This episode is all about minding our mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. My guest today is Joe O'Brien - trainee health psychologist, educator, researcher and writer, and creator of the @headfirst0 Instagram page and the Head First podcast. Joe has been a guest on my podcast previously (check those episodes out if you haven't already!), and I'm very grateful to him for giving up some time to come back on to chat about mental well-being in the current situation we find ourselves in.
We discuss the uncertainty we all face, using daily routine to take back a sense of control over our day, maintaining a balance between staying informed and avoiding information overload, and the importance of using technology to maintain social connection while we are being asked to stay far apart. I hope you guys enjoy this episode - if you give it a listen, tag us in your stories, let myself and Joe know what you thought, and thank you for tuning in!

Episode 36: COVID-19 and Minding Your Mental Health with Joe O'Brien

Welcome to The Irish Balance, a podcast hosted by Dr. Ciara Kelly, Irish medical doctor specialising in public health medicine, and creator of The Irish Balance blog. This podcast is about sustainable healthy living, focusing on how we can empower ourselves to live happy, healthy lifestyles full of balance. For more information, check out www.theirishbalance.com or find her @theirishbalance on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook.

Health & Fitness

I'm delighted to be joined in this week's episode by Dr. Abigali Collins, Consultant in Public Health Medicine with the National Cancer Control Programme. Dr Collins immediately re-deployed back to the frontline in Public Health in the Midlands when COVID-19 reached Ireland and provided the consultant leadership for several large and difficult residential care facility outbreaks. Subsequent to this work, she was asked to take on a national role in the Covid-19 outbreak response and has been a fantastic public health leader on the national public health response to COVID-19 in educational settings. I'm so grateful to Dr. Collins for giving some time out of her very busy schedule to have a chat with me on the podcast. 
In this episode, we discuss the key points on COVID-19 and schools - how we can all help keep our school communities safe, what is involved in the public health response to a case of COVID-19 in the school setting, and a little bit about what happens if someone is identified as a close contact of a confirmed case of COVID-19. 
I really hope you enjoy this conversation and learn something from it!

Episode 52: COVID-19 and Keeping Our Schools Safe with Dr. Abigail Collins

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast! In this episode I am delighted to be joined by Dr. Sarah Murphy (@drsarahjmurphy on Instagram), who is an Irish doctor specialising in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. We speak on this episode about Sarah's career to date, and then discuss COVID-19 and pregnancy, COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy and the importance of smear tests as part of cervical screening. We also chat a little bit about being doctors on social media. I so enjoyed chatting to Sarah and I hope you guys enjoy this episode!
 
Thanks for listening!

Episode 51: COVID-19, Pregnancy and Vaccines with Dr. Sarah Murphy

In this week's episode, I am delighted to be joined by Kate McDaid, who many of you will know as @nutrikate on Instagram. Kate studied Food Science at the University of College Dublin before following her ambition and moving to the UK to complete an MSc in Sports and Exercise Nutrition at Loughborough University. She secured a position in a nutrition consultancy over there, progressing to Senior Health and Performance Nutritionist. Back in Ireland, she founded NutriKate, which is a high performance nutrition consultancy that is based in Dublin. Kate’s love for sport is clear - she has captained the Irish basketball team and continues to play basketball competitively in the Super League with Trinity Meteors – and I’m pretty sure we played against each other way back when! She is also a lecturer in Applied Nutrition at TUD, and a fluent Irish speaker, having previously featured on shows like the ‘Underdogs’ and BBC’s ‘An Focal Scoir’ as well as being a contributor to Radio na Gaeltachta and Radio na Life.
 
We had a great conversation about nutrition for performance and sport, myths and misinformation about nutrition online, and balancing social media across professional and personal lives. I hope you enjoy our chat as much as we enjoyed recording it!
 
As always, if you enjoyed listening to the podcast let us know! Tag us in your Instagram stories, send us a DM, leave a comment on the podcast, get in touch! And if you'd like to leave a review of the podcast that's always appreciated too.

Episode 50: Sports Nutrition, Performance and Social Media with Kate McDaid

Today I am so delighted to be joined by Máire Treasa Ní Cheallaigh (@mairetnc on Instagram), who is a fully accredited Sport Ireland Institute Sport and Exercise Psychologist, bilingual television and radio presenter with RTÉ TG4 and Newstalk, and also current medical student! And she's a Galway gal too! I'm really excited and grateful to have MT on the podcast today – we had a fantastic and interesting conversation about her experience in media and medicine so far, her background in sports psychology, and the relationship between sport, exercise and mental health. 
 
As always, if you enjoy the episode, let us know - tag us in your Instagram stories, send us a DM, comment on the podcast, get in touch! And if you'd like to leave a review that'd be awesome too - thanks gang!

Episode 49: Sport, Psychology and Pursuing Medicine with Máire Treasa Ní Cheallaigh

Please note - This podcast includes conversation about diet culture, our relationships with food and exercise, body image and weight. If you don't feel that's something you are comfortable listening to right now, maybe save this one for another time. 
In this episode, I was so delighted to sit down and have a chat with personal trainer, fitness instructor, author, podcast host, content creator and all round good egg Tally Rye (@tallyrye on Instagram). Tally is a definite game-changer in the fitness industry, particularly on social media, sharing her own personal journey with health and fitness, promoting the concept of intuitive fitness, and prioritising our happiness, health and well-being in the face of diet culture and a pervasive weight-centric narrative
We spoke about Tally's journey with food and movement, diet culture, obsessions with health and fitness, social media and comparison, and, my favourite part of the episode, intuitive movement and the Train Happy ethos Tally created and follows. If you haven't, definitely check out Tally's book Train Happy, and her awesome podcast, The Train Happy Podcast - it's a favourite of mine, one I look forward to each week. 
As always, let us know if you enjoy this episode - tag myself and Tally on social media, leave a comment, send a DM, whichever, I'd love to hear your feedback! Thanks for listening. You can find Tally's website here - https://tallyrye.co.uk/about/ .

Episode 36: COVID-19 and Minding Your Mental Health with Joe O'Brien

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