopause Yoga - a holistic guide to supporting women on their menopause journey,’ which brings together modern western medical science with ancient eastern wellbeing. She positively reframes the menopause as a Second Spring awakening with an opportunity for long-term health and happiness.

What a lovely and wide-ranging conversation this was! We start with a little time-travel, back to 2013 when Menopause Yoga first launched, and the conversation around menopause was vastly different than it is today! 

I was fascinated to learn that Petra and the teachers she trains use subtly different types and combinations of yoga for perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause… Petra describes how in perimenopause - a  time of turbulence, instability, rewiring of the brain they use a combination of yin-yang yoga (stretching), breathwork, meditation and restorative yoga…helping support acceptance of changes.  (We also talk about the similarity to teenagers - who also get very tired as their bodies and brains are changing - just as ours do in perimenopause…!)

I loved her analogy of  us “ladling out the soup to everyone else all our lives, and in perimenopause, really scraping the bottom of the soup pot”…such that if we don’t make time for rest and recharge, our bodies will find a way to make us stop, whether through illness, fatigue or something else.

The in menopause (our ‘wintering’ phase) there is potentially more anxiety, overwhelm, insomnia, fatigue, joint pain, and muscle tightness - so the combination shift to provide more flowing, somatically releasing joint and muscle pain, toning the vagus nerve, together with meditation, and restorative practice.

Then in the post-menopause stage there is another subtle shift to prioritize balance, muscle and bone strengthening, and even some weightlifting.

We talk about the therapeutic approach to yoga practice and the importance of community, before moving on to look at reframing menopause and choosing to see this as a ‘second spring’ awakening - how our voices change not only physically, but how we commonly ‘find’ our voice in this life stage. 

You can find Petra online at: https://www.menopause-yoga.com/ and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/menopause_yoga/?hl=en

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

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Joyce and her team are already well into the discovery phase of researching what the programme should include - and here’s the fun part - if you’re listening to this close to the release date in 2024, you can participate in their research by completing this survey: https://ifwh.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8CVKG2I1RZzHGXI or by joining one of the focus groups: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/global-health/uk-national-menopause-education-and-support-programme 

The team is very keen to get feedback and input from as broad a range of participants as possible - so if you have things to say, please get in touch with them! 

We also talk about Joyce’s podcast - Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me This? - and her love of cold water swimming - she's even co-authored a scientific paper all about the impact of cold water swimming on menstrual and perimenopausal symptoms: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38271095/ (free to read)

You can also find her at www.joyceharper.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok and Linkedin

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

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He speaks on topics including the effects of testosterone, intersectionality, family and workplace acceptance, toxic masculinity, men’s mental health, trans male menopause, male privilege and more.

I confess, before this interview my understanding of trans lived experiences was fairly minimal. Tate shares with us his transitioning journey - starting aged 16 when he first realised his discomfort living in a female-presenting body was something that he could do something about, through coming out to friends and family, going back into the closet for two years, and then undergoing surgery and testosterone therapy. 

Tate explains gender dysphoria, and a little of the physical, mental, and financial toll of waiting to transition (opting to do so privately instead of waiting many years to be seen on the NHS).

He also explains how hormone therapy propelled him headlong into an early menopause, something that neither he, nor the medical professionals he saw were prepared for, and a topic that is not really spoken about in the trans community. Tate is now working with NHS researchers to develop practical guidance for GPs, to help others who go through this in future.

We discuss the steps that workplaces can take to be more inclusive and how we as individuals can be trans allies (see some of the resources he mentions, listed below). We also talk about how parents and carers can best support young people in their lives that come out as trans or express curiosity about transitioning.

You can find Tate at https://www.tatesmith.uk/ and at the links below

Resources:

https://www.wecreatespace.co/glossary 

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/list-lgbtq-terms 

Disclosure on Netflix 

Tate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tate-smith-6331b2152/ 

Tate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tatemichaelsmith/ 

Charities: Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids - both offer support for families and children, residential camps etc

Find out more about the annual trans day of visibility here https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/blog/trans-day-visibility-global-perspective 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

She’s the founder of Allerton Coaching and is a business coach and consultant specializing in perimenopause. 

Anna started to experience crippling anxiety at the end of her maternity leave with her second child, at just 38 years old, compounded by horrendous brain fog whilst dealing with sleep deprivation, and a stressful job. 

Like so many others, Anna was fobbed off with anti-depressants multiple times, and only her dogged journalistic skills and refusal to take no for an answer led her to an eventual perimenopause diagnosis… Her experiences led her to change career and retrain as an executive coach - listen in to find out more about what an exec coach actually is (and does - or doesn’t do), as well as hearing more about why Anna is passionate about sharing her story to help others who might be dealing with outbursts of rage, raging insomnia, or a whole host of other symptoms, whilst juggling the demands of toddler tantrums, potty-training and weaning feel less alone!

We also cover:

• the most common issues that her clients tend to struggle with in the workplace;
• some of the practical strategies that Anna has seen work really well to overcome some of these
• why she is a huge fan of symptom logging to help us work smarter
• what parallels she sees to recent developments in women’s sport that she has applied in her work

You can find Anna at https://www.allertoncoaching.com and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/allertoncoaching/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Given that Accenture has been so proactive on the topic of menopause for many years now, Leigh has lots of learning to share, including:

• how important it is for men to learn about menopause so they can recognise if and when it impacts someone in their team;
• discuss it openly and often to help normalize it as a topic of conversation;
• share progress and best practice across office locations, and with customers where appropriate; 
• don’t overthink it too much - just start somewhere - where that is will be different for each organization so do it in a way that works where you are;
• culture may not be as much of a barrier as you think it will;
• get comfortable being uncomfortable - listen for more on Leigh’s tips for involving male colleagues in the conversations;
• the critical role of male sponsors and top-down support;
• don’t ‘segregate’ sessions into those for just women or just men;
• breaking down the taboo also opens the door for men to be open and honest about their own health/mental health challenges, and their vulnerabilities: it’s a win-win;
• becoming a ‘go to guy’ for menopause can get you a lot of attention at parties! 

Most, if not all, of these apply whatever the size of the organization - or available budget.

If you'd like to catch up with the earlier episode with Sarah and Jill, you can find it at https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-jill-ross-and-sarah-garton-on-developing-a-community-of-menowarriors-at-accenture/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We kick off talking about the ‘firehose’ of nutrition information available on social media that can be either overwhelming, misleading, or both. Abby recommends some dependable accounts to follow over on Instagram (other than her own of course - and these are listed out below).

We also cover:

• Why she doesn’t recommend intermittent fasting or ‘no carb’ diets
• The cultural pressures to stay slim and not age visibly
• Why alcohol may be sabotaging our efforts to improve nutrition, and the uptick she has seen in women’s alcohol consumption over her career 
• Inflammation - what is, and isn’t ‘inflammatory’ and why the internet loves to demonize specific ingredients
• Eggs are great (happily for me, because I’m a huge egg fan)
• Why dietary fibre is the unsung hero that needs a better PR team, and how to get more of it
• Why she doesn’t feed her family organic food 
• ‘Red Flags’ to look out for when consuming content online about nutrition
• Her ‘pet peeve’ nutritional nonsense
• And finally her top three tips for midlife 

You can find Abby at https://abbylangernutrition.com/ and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/langernutrition 

The other accounts Abby recommends are:

https://www.instagram.com/bdccarpenter/

https://www.instagram.com/soheefit/

https://www.instagram.com/drjengunter/

https://www.instagram.com/amanda.thebe/ (you can listen to my interview with Amanda here: https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-4-amanda-thebe-on-why-strength-training-is-so-critical-for-midlife-women/) 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Anna spent 23 years as a teacher, but when her children’s father had a catastrophic stroke in 2012, it utterly changed all their lives.

Anna talks candidly about how the huge change in personal circumstances impacted her (and the family) and how ultimately she came to realise that living with less, gave her more freedom to be there for her children when they needed her.

Anna is a passionate advocate for both preloved fashion, the main topic of her Instagram account, but also ‘the joy of enough’ - living with only what we truly need, and not being sucked into the constant feeding frenzy of ‘needing new’ things to make us happy.

We also talk ‘comparisonitis’ and how we face that down, the shame and stigma that can still attach to preloved clothing and why she is so passionate about proving you can still be stylish on a seriously tiny budget, and her ‘lifeboat analogy’ which really did make me stop in my tracks, perhaps it will resonate with you too…

You can find Anna at https://www.notneedingnew.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/not.needing.new/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

As someone who, in her words, was used to ‘good mental health’, Mari was taken aback by the extent of her psychological and emotional symptoms - so much so that her life was turned upside down by them and she experienced suicidal thoughts. The imposter thoughts, lack of confidence, and social anxiety also led to her seriously considering scaling back her successful business. As someone who had previously suffered with PMDD, it took this crisis in her mental health for a specialist to diagnose that she was reacting badly to the progesterone element of her HRT - once her oestrogen had been increased and the progesterone was changed to being taken vaginally, her mood lifted dramatically in just five days. 

We also talk a little about how childhood trauma can impact on severity of perimenopause symptoms, the importance of listening to our own bodies, and how important it is to look into family histories and patterns. 

You can find Mari online at https://www.mari-williams.com/

If you think you may be sensitive to progesterone you can find out more at https://www.balance-menopause.com/menopause-library/prgesterone-intolerance-factsheet/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

The consultation process closes in early January 2024, and no doubt the final version of the guidelines will be significantly different to this draft version. That said, I’m really grateful to Katie for giving us the benefit of her measured and nuanced take on this emotive topic, including:

• What the NICE guidelines actually are, for anyone who isn’t familiar with them;
• That CBT isn’t a ‘new’ addition to the guidelines, and can be a part of a ‘toolkit’ of options, including for those who can’t take HRT;
• The need for more research in several areas, including those on gender-affirming hormone treatment and HRT, breast cancer patients, and outcomes for ethnic minority groups;
• The overarching need for informed choice - as always - with both the benefits of HRT being clearly articulated as well as the risks. 

You can find Katie at https://www.oxfordmenopause.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/oxford_menopause/ and previously on the podcast at https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-dr-katie-barber-helps-us-get-to-grips-with-testosterone-dos-and-donts/ and https://middlingalong.com/episodes/middling-along-23-dr-katie-barber-on-menopause-myths-and-misconceptions/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We talk about 

• where the inspiration for the book came from
• Erica’s advice for changing body shapes in midlife and rethinking what might have worked for us before but doesn't now
• Insider fashion editor tips for figuring out what is flattering - for example for anyone feeling ‘tummy-self-conscious’ 
• Her advice for getting out of a 'style funk'
• Getting the best out of second hand/preloved shopping
• Tips for staying chic whilst dressing to cope with menopause symptoms 
• Dopamine dressing and being more playful with our fashion choices for increasing our confidence 
• And just for fun, Erica’s three ‘Desert Island Dresses’ that she’d pick if she could only keep three…

You can find Erica at www.the-edited.com  or https://www.instagram.com/erica_davies

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We are covering - only a little belatedly - the latest research and developments that were presented this summer at the British Menopause Society conference. So if you’d like to find out more about what an expert in menopause is excited about, listen on to hear about:

• Fezolinetant (Veozah) - and when we might expect to hear more about this new class of drug for vasomotor symptoms being available for those who can’t take HRT 
• Why rates of endometrial cancer have greatly increased over the last decade
• The ‘Rule of 20’ for addressing weight gain in menopause
• Some fascinating facts about our gut microbiome and why this is the next big thing
• Ethnic differences in menopause symptoms, onset, and access to care
• Female-specific risk factors for increased risk of cardiovascular disease
• How to deal with sleep disturbance - and why you should care about ‘WASO’
• And last, but by no means least, tune in to find out about ‘Beth’s Rule’ and why we might all want to Be More Beth! 

You can find Beth at https://www.instagram.com/dr.beththomas/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Lu’s story of midlife reinvention is simultaneously hilarious and heart wrenching. Tune in to find out how and why a vicar’s daughter ended up leaving behind her marriage of 20 years and driving from one side of the USA to the other in a bus with over 400 vibrators on board!

Lu and I talk about:

• how moving to America was the catalyst for the breakdown of her marriage
• the dramatic event that sparked her mission to drive 6,000 miles from one coast of the USA to the other in a converted school bus…
• the story of how Lou came to own Susie the 32 foot long converted schoolbus and create the Self Love Revolution Tour
• the most defining - and hairiest - moments of her US trip
• what she misses about living in the US and what she definitely doesn’t
• and much, much more besides!

You can find Lu at:

https://luinluland.com/pages/about-me 

https://www.instagram.com/luinluland

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Her latest book is called ‘Feeling ‘Blah’?: Why anhedonia has left you joyless and how to recapture life’s highs.’

In this interview we cover:

• How she noticed a ‘lack of joy’ in her own day to day life and subsequently discovered the term “anhedonia” for the first time whilst late-night Googling
• the clash between our 'cave-dweller brain' and our 'always-on/more, more, more' modern world of comparison culture and how this hijacks our dopamine reward circuits to create a perfect breeding ground for anhedonia 
• what dopamine is actually ‘for’ - it may not be what you think…
• our inbuilt ‘negativity bias’ and how to combat it
• “glimmers” - little moments of joy that can help reduce cortisol levels
• how oestrogen and our other hormones impact the 'feel good chemicals' in us as cyclical beings and especially in peri/menopause
• how stress is the greatest enemy of joy there is…and how anticipation of ‘planned in’ activities that bring rest, enjoyment, or feed our ‘spark’ can make such a big difference to how we feel
• how joy is actually made up of three different components, rather than being just one thing
• how behavioural activation works 
• how we 'get our mojo back' - the ‘water pump’ analogy
• the impact of exercise and gratitude on our mood
• the difference between anhedonia and depression

And much, much more!

You can find Tanith at https://www.instagram.com/tanithcarey and https://www.instagram.com/no_more_blah_book and you can buy Feeling Blah fromhttps://www.waterstones.com/book/feeling-blah/tanith-carey/9781801292375 or wherever you buy your books!

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Katie’s own experiences with anxiety, brain fog, overthinking and sleep problems, combined with a stressful teaching career caused her to seek both a solution to her symptoms, and ultimately a change of career. 

In this episode we cover:

• How our brains work under stress and why living in constant ‘survival mode’ with a full ‘stress bucket’ creates so many problems
• How getting back into the intellectual part of our brains makes us calmer, more motivated, happier and can cope more easily (sounds good right?!)
• How our brains work whilst we sleep to empty our ‘stress bucket’ and how hypnotherapy can help us to do the same – and create new patterns of responding
• How long it generally takes to create new neural pathways in the brain
• The range of issues that hypnotherapy may be able to help with

You can find Katie at https://www.thehypnotherapyden.co.uk/ and https://www.instagram.com/thehypnotherapyden

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

When Lisa started having night sweats, Steve harnessed his knowledge of the use of these types of fabrics to invent the Cool Embrace intra-blanket, as he couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer. After Lisa tried the intra-blanket for the first night and slept through for 8 hours straight, she was determined that he should share this revolutionary invention with other women who could benefit from it’s permanent cooling properties. 

Steve talks us through how the blanket works - which is a combination of heat dissipation and moisture control - fascinating if you’re a science geek like me! The blanket has five different layers which in combination help to move water and heat away from the body and spread heat throughout the blanket to ensure the user stays at an optimal and comfortable temperature all night. 

I’ve road-tested the blanket myself over several months, and whilst I don’t suffer from severe night sweats, I can definitely see a difference in how well I sleep and, let’s say, ‘comfort levels’ especially on hotter nights. Cool Embrace has a couple of versions of the blanket in different fabrics and sizes, as well as a silk pillow case that incorporates the cooling technology. 

They have kindly offered listeners a 10% discount code - just enter MTM23 at checkout. They also have a full money back guarantee if you find that the blanket does not work for you - that’s how confident they are that you will love yours too! 

https://coolembrace.com/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

She worked extensively in the NHS before starting up her own private practice she’s the co-founder of the Pelvic Health Practice, a specialist team of pelvic health physios providing home visits across London and the founder of All About Mum which provides postnatal education cards, webinars and ebooks to support women with all the information they deserve.

Clare is also the author of Strong Foundations: Why pelvic health matters, an empowering guide to your body, which aims to support women to understand their bodies better. 

In our chat we’ll cover:

• Why our full life story - from childhood onwards - it critical in getting a full picture of our pelvic floor health
• Why the first part of her book looks at basic biology and unpicking the lack of understanding we have around our own anatomy
• Constipation in childhood and later in life and why this is so important to address
• The importance of oestrogen for our pelvic floor health
• Why kegels are just one tool in the toolkit and what is the bare minimum she recommends we do daily…
• Clare’s three part strategy: Fluids, Fibre, and Movement
• Prolapse - it’s more common than you think, and how to advocate for yourself with your GP

You can find Clare at https://www.clare-bourne.com/ and her book at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Strong-Foundations-Clare-Bourne/dp/0008604223

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

After the breakdown of her relationship, Jackie took the decision to go solo to walk the rest of the Camino routes, and we talk in this episode about all the life (and business!) lessons that her solo travels to date have provided. We cover:

• lessons in letting go of the things get attached to (ie too much stuff, people, a plan);
• solo travelling as a woman, learning to love the silence, and getting out of your comfort zone;
• trusting the process, and trusting ourselves;
• advice for anyone considering a solo walk like this (including the Buen Camino app which Jackie used to navigate);
• what was her one non-negotiable travel ‘luxury’; 
• the liberating joy of less.

You can find Jackie at https://www.walkingbusinesscoach.com/about-jackie-jarvis and buy a copy of her book here https://theendlessbookcase.com/books/transform-your-life-by-walking/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Paula’s story has a good many twists and turns - from a career in HR to moving into sports science and medicine working with a Premier League football team, to then setting up her own physio, yoga and pilates business…in her own words “a high-functioning stress-head”, she started to unravel as she unwittingly hit perimenopause. 

An ad for a private menopause clinic in 2017 led her down the path of believing HRT would be the answer to her prayers, but unfortunately for her, the high dose of oestrogen that she was started on only led to further ‘unravelling’ - including leaving her husband and young son for a time.

Persistent heavy bleeding combined with the psychological symptoms that were worsening eventually led to the realisation that the prescription she had been given was out of balance - with high oestrogen unopposed with sufficient progesterone. Her subsequent research, delving into her own history of complex childhood trauma, and how this, combined with being a Highly Sensitive Person, made her more susceptible to the impacts of oestrogen have formed the body of her current work on the interplay between trauma, SPS (Sensory Processing Sensitivity) and perimenopause. 

In this conversation we dig into:

• What it actually means to be a Highly Sensitive Person (aka someone with Sensory Processing Sensitivity) - how many of us may be HSPs and how that impacts on the brain and nervous system
• How unsafe environments, particularly in childhood, prime our nervous system to be hypervigiliant, and trauma rewires the developing brain
• How HSPs may be more sensitive to medication - including hormone therapy
• How repressed trauma often pops us in perimenopause
• How “shoving the sh*t back in the cupboard” tends to backfire eventually…

If, like me, you’re fascinated by the interplay between trauma and menopause symptoms, then you won’t want to miss this one!

You can find out more about Paula’s work at https://thebrainbodymethod.com and find her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mrspaularastrick/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Fiona is an Australian journalist who previously worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and was a correspondent in the Soviet Union at the time it collapsed. She returned to Australia and worked as a reporter on and then supervising producer of its equivalent of Newsnight before leaving the ABC to move to medical publishing in the early 2000s. She then moved with her family back to Russia for what was supposed to be a year, but ended up being around 10 years. She then moved to London where she set up Harley Street Emporium with the aim of delivering evidence-based information about skincare to women, but which quickly evolved to cover menopausal health and for the last 5 years she has carried out thousands of interviews with menopause experts and many amazing women about their experiences.

Most recently she has launched the Menopause Research and Education Fund and that’s why I asked her to come and tell us more about why such a charity is needed and what their plans are for the future.  

MREF is fundraising to obtain charity status and its mission is to:

- fund independent research into menopause (including topics such as migraine, HRT post-cancer, mental health, joint pain, impact of longer term HRT usage and more)

- make sure all healthcare professionals have the education they need to help women adequately and appropriately and,

- that all those who go through menopause have the evidence-based information they need so they can make informed decisions.

With so many of us likely to live over a third of our lives in a post-menopausal state, it’s critical for our understanding of long-term health and wellbeing that all aspects of menopause and perimenopause get the independent research that we are crying out for. 

To find out more about MREF and donate to their work visit https://mref.uk/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

In our conversation we talk about:

• How Lucy struggled to get a University to accept the topic of her PhD
• The ‘tsunami of stuff’ that converges for many of us in midlife forcing many to a point where they feel they have no choice but to step out of their role
• How elder care is ‘flying under the radar’ in terms of workplace policies
• How the ‘Career Clock’ typically looks different for men and women
• How women are ‘revolting' against the insistence on full time work
• Lucy’s Ten Provocations for Change in organisations (including normalising conversations around menopause, adding gendered ageism to their diversity data, finding out why women are actually leaving, and conducting midlife check-ins for all employees) 
• The need for conversation around creative solutions for job flexibility, squiggly careers and the 50 year career
• Why sponsorship (as opposed to mentorship) matters so much

Can't waitr for you to listen!

You can find more about Lucy and her work at : https://www.lucyryan.co.uk and find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlucyryan/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Fix Your Fatigue is designed to be easily accessible, helping the reader identify what is draining their energy and begin to take action.

In this episode we cover: 

• the difference between ‘normal’ levels of tiredness and fatigue
• energy leaks - what they are and how to address them - including some that might not be obvious
• the impact of stress and exposure to toxins on our mitochondria and how well they function to provide us with energy
• micronutrients in our food, why they are so critical for our energy production process, why we might not be absorbing them well, and when we might think about supplementation
• using nudge theory to help ourselves with healthier habits and making changes
• Karina’s tips for making water more palatable, making your own healthy ‘nutrient toppers’ and other health hacks
• What to do first if you’re really struggling with fatigue…

Fix Your Fatigue is published by Penguin https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/454007/fix-your-fatigue-by-antram-karina/9781405954693

You can find Karina at https://nocohealth.co.uk/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Sarah shares her personal story of ‘outing’ herself as menopausal in a room full of colleagues in dramatic style - far from putting the kibosh on her career trajectory at Accenture, she feels the opposite has happened - despite, or perhaps because of, her willingness to be vulnerable and open about her struggles. Jill also candidly shares her experiences of anxiety and loss of confidence at work - and what has helped her. 

We also cover:

• the importance of male allies and how Accenture support male allies to confidently have those conversations in the workplace;
• how companies can support the emotional symptoms of menopause as well as the physical ones;
• the business case for making menopause an integral part of inclusion strategies;
• that businesses don’t necessarily need blockbuster budgets to make a big difference*;
• geographical differences in opening up conversations in the workplace and how the UK is leading from the front;
• the impressive results of their survey that clearly demonstrate the impact of their work around menopause support on employee retention

The BSI has some great free resources you can share with your HR team or senior management here: https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/our-services/events/events/2023/menstrual-and-menopausal-health-in-the-workplace/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We talk about:

• Why she decided to begin her series of menopause self-portraits
• How perimenopause symptoms impacted her and how little help she was offered to help with her insomnia
• How showing the paintings to friends and fellow artists, as well as on social media, has opened up conversations and created permission for others to talk about their symptoms 
• Her creative process - the role of ‘acting out’ a self-portrait and how as an artists you convey a feeling

You can find Sara on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/saragregoryart/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We cover a raft of topics including:

• How it felt to change her birth name post-divorce and why it was the best decision she’s ever made for herself - though we don’t recommend doing it three weeks into a new job! 
• How midlife and menopause hits a little differently for introverts - we may feel the urge to spend a lot of time alone, but this is a time when we need to connect and find our community
• Trading NYC life for the countryside
• The societal pressures to keep our looks and age gracefully (whatever that means!) we are so used to it we rarely recognise or question it any more…
• Her brain tumour diagnosis, surgery, and recovery
• Comparing notes on starting HRT - and Skylar’s struggles with anxiety
• ADHD - masking, coping, and overwhelm…perimenopause can be a time when the cracks start to show

You can find Skylar at https://www.skylarlibertyrose.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/skylarlibertyrose/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Hope you enjoy it!

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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In our discussion we cover:

• living with chronic fatigue syndrome/ME in her twenties and how working with a nutritional therapist allowed her to go back to living a normal life;
• the role of permission and self-compassion as an antidote to guilt and overwhelm;
• Midlife as a powerful opportunity to invest in our longer term wellbeing
• stress management - how stress trumps everything. It impacts digestion, hormonal balance, weight gain, sleep... the list goes on. 
• How losing two good friends in just three years brought her own midlife health into sharper focus
• Tips for dealing with bloating and constipation

One thing that will stick with me from this interview is Thalia’s invitation to ‘Hold your own wellbeing sacred’ - midlife is definitely a time where we need to recognise that prioritizing our health and happiness is not selfish - quite the opposite.

Thalia has a list of breakfast ideas available from her website https://discover.thaliapellegrini.com/5-minute-breakfasts-for-mums-in-a-hurry/

You can also find her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thaliapellegrini_nutrition/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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Rosamund’s book is not only an exploration of her own personal experiences of breast cancer, but a warm, relatable, practical guide to what to expect at each stage, even down to what to pack in your hospital bag…

In this episode we’ll cover:

• How it feels to receive a breast cancer diagnosis (in the middle of a pandemic!
• The crushing fatigue of cancer treatment and being forced to stop and rest - and how this impacts on someone’s identity
• Dealing with early menopause symptoms when HRT isn’t an option - and the reality of how poor the provision of information is for cancer patients
• That treatment can induce a second menopause in post-menopausal women who undergo treatment for BC
• Menopausal symptoms and their similarity to the side effects of chemotherapy - disentangling which is which
• The treatment that Rosamund is now taking to strengthen her bones
• The strain of looking out for symptoms of recurrence of the cancer
• The important of exercise not just for multiple facets of physical and mental wellbeing but for reducing risk of recurrence by between 30-60%
• Life - and living well - after breast cancer treatment

You can find Rosamund on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/rosamunddean/ and Reconstruction (https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Reconstruction-by-Rosamund-Dean/9780008585204) is available wherever you like to buy your books! Rosamund also has a regular newsletter, Well Well Well, which you can subscribe to here: https://rosamunddean.substack.com/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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In this voluntary role, Helen’s focus is on encouraging employers to create more supportive environments to help women experiencing menopause to stay and progress in work. 

We discuss some of the changes that Helen is hoping to enable over the next few years, to help organizations of all sizes support menopausal employees. There are exciting developments on the horizon, including a new hub for sharing and disseminating best practice, and a national allyship program, to provide support for those who are working in SMEs that simply don’t have the same resources available as larger companies.

We also talk about the free support already out there, including the new BSI free standard on menstrual health and menopause in the workplace (available at https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/standards/understanding-menopause-and-menstrual-health/) 

We cover the ‘less visible’ symptoms - loss of confidence, brain fog, not sleeping, anxiety - which can have more far-reaching impact than physical symptoms on those in more senior roles. Symptoms which are not only harder to articulate, but harder for employers to practically support with reasonable adjustments  - which makes it even more important for employers to find individualized solutions to allow them to remain in their role.

Helen gives us a great personal example of how a manager leaping into solution mode and making assumptions can actually be counter-productive.  

We also delve into the many ways companies can help create cultural change:

• senior people sharing their experiences
• top-down support
• vulnerable leadership modelling openness to others within the organization 
• allyship 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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So often when we start a new job or move on to a new challenge we feel like we’re starting over (when of course, we’re generally starting from experience!). Madeline is a big proponent of ‘evidence-based confidence’ - keeping track of what we have done, skills and learnings we have gathered along the way, as a way to damp down the anxiety we often encounter when we start over. Tune in to find out more about the ‘pink envelope’ and how it can help us. 

We also talk about the four stages of competency that we move through each time we do something new: unconscious incompetence > conscious incompetence > conscious competence > unconscious competence - again, helpful grounding to remember, we’ve done it once, we can do it again! 

We’re very much on the same page too when it comes to the need for us in midlife to put ourselves at the top of the To Do List - and learn to say no more often - something else we can lean in to more and more in midlife. 

One of my favourite quotes of our interview is her insistence that we not “Own the Problem in the Room” - too often, as women in the workplace, we are quick to jump in to fill an awkward silence and offer our services up for the ‘emotional labour’ of the workplace that does us no favours when it comes to progression. 

Last but by no means least, I ask Madeline about her advice for raising strong, capable daughters - her answers will resonate with you whether you have daughters, sons, nieces or nephews! 

You can find Madeline at https://www.madelinemcqueen.com/ and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/themadelinemcqueen/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

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Most of us (as with our own parents) will have been raised during The Age of Obedience - socialized (especially if we identify as women) to be good and compliant - little wonder then that so many of us exhibit people-pleasing behaviours. 

Perhaps it hasn’t been a huge issue for us before, but perimenopause impacts on our ability to ‘multitask’ in the way we might have managed before now and for many of us holding up our people-pleasing tendencies can become exhausting, even debilitating. 

Natalie talks us through the five different styles of people-pleasing: gooding, efforting, avoiding, saving, and suffering - how these tendencies might have arisen in the first place, and helps us to identify which style we most identify with. The chapters that focus on the five styles also highlight ‘things to watch out for’ and some ‘quick shifts’ to help the reader start changing their behaviours. 

The later parts of the book provide a framework for instituting healthier boundaries and troubleshooting when we might get pushback from others or indeed from ourselves! Natalie also suggests invoking ‘the power of the pause’, and explains the difference between a ‘hard no’ and a ‘soft no’ - and when we might want to use each of them. 

Last of all we discuss why saying ‘No’ to some things opens up space for us to say ‘Yes’ to the things we truly value and find joyful. 

I’ll leave you with this little nugget of wisdom from the book: 

“Every time you do something from a place of guilt, fear, or obligation, it always leads to resentment. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.”

The Joy of Saying No is published by Harper Horizon, and you can find Natalie at www.baggagereclaim.com and https://www.instagram.com/natlue 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

She carried out two and half years of research in the process of designing the Women Wise product from the ground up - motivated by her fascination with why people experience menopause symptoms in such different ways, and determined to create a solution that would also include those who could not use HRT, chose not to, or found that it provided no significant benefit when they tried it.

As part of my research for this episode I trialled the full Women Wise service, which includes a comprehensive symptoms questionnaire, testing for cortisol levels, insulin sensitivity, Vitamin D levels, thyroid function (TSH, T3 and T4) and iron/ferritin levels, plus the (optional) genetic tests which offer additional insights including an assessment of how well we metabolise and clear oestrogen from our bodies (tune in to find out exactly why that part is so important!). 

I found the whole process fascinating and insightful - not least because I was lucky enough to go through all my results with Sarah herself and got a detailed understanding of what my test results meant and what I could do to improve my health outcomes. 

The results include a detailed action plan - which I’m gradually starting to implement - and ongoing support for 12 months afterwards. 

To find out more about what Women Wise offers go to 

https://womenwise.health/ 

https://www.instagram.com/womenwise_health/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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What a great, informative episode this is: did you know that sleep disturbances are one of the most common symptoms of the perimenopause? 40-60% of women report difficulties staying asleep, and waking more during the night! 

We’ll cover:

• How our bodies need to stay at a low and stable temperature to stay asleep
• The impact of our symptoms (such as anxiety, needing to wee more, and hot/cold flushes and night sweats) on sleep and getting back to sleep between our 90 minute sleep cycles
• Sleep hygiene tips (including light, temperature, and bedtime routines - bath, book and bed isn’t just for the kids!)
• Why alcohol (yet again) is not our friend and leads to less REM sleep and more ‘micro-wakings’
• What is sleep drive and why is it important? 
• The role of adenosine in sleep drive, how to increase it, and how caffeine acts on adenosine levels
• How ‘putting the day to rest’ can help stop our busy brains keeping us awake and running through the mental load list at 4am!
• How HRT can help with sleep in perimenopause
• How CBTi works even on chronic insomnia

You can find Zoe at https://goodsleep.clinic/ and www.mylahealth.co.uk and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/zoemenopausedr/ 

The CBTi based sleep apps we discuss in this episode are Sleepio and Sleep Station.

You can also find us over on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/ and you can listen to past episodes at https://middlingalong.com  

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

We cover such a wide range of topics including:

• the benefits of cold water swimming
• how we are often disconnected from ourselves in midlife and how to get back to who we are and what we want
• changing our mindset to break free of negative self-talk and our cosy comfort zones
• looking for the things that light us up
• building more movement into our lives 
• Tracy’s own menopause experience ten years ago and why the conversation is so different now…

You can find Tracy at  https://wellbeingwisdomclub.com and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thewellbeingwisdomclub/ - but be warned, all those beautiful photos of Cornish beaches will make you want to move there if you don’t already!

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

She has now gone one further and written a book ‘My Menopause, My Journal, My Rules’ to be the friendly guide and confidante that she would so dearly have loved 7 years ago…  

We cover:

• The process of going through first medical, and then surgical menopause in her early 30s, and how ill-prepared she was by the medical establishment
• How the lack of support led her to a breakdown, then to therapy, where she turned her creative flair and a way with words into an outlet for processing her grief and trauma, that ultimately became a source of support for others on social media
• Why connection to community on social media is so important
• How and why she decided to write her book and why it’s different from most other menopause books out there already…not least because it’s partly a book you write yourself (40% of the books is journaling space - you’re even encouraged to rip out certain pages if you feel the urge!)
• What was the hardest chapter to write - it might not be what you’d expect

You can find Victoria on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/ginge_unhinged and the book is now available to preorder from gingeunhinged.com 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Katie is the Clinical Lead for the NHS Community Gynaecology Service in Oxfordshire where she continues to work as a Women’s Health GP and Menopause Specialist alongside her work as Clinical Director of Oxford Menopause. She’s also part of the British Menopause Society Advisory Council.

We do a deep dive on everything you might want to know about testosterone including: 

• what being prescribed ‘off license’ actually means
• why there are no products here in the UK designed for use by women and whether that is that likely to change
• why testosterone is only licensed to treat low libido
• why doctors don’t prescribe testosterone on its own without systemic HRT
• the three products available here in the UK on the NHS
• why low libido is a multifactorial issue and why that is important
• what blood tests and checks are routinely carried out before and after prescribing
• future research planned to look at testosterone use for other symptoms
• what to do if your GP is reluctant to prescribe testosterone 

You can find Katie at https://www.oxfordmenopause.com/ and on Instagram @oxfordmenopause 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

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Kirsten spent twenty-five years as a strategist in the ad industry – an experience that inspired several memorable scenes in the book as we flash back through protagonist Harriett’s career and the events that have led her to develop some rather unorthodox new hobbies that are ruffling the feathers of Mattauk’s residents. She is soon joined by Jo, whose perimenopausal rages manifest in unexpected ways, and Nessa, who hears the voices of the dead girls who bring the trio together, sending them on the dramatic hunt for answers that puts them at odds with the powerful men of Mattauk. 

Power is the thread that runs through this book, from the new-found powers the women are learning to channel, and to live with, to the traditional male power that takes what it feels entitled to (and fully expects to get away with whatever damage it causes as it does so). 

As Kirsten points out during our interview, Gen X - the cohort of us that are now coming into our menopausal years - are the most powerful generation of women in the history of the world. We are in uncharted territory, and only really learning the full extent of that power, and how we pass it on to younger generations. As a consequence, there are many places where this has led to a backlash that will try to squash and push back those hard-won rights and powers. 

We talk too about shame, and how we absolutely need to be embracing conversations about our bodies without shame – Kirsten contrasts the experiences of her own teenage daughter’s generation, so much more fearless and so unwilling to put up with stigma around topics like menstruation. She likens perimenopause to “a wave you have to ride” – which I absolutely love. We also touch on the topic of rage: perhaps, Kirsten suggests, there are very good reasons for us to be angry, and instead of ‘treating’ the symptom, instead we need to channel and focus that anger, harness it and feel its power. 

Kirsten is currently working on her next two books.

Find out more about The Change at https://www.kirstenmillerbooks.com/

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

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I’m always intrigued to hear about how people launch and grow a company: DBHF launched in 2014 with three packages for new mums, but really ‘went viral’ when Sarah Turner from The Unmumsy Mum mentioned the business to her followers. The small matter of the Covid pandemic landing in all our lives right before Mothers Day in 2020 was another enormous turning point for the business, and we discuss what it was like navigating that alongside parenting three small children (remember those heady days of ‘homeschooling’ - shudder…).

We also touch on:

• The step-change of going from 2 kids to 3
• Mum guilt
• The pros and cons of social media and why ‘Instagram holidays’ help Steph manage overwhelm
• Why gratitude journaling ended up surprising her with its effectiveness
• The mental load and de-programming relationship stereotypes
• Parenting preteens in the social media age

Don't Buy Her Flowers is at https://www.dontbuyherflowers.com/  and you can also find Steph at https://www.instagram.com/steph_dontbuyherflowers/ where she presents her wonderfully unvarnished take on parenting three kids and juggling that with running her business with a big dollop of humour…

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

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Charlotte (Lotti on Insta) has been assiduously documenting the physical and mental challenges of perimenopause and her mixture of vulnerability, humour, honesty and a nifty turn of phrase has won her a dedicated following over there. An introvert in ‘offline world’ Charlotte talks about using Stories almost as a sounding board…

We also talk about:

• how our partners cope living with our meno-rage, noise sensitivity, and the abrupt shift from adept multitasker to bumbling idiot…and the only way through the confusion is total honesty
• the maelstrom of hormones living with two teenage daughters…and what her girls think of her social media exploits…
• giving up alcohol and how for so many of us it doesn't agree with us in midlife and menopause, leaving us the next day with low mood, irritable, impatient 
• the camaraderie and joy of connecting with the midlife/ perimenopause community on social media 
• How taking prescribed antidepressants made her feel 10 x worse but ultimately galvanised her to educate herself about what was going on with her hormones and what she could do to mitigate her symptoms

You can find Charlotte over at https://www.instagram.com/moodswings_and_otherthings

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

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follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Kate and I are both ‘daughters of Alzheimers’ (Kate’s mother passed away from this cruel disease and my own mother is now in the later stages) and we kick off by discussing some of the research into the impacts of HRT on Alzheimer’s risk and cognitive decline. 

Kate is a vocal proponent for HRT and we delve deep into Kate’s own experience (which included taking 5 years to get her HRT settled and stable), the various health benefits that HRT can confer, the different HRT types (including progestins vs progesterone), and the ongoing struggles of accessing appropriate treatment on the NHS. 

We talk - of course, how could we not! - about the Channel 4 documentaries, which were turned down twice “because menopause is boring and for old women” before being commissioned by Dorothy Byrne as her final project before stepping down as Head of Current Affairs. Since the first programme aired, half a million more women are now taking HRT - often dubbed the ‘Davina Effect’ - but despite (or perhaps related to) this increased awareness and uptake, there continue to be HRT shortages. 

Kate is currently working on two new books - one looking at the contraceptive pill and how this impacts on our brains, and another which looks at midlife and how we can age well. 

You can find Kate at https://katemuir.co.uk/ (including links to the book), on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/menoscandal/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/MenoScandal 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

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Farhana Shahzady is a Director, Family Law Solicitor, Collaborative Lawyer and Mediator at Family Law Partners. She is ranked in Legal 500 and has practiced for over 20 years specialising in divorce, finances and children. In 2022, Farhana founded the Family Law Menopause Project, with the aim of raising awareness amongst the family law community of the significant impact of menopause on many women so that family lawyers can ensure that their client care and advice is attuned and reflective of this important issue which affects so many women and families.

According to the research conducted by the Family Law Menopause Project and Newson Health Research and Education in 2022, 7 in 10 women (73%) who took part in the survey blamed the menopause for the breakdown of their marriage with a further 67% of the 1,000 women taking part worryingly claiming it increased domestic abuse and arguments. Unsurprisingly, 80% said that perimenopause had placed strain on their children and family life. 

In this episode we cover:

• the fact that - given divorce is a stressful life change - this stress may ‘mask’ the symptoms of perimenopause, and at present, most family lawyers simply don’t think to check with clients whether they may be perimenopausal
• the long term financial implications for women if their earning capacity is or has been impacted by perimenopausal symptoms (especially if they have left work as a result), including the ‘pension gap’ - and why this would need to be borne in mind for financial settlements
• why it is important for lawyers to bear in mind the impact symptoms might have on a client (eg extra time for completing complex forms, difficulty remembering certain facts or chronology, difficulty dealing with confrontational situations)

You can read more about the research we talk about in the interview at https://www.nhmenopausesociety.org/menopause-puts-final-nail-in-marriage-coffin/

You can also find Farhana’s practice at www.familylawpartners.co.uk and the Family Law Menopause Project is on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/lawmenopause 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Abi is ridiculously passionate about raising the bar on feminine health and has been on a fascinating and enriching journey to expand her skills and knowledge that has enabled her to create a unique way of living in harmony as a woman.

Abi has such an infectious enthusiasm for life and an ease about her that I challenge anyone not to warm to her immediately! Prøject Wøman is the culmination of Abi’s 20 years of experience spanning kinesiology, mixed movement, yoga and cycle awareness.

We cover plenty of interesting topics in this episode, including (but not limited to): the impact of emotions on health, understanding our cycle, how to exercise in harmony with cycles, deeply listening to our bodies, and the process of Wintering - and how moments of quiet can feel incredibly difficult for those who have experienced trauma.

This Spring, Abi is hosting the Project Woman Experience - an opportunity to recharge, reset, and refuel before going back out into the world with a better understanding of your needs. With a stunning location and plenty of space, music, exploring how our body holds emotion and releasing that through movement - plus a full weekend of being cared for and well-fed, it sounds like a wondrous start to Spring if you can make it! 

You can find out more about Abi and the ‘retreat that’s not a retreat’ at https://www.abiadams.co.uk/project-woman-march-retreat and you can find Abi on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/abiadams_projectwoman/ / https://www.instagram.com/we_are_project_woman/ and at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyx08SrcUSgh-GdhaSdQdg 

If you enjoy the podcast please help us grow by sharing this episode, or writing a review.

You can also find me at www.thetripleshift.org 

connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmacthomas/ 

follow along on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/middlingalong_podcast/

or subscribe to my Substack at https://middlingalong.substack.com/ 

Her book, ‘Rebel Bodies - A guide to the gender health gap revolution’, was published on 5th January and it is a compelling account of all the ways women, trans, non-binary, and queer people are gaslit, ignored, and let down by the medical establishment. Rebel Bodies grew out of, and weaves in stories from, the blog, and covers topics from endometriosis to menopause and everything in between. (Content warning: there is brief discussion of baby loss, and suicide/suicidal ideation in this interview.)

We discuss:

• The intersection of Sarah’s own pregnancy with the process of writing the book - including a chapter that included some harrowing tales of other people’s experiences - and how that impacted on her own experience of pregnancy and birthing.
• The story from the book that had, and continues to have the biggest impact on Sarah, and the one she knew she had to include.
• Some of the shocking statistics highlighted in the book, for example: that endometriosis is estimated to cost the UK economy £8.2 billion a year and that women are seven times more likely than men to be misdiagnosed and discharged in the middle of a heart attack. 
• The ‘suicide gender paradox’ - it was news to me that women actually attempt suicide at higher rates but men are more likely to die from their attempts - again, the suicide rate for women peaks around the time of peri/meno - yet often when we try to point this out the argument is shut down because rates are far higher in men, so this seems to me to be a really important consideration. 

We of course had to cover the current NHS crisis and the impact of many years of underfunding, and Sarah gives us her analysis of the Women’s Health Strategy for England, published in 2022.  

I’ll leave you with this quote, which talks about PMDD but could just as easily apply to the peri/menopause, and which really resonated with me: “From a feminist perspective, how do we acknowledge the very real impact of PMDD on sufferers’ mental health without fuelling the idea that women’s menstrual cycles make us irrational, overly emotional and less competent, trustworthy, or reliable?”  

You can find Hysterical Women at https://hystericalwomen.co.uk/ and Sarah is on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahgraham7 and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sarahgraham7writer 

Rebel Bodies is published by Bloomsbury: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/rebel-bodies-9781399401142/ - please do consider supporting your local indie bookstore if you buy a copy!

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Karen’s beautifully designed and easy to read book is a comprehensive guide to nourishing our bodies and our minds at this critical stage of life. It’s the kind of book that I know I’ll keep to hand to dip in and out of, refer back to and remind myself about better nutrition whenever my good intentions slip! The book is peppered throughout with “Small Shifts” which are a great place to start if you’re feeling a little bit of overwhelm at trying to change too much too quickly. There’s also a whole section dedicated to ‘symptom troubleshooting’ (eg aches and pains, allergies and intolerances, brain fog, fatigue, hot flushes, insomnia and more…) - including explanations of ‘why is this happening to me’ and therapeutic foods that may help. 

Karen’s food philosophy is very much ‘eat more, not less’ - making sure we are giving our bodies the right fuel and ‘spark plugs’ as she calls the key nutrients! We cover so much in this episode - from how to move away from ‘beige food’ for kids to family meals we can all enjoy, and ditching our reactionary approaches to eating in ‘fight or flight’ mode and moving towards a state of rest and digest. 

We also look at the impact of falling oestrogen on our sensitivity to sugar and why increasing our intake of anti-inflammatory foods at this time of life is so important. 

You can find Karen at https://karennewby.com/ and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/karen.newby.nutritionist/ 

Karen also talks in our interview about her recipe collections available at https://my.whisk.com/

The Natural Menopause Method: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/the-natural-menopause-method-a-nutritional-guide-through-perimenopause-and-beyond-karen-newby?variant=39740126167118

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Starting HRT at 39 changed her life - within days her brain fog lifted and the persistent UTIs she had struggled with for so many years became a thing of the past. With renewed enthusiasm and energy, she started to question the ‘information gaps’ for those entering perimenopause earlier in life. Any information she could find was aimed directly at menopausal midlifers, which lead her to creating Ageless Menopause Information on Instagram, signposting others to the information she wishes she'd had in her twenties. 

Gemma is also a yoga teacher and teaches menopause yoga workshops - we talk about how yoga helps her quieten down the outside world so that she can listen more intently to what her body and mind need right now.  After years of negative self-talk and fearing her own body, Gemma is now bolder, stronger, and using her energy to help others on their perimenopause journey. 

You can find Gemma at www.instagram.com/ageless.menopause.info

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We talk about how our generation is finally bringing about the tipping point for societal change to break through the shame, stigma, and taboo surrounding menopause. Back in 1910, the average age of reaching menopause was 56, with an average life expectancy of 58, so it’s clear to see where the correlation between ‘old age’ and menopause is rooted - but now with many of us spending upwards of 30 years post-menopause, that narrative is both inaccurate and damaging. Midlife women have so much to offer in terms of their creativity and their potential for leadership. 

Breeda and her fellow campaigners have succeeded in bringing the topic of menopause mainstream in Ireland with the launch in October 2022 of the nationwide education and awareness campaign which resulted from the government’s 2019 Women’s Health Taskforce. 

Since then much has changed globally of course around the narrative, with more of us sharing our stories. That said, we still have a long way to go in breaking taboos - most critically in the workplace - where a few courageous voices sharing their experiences can make a huge difference to creating a culture where the topic is as normalized as any other life transition. Breeda is leading the way in telling a new, more positive story about the second half of women’s lives, one where our changing hormones allow us to recalibrate, refocus, and tap into our full power. 

You can find Breeda at https://midlifewomenrockproject.com/ and her book at https://midlifewomenrockproject.com/book/ 

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Kate is the author of Second Spring: the self-care guide to menopause. Published by Harper Collins, it’s the first book to give a psychological map for menopause, one of the top ten self-help books of 2022 according to The Independent.  Kate mentors people in perimenopause and beyond, runs nature-based Yoga Nidra sessions, hosts the Life - An Inside Job podcast, and creates multi-level art textile projects. When she’s not doing these things you’ll find her playing in her compost heaps.

Kate walks us through the seasons of pre-, peri-, and post-menopause: from our Autumn of editing out the things that no longer serve us, where we slow down, and recalibrate after years of looking after others, to our Winter, accepting, softening and hunkering down, to our Second Spring as rebirth and a time for discovering new creative pursuits. 

We also talk about how Kate uses yoga nidra in her practice (meditation for people who hate meditation as she calls it!) - helping to restore calm and reduce the overload on our frazzled nervous systems. Kate’s website - https://www.katecodrington.co.uk/ - has a wealth of free resources available, including yoga nidra. 

You can find out more about her books Second Spring at https://www.katecodrington.co.uk/second-spring-the-self-care-guide-to-menopause/ and you’ll also find Kate at https://www.instagram.com/kate_codrington/

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Having undergone treatment for breast cancer herself at the height of the pandemic, she is now supporting her husband through his own cancer diagnosis, whilst also coming to terms with her own early menopause brought on by cancer treatment - oh and she’s also mum to three young children. 

So much to unpack in this episode - we talk in detail about what ‘workstyle’ is (and why it is different from flexible or hybrid working) - and why it is is so important for levelling the playing field for groups who might be structurally excluded from the workplace: older workers, carers, those with chronic illness or disabilities, those with mental health challenges, parents, and neurodivergent people. 

By 2050 21% of the UK population will be over 60 - and with many of us needing (or wanting!) to work for longer, and with many industries struggling to attract skilled workers, organizations must get to grips with adapting current working practices and appealing to a range of ‘workstyles’.

We talk about how creating a trust-based culture underpins the success of remote-first, autonomous teams, and how we need to make technology work for us (not the other way around) to build in healthy work-life boundaries. 

We discuss Lizzie’s own experience of going into early menopause as a result of her cancer treatment - and hear how connecting virtually with others has been a tremendous source of support. Lizzie eloquently puts forward the case for workstyle as a key component of allowing those going through perimenopause, or who are post-menopausal, to stay engaged with, or return to work, in a way that suits them.  

You can find Lizzie and Alex’s book ‘Workstyle: A revolution for wellbeing, productivity and society’ here https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/lizzie-penny/workstyle/9781399802949/ and you can find out more about Hoxby at https://hoxby.com/ 

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Amy was just 16 years old when she was told her ovaries just were not working - and for many years thought perhaps she was the only one in the country as she’d been told it was very rare. For several years, having no real understanding of what was happening to her, she suffered with anxiety, agoraphobia, and panic attacks…it was only in her early 20s that she discovered the Daisy Network and realized she was not as alone as she had thought.

For 90% of those with POI, there’s currently no discernable underlying cause - which can be hard to come to terms with. We also cover why hormone therapy is so vital for those with POI, to prevent osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, and promote good brain health. 

Amy is now dedicated to helping those through their diagnosis and raising awareness of POI within the wider community. She is author of the book 'Daisy Network - Our Guide to Premature Ovarian Insufficiency' and works as a Psychotherapeutic Counsellor.

You can find out more about the support offered by the Daisy Network at:

https://www.daisynetwork.org/ 

https://www.instagram.com/thedaisynetwork/ 

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Susan's determination to age well grew out of her personal story. She spent 12 years caring for her mum, who had severe dementia. When her mum was diagnosed, Susan was 36 years old with a toddler, a new-born and a full-time job. Her world was turned upside down – not only was she mum, wife, and boss, she was now a carer too. What made this even harder to bear was that, as a teenager, she’d watched her mum going through the same thing with her mother. 

Susan started researching everything she could about aging well. That led her to start The Age-Well Project blog and then a book of the same name, written with her friend Annabel Streets, plus a follow up book The Age Well Plan. Susan is only the third person in the UK to qualify as a coach with neuroscientist Dr Dale Bredesen, author of The End of Alzheimer's, and she now helps women across the world reduce their dementia risk through her coaching programmes. 

We talk about the influence of the APOE4 gene - which apparently 20% of the population carries - and how the impact of lifestyle is considerably more important to our risks of developing Alzheimer’s than our genetic make up. 

Susan’s next book is on post-menopausal health (due out summer 2023) and she talks us through the ‘window of opportunity’ post-menopause to take action to prevent the chronic diseases of aging - such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and dementia. 

One new piece of information I learned in our interview was that our bones are constantly being remodelled and renewed - and that oestrogen and progesterone are critical to driving this process - so when our levels of these hormones drop away, our bone health can dramatically deteriorate if we don’t take action to counteract those changes.

You can find Susan at https://susansaundershealth.com and more info on her books at https://agewellproject.com/our-book/ or find her at https://www.instagram.com/susansaundershealth and https://www.instagram.com/agewellproject 

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She tells us about her holistic approach to wellbeing and aging well, emphasizing nourishing foods, quality sleep, daily movement, managing stress and prioritizing self-care. We talk about what foods and nutrients we need to prioritize in order to age well - with a particular focus on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (something that both our mothers have in common)...did you know women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s as men are?

We also cover the impact of alcohol on our brain health, why women (especially in midlife) can find alcohol more challenging to metabolize and why we might want to reassess our relationship with the booze if we aim to age well. 

Barbie has recommended some great books to read if you’re interested in learning about the links between nutrition and brain health, namely: 

Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety by Dr Drew Ramsey (https://drewramseymd.com/books-publications/eat-to-beat-depression-and-anxiety)

Brain Food by Dr Lisa Mosconi (https://www.lisamosconi.com/brainfood - we also touch on Dr Mosconi’s excellent new book The XX Brain)

This is Your Brain on Food by Dr Uma Naidoo (https://book.umanaidoomd.com/) 

and The MIND Diet by Maggie Moon (https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-MIND-Diet/Maggie-Moon/9781612436074) 

… all of which are going onto my teetering to-read pile!

You can find Barbie and her brilliant down to earth advice (and some yummy recipes) on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_cognition_dietitian/ and at www.barbieboules.com 

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We talk about how her anxiety and depression during perimenopause prompted her departure from a long teaching career. We move on to unpack how three years of therapy, a lot of unlearning, and her dedication to living more truthfully and authentically led to her reinvention and curation of the next stage of her life - which includes leaving London to live by the sea, saying ‘Yes’ to things that bring her joy and ‘No’ to the things that don’t.

We touch on why therapy is the best money she’s ever invested in herself, why being honest is addictive, and how it’s easier to stay in our comfort zones than admit why those are no longer serving us and then do something about it. 

Karen talks about why she is so protective of her boundaries in both her personal and professional life, how we can all focus on deeply knowing ourselves and prioritising ourselves in the run up to midlife and perimenopause, and how post-menopause can be a liberating and positive stage of life. 

You can find Karen at https://www.thekarenarthur.com/ the podcast at https://www.thekarenarthur.com/menopausewhilstblack and she is on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thekarenarthur/ and https://www.instagram.com/menopausewhilstblack/

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Kate started out offering free workouts on Instagram to time-pressed parents after struggling to find the time to work out following the birth of her third child. The build up of (what she now knows were perimenopause) symptoms - serious joint pain, night sweats, panic attacks and palpitations - left her feeling desperate. Unable to get a clear diagnosis from her own GP, she was forced to seek private medical advice to get her perimenopause diagnosis and on to HRT. 

This led her to pivot her business and to the development of the Owning Your Menopause app, which offers daily workouts, plus advice from experts in nutrition, sleep, breathwork, and access to specialist GP advice. We talk about how critical strength training is for this midlife transition (and beyond) for preventing osteoporosis, improving cardiovascular health, strengthening our joints, and reversing the decline in muscle mass that begins after we turn 30 (increasing muscle mass in turn elevates our resting metabolic rate).

We also discuss the importance of rest, and adopting a sustainable approach to exercise - plus how to start when you really don’t feel like you can do anything at all, if symptoms are all-consuming. As busy parents we both know how challenging it can be to fit in a daily workout - the Owning Your Menopause app helps make that less of a chore with encouragement from like-minded members who are all there cheering one another on - and offering empathy on bad days…

You can find Kate at https://www.instagram.com/katerh_fitness and Owning Your Menopause at https://owningyourmenopauseapp.com/gym/Owning-Your-Menopause/ 

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We talk about why and how Womaness chose to develop specific products to tackle the issues we might face in menopause and why the products we’re used to using might not work for us at this time of life. 

We touch also on the community that Womaness is trying to build - both through their 'After Party' community on Facebook, and through live events this October in celebration of Menopause Awareness Month. 

Tune in to find out what one thing Sally wishes she had known before going through menopause...

You can find Womaness at www.womaness.com 

They're also on Instagram @mywomaness

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Since then, she's started the Dear Hormones podcast - a confessional of all the bonkers things our hormones have made us say or do - because sometimes if you don't laugh, you cry! We also talk about her passion project - 40 Over 40 - a series of stunning photographic tributes to women over 40 who are making a difference to the lives of other women. Having started out firmly in the menopause sphere, it was since pivoted to have a broader focus - but that's the beauty of this kind of project, you just go where you feel like it!! 

You can find Jenny at https://www.jennysmithphotography.co.uk/ and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jennysmithphoto/ 

The Dear Hormones podcast is at https://www.instagram.com/dearhormones/ 

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After writing a (deliberately provocative) stream of Tweets in 2018 on why men are responsible for 100% of unplanned pregnancies which (of course) went viral, Gabrielle has been parrying responses (both positive and negative) ever since.

After four years of additional research, she's turned her thoughts into a small, but perfectly-formed book (road tested on all 6 of her children!) which she hopes will radically shift the focus of the abortion debate (a hot topic since Roe v Wade was overturned) on to preventing unwanted pregnancies.

We talk about why women have for years shouldered the vast majority of responsibility for contraception, why making this a 50/50 responsibility seems so radical but actually makes a whole lot of sense, given the facts around mens' fertility, and why this is a perfect time to reframe the debate, given how impossible it is to have nuanced discussion around abortion and bodily autonomy.

We also talk about how and why we need male allies to step up in support of the ideas in the book, and how critical it is that teens and young people engage with the topic. 

You can find Gabrielle at www.designmom.com on Twitter https://twitter.com/designmom and on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/designmom/ 

Ejaculate Responsibly is published by Workman Publishing: https://www.workman.com/products/ejaculate-responsibly/paperback   

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You can find Coral at www.coralshort.com and on Instagram @coralshort 

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In 2019, she became the first woman to paddleboard coast to coast, raising funds for 2MinuteBeachClean and The Wave Project along the way. A film about her journey, entitled 'Brave Enough – A Journey Home to Joy' has been shown at various festivals.

We talk about her own journey through menopause (though for years she attributed her symptoms to stress), a biscuit-aisle breakdown that finally prompted her to reach out to a friend for help, and how that lead to her many paddleboarding adventures - before SUP was everywhere!

We cover everything from basic tips for those of us taking up SUP to navigating loss and injury, to her rebellion against the 'empty nester lonely mum trope.'

Jo's book 'Stand Up Paddleboarding in Great Britain' can be ordered at

https://www.adventurebooks.com/products/stand-up_paddleboarding_in_great_britain?_pos=1&_sid=87fc9d8d7&_ss=r&utm_source=Jomoseley&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=jomoseleypromo

You can find her on Instagram @healthyhappy50 and on her website https://www.jomoseley.com/

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Having started off shooting her close friends, she gradually won over the trust of each of her subjects, finding the right locations and giving the women an opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words alongside these stunning images. Most of her subjects had never posed for nude photos before and many found the process transformational in accepting and appreciating their bodies.  Each of these stunning images is a love letter to the female form in all it's many shapes, colours and textures...

Her latest project will be interviewing mothers and daughters, exploring the impact of social media on body image, and we talk a little about that too. In a world that profits from making us feel bad about our bodies, our appearance and our age, loving ourselves exactly as we are is a radical act!

You can find Angelika's work, and buy her book, over at https://www.iam-themovement.com/the-book and on Instagram @iam_by_angelikabuettner

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For Sam herself, using the products they stock led to the discovery that ingredients in the lubes she had been using were the cause of her recurrent thrush and other infections, which cleared up within a week of using 'skin-safe' products. Tune in to find out why glycerin, parabens, and polypropylene glycol are all things you do NOT want on your lady parts...  I mean, most of us are pretty choosy about what we slap on our faces, so why wouldn't we be equally discerning about what we apply to one of the most  sensitive (and absorbent) parts of our bodies?? 

As a trained nurse, and now writer on sexual health and pleasure, Sam dispenses advice not just on her Instagram account, but daily through the Jo Divine email and phone line. With happy customers well into their 90s, Jo Divine is proof that the fun doesn't have to stop, if you have the right tools!

We also talk about 'Honest', the new book that Sam and Paul's daughter Millie Evans has written for teens and young adults, covering the kind of inclusive, frank, open and honest sex-ed that we wish we all could have had in our formative years.

You can find Sam on Instagram @samtalkssex and @jo.divine and the website is https://www.jodivine.com/

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As Heather rightly points out, we wouldn't enter a marathon without the right kit and preparation, and yet every year millions of women enter perimenopause totally unprepared. GenM is helping to move the needle, by engaging with brands (large and small) to both support their own employees, but also to ensure that they are catering appropriately to what is effectively 20% of their market share (when you look at it like that, it's a no-brainer).

Brands, Heather tells me, are taking notice and adapting, but it takes time, and campaigns are planned a long way in advance so visible change is slow to bloom.

But there's also action we can take ourselves - we don't have to wait for the companies we work for to wake up to this: as Heather says, we can Be The Change and be the catalyst for those conversations to happen! 

You can find Gen M at https://gen-m.com/mission/  and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/genm_official

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We cover Bethan's fascinating journey to become the first non-Chinese person to get a degree in Tea Science from the University of Agriculture and Forestry in Fujian, after more than 15 years of working as a tea buyer and blender. We look at the active ingredients in the Take a Pause tea (green tea, raspberry leaf, gingko biloba, ginseng, valerian, sage and liquorice, if you're curious) and how each of those can help as part of a 'Perimenopause Toolkit'.

Hot Tea Mama is also working with Gen M on changing the way brands think, talk and act about menopause, and we discuss the wider societal changes impacting on how products for those of us going through this life stage are marketed and sold.

You can find Hot Tea Mama at https://www.hotteamama.com/  and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/hotteamama/

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