Jan Owen AM

Live Well Journal Issue 189: How men over 50 are outrunning the clock The 50+ Performance Blueprint: 3 Longevity Secrets Men Are Using to Outrun Ageing I feel extremely well qualified to talk about this topic, living with a co-Founder who has excelled at medical emergencies over the years. He’s a crash-or-crash-through kind of guy. Here is a statistical truth most blokes over 50 won’t hear in a standard doctor’s office: You don’t slow down because you get old; you get old because you slow down. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDNovember 8, 2026 Read time I feel extremely well qualified to talk about this topic, living with a co-Founder who has excelled at medical emergencies over the years. He’s a crash-or-crash-through kind of guy. Here is a statistical truth most blokes over 50 won’t hear in a standard doctor’s office: You don’t slow down because you get old; you get old because you slow down. After 50, your body doesn’t hit a sudden wall; it experiences a quiet decline in efficiency. Peak power output drops, recovery stretches from 24 hours to 4 days, and that afternoon brain fog becomes the new normal. Most men chalk this up to ‘just getting older.’ It isn’t. It’s an engineering problem. And modern science has flipped the script on how we fix it. This Movember, we’re exposing three major health myths and revealing the protocols longevity specialists use to keep men in their 50s, 60s, and beyond performing at their absolute peak. MYTH #1: “Cardio is for weight loss. Heavy lifting is for young guys.” • THE SCIENCE: Starting at age 30, men lose roughly 3% to 8% of muscle mass per decade, a process called sarcopenia that skyrockets past 60. Muscle isn’t for mirror selfies; it is your primary metabolic sink. It absorbs blood glucose, drives your baseline metabolism, and produces protective muscle-derived proteins (myokines) that shield your brain. • THE HACK: The Pneumatic Resistance Shortcut. Heavy iron barbells can wreck aging joints if your form slips. The insider hack used in top Scandinavian longevity centres is air-resistance (pneumatic) strength training. By matching the force curve of your muscles without joint-crushing inertia, smart pneumatic systems (like HUR technology) trigger maximal testosterone and human growth hormone release. You build real power with zero joint wear. MYTH #2: “If my routine GP blood work is ‘Normal’, I’m in the clear.” • THE SCIENCE: Standard pathology labs test for disease presence, not optimal health. Being in the ‘reference range’ just means you aren’t currently in hospital. For instance, basic cholesterol tests miss ApoB (Apolipoprotein B), the actual count of particle drivers causing arterial plaque. • THE HACK: The Metabolic Recon. Ditch basic blood panels once a year. High-performing blokes track three specific biological markers: Fasting Insulin (catches diabetes 10 years before blood sugar spikes), ApoB (true cardiovascular risk), and Grip Strength. Fun fact: Clinical studies prove handgrip strength is a more accurate predictor of overall mortality and cardiovascular health than systolic blood pressure. MYTH #3: “Rest days mean sitting on the couch watching footy.” • THE SCIENCE: Passive recovery actually slows down cellular repair. As we age, micro-circulation drops, meaning metabolic waste stays trapped in muscle tissue longer, causing stiffness and fatigue. • THE HACK: Hot/Cold Plunge & Infrared Sauna. Elite longevity protocols use thermal stress to force cellular turnover. 20 minutes in an Infrared Sauna dilates blood vessels and triggers Heat Shock Proteins (which repair damaged cellular proteins). Following that with a cold immersion plunge or hydrotherapy causes rapid vascular flushing – pumping fresh, oxygenated blood through stiff joints. It cuts recovery time in half! THE ULTIMATE LONGEVITY SECRET: You Can’t DIY It Alone The biggest biological cheat code of all? Environment. Studies on world Blue Zones (where men routinely live past 100 in peak health) show that individual willpower pales in comparison to community. When you train alongside a crew of like-minded people who hold you accountable, stress hormones like cortisol plummet and health outcomes double. Not to mention the massively well-evidenced benefits to your mental health of laughing, joking, chatting and just being with other humans! Stop Waiting for the Engine Light to Flash You don’t need an emergency health event, a total life overhaul or a restrictive fad diet to turn back the biological clock. You just need the right data and a targeted strategy. At Be Well, we’ve built Melbourne’s premier integrated longevity club combining physio-led strength, smart air-resistance technology, and a full recovery suite under one roof. This Movember, step under the hood. Book your 1:1 Longevity Roadmap Assessment with Senior Physiotherapist Patrick Lynch today. We’ll test your movement, check your strength baseline, and give you the exact blueprint to keep your best years firmly ahead of you. Here’s to living better longer. See you at Be Well soon! Longevity snip Book Lovers May Live Longer In a 12-year study of 3,635 adults, people who read books had a 20% lower risk of dying than non-readers, even after accounting for health, wealth and education. Newspapers and magazines didn’t show the same link. It’s observational, but the researchers found a clue to why, and it points to what books do for your brain. Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon DLit · Social and business entrepreneur Jan Owen AM is co-founder of Be Well Hawthorn and a social and business entrepreneur with over four decades of experience driving change across education, youth welfare and health. She is the author of Every Childhood Lasts a Lifetime and The Future Chasers, the inaugural Westpac and AFR Overall Woman of Influence, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and Murdoch University. Jan was awarded membership to the Order of Australia in 2000 for her service to children and youth. Live Well Journal Get these insights directly into your inbox every week. Join the Be Well Health & Longevity newsletter. Written by Jan Owen AM, free for everyone, published every week. More from the Live

Live Well Journal Issue 188: The Belly Fat You Can’t See (And Why It Matters More Than the Rest) The Belly Fat You Can’t See (And Why It Matters More Than the Rest) I spent years staring in the mirror at the things I thought were wrong with my body. Particularly the stuff we are hyper aware of that you can pinch and flap: arms, thighs, chin, a muffin top! Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDNovember 1, 2026 Read time I spent years staring in the mirror at the things I thought were wrong with my body. Particularly the stuff we are hyper aware of that you can pinch and flap: arms, thighs, chin, a muffin top! Then I found out not all fat is the same. I had subcutaneous fat, which is mostly cosmetic, but coming out of covid I also had visceral fat. And visceral fat is different. It wraps around your organs, deep in the abdomen, where you can’t see or pinch it. You can be slim and still have too much, and visceral fat isn’t just sitting there being unhelpful, it’s hormonally active. Here’s why it’s urgent, not just unflattering. Visceral fat sits right next to the organs it damages, and it’s silent for decades before symptoms show. A study of over 350,000 people found a large waist can nearly double the risk of dying prematurely, even at a normal weight. A 2025 UK Biobank study of 18,000 people found visceral fat specifically damages the brain’s white matter, years before any cognitive decline is noticeable, and a long running Californian study found people with the most abdominal fat in their 40s were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia by their 70s or 80s. It’s also linked to raised cancer risk. Men and women store it differently. Testosterone favours fat around the middle, so men often build visceral fat gradually from their 30s, without any dramatic trigger. It just creeps on, and because visceral fat converts testosterone into oestrogen as it builds, it can create a slow feedback loop, more belly fat, lower testosterone, easier to store more. If you’re a man reading this, don’t skip it, you’ve likely been managing this longer than any of us. The upside: without a hormonal shift working against you, your numbers tend to respond faster to training, sleep and cutting beer and spirits. For women, oestrogen protects against visceral fat and favours the hip and thigh ‘pear’ pattern, until perimenopause, when that protection disappears and fat shifts to the middle even if your weight hasn’t changed. If you’re eating and moving the same and suddenly have a belly you never had, that’s your hormones changing the rules, not you doing something wrong. How to measure it. At Be Well we use the Styku, a 3D infrared body scanner that predicts visceral fat by modelling your shape against DEXA data. It’s not identical to a DEXA, but independent studies show it lands within 1-2% of DEXA on body composition, close enough to trust for tracking your own trend over time. Or use waist circumference, above 80cm for women, 94cm for men signals risk, or waist-to-hip ratio, above 0.85 for women, 0.90 for men. Pick one and remeasure in six to eight weeks. Don’t let a soft belly in the mirror convince you your internal numbers are bad, they’re not the same test. My numbers are now a healthy 72cm waist, 92cm hips, ratio 0.78, both under the risk thresholds. And yet, I still have an ‘apron belly’ and train track stretch marks! That’s not visceral fat. That’s four pregnancies in 6 years, including an emergency cesarean, decades of weight fluctuation and hormonal changes, skin that loses elasticity permanently and some subcutaneous fat settles in a pattern that’s largely genetic (thanks Mum!). It sits under the skin, not around your organs, a completely different thing to everything else in this blog. What to do next, in order: 1. Get your baseline – Styku, DEXA or measurements (see above). 2. Fix your sleep. Poor sleep raises cortisol, one of the biggest drivers of visceral fat, so there’s no point training hard on five broken hours. 3. Add resistance training and add protein at every meal, muscle improves insulin handling and protein keeps you full. 4. Layer in the small changes: a 10 minute walk after meals; be specific about alcohol rather than treating it as one thing. Beer and spirits are most strongly linked to visceral fat. Red wine is linked to lower visceral fat, white wine shows no effect either way. That’s not permission for unlimited red by the way, but if you’re cutting something first, make it beer and spirits. 5. Stress management isn’t all about your mind, it’s physiological. Chronic stress means chronically elevated cortisol, which means your body is primed to store fat centrally. Do whatever you can to bring your stress levels down. Remeasure at six to eight weeks. If nothing’s moved, check sleep and alcohol first. Tell yourself the right story! None of this is about a flat stomach. Visceral fat is a health marker, not a cosmetic one, and one of the few you can genuinely shift with a bit of effort in a relatively short time. No pill or powder does it for you, and fortunately for me, no apron belly undoes the good numbers underneath it. The takeaway? Get real data on the things that actually matter to stay younger, healthier, happier for longer. I look forward to hearing your results! See you again at Be Well soon.    Longevity snip Losing Deep Belly Fat Leaves a Lasting Mark People who shed visceral fat, the deep fat around the organs, during 18-month diet and exercise trials had a lower risk of type 2 diabetes up to 10 years later, even after their weight came back. Each 10% drop was linked to a 28% lower risk.  Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon

Live Well Journal Issue 187: Training for one of the best roles I’ll ever have Training for One of the Best Roles I’ll Ever Have Why the grandparent bond matters so much, and 6 little joys to share with the grandkids in your life this Grandparents Day. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDOctober 25, 2026 Read time I spend at least a day a week with 3-year-old Sophia, laughing, dancing, running, singing and often dropping into Be Well for a visit. It’s literally the best day of my week. More and more of my friends are becoming grandparents at 60+, usually because our own kids are having children later in life. Across Australia and globally, people are becoming grandparents nearly a decade later than our parents did. Not everyone has children, or their kids live overseas, or grandchildren just haven’t come along. I know that. But I also know plenty of people who’ve built the exact same bond with nieces, nephews or the neighbour’s kids they’ve ‘adopted’ over the years. If that’s you, this is for you too. What the grandkids get from you Last month I was MCing a conference in Canberra, and one of our Indigenous Elders opened it. She spoke proudly about her grandchildren studying at that same university, then laughed and said she loves her own kids, but loves her grandkids even more. There’s real science behind that feeling. A 19 year study from Boston College found kids with close grandparent bonds grow up with lower rates of anxiety, depression and behavioural issues, because time with a grandparent lowers a child’s stress hormones and releases oxytocin, the same bonding chemical you get between a parent and newborn. Research from Emory University found something else: children who know their family stories, the ones only grandparents seem to tell, grow up with noticeably higher self esteem and resilience. Knowing where you fit in a bigger story gives you something to stand on when life gets hard. We often joke that being a grandparent is ‘all care, no responsibility’, not quite, but parents handle the discipline, the routine, the boundaries. Grandparents get to be the safe harbour, the person a kid feels completely accepted by, no conditions attached. The magic goes both ways. I have discovered every day with a grandchild is full of little joys: big and small advances in confidence, deep and curious conversations, boundless energy and unconditional love. Here’s some of my little joys Learn their language, literally. Pick up a few words of whatever language your grandchild is learning, at school or at home. Kids light up when the adult in the room is the one struggling to get it right for once, and it’s genuinely good for your brain, one of the most studied ways to keep your mind sharp as you age. Let them teach you tech. Ask your grandchild to show you their favourite app or game instead of the other way around. It flips the usual dynamic, they get to be the expert, and you get a window into how they think and play. Learn something physical together. Sophia & I love trampolining and we have been doing yoga together since she could crawl. Kids remember the grandparent who tried, wobbled, fell over laughing and got back up far more than the one who watched from a safe distance. Cook, make or build things together. Get outside and get your hands dirty. Experiment! Let them choose their own adventure and see what happens. It’s fine motor skills for them and a good laugh for you. Start a running joke or a secret handshake. Something just between the two of you gives the relationship its own private language. They’ll still remember at 16, 18 & 25 when they need it the most. Become the storyteller. David’s father lived with us for a few years and his job was to read the kids stories every night. He made up stories about them in Africa and they Loved it! You can tell stories from where you came from, what you were like at their age, what you got wrong, what scared you. You can also use AI to create stories. I am writing one for Sophia right now My training at Be Well is conditioning for one of the best roles I’ll ever have. Today’s grandkids need a co-adventurer, and building train tracks on the floor or lifting a toddler overhead or keeping pace at the park doesn’t happen without some real physical capacity behind it. Muscle keeps my energy steady through a full day of chasing Sophia around instead of crashing by 3pm. Cardio and movement sharpen reflexes, which matters enormously when a toddler suddenly bolts for the road and mobility work in the hips, knees and spine means getting down onto the floor to play, and back up again, costs me nothing the next day. Our grandchildren get an anchor, a sense of who they are and where they belong. We get purpose, sharper minds and a very good reason to stay in shape. We’re not training for ourselves anymore. We’re training so we can keep up, get down on the floor and go the distance with the people who matter to us. Here’s to the new, or older, little loves of your life and to staying young enough to enjoy every minute of it See you at Be Well again soon.  Longevity snip The Grandmother Thread Ever feel like you and your grandkids just… get each other? Turns out there might be real biology behind that feeling, specifically for paternal Grandmothers of granddaughters. Here’s the fun bit of science: a dad only has one X chromosome, and he got the whole thing from his own mother, nothing from his father. So when he passes that X on to his daughter, it arrives untouched by his dad’s side entirely. It’s like a family recipe that skipped a generation of substitutions and came out exactly as the original cook made

Live Well Journal Issue 186: Menopause Is a Renovation, Not a Collapse Menopause Is a Renovation, Not a Collapse This is NOT the beginning of the end. What the latest menopause research is really telling us. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDOctober 18, 2026 Read time We’ve had four separate trades working at Be Well over the past few months, and it’s taught me something about menopause I didn’t expect. A renovation looks like chaos while it’s happening. Dust everywhere, nothing where it used to be, and everyone (me included!) asking ‘why is this taking so long?’. But if you’ve got good, solid foundations and a decent plan, you’re rebuilding something even better than what was there before. It just takes a little time. That’s also what the latest menopause research is telling us. It’s a renovation, not a collapse. Here’s what’s actually new, and what to do with it. The warning label finally got rewritten For 20 years, hormone therapy has carried a black box warning so alarming that most women, like me, and most doctors, just avoided it altogether. That warning came from a flawed 2002 study using an outdated formulation, tested mostly on women well past the age most of us would start. In February this year, the FDA finally removed it. The new labels say something quite different: starting hormone therapy within 10 years of menopause, ideally before 60, is linked to lower rates of death and fewer fractures. This is American regulation, so our TGA hasn’t made the same move here yet. But it’s a signal the ground is shifting. If you’ve been putting off a proper conversation with your GP because you remember the scary headline from a decade ago, that headline just got a rewrite. Worth another conversation. The muscle news is genuinely brilliant A study released this year pooled 126 trials and over 4,000 women and found something quietly radical: resistance training builds strength and reshapes your body just as effectively after menopause as before it. Menopause made no measurable difference to the results. None. Translation: your body isn’t broken, and it isn’t done. It’s like discovering the old bones of your house are actually solid; they just need someone to notice them and reinforce them properly. The practical version of this: lift heavier over time, not more reps of the same light weight. Focus on legs and back; that’s where the studies show the biggest payoff for balance and everyday strength. Two 30 minute sessions a week were enough in one trial to improve bone density in women who already had osteoporosis. Sleep and hot flushes aren’t the same New research on a drug called elinzanetant found it improved sleep even when it wasn’t touching hot flushes. For years we’ve assumed fix the flushes, the sleep follows. If sleep is your main complaint, say that specifically to whoever you’re getting advice from, rather than filing it under ‘general menopause symptoms’. Now the scary bit, because you did ask The menopause supplement industry is projected to hit $24 billion globally by 2030, and a lot of it is selling hope with no data behind it. There’s a documented case of a woman who got 16 unregulated testosterone pellets from an anti-aging clinic over four years. Her testosterone levels came back at 200 times the normal female range. It took her two years to recover after stopping, and the pellets can’t even be removed once they’re in. The lesson isn’t that hormones are dangerous. It’s unregulated, undosed, unsupervised hormones from someone selling you a lifestyle that are dangerous. There’s a real difference between a doctor adjusting your dose based on bloodwork and a wellness influencer with a ring light selling you a pellet with a testimonial instead of a citation. Happy World Menopause Day! Now that’s something I never thought I would say! I wish my mother and her friends who suffered in menopause-taboo-silence had known all this information. I wish I could have stayed on HRT and not quietly suffered debilitating and humiliating symptoms for 10 years. Her aunties and I gave my daughter, Laura, an impromptu ‘first period’ party. I am so happy for Laura that she will not consider menopause a slow decline or something to be experienced alone. She will be well prepared and find another reason for a party or joyful, wonderful ritual of some kind! And yes, renovations are messy, take longer and cost more than you expect but at some point you just embrace the chaos, knowing that you’ll come out the other side stronger, whatever happens! So whilst you get on with preparing for your next stage renovations, we look forward to showing you ours at Be Well in 6 weeks time. Here’s to living healthier, happier, stronger together See you at Be Well again soon. Longevity snip Pressure Points and Hot Flashes In a small 4-week trial, 70 women past menopause wore acupressure bands on wrist and ankle points for 15 minutes, three times a week. Their hot flashes fell from about 5 to under 2 on average, while a placebo group barely changed. Night sweats came less often and in-the-moment anxiety eased. Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon DLit · Social and business entrepreneur Jan Owen AM is co-founder of Be Well Hawthorn and a social and business entrepreneur with over four decades of experience driving change across education, youth welfare and health. She is the author of Every Childhood Lasts a Lifetime and The Future Chasers, the inaugural Westpac and AFR Overall Woman of Influence, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and Murdoch University. Jan was awarded membership to the Order of Australia in 2000 for her service to children and youth. Live Well Journal Get these insights directly into your inbox every week. Join the Be Well Health & Longevity newsletter. Written by Jan Owen AM, free for everyone, published every week. More from the Live Well Journal View all

Live Well Journal Issue 185: The art of caring without losing yourself The art of caring without losing yourself Raising kids, looking after ageing parents and running on empty? 6 ways to hold onto yourself this Carers Week. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDOctober 11, 2026 Read time I had a Be Well member tell me last week her morning went like this: school lunches with one hand, mum’s physio appointment on the phone with the other, Dad’s audiology appointment today, head to work by 9am. She laughed when she told me. It wasn’t a happy laugh. If that sounds a bit like your week too, welcome to the much talked about ‘sandwich’ generation. You’re raising kids or grandkids whilst making sure your ageing parents are ok. Oh, and while we’re here, let’s toss some peri / menopause into the middle of all that multi-layered sandwich too! Here’s what’s actually going on, in plain numbers. About 1 in 9 Australians, roughly 2.65 million people, mostly women, are unpaid carers. The work they do is worth close to $78 billion a year in unpaid labour. And a 2025 Carers Australia survey found that 61 per cent of carers report low wellbeing, compared with 34 per cent of the general adult population. Only half said caring gave their life meaning or purpose. If you’re tired, stretched thin or quietly resentful some days, that’s not a personal failing. That’s an accurate response to a genuinely heavy load. 6 ways to hold onto yourself while you’re holding everyone else up. Turn ‘let me know if you need anything’ into an actual task. Nobody acts on a vague offer, including you when you’re the one making it. When a friend or neighbour asks how they can help, give them something specific: ‘Could you grab the kids from soccer Thursday?’ or ‘Could you drop off dinner one night this week?’ Specific requests get answered. Vague ones evaporate. Use recovery like medicine, not a treat. Hot/cold plunge and sauna aren’t indulgences, they’re doing real physiological work. Cold exposure trains your nervous system to recover faster from stress. Heat exposure improves cardiovascular resilience and helps you sleep better. Carers run on elevated cortisol most days, and alternating between the two is one of the few things that actually brings that back down, not just makes you feel calmer for an hour. Get checked before you assume you’re fine. Chronic stress hides in the body quietly, blood pressure creeping up, sleep quality dropping, until something trips. If it’s been a while since your last proper check up, book it now, not when something forces the issue. Protect your sleep like it’s the job, because it is. Seven to eight hours is when your body does its actual repair work, physically and mentally. If caring duties are destroying your sleep, even small changes (a consistent wind down, no caffeine after 2pm) do more than people expect. Build a roster, not a rescue mission. If you’re the only one who can do something, that’s not devotion, that’s a system with no backup. Sit down with siblings or family and split the load, even unevenly. One person does groceries, another does the Sunday phone call, another handles the paperwork. Nobody runs a busy kitchen with one cook on every station, and you shouldn’t be running your family that way either. Let the guilt go when you step back. Taking a break doesn’t mean you love anyone less. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and pretending otherwise just means everyone eventually gets a worse version of you, including the people you’re caring for. Another list of 6 things to do I hear you say? Just pick one this week. One small, deliberate move at a time is how we get through the multi-layered sandwich years without disappearing in the middle of them. You’re allowed to look after the person looking after everyone else. Let Be Well be that for you. We’re here to keep you happier, healthier, stronger and better for the good, and the hard, days. See you again soon Longevity snip Self-Care Isn’t Just a Solo Job In a small study, nine social workers in Scotland said heavy workloads and guilt kept pushing self-care down the list. What helped? Supportive managers who asked how they were really going, the confidence to say no, and self-care built into everyday routines, not saved for a crisis. Want to dig deeper?  Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon DLit · Social and business entrepreneur Jan Owen AM is co-founder of Be Well Hawthorn and a social and business entrepreneur with over four decades of experience driving change across education, youth welfare and health. She is the author of Every Childhood Lasts a Lifetime and The Future Chasers, the inaugural Westpac and AFR Overall Woman of Influence, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and Murdoch University. Jan was awarded membership to the Order of Australia in 2000 for her service to children and youth. Live Well Journal Get these insights directly into your inbox every week. Join the Be Well Health & Longevity newsletter. Written by Jan Owen AM, free for everyone, published every week. More from the Live Well Journal View all articles → Issue 183: If It’s Good Enough for a 15 Year-Old, It’s Good Enough for Me Issue 183: If It’s Good Enough for a 15 Year-Old, It’s Good Enough for Me Jan Owen AM • September 27, 2026 Issue 182: What older brains do better than 25-year-olds Issue 182: What older brains do better than 25-year-olds Jan Owen AM • September 20, 2026 What 12 Weeks Actually Does to Your Body  What 12 Weeks Actually Does to Your Body  Jan Owen AM • September 13, 2026

Live Well Journal Issue 183: If It’s Good Enough for a 15 Year-Old, It’s Good Enough for Me If It’s Good Enough for a 15 Year-Old, It’s Good Enough for Me Meta just gave teenagers a two-hour daily limit on Instagram and Facebook. Here’s what the science says the rest of us should be doing too. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDSeptember 27, 2026 Read time Meta just put a curfew on teenagers. As part of a settlement with a coalition of US states worth up to US$18 billion, Instagram and Facebook are getting a default two-hour daily limit for under-18s, combined across both apps. Hit two hours and you’re locked out, unless a parent says otherwise. On top of that, the apps go dark between midnight and 6am, notifications are muted during school hours, and there are nudges every 15 minutes reminding kids they’ve been scrolling a while. Meta has said the rules could get even stricter if TikTok and YouTube sign up to matching limits. Meta hasn’t admitted any wrongdoing, but when the world’s biggest social media company agrees to ration its own product, that tells you something about what endless scrolling is doing to teenage sleep, mood and attention. And it’s not just teenagers. Here are 4 ways the phone glued to our hands affects all of us. Sleep. Screen light and a buzzing brain before bed delay melatonin and cut into deep sleep, the stage where your body does its real repair work: tissue recovery, memory consolidation, hormone regulation. It’s the difference between waking up and waking up rested. Stress load. Every notification is a small jolt to your stress system. One is nothing. Seventy a day is a nervous system that never gets to switch off. Chronic low-grade stress is linked to higher blood pressure, weight that’s harder to shift around the middle, and an immune system running on the smell of an oily rag. Attention and mood. Doomscrolling doesn’t just waste time; it trains your brain to expect a hit of dopamine every few seconds. Comparison, outrage and bad news, all carried in your hand. It’s the same mechanism that keeps teenagers hooked, and turning 45 doesn’t make you immune. A fully grown-up brain has better self-control, but it isn’t a force field. Movement. This one’s simple. Time on the couch scrolling is time not spent doing anything that uses a muscle. It sounds obvious, but it’s the single biggest lever most of us have. A 2023 study of Australian adults found excessive smartphone use was linked to higher depression, anxiety and stress, and worse sleep quality. The same pattern researchers were seeing in teenagers, just measured in grown-ups with mortgages and school pickups. In 2025, researchers at the University of Alberta, Georgetown and UBC ran a randomised trial with 467 adults. They blocked all mobile internet on their phones for two weeks (calls and texts still worked), and researchers measured their attention, mental health and wellbeing before and after, comparing them with a group who carried on as usual. The results, published in PNAS Nexus, are some of the strongest causal evidence we have. Two weeks off mobile internet improved depression and anxiety symptoms by more than the average effect of antidepressants, and by about the same as a course of cognitive behavioural therapy. Sustained attention improved by roughly what you’d expect from being ten years younger. Average daily screen time dropped from over five hours to under three. And when the researchers dug into why, the biggest driver wasn’t willpower; it was what people did with the time they got back: more in-person socialising, more exercise, more time outdoors, better sleep and a stronger sense of self-control. A broader 2025 review in Frontiers in Psychiatry pulled together the physical impact too: neck and thumb strain, headaches, and a circadian rhythm thrown off by screen light suppressing melatonin, all compounding the mental health picture. I’m following the teenagers, aka taking back control! If, like me, you’ve picked up phone habits you’d like to lose, try these 5 things! I gave myself a curfew. Phone out of arm’s reach an hour before I want to sleep. I read, stretch and listen to a sleep meditation instead. I killed dozens of notifications. I kept messages and calls, but I decide when I check the rest, not the algorithm. ️ I ask the question. Every time I catch myself scrolling (browsing, shopping!), I ask what I actually came here for. I move first, scroll second. I stand up every hour and move before I pick up the phone. It completely changes what the next hour looks like. I build in the pause. I love yoga, the breathing and the still, quiet end of the practice. I love the shower because I have my best ideas there. It’s not the shower, it’s the space! I couldn’t imagine living without my phone My goal isn’t zero. It’s noticing that what constant, attention-grabbing connection does to my body is the same at any age. In a funny way, Meta has done us all a huge favour. Here’s to taking back control and living healthier, longer, happier, better lives, whether we’re 15 or 55! See you at Be Well again soon. Longevity snip Screen Time and a Child’s Brain on Pause In a small pilot study, kids with more daily screen time showed weaker brain signals when asked to pause and think before reacting, even though their outward behaviour looked completely normal. It’s early evidence, but it hints that screens may be shaping self-control in ways we can’t see from the outside. Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon DLit · Social and business entrepreneur Jan Owen AM is co-founder of Be Well Hawthorn and a social and business entrepreneur with over four decades of experience driving change across education, youth welfare and health. She is the author of Every Childhood Lasts a Lifetime and The Future Chasers, the inaugural Westpac and AFR

Live Well Journal Issue 182: What older brains do better than 25-year-olds Your Brain Doesn’t Decline. It Reorganises. A new study found healthy older adults can outthink 25-year-olds, in some surprisingly important ways. Here’s what actually holds steady as we age, and how to train it.  Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDSeptember 20, 2026 Read time Finally, a win for over 50’s! A new study found that healthy older adults can match, and sometimes beat, 25 year olds at thinking. Not in every way, but in some pretty important ones. Researchers published the findings in Communications Medicine, comparing 75 young adults with 231 older adults on something called cognitive control. Think of it as your mental toolkit, the stuff you use to focus, ignore distractions, and switch between tasks without losing the plot. The results were split, and that’s what makes them interesting. Where younger brains win Older adults did show a dip in two skills: keeping fresh information loaded and current, and jumping cleanly from one task to another. If you’ve ever lost your train of thought moving from a shopping list to answering the phone, you know the feeling. Where older brains win Here’s the twist. On mental filtering, the ability to tune out noise and resist acting on impulse, the older group matched the younger one, and sometimes beat them. Their ability to plan ahead and stay one step in front of a problem held rock steady. In some cases, it got sharper. Picture two people trying to read in a noisy cafe. The 25 year old has the raw processing speed, but keeps glancing up every time the espresso machine hisses. The 62 year old has read in noisy cafes for decades. They’ve built a filter. That filter doesn’t wear out. It gets trained. Why this matters We’ve all absorbed the idea that ageing is one long slide downhill for the brain. This study puts a solid crack in that. Some functions soften, others hold firm, and a few genuinely sharpen, likely built from decades of practice and plain old lived experience. Call it wisdom if you like. The data backs it up. The researchers point to something we talk about constantly at Be Well: staying mentally and socially engaged protects the skills that matter most as you age. Mental filtering and planning ahead are like muscles you keep by using. What the training looks like Exercise sits at the top of the list, and not just for your heart. Anything that gets your blood pumping increases blood flow to the brain and supports new connections between neurons. Sleep is the quiet one people skip. Your brain does its housekeeping overnight, clearing out waste and filing away the day’s learning. Skimp on it and you’re running your brain on empty. Social connection matters as much as any brain training. Conversation makes you track what someone else is thinking, hold your response, and adjust on the fly. That’s a real workout, disguised as a chat over coffee. Novelty counts too. A language, an instrument, a route you’ve never walked all force your brain to build fresh pathways instead of coasting on old ones. Comfort is nice. It just doesn’t build much. So next time someone jokes about the old memory not being what it used to be, don’t take it lying down! Your memory for names might be a bit slower, mine definitely is, but your ability to stay calm, stay focused, and see three moves ahead? That’s holding steady, or getting better. Getting older isn’t a straight line downhill. It’s a trade. And on many of the trades that count most, you’re winning. Here’s to living healthier, younger, longer and better. See you at Be Well again soon. Longevity snip Saffron vs a dementia drug In a small 22-week trial, saffron capsules performed about as well as donepezil, a standard medication for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s. Researchers think saffron may calm inflammation in the brain. It needs repeating in bigger studies, so talk to your GP before trying saffron supplements, especially if you take other medication. Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon DLit · Social and business entrepreneur Jan Owen AM is co-founder of Be Well Hawthorn and a social and business entrepreneur with over four decades of experience driving change across education, youth welfare and health. She is the author of Every Childhood Lasts a Lifetime and The Future Chasers, the inaugural Westpac and AFR Overall Woman of Influence, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sydney and Murdoch University. Jan was awarded membership to the Order of Australia in 2000 for her service to children and youth. Live Well Journal Get these insights directly into your inbox every week. Join the Be Well Health & Longevity newsletter. Written by Jan Owen AM, free for everyone, published every week. More from the Live Well Journal View all articles → What 12 Weeks Actually Does to Your Body  What 12 Weeks Actually Does to Your Body  Jan Owen AM • September 13, 2026 Issue No.180: Pair these foods and absorb more nutrients Issue No.180: Pair these foods and absorb more nutrients Jan Owen AM • September 6, 2026 Issue No.179: What I actually want for David this Father’s Day Issue No.179: What I actually want for David this Father’s Day Jan Owen AM • August 30, 2026

Live Well Journal What 12 Weeks Actually Does to Your Body  12 Game Changing Weeks at Be Well Twelve weeks is all the research says you need to shift bone density, muscle strength, cardiovascular fitness, mood and cognition. Here’s exactly how, backed by the studies, and exactly what it looks like each week. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDSeptember 13, 2026 Read time Twelve weeks. That’s all we consistently need to show meaningful, measurable change in the human body. Not years. Not decades. Twelve weeks of showing up, consistently, intentionally, is enough to shift bone density, cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, inflammation, cognitive function and mood in ways that matter for the rest of your life. At Be Well, you have access to everything the research points to. This blog is about being specific, not vague inspiration, but actual numbers from actual studies on what 12 weeks of using this place properly can do for you. Your Bones This is the one that matters most and gets talked about least. After menopause, bone density can decline by up to 2% per year. That’s not inevitable, but it requires deliberate intervention. Our bone density weight program and HUR pneumatic resistance equipment are specifically designed for this. HUR’s pneumatic technology, developed at Helsinki University, uses air resistance rather than plates, meaning resistance starts from near-zero and moves smoothly through the full range of motion. No jerk, no joint strain, no barrier to starting. A 2025 systematic review confirmed that resistance training combined with impact activity is the single most effective exercise intervention for bone mineral density in postmenopausal women, outperforming every other modality studied. In 12 weeks, you can stop bone loss and begin to reverse it. That’s the difference between a fracture in your 70s and one you never have. Your Muscles Sarcopenia, the medical term for muscle loss, increases fall risk, slows metabolism, reduces bone density, and quietly diminishes the quality of everyday movement before most women realise it’s happening. A 12-week strength program in women of this demographic showed sarcopenia prevalence drop from 38.6% to 22.8%, nearly halved in three months. Our HUR equipment and Pilates reformer work together here: HUR builds functional strength safely through its smooth pneumatic resistance, while reformer Pilates rebuilds the deep stability muscles that decline quietly and cause the most problems. Women aged 60 to 70 completing a 12-week resistance program showed a 19% improvement in cognitive capacity alongside their strength gains, because muscle doesn’t just move you, it signals your brain. You won’t just feel stronger in 12 weeks. You’ll move, think and carry yourself differently. Your Cardio Fitness VO2 max, your body’s ability to use oxygen efficiently, is one of the single strongest predictors of longevity. More than cholesterol, more than blood pressure, more than almost any other measurable metric. The good news: it responds quickly. Research shows previously sedentary women over 50 can improve VO2 max by 10 to 20% within 12 weeks of structured cardio. Our cardio classes are built for exactly this, accessible enough to start from where you are, progressive enough to actually move the needle. A 12-week improvement in VO2 max doesn’t just mean you feel fitter. It means your heart is working more efficiently, your brain is getting more oxygen, and your risk of cardiovascular events is measurably lower. It is, without exaggeration, one of the most important things you can do for how long, and how well, you live. Your Recovery Here’s what most women don’t realise: training is the stimulus, but recovery is where the adaptation occurs. Without deliberate recovery, you get the fatigue without the gains. Be Well’s recovery tools are as important as the training itself. Massage. A single 45-minute massage reduces cortisol by up to 31%. A 2024 randomised controlled trial found connective tissue massage improved physical and emotional health in postmenopausal women so consistently that researchers recommended it as a first-line intervention, before medication, for mild to moderate symptoms. In 12 weeks of regular massage, your nervous system recalibrates, your fascial tissue softens, your immune function improves, and your sleep deepens. It is not a reward for working hard. It is how the work sticks. Compression boots. Sequential pneumatic compression mobilises lymphatic fluid, clears inflammatory byproducts, and reduces soreness, confirmed by a 2024 meta-analysis of 17 RCTs. Two weeks of regular use produces significant improvements in joint flexibility and reduced stiffness. Used consistently after HUR sessions or cardio, they are the reason your body is ready to go again tomorrow. They also quietly calm your nervous system, the rhythmic pressure activates proprioceptive pathways that shift your body into parasympathetic recovery mode while you sit and do nothing. Infrared sauna, 3 times per week, produces a 24% decrease in cortisol over 12 weeks. Hot and cold plunge sends dopamine up 250% and norepinephrine up 530% per session. Hydroxy AirPod floods recovering tissue with oxygen and neutralises the free radicals that accumulate with training. Together, this recovery stack means you train harder, absorb more, feel better, and come back stronger. Your Mind This is the part that surprises people most, but it shouldn’t. In 12 weeks of regular yoga, telomerase activity, the enzyme that repairs the protective caps on your DNA, increases by 43%. In 12 weeks of infrared sauna, 86% of participants in a UCSF clinical trial no longer met criteria for major depression. In 12 weeks of structured cardio, BDNF, the brain’s growth hormone, rises measurably. Regular massage increases oxytocin by 17% per session and decreases ACTH (the hormone that drives cortisol production) by 20%. HUR strength training has been shown to improve memory, attention and cognitive flexibility in women over 60. The research on movement, recovery and brain health is now so compelling that neurologists describe this kind of integrated lifestyle as “the single most powerful tool we have for cognitive protection.” Not medication. Not supplements. What you do at Be Well. What 12 Weeks Could Look Like You don’t need to do everything at once. But here’s a week that covers all the bases, designed around the research. Monday: HUR strength / bone density + compression Tuesday: Cardio + infrared sauna Wednesday: Reformer Pilates + hot/cold

Live Well Journal Issue No.180: Pair these foods and absorb more nutrients The Secret Life of Your Plate Spring’s real upgrade isn’t a new food, it’s the right combination. The pairings that help your body absorb more of what you eat, and the two that matter most for muscle and longevity. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDSeptember 6, 2026 Read time Spring is here, and I am so incredibly excited! It’s my favourite season, it’s also my colour wheel, I am Monet all the way . It has a way of making me want to do everything differently: exercise more, socialise expansively, eat lighter and fresher. It’s also the perfect time to rethink not just what food is in season, but how we’re combining it. There’s a bunch of apps out there where instead of counting calories, you count portions of vegetables, fruit and so on. I used to think nutrition was a shopping list you tick off like that. Turns out it’s more like a dinner party. Some nutrients are terrible guests when seated next to the wrong person, and brilliant when paired with the right one. Stanford’s Maryam Makowski calls this nutrient synergy: certain foods, eaten together, help your body absorb more than either would alone. Think of it less like a checklist and more like matchmaking, the same instinct a good sommelier uses pairing wine with your meal. Nobody thinks a crisp white and a plate of oysters taste better in isolation, it’s the right combination that makes it special. Nutrients work the same way, just inside your gut instead of on your tongue. The Well-Researched Pairings Banana + yoghurt. A classic for a reason. Bananas contain inulin, a fibre that feeds the good bacteria in your gut, and those bacteria help you absorb the calcium sitting in your yoghurt. It’s not the banana handing calcium directly to your bones, it’s more like the banana throwing a party the calcium absorption crew happens to show up to. Add berries and you’ve got a genuinely excellent breakfast, not just a tasty one. Salmon + spring greens. Vitamin D is the door opener here. Your body can’t absorb calcium properly without it, so pairing a vitamin D source like salmon with a calcium source like the season’s kale, silverbeet or asparagus means the calcium actually gets let in, instead of loitering outside. Turmeric + black pepper. The pairing that surprises people most. On its own, turmeric’s active compound, curcumin, is poorly absorbed. Add black pepper and its compound piperine, and absorption jumps dramatically, by some estimates around 2000%. So that golden latte you’ve been sipping without any pepper in it has been mostly decorative. Peas and broad beans + lemon. Spring’s other great plant-based iron sources, but iron from plants is stubborn stuff, the kind your body has to be talked into absorbing. Vitamin C does the talking. A squeeze of lemon over a bowl of fresh peas or broad beans, or tomato through your lentils, makes a real difference to how much iron you actually take up. Kale + olive oil. Fresh research backs this one up directly. A University of Missouri study found kale’s carotenoids, the antioxidants behind its reputation, are far better absorbed when the leaves are dressed with a little olive oil and water, raw or cooked, it doesn’t matter which. The fat is what unlocks them. Eat kale bone dry and you’re mostly just chewing, a drizzle of olive oil or a handful of avocado or nuts alongside it is what actually gets the goods into your system. Now for the two pairings I’d call genuinely on mission for Be Wellers. These aren’t just about absorbing a vitamin, they’re about the thing that actually determines how well you move through your 60s, 70s and beyond: muscle. Protein + berries. After 40, we start losing muscle mass every year unless we actively work against it. This is sarcopenia, and it’s the single biggest driver of frailty in later life. Recent research shows polyphenols, the compounds that give berries their colour, help switch back on the pathway your muscles use to rebuild themselves, and protect the stem cells your muscles rely on for repair. Pair a protein source, Greek yoghurt, eggs, chicken, with a handful of berries, and you’re actively defending muscle. Add a resistance session that week and the effect compounds. Salmon + walnuts. A step further from salmon and greens: trials combining protein with omega-3 fatty acids have shown measurable improvements in muscle strength and gait speed in older adults, more than protein supplementation alone. You don’t need fish oil capsules for this. Salmon brings the omega-3s, walnuts bring more of the same plus a plant source, and together they do double duty for your joints and your muscle fibres. One watch: calcium-rich foods like milk and yoghurt don’t pair well with high-oxalate foods like spinach or rhubarb in the same bite, since oxalates bind to minerals and block absorption. Doesn’t mean avoid them altogether, just don’t expect your spinach smoothie with milk to be a calcium bonanza. None of this requires a supplement cupboard or a nutritionist on speed dial. It’s mostly about noticing what’s already good together. Spring is nature’s way of putting the good pairings right in front of you. Five Easy Swaps To Try This Week  • Add banana slices to your morning yoghurt instead of eating them separately• A pinch of black pepper in anything with turmeric: curries, golden lattes, roasted cauliflower• Dress your kale salad in olive oil rather than eating it plain• Squeeze lemon over fresh peas, broad beans or asparagus instead of saving citrus for dessert• Scatter berries over your protein at breakfast, or walnuts over your salmon at dinner Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine The research is long in: a small 1% better every day is all you need to compound incredible results in whatever area of your life you focus on. We think holistically at Be Well, our mantra is that your lifestyle is your medicine. Nothing works in isolation, and

Live Well Journal Issue No.179: What I actually want for David this Father’s Day This Father’s Day, Skip the Novelty Socks Send him this instead. A 28-country study found men over 50 face a 60% higher death risk than women, here’s the handshake test that predicts lifespan, the number nobody checks, and the quieter risk hiding behind it all. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDAugust 30, 2026 Read time With Father’s Day landing on 6 September, I want to give you something better than another gift card or a novelty pair of socks. I want to give you a reason to sit your father, partner, husband, son/son-in-law, brother, male BFF in your life down and say: read this. Here’s an inconvenient truth. A study spanning 28 countries and 179,000 people found men over 50 have a 60% higher risk of dying than women the same age. Not a typo. Sixty per cent. Some of that gap comes down to smoking and heart disease rates. But a lot of it comes down to something simpler: men tend to treat their bodies like a car they’ll deal with when the warning light comes on, not before. I think of a body like a house. Women, generally, do the routine maintenance, notice the damp patch early, make sure the regular checks are done, etc, all the preventative stuff. Men are often the ones who wait until the roof is actually leaking onto the couch before calling anyone. The trouble is, by the time a health leak shows up, the damage has usually been building for years. The Handshake That Predicts The Future Here’s a fact I love because it’s so simple and so hard to argue with: your grip strength predicts how long you’ll live. Not metaphorically. Literally. Researchers have found that for every 5kg drop in grip strength, the risk of dying from any cause rises by around 16%, and cardiovascular death risk climbs by about 21%. A meta-analysis pooling 42 separate studies found people with weak grip strength had a 67% higher risk of early death compared with those who stayed strong. Why does squeezing a device with your hand say so much about your whole body? Because grip strength is a proxy for overall muscle mass, which is a proxy for how well your heart, nervous system, and metabolism are all talking to each other. Losing muscle after 50 isn’t just about looking less toned. It’s an early warning system, and most men have no idea it’s flashing. The fix isn’t complicated. Two sessions a week of proper resistance training, done consistently, is one of the single best things a man over 50 can do for his lifespan. Not cardio instead of it. As well as that. The Number Nobody Checks Properly There’s a third one worth naming, because it quietly touches all the others: testosterone. Fatigue, stubborn belly fat, low drive, hair thinning, a general sense of running on 70% power. Men wave it off as “just getting older”. Sometimes it is. Often it’s a hormone picture that’s shifted and never been properly looked at. The maintenance list here is refreshingly ordinary. Sleep is the biggest lever, since most of the body’s testosterone production happens during deep, REM-heavy sleep, so a hot bedroom or a phone at midnight is doing more damage than people realise. Resistance training matters more than any supplement on the shelf. Zinc and selenium, from things like pumpkin seeds, oysters, and a couple of Brazil nuts a day, support the system if he’s actually short on them. And everyday plastics carry chemicals that have been linked to lower testosterone in large population studies, so filtered water and glass or steel containers aren’t just an eco choice; they’re a hormone one. The part almost everyone skips is the testing itself. A standard GP blood panel usually reports total testosterone and calls it a day. That number alone doesn’t tell you much. What actually matters is free testosterone, SHBG, and estradiol, the markers that show what his body can actually use, not just what’s floating around unavailable. Guessing your way through symptoms gets you nowhere. Getting the right three numbers on paper gets you an actual plan. The Quieter Threat The second thing hard research keeps circling back to is loneliness, and men are especially vulnerable to it in a way that’s easy to miss because it doesn’t look like a crisis from the outside. Male friendships are often built around a shared activity, work, sport, the pub, rather than a habit of checking in. So when a man retires, or the kids leave home, or his mates drift, his social world can quietly shrink to almost nothing while everything looks fine on the surface. The research on this isn’t soft. Social isolation raises cardiovascular disease risk more sharply in men than in women, and it’s an independent risk factor for early death, on par with some of the physical ones we take more seriously. It doesn’t announce itself with a scan or a blood test. It just erodes things slowly. Why This Matters To Your Family, Not Just Him None of this is really about him living longer for his own sake. It’s about him being at your kids’ weddings, meeting grandchildren, still being the person who calls you first with good news, twenty years from now instead of ten. Strength and connection aren’t vanity projects. They’re what keep a family, all kinds of families and communities, whole for longer. Even the gift guides have caught on to this. Fitness trackers and body composition scales are one of this year’s fastest-growing Father’s Day categories, bought for the dad who’s “deep in his wellness era and wants real data, not guesses”. That instinct is right, but he doesn’t need another gadget gathering dust in a drawer. He needs to actually know his numbers, and then do something about them. So this Father’s Day, skip the tie. Tell him his grip strength is basically a crystal ball, that muscle is medicine, and that training