The day Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the price of crude oil surged over the $100 a barrel mark for the first time since 2014. Soon, economic sanctions would be announced against Russia, with buyers shunning exports from the world’s third largest oil producing country.

For over a century, oil has been both a fuel and a barometer for the world economy. But it can also be a double-edged sword as Western countries found out in the 1970s. At the start of the 1970s, the post-war boom was coming to an end. From 1971 onwards, things started going downhill, and oil ended up being at the heart of an unprecedented economic and geopolitical crisis.

How did the 1973 crisis come around? How did the oil-dependent Western countries react? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

Is it bad to drink water with a meal?

Are Skyr yoghurts really good for you?

Why is physical contact important for our health?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

First broadcast : 26/03/2022

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Regular listeners will be familiar with a number of Scandinavian lifestyle trends by now, given we’ve discussed the likes of Denmark’s hygge, Sweden’s lagom and Norway’s friluftsliv on the show in the past. Today, we’re going to talk about a custom from Finland which has gained international recognition in recent years.

Kalsarikännit is made up of two Finnish words: “kalsari", which means "underwear" and "kännit", which means "getting drunk’. An odd combination, you might be thinking. Put them together and what do you get? The term actually refers to the tradition of getting tipsy at home alone.  It has also been loosely translated and anglicised into the word “pantsdrunk”.

How did it get to be so popular? Isn’t drinking alone at home kind of sad? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

Is it bad to drink water with a meal?

Are Skyr yoghurts really good for you?

Why is physical contact important for our health?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s pretty common knowledge that office workers across the world have a sedentary lifestyle, which is linked with a whole host of potential health problems. But did you know that most of us also unconsciously hold our breath when staring into an electronic screen?

The phenomenon was discovered by former Microsoft executive Linda Stone back in 2008, who named it email apnea. While she did a lot of breathing exercises at home, she realised those went out the window when she was in front of her computer screen looking through her emails. Fast forward to the 2020s and it’s not just emails that cause us to hold our breath. Laptops and smartphones are now part of our everyday lives, meaning we spend more time than ever before using electronic devices.

What’s going on in our bodies when this happens? What are the health effects? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

What are lucid dreams?

What are primitive reflexes?

Is it bad to drink water with a meal?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lucid dreams are dreams in which you become aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. This means that you can recognise that the events and characters in your dream are not real, and that you are actually asleep in your bed.

Some people can even control their dreams to some extent, and shape them according to their wishes. Imagine being able to fly, visit exotic places, or meet your favourite celebrities in your dreams. 

But how do lucid dreams happen? And why would you want to have lucid dreams? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

Is it bad to drink water with a meal?

Are Skyr yoghurts really good for you?

Why is physical contact important for our health?

A podcast written and realised by Amber Minogue.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

According to the UK Office for National Statistics, September 26 was the most popular day to be born over the last two decades, which falls 39 weeks and two days after Christmas day.

Babies are born with certain reflexes that result in involuntary movements. These are called primitive reflexes, and the movements happen automatically without the baby sending a message to their brain. Such reflexes develop during the foetal period and indicate that the baby’s brain is functioning well.

What are some examples? Isn’t it just the cutest when a baby grabs your finger? Do these reflexes remain with babies as they develop into children? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

Is it bad to drink water with a meal?

Are Skyr yoghurts really good for you?

Why is physical contact important for our health?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

First broadcast : 20/11/2021

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's often said that drinking water while eating can make the stomach swell, causing bloating. But in reality, there are no studies to back that up. Similarly, drinking or avoiding drinking while eating also has no impact on the effectiveness of digestive juices or on any supposed difficulty in secreting them and therefore on digestion.

We know that that water helps soften food boluses being digested by the body. A bolus is a ball-like mixture of food and saliva that forms in the mouth when we chew. Water also has the advantage of curbing hunger, thereby regulating our appetite. 

What do we know for sure about drinking water with meals? When is the best time of day to drink water? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

Why do some people sleep with their mouths open?

How can you avoid bed bugs when you travel?

What is microwork?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you've ever strolled down the dairy aisle of your local grocery store, chances are you've come across these little tubs of Icelandic goodness. Skyr yoghurt has really grown in popularity in the last five to ten years. But is it really as healthy as it’s touted to be, or is its reputation down to marketing hype? 

It's a traditional Icelandic yogurt, which is said to have been brought to Iceland by the Vikings when they settled there over a thousand years ago. It's marketed as a yoghurt, but is in fact technically a soft cheese. Skyr's uniqueness lies in its manufacturing process, which gives it that thick and creamy texture, similar to fresh cheese.

How did it become so popular? What are the nutritional qualities of skyr? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

How can you avoid bed bugs when you travel?

What is microwork?

How does pollution affect my mental health?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When it comes to expressions about skin, the English language is not lacking. For example, we can be thick or thin skinned, or have someone under our skin. To show indifference, we say “it’s no skin off” our noses, and when we get excited we “jump out of” our skin. 

The sheer number of different idioms reflects the deep links the skin has with our brains. Sometimes these links are visible and give away our feelings, when we blush, go pale or get goosebumps. The same can be said for stress too, in the case of some skin conditions like eczema or psoriasis.

How does the skin send information to the brain? What impact does touch have on our brains? How does touch affect health then? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the latest episodes, click here:

How can you avoid bed bugs when you travel?

What is microwork?

How does pollution affect my mental health?

A Bababam Originals podcast, written and produced by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How our brains work during dreams is as fascinating as it is mysterious. Dreams can be hard to predict, and sometimes of course we end up having nightmares. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some control over what happens in our dreams? Well, as it turns out it may actually be possible to some extent.

Well controlling dreams fully is a bit of a stretch. But according to neuroscience researchers from the universities of Freiburg and Tübingen in Germany, simply listening to an audiobook just before falling asleep is enough to have a significant impact on our dreams.

How does it work? What can it be used for? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

Why do some people sleep with their mouths open?

How can you avoid bed bugs when you travel?

What is microwork?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever noticed a man explaining something to a woman in a supremely confident way which suggests he absolutely knows more than her about the subject? Well, there’s a term for that, which is mansplaining.

A recent thread on parenting forum Mumsnet invited women to share their worst examples of mansplaining. Among them were patronising explanations of the offside rule, a gas man telling a qualified engineer to wait for her partner to get home so he could tell him how to fix the boiler rather than her and a male doctor telling a pregnant woman not to worry as C-sections aren’t painful!

How long has mansplaining been around? Why do men do this then? Are they really all that bad? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

To listen to the last episodes, you can click here:

How can you avoid bed bugs when you travel?

What is microwork?

How does pollution affect my mental health?

A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance.

First broadcast: 19/07/2021

In partnership with upday UK.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices