We all feel stressed, right? We feel dread-full. We’ve done Pilates and lit a candle and had a bath and, in Annabel’s case, fallen asleep in it. But still. The panic. WE NEED SOLUTIONS. So this week we’re thrilled to have Dr Sam Akbar on the podcast. She's at the frontline of serious, heart-breaking stress; a clinical psychologist who treats refugees and survivors of torture with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Sam is applying those hard-won skills to our everyday flavours of stress with her excellent new book, Stressilient. We talk about how to be psychologically prosperous, how to stop being afraid of our feelings and why mindfulness should sack its PR team - plus there are lots of exercises to give us all a little of bit of space…have a listen and feel a bit better. We did. 
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Episode 135: How To Be Stressilient With Sam Akbar

Do you feel like a fully-functional human person? Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan of The Midult look at all the glamour and indignity of being a grown-up, while rummaging through the handbags, emotional knicker drawers and lives of some extraordinary people.

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Katherine Ormerod is a writer, journalist, content creator and influencer. If you’ve encountered her sharp bob and soigné style, it won’t surprise you that her home is also super slick. But it might surprise you to know that Katherine is a renter, and she has been decorating her rental homes with more zeal than we have come to expect even from owners. We’re talking DIY, upholstery, shelving, all with such elan that she’s written a book on it, Your Not Forever Home, out now. But it’s not just a book about the power of a scalloped shelf, it’s also a bit of a rental revolution (essential given the current financial climate), as well as a bit of a feminist manifesto. We talk about the power of vinyl, high/low purchases and why fuckups are the price you pay to learn skill that you’ll have forever…
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Episode 195: DIY with Katherine Ormerod (don't be scared)

Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. This week we talk all the tiny, micro-traumas we experience that leave us feeling all wonky. You know, like when someone points a phone at you mid-Facetime. Or a ball lands at your feet in the park and you are clearly expected to kick it, or throw it or…sorry just passed out there for a second…or the doorbell ringing: is it a murderer? Is it the police telling you everyone is dead? Is it that book you ordered on positive thinking? And if that’s not enough tiny trauma, we’ve launched a Substack. Sorry. We’d love you to continue to sail with us on HMS Midulthood for this bumpy, occasionally nausea-inducing, disappointingly-hot-pirate-free voyage on Substack - you know that we believe: if we’re not in it together, we’re not in it at all… 
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PODCAST FROM THE EDGE 20:

OK Annabel is still OOO, so Emilie has roped in a friend of the pod, the marvellous Esther Coren to help. Esther has her own podcast, Giles Coren Has No Idea and a Substack called The Spike and she also gives excellent book recommendations. Given we’re all feeling mad, bad and dangerous to know (not in a swashbuckling-Byronic-way but in a teetering on The-Brink-kind-of-way) perhaps books can soothe us tiny bit: little umbrellas for the mind. We talk about The Paleo Life by Clare Foges (out June 6), Quint by Robert Lautner, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (May 14), One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Egg & I by Betty MacDonald (out of print, but will be on World of Books, which, incidentally, is the preloved Amazon), Hugo Rifkind’s Rabbits (also June 6), and In Memoriam by Alice Winn. Plus there’s a cameo from Esther’s cat Iris. 
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Episode 194: Brilliant Books by Esther Coren

Who doesn’t love a solution story? The tale of a grown-up woman who had a problem and thought, ‘You know what? I am not going to wait for some fucker to fix this – I am just going to do it myself’? This week we have two such stories from the podvault – first up is Sahar Hashemi who smashed through many a ceiling and is still busy opening lots of doors for women: she founded Coffee Republic - three years before Starbucks landed on our shores; for the past couple of years, she’s been putting her considerable energy into spotlighting women-owned businesses with her Buy Women Built movement; asking the question: why do we only hear about the men? Did you know that 81% of 11-18-year olds are unable to name one single female entrepreneur? She’s out to change all that. 
Then we have some highlights from our interview with Joanna Jensen, who suffered from eczema as a child and, when her own children were born with the same condition, she decided ‘enough is enough.’ In 2010 she created Child’s Farm from her kitchen table and, by the end of the decade, it was the UK’s number one baby and child brand. She sold it to Cussons for £40 million in 2022. *does a little dance*. Anyway, it might sound like an enviably smooth ride but, like all of these stories, it is full of bumps, lumps, divorce and other crises. Why have one brilliant female entrepreneur when you can have two?
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Episode 193: The Entrepreneurial Issue

You will have heard of Hadley Freeman, The Sunday Times columnist who writes about feminism, the arts, politics and, she says, anything else that takes her fancy. She is also the author of several acclaimed books – including Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, just out in paperback. It’s a searing record of her own illness, illuminating the dark corners of this most brutal of mental health disorders, with her deft blend of forensic detail and humour. Please note we talk frankly about this devastating illness. It sounds “oof” (take this as your trigger warning) but Hadley is so generous both in the book and on the podcast that it feels like a ray of light rather than a trauma wallow...
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Episode 135: How To Be Stressilient With Sam Akbar

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