Jan Owen AM

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

Live Well Journal Issue No.178: The health lesson six decades taught me The Seasons of Health From a bulletproof, free-range childhood to sixty and still moving, Jan reflects on every season of her health journey, and why the goal was never intensity. It was joy. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDAugust 23, 2026 Read time I was reflecting on my health journey the other day. I remember vividly being young and physically bulletproof. My three brothers, I, and the neighbourhood kids climbed, jumped, swam, fought constantly in that wrestling, roll-around-but-don’t-hit-anyone way, played every sport going, crossed creeks and rivers that were flooding, rode bikes without brakes, rode horses without saddles, picked up toads and snakes, killed toads and snakes. In all that time, only one of us had an accident and broken a body part. It was when one of my brothers was using the other’s legs as cricket stumps. We weren’t free-range kids of hippy parents; we were just everyday suburban Brissy kids whose parents firmly believed children should play outside from dawn til dusk at every opportunity. In my early twenties, I used to go camping with friends. We hiked and swam all day, stayed up all night playing guitars, smoking, drinking and partying, downed the hangover Macca’s in the morning, and still got to uni or work the next day. By the time I hit my thirties, I had three young children. Our third child had died, along with my mother and young brother-in-law, all within a few years of each other. The emotional trauma was overwhelming at times, but the physical demands of life continued. I must have done tens of thousands of steps a day. Do the steps really count when you’re doing them in the middle of the night, crying with a crying baby? Or does the sheer exhaustion of hardly being able to stand on your feet and keep your eyes open cancel out the benefits? In between, I sprinted (literally, at times) between work, kids, family crises, soccer, swimming lessons, etc., and collapsed into wine o’clock on Friday night. It was hard to prioritise exercise and wellbeing when pure survival was everything. In my thirties, I discovered pump classes at lunchtime near my office. Remember pump? A precursor to Zumba, maybe. Quick, high-intensity and fun, exactly what I needed in the middle of the day to keep my energy up. During my forties, I lived in Sydney half the time and got into running, inspired by my husband running marathons and triathlons. There’s something freeing about running through streets, forests and parks. Hard on the body, though, so yoga became my antidote. Before fifty, I’d moved back to Melbourne, taken up bike riding as the transport option du jour in the most liveable city in the world, joined a doof-doof gym for about five minutes, and discovered the intense relaxation and detox benefits of saunas and hyperbaric chambers, with yoga and meditation rounding out the body-mind-soul connection. Just in time as menopause moved in. By the time I got to sixty, I had a few small injuries from running and biking, so physio-led Pilates entered the picture alongside all the other things I still love. The last few years have included weights and family pickleball on a Sunday afternoon. I don’t pump or run the streets anymore. Although the point is, I could. One long-term study tracking thousands of people for over a decade found that this everyday movement lowered the risk of heart disease by more than a quarter and cut the risk of dying early by around 30 per cent. Bring in the joy Looking back across these health seasons of my life, I sought the things which gave me the most energy, vitality, sense of wellbeing and, importantly, made me happy! Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson calls it ‘broaden and build’. Positive emotions don’t just reflect good health. They construct it, building physical, social and psychological resources that compound over time. When you feel joy, interest, or contentment, your brain lowers its defences. You see more possibilities, think more creatively, and process peripheral information better. Positivity isn’t just a reward or a pleasant side effect of success; it is an active engine for personal growth, health, and survival. Everything has its season Just as when I was a kid, I still like to move. Without effort. Without groaning. Without complaining. I like to feel and be strong. It brings me happiness and joy. In this season, I definitely understand you can’t just leave that to chance. The older you get, the more attention you have to pay. This is exactly why we built Be Well the way we did. Not a gym built around one type of class or one kind of body, but a place built for the seasons: somewhere you can lift, sweat, sauna, stretch and recover, and shift between all of them as your body and your day, year or decade demand. We didn’t want a room full of people chasing a single regime. We wanted a place people could keep coming back to year after year because it kept up with them, whatever season they were in. I have no idea what lies ahead. David and my health journeys have been completely different, but I do know that whether healthy and well or sick and recovering, Be Well is built into the foundations of our health and wellbeing and that of our hundreds of Members of all ages and stages of life. Here’s to loving and embracing your season with joy! See you again at Be Well soon. Longevity snip Movement Matters More Than Hitting a Target This piece makes the case that we’re framing exercise wrong. Nearly a third of adults don’t move enough, older adults face the biggest barriers, and yet even small increases in activity help. The authors argue society, not just willpower, needs to make moving easier. Source: here About the author Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn · Hon DLit ·

Live Well Journal Issue No.177: The MRI alternative built by an art app AI Fantasy Art Is Now Mapping Your Organs Midjourney is best known for dreamy AI art. Now they’re building a full-body medical scanner, and it says something about where AI is headed next. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDAugust 16, 2026 Read time You know Midjourney, right? The app where you type “wizard riding a dragon over Melbourne” and it spits out a stunning image in seconds? That Midjourney. The one famous for fantasy art and dreamy profile pictures. This week, they announced they’re building a full-body medical scanner. I had to read that twice too. Here’s the pitch: you step onto a platform that lowers you into a shallow pool of light, ringed with half a million tiny sensors, sending sound waves through your body from every angle. The result is a 3D map of your body down to a fraction of a millimetre, built at nearly a hundred times the speed of a regular MRI. No radiation, no claustrophobic tube, just a pool of golden light and what they’re calling the ‘Midjourney Spa’. Think of it like the difference between a photographer setting up a tripod and waiting for the perfect shot, versus a hundred people with phones snapping you from every angle at once and stitching it all together. Same result, completely different method, much faster. Reality check The actual working prototype right now takes about 20 minutes, not 60 seconds, and has only been tried on a couple of dozen people. It has no approval to diagnose anything yet. It’s launching as a wellness tool that maps muscle, fat and bone, not as a replacement for your doctor’s MRI referral. The first spa. It opens as an actual spa in San Francisco, with hot tubs and cold plunges, where the scan happens almost as a byproduct of you relaxing. So why should you care, sitting in Melbourne, not San Francisco? Because this is what happens when AI money and AI confidence start showing up in industries that have barely changed in 50 years. Whatever you think of an art generator building medical hardware, it’s a signal: the next wave of AI isn’t just chatbots writing your emails, it’s AI companies deciding the human body is their next canvas. I’ll believe the 60-second scan when I see it working on more than a dozen people. But I’ll be watching this one closely, and so should you. Here’s the thing though, you don’t need to wait for Midjourney’s spa to open. We’ve had body composition scanning on hand at Be Well for a while now, through our Styku scanner, and it’s built into something bigger: our Well On Track program, designed and led by our physiotherapists. The difference is what happens after the scan. A picture of your muscle and fat is interesting. What a physio does with that picture, building it into a plan that actually changes your strength and longevity, is the part that matters. So if a tech company wants to spend years and millions chasing the perfect scan, good luck to them. We’ll keep doing the unglamorous work of turning the data into a better decade ahead for you. See you again at Be Well soon. Longevity snip Why Grip Strength May Predict How Long You Live In a study of 5,472 women ages 63 to 99, those with the strongest grip and quickest chair-stand times had up to 33-37% lower mortality risk, even after accounting for activity levels, sitting time, walking speed, and inflammation. Strength itself seems to matter, independent of everything else. 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 No.176: Thigh size predicts how long and well you live Issue No.176: Thigh size predicts how long and well you live Jan Owen AM • August 11, 2026 Issue No.175: Sleep is the cheapest longevity drug on earth  Issue No.175: Sleep is the cheapest longevity drug on earth  Jan Owen AM • August 2, 2026 Issue No.174: Massage is not a treat, it’s a treatement Issue No.174: Massage is not a treat, it’s a treatement Jan Owen AM • July 27, 2026

Live Well Journal Issue No.176: Thigh size predicts how long and well you live New research links leg muscle strength to lower heart disease risk and better long-term memory. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDAugust 11, 2026 Read time If, like me, you’ve stood looking at the lift, escalator or stairs at the station, at work or at the airport, or if you have thought about that extra rep and hesitated… then this blog is for you! We spend a lot of time worrying about the numbers on the scale, the circumference of our waistline, or whether our jeans still fit. But what if the real number that matters for how long and how well you live is in your thighs? Healthcare and longevity researcher Neal K. Shah has been diving into the science of lower-body muscle mass, and the findings are genuinely surprising. Not in a “drink this green powder” way. More in a “this changes how I think about my legs entirely” way. Here’s the headline: people with stronger, larger leg muscles show significantly lower rates of heart disease and premature death. Your thighs are the largest muscle group in your body, and research published in the British Medical Journal and out of King’s College London suggests that the size and strength of your leg muscles are among the most powerful predictors of how long you’ll live and how healthy those years will be. High lower body muscle mass optimises blood sugar clearance, decreases insulin resistance, and reduces chronic vascular inflammation over time. Not marginally lower. Significantly. But wait, it gets more interesting. Researchers tracked pairs of identical twins over decades (twins are a gift to scientists because they share genetics, so any differences are largely lifestyle-driven). The twin with greater leg strength consistently maintained better memory and faster thinking well into later life. The legs you build in your fifties and sixties may be quietly protecting your brain for the decades that follow. The threshold effect Below a certain level of thigh muscle mass, the risk of early death climbs sharply, think of it like a cliff edge, you really don’t want to fall below it. But, and this is the reassuring bit, above that threshold, bigger isn’t necessarily better. You don’t need to be a competitive cyclist or a squatting champion. The goal isn’t maximum muscle. The goal is not to lose what you have. The warning signs. Muscle loss in the lower body is often one of the earliest signs of accelerating physical decline. It tends to happen quietly, gradually, and without much fanfare, until one day the stairs feel harder, getting up from the floor requires a plan, and balance becomes something you actively think about. The good news? The exercises that protect against this are beautifully unsexy. Walking uphill. Climbing stairs instead of taking the lift. Squats. Resistance training. Shah doesn’t frame these as vanity exercises or punishment for eating dessert. He frames them as evidence-based longevity tools, as fundamental to a long, sharp, independent life as eating well or sleeping enough. So choose the stairs if you possibly can! Or just do those few extra reps of resistance training at Be Well. Know that you’re not just burning calories, you’re investing in your brain, your heart and your future self. Turns out, thick thighs save lives! See you again at Be Well soon. Longevity snip Skinny Thighs, Bigger Risk A Danish study of nearly 3,000 adults found people with thigh circumference under about 60cm faced a notably higher risk of heart disease and early death, even after accounting for weight and waist size. Past that threshold, bigger thighs offered no extra protection. Researchers think it comes down to muscle, not fat.  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 No.175: Sleep is the cheapest longevity drug on earth  Issue No.175: Sleep is the cheapest longevity drug on earth  Jan Owen AM • August 2, 2026 Issue No.174: Massage is not a treat, it’s a treatement Issue No.174: Massage is not a treat, it’s a treatement Jan Owen AM • July 27, 2026 Issue No.173: Your immune cells run on oxygen, not vitamin C Issue No.173: Your immune cells run on oxygen, not vitamin C Jan Owen AM • July 19, 2026

Live Well Journal Issue No.175: Sleep is the cheapest longevity drug on earth  Sleep is at the front of my mind, having just returned from a 27-hour flight and an intensive morning to (late) night conferencing week in Toronto, Canada, last week. Tbh, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: ‘there’s plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead!’ Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDAugust 2, 2026 Read time Sleep is at the front of my mind, having just returned from a 27-hour flight and an intensive morning to (late) night conferencing week in Toronto, Canada, last week. Tbh, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: ‘there’s plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead!’ How wrong could I have been! (my apologies to everyone over the past 30 years;-( Turns out that skipping sleep is like skimping on the foundations of a house because the paint colour felt more urgent. Everything you build on top eventually cracks. Here’s the number that changed my mind.  A study out of Oregon Health & Science University, published this year, tracked sleep habits across more than 3,000 US counties. Poor sleep turned out to be the second strongest predictor of early death they found, beaten only by smoking. Not diet. Not exercise. Not even loneliness. Sleep. And a huge Nature study published in May, tracking half a million people, found the sweet spot: 6.4 to 7.8 hours a night. Sleep less than that, or more, and your brain, heart, lungs and immune system all age faster. Not just feel worse. Age faster. Sleep isn’t a wellness extra; it’s a dial your organs are watching. Your gut & sleep Dr Stasha Gominak, a neurologist (Baylor / Mass General trained) spent 20+ years treating patients before pivoting to sleep.  Dr Gominak believes Vitamin D deficiency, made worse by decades of indoor living and ageing, is an underlying driver of poor sleep, and most people supplementing Vit D are doing it wrong or incompletely. This is her experience as a clinician, not fully researched science as yet. Dr Gominak believes our skin making vitamin D from sunlight works differently than a pill or fatty fish. Oral Vit D alone doesn’t replicate what sun exposure does. Her patients who took vitamin D often didn’t improve, some got worse, had digestive issues and no weight loss despite exercising more. Her theory is that taking vitamin D on its own can burn through your body’s B vitamins. Gut bacteria play a role in producing those Vit B vitamins in the first place, so dosing Vit D without supporting the gut can create a new deficiency instead of fixing the old one. Dr Gominak reframes insomnia as a chemical deficiency problem, not a behaviour problem. Why sleep is doing renovation work, not just downtime My friend Dr Catherine Ball’s new book, The Future of Sleep, makes a point I love: sleep isn’t spare time, it’s infrastructure. While you’re out cold, your brain runs a nightly cleaning crew, the glymphatic system, flushing out metabolic waste, including the proteins linked to Alzheimer’s.  Your body uses deep sleep to repair tissue, regulate inflammation, and reset the hormones that control appetite and blood pressure. Skip it, and the mess builds up quietly for years. Here’s what MIT researchers found: when you’re sleep deprived, and your attention suddenly drifts mid-task, that lapse isn’t random. It lines up with a wave of fluid washing through your brain, the same cleanup crew clocking on early because you didn’t give it its proper night shift. Your brain is so desperate for its maintenance window that it starts sneaking in repairs while you’re meant to be working. Skip the renovation at night, and it happens anyway, at the worst possible time, like during your Tuesday morning meeting. I have absolutely been there! Early death, burnout, low productivity… How much more convincing do you need? Another friend, Dr Amantha Imber, is coming to Be Well for our September ’In Conversation’.  In her book, The Health Habit, she writes candidly about her own chronic insomnia and how she used behavioural science, not willpower, to fix it. In her brand new book, The Energy Game, she goes further: after hitting full burnout despite two decades of coaching Google and Disney on wellbeing, she built REST into her system not as a retreat you escape to once a year, but as something you rebuild in five minutes at a time, inside a normal week. Her big insight across both books: knowing what to do isn’t the problem. Most of us know we should sleep more. The problem is building a routine that survives contact with real life. Four sleep moves that actually work 1. Protect the last hour before bed like a closing shift.  Dim the lights, put the phone in another room, and do the same lowkey thing every night. Your brain reads repetition as a signal to power down. 2. Get outside in the first twenty minutes of your morning.  Morning light sets your body clock more powerfully than anything you do at night. It’s the cheapest sleep aid that exists. 3. Keep your room properly cold. Somewhere around 18 degrees. Your core temperature needs to drop to fall into deep sleep, and a warm room fights you on it all night. 4. Give yourself a ‘hall pass’.  Imber’s term for the night’s sleep goes sideways anyway. One rough night isn’t a failed habit; it’s just a rough night. Don’t let it snowball into giving up on the whole routine. None of this requires a gadget, a supplement, or a personality transplant. It requires treating sleep as a worthy investment, a little thought and consistency, not an afterthought at the end of a long day. Tonight, pick one of the four. Just one. Longevity isn’t built in a single big leap; it’s built in the everyday, repeatable choices nobody applauds you for. This is one of them. I’m looking for the Airpod a few nights of deep sleep to

Live Well Journal Issue No.174: Massage is not a treat, it’s a treatement My mother-in-law was big on weekly massages. I thought it was for beauty reasons, but I think I was wrong. It was part of her midlife management program. For too long, I have thought of massage as a reward, something you book when you’ve had a particularly hard week, or as a birthday present or on holiday. A luxury. A splurge. Something nice but not necessary. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDJuly 27, 2026 Read time My mother-in-law was big on weekly massages. I thought it was for beauty reasons, but I think I was wrong. It was part of her midlife management program. For too long, I have thought of massage as a reward, something you book when you’ve had a particularly hard week, or as a birthday present or on holiday. A luxury. A splurge. Something nice but not necessary. The research says otherwise. And if you’re navigating the hormonal, musculoskeletal and neurological shifts of midlife, it says it loudly. Regular therapeutic massage is one of the most evidence-backed, holistic body interventions available to you. Here’s what it’s actually doing. What happens during a massage Within minutes of therapeutic touch beginning, your body initiates a cascade of measurable physiological responses. Cortisol, your primary stress hormone, begins to fall. Serotonin and dopamine rise. Heart rate and blood pressure drop. The parasympathetic nervous system takes over from the chronic low-grade sympathetic activation that most of us are stuck in without realising it. A single 45-minute massage reduces cortisol levels by up to 31%. That’s not a subtle shift. Chronically elevated cortisol is implicated in disrupted sleep, weight gain around the abdomen, impaired immune function, accelerated bone loss, mood dysregulation and cognitive decline. Reducing it regularly through massage is a genuine intervention. The menopause connection A 2024 review and meta-analysis specifically examining massage for menopausal and postmenopausal women found significant benefits across psychological symptoms, anxiety, depression, fatigue and overall quality of life. A separate randomised controlled trial found that connective tissue massage improved physical and emotional health outcomes in postmenopausal women so consistently that researchers recommended it as a first-line approach, meaning before pharmaceutical intervention for mild to moderate symptoms. The mechanism is partly hormonal, partly neurological. Declining oestrogen affects the production of collagen, the protein that keeps connective tissue, joints, and skin supple. As collagen declines, fascial tissue (the connective web that surrounds every muscle, organ, and structure in your body) can become denser, less hydrated and more restrictive. This is why so many women in midlife describe a creeping stiffness, tightness or achiness that exercise alone doesn’t fully resolve. Therapeutic massage, particularly connective tissue and deep tissue techniques, directly addresses fascial health, restoring hydration, mobility and elasticity to tissue that has tightened with age and hormonal change. A sleep story Winter compounds an already difficult relationship with sleep for too many people. Shorter days disrupt circadian rhythm. Night sweats interrupt deep sleep cycles. Elevated cortisol from seasonal stress and reduced light keep the nervous system activated when it should be winding down. A 2024 randomised study confirmed that massage reduces insomnia severity. A 2025 systematic review found that massage reliably reduces cortisol and activates the parasympathetic nervous system, precisely the conditions your body needs to fall asleep and stay there. A massage session in the afternoon or early evening is, in neurological terms, one of the best things you can do to prepare your body for deep, restorative winter sleep. Your immune system is listening Winter is when your immune system faces its greatest annual challenge, and massage is a surprisingly powerful ally. Reduce chronic stress, lower cortisol and your immune system’s suppressed function begins to recover. Regular massage through winter is, quite literally, an investment in not getting sick. In the mood Here’s the finding that reframes everything. Massage triggers the release of oxytocin, the bonding and connection hormone typically associated with love and relationships. A study measuring oxytocin levels before and after massage found a 17% increase in the massage group, while the resting control group showed a 9% decrease. At the same time, ACTH (the hormone that drives cortisol production) dropped 20% in the massage group but rose 30% in those who just rested. Oxytocin does something remarkable beyond mood: it actively lowers blood pressure, accelerates wound healing, reduces inflammation and is associated in research with improved longevity outcomes. The research describes oxytocin as ‘the more you give, the more you get’. Regular massage sessions build a cumulative physiological benefit that single occasional massages simply don’t replicate. An infrared sauna before a massage is an exceptional combination. Heat softens fascial tissue, relaxes muscles, and makes therapeutic work deeper and more effective. Many members sauna, then massage and describe it as the most restorative session they have all week. Most things you do at Be Well, the strength training, the cardio, the sauna, the plunge, the Pilates asks something of your body. Massage is how your body answers back. It’s the recovery that makes the training stick, the stress relief that makes the sleep possible and the physiological reset that keeps you coming back with more capacity than you left with. Massage is not a luxury. It is not a reward for a hard week. It is a health intervention, and the research is unambiguous about that. Book it like you mean it.  Longevity snip Massage Isn’t Just for Sore Muscles, It May Ease Your Mind Research suggests massage calms the nervous system, lowers stress hormones, and boosts mood chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, easing anxiety and depression. A new journal issue explores why touch-based therapy may do more for mental health than you’d think. 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

Live Well Journal Issue No.173: Your immune cells run on oxygen, not vitamin C You climb in, recline, and close your eyes. Within minutes, your body is quietly doing something extraordinary – absorbing oxygen at up to 50% above its normal capacity – while molecular hydrogen neutralises the free radicals that age your cells from the inside out. No effort required. Just breathe. Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDJuly 19, 2026 Read time You climb in, recline, and close your eyes. Within minutes, your body is quietly doing something extraordinary – absorbing oxygen at up to 50% above its normal capacity – while molecular hydrogen neutralises the free radicals that age your cells from the inside out. No effort required. Just breathe. Welcome to the Hydroxy AirPod. You will find me there several times a week. I am pretty obsessed. So what actually is it? The AirPod is state-of-the-art Japanese technology, a pressurised pod that combines two of the most exciting therapies in modern science: mild Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (mHBOT) and molecular hydrogen. The pod gently increases the atmospheric pressure around your body while you breathe an enriched gas mix of approximately 35% oxygen and 2% hydrogen, compared to the 21% oxygen you’re currently breathing. That elevated pressure is the magic. It forces oxygen to dissolve directly into your blood plasma, not just your red blood cells, flooding your tissues, organs and brain with fuel they rarely get enough of. Meanwhile, hydrogen gets to work as the world’s most targeted antioxidant. All the while you’re lying back quietly in a chair, or, if you’re like me, doing some work on your phone or laptop.  What the research actually shows Your cells get flooded with oxygen. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has decades of research behind it. Studies show it accelerates tissue repair, reduces systemic inflammation and supercharges the body’s natural recovery processes. Athletes use it. Surgeons use it. And now you can access it at Be Well. Hydrogen is an antioxidant superstar. Here’s the thing about free radicals – they’re unavoidable. Stress, pollution, exercise, and even breathing produce them. Left unchecked, they damage your cells and accelerate ageing. Molecular hydrogen is the only antioxidant small enough to enter cells directly and cross the blood-brain barrier, selectively neutralising the most destructive free radicals without touching the ones your body actually needs. The research on its anti-inflammatory and anti-aging effects is growing fast, and it’s impressive. Together, they’re even more powerful. The Hydroxy combination is thought to amplify both effects: more oxygen in, less oxidative damage done. Regular users report sharper mental clarity, deeper sleep, faster muscle recovery, reduced stress and an overall sense of feeling genuinely restored. Not just relaxed. Restored. Why winter is the best time to Pod Here’s something most people don’t realise: the AirPod is arguably more valuable in winter than any other time of year, and the science backs it up. Your immune system needs more fuel in winter. When you’re fighting off a cold or flu, your immune cells are working overtime. And their primary fuel is oxygen. Research shows that mHBOT significantly increases the bactericidal capacity of these immune cells, giving your body a genuine edge when it needs it most. Think of it as arming your defences before the battle starts. Molecular hydrogen tackles winter inflammation. That heavy, rundown, achy feeling when you get sick? That’s your inflammatory response going into overdrive. Studies show molecular hydrogen significantly lowers the pro-inflammatory cytokines responsible, reducing the severity and duration of that awful winter slump. Winter drags your mood down. The AirPod pushes back. Shorter days mean less sunlight, which suppresses neurotransmitter production. Hello, low energy, brain fog and the winter blues. mHBOT has been shown to stimulate and regulate neurotransmitter activity in the brain, with research noting mood improvements comparable to psychotherapy for seasonal mood disorders. Pair that with the endorphin lift from your infrared sauna session, and you’ve got a seriously powerful winter wellness stack. Already come down with something? The AirPod won’t make the virus disappear overnight, but evidence suggests it shortens recovery time and, crucially, reduces the risk of that lingering post-viral fatigue that can drag on for weeks after winter illness. Who’s it for? Honestly? Almost everyone. Whether you’re pushing hard in training and need faster recovery, navigating a high-stress period at work, dealing with ongoing fatigue, or simply want to invest in long-term cellular health, the AirPod is for you. Sessions run for 30 or 60 minutes. You recline, you breathe, you let the pod do the work. Many members pair it with a sauna session for an even deeper recovery experience. Oxygen in, heat out, full reset. Give it a try! If you haven’t gotten into the Airpod yet, I encourage you to give it a try! We have carefully curated every single part of Be Well to support prevention, recovery and longevity. The Hydroxy AirPod represents some of the most exciting science in wellness right now. It’s non-invasive, drug-free and genuinely backed by research into what your body needs to thrive at the cellular level. Come try it for yourself. Your cells will thank you.  Longevity snip Breathing Deep for Stronger Bones Turns out extra oxygen might help bones heal. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, breathing pure oxygen under pressure, appears to boost bone-building cells and blood vessel growth while calming inflammation. Early studies show promise for fractures and osteoporosis. Researchers are still fine-tuning the ideal dose. 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

Live Well Journal Issue No.172: Cut hot flushes by 30%, no medication needed There’s a moment, about ten seconds into the cold plunge, where your brain screams ‘absolutely not.’ Your breath catches, your skin prickles, every instinct says get out.  Jan Owen AM Co-founder, Be Well Hawthorn PUBLISHEDJuly 12, 2026 Read time There’s a moment, about ten seconds into the cold plunge, where your brain screams ‘absolutely not.’ Your breath catches, your skin prickles, every instinct says get out. And then, if you breathe through it, something extraordinary happens. Your nervous system resets, your blood vessels flush, and dopamine surges. And you climb out feeling more alive, more clear-headed and more you than you have all week. Welcome to contrast plunge therapy. And if you’re a woman in your 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s? The research suggests this is one of the most powerful things you can do for your body, even in winter! What’s actually happening When you move between the hot and cold baths, you’re triggering a powerful physiological response with every transition. The heat causes your blood vessels to dilate, flushing circulation to the surface, relaxing muscle tissue, and easing joint stiffness. Then the cold causes them to rapidly constrict, driving blood back to your core, activating your lymphatic system, and triggering a cascade of neurochemicals your body thrives on. This pumping action – dilation, constriction, dilation, constriction – is one of the most effective ways to boost circulation, reduce inflammation and mobilise your lymphatic system (your body’s waste-removal network), all without moving a muscle. The numbers that shocked me A landmark 2024 UCL study surveyed 1,114 women,  the majority going through perimenopause or menopause, about the effects of cold water immersion on their symptoms. The results: 47% reported significant improvement in anxiety 35% reported fewer mood swings 31% reported improvement in low mood 30% reported a reduction in hot flushes Nearly two-thirds of participants were using cold water specifically to manage their symptoms. And it was working. The mechanism is real: cold water immersion retrains the autonomic nervous system, the system responsible for regulating body temperature, to respond more efficiently to heat signals. Over time, this means fewer and less intense hot flushes, less anxiety, better mood and a nervous system that isn’t in a constant state of overreaction. What the science says about each plunge The cold plunge triggers a dramatic release of norepinephrine (up to 530%) and dopamine (up to 250%). These aren’t small increases; they’re the kind that shift how you feel for hours afterwards. Research from a 2025 randomised controlled trial found that regular cold water immersion over 8 weeks produced significant reductions in anxiety and depression scores. Cold water also reduces pro-inflammatory cytokines – the same signals that drive joint pain, fatigue, and brain fog. The hot pool is doing equally important work. Hot water immersion lowers resting heart rate, reduces blood pressure, and delivers a form of passive cardiovascular conditioning that’s particularly relevant for women post-menopause, when oestrogen’s protective effect on the cardiovascular system declines. It also deeply relaxes the connective tissue around joints, a genuine relief for anyone whose body tightens up in the winter cold. Together, you get something greater than either alone, a vascular workout for your whole system, a neurochemical reset and a full-body anti-inflammatory effect that builds with every session. Your Be Well plunge protocol  Here’s exactly how to use the pools for maximum benefit, based on the evidence: Beginner (first 2–3 sessions) Start warm, build confidence in the cold. Hot pool: 5–7 minutes Cold plunge: 30–60 seconds (focus on slow breathing – in through the nose, out through the mouth) Repeat once Always finish on cold Intermediate (once you’re comfortable) Hot pool: 3–5 minutes Cold plunge: 1–2 minutes Repeat 2–3 rounds Always finish on cold. How cold is cold enough? Research shows the sweet spot for neurochemical benefit is around 10–15°C. You don’t need ice water – you need consistent, sustained cool immersion and controlled breathing. How many times per week? Research by neuroscientist Dr Andrew Huberman identifies just 11 minutes of cold exposure per week as the threshold for meaningful health benefits. That’s roughly 2–3 sessions of 3–5 minutes each. Consistency beats intensity every time. When is best? Morning sessions deliver the biggest mood and focus boost. The dopamine and norepinephrine surge from the cold plunge sets a calm, alert tone for the whole day. Avoid cold plunging within 2–3 hours of sleep, as it can be too activating. There is no badge for suffering If the cold plunge feels daunting, you’re not alone, and you’re not behind. Start with the hot pool only for your first visit. Then try just 15–20 seconds in the cold. The goal is a sustainable practice that your body learns to love, not a test of willpower. Hot and cold plunge therapy is one of the most research-backed, time-efficient wellness tools available, and you have access to it every time you walk through our doors. For mood, for hot flushes, for joint health, for inflammation, for cardiovascular resilience, the evidence is compelling, and it only takes minutes. Go warm. Go cold. Breathe through it. Feel the difference.  Longevity snip There’s a nerve that links your brain to your heart, gut, and immune system, and mild electrical stimulation of it is treating more than doctors expected Already FDA-approved for epilepsy and depression, vagus nerve stimulation is now being trialled for heart failure, arthritis, chronic pain, and more, with 91% of published trials reporting symptom improvements.  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