January 2024

Quote

Health is not simply the absence of illness. Real health is the will to overcome every form of adversity and use even the worst of circumstances as a springboard for new growth and development. Simply put, the essence of health is the constant renewal and rejuvenation of life.
— Daisaku Ikeda

Useful Fact

Macular disease can affect anyone, at any age. The most common macular disease is age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It’s responsible for 50 per cent of blindness in Australia.

Diabetic eye disease, which can also affect the macula, is the number one cause of preventable blindness in working-age Australians.

You can have early signs of these or other macular diseases without knowing. The only way to accurately diagnose macular disease is by visiting your eye health professional – an optometrist or ophthalmologist. But you can learn about your risk.

Early action saves sight, so start the quiz!

IG highlight

Follow us on Instagram to access posts like this one!

Slightly belated, but still in the month of wishing everyone a Happy NY, here is out Xmas pic in case you missed it via email.

In case its not SUPER obvious, here we have: Tennis Barbie, Pregnant Barbie (Big congratulations to Kaitlyn!), Flight Attendant Barbie & Tradie Barbie.

Fun fact: A pregnant version of Barbie was unceremoniously pulled from store shelves in 2002 amid fears she was promoting teen motherhood. She only appeared in doll form once more in 2013 — until 2023 on the big screen.

Campaign & Events

Emen8 launched in May 2017 as Australia’s biggest and boldest online sexual health and wellbeing initiative for gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.

Its online presence includes Emen8.com.au and Facebook.

Emen8 is produced by gay men who recognise that gay and bi men’s lives are diverse, that their experiences are broad and that wellbeing isn’t just about how they have sex; it’s about their friends, partners, families, networks, communities, passions, interests and how they live.

Emen8’s content covers news, entertainment, travel, community events, culture, sex, and wellbeing.

Know Your Websites

The Noise Risk calculator looks at your leisure and work activities and estimates your risk of hearing damage from noise exposure.

It will take about 8-10 minutes of your time to complete. Save your results at the end to review or compare another time. You can also experiment with your results to see how changes in your lifestyle could affect your hearing risk.

Want to contribute your results to science?

Volunteer to answer a few extra questions at the end and we can add your results to the research database. Help them get a better picture of Australia's noise exposure!

Who are?

Street Side Medics strives to alleviate the burdens faced by the homeless community of NSW in accessing primary healthcare.

The founder, Dr. Daniel Nour, and his fellow directors shared a vision of providing an exceptional standard of healthcare to the homeless community. They are able to carry many of the burdens that homeless people experience by exploring and addressing the barriers keeping them away from healthcare services.

The service operates from a mobile medical van which ensures that they are able to reach the homeless community across multiple locations. Each doctor in the van is an RACGP accredited General practitioner and the vans are fitted with the necessary equipment to provide primary healthcare services, to the standard of a normal general practice.

They have partnered with a number of homeless services in areas with demographically high concentrations of homelessness in order to improve patient participation at no personal charge to any patients regardless of healthcare status.

On the Blog

In October 2023, we featured a blog: Can this be the blog title? It was a question we posed amongst the team, as to whether or not we could put Ejaculate Responsibly (a book title, with this whole blog dedicated to it) in the subject header of a promotional email.

The answer was a conservative no. Many filters would block the email and being from the government, we don’t want to offend anyone.

It’s a fine line to becoming click bait, and we choose not to do be ALARMING. There’s enough of that in the world already, we’re not going to add to the pile.

Anyway, if you did miss this blog, as mentioned, it’s entirely devoted to the book Ejaculate Responsibly by Gabrielle Blair, because it’s THAT GOOD.

Ejaculate Responsibly cleverly transcends the polarised anti-abortion and pro-choice 'debate' with something entirely different. Rather than endlessly exploring how and why we control women's bodies, this book turns the tables on men, arguing that they are the source of all unwanted pregnancies.

Expanding on Gabrielle Blair's viral twitter thread from 2018, this book develops 28 refreshing and productive arguments for why men need to be accountable for their reproductive choices. An unwanted pregnancy doesn't happen because people have sex. An unwanted pregnancy only happens if a man ejaculates irresponsibly - it's not asking for a lot for men to avoid this. We've put the burden of pregnancy prevention on the person who is fertile for 24 hours a month, instead of the person who is fertile for 24 hours a day, every day of their life. It's time to shift the focus and responsibility onto men.

Resource

Take a mindful break in nature… through the forest, or the beach or in the meadow. Sound on.

Go to Desktop Mindfulness.

Diary Dates

Registrations are now open for this year’s exciting line up of guests for On The Couch 2024!

In February we will host Axel Nathanial Rose from the University of NSW

In March Stella Topaz from Abundant Body

In May Shane Sturgiss from BlaQ

In June Danyelle Mei Kaplan & Egan Magee from Magkasama

In August Laura Crozier from Youth Affairs Council of Victoria

In September Dr Tessa Opie from In Your Skin.

You can also find and complete free modules like Nitty Gritty, Hepatitis B and C & Because You Care in your own time on the same page.

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February 2024

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December 2023