At a glance: April's Covid-19 figures to date
April 20, 2021
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Real Health: Six (scientifically proven) ways to find happiness
On this week’s show I’ll be talking about the six key principals to finding happiness with Prof Brendan Kelly: Author of The Science of Happiness.
Brendan is here to answer the big life questions like: Will having a baby make you happy? Are women happier than men? Will earning lots of money satisfy you? Do politics and religion really matter?
Prof Kelly is a consultant psychiatrist at Tallaght University Hospital and professor of psychiatry at TCD. His book is a psychiatrist’s exploration of how to be happy and he believes the six key principals to achieving happiness are:
(1) seeking balance (trying to achieve moderation in all things);
(2) focusing on love (for ourselves and others);
(3) deepening acceptance (accepting what we cannot change and changing what we can);
(4) practising gratitude (starting with the realisation that we are lucky to be alive);
(5) avoiding comparisons with other people (which are the root of most human unhappiness);
(6) believing in something that matters to you, be it politics, religion, philosophy, football or even the emotional lives of minor celebrities.
In this episode you can learn how to employ these strategies to increase your happiness levels.
Brendan’s approach is full of humour and positivity and he really breaks the science down to make it accessible. It’s a great listen and I hope you really enjoy it.
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
‘The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare’
April 13, 2021
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Find Your Escape This Weekend 20
Open up your weekend and find your escape with the Independent at the weekend.
April 09, 2021
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Find Your Escape This Weekend
Open up your weekend and find your escape with the Independent at the weekend.
April 09, 2021
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Sharon Stone talks exclusively to Life this Sunday
Sharon Stone talks exclusively to Life about coming from poverty and abuse
and Hollywood’s MeToo culture. Read more on Sunday, April 11.
April 08, 2021
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Real Health - Mr Motivator: ‘If exercise isn’t fun don’t do it.’
On this week’s show I am talking to Derrick Evans, AKA Mr Motivator, who many of you will remember from his lycra clad TV workouts in the 1990s.
As well as his TV work, Mr Motivator has sold millions of workout DVDs, run an eco-tourism resort in Jamacia and has now turned his attention to "the forgotten groups" with the launch of his ‘Mr Motivator Club’ here in Ireland.
The Club is suitable for people of all ages, fitness levels and abilities.
Mr Motivator tells me he is a firm believer in making exercise enjoyable, ‘I want people to understand if exercise isn’t fun don’t do it...the only muscle that should ache after exercise is your laughter muscle. And if it’s not aching there’s something wrong with the teacher.’
At 68-years-old Derrick has impressive keep fit regime of his own; ‘every day I do 68 press-ups – one for each year of my life. I have no intention of getting “old”’
Through sheer perseverance Derrick managed to secure a slot as GMTV's fitness guru in 1993.
‘I knew there was a gap in the market and that ITV needed someone like me on TV, so I kept going down to the ITV studios and insisting that they give me a chance. At first the advertisers didn’t want a black man, they wanted a white lady with two kids. But I persevered, and that was that.’
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
April 03, 2021
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Life Lessons with Mairead Ronan: ‘Trust your gut and back yourself a little bit more’
This week’s show is part of our ‘Life Lessons’ series with some of Ireland’s most famous personalities and my guest today, Mairead Ronan, is certainly no stranger to the Irish TV and radio landscape.
She has been working hard in the industry for nearly twenty years. Mairead started her career on The Ray D’arcy Show, hosts Fittest Families, won Dancing with The Stars in 2019 and now presents her own daily radio show on Today Fm. On top of all that she co-owns a hair-styling equipment business called FARO.
Mairead talks to me about the ups and downs of the last year: ‘I feel like I'm in no position to complain, because both myself and my husband are still working full time. But also, for a huge chunk of the last 12 months, we didn't have childcare.
Mairead found it challenging to mind her kids while presenting a daily radio show. ‘I had to still perform like you normally would and present the radio show but we didn't have that pillar of support, which is our child minder Kay. And I just found that extremely difficult.’
March 30, 2021
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Real Health: Karl Henry’s Top 10 Tips for Motivating Yourself
This week’s Real Health episode is one of Karl’s Top 10 Tips episodes, looking at not only how to get yourself motivated, but to stay motivated and keep yourself fit and healthy in the coming weeks, months and years.
How to stay focused when times get tough is an important skill to learn and sometimes starting a health kick can be hard while keeping it going can be difficult as well.
But after twenty-two years, Karl has learned lots of tips, tricks and tools that work and will help you on your Real Health journey.
From vision boards and doing it together to rewarding yourself and having your why, the ten tips in this episode are practical and easy to implement and Karl promises, they do work.
So, see which ones you can start today – even starting just one will help - and watch how your motivation grows with each step you take.
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to: https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
March 25, 2021
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Real Health: Ethan Kross & Harnessing the Voice Inside Your Head
Mental health, self-talk and the voices in our head….it seems these are issues that are gaining prominence in our lives the more the lockdown continues and it’s been a popular issue in recent weeks on Real Health.
And for this week’s episode, Karl goes in-depth on the topic of the conscious mind and the conversations we have with ourselves which can have such negative effects on our lives and the people around us.
But, if harnessed correctly, it can also be a very powerful and positive force too.
His guest is Ethan Kross, an award-winning psychologist who is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind and has participated in policy discussion at the White House.
He is also the author of Chatter, the Voice In Our Head and How to Harness It, and Karl speaks to him about how Covid has been the ‘perfect’ chatter event affecting our mental health and find out how negative chatter impacts our life.
But the voice in our head can also be of benefit to us and Ethan takes Karl through some of the ways that we can harness it, including using distanced self-talk.
“You could coach yourself through a problem like you're giving advice to another person and actually use your name to do it,” he explains to Karl. “When you use your own name to refer to yourself, it changes the way you relate to yourself, as you're coaching yourself through the problem and it's another thing that a person can do on their own.”
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
March 18, 2021
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Free Spring Gardening series with the Irish Independent on Saturday and the Sunday Independent
It’s spring, time to make the most of your garden. This weekend get your complete guide to Spring Gardening. Don’t miss Part 1 with Diarmuid Gavin in the Irish Independent on Saturday with easy planting ideas, how to add colour and make your garden a wildlife haven. Plus, Part 2 with Leonie Cornelius free inside this week’s Sunday Independent.
March 16, 2021
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The Big Tech: It’s Hannon time
This week on the Big Tech Show, Adrian sits down with the veteran Irish tech marketer, Kieran Hannon, who has just taken a CMO job with the clean air firm WellAir.
Hannon is a 35-year survivor of Silicon Valley’s tech industry, with some big roles to show for it. He was chief marketer for Radioshack before moving on to a similar role in Belkin. A stint in Openpath preceded his appointment as marketing chief in the Bill McCabe-backed WellAir.
The two talk about survivability, tech marketing, retail, identities and a host of other topics.
The Big Tech Show is in association with Sky Broadband.
March 12, 2021
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Real Health: Ageing and How to Deal With It
Let’s talk about getting older.
Of the many changes that Covid and the pandemic has inflicted on society, one thing it has brought into focus is the risks older people face - especially as we’ll all be there someday.
And the truth is, for most of us, we don’t want to think about ageing or what it will be like to care for an elderly relative.
Well, this week’s Real Health is all about Getting Older (for People Who Don’t want To Talk about it) and it’s also the catchy title of Dr. Lucy Pollock’s new book.
She is a consultant specialising in the care of the elderly and over the next thirty minutes or so will be answering questions such as:
· Should Dad be driving, and if not, who can stop him?
· What are the secrets of the best care homes?
· When does fierce independence become bad behaviour?
· And who decides what happens when we become ill?
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
March 11, 2021
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The Big Tech: We’re becoming a nation of Twitchers
This week, Adrian chats to Damien Burns, Europe’s top person with Amazon-owned Twitch, the giant live streaming platform.
While it dominates online streams of video games, Damian says that it’s now aiming farther afield, to lifestyle stuff.
Adrian asks about the market for watching sleeping videos and how much money you can make when sharing your Fortnite or Grand Theft Auto sessions live.
The two also talk about player bans, competing with TV stations and why US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) sometimes uses the platform to
communicate.
The Big Tech Show is in association with Sky Broadband.
March 05, 2021
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Real Health: How To Build Your Healthy Brain
Never has mental health been as important. Be it mindfulness, meditation, walking…..we’re looking for as much expert information these days on dealing with our mental difficulties of living life in a pandemic.
But what about preventative measures? Just as we eat well and exercise to prevent the body getting unhealthy, can you do the same with the brain?
The guest on this week’s Real Health is Kimberley Wilson, a psychologist who believes that we need to consider the brain in a more physical way just like the heart or liver.
Kimberley is also the author of ‘How to Build a Healthy Brain’ and is the host of the Stronger Mind podcas and, backed up with science and studies, she talks to Karl about the importance of exercise on our brains and how physical movement can stop our brains shrinking.
She also explains why our IQs are dropping over time due to poor diet and how stress affects our brains and inhibits our actual growth.
“One of the things I really want people to understand,” she says. “Is that stress isn't something that's just 'in your head' because for people it feels like this ethereal, not real thing, ‘I can just push it away and I'll be fine’. But you need to understand that stress turns on your stress hormone and your stress hormones are incredibly powerful. Your stress hormones can turn off your growth hormone, they can stunt the growth of children. We know the same thing can happen when women get very, very stressed that their periods can stop or their cycles can become very long and stress hormones have an effect on the brain.”
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
March 04, 2021
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The Big Tech - Questioning the regulator in charge of Facebook
This week’s guest on the Big Tech Show is Helen Dixon, Europe’s most powerful tech regulator. She and Adrian talk about Facebook, Whatsapp, fines, Brexit, data rights and a whole host of other things.
Among the revelations are that Whatsapp will not be sharing more data with Facebook in the EU anytime soon.
Helen Dixon says that there has “been no progress” between Facebook and the Irish regulator on seeking allowance for Facebook to integrate Whatsapp with Facebook in a closer way, as it is poised to do in the US.
The tech giant has been trying for years to find a way to make more money out of its subsidiary, which has tighter privacy controls than the tech giant’s main social platform.
But Ms Dixon’s office has steadfastly refused to allow cross-sharing of data across the EU, citing a lack of satisfactory explanation from Facebook around the legal basis of the data sharing.
“I don't doubt that Facebook hasn't given up on the idea of the data sharing,” she said. “But nonetheless, there has been no progress in terms of WhatsApp convincing the DPC that as the controller of the data of users of WhatsApp, it should share it with Facebook. And they've made no substantive approach to us. So it really hasn't progressed. There's no sharing of EU user data between the controllers.”
Last month, Whatsapp saw 20m users leave for rival messaging apps when it informed users outside the EU that they needed to agree to Whatsapp sharing more account information with Facebook for the ultimate purpose of cross-service advertising.
Helen Dixon is talking to Adrian on the same day that her office published its annual report, outlining several investigations and data breach statistics.
The Big Tech Show is in association with Sky Broadband.
March 01, 2021
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Real Health: 5 Minute Therapy? Find out how with Sarah Crosby aka the Mind Geek
We could all do with a bit of therapy right now but although stuck at home, we still seem to be time-poor, so how about some five minute therapy to help us all cope with the stresses and strains of life at the moment?
Karl’s guest on this week’s Real Health is psychotherapist Sarah Crosby, aka the Mind Geek, who is a bit of an Instagram sensation with her daily bite-sized snippets of mindfulness wisdom and her new book, Five Minute Therapy, is also out now.
Sarah has some fascinating insights and advice on how to cope with life during the pandemic.
She explains why re-parenting ourselves can be such a vital and important process; how we can deal with negative relationships and assess the people we have in our lives; why attachment is our relationship blueprint; and why we need to make sure our self-talk is kind and light.
“Walking through Dublin city centre at the height of the lockdown and being able to hear your footsteps, there's something really daunting about that,” she tells Karl. “What we're left with is ourselves right now. Without the distractions of everyday life we're having to sit with who we are, having to sit with our choices, with our relationships which we can't really distract ourselves from anymore and how we're speaking to ourselves around that is going to really form how our mental health is feeling right now.”
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to:
https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
February 25, 2021
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People & Culture - Sunday Independent's new section
February 19, 2021
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Real Health: Daniel Davey’s Tips for Performance Success
In recent weeks, the Real Health show has featured some great food experts from Neven Maguire’s cooking tips to the Happy Pear’s plant-based diet.
Food, eating and your diet is one of the best ways to keep healthy and stay in control while so much is going on in the world outside and Karl’s guest for this week’s episode is a firm believer in food to help with your mental as well as your physical performance.
Daniel Davey first came to prominence as the performance nutritionist with Leinster Rugby and Dublin GAA followed by his book, Eat Up Raise Your Game, and on this episode he talks to Karl about wellness, performance and even mindset around food.
Explaining the importance of process and repetition, they’re discussing food but so much more as well.
“Have you got a process?” he asks. “Building a very simple process that is something that you can go to and repeat very effectively every evening is where you build success and I don't mind saying that's what I've learned again from high performance.”
“As a young practitioner, I was afraid of repetition and I was afraid of talking about repetition because people's automatic response was always 'I want something new, can we do something new or a bit more exciting?' That's not where the progress comes from.”
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to: https://www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-real-health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
February 18, 2021
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Take a break this weekend with People & Culture from the Sunday Independent.
This week we look at how to keep love alive, beyond Valentine’s Day. Natalie Britton is Upfront on life in L.A., racism, and motherhood; while Tanya Sweeney finds out how art sales are seeing a renaissance during lockdown. All of this, and more, in the Sunday Independent’s new weekly People & Culture section.
February 11, 2021
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Real Health: Dr. Clodagh Campbell’s Seven Steps to Happiness
January 2021 was a tough month, there’s no doubt about that. Continuing on from the previous year it’s been a tough journey for most people to deal with. But, we can still find happiness midst all the turmoil, stress and uncertainty.
There are little things you can be doing every day to make sure you’re reaching your happiness quota and the guest on this week’s Real Health, Dr. Clodagh Campbell, is a wellness psychologist who is going to help us all get happier with her seven simple steps to achieving more happiness in your life.
With advice on the importance of maintaining your social connections during isolation to factoring in your moments of happy time throughout the week, Dr. Clodagh Campbell believes this is when we need to be looking after ourselves the most.
Plus she explains why journaling is so beneficial and how you can start it today.
“It's not necessarily forcing yourself to do it every day,” she tells Karl. “But if you can focus on practising gratitude through journaling or focusing on positive emotions and writing about how you're feeling or processing your emotions, all of this has been proven to boost our happiness, to lower levels of anxiety, depression, stress. It's a simple way that we can look after ourselves from the comfort of our home in private and we can fit it in to any part of our day.”
For more episodes, tips and advice from the show just go to: www.independent.ie/podcasts/the-re…health-podcast/
The Real Health podcast is in association with Laya Healthcare.
February 11, 2021
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