The Rest Room
39 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★ - 5 ratingsWelcome to The Rest Room: a place to explore what it means to live (and live well) with chronic illness.
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Episodes
On convalescence & chronic illness
February 08, 2023 20:22 - 42 minutes - 29.4 MBA little while ago, my doctor told me that I need to convalesce. My instinct? To record a podcast episode about convalescence. In which I was called out (kindly) for that being my first instinct. The episode is, I think, a fascinating conversation about what realistic convalescence in 2023 looks like when you live with a long-term health condition and can’t just disappear to “go and take the sea air”. After a difficult few months, exacerbated in the last few weeks, I was putting the finish...
What actually is Post-Exertional Malaise?
February 01, 2023 01:00 - 37 minutes - 25.9 MBDo you experience Post-Exertional Malaise? I have for a number of years now, and it can be utterly debilitating. But, like the term “brain fog”, I know what PEM means, what it feels like, subjectively, but I didn’t know all that much about what we actually mean when we talk about PEM. What’s actually happening inside our bodies when we experience these exacerbation of symptoms hours or days after exerting ourselves? These are questions I’ve been pondering for a while, so I’m delighted ...
The Rest Room: A 2022 Wrap-Up
December 21, 2022 00:00 - 52 minutes - 36.3 MBThis year has been the best one yet when it comes to this podcast. I’ve been working with an amazing producer (big shoutout to Philly Guillou!) which means we’ve been able to consistently release two episodes a month - and with her support I’ve been able to start working on the kind of content I always felt like I needed when I was younger and early on in my diagnosis. I’ve learned so much from our guests, and we’ve shared stories, laughs, and a few tears along the way, too. Instead of re...
How to survive (and enjoy!) the festive season with chronic illness
December 07, 2022 01:00 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MBWhether you celebrate Christmas or not, when December rolls around (and you live in a Christian country) there’s a whole lots of special festive stuff going on. Whether it’s invites to dinner or New Year parties, Secret Santa, family meals, festive drinks in a bedecked pub - there’s often a whole lot more social stuff to do, presents to wrap, ugly Christmas jumpers to wear, and Christmas movies to binge. But if you live with chronic illness, this can be a real challenge. You may want to par...
What happens when diagnostic criteria aren't fit for purpose?
November 23, 2022 01:00 - 41 minutes - 56.9 MBIn this episode we discuss: * The history of the Beighton Score - how did a tool used for epidemiological studies come to be used to test for EDS? And should it have been? * The limitations of the current EDS criteria (and what the hell happened with the HSD diagnosis) * The difficulties of creating a diagnostic criteria for hEDS * What’s the deal with “the gene”? * More about Sabeeha’s current work and the exciting future for EDS research… ….and much more! It was truly fascinating to...
How to make the most of your medical appointments
November 02, 2022 08:21 - 1 hour - 83.7 MBOne of the saddest (and yet not surprising) things I’ve heard over the years in my conversations with chronically ill people is how many people have had negative experiences with medical professionals. I wanted to talk to someone who has experience on both sides of the doctor-patient relationship. And with that in mind, I’m delighted to share a chat I recently had with Hannah Barham-Brown, a chronically ill GP and disability activist. In this episode, we discuss: * The challenges facing d...
Inside a chronic illness-friendly workplace
October 19, 2022 00:00 - 33 minutes - 45.6 MBIn the last episode of The Rest Room podcast, we explored the tricky beast of navigating work when you live with chronic illness. As I mentioned, there are many people who are too unwell to work, but there are also many of us who (with the right roles, adjustments and support) may be able to work even a little bit. With the help of my guests Pippa Stacey and Bruce Daisley, we discussed everything from the barriers we can face when it comes to finding flexible and meaningful work, to a whol...
Navigating work & chronic illness
October 04, 2022 05:25 - 48 minutes - 66.1 MBThis week, we’re joined by good friend of the Rest Room, Pippa Stacey, a writer, blogger and public speaker who works with the UK charity Astriid, which matches talented people with long-term health conditions with meaningful work. We’re also joined by Bruce Daisley, who’s a best-selling author and self-proclaimed workplace culture enthusiast. We discuss the state of inclusive employment for chronically ill people, the challenges that people with long-term conditions face when trying to fi...
Can technology teach me to pace?
September 21, 2022 00:00 - 58 minutes - 79.8 MBWhen I heard that a new startup called Visible was building wearable technology to help people with energy-limiting conditions learn how to pace - using real-time data from our own bodies to help us understand how exertion is impacting our health - I got extremely excited. I was lucky enough to join the team in April, and in today's episode I'm joined by our co-founder, CEO (and my boss!) Harry Leeming as our guest for today’s episode of The Rest Room. It’s a wide-ranging discussion where w...
Fear, Pain & Hope: Movement with Hypermobility
September 07, 2022 00:00 - 52 minutes - 71.5 MBHow we think about movement when living with hypermobiliy is a subject I’m super interested in, so I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to chat with Joint Hypermobility & Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Movement Therapist, Jeannie Di Bon. I’ve worked with Jeannie a couple of times in the past and I personally found her approach to the hypermobile body so refreshing. In today’s episode of The Rest Room, we have a wide-ranging and personal discussion. Like with every conversation about movemen...
"This really brought us closer together" - navigating a relationship with chronic illness
August 23, 2022 08:13 - 53 minutes - 73.1 MBWhat's it actually like to date with chronic illness? And what's it like to date someone who lives with chronic illness? That’s exactly what we’ll be exploring today - from both sides. I'm joined by my new husband Sebastian to discuss what it's like to be with someone who can’t do a lot of the things young people are expected to do? To see someone you love in pain and not be able to stop it? And how can you find joy, humour and happiness, even in the most challenging times? ---- Thanks t...
'I hated myself': becoming chronically ill at 12
July 20, 2022 00:00 - 52 minutes - 71.9 MB“I just hated myself. I really hated myself. My body kept failing me. And so I couldn't do all the things that I so desperately wanted to do. I couldn't be a part of friendship groups. I couldn't go out. I couldn't do anything. This thing, my body, which is supposed to get me from point A, point B, it's supposed to be on my side. It just kept on failing.” That’s Natasha Misri, one of my oldest and dearest friends, and my guest for today’s episode. Natasha and I went to school together - w...
Actually useful sleep advice for chronic illness
July 07, 2022 00:00 - 32 minutes - 45.3 MBSleep (or lack of it) can be of the cruellest paradoxes of living with chronic illness: you spend your days fatigued beyond words, only to struggle to fall asleep at night. Or you spend a huge amount of time sleeping, but never wake up feeling rested. And yes, having trouble sleeping is not a problem unique to people living with chronic illness, but I always found that a lot of the basic advice that’s supposed to help us sleep better just doesn’t really take into consideration some of the ...
Planning a chronic illness friendly wedding
June 15, 2022 00:00Ok so, I know how I often talk about pacing and thinking about how to break up activities and give myself as much time as possible to do things…and then…we decided to get married in August. But we have a plan. And I love admin, so…this is going to be totally fine…?! Sebastian and I got engaged in June of 2020, but with the whole pandemic going on we decided that we weren’t going to think about a wedding for the foreseeable future. Then we were in Germany in May and our friends got engaged...
The problem with "self-management"
June 01, 2022 00:00 - 50 minutesIf you’re a regular listener of The Rest Room podcast, you may have sensed a little bit of a theme. I’m very interested in exploring tools and techniques to help us learn how to live well with chronic illness. We’ve explored topics like pacing and how to safely and sustainably introduce movement into your life - things that are often lumped into the bucket of “self-management”. To me, self-management has always been thinking about the stuff I have to do myself (often outside of a medical...
How to reduce brain fog
April 29, 2022 23:00 - 30 minutesWelcome back to Part 2 of our mini series on brain fog and chronic illness. In our last episode, Neuroscientist Dr. Sabina Brennan explained what brain fog actually is and all the different ways it can impact us. As someone who has complained about brain fog for years, but has never thought about it beyond my own subjective experience, I found it fascinating, and highly recommend giving it a listen if you haven’t already. As it turns out, brain fog isn’t a disease, a disorder, or a dia...
What actually is brain fog?
April 13, 2022 04:30 - 34 minutesLike many people living with chronic illness and chronic pain, brain fog is a normal (but bloody annoying) part of my daily life. Whilst I can talk about it subjectively, I never spent much time thinking about what brain fog actually is. I’m not particularly adept at using visual and descriptive imagery to explain things, so I loved when my friend said that brain fog to her is “like trying to load Netflix on dial up internet on a windows 98 computer.” In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr ...
“The whole world needs to know that people with disabilities in Ukraine are left behind”
March 15, 2022 18:13 - 21 minutesOn the 24th February 2022, the world watched in horror as Russian troops invaded Ukraine. At the time of writing, more than 2.5 million people have fled the country, in what the United Nations has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War Two. It’s unclear how many of those who’ve left are disabled, but the European Disability Forum has said tens of thousands of people with disabilities "risk being abandoned and forgotten". The International Disability Alliance says there’...
“The whole world needs to know that people with disabilities in Ukraine are left behind”
March 15, 2022 18:13 - 21 minutesOn the 24th February 2022, the world watched in horror as Russian troops invaded Ukraine. At the time of writing, more than 2.5 million people have fled the country, in what the United Nations has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War Two. It’s unclear how many of those who’ve left are disabled, but the European Disability Forum has said tens of thousands of people with disabilities "risk being abandoned and forgotten". The International Disability Alliance says there’s...
Rethinking Recovery
March 09, 2022 05:30 - 41 minutesDid you know that in the founding constitution of the World Health Organisation, health is defined as: “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.” As someone who's lived with chronic conditions since I was a child, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what recovery can mean. In fact, I’ve even been through the (pretty common) experience of trying to heal myself. Our current cultural understanding of recovery is pre...
How to break the boom and bust cycle, for real this time
February 23, 2022 07:00 - 36 minutes“I think all too often, healthcare professionals put [self-management] across in a way that kind of internalises a lot of this guilt around ‘I haven't been able to manage, so I failed at self-management.’ You haven't been able to manage because you're living with something unmanageable. Complex, long-term, unpleasant health conditions are a challenge. And it's an ongoing, constantly evolving challenge.” - Jo Southall Sometimes, I can’t help but feeling like a hypocrite. I work with experts...
Pacing: A guide for people who’d rather be doing other things
February 09, 2022 01:00 - 29 minutesBefore we get started, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who signed up to my newsletter last week, and to those of you who have purchased a premium subscription. I have so many things I want to do and create, and your support will make that possible. Thank you again. If you’re interested in becoming a premium subscriber, you can get 10% off yearly membership for life using this link if you sign up before 10th February. If you’ve followed me on social media for a while, you’ll know that I...
Pacing: A guide for people who’d rather be doing other things
February 09, 2022 01:00 - 29 minutesBefore we get started, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who signed up to my newsletter last week, and to those of you who have purchased a premium subscription. I have so many things I want to do and create, and your support will make that possible. Thank you again. If you’re interested in becoming a premium subscriber, you can get 10% off yearly membership for life using this link if you sign up before 10th February. If you’ve followed me on social media for a while, you’ll know that ...
What to do when your chronic illness flares up
January 10, 2022 01:00 - 54 minutesIf you live with chronic illness or chronic pain, chances are you’ll experience a flare-up of your symptoms from time to time. Those flare-ups will look and feel different for each person, but whatever a flare up means for you, we hope this episode will provide you with some valuable tips and tricks to help you navigate them better. Pain management physiotherapist Claire Campbell helps us understand what flare-ups are, what causes them and what we can do to mitigate and manage symptoms. Sh...
How accessible is theatre for disabled people?
December 01, 2021 01:00 - 45 minutesMany theatres were built hundreds of years ago, without accessibility in mind. It’s true that a lot has changed in recent years, but disabled people still face many barriers both off and on stage. In this episode, we speak to access consultant and activist Shona Louise about the work she’s doing to drive real change in the industry. We also hear from actor, singer and radio presenter Sandra Gayer about her experience of accessibility as a performer. So whether you’re a disabled person who ...
How accessible is theatre for disabled people?
December 01, 2021 01:00 - 45 minutes - 62.8 MBMany theatres were built hundreds of years ago, without accessibility in mind. It’s true that a lot has changed in recent years, but disabled people still face many barriers both off and on stage. In this episode, we speak to access consultant and activist Shona Louise about the work she’s doing to drive real change in the industry. We also hear from actor, singer and radio presenter Sandra Gayer about her experience of accessibility as a performer. So whether you’re a disabled person who ...
How to make a film about chronic illness
November 08, 2021 01:00 - 43 minutesHow often do you see chronic illness or disability portrayed on your screens? The answer is, sadly not as often as we should. In fact, disabled people are the most under-represented group in television, both on and off screen. In this episode, we explore how accessible the industry is as we speak to screenwriter Charlotte Paradise. She’s behind the short film ‘Chronic’ which follows a chronically ill woman as she moves in with her boyfriend for the first time. Charlotte herself lives with...
How To Navigate University With Chronic Illness
September 13, 2021 13:13 - 43 minutesHeading to university can be a rollercoaster of emotions – for many, it’s one of the most exciting experiences, but also one of the most overwhelming. And for someone living with a chronic illness, it can be a minefield. In today’s episode we aim to take the stress and uncertainty out of the university experience, so you can enjoy the ride. Author, blogger and psychology graduate Pippa Stacey has experienced this all first hand, and shares the lessons she learnt along the way. We’re also...
Writing, Chronic Illness & Incidental Diversity with Talia Hibbert
June 07, 2021 11:38 - 40 minutesIn this (very belated) episode, I'm joined by the brilliant New York Times bestselling author of steamy, diverse romance, Talia Hibbert. Her latest book is "Act Your Age, Eve Brown", an autistic romance, and her first book "Get a Life, Chloe Brown" features a protagonist living with Fibromyalgia. Talia says she "lives in a bedroom full of books. Supposedly, there is a world beyond that room, but she has yet to drum up enough interest to investigate," and ooh is that relatable! We take a de...
How To Read More When You Live With Chronic Illness
February 02, 2021 14:30 - 32 minutesStruggling with reading is something that can be really upsetting to many people, so last year I took to my Instagram Stories to find out what your biggest challenges are when it comes to reading, and what has helped you find a way to make it more accessible. Helpfully, and perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the reading issues that people shared can be broken down into a handful of categories: 🧠 Concentration and processing 🌩️ Physical issues/pain 😫 Energy 🕰️ Making time We're going to cover...
How to learn a language with a chronic illness
January 11, 2021 18:11 - 45 minutesI’m joined by one of my best friends in the world, Colin Gorrie. Or should I say Dr. Colin Gorrie. Colin is a linguist and lifelong language learner. These days he works on bringing knowledge of language and linguistics to a wider audience online. Colin also lives with EDS and experiences a lot of brain fog and fatigue, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to sit down and have a chat about some of the challenges of language learning when your brain doesn’t really retain information ...
How to Start Exercising when Everything Hurts
December 19, 2020 21:04 - 35 minutesWelcome to Episode 3 of The Rest Room! In the last episode, we looked at ways to address the barriers that come up when figuring out how to start incorporating movement and exercise into your life. We learned that we need to throw the whole ‘workout’ mentality in the bin, especially if movement is new to you, but we didn’t cover how to get started in really practical, tangible ways. Whether you have little confidence in your body’s ability to do the things that you need (and want!) to do d...
What are your barriers to moving with chronic pain?
September 05, 2020 15:08 - 31 minutesChanging behaviour can be really hard, even at the best of times. How many of you have embarked on a new fitness regime to help with your health condition, only to stop within a day, a week, or a month? That could be because of pain, fatigue, lack of confidence, lack of support, or one of many other reasons. We often underestimate the difficulties we’ll encounter when we try to break a habit or introduce something new into our lives. In today's episode we're focussing on all those barrier...
Understanding Movement For Chronic Pain
August 23, 2020 15:25 - 18 minutesThe Rest Room is a podcast about living well with chronic illness. I'm Natasha Lipman, an award-winning chronic illness blogger and journalist from London. I've been working with experts to bring you evidence-based guides on a whole host of topics like pacing, exercise, and chronic pain. I'll also be talking to people who live with chronic illness and disability who are doing awesome things and learning how they make it work, as well as digging deep into the businesses and brands that are ...
Web Accessibility, Relationships, Sex & Being An Ally With Juliette Piazza
July 11, 2017 12:50 - 34 minutes - 65.5 MBThis week I'm joined by the founder of Inclusight and My Womanly, Juliette Piazza. We talked about web accessibility, sex and relationships, and being a good ally to people with chronic illness. Find me at www.natashalipman.com and @natashalipman #spooniepjparty on Twitter and Instagram You can find Juliette at www.inclu-sight.com and at @julietpiazza.
Claire Anscomb
June 12, 2017 10:00 - 54 minutes - 103 MBThis week I am joined by the disgustingly talented artist, Claire Anscomb. We actually first met when she drew a portrait of me for an exhibition to raise awareness of invisible disability, and I've become such a huge fan of her work and advocacy. This felt like such a PJ party, where we sat down and chatted about the power of creativity and art to raise awareness of chronic illness, her experiences of finding her confidence, diagnosis, symptom management & much more. Don't forget to join t...
"Disability Needs To Be Boring" with Pamela Relph MBE
May 15, 2017 10:20 - 54 minutes - 101 MBToday I’m joined by the pretty damn amazing Pamela Relph, whose name you may recognise if you were one of the millions of people who tuned into the Paralympic rowing in both London and Rio. She’s a 2-time gold medalist, and now works as a professional keynote speaker. We spoke about her experiences as an athlete, ‘inspiration porn’, why it’s so important to become advocates to help make sure disability becomes ‘boring’, how our worsening health has turned us both into introverts, and much mo...
Let The Spoonie Pyjama Party Begin!
May 01, 2017 07:09 - 46 minutes - 87.7 MBWelcome to the very first episode of Spoonie Pyjama Party! This week I was joined by the wonderful Pippa Stacey, founder of Spoonie Survival Kits. We’ve known each other on Twitter for yonks, but this was the first time that we actually ‘met’ in e-life. We had a fab chat about so many things, including her work with Spoonie Survival Kits, disability schemes that aren't accessible for people with fluctuating conditions, the amazing treatment we get when we go to the theatre, and the new TFL “...
Trailer
March 23, 2017 14:38 - 6 minutes - 12 MBWelcome to the Spoonie Pyjama Party, a podcast for young people with chronic illness. This trailer will give you a little bit of an idea about what you can expect. We're currently in the process of recording the first few episodes, so please do make sure to subscribe and share what you'd like to hear with us on Twitter at #spooniepjparty and @natashalipman. This was my first time recording, so please be kind ;) We'll be having guests on from now on, and we're learning as we go! Please mak...