Dr. Jodi Richardson – Strategies When Stressed

Summary

It’s been one tough year, from bushfires to Coronavirus and everything in between, it’s totally natural to feel overwhelmed.

Somebody who knows this feeling first-hand is Dr. Jodi Richardson. She’s not only a best-selling author and speaker, she’s also an anxiety expert, because she too experiences it, even as an adult. 

Because 2020 has been an extra difficult one, we thought to invite Jodi onto the show because she’s such an awesome human with a stack of knowledge.

In this episode, Gianna and Jodi go deep, with no question off the table. And because of that…

• Jodi opens up about her own struggle with an anxiety disorder
• She tells us how we can recognise the signs of stress and anxiety in our own lives
• And explains the difference between anxiety and an anxiety disorder
• Plus, she shares a whole lot of tips to help us manage stress and anxiety and so much more. 
• And of course, like every episode Jodi reveals what she’s grateful for and then to finish off we go head-to-head in a challenge called Pick Your Pillar. 

So let’s #PowerUpLife!

If you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed and needing immediate support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 and in an emergency, always dial triple 000. 

SPONSOR

Mi Goals – Stationery for Goal Diggers. Head over to https://migoals.com and use our exclusive promo code Happow25 at checkout to receive 25% your next Mi Goals purchase. But hurry! Offer ends October 31.

CREDITS

Host: Co-Founder/CEO Happow, Gianna Lucas

Producers: Gianna Lucas, Marija Dukadinovska, Carissa Shale

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Transcript

00:00:08
Speaker 1: Three… two … one.

00:00:08
Speaker 2: I’m not just happy, I’m Happow.

00:00:11
Gianna Lucas: This is Power Up Life, the podcast. I’m your host, Gianna Lucas, Co- Founder and CEO at Happow, the social enterprise that powers these podcasts. We help you slay life in high school, uni, and beyond. Each week on the show, you’ll learn epic life skills in a super- chill way. Hear from well- known legends as they reveal their biggest setbacks and milestones to date, and you’ll find out what our Happow squad think about a whole stack of topics too. From epic challenges to super- raw moments, this show has it all. Let’s power up life.
It’s been one tough year, hasn’t it? From bushfires to coronavirus and everything in between. It’s totally natural to feel overwhelmed. Somebody who knows this feeling first- hand is Dr. Jodi Richardson. She’s not only a bestselling author and speaker. She’s also an anxiety expert because she too experiences it even as an adult. Now, because 2020 has been an extra difficult one, I thought to invite Jodi onto the show because she’s such an awesome human with a stack of knowledge.
Now, in this episode, you’ll notice Jodi and I go deep, with no question off the table. Because of that, Jodi opens up about her own struggle with an anxiety disorder. She tells us how we can recognize the signs of stress and anxiety in our own lives, and explains the difference between anxiety and an anxiety disorder. Plus, she shares a whole lot of tips to help us manage stress, anxiety, and so much more. Of course, like every episode, Jodi will be revealing what she’s grateful for. Then to finish off, we go head to head in a challenge and this one is called Pick Your Pillar. Let’s power up life. I have Jodi on the line right now. Welcome to the show, Jodi.

00:02:24
Jodi Richardson: Thanks for having me, Gianna.

00:02:25
Gianna Lucas: Now, Jodi, I first have to ask you, you are Dr. Jodi Richardson, very, very official. How did you become a doctor? How did you get this title?

00:02:35
Jodi Richardson: I headed back to university after being a professional for a number of years. I started my professional life as a teacher.

00:02:43
Gianna Lucas: High school or primary school?

00:02:47
Jodi Richardson: Secondary school, yes.

00:02:48
Gianna Lucas: How awesome.

00:02:49
Jodi Richardson: Yeah. I loved teaching and I still consider myself a teacher in so many ways. Yeah. I taught physical education, health, chemistry, and science. Whilst I was teaching, I had a lot of challenges with my own mental health and it prompted me to leave teaching, to go and work for Beyond Blue.

00:03:10
Gianna Lucas: Yeah.

00:03:11
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:03:11
Gianna Lucas: [ crosstalk 00:03:12], organization, very famous in Australia.

00:03:13
Jodi Richardson: Very famous in Australia. Yeah. It’s a really amazing organization that we can really credit so much of our mental health literacy to here in Australia. After working for Beyond Blue for a while, I really felt the need to head back to university. So I did an honors degree and then a PhD. I’m not a medical doctor as such, but a Doctor of Philosophy as they say, but that was through the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University.

00:03:37
Gianna Lucas: When you did your honors year, is that right, with honors you have to pick a stream or almost like you have to create a thesis on a particular topic? Is that how honors works?

00:03:47
Jodi Richardson: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yes, you essentially do a mini- PhD in about nine months. It’s a very stressful year, and you do the literature search, you understand what you need to know and where the gaps in the knowledge are. Then you design the research, undertake the research, and write up your findings. Yes, you produce a mini- thesis at the end of it.

00:04:09
Gianna Lucas: What did you decide to do your honors thesis on?

00:04:13
Jodi Richardson: I have a huge passion for exercise, so I looked at the influence of resistance exercise in muscles and how that changes the expression of genes within us. It’s really relevant because it helps with our understanding of knowing that for a change to occur in our body, there needs to be some environmental trigger, often. That was the research that I did for my honors degree, but in my PhD, I went down a different track and looked at sports injury prevention.

00:04:46
Gianna Lucas: Christ.

00:04:46
Jodi Richardson: Yes.

00:04:47
Gianna Lucas: That’s awesome, so you have a passion for sport as well?

00:04:50
Jodi Richardson: Very much so, very much so. Especially for the role that sport and exercise play in mental health.

00:04:56
Gianna Lucas: On that, I really want to explore that a little bit more. Because a lot of us love sport or if we don’t play a professional sport or any sport, we love to watch it. Combining, I guess, your knowledge about sport, and you said, and mental health, you only have to turn on the television, read an online article, listen to a podcast, to hear that so many people in sport, so many have experienced some mental health issue of some kind, whether it be anxiety or stress. Why do you think it’s so common that so many athletes go through immense anxiety?

00:05:31
Jodi Richardson: I think the pressure on athletes, we know that the pressure on athletes is really high. It’s very public for them as well. Any footballer… and I did do a lot of work with AFL for many years and footballers will go to their local butcher and the local butcher will rib them about… pardon the pun… their performance on the weekend. There’s really little downtime for elite athletes, particularly those that are really in the public eye, to escape scrutiny for their performance.
Also, there’s a lot riding on elite performance, to maintain a position in a team or be selected for a squad, be it at a national level or even Olympic level. But also I think too, that we hear about it and it rings true when we hear about an athlete who’s experiencing a lot of mental health struggles, but it’s just so common in the population. It’s no wonder. We look at one in five adults will experience an anxiety disorder in their life. It’s more common in women than men, and from a reasonably young age.
The thing too about athletes, I think as well, is that they’re often week to week. Their longevity in their sport is really affected by their performance, and their training and injury. So there’s a lot of uncertainty that can come with that as well. Yeah, I think, I think it’s great when athletes are able to be open and honest about their struggles. It just normalizes it for all of us who somehow think they’re immune, but they’re not.

00:07:02
Gianna Lucas: None of us are immune. It’s really interesting because, one, I just want to say that I’ve noticed a lot more sports people are coming out and saying, ” Yes, I’ve battled with mental health.” It does normalize it for everybody else. The second point is, I also find that with young people or really of any age, we sometimes don’t even realize we are experiencing some kind of heightened stress or anxiety until someone points it out, or sees something a little bit interesting about us and like, “Hmm, I’ve noticed a bit of that lately. It’s been a bit of a pattern.”
But often we don’t know until someone addresses it or we have a nervous breakdown and we’re like, ” Something’s not right. I need help. Help, help.” Do you know… I’m sure you do in your experience and you’ve written a book about this as well, but understanding the triggers of when the body is going, ” Help me, help me. Like how do we best understand that?”

00:07:54
Jodi Richardson: Yeah. It’s really important. It’s such an important question because if we can recognize when we are feeling stressed and anxious, then earlier in the piece, rather than letting it spill over to become a huge problem for us, then we’re more able to put strategies into place to manage it sooner rather than later. I noticed I’ve been doing a lot of online interviews lately and I can see myself, and I see this deep breathing and the shoulders rising, and that difficulty getting normal breathing pattern going.
That’s how my anxiety can show. When I see that, I recognize that, “Okay, I might be struggling a little bit more like we all are at the moment.” I have an anxiety disorder that’s really well- managed, but for all of us at the moment, we’re in uncertain, anxious times. So knowing how you respond and knowing what happens in your body when you become stressed, knowing those triggers is really important.

00:08:51
Gianna Lucas: Do you have any advice as to, or examples of when you’ve seen, working with particular people, young and old, of when the body is being triggered? Are there certain patterns that you find across all people or some people, like young people?

00:09:07
Jodi Richardson: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It’s really important that from the younger stage, right to early adulthood, that we learn what our triggers are, what it looks like for us. I really recommend people have a listen to the following physiological changes and see if any of it rings a bell for what your experience is. When we become anxious, our body essentially prepares us for the threat that is apparent. Even if it’s only an imagined threat, our body will react in the same way.
So if you’re at uni and you’ve got an exam coming up, your body will react as if a genuine threat is in front of you. Things like racing heart, heart rate going up, breathing rate going up, having difficulty getting a full breath, starting to sweat because the body is preparing for a fight- or- a- flight response, which is intense activity. So the cooling mechanisms switch on, and that’s why we perspire when we’re really anxious and stressed.

00:10:06
Gianna Lucas: I didn’t actually realized it’s because of the cooling mechanism.

00:10:09
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:10:09
Gianna Lucas: It’s like I’ve got a dog called Pippa, she’s a King Charles Cavalier cross Shih Tzu. When I take her for a walk, she starts to pant. Is that her equivalent of her body overheating because she’s exercising, and she’s trying to cool her body down? It’s like us when we’re stressed, we start to sweat because the body’s like, ” I’m getting hot. Help!”

00:10:28
Jodi Richardson: Exactly, because when we sweat, the moisture, when it evaporates, cools us. Yeah, exactly.

00:10:33
Gianna Lucas: [crosstalk 00:10: 34].

00:10:34
Jodi Richardson: Whereas dogs, they don’t have that same mechanism, so they pant for the same reason. You’re exactly right.

00:10:38
Gianna Lucas: Lucky we don’t pant.

00:10:41
Jodi Richardson: We need a new podcast, Lessons From Pippa.

00:10:43
Gianna Lucas: Yeah, that’s right. We should, that’ll be the next series we bring out.

00:10:47
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:10:47
Gianna Lucas: There you go.

00:10:49
Jodi Richardson: That’s exactly right. It’s quite phenomenal. I think when you understand that all the changes in our body happen because our body is preparing us to fight some sort of threat. Certainly if we were faced with a genuine threat, if we were being followed down a dark alley, or certainly if someone were to jump out and try to steal our phone or something, then we would immediately go into this response, which would be a completely normal and helpful response under those circumstances. All fired up to protect ourselves or to run. But when we are mostly anxious, it’s under circumstances that are not actually life- threatening. It could be, for some people, doing this could be extremely stressful. It could be an exam. It could be going from primary school to high school, high school to university, so many different reasons.

00:11:40
Gianna Lucas: Starting a job, like starting a new job, going for an interview.

00:11:44
Jodi Richardson: Starting a new job, or as we know at the moment, lots of people are losing their jobs. All of these are threats. The body prepares by increasing the heart rate to bring in more blood to the large muscles of the arms and the legs. We also have the breathing rate to bring in more oxygen, so we’re more energized. I mentioned before about the sweating to keep us cool when we’re doing all of this.
Something else that’s often really new to people is recognizing that, yes, we might have an upset tummy. We might get a really upset tummy or feel really sick when we’re anxious, and that’s because blood in the stomach and the digestive system is not needed when we’re fighting for our lives. So it gets moved away to again, the main muscle groups. That’s what can give us that sick feeling. Knowing why the changes occur helps to make sense of them, and also it gives us a clue as to how we can help manage them as well.

00:12:41
Gianna Lucas: I love everything you’ve said. I’m learning so much. I’m so passionate about personal development and outside of Happow, I do a lot of coaching with young women. So much of what you said is so relevant in my own life, of myself. When I was younger, I had anxiety for many years, chronic and quite debilitating. As you’re talking, I’m like, ” Yep, I experienced that. I felt that.” I’m almost doing a checklist in my head of every time I had an anxiety attack.
It reminds me of exactly how it felt, like it’s here again. It’s so true and no doubt, there’d be people listening right now going, ” Yep. I’ve experienced that, or multiple, or just one or two.” I also wanted to ask you, in your own life as well, you said earlier that you too have experienced anxiety and you’re able to be on top of it. Can I ask, when did this start? When did you start noticing the signs that you had anxiety?

00:13:34
Jodi Richardson: Thank you for sharing your story too. I really admire you for doing that. I think the more we can talk about it, the more other people feel happy and comfortable to do that as well. Thank you very much for sharing that with me and everyone else.

00:13:46
Gianna Lucas: That’s all right. My pleasure. No worries. No, all good.

00:13:49
Jodi Richardson: Yeah, no. I look back and I can say that I had my first symptoms of anxiety when I was four. I know that it’s really, really young, but it’s not actually uncommon. There are a lot of young kids, and I’ve spoken to parents who have even three- year- olds who they’re really concerned and they’re sharing with me signs and symptoms they’re noticing, and are worried about anxiety. For me, it was going to primary school. I was four when I was in prep and I was in a class with 53 other kids.

00:14:22
Gianna Lucas: Hang on, sorry. Wait. For one, you were four in primary school. You must have been either very smart, your parents were eager to get you out of the house. Two, you had 53 students in your class.

00:14:33
Jodi Richardson: Yes.

00:14:34
Gianna Lucas: Is that legal back then?

00:14:36
Jodi Richardson: Goodness.

00:14:36
Gianna Lucas: [crosstalk 00:00:14:39].

00:14:38
Jodi Richardson: I know, I know. It’s a very stressful classroom environment, for a teacher, Shall we say?

00:14:43
Gianna Lucas: Yeah.

00:14:44
Jodi Richardson: We had two teachers. That was why it was allowed. But yeah, look, I started school, I guess, in 1978.

00:14:54
Gianna Lucas: You look way younger. I know no one can see you, but you look amazing, so good on you. Whatever you’re doing is working, girl.

00:15:00
Jodi Richardson: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think back then it was more the norm. It was more the norm to start school a little bit earlier, and yeah, certainly not now. Certainly I would recommend against sending kids too young to school now, but socially, actually, I managed really well, and with the schoolwork and so on. But the stressful environment of that classroom, which is so hard for those two teachers, and goodness me, they deserve a medal, but it must’ve been like herding cats.
There was so much yelling. There was just so much yelling and it wasn’t at me, but the environment was stressful. That was really what started to bring about these anxious feelings, which was the sickness in my stomach. So I’d tell mum every day, ” I feel sick, I can’t go to school,” and every day she’d send me and I’m so grateful she did. Yeah, that was when it started, but I wasn’t diagnosed till nearly 20 years later.

00:15:52
Gianna Lucas: Really?

00:15:53
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:15:54
Gianna Lucas: Was that because it was the 1970s? So the 90s, you were officially diagnosed? Because that’s a long time, a long time. If you were four, you would have been 24. So you were in your mid- 20s. Was it someone who said to you, ” Hey, you should see someone and see if there’s something up,” or did you think, ” Something’s not right here. I need to do something about this”?

00:16:16
Jodi Richardson: Yeah, look, it was a long, long time and it was just the normal for me. The reason I ended up getting diagnosed was because I’d had untreated anxiety for so long, I ended up experiencing major clinical depression. It’s so hard to describe if you haven’t experienced depression before, but that’s a really difficult experience. That was when I went to the doctor, because I knew that I was responding to my life in a way that there was just a dichotomy between the circumstances of my life, which were wonderful, and how miserable I felt.
So I went to the doctor and I was diagnosed with depression. Then as I started seeing a therapist and getting help with that, what we uncovered was that really the base of my problem was my anxiety. Eventually the depression lifted through lots of therapy and medication. I went off the medication and then started dealing with the anxiety. Yeah, that’s how it came about.

00:17:15
Gianna Lucas: Amazing. Thank you so much for being so open as well and sharing. Now it’s been a few years since then, have you noticed that you’ve had, at times in your life, where it flared up again and then calmed down. Have you noticed those peaks and troughs?

00:17:33
Jodi Richardson: Yeah. Thank you for saying it’s just a few years since then. That’s really nice of you.

00:17:39
Gianna Lucas: Anytime. You can pay me later.

00:17:40
Jodi Richardson: Thanks, Gianna. I will, I will. Yeah, look, definitely when I was at university, I started a degree that I just wasn’t enjoying. I was always a real high achiever and it was really difficult for me to be in a university course and then be contemplating leaving. That was just really not part of the way I operated. That was a really stressful time, but I was really glad I made the decision to go, because really what the gut feeling was telling me, what my anxiety was telling me, was I wasn’t in the right place. That was a difficult time. It definitely flared up. I ended up working for the rest of that year, and then going and starting a new course the following year.
Also definitely, working, starting work was a new challenge because things are so new, and especially in teaching, it’s very public, I suppose. In everything you do, you’ve got lots of eyes on you. I was very young and I was at a really wonderful school. I wanted to do such a good job. That’s a really normal anxiety, that everybody experiences that, and it settles down. Because I want to make clear that the difference between normal anxiety and a disorder is that normal anxiety will settle down when a stressful event or challenge has passed. With a disorder, it’s much more ongoing and debilitating, and more extreme.

00:18:55
Gianna Lucas: Yeah, so it’s heightened anxiety for a longer period of time, probably over consecutive weeks, months, even years. Whereas you’re saying normal, everyday anxiety is when you might have a presentation you have to do and you get a little bit anxious, and then it calms down, or there might be just a season, a short little period of time where you have that anxiety and then it wanes and disappears. Yep, yep. Gotcha.

00:19:16
Jodi Richardson: Exactly. Exactly. Yes, spot on. Yeah, and definitely having kids, because the lack of sleep was, yeah, really debilitating for me personally. So that was a time in my life when my mental health took a bit of a nosedive again. Yeah. It’s just once you have a diagnosis and you understand yourself, you can see the signs when things are starting to go downhill. The sooner we put strategies into place to help ourselves, the better.

00:19:44
Gianna Lucas: Now, you mentioned sleep just then, and sleep is so important, no matter how old you are, young and old. You often hear even when I was in high school, they would always say… and uni… they’d be like, ” Make sure you get X amount of sleep per night so you can function. So you can get the most out of your lessons.” Even at uni, like a lecturer, if they ever saw a student dozing off in the lecture theater, they would often say, ” Did you sleep last night? Did you pull an all- nighter?”
Often they get asked because often sleep, and also bad nutrition and things like that, can severely impact our mental health. If we’re a young person right now that’s potentially experiencing some kind of mental health concern, maybe they are highly stressed or anxious, can you shed light on some changes that we can make or they can make to their habits and their routine, whether it be what they’re eating or sleeping or consuming, to help them feel a little bit better long term?

00:20:42
Jodi Richardson: Yeah, absolutely. There’s so much that we can do, which is a great thing about anxiety. A lot of it’s in our control. One of the things that is extremely important is daily exercise. That’s a must. Essentially, exercise is the natural end to the fight- or- flight response, because we’re being geared up to fight or flee. Often we’re anxious and we’re either lying in bed or we’re sitting in an exam, or in a classroom or in a university lecture hall, or somewhere where we’re not actually moving. To move and do some high- intensity exercise, it makes a huge difference. It helps to use up the adrenaline and cortisol, helps to produce endorphins in our system and a particular chemical, which is called GABA, Gamma- Aminobutyric Acid.

00:21:29
Gianna Lucas: GABA?

00:21:30
Jodi Richardson: GABA.

00:21:30
Gianna Lucas: That’s the acronym?

00:21:31
Jodi Richardson: That’s the acronym. G- A- B- A.

00:21:34
Gianna Lucas: It’s not the Gabba where the footballers play AFL in Geelong? So it’s not [crosstalk 00:21:39]-

00:21:38
Jodi Richardson: No, not the Gabba. Not the Gabba. Mind you, lots of GABA would be produced at the Gabba, but no, very different, very different. Yeah. It’s a really amazing neurotransmitter. It’s actually inhibitory. Whereas some neurotransmitters wind us up, it helps to put the brake on our anxiety. It’s natural to feel a lot more relaxed after exercise, for a multitude of reasons. That’s definitely a must- have. Secondly, I mentioned before about the breathing. That will calm an anxious brain, that will calm the part of the brain that’s like our alarm system in the brain, if you like. The part that sounds the alarm that there’s danger. So breathing, definitely. Mindfulness practices help to keep our attention in the present. So using an app like Smiling Mind-

00:22:28
Gianna Lucas: Which is free.

00:22:28
Jodi Richardson: Which is free.

00:22:28
Gianna Lucas: Yeah.

00:22:28
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:22:28
Gianna Lucas: Love that it’s free.

00:22:30
Jodi Richardson: It’s an amazing free app. Someone like Dr. Craig Hassed has had a lot of input. He’s integral to the science behind mindfulness and the development of that app. He’s a leading expert in mindfulness and he’s an Australian. So we’re really lucky. They’ve got Thrive Inside that they’ve developed to help us through this particularly challenging time at the moment. I encourage people to do a daily mindfulness exercise. Things like sleep. Sleep’s critical, it’s underrated.
There’s a great return on our investment when we sleep, but there’s also a lot that really will interfere with it. Things like just getting to bed and waking at the same time every day. For the young adults that might be listening, who are over the age of 18, alcohol actually can make you sleepy and help you maybe to fall asleep, but it really does interfere with the quality of your sleep. So I’d really advise if you really are having trouble with you waking in the night, you can’t get back to sleep, try giving alcohol a bit of a miss and making a comparison between how you feel.
Sleep is a time when we need to rest and rejuvenate, and allows that parasympathetic nervous system to really be the one in control of our system. That’s a really important time for us to support our mental health. In terms of our diet as well, there’s a lot of research, huge amount of research to support looking after our diet, reducing things like saturated fats and sugary foods, increasing whole foods, fiber, so we get plenty of Omega 3 fatty acids and probiotics, lots of vitamins and essential minerals like magnesium as well. They all help support good- quality sleep, which it’s one of the quickest and easiest things we can do ourselves to help our mental health within a day or two.

00:24:16
Gianna Lucas: Such essential and, I would say, easy advice, but I know it’s hard for some people and sometimes even myself to maintain all those things consistently every day. It’s so important that if we make just small changes, it doesn’t have to be drastic changes, and if we do that consistently and slowly taking lots of small steps, eventually we’ll get to that place where we are hitting each of those markers. Just recently in my own life, I’ve been taking magnesium powder and I’ve been putting it into just water.
The magnesium powder I get from our local health food store is flavored. It’s like a natural watermelon flavor, I don’t know how it’s a natural watermelon flavor, but it is, and it tastes really good. I mix it in. I feel like I’m having a treat and there’s no sugar, it’s all natural. I usually take it when my body is tight, so if my muscles are tight or sometimes I’ll take it with dinner so it does its work while I sleep. You’re right, magnesium does help with relaxing the muscles, the mind, to get it ready for sleep time and rest. Such great advice, as I said, and I could honestly keep talking with you for ages because I find this conversation so fascinating, and it is so important to have consistently, as much as possible.
Because we can hear someone speak and we’re all empowered, but if we don’t go away and if we don’t actually do the things that we’ve been hopefully instructed to do, or if we’re not supported at home with family or friends that say, ” Yeah, keep going,” then we’ll forget because other things in our life step in. Like other responsibilities, other routines come into play, and we forget. So I think having this discussion and having it as a podcast, that people can listen to again and again whenever they need a reminder, is so important. Thank you for sharing such great advice with us.

00:26:06
Jodi Richardson: You’re so welcome.

00:26:09
Gianna Lucas: Don’t go anywhere, guys, because next time we’re going to be talking about gratitude, and some of the biggest and smallest things that Jodi is very passionate and thankful for.

00:26:20
Carissa Shale: This is Power Up Life, the podcast. This week, we ask if you prefer to do school or uni from home or the classroom. Here’s what you had to say.

00:26:30
Speaker 6: I personally enjoy doing school located at home, despite how some aspects were a little difficult in terms of content and lack of face- to- face contact. I work well on my own and can adapt to situations over time. Therefore, I quite enjoy homeschool and would rather be that way in most aspects.

00:26:47
Speaker 7: I prefer to do uni from home, to be honest. There’s things that I definitely miss, like meeting up with my friends and having independence, but I’m a bit of a homebody and a bit of an introvert. So I like being able to pick and choose when my social time is.

00:27:05
Speaker 8: I do prefer working from home because you can stay all day in your PJs. I would actually do this more often if we could.

00:27:13
Speaker 9: I prefer doing school in a classroom because I’m a people person.

00:27:17
Speaker 10: I prefer uni as a mix of both the classroom and home. I love the flexibility of studying from home, but miss the buzz of campus.

00:27:25
Speaker 11: I would way prefer to be working at work or going to school at school rather than being at home. It’s all about mindset for me. I feel that whenever I’m at my house, I’m in the mindset to relax. When I’m at work, I have that drive.

00:27:38
Speaker 12: I prefer doing school from the classroom because I love the social interaction that comes with it. But I do also love the fact that I can learn in my pajamas from home.

00:27:46
Carissa Shale: I’m Carissa Shale, and that’s this week’s talk topic. Got something to share? Drop us an email, yoursay@ happow. com.

00:27:55
Brendan: Love Power Up Life, the podcast? Rate and review us on your fav podcast app. We’d love to hear from you.

00:28:03
Gianna Lucas: Okay, Jodi. I ask each interviewee that comes on Power Up Life to tell me one big thing and one small thing that you’re grateful for, because as we know, in a way, gratitude can really change our outlook on life, our mental health, you name it. Firstly, I want to know one big thing that you’re grateful for.

00:28:23
Jodi Richardson: Okay. I am eternally grateful to be able to head outside with the kids and get some exercise. Every day, especially in lockdown, we exercise a lot anyway, but just to have that freedom to be able to go outside and go somewhere new. We’ve got some beautiful local parks that we can visit. Especially recently, we’ve named three horses that belong to other people nearby our house. We take carrots and apples, and get out in the fresh air and have a break from the four walls. That is something that lifts our spirits and buoys our mood in the greatest way. So that’s something that I’m really grateful for at the moment.

00:29:03
Gianna Lucas: I think it’s a pretty good thing. How lucky and fortunate and blessed you are that you’ve got horses that you don’t even have to look after, around the corner. Someone else picks up the dog… I was going to say the dog poo, but the horse poo and all that. You’re there just feeding them, patting them and going, “Oh, that’s nice.” That is something to be grateful for. It is beautiful that you’ve been able to spend even more quality time with your family.

00:29:24
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:29:25
Gianna Lucas: All right. Now, one small thing that you’re grateful for.

00:29:29
Jodi Richardson: My neighbor next door, she used to be a florist and barely a week goes by where I don’t get a delivery in one of her vases of some of the beautiful, fresh flowers from her garden. She arranges them, puts them in her vases and then just delivers the vase across. We just walk through, because we’re an acreage. She just walks across through the fence and delivers that to me, and the kindness and the thoughtfulness that goes into that gesture, it’s just… I know Gianna, you can see behind me, there’s some roses in a vase.

00:30:01
Gianna Lucas: Yes, they’re like light pink.

00:30:03
Jodi Richardson: Yeah. They’re beautiful, light pink. There’s some lavender as well.

00:30:07
Gianna Lucas: That’s beautiful.

00:30:08
Jodi Richardson: She does it all the time and it’s just such a beautiful gesture of kindness that I’m, yeah, really, really grateful for.

00:30:16
Gianna Lucas: That is amazing. You know what? Once again, you’re blessed because you don’t have to look after horses and you have a florist who provides you with vases, not just flowers, every day. Your house will always smell beautiful and look beautiful. I think that’s awesome. You are an amazing, amazingly wonderful human yourself. So I can’t say I’m surprised that other people want to support you anyway. That’s lovely.

00:30:37
Jodi Richardson: Thank you.

00:30:37
Gianna Lucas: Now guys, the time has come. Right after this, we’ve got the challenge. Don’t go anywhere.

00:30:45
Carissa Shale: Power Up Life with Happow, a social enterprise powered by you.

00:30:51
Gianna Lucas: Alrighty. Welcome to the challenge, Jodi. Are you excited?

00:30:56
Jodi Richardson: I am excited. I’m also have a sense of anticipation about what’s to come.

00:31:02
Gianna Lucas: Are you anxious?

00:31:03
Jodi Richardson: A little.

00:31:03
Gianna Lucas: Are you sweating?

00:31:07
Jodi Richardson: No.

00:31:07
Gianna Lucas: Okay. Okay. All right. The game we’re going to be playing today is a Happow original on the Power Up Life show. This game is called Pick Your Pillar. You will not see this game anywhere else because it is an [RJ 00:31: 24]. It’s an RJ. Now, with Pick Your Pillar, we’ve decided to do this because as part of Happow, we have six content pillars that our masterclasses will fall into. That is health and wellness… I hope I don’t forget any… career, community, DIY, relationships, and money.

00:31:41
Jodi Richardson: [crosstalk 00: 31:43].

00:31:41
Gianna Lucas: Money, [inaudible 00:31: 44], money, (inaudible) yes, that’s the sixth one. I knew I’d forget, but there’s always one I forget. I don’t know why. Anyway, we’ve got Brendan in again, as usually is these days, adjudicating our challenge. Brendan has got six questions for you and I, Jodi. Imagine we are watching a game show or we are on a game show where we’re contestants and Brendan’s the host. We’ve got six content pillars or six boxes in front of us on the big screen, and you and I get to choose one box each that stands out to us.
When that box is revealed, our question inside of it relates to the name of that box, i. e., our content pillar. You and I both will have an opportunity to answer questions. There’s six, so we’ll get three each, one in each content pillar. The person who has the most amount of points… i. e. got the question right… wins. Now, it’s nice and easy because it’s a true-or- false question. So we don’t have to think about anything. We don’t have to use our brains too much. It’s a simple true-or- false. How does that sound?

00:32:43
Jodi Richardson: Sounds great.

00:32:44
Gianna Lucas: Okay. All right. Brendan, are you ready? He’s ready. He’s giving me the thumbs up. Okay. He’s going to come to the mic. Now, I cannot see these questions. I do not know these questions. Question number one. Wait, wait, wait. We’re going to pick. We’re going to pick. Okay. Jodi… You can tell this is brand new. Jodi, pick a content pillar out of the six [crosstalk 00:33:03].

00:33:02
Jodi Richardson: I’m going to try my hand at DIY.

00:33:04
Gianna Lucas: DIY. She’s locking it in. Eddie?

00:33:10
Brendan: True or false. The average Australian house takes four to twelve months to build

00:33:16
Jodi Richardson: True.

00:33:17
Gianna Lucas: True. Is it true?

00:33:18
Brendan: That’s correct.

00:33:23
Gianna Lucas: Okay. One point for Jodi. Well done. Okay. My turn. I’m going to pick career.

00:33:28
Brendan: True or false. Waitstaff were the most applied- for job in Australia last year.

00:33:35
Gianna Lucas: As in like waitressing, is that what you mean? Okay. Was the most- applied job last year in Australia? I reckon that’s true.

00:33:48
Brendan: False

00:33:49
Gianna Lucas: Really?

00:33:49
Brendan: Pickers and packers was the most applied- for job.

00:33:54
Gianna Lucas: What? As in pickers and packers, those stocking shelves?

00:33:57
Brendan: Like packing boxes.

00:33:59
Gianna Lucas: Really? I didn’t know that.

00:34:01
Jodi Richardson: Okay. We’re learning something here.

00:34:02
Gianna Lucas: We are, we are. It’s an educational lesson as well. There we go. Life skills. All right, your turn to pick a pillar.

00:34:09
Jodi Richardson: Okay. I’ll go finance.

00:34:10
Gianna Lucas: Going finance, finance it is.

00:34:13
Brendan: True or false. There are over 10,000 cryptocurrencies around the world.

00:34:19
Jodi Richardson: Wild guess. True.

00:34:20
Gianna Lucas: True. She’s locking in true, Eddie.

00:34:22
Brendan: No, unfortunately false. There’s only around 3, 000.

00:34:28
Gianna Lucas: There you go. There you go. You’re still one point. That’s okay. You’re winning, you’re winning. All right. I’m going to go community.

00:34:37
Brendan: Alrighty. True or false. Environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s first campaign she started was a school climate movement called Fridays for Future.

00:34:50
Gianna Lucas: You know what? I think I know the answer to this, but I’m almost thinking that that’s not what she called it. I know that she got high school students together and she did use a hashtag, but I don’t know if that was the name of the hashtag. I love Greta Thunberg, I think she’s amazing. I’m going to say I think it is true, but I think the hashtag is wrong. So I’m going to say false, but I know that she did start something and that’s what made her famous. I really hope the name’s right.

00:35:16
Brendan: No, it’s true. It’s called Fridays for Future.

00:35:21
Gianna Lucas: That’s the name of it? Are you serious? I thought it was something else. I knew… Okay, I’ve clearly lost the game. I don’t think I’m going to get much of a comeback here. All right, Jodi, your turn to choose a content pillar.

00:35:32
Jodi Richardson: Health and wellness.

00:35:33
Gianna Lucas: Health and wellness.

00:35:35
Brendan: Alrighty. True or false. Mark Walberg wakes up at 2: 30 AM every morning.

00:35:42
Gianna Lucas: He’s the actor. Didn’t he used to be in a band as well or something? Wasn’t he a rapper?

00:35:46
Brendan: [inaudible 00:35:48].

00:35:47
Gianna Lucas: Yeah. Yeah. Marky Mark, Mark and the the Funky-

00:35:50
Brendan: Bunch.

00:35:51
Gianna Lucas: Bunch. Marky Mark and the… okay, goodness, and the Funky Bunch. Brendan. Yeah. Good luck, anyway.

00:35:56
Jodi Richardson: Well done. All right. I will say 2: 30, that is crazy. I will say it’s crazy enough to be true.

00:36:04
Gianna Lucas: Crazy enough to be true, she thinks. Brendan?

00:36:07
Brendan: He is crazy. That’s correct.

00:36:12
Gianna Lucas: All right. I don’t think I’ve won this, but how many more pillars are left? One pillar. What have I missed? Relationships. Relationships got rejected. Okay. Relationships. Unlocking relationships.

00:36:25
Brendan: True or false. American comedian and actor Pete Davidson is dating pop star Ariana Grande currently.

00:36:34
Gianna Lucas: Pete Davidson? I’m pretty sure they broke up. They had broken up. Yup.

00:36:41
Brendan: So, false?

00:36:43
Gianna Lucas: Yes, I’m going to say that’s false because they were together, I believe, in 2019. Then there was some breakup song that they both did, or some kind of something or other as they do. Then, yup, no, they’re not together. Unless they’ve gotten back together now, but I don’t think they have, they wouldn’t have gotten back together now. I’m going to lock in no.

00:37:00
Brendan: Yep. That’s correct.

00:37:01
Gianna Lucas: Yeah. Woo-hoo. Awesome. Okay, Jodi. Can you lock in the scores, Brendan? What do we end up getting?

00:37:09
Brendan: Jodi, you got two and Gianna one. So Jodi, you win.

00:37:12
Jodi Richardson: Woo-hoo!

00:37:12
Gianna Lucas: Woo-hoo! Well done, Jodi. Do you know what? In all the games I’ve played on this show, I’ve never won. Actually, I think I’ve won once. Once only. That’s it.

00:37:22
Jodi Richardson: Oh no.

00:37:23
Gianna Lucas: (crosstalk) eat something gross on air, and that’s the only time I won it. Yep. Congratulations.

00:37:29
Jodi Richardson: Thank you. Thank you. Woo- hoo.

00:37:31
Gianna Lucas: Thank you so much for coming on our show, Jodi. For people to check you out online, learn more about you, potentially get your book if they’d love to read about it. I know you’ve got another one coming out as well. Tell us, how can they reach out to you?

00:37:44
Jodi Richardson: Yeah. Thank you. Instagram at drjodirichardson, Dr. Jodi Richardson. You can look me up on Facebook as well. I’ve got a website of the same name, drjodirichardson. com. au.

00:37:58
Gianna Lucas: I’m guessing, yeah, I was going to say Facebook’s the same and your website is the same.

00:38:01
Jodi Richardson: Yeah.

00:38:02
Gianna Lucas: Nice and easy to remember. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Wishing you an awesome year ahead, what’s left of it anyway. All the best with your upcoming book as well.

00:38:13
Jodi Richardson: Thanks so much, Gianna. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Bye.

00:38:16
Gianna Lucas: Bye. Isn’t Jodi the best? I could seriously chat with her for hours. She’s so genuine, and really loves working with young people just like yourself. Now, Jodi shared so many fantastic tips and insights throughout our chat. However, if you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed and need immediate support, please call lifeline on 13-11- 14, and in an emergency always dial 000. Want to be a Happow advocate and contribute to our weekly talk topics and more? Email us at yoursay@ happow. com.
Don’t forget to follow us on socials. Simply look up happow. au To stay in the know. This episode of Power Up Life was produced by me, Gianna Lucas, Marija Dukadinovska, and Carissa Shale for the Happow Podcast Network.

Thanks for tuning into this week’s episode of Power Up Life, a Happow podcast. If you loved this episode, be a legend and leave us a quick rating and review on your fav podcast app. Dive into the show notes for all episodes on our website. Catch you next time. Remember to power up life.