Life Matters - Full program podcast

According to the latest HILDA survey, most Australians are pretty satisfied with their relationships. The data suggests couples without kids are among the happiest. Psychologist Stephen Andrew and sociologist Leah Ruppanner discuss the ingredients for a strong relationship. Over the last couple of decades, the average number of words we say out loud each day has dropped. Between 2005 and 2019, res...

We all want friends who are funny, smart, loyal and kind, but we also want them to have our back no matter what. Jaimie Krems and Keelah Williams are friendship scientists — they're also BFFs — who have researched the science behind why you love your vicious, maybe a little unhinged best friend. Their research won an Ignobel prize, so what other qualities do we want in a bestie? When new neighbour...

Our suburbs are home to an incredibly diverse population. But when you look at Australia's urban sprawl, it can feel like the people in charge simply hit copy and paste. The upcoming Future Suburb Symposium, hosted by the University of Melbourne, wants to transform our suburbs from 'stubbornly generic, repetitive, and under-serviced', to places that are inclusive, exciting, and better reflect the...

Picture your childhood home for a moment. What details can you still remember? The colour of the kitchen cupboards? The view from your bedroom window? Your secret hiding spot? Lifelong memories are shaped by the daggy laminate benches and cracked vinyl couches of our childhood homes. Christian Duell has studied the significance of our first homes, and he is joined by Grand Designs Australia and By...

They say life's short, but it's actually getting longer. By 2066, life expectancy for Australian women will have jumped from 86 years to nearly 90. And from 82 to 86 years for men. So how do we make sure those extra years of life are lived well? There's something about physically picking up a cookbook, with it's pasta sauce-splattered, dog-eared pages that makes the meal enjoyed at the end feel a...

Looksmaxxing, promposal, copium... who decides which words are important enough to be elevated to dictionary status?

Competitiveness is baked into most aspects of modern culture, from work, to your kid's sport, to performing your best life on social media. But does competitiveness feel like a trait you can't turn off or on within yourself? Psychologists Dr Inge Gnatt and Gavin Freeman bring their experience from the ballet and elite team sport spheres to unpack where your competitiveness comes from and ask where...

Whether it's climate change, nuclear war, or AI doomsday, conversations about the end of the world are becoming fairly commonplace. So how are we preparing for a seemingly endless list of existential threats? AI expert Toby Walsh and sociologist Jordan McKenzie discuss how we're collectively feeling about the end of days. It's all fun and games at the younger levels of junior sport, but as players...

Among readers, there are two main camps: the completionists, and those who DNF (do not finish). Giving up on a bad book is one thing, but it can be much harder to walk away from a goal that's taken years of effort. Endurance runner Jane Davies joins researcher Hugh Riddell to explore the power of shifting or simply walking away from a goal.  Olfactory historian William Tullett has dedicated his ca...

The NSW government will be implementing screen time caps in public school classrooms from 2028, in a bid to give students a much-needed "digital detox". Education researchers Therese Keane and Deborah Pino Pasternak join low-tech school principal Kenneth Crowther to discuss the balance of screens and old fashioned pen-and-paper learning.  Research suggests women are more likely than men to experie...

Whether it's the mother's day cake stall, election day sausage sizzle or end-of-term trivia night, you've probably chipped in to a local school fundraiser at some stage. But many P&Cs are being forced to scale up their efforts to cover what many consider to be essential resources and infrastructure. So why are gaps in public education funding being filled by the community? When Graeme Base set...

If you've gone to see a counsellor or psychologist, you might be wrestling with tough questions about your relationships, career and life choices. But we don't often make space for existential questions about the meaning of life. Father-daughter psychologist duo Ross Menzies and Rachel Menzies argue that the big, unanswerable questions are worth talking about.  When you’ve been training for a half...

Many kids dream of becoming an explorer when they grow up, but Antarctic adventurer Tim Jarvis is one of the rare few that turned that into reality. He reflects on a life spent exploring the most remote corners of the world, and advocating for the protection of the environment. Australians could soon be granted the right to ask large companies to destroy their personal information from online plat...

Everywhere you look, there are messages about how to optimise your life — whether it's your looks, your health, your morning routine, even your personality. But what happens when all that maxxing leaves you feeling maxxed out? Jack Waters shares what he learned from heading down a "relentless path of self-optimisation", while social scientist Jose Yong explains how it can lead to a life of monoton...

There's been strong growth in the number of supermarket-owned products on our shelves. In the last financial year, Coles' private label sales grew by more than 6 per cent, while Woolworths increased by 5.5 per cent. Consumer behaviour expert Gary Mortimer and Gippsland Jersey cofounder Sallie Jones explain what it means for the prices you pay at the checkout. In years gone by, psychedelics like MD...

Vinted has landed in Australia — the latest in an explosion of online platforms dedicated to reselling pre-loved clothing. At the same time, the original op shopping experience is changing, with US giant Savers expanding in Australia. Avid secondhand shopper Hannah Klose joins sustainability advocate Ainsley Simpson and Red Cross retail boss Richard Wood to explore what this all means for the futu...

Australian author Alice Pung penned her seminal memoir Unpolished Gem two decades ago, which she started writing age 19. Even as a teenager Alice had lived a full life, and the story of how her parents, grandmother and aunt travelled by foot through three countries to seek resettlement as refugees in Melbourne, has become a modern Australian classic. Such is the power of memoir, and in this episod...

Fresh off the release of her much-anticipated sequel Big Little Truths, beloved Australian author Liane Moriarty reflects on her career as a writer, the relationships and life experiences that have inspired her fictional worlds, and the secret to staying true to her own voice. As an author whose characters have been brought to life on screen by the likes of Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Reese Wi...

Plenty of workplaces have mentoring programs where senior staff provide guidance and wisdom to younger team members. But have you heard of reverse mentoring? Reserve Bank Australia governor Michelle Bullock recently mentioned she has a reverse mentor helping her learn more about AI. Careers coach Leah Lambart and mentee James Arvanitakis explain how workplaces across Australia are encouraging reve...

The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) has been considering the ways housing affects children's health and development. They found that around 1 in 8 kids who grow up in rentals have moved at least 10 times by the time they reach the age of 14. Researcher Amy Clair and psychologist Rachel Samson explain how housing instability can affect kids in the long-term and what we can d...

Voluntary assisted dying is now legal in all states and territories of Australia, but many terminally ill Australians who are eligible for VAD still face challenges in accessing this choice. Anita Rumore, who cared for her father before he died by VAD last year, joins legal expert Ben White and advocate Linda Swan to talk through the barriers that remain. When you're reading picture books to your...

All Australian states and territories now have workplace health obligations in place that require employers to protect your psychosocial safety. That means preventing things like unachievable job demands and inadequate reward and recognition. We all experience some of these things to some extent in the workplace, but where is the line? Employment lawyer Mariah Loriente and psychotherapist Andrew S...

We know spending time outdoors is good for our mental health. Now, there's even more research to prove it. A study out of Scotland found people who lived close to woodland areas were 10 per cent less likely to be prescribed antidepressants. Urban planning researcher Sebastian Pfausch and Gardening Australia's Hannah Moloney explain just how strong the healing power of nature can be. More Australia...

We celebrate mother's day, father's day, and even invite the grandparents along to kindy once a year to partake in special craft activities, but are we overlooking the role of our beloved aunties and uncles? Journalists Kate Leaver and Tiger Webb explain the special relationship they each have with their nieces and nephews, and how being an aunty and an uncle has changed them. As the world reflect...

New research from the University of Melbourne has found that young people are now significantly more likely than older generations to hold hostile attitudes towards women. It can be easy to feel like there's no hope of things getting any better. But researcher Sara Meger and youth mentors Daniel Allars and Daniel Principe say it starts with finding opportunities to change young minds. Roadies were...