Looking after your health in the cooler months

11 June 20263 min read

Winter doesn’t have to mean sniffling through the season. With the right winter health tips, you don’t need exotic superfoods or complicated protocols to stay well. What actually works is simpler and more satisfying than you might think.

Eat the Rainbow: Fuelling Your Immune System

Start with what’s on your plate. There’s no magic bullet food that prevents colds and flu, but eating a nutrient-rich diet absolutely supports your immune system. The trick is colour. Brightly coloured fruits and vegetables deliver the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants your body needs to fight infection. Red capsicum and tomatoes contain lycopene and anthocyanins. Deep leafy greens pack folate and carotenoids. Orange and yellow produce — carrots, sweet potato, pumpkin — offer carotenoids and vitamin C. Even purple cabbage and blueberries contribute their own arsenal of flavonoids. Eating across the spectrum isn’t just nutritionally smart; it’s practical. [SUGGESTED LINK: seasonal winter produce Australia] Winter citrus arrives exactly when you need it. Oily fish like salmon and barramundi offer omega-3s. A bowl of oats with berries covers multiple bases in one breakfast.

The challenge for most people isn’t knowing what to eat — it’s actually eating it. Two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables daily sounds daunting. Break it down. Start breakfast with spinach and tomato in an omelette, or blend berries into porridge. Frozen vegetables work just as well as fresh and require almost no prep. A pot of vegetable soup made on Sunday becomes lunch and dinner for days. Add lentils for protein. Layer in finely chopped carrots, celery, and capsicum. Keep a bag of frozen berries on hand — toss them into yoghurt or baked goods.

Beyond the Plate: Sleep, Movement and Connection

But diet is only part of the equation. The strongest immune system sits on a foundation of sleep, movement, and connection. Aim for seven to eight hours of sleep — this is when your body repairs and strengthens its defences. Stay active, whether that’s a brisk walk to catch winter sunlight (which boosts vitamin D [SUGGESTED LINK: vitamin D and sun exposure in Australia]) or indoor movement on days when stepping outside feels impossible. Social connection matters too. Winter isolation can drag down mood and immunity alike.

Simple Habits That Make a Real Difference

One more practical point: wash your hands frequently, and don’t overthink it. You’re not trying to sterilise everything. Viruses spread more easily in winter partly because we’re indoors in closer proximity; basic hygiene — soap and water — is your first line of defence. [SUGGESTED LINK: hand hygiene guidelines from the Australian Department of Health]

The overarching principle: there is no immune system “boost,” only good choices stacked together. Sleep well. Move your body. Eat colourful food. Stay connected. Do these things consistently, and winter becomes the season you stay well rather than the season you recover from being sick.

What Medicare Actually Covers in 2026 (and Where the Gaps Are)

Medicare is one of those systems Australians trust without quite understanding. We carry the green card for decades, tap it at reception desks and pharmacy counters, and mostly find out what it does and doesn’t cover at the exact moment it matters: when the receptionist mentions a gap fee, or the chemist rings up a script at ten times the price you expected. The system covers a great deal. But the edges are fuzzy, and the edges are where the surprise bills live. The good news is that 2026 has brought some genuine improvements, including the cheapest general PBS scripts in more than two decades. The less good news is that the gaps, particularly dental and optical, are as wide as ever. Here is what the card actually buys you this year, what it doesn’t, and the handful of checks that can save a household hundreds of dollars. The GP visit: why some people pay nothing and you pay $40 Medicare pays a set rebate for a standard GP consultation. What you pay depends entirely on how the practice bills. A bulk-billing clinic accepts the rebate as full payment, so you walk out without opening your wallet. A private-billing clinic charges its own fee, you claim the rebate back, and the difference is your gap. That gap is set by the practice, not by Medicare, which is why two clinics in the same suburb can charge wildly different amounts for the same ten minutes. Many practices bulk bill children and concession card holders but charge everyone else, and plenty have quietly moved from bulk billing to mixed billing in recent years. None of this is secret; it is just rarely volunteered. Ask how you will be billed when you book, and if the answer stings, the Healthdirect service finder makes it easy to compare clinics near you. Changing your regular GP is a bigger decision than chasing a free appointment, but for routine scripts and referrals, knowing a bulk-billing option exists nearby is useful leverage. Scripts: the PBS just got noticeably cheaper When a medicine is listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the government pays most of the cost and you pay a capped co-payment. From 1 January 2026, that cap dropped to $25 for general patients, down from $31.60 the year before, and the biggest cut to the general co-payment in over twenty years. Concession card holders pay $7.70 a script, a rate that has been frozen since 2024 and is legislated to stay frozen through 2029. Then there is the PBS Safety Net, which far fewer people use than should. Once your household’s spending on PBS scripts passes $1,748.20 in a calendar year ($277.20 for concession card holders), scripts cost just $7.70 for the rest of the year, and nothing at all for concession holders. The catch is that someone has to be counting. Ask your pharmacist to keep a Safety Net record for your family; they can track the tally and tell you when you qualify. If your household juggles several regular medicines, this one habit can be worth hundreds of dollars in the back half of the year. Current rates are always listed on the PBS website. The big three gaps: teeth, eyes and everything physio Now for the part that catches almost every household. For adults, Medicare generally does not cover dental check-ups or treatment, glasses or contact lenses, or routine physiotherapy, podiatry and similar therapies. These are not small omissions; for many families they are the largest health costs of the year, and they sit almost entirely outside the system. There are two partial exceptions worth knowing. Children aged 0 to 17 in families receiving certain payments, including Family Tax Benefit Part A, may be eligible for the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, which covers up to $1,158 of basic dental work per child over two calendar years. Eligibility is assessed automatically, but plenty of eligible families simply never use it; you can check yours through Services Australia. Public dental services also exist for concession card holders, though waiting lists in most states are measured in months or years, not weeks. These gaps are the main reason people hold private health extras cover, and extras deserve a cold-eyed annual review. Before renewing, add up what you actually claimed on dental, optical and physio last year and hold it against the premium. If you claimed less than you paid, you are not insuring, you are donating. If you claimed more, keep it and check your limits. It is a ten-minute exercise that regularly changes minds in both directions. Mental health: more cover than most people realise If you are struggling, start with your GP. A Mental Health Treatment Plan unlocks Medicare rebates for up to 10 individual psychology sessions each calendar year, plus up to 10 group sessions. The rebate rarely covers the full fee, so ask two questions when booking: what is the gap per session, and does the practitioner bulk bill plan sessions for any patients? Some do, particularly for concession card holders, and your GP often knows who. Telehealth sessions attract the same rebates, which has quietly transformed access for women in regional areas and for anyone whose week does not accommodate a 3pm appointment across town. If cost is the barrier, Healthdirect’s guide to low-cost mental health services lists the free and subsidised options worth trying first. Newer treatments: where the out-of-pocket question matters most The most expensive surprises in Australian healthcare tend to involve newer prescription treatments. There is often a long delay between a medicine being approved by the TGA and it being subsidised on the PBS, and some medicines never make the list at all. In that window, you pay the private price, which can run to hundreds of dollars a month, with none of it counting toward the PBS Safety Net. Weight loss medication is the clearest current example. It is among the most asked-about prescriptions in the country, and the coverage rules confuse almost everyone, because

Health and Wellness

Why friendship breakups can hurt more than romantic ones

“A friend is someone who knows all of you and still loves you.” – Elbert Hubbard And that is exactly why it hurts so deeply when a friendship falls apart. Unlike romance, there is often an unspoken belief that friendship will be a constant in an unpredictable world. Friends become our safe place, our chosen family, the people we imagine will be beside us for the long haul. Whether it is a lifelong companion from childhood or a newer connection formed later in life, close friends know our backstory and our vulnerabilities. They see us at our most unfiltered, through life’s highs and lows, and accept us just as we are. That kind of connection feels rare and deeply comforting. Think about the warmth that comes from sharing dreams, secrets and stories over coffee or a glass of wine. Those moments are not just emotionally nourishing, they also trigger powerful chemical reactions in the body. Laughter and connection release dopamine and endorphins, trust encourages oxytocin, and the feeling of being valued strengthens serotonin. Friendship does more than lift our mood, it helps calm our nervous system and brings a sense of ease. When life becomes heavy, friends often show up in meaningful ways. They organise meals, check in without being asked, help with the kids or simply sit beside us when words feel hard to find. Over time, a quiet reliability forms. Because the connection feels so nourishing, we may overlook small frustrations and remind ourselves that no friendship is perfect. We soften, adjust and make space for one another, creating a protective bubble in an otherwise busy world. In neuroscience, this sense of safety is called belonging. Our brains are wired for it. In early human history, belonging to a group meant survival. We shared resources, protected one another and stayed alert to danger together. That wiring still exists today. When we feel we belong, our nervous system settles into a state of safety. So when a friendship breaks down, the grief can feel surprisingly intense. The person we relied on is suddenly absent, and the loss can trigger deep feelings of rejection. It may feel disorienting, like losing a steady anchor we never imagined would disappear. Romantic relationships can be exhilarating, full of excitement and possibility. Yet many of us understand, somewhere deep down, that romance carries risk. Hearts can break and relationships can end, and it is often our friends who help us through those moments. When a trusted friendship ends, it can feel as though a piece of our emotional foundation has shifted. The pain is not only about losing the person, but also about losing the sense of belonging that existed within the friendship. It is not necessarily a failure, but sometimes a reminder that certain relationships are only meant for a season. To help navigate the loss of a friendship, therapist Justine Williams suggests a gentle three-step approach: see, feel and hear. First, see the friendship clearly. Try to view it with perspective, noticing it as it truly was rather than through an idealised lens. Focus your energy on the people who genuinely lift you up and value you. Next, feel your grief rather than pushing it away. Allow sadness to move through you and practise compassion towards yourself. Accept what you cannot control, and if you feel stuck, seeking professional support can help untangle lingering guilt or self-doubt. Finally, hear your inner wisdom. Ask yourself what advice you would offer a child, sibling or close friend in the same situation. Trust that guidance and allow yourself the time and space needed to heal. Friendship breakups can be deeply painful, but they can also invite reflection, growth and a renewed understanding of what connection truly means. About the author Justine Williams Founder of The Feel Good Studio and Hyp Little Fairy Tales® Affectionately known as The Fairy Godmother for her work supporting children, parents and families. A highly regarded Clinical Hypnotherapist, speaker and multi-award-winning author. Website Email

By Justine Williams

Health and Wellness

You are not irreplacable, you are resilient!

You have two kidneys. You only need one. Long before anyone coined a phrase for it, your body quietly modelled the principle we now call resilience at work — packed with spares, one organ at a time, built not to be precious but to last. Evolution looked at the long odds of staying alive and decided that redundancy, a quiet backup sitting ready and unbothered, was the kindest thing it could give you. The Myth of the Irreplaceable Person Your ego disagrees. It has its own theory, and it recites it at 2am: that you’re the one who truly understands the client, the unrepeatable knot of skill the whole thing depends on. It’s a comforting story. The body has spent years gently disagreeing. We’ve always believed this at scale. Every monarchy that claimed divine right discovered, eventually, that divinity has a short attention span. When Steve Jobs died in 2011, the consensus was that Apple had lost the one mind it could never replace; under Tim Cook it went on to become the most valuable company in the world. [SUGGESTED LINK: Tim Cook’s leadership and Apple’s growth post-Jobs] The gap between valuable and irreplaceable is the gap between a fact and a fairy tale. Work culture prefers the fairy tale. It calls you a “key person” and means it as a compliment — when underneath sits a system that falls over the moment one human leaves. Engineering has a blunter name for that. It isn’t talent; it’s a single point of failure. A design flaw. [SUGGESTED LINK: single point of failure in organisational design] What Strong Systems Actually Look Like The body knows better, because it has no ego to defend. Two lungs, two kidneys, two brain hemispheres that cover for each other. A liver that grows back. An immune system that reroutes when a defence is breached. None of this is sentiment. Evolution doesn’t build irreplaceable parts; it builds systems that outlive the failure of any one of them. You are not the jewel in the crown of natural selection. You are a distributed backup system wrapped in skin and anxiety — and that, it turns out, is the good news. Here’s the part we flinch from, so I’ll just say it. Most of what you do — the emails, the meetings, the decisions — someone competent could learn in a few months. Not the intuition, the relationships, the context you carry in your bones. But the function? That’s a transferable skill wearing your name badge. AI didn’t make this true; it only made it loud. The printing press didn’t make the monk less skilled, only less necessary. We spend our lives confusing the two: defending how necessary we are, and missing what we’re for. [SUGGESTED LINK: AI and the future of work] Redundancy as a Design Principle, Not an Insult So before you spiral and refresh your LinkedIn, turn it over. Redundancy was never the insult you took it for. It’s the whole principle of resilience — why planes stay aloft, why your heart keeps beating when one pathway misfires. Strong systems aren’t the ones with an indispensable part; they’re the ones where no part is. When only one person understands the billing system, that isn’t a measure of their importance. It’s a hostage situation. Don’t be the load-bearing wall whose removal brings down the ceiling. Be part of the frame — holding things up precisely because it no longer all rests on you. And here’s the gift hidden in all of it: once you stop defending how hard you are to replace, you start to notice what genuinely can’t be. It was never the spreadsheet or the code. It’s the way you make a colleague feel human again after a brutal quarter; the meaning you pull out of chaos. None of it fits on a CV, because none of it is a component. It’s the connective tissue — not the parts, but what happens between them. What Genuinely Cannot Be Replaced “But doesn’t that mean we’re all worthless?” is the wrong question. It mistakes one axis for another. Any musician in the orchestra can be swapped and the note still sounds — but the ensemble, these people on this particular night, will never happen twice. You’re replaceable as a function and unrepeatable as a presence. You matter not because no one else could do your job, but because you’re the one doing it now, bringing the strange, specific thing only you bring. That’s not nothing. It’s just not what we were taught to call worth. We need this now, in an age of industrial-scale redundancy anxiety. AI writes the emails; an algorithm makes the trades, with no meltdowns and no lunch break. You are more functionally redundant than any generation before you — and the answer isn’t to deny it. It’s to stop hanging your whole identity on the function in the first place. You have two kidneys. You only need one. And you’ve spent your whole life not thinking about the spare — not resenting it, not feeling diminished by it, not lying awake afraid of it. You just lived, while the backup sat there quietly keeping you alive. Maybe it’s time to extend that same grace to the rest of you. The spare was never an accusation that you weren’t enough. It was the most honest kindness your body could manage: a margin, a second chance, the reason the whole fragile system keeps going. You are not irreplaceable. You are something better. You are resilient — and you were built that way on purpose. About the author Andrew Harmer Co-Founder & Software Architect, Get It Media Magazine Operations Software Engineering Andrew is co-founder of Get It Media, where he builds the software behind modern publishing — practical tools for creating, managing and distributing web content. He also writes for Get It Magazine on men's health and lifestyle. Website Email

By Andrew Harmer

Health and Wellness

Simple, realistic ways to reset and feel like yourself again

We have all had those days. A few too many sweet treats, followed by feeling sluggish, bloated or simply not quite like ourselves. While it is easy to fall into guilt afterwards, sugar binges are incredibly common and are often linked to stress, exhaustion or emotions rather than a lack of willpower. The good news is that one indulgent day does not undo your health. With a few simple, practical steps, you can help your body reset and move forward feeling more balanced again. What happens after a sugar binge? When we consume a large amount of sugar, blood glucose levels rise quickly. In response, the body releases insulin to help regulate the surge, which can then lead to a rapid drop in blood sugar levels, often referred to as the “crash”. This is why many people feel tired, irritable, foggy or crave even more sugar shortly afterwards. It can also trigger a cycle of overeating followed by restriction, which tends to make things worse rather than better. Understanding this response is important. Your body is not failing you. It is simply reacting to rapid fluctuations. Why sugar binges happen Sugar binges are rarely just about food. Common triggers can include: Stress or emotional overwhelm Lack of sleep Restrictive dieting or skipping meals Habit, convenience or comfort eating Recognising your own triggers can make it easier to respond differently next time. How to reset without punishing yourself Eat balanced mealsSkipping meals after overeating often backfires. Instead, focus on balanced meals that include protein, fibre and healthy fats, such as eggs, vegetables, whole grains, yoghurt or lean meats. This helps stabilise blood sugar levels and reduce cravings. Hydrate wellWater supports digestion, helps reduce bloating and can improve energy levels. Aim for around two litres a day, particularly if you have been eating heavily or consuming extra salt and sugar. Move your body gentlyYou do not need an intense workout to “make up” for anything. A walk, light stretch or swim can help your body regulate glucose levels and improve how you feel physically and mentally. Prioritise sleepPoor sleep increases hunger hormones and sugar cravings. Giving your body proper rest can help regulate appetite and energy more effectively. Avoid extreme restrictionCutting out all treats or drastically reducing calories often leads to stronger cravings and another binge later on. A balanced, flexible approach is far more sustainable. Choose smarter sweet optionsIf cravings hit, try options that are more balanced, such as fruit with nut butter, Greek yoghurt with berries or a small piece of dark chocolate. Manage stress levelsStress is one of the biggest drivers of sugar cravings. Gentle habits like walking, journaling, deep breathing or yoga can help regulate the nervous system and reduce emotional eating. Let go of the guilt It is normal to feel physically and emotionally off after overeating, but guilt rarely helps recovery. One day does not define your health or your habits. Treat yourself with the same kindness you would offer a friend. Long-term wellbeing is built through consistency, not perfection. Preventing future binges Small habits often make the biggest difference over time: Eat regularly and avoid skipping meals Keep nourishing snacks on hand Be mindful of hidden sugars Identify emotional triggers rather than ignoring them Most importantly, stay curious rather than critical about your habits. Every experience offers insight into what your body may actually need.