The Olympics are a problematic favourite of mine. I became known for taking a week of annual leave to allow myself to watch events in the middle of the night for Rio 2016. For Tokyo 2020, the time difference was easier to manage, but my looming deadlines got in the way of the level of viewing I had anticipated. There is always a wave of disappointment when the closing ceremony rolls around, but it’s only temporary, as it means the Paralympic Games are fast approaching.

Our bodies are incredible – something to be marvelled. Headaches, sniffles, aches, and pains are not our body's way of punishing us for no reason. These symptoms are our body trying to bring us back into a balanced healthy state – flushing out nasty bugs and viruses from our system.

There’s a lot of worry about getting sick right now. Being proactive, empowered and feeling protected is a bit of an antidote to all that anxiety. So where do we start by thinking about how to power up our immunity?

Down here in the Antipodes, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been somewhat mitigated. While there’s still been a huge impact on lives and livelihoods in Australia and New Zealand, as island nations, we’ve been able to avoid some of the devastation the disease has caused overseas. But it’s also left us to navigate a lot of uncertainty.

Hydration plays such an important role in our over health picture - if our cells are not sufficiently hydrated it’s hard for them to receive nutrients and function in an optimal way. Being well hydrated helps our joints and organs function better, prevents infections, removes waste from the body, improves sleep quality, cognition, and mood.

It might not seem like winter is leaving us anytime soon with some of our recent cold snaps, which can wreak havoc with our best laid plans to exercise, but rest assured it will soon be on its way out.

Dinnertime can be a time of the day when you have tired kids and tired parents and just getting through it seems like an achievement. But dinnertime can also be one of the few times of the day when the whole family is together.

Even if you’ve never set foot on an aircraft, it’s likely that you’re familiar with the instruction to ‘put your own mask on before helping others’. It’s because you are no use to anyone else if your own needs are not being met.