The Wellness Project Podcast, a six episode series to accompany our IMAGE Wellness Project. For 12 weeks, through events, hikes, videos, articles, interviews and so much more, we are exploring what wellness really means today and bringing the best experts we know, as well as tips and tricks, and the latest science straight to you.

Listen now on Spotify and Amazon Music.

Listen to Season 2 Episode 8: Understanding your hormones with Hertility’s Deirdre O’Neill

Listen to Season 2 Episode 7: Sexual wellness with Caroline West

Listen to Season 2 Episode 6: The science of sleep with Tom Coleman

Listen to Season 2 Episode 5: Self-Care with Peigín Crowley

Listen to Season 2 Episode 4: Self-Compassion, Resilience & Gratitude with Tara Rafter

Listen to Season 2 Episode 3: Career Wellness with Angela Burke

Listen to Season 2 Episode 2: Hormone Health with Rebecca Holland

Listen to Season 2 Episode 1: Gut Health with Oonagh O’Hagan

Listen to Episode 6: Beauty & Self-care with Agnes Gajewska

Listen to Episode 5: Healthy Eating with Gareth Mullins

Listen to Episode 4: Female Fitness with Emma Dowling

Listen to Episode 3: Managing Your Stress with Dr. Clodagh Campbell.

Listen to Episode 2: Female Hormone Health with Sophie Morris

Listen to Episode 1: Mindfulness and Meditation with Sinead Mooney

Module 6

Beauty & Self- Care

We enlist an expert skin therapist, Agnes Gajewska, to give us a masterclass in all things face yoga.

Meet Agnes Gajewska

Skin Therapist

Agnes Gajewska is an award-winning Skin Therapist with over 20 years’ experience, and continuous training and education in the cutting edge beauty therapies, techniques and technologies from all over the world.  She is featured in all the leading magazines, media, and social media platforms.  Her work is her passion, and she is dedicated to promoting a healthier, more natural approach to the skin’s aging process. Agnes’s extraordinary standards and exceptional results, see her clients travelling from far and wide, to seek her advice and she is a firm favourite among many international celebrities.   “It’s a privilege to grow old”.  This is Agnes’ motto, and she believes in supporting the skin through the natural aging process with a combination of techniques, tools and practices. She created Face Yoga by Agnes, which is suitable for all age groups, and which naturally contours, and tightens skin while increasing circulation.  Face yoga by Agnes works not only to improve your skin but also works on your mindset and your perception of yourself, from a loving and kind perspective.  It also has the added benefit of being a deeply relaxing technique, which relieves the stress and tension that we can hold in our face.

Module 5

Healthy Eating

Gareth Mullins, Executive Chef at Anantara The Marker Dublin Hotel shares two simple and healthy recipes to help achieve a balanced diet.

Recipe 1 – How To Make Bircher Muesli

Recipe 2 – Spiced chicken with glass noodles, chilli peanut sauce

Meet Gareth Mullins

Executive Chef at Anantara The Marker Dublin Hotel 

Anantara The Marker Dublin Hotel’s Executive Chef, Gareth Mullins has delighted patrons of five-star hotels in Ireland and Australia for over 20 years. Throughout his career, Gareth has garnered extraordinary culinary achievements including being appointed Head of Euro-Toques Ireland – a nurturing community of like-minded chefs, cooks, producers, and educators that celebrates the best of Ireland’s food and drink, founded by the great Myrtle Allen.

A true Dubliner, Forbes Street is where Gareth’s passion in celebrating Irish produce truly comes to life. A city full of magic, Dublin inspires Gareth – from the charisma of the people to the atmosphere of the city’s streets.

When crafting Forbes Street’s ever-evolving menus, Gareth works directly with Ireland’s finest craft artisans and producers. More than just a chef, Gareth is a storyteller, who weaves tales of Dublin and Ireland, and the stories of each producer in every dish he creates.

Forbes Street by Gareth Mullins is an expression of all that’s brilliant in Ireland’s eclectic capital city. Where innovation and imagination meets hospitality and comfort, Forbes Street showcases an ever-evolving menu with the best local produce from land and sea. Here, each dish tells a story. An open kitchen, extensive wine selection and intimate booths set the scene for a culinary experience like no other

Module 4

Movement

Emma Dowling from Empowered Movement share three different light impact exercise routines with us to introduce some movement and strength into our daily lives!

The ideal amount of sets and reps for each move is 3-5 sets and 10-15 reps.

Core Exercises with Emma Dowling

Low Intensity Exercises with Emma Dowling

Total Body Exercises with Emma Dowling

Meet Emma Dowling

Empowered Movement

Module 3

Stress Management

Dr. Clodagh Campbell describes stress, why it happens and how can we manage it below.

“It’s not the load that breaks you, it’s the way you carry it” Lou Holtz

STRESS serves a function in our lives – it motivates us to perform and to achieve – but it can also signal to us (as a warning sign) when we are feeling over stretched and burdened beyond capacity.

Learning to regulate our nervous systems and lower the stress hormones our body releases when it feels we are under threat (so often, we are living in ‘fight or flight’ mode without even realising it) is an incredibly important skill for both our mental and physical health, and to reduce our stress levels, as it brings us from ‘fight or flight’ mode back into ‘rest and digest’ mode where we feel safe and our body feels able to relax and rest.

This is where the Vagus Nerve comes into play – through stimulating the vagus nerve to increase vagal tone (think building your bicep in the gym through consistently lifting weights), the faster and more easily we are able to bring our bodies and minds into ‘rest and digest’ mode to lower stress.

So how do we increase vagal tone?

– We prioritise committing to our mental health and wellbeing by giving ourselves just 1% of our day (10-15 minutes).

– Within this daily 10 minutes we show our bodies that we are safe by slowing down and pausing amidst the busyness of life.

– The secret to achieving this is to schedule it into your day, every day, at a particular time that is achievable for you (bonus points if you habit stack this new habit to one that is already existent in your everyday life, for me this is 8pm every evening when my daughters go to sleep).

– Pick ONE activity to complete in this daily ten minutes e.g. meditation, journaling, a deep breathing or grounding exercise, mindfulness, a yoga stretch or sequence, a cold shower or a sea swim.

– The magic here is when you consistently practice your chosen activity, every single day (or as many days per week as you can realistically commit to e.g. 4).

– Science PROVES that following my advice WILL lower your stress levels, and SIGNIFICANTLY.

So can you commit to giving yourself just 1% of your day to transform your life?

Meet Dr. Clodagh Campbell

The Wellness Psychologist

Module 2

What to Eat in Your Luteal Phase

Everything you need to know about nutrition and hormone health with expert Sophie Morris. From how to squash sugar cravings during our periods, to how to manage weight gain during perimenopause, nutritionist and women’s hormone health expert Sophie Morris gives us all the answers.

Meet Sophie Morris

Women’s Nutritionist

Sophie Morris is a women’s nutritionist, menopause wellness practitioner, and published author. In her earlier career she founded and mentored a number of Irish Food Start Ups, most notably Kooky Dough, which led her to winning IMAGE Magazine’s Young Businesswoman of the year award in 2012.

After selling that business she founded Sophie’s Nutrition and after having her two sons Sophie began to specialise in Women’s Hormone Health and became a certified Menopause wellness practitioner. Her online 12 week programme “Hormone Hero” helps women in their late 30s, 40s & 50s to balance their hormones through achievable and sustainable nutrition and lifestyle changes. You can find Sophie at www.sophiesnutrition.com and on Instagram @sophie_morris

Module 1

Day 1

Introduction to Mindfulness and Meditation with Sinead Mooney

Day 2

A Moment to Meet Me

Day 3

Body Scan

Day 4

Experience Yourself

Day 5

Let It Go

Day 6

Loving Kindness

Day 7

Sensory

Meet Sinead Mooney

Wellbeing Specialist

Sinead Mooney, also known as Moons, has been working in the wellbeing space in Ireland and abroad for over a decade and brings her own unique blend of wisdom techniques that has you, the practitioner, as a priority. She truly wants to help you better befriend, support and empower yourself through this life.

Although she is extremely serious about the power of these wonderful ancient wisdom traditions, she brings a modern, accessible and playful approach to everything she does. With embodiment and empowerment as her core values, she really makes these transformative tools fun and achievable for everyone to use in better navigating their busy day-to-day lives.