In the midst of a growing mental illness epidemic, health journalist Shannon Harvey enlisted a team of scientists to put meditation to the test. But after a 30,000 kilometre journey around the world from the bright lights of Manhattan to the dusty refugee camps of the Middle East, what began as a year-long self-experiment ultimately became a life-changing experience. In this presentation Shannon shares the story behind her award-winning feature film, My Year of Living Mindfully.

On her road to recovery from an incurable autoimmune disease, health journalist Shannon searched through thousands of scientific papers, and travelled the world to interview dozens of pioneering health researchers. In this talk she shares what she learned while making her internationally acclaimed film, The Connection and writing her award-winning book The Whole Health Life. In this talk Shannon will reveal the simple, effective and evidence-based things that we can all do for ourselves to get healthy, find balance and live better.

As a health journalist with a chronic illness which is worsened by lifestyle factors, Shannon Harvey devotes her time to investigating what it takes to be healthy. But when she tallied the amount of time experts say we should spend on sleeping enough, working enough, exercising enough, cooking-enough, parenting enough and “relaxing” enough, she discovered there’s a problem – the numbers don't add up. Shannon’s talk is about the work-life time-deficit and how to overcome it.

Why do smokers struggle to quit and drinkers struggle to stop? Why don’t we go to bed on time? And why do most of the contestants of The Biggest Loser inevitably regain weight once the cameras stop rolling? It’s because wanting to change isn’t hard. Often getting started isn’t even the hard bit. It’s making the change stick that really counts. This is something health journalist Shannon Harvey knows all too well. As someone who lives a chronic illness which is worsened by lifestyle factors, Shannon devotes her time to investigating what it takes to STAY healthy.