Yesterday, in the cloudy early evening, I put my joggers on and earphones in. Taking a deep breath, I walked out my front gate and pressed play.
A few months back, I had agreed to be interviewed for a new Australian podcast, Memory Health Made Easy. It's a passion project of David Norris, an occupational therapist based in Brisbane, who is aiming to share learnings about maintaining good brain health across the lifespan.
While I have become comfortable speaking to live audiences, I hadn't been interviewed for a podcast before, and have that aversion to hearing my own voice in recording that I think many of us share. But up for a challenge, I agreed. So yesterday, with only a vague memory of the contents of my conversation with David, I brace myself to listen to the podcast which had recently gone live.
I start in 1.25x speed, hoping to get it over with as quickly as possible, but discover that the chipmunk version of myself only makes me more nervous. So I settle in, finding a brisk walking pace to justify my slightly racing heart and the deep breaths I'm finding necessary. I was expecting to cringe, to regret, and to have to preface any future mention of this interview with an apology or an erratum. I waited for an embarrassing blunder with a pause too long, or a crippling string of ummm's. Even though I had already done the interview, I felt imposter syndrome.
Incredibly, none of my anticipated blunders eventuated. I'm proud of how it turned out. And I'm proud to share it. (If there were any awful bits, David did an impressive job of editing them out!)
So here it is, my microbiome perspective for Memory Health Made Easy. If you'd like to hear me as a chipmunk, I recommend 1.25-1.5x speed, but otherwise, put on some comfortable shoes and let me accompany you on your next walk!
We discuss everything from normal fluctuations in cognition, to psychobiotics, to the simple(r) things you can do to support your brain health as you age. I'd love to hear what you think and if you learnt anything useful.
