Hello and welcome back to my Friday 5, the weekly topical dip into the world of well-being,

to bring you a few moments of helpful, interesting, relevant and hopefully hopeful insight into

the way we are living today in terms of staying strong, positive and well. Not so easy given the

state of global heightened anxiety, raising our cortisol levels, that's our stress hormone,

right off the charts in some cases. Well, I'm actually recording this out in rural Kenya, where there

is no news to speak of, no TV, not even much chance to check in on social media due to lack of

connectivity from time to time, so my family and I are pretty much out of the loop of the daily

dire news toll from the airwaves. Maybe not so good for staying current, but possibly a bit better

for mental health, especially for my children. And the last couple of years have taught me that

protecting our mind, mood and emotions from a seemingly endless negative stream of fear and

anxiety, is fundamental when it comes to wellness. Of course, we need to be aware and act accordingly

to do what we can to help, but constant fear and worry is extremely draining and impacts badly,

not only on our mental state, but our physicality too. If something extremely bad is about to happen

to us on whatever level we might be focusing on right now, it's going to be really important to

be functioning as well as we possibly can and be strong enough for it, which leads me neatly on

to my guest conversation today, because I'm joined by Dr. Janet Machucci, who many of you may

remember from a Friday 5 way back in June of last year. She is an expert immunologist with over 20

years experience researching the impact our lifestyle habits, including the ambient levels of stress

that surround us, can have on our immune system. Now, if you haven't heard our last chat, I would

really recommend starting there. As in that episode, Janet shared her background growing up on a

farm in rural Scotland, and how this early experience led her to become fascinated with the science

of what keeps us well. And you can find that one by looking it up on your podcast app or platform,

...