On a stinking hot summer Sydney afternoon I lay in a room with 15 other people, eyes closed, attempting to focus on the present by paying attention to my sensations, thoughts, emotions, and breath. The person next to me was snoring peacefully but I was far from feeling blissed out and “one with the moment.” I was feeling hot, fidgety and frustrated and I kept thinking, “Shit, I’m supposed to endure this every day, for the next eight weeks. Why didn’t I sign up to a cooking class instead?”Far from developing my culinary expertise, I had in fact signed up... Read full article »

It is the birthright of every Australian child to join a sport team as soon as they can pay attention long enough to kick or throw a ball into an opposing team’s goal. So when it became apparent that my four-year-old son had absorbed his father’s love for soccer, it was clear that I had to take action. After due diligence I found an under fives local team but when I learned that they played at 10:15 on Sunday mornings I hit a wall. I was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that signing him up to soccer... Read full article »

Throughout my life I’ve suffered from a terrible affliction experts call onychophagy. The disorder can cause deleterious effects on my fingers, my mouth and even my stomach. More commonly, the affliction is known as nail biting. I’m a stress-induced nail biter and right now it’s not the menacing bacteria lurking under my nubby nails that I’m worried about. It’s the fact that my nail-nawing habit is a sign that all is not well in my mind and body. Indeed, the fact that I’m biting my nails again is just one sign that I’m not handling my stress very well. You... Read full article »

I recently found myself racing through university corridors, heels clacking on concrete floors, lost, and late for an interview. Having just battled Sydney’s peak hour traffic and struggled to find parking in our city’s gridlocked streets, I was disoriented in a maze of modern building design. Apparently the state-of-the-art business school, with its “9,100 square meters of flexible teaching and learning space” was designed to “inspire and enable generations of leaders.” All it inspired in me were sweaty palms, a tense jaw and a cortisol spike that would scare off even the most vicious of sabre tooth tigers. It was... Read full article »

In 2007, a 27-year old man known as ‘Mr A’ collapsed on the floor of a hospital emergency department after taking a drug overdose. His blood pressure was crashing, he was hyperventilating and shaking, and nurses sprang into action to insert an intravenous line into his arm to try and flush his system and save his life. The man had been taking part in an antidepressant drug trail. Although he said his mood had improved significantly in the first month, in the second month he had an argument with his ex-girlfriend and became suicidal. He took his remaining 29 pills... Read full article »

I was standing at my kitchen sink, locked in battle with a determined frying pan unwilling to part with the remnants of the evening’s scorched rice paella. It was 9pm and I was exhausted, having been up since 5:30am, then worked a full day, only to face “witching hour” with my 4-year-old and 9-month-old sons while my husband was out at an evening work event. I noticed that my shoulders were tense, my jaw was tight, and my mind was catastrophising thoughts of pending grant applications and unmet work deadlines. All I wanted was a hot bath and to fall... Read full article »