Life Matters - Separate stories podcast

Are you someone who dreads an early morning meeting, or do you find it hard to stay engaged in the afternoon? Your biology plays a big role in when your energy peaks during the day — these patterns are known as circadian rhythms.  But the workforce isn't set up to suit everyone's needs, so how do you get the best out of everyone when people are most productive at different times of the day?

A gap year offers a chance to travel the world and step outside your usual routine before settling into "real life" and all the responsibilities that come with it.  For a long time, the gap year has felt like an Australian rite of passage. But the reality is, many people never got that chance. A recent survey from travel company Intrepid found 80 per cent of those over 55 missed out. So a new kind...

In Australia, it's estimated that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 14 men have experienced violence from an intimate partner. While public awareness of this national crisis has improved, there remains a gap in understanding when survivors speak up about their experiences of gendered violence. So often, the response is: why didn't they just leave?  The reality is much more complicated. Many feel tied to their...

Your friends are the family you choose for yourself, and even though you know how critical your friends are to your life, these relationships don't get the same formal recognition as your birth family. A Swedish company has reversed this by trialling "friendcare leave" for a year, paying their workers to check in with friends to combat loneliness. So how did it go, and is it something that could w...

We've been turning to the online world for health advice for decades now, but the medium — and the message — has changed drastically over that time. Earlier this year OpenAI revealed there are 230 million health and wellness queries on ChatGPT every week, and our social media algorithms have in-built confirmation biases that show us content we're likely to be interested in. So who are the people w...

New research has explored which voices we find more attractive and how our sexuality might shape the kinds of speech that turns us on.  Though, it might not come as a surprise to learn that deeper voices are considered more attractive to everyone except straight men. But what exactly shapes the way we talk, and our desires? And how do our voices reflect power, status and our place in the world? 

Parents have never had more options to give their child the best start in life.  But when it comes to choosing the "best" school to provide your child a quality education, that decision can be costly. Jane Caro argues that the gap between public and private schools has widened, and turned what many would consider a basic right to education into a minefield of parental guilt.

Dinner delivered to your door, one click and a package is on its way, location sharing so you don't have to text your partner to ask when they'll be home, or an AI chatbot to help you word an awkward email. So much of the technology in our lives is designed to optimise convenience and sand down the rough edges of everyday living. But in this quest for convenience, have we maybe lost something alon...

When Life Matters asked our listeners to share the stories of their mother wounds, it opened up another conversation of unmet needs: the father wound.  These relationships can be complicated by absence, emotional distance and "dadmiration" — the idea that societal expectations of fathers are so low, they're often applauded for putting in minimum effort. So in an age where Bluey's dad Bandit is see...

This week, the Aunties are advising a Life Matters listener on the politics of the group chat. When a friendship fades out, is it OK to remove the ring-in? Or is it better to create a new chat on the side? What happens if they find out they weren't invited to the side chat?

Is there a piano in your life? Does it still get played? Or does it sit silently in the corner, gathering dust while you decide what to do with it? Those in the piano industry estimate at least 3,000 pianos are sent to landfill each year in Australia, often because they're costly to maintain, difficult to move, and hard even to give away. So what can you do with a piano that's at the end of its li...

Are some places just cooler than others? This week a tribunal in Victoria reversed a decision to block an application for a new McDonald's in one of Melbourne's trendiest suburbs. While the council had argued it wouldn't fit with the "cool vibes" of the rest of the street, the tribunal decided actually, there's no true authority on the subject. So how does a place create an identity and protect it...

Australia sends 26 million tonnes of rubbish to landfills each year, and we're running out of room. Sydney is on track to run out of space in the next five years. 

Goal setting, vision boards, manifestation — however you do it, the concept of setting an intention and striving towards it can give us purpose and meaning in our lives, pushing us beyond our limits.  Recently, the Japanese Shinto ritual of misogi has been gaining traction online. It's a simple concept where each year you set yourself one main challenge that's so hard you might actually fail.  The...

Do you have a favourite blanket that you only bring out when it gets to a certain level of cold? When the temperatures drop there are certain rituals and attitudes that emerge as we try to make ourselves cosy. Some Scandinavian countries have words to capture this exact feeling. But what does getting cosy mean in Australia, and why do so many of us relish the opportunity to rug up?

Hurling insults on the field was once widely accepted in sport. But this week the AFL  — and elite athletes across the sporting spectrum — sent a clear message that homophobic comments on the field can't be excused simply because they were said in the heat of the contest. So what changes now for players, fans and the game itself?

The grief of losing a loved one is different for everyone. For some people it's private and hidden. For others it becomes a force for action — setting up support groups, raising funds and awareness, or even changing the law. Advocacy gives grief somewhere to go, but it can also take a personal toll. How do you make sure the cause you've taken on doesn't become too much to carry?

How firmly do you hold onto your ethics when you're in the grocery aisle? With prices rising and everyone watching their budgets, you might be reconsidering the top-tier free-range eggs or the sustainably farmed tuna. So how do marketing companies play on our efforts towards ethical consumption, and once you break the habit, are you likely to return?

Author, columnist, and screenwriter Kathy Lette has written dozens of books — but she credits just one as the spark that set her on the path to becoming a writer. In this instalment of Book That Changed My Life, she goes behind the scenes of Vanity Fair by English author William Makepeace Thackeray.

Remember to get toothpaste. Change that dentist's appointment. Pick up a present before the birthday party on the weekend. Check whether the dog's overdue for a worming tablet. Find some time to catch up with the friend who's back in town. Do some of those exercises the physio has been nagging you about. If that all sounds familiar, you probably know what it's like to be spiralling under the weigh...

The cost of insurance has skyrocketed across Australia. In south-west Queensland, residents have seen premiums increase by 500 per cent, while some insurers have left town completely.  With few options left on the table, local councils have stepped in. The South West Queensland Regional Organisation of Councils has been formed to investigate a new model where they would offer their communities mut...

It's never been cooler to be a bird nerd. Birdwatching as a hobby is capturing everyone from retirees to footy players. And it turns out birding is great for business, with eco-tourism and regional economies benefiting from the rise of "twitchers". So if you want to pick up a pair of binoculars, when's the right time to start and what etiquette notes should you brush up on to begin?

Australia's Privacy Commissioner has put the rent tech sector on notice, ruling that a platform had been unfairly collecting excessive amounts of personal information from prospective tenants. The decision noted a "significant power imbalance" in the rental property market that had made consumers particularly vulnerable to unfair practices. It's been hailed as a win for renters, and it could lead...

A grandiose sense of self importance, an intense need for admiration, an inflated sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy — these are the hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder. In an era of toxic reality TV and mercurial political leaders, it can feel like we're surrounded by narcissists. But a label that has a real clinical definition has become therapy-speak shorthand for any kind of...

When someone dies, splitting up their assets and sharing possessions among the family can be tricky — even when things are divided equally.  This week, the Aunties give advice to a listener who feels cheated out of their inheritance, after a relative gave away some of the family jewels.