• Our friendship formed over questionable decisions, break-ups, hangovers, and, eventually, the messy business of becoming adults.
• Then, three baby girls born in three cities over three weeks started a completely new chapter.
• Our connection became our parenting lifeline, proving that the best friendships grow with you.

"What a night!" "I barely slept." "I don't even know what time I went to bed."

The same statements can have very different meanings in different stages of life. My friends and I used to worry about where everyone was at 2 a.m. Now, we worry about whether everyone's baby has pooped that day.

Laura-Kate (Lauks), Kirsten (Kirst), and I met 25 years ago at an all-girls boarding school in South Africa, then partied our way through university and early adulthood. For years, our biggest problems were nursing sore heads with painkillers and junk food, who was dating whom, where we were going that weekend, and whether anyone had taken a particularly unflattering photo.

Then, the three of us had babies all within three weeks of one another, reaffirming our bond and allowing us to evolve together in new and exciting ways I never imagined.

Real adulthood happened

Lauks got pregnant unexpectedly, bravely navigating the challenges of being a semi-single mom with a husband who works abroad for up to three months at a time. In the same period, Kirst and her American husband settled in the US, and I was undergoing IVF treatment. We all had our own challenges.

Fast forward a bit, and Lauks told us she was expecting another unplanned surprise. It was a contrast to my own fertility journey, which had been a roller coaster of disappointments, including a failed embryo transfer. I was about to undergo a second transfer when she gave us the news over group text.

Lauks lives in a town about an hour from me. It happens to be on the way to my fertility doctor. On one drive home, soon after sharing her good news, I stopped to see Lauks to congratulate her. I was also six weeks pregnant at the time. I remember sitting there in the cafe trying to get the words out: "I'm pregnant." Cue the ugly crying.

Of course, my next phone call was to Kirst in the US. Little did I know that she had some news she was itching to tell me too. All three of us were pregnant at the same time.

The tone of our WhatsApp group changed immediately

After comparing and complaining about our pregnancy symptoms for months, one baby arrived, then another, then another.

We all arrived at motherhood differently, but we each welcomed a baby girl into the world within three weeks across three different cities (and two continents), and our friendship acquired an entirely new vocabulary.

We had once bonded over crushes, kisses, and hangovers. Now, we talked about latching, snot-sucking, and the intricate details of every strange rash. The conversations may have been less titillating, but somehow, they were even more intimate.

Our WhatsApp group became a kind of 24-hour maternal helpline. "Does this look normal?" Reply at 3 am: "Yes, unfortunately." We sent memes when we were too exhausted to form sentences. We celebrated first smiles and first rolls. We talked about periods, pimples, sex, husbands, and everything else that apparently becomes acceptable conversation once you've been friends for 25 years.

Then, the group chat blew up with more surprises

Earlier this year, Kirsten let us know that baby number two was on the way. This time, it was me bubbling over inside, dying to tell them that I had gotten pregnant naturally. In August, Kirst gave birth to a baby boy, and my baby girl arrived in September.

Although we haven't been in the same room since Kirst moved to the US three years ago, we remain as close as ever, if not closer. My girls are my cheerleaders, doulas, online health advisors, and a massive reason why I've stayed sane (enough) as a mother. They've shown me the power of long-term friendship and the ways women can lift each other up.

In another 25 years, we'll be in our 60s

I can't help but imagine what another 25 years will do to our friendship. We'll be in our 60s, and the kids will (hopefully) be fending for themselves out in the world.

Along with the gray hairs and wrinkles, our priorities will have probably changed once again. After the first 25 years, I've learned that the best friendships don't stay the same, they grow with you. So I know my besties will still be there for me, just with entirely new things to commiserate over, cry over, and kill ourselves laughing about.

With winter approaching, small changes to your daily routine could help you stay well

• My fiancé and I have been together for four years and have never had a joint bank account.
• We're transparent about our incomes, savings, and spending, and we've never had a fight about money.
• We plan to pay for our wedding together, but we won't combine our finances after we get married.

My parents have a shared bank account and kept all their large purchases in both their names, so I thought sharing an account would be my financial destiny, too, if I ever got married. I didn't question it until recently. Now, my partner and I are getting married in just a few months, and we don't plan to combine our finances.

After four years together, we've never had any accounts or cards in both of our names. The closest we ever got to that was me using his credit card on a payment app when we were in Vietnam because mine didn't work. We both contribute to rent and household expenses. We pay back the other person our half of large purchases like flights and hotels, but we don't keep a tab of who owes who what (a nice change from my previous romantic relationships).

We've always been open about money

We were upfront about our income, debt (or lack thereof), and our mutual desire to live below our means from day one. After about three years of dating, we told each other how much we have in savings. We continue to be transparent about money and agree on the vast majority of each other's purchases — it helps that we're both very frugal.

We've built up trust over the years, and we'll continue to offer up personal financial information when we want to, knowing we have privacy. Neither of us has the login information for the other's bank, but we know we can always ask how much the other is earning or spending.

I thought the next step was a shared bank account with two credit cards — I assumed that's what love and commitment meant in an economic way. We kept asking ourselves how having both our names on one account would improve our lives, and we kept coming up blank. I also didn't want to waste time filling out paperwork or calling my bank for something I wasn't even interested in.

Our system works for us

We've lived together for almost four years and never had a fight about money. I have some financial anxiety, and I think having a shared account might actually make that worse. Since my fiancée makes more and pays for more, I regularly check in to see if he's still OK with that.

We approached our wedding, our first big purchase together, the same way we plan travel — with Excel, conversations, and making sure we stay under budget to cover unexpected costs. My fiancée bought our rings, and I bought our flights (we're getting married in Denmark). We both agreed to contribute the same amount of money to the wedding. Every payment we make for the big day goes into a spreadsheet, and at the end of all our purchases, if one of us has spent significantly more, the other will make the next large purchase.

Keeping our financial stressors low is also made easier by the fact that we won't plan to have kids or pets, or make any large purchases like a house or a car. Taking care of our parents is the only thing that might one day impact how we view our financial setup.

Another thing we agreed on from the start was that we wanted a pre-nup. Not sharing a bank account and having a pre-nup might not sound romantic (or like we can't share) to some, but if anyone were to look at our purchases, they'd immediately see we do spend our money on each other—just with separate accounts intact.

We haven't fought about money, and I'd like to keep it that way

I know I'm going into a marriage with dignity and respect. My future husband won't get a notification if I spend over $100, he won't be able to review a bank statement at the end of the month to see how many ice creams I've treated myself to, and we won't know how much the other person spent on a Christmas present. We'll never have to ask the other person if we can spend money or fear that our separate emergency funds will be depleted by the other.

My parents shared a bank account, and they often fought over money — one thing I promised myself I'd never do with my future spouse. Keeping our finances separate has worked so far, and I believe it'll continue to after we're married. We're both open to changing our minds one day, but until we have a good reason, we're very happy having separate accounts, together.

• When my husband and I got married, we had to decide where to live.
• My son and I ended up moving into his 2-bedroom home.
• There are a few pros, but we didn't consider how much we'd miss having a guest room.

When my husband and I got married, we each had our own homes. I had a one-story, 3-bedroom home, while my husband had a 2-story, two-bedroom townhome. At first, we compared the pros and cons of each house. For instance, my house had a large yard, which can be a perk size-wise, but lawn maintenance was a chore.

While my husband was willing to move, we ultimately chose his house, mainly because it was so close to his job. I knew from experience what a blessing an easy commute is, and I didn't want him to have to give it up, so we decided to consolidate. My son and I moved from our 3-bedroom home to my husband's 2-bedroom townhouse.

I was giddy when we got married, and thinking more about moving in together and planning our wedding than the long-term realities of living in a smaller home.

The lack of an extra bedroom was an issue we didn't foresee

My son and I still occasionally miss our old home, but I don't regret selling my home and moving in with my husband. The worst part of downsizing has been no longer having a guest room.

I mainly used the third room in my house as an office, but the bedrooms at my husband's house were large enough that there would be room for an office in ours. And my son would still have his own bedroom, so we didn't realize how much we'd miss the extra bedroom until it was too late.

It's nearly impossible for us to have anyone spend the night or a weekend with us

I'd mostly thought of the extra room as my office, and didn't consider that we also used it as a guest room. Now, without it, it's difficult to have anyone over for the night. We have a few options, but none of them are appealing to anyone, including our potential guests.

When I had my own home, it was so easy to have friends visit for the weekend, because I could offer them a room. Having space for guests is a privilege I didn't realize I'd miss. I can still offer the chance to stay, but when someone takes us up on it, my husband and I feel kind of awful the whole time.

We've had guests overnight and offered them the couch pullout or the air mattress. But despite our best efforts, everyone feels a little awkward because our guests have no privacy without an actual room of their own.

Sometimes, we've thought of offering our bedrooms — or at least one of them — while my son would get displaced to the living room on an air mattress. He honestly loves doing that anyway, because he thinks it's like a sleepover, but the problem comes in the morning.

Our downstairs space is pretty much just the living room and kitchen, so when someone comes downstairs in the morning, whoever's sleeping on the giant air mattress — whether our guests or my son — will inevitably be woken up.

In our next home, having an extra bedroom will be a requirement

My husband and I both miss having guests, as he could also have more guests over before my son and I moved in. We don't like that we don't feel we can offer loved ones a place to stay, or that when we do, the best we can offer them is an air mattress or my 12-year-old's bedroom.

In addition to wanting to have more company over, my husband and I have aging parents. We don't want to find ourselves in a situation where one of them needs living assistance, and we don't have the space.

There are a few things we want in a forever home, like a more spacious kitchen, of course, and a giant garden in the back, but having a guest room again is at the top of our list.

• A year after my breast cancer diagnosis, I'm rejecting the "fighter" and "warrior" labels others put on me.
• I'm tired of the pinkwashing that feels like it's turning a terrifying disease into a cheerful marketing campaign.
• I'm grateful for my care and the people who supported me, but I don't need to find a silver lining or turn my experience into an inspirational story.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago, and with Breast Cancer Awareness Month underway, I have a confession that feels almost sacrilegious: I hate breast cancer culture. I hate the "fighter" and "warrior" labels I didn't ask for, and I especially hate the over-the-top pink branding that I see so much.

I didn't ask to join this club. I didn't want to lose my hair to chemo or have my breasts amputated. I didn't choose to worry about whether my kids and relatives might also develop this horrible disease. And I hate pink; I always have. I'm grateful for my treatment and that I've weathered it all relatively well. I just feel pissed that this was my lot in life.

As I reach the anniversary of the day my "before" split into the "after," I don't know what I'm supposed to call myself now. "Fighter" doesn't feel right. "Warrior" definitely doesn't, and "survivor" is complicated.

I didn't choose to fight cancer

I understand that people mean well when they call someone a fighter. They want to acknowledge what she's enduring and remind her she's strong. Pink ribbons and awareness campaigns can raise money and encourage screenings, and those are all wonderful things. But in the rush to turn cancer into a story about courage and hope, there's little room for the less inspirational feelings: anger, resentment, exhaustion, and fear.

I didn't fight cancer in the way people seem to imagine. I showed up for appointments, followed my doctors' recommendations, and endured treatment because I wanted to live. I didn't have some extraordinary reserve of bravery. I didn't get to opt out. What was the alternative?

I didn't earn a special title by going through chemotherapy. I was a person with a disease who wanted to get better. Sometimes I was scared. Many days, I was exhausted. Sometimes I was just trying to get through the day.

I'm over the pinkwashing of breast cancer

And the pink. Everywhere, pink. Pink products, pink merchandise, pink marketing campaigns. Sometimes the branding feels like a cheerful coat of paint over a genuinely terrifying experience.

Cancer isn't cute. Losing your breasts isn't a lifestyle rebrand or a "free boob-job." Buying a pink water bottle doesn't necessarily make anyone feel less alone in a hospital room.

I don't begrudge anyone who finds comfort in a pink ribbon or a community of fellow patients. My problem is with the expectation that breast cancer should come packaged with a neat, uplifting message. What if I don't want to embrace this experience? What if I don't feel grateful for the lessons it taught me?

I'd happily trade every bit of perspective I've gained for the life I had before my diagnosis.

Finishing treatment doesn't mean everything's over

There's no clear finish line. Treatment ends, and everyone wants to celebrate that you've made it through. You want to celebrate, too. But you're also left processing what happened to your body, what you've lost, and what the future might hold.

As much as I try to go back to my "before" life, I'm constantly holding my breath, waiting for the other shoe to potentially drop.

Before cancer, I didn't spend much time thinking about my identity. I was busy being a mom, wife, sister, daughter, and working woman. Now, I'm still figuring out how much space cancer deserves in my life. I don't want every conversation to be about my health. I don't want people to expect me to inspire them simply because something terrible happened to me.

I'm grateful to be here, but I'm still angry

I'm grateful for my doctors, the people who showed up for me, and the advances in medicine that gave me treatment options. I'm grateful that I've come through this in relatively good shape. But I can appreciate the care I've received and still be furious that I needed it.

As I reach this anniversary, I don't need a label to make my experience meaningful. I don't need to turn cancer into a lesson or find a silver lining in every awful moment. I don't need to be inspirational.

If you want to support someone with breast cancer, you don't have to call her a fighter. Acknowledge that what she's going through is hard. Offer an ear or, better yet, a DoorDash gift card. Let her feel however she feels.

As for me, I'll mark this anniversary with gratitude, anger, uncertainty, and the knowledge that I'm still here. That's enough.

Though plastic is usually inert, tiny pieces of it have the potential to react with one of the most pervasive molecules in the environment and in our bodies.

• When my husband and I became empty nesters, he retired, too.
• We used to have busy, individual lives, but now we are always together.
• It took a lot of adjustment and honest conversations, but we're learning to navigate our new normal.

My husband and I have been married for 26 years, together for 32. That's more than half my life. I thought we'd experienced just about every version of our life together.

Then we became empty nesters. And then my husband retired.

We're now together 24/7 with nowhere else we need to be, and I realized that all these years, I'd never spent this much time with him.

Since the day he brought home his office belongings, I've caught myself thinking more than once, "Oh, you're still here?

Our home feels different now

Without school schedules or workdays organizing our lives, we have more unstructured time than we know what to do with. We navigate quiet hallways lined with unoccupied bedrooms.

We now split the responsibility for coddling our cat, who suffers from separation anxiety. We announce, "We're back," to the furniture and the cat, forgetting we left the house otherwise empty.

Our aching hearts inspired us to collaborate on a shared list of silver linings. We drafted wish lists, imagining what we could do now that we no longer had to accommodate five personalities with varying interests.

While we shared many ideas and dream list to-dos — things like traveling to Tuscany for cooking and painting retreats — we hadn't anticipated that our day-to-day would also require attention and planning.

The trouble with together-time all the time

Throughout our marriage, my husband and I had always noted how similar his parents and mine were. Connected at the hip, one parent was seldom without the other.

We, on the other hand, prided ourselves on allowing each other space. We'd spent decades insisting we weren't like them — valuing independence, traveling separately, and encouraging each other to pursue our interests.

Then, when my husband retired, we instantly became our parents. With freedom to do whatever we wanted, we fell into the rhythm our parents had modeled: together all day, every day.

Sometimes you really can have too much of a good thing.

I'm an introverted writer who loves spending time in my rich inner world. He's an extroverted adventurer always on the go — kayaking, swimming, walking on the beach, sometimes all three in the same day.

One day, the realization that we had to structure our time hit hard. I'd been sitting at my writing desk when my husband opened the door to ask what we were having for lunch.

Not wanting to be rude, I talked with him for a moment, then asked for a few minutes to finish my thought. He left. I stared at my screen, hands still on the keyboard. My thought was gone.

While we enjoy being together, we're learning the importance of agreeing on when to be together and when to allow each other space.

We're creating a new rhythm

Mornings offer the perfect opportunity to plan our day over coffee, breakfast, and a card game — usually rummy. Between playful attempts to end each other's winning streaks, we check the weather, compare plans, and decide what we'd like to do. Our morning ritual helps shape our lives now that external demands no longer impose structure on our time.

Unless we have plans with friends, mealtimes serve as natural meeting points. An unexpected result: his cooking is improving. I'm now enjoying gourmet meals in the middle of the day, and again at dinner. He gets to run around outdoors, while I get to lock myself in my attic feminine sanctuary and write.

In the evenings, we wind down together. After sharing a home-cooked meal, we enjoy a movie or simply each other's company.

We're embracing new opportunities to grow together

Now that we're home together most of the time, honest communication, negotiation, and compromise have become essential tools. After decades of countless demands on our time, we're now free to choose how we spend it.

We're not always perfect. Some days, I join him outdoors when I'd rather stay home. Sometimes he interrupts when I'm in the flow.

I'm learning to ask for space when I need it. He's learning that he can pursue his desire to travel — even without me.

After 32 years, I never imagined we'd have to learn how to spend time apart. Having all the time in the world together doesn't mean we have to spend every minute of it that way.

These days, staying happily married sometimes means knowing when to leave each other alone.

• Hormone testing — especially to monitor testosterone levels — is trendy.
• A startup backed by the US military has pioneered a DIY device that requires no needle.
• It costs less than $100 and is quickly becoming a go-to for biohackers and telehealth brands.

Dr. Jonathan Andrews had never checked his testosterone levels until about six weeks ago. Now, he's a convert. He's already repeated the procedure twice.

He didn't go to a lab for his bloodwork, and he didn't use a standard needle or a finger prick. Instead, he attached a big red button to his bicep, then waited about five minutes while it quietly, almost imperceptibly, drew blood out of his skin while he made breakfast.

Andrews said he loves the "foolproof" process.

This quarter-sized pushbutton, called Tasso+, is being hailed as a game changer. Telemedicine companies, including Hims & Hers, Balance My Hormones, and Maximus Health, all offer the same click button as a way for patients to check their "T" levels from the comfort of home.

Testosterone therapy use has risen steadily in recent years alongside the growth of telehealth and direct-to-consumer men’s health services. Among adults, ages 18 to 34, prescriptions have more than doubled since 2018, according to health data company Truveta, even though the treatment can suppress sperm production and affect fertility.

"Hormones are one of the things that you need to continually track, especially if someone does go on treatment," Andrews, a healthcare investor and urgent care doctor who is not affiliated with Tasso, said. "It is one of the markers that you actually want multiple data points."

One of the best times to check testosterone levels is first thing in the morning, when it can be tricky to get to a lab. Some men around the globe are starting to rely on the red plastic Tasso+ button to track hormone levels more regularly at home, without a trained phlebotomist or needle prick.

"This is the future," DJ and record producer Diplo tells the camera in a YouTube video for Rhythm, a blood testing company using the Tasso+ device, where he's a brand ambassador. "Everybody needs to know what's going on in their body."

It isn't a perfect test, but it's the next generation of DIY consumer health, geared toward diagnosing problems without a doctor or medical technician.

Biohackers want to go beyond wearables

Tasso isn't just for men wondering about their testosterone levels. Menopausal women on hormone replacement therapy and Olympians undergoing drug testing have also tried out Tasso's blood-drawing system.

It's being marketed to longevity-conscious consumers, too, as a way to track progress and assess fitness, with data that goes beyond what you could get from a smartwatch, ring, or scale, including tracking of thyroid function, cholesterol status, and hormone health.

It's US Food and Drug Administration-cleared as a Class II medical device, the green light from regulators that this technology actually works. The blood gets collected by regular folks at home, then packed in an envelope and mailed off to a real lab for analysis (so no, this isn't Theranos promising to analyze a single drop of blood in a little mobile lab the size of a printer).

It's taken 14 years, and over $120 million in investment, including an early VC-style Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant from the US military, but suddenly, Tasso+ buttons are showing up across the medical world — and outside it.

"Our goal was to try to make the most patient-friendly blood draw possible," Tasso cofounder Ben Casavant said of the project he started "in a garage" while he was still a biomedical engineering graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012.

The company has grown quickly since it received FDA clearance for Tasso+ in 2022. Three years later, it announced it had shipped 2 million devices. Over the past year, that number has doubled to 4 million, the company told Business Insider.

The race for decent at-home blood testing is on

Telehealth companies are scrambling to adopt easier ways for people to do routine bloodwork, as the market for consumer blood testing explodes, for longevity, cancer tests, colonoscopy alternatives, and more.

Maximus's at-home testosterone test kit is $99 and includes a Tasso+. Another startup called Rythm Health, the service that Diplo promoted, offers a $79 monthly health check based solely on a Tasso+ draw. Billionaire power couple Jesse Itzler and Sarah Blakely — who founded Marquis Jets, which pioneered the prepaid private jet card, and Spanx, the billion-dollar shapewear company, respectively — are also brand ambassadors for Rythm.

The selling point for the San Francisco startup, launched in 2024, is that patients can track levels of key hormones and metabolic markers that biohackers prize, such as testosterone and estrogen, all on their own, receiving results in days via an app.

The category is quickly catching the attention of leading direct-to-consumer subscription health companies. Hims & Hers, which also offers Tasso+, recently bought a Tasso competitor, YourBio Health, for $153 million. Then there's Liam McNamara, the 20-year-old college dropout who moved to Silicon Valley to "replace a $112 billion blood testing industry" with his early-stage longevity startup called Matrix Bio.

These companies are betting on consumers' desire for a more "quantified self" and for preventative, longevity-focused, self-directed healthcare that's both personal and actionable. Investment bankers at Jeffries estimated in September that the global at-home ("point of care") testing category is growing rapidly, at a rate of about 18% annually, and could be worth $67 billion by 2030.

The drawbacks

While convenient, the technology doesn't have exactly the same benefits as getting your blood drawn by a pro. For most routine blood work, Tasso+ performs just as well as a regular blood draw, but in terms of volume, you can't run as many tests as you can with a needle in a vein.

That classic technique has barely changed since 1947, when American Joseph Kleiner invented the "evacutainer" tube, which is essentially what we still use today.

Tasso uses capillary blood drawn from the skin, not the veins. That means it's inherently less painful, but it collects blood more slowly than venipuncture, and the single-use system is unreliable for capturing some more fragile blood measurements, like potassium levels, or testing for specific proteins related to Alzheimer's.

WFH, but make it blood

On Reddit in recent months, users in the /biohacking forum have been sharing their Rythm results with one another like scores from a video game. One user who posted a photo of a sky-high cholesterol reading wrote that they were persuaded to stop taking oral steroids after seeing their Tasso results.

It's also fast becoming a go-to way for researchers and drugmakers to conduct clinical trials without asking participants to come in regularly for lab tests. Today, the product is used by patients with Parkinson's for genetic research and clinical trial participants testing out drugs from major pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly and Pfizer.

"When we founded the company, this seemed like a no-brainer thing, which is: 'Hey, if you can provide an easy, patient-friendly blood draw, that should be adopted in a way that can help people get access to their health data,'" Casavant said. "To see it happening now, it's really exciting."

• Kamala Harris says she's loving reformer Pilates right now.
• The former vice president told Keke Palmer she loves how it works all the smaller muscles in her body.
• Harris said Pilates helps her feel empowered in her daily life.

First she was Brat, now she's a Pilates girlie.

"You know what I've been doing though recently is Pilates," former vice president Kamala Harris told actor Keke Palmer on an episode of the "Baby, This is Keke Palmer" podcast, posted October 15.

Harris said that, along with a walk with her husband Doug Emhoff, time to cook, and a family dinner, the workout would be part of her perfect Sunday. Harris, who is 61, has no biological children, but she helped co-parent Cole, 32, and Ella, 27, Emhoff's kids from his previous marriage.

Harris said Pilates gives her "an overall feeling of well-being" and helps her feel empowered in her daily life.

"There's so much about empowerment that is about knowing your strength and recognizing it," she said. Through Pilates, which emphasizes the brain-body connection, she said she feels more connected to her physical strength.

"I'm just realizing that there are all of these muscles and areas that I have not been exercising," Harris said.

Originally popular among dancers, models, and celebrities, Pilates has become the workout du jour. It was the most-booked workout on ClassPass globally last year, with bookings up 66% from 2024, beating both strength training and running. And luxury hotels, including some Ritz-Carlton and St Regis locations, have installed Pilates studios as a buzzy luxury amenity.

Harris is in good company — celebs including Jennifer Aniston, Miley Cyrus, and Hailey Bieber have all professed to love it, too.

The longevity boom might also be partially to thank for the spike in Pilates' popularity.

The low-impact form of strength and mobility training uses controlled, precise movements to strengthen the core and the deep muscles that stabilize the joints. It can improve functional strength, posture, and balance — all things that keep a person mobile and independent as they age. A 2021 systematic review published in the journal Physiotherapy found that among the 1,650 participants age 60 or older, those who did Pilates had a significantly lower risk of falling, a serious risk factor for hip fracture, inactivity, and muscle loss.

Harris told Palmer, who qualified as a Pilates instructor earlier this year, that she prefers reformer, where exercises are done on a sliding carriage attached to weighted springs, to mat Pilates.

Harris didn't say how many times a week she does Pilates, but based off her excitement talking about it, she could be on her way to full Pilates girlie status.

Someone get this woman a matching set and iced matcha latte stat.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has criticised the Minister for Health, for what it claims is a failure to engage on issues for the past 20 months.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has criticised the Minister for Health, for what it claims is a failure to engage on issues for the past 20 months.

A pioneering cancer research project in northern Portugal has won the public vote at the 2026 REGIOSTARS Awards, recognising its work in bringing scientific advances closer to patients and expanding

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Portugal’s Parliament has given its initial approval to proposals tightening the rules governing access to the National Health Service (SNS) for foreigners who do not live in the country, including

The post Parliament backs tighter SNS rules for non-resident foreigners appeared first on Portugal Resident.

Portimão Hospital has performed its first laparoscopic mastectomy combined with immediate breast reconstruction, marking another step in the introduction of minimally invasive breast surgery in the Algarve. The procedure was

The post Breast surgery breakthrough in Portimão appeared first on Portugal Resident.

• I'm in my 60s and I'm enjoying life more than I did in my 20s.
• At this point in my life, I'm more confident in my fashion choices and friendships.
• Plus, I've finally stopped questioning whether I'm where I'm "supposed to be" in life.

At 62, my life looks almost nothing like the one my 20-year-old self pictured. It's better.

Sure, I'm divorced and don't have grandchildren, but I have adult children I adore and friendships with decades of history. Plus, I'm doing something I never imagined: building a career on social media.

Every day, I talk to over 200,000 followers on TikTok and 135,000 on Instagram about hope, finding your purpose, and remembering that life doesn't have an expiration date.

At an age when many people are winding down, I seem to just be getting started. And I wouldn't change a thing.

I dress for myself, not my age

I've always loved fashion, from jeans and flip-flops to high heels and designer gowns. But these days, I have more confidence in my choices and a lot less interest in anyone else's opinion of them.

When I look at clothes, I don't see an age requirement. I see something I either love or don't.

Whether it's a bold print, an unexpected silhouette, or a statement piece, my decision on what to wear comes down to how it looks and feels on me, not how old I am. Fashion has always been a form of self-expression for me, and getting older hasn't changed that.

I don't think women should have to trade their sense of style for something more "age-appropriate" every time they celebrate another birthday.

Plus, my goal isn't to look 30. It's to make 30-year-olds excited to turn 60. After all, why would I want to turn back the clock? I've spent six decades learning who I am. I wouldn't trade that wisdom just to have younger-looking skin.

My friendships don't require me to be anyone but myself

One of the most beautiful parts of getting older is having friendships that have stood the test of time. There's something special about sitting across from someone who knows the chapters of your life you'd rather forget and realizing you have absolutely nothing to prove.

My friends and I have stood by one another through divorces, financial struggles, challenges with our children, and some of life's most difficult moments.

But we've also shared incredible joy, deepened our connections, and celebrated the love, wisdom, and experiences that make growing older such a gift.

In my 20s, I was still figuring out who I was. Now, there's no pressure to perform, impress, or constantly please the people closest to me.

We don't take everything personally, either. If someone is busy or life gets complicated, we understand. We know that a friendship isn't measured by how often you see each other.

That kind of freedom doesn't happen overnight. It's built through years of showing up, forgiving, laughing, and sometimes simply giving each other grace.

I've stopped questioning whether I'm where I'm supposed to be

When I was younger, I spent so much time wondering whether I was on the right path. I had a very specific picture of what my life should look like, and when things didn't go according to plan, I questioned myself.

At 62, I can look back and see that even the experiences I never would have chosen were my greatest gifts of all. Every path is the right path.

Loss taught me gratitude. Starting over taught me courage. Being told I wasn't enough taught me to recognize my own worth. And through it all, I've developed a resilience that allows me to face whatever life brings with confidence and hope.

And perhaps that's the biggest difference between 22 and 62: I know that my life is happening for me, not to me.

I spent so much of my younger years thinking about what my life would become. Now I'm actually living it, and I still have so much I want to do.

I know aging is inevitable. But spending decades dreading it isn't.

A pharmacist has explained signs that you might not associate with the virus

• I spent my 20s believing that working hard and making money were the keys to independence.
• I realized I was working so much that I had no time or energy to enjoy the life I was building.
• Years later, being an ambitious woman looks different to me. I work less and have time for myself.

I thought making a lot of money and working hard would make me happy.

In my early 20s, I got great grades and finished my undergrad in three years. By my mid-20s, I had finished my graduate degree in law while frequently working 70-hour weeks.

I leaned into the idea of being a girlboss, often working weekends or through my lunch, and focusing on making lots of money. It was a habit I saw modeled by my parents. It worked for them, and I thought it would work for me, until it didn't.

I thought hard work was the point

At 26, I worked long days at my home desk after making "hard worker" and "responsible'"my identity for years. I thought this was what an independent woman was: someone who worked constantly and optimized all of her time.

Sure, I was saving lots of money and networking, but I was often too tired on my day off to do anything. I often chose to work on Saturdays and didn't even have time to spend my hard-earned money.

Two things made me realize this wasn't a sustainable lifestyle: I once told a friend I couldn't take a 15-minute lunch break to call her, and another time I struggled to lift my full duffle bag for an upcoming trip after not working out for months.

Something had to give.

I didn't want to just recover from burnout

I was clearly burned out. I could have taken some time off to recover and come back, but then the cycle would have continued.

It helped that I spent my early 20s in Cameroon and Costa Rica, two places where work-life balance looks a lot different than it does in the US, and people live with their parents much longer. Looking back on those years when I was truly happy helped me to question what I was focusing on in my life.

I came to a new conclusion. I didn't want to simply recover after burning out. I wanted to reject the premise that burnout was the price of being an ambitious woman.

I stopped hustling toward anything

In 2022, as the COVID restrictions were lifted more and a relationship I had been in ended, I decided to travel while working a few hours per week. As a then single, childfree woman, no longer heading towards a career, I wondered what I'd replace these traditional markers of success with. The answer turned out to be nothing.

I stopped trying to hustle toward something. No job, boss, passion, or person was going to truly reward me for committing to 70-hour weeks. Nothing was worth putting off a breakfast date with myself or an unplanned walk in the park, or that 15-minute phone call I told my friend I couldn't take.

I decided to opt out of the competitive nature of the working world and instead focus on optimizing myself.

5 years later, my life looks different

Five years later, I have a life my 26-year-old self would barely recognize. I work substantially less, have built a career around writing and research for companies with values I admire, and have spent the past several years living and traveling in different countries.

I don't own a car or a home, and I'm not chasing a traditional career ladder. Instead of constantly asking what I should accomplish next, I have far more time for cooking, relationships, travel, and simply being alive.

One thing I did keep from that previous era of my life was my deep conviction that I, and all women, need to be financially independent. I have stopped suggesting that my friends work through their lunch break; instead, we talk about ethical investing and the need to always have one's own bank account.

Independence turned out to mean something else for me

The surprising part is that opting out didn't ruin my career, and I didn't feel the need to replace work with anything else. I don't think chasing a job title, a salary, or a full calendar would have made me feel secure.

I think I would have constantly felt the need to prove myself, which sounds exhausting to me now. Instead, I have the independence I sought when I was younger. It just took the form of letting go of the idea that I have to constantly prove my worth to myself.

• Smoke from fires in Indonesia has blanketed Singapore in haze, obscuring its iconic skyline.
• Air pollution hit its highest level this year on Friday, reaching "very unhealthy" levels.
• The haze has disrupted flights, shuttered outdoor sports facilities, and canceled a run for nearly 3,000.

Singapore, the Southeast Asian financial hub known for its futuristic skyline, has been blanketed by milky haze as smoke from fires in neighboring Indonesia drifts across the region.

The haze has affected Singapore for weeks, with conditions deteriorating in recent days. The pollution has disrupted flights, shut down outdoor sports facilities, and prompted organizers to call off a major running event.

On Friday, air quality in parts of Singapore reached "very unhealthy" levels, with pollution readings hitting their highest point this year.

Here's what the haze looks like across the city.

Pontiff is recovering from a lobectomy, which is standard treatment for lung cancer caught early and can be curative

On Tuesday, surgeons in Rome removed the lower part of Pope Leo’s right lung, after a routine health check found a small growth that tests have since confirmed as lung cancer. The operation, called a lobectomy, is the standard treatment for lung cancer caught early, and for many patients it is the only treatment they will ever need. So what exactly did his doctors do, and what happens next?

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

© Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

© Photograph: Remo Casilli/Reuters

• Dr. Katie S. Davis is a clinical neuropsychologist who evaluates children for learning disorders.
• She said some parents are rushing to diagnose their children for normal kid behavior.
• She suggested some softer interventions before booking an evaluation appointment.

Over years of evaluating children for learning disorders, Dr. Katie S. Davis noticed an interesting phenomenon: Some parents seemed visibly disappointed when she told them their kids didn't meet the criteria for ADHD or autism.

"I found that those conversations can be more difficult to have than with a parent whose kid is really disabled and whose needs are very high," Davis, a clinical neuropsychologist and author of "Actually, You're Fine," told Business Insider.

Though she would try to reassure those parents that their concerns about their children's behavior were valid and worth addressing even without a formal diagnosis, "it's not as tangible or concrete as parents want, and they often leave the conversation feeling dissatisfied."

Parent-reported diagnoses of several childhood developmental and learning conditions have increased in recent years. For example, the estimated share of US children ages 3 to 17 with a current ADHD diagnosis rose from 8.6% in 2016 to 10.5% in 2023. Separately, a study of children ages 6 to 17 found parent-reported lifetime learning-disability diagnoses rose 16.4% over the same period.

While some argue that greater awareness of learning disabilities and disorders accounts for the increase, Davis doesn't feel that explains the full story. From what she's observed, ever-growing expectations for kids — and parents desperate for explanations for why their child is lagging behind — also play a role.

She said rushing to a diagnosis can have negative long-term implications for everyone.

"People don't think that ADHD means anything, people don't think dyslexia means anything," Davis said. "Then those people who are truly disabled by those conditions have enough battle to justify their need for accommodations and services."

Higher and higher expectations

In order to qualify for a diagnosis such as ADHD, symptoms must be present in at least two major settings, such as both at home and at school. For autism, they must be persistent across multiple contexts.

But some parents focus on how their child behaves in the classroom, in part due to ever-increasing expectations around academic success, Davis said.

"Doing well in school is no longer good — you have to be at the top of the pack," Davis said, noting that similar patterns have arisen in higher education settings with parents arguing for their teenagers' grades to be inflated. "Parents want excellence, and if it's not excellent, it's bad."

When worrying about their child's behavior, some parents zero in on their child's behavior in class while overlooking how their child compares to others, Davis said.

"If you're in a kindergarten classroom, probably all of the kids to some degree are going to have trouble sitting on the rug for 30 minutes at circle time," Davis said. Most will cluster in the middle of the bell curve, while some will get antsier earlier or later. The kids who consistently stand out compared to their peers are the ones who should probably be evaluated, Davis said.

Otherwise, "for nine kids out of 10, that sounds like a kid in an elementary school."

Labels are a double-edged sword

Whether they're diagnosed with ADHD or not, a child being hyperactive in class isn't a parent's fault. Still, parents can feel like they're personally responsible.

"There is an eagerness to medicalize the feelings of insecurity, because if it's due to a diagnosis, then it's not a knock on your decisions," Davis said.

Whether or not their child is formally diagnosed, Davis warned against treating it as a catch-all explanation for everything your child does.

"Despite our best intentions, if we put a label on the kid and the kid is aware of that label, they are given the message 'there is something wrong with how you are developing,'" she said. Even positive spins, like "ADHD is a superpower," can send a message to the kid that their life will be forever defined by struggle, she said.

It can also imply that symptoms like difficulty focusing or reading can't meaningfully improve with the right interventions.

"We all want to develop resilience in our children, to make them feel like they have agency and control and they're in charge of their own destinies," Davis said. "Especially when kids are very young and don't understand the fluidity of these labels, we could potentially be working against them."

Try softer interventions first

Davis wants to be clear: Diagnoses such as autism and ADHD are real. There are children who are unambiguously and significantly impaired by them in every setting, who need clear support academically and socially. "There are evidence-based interventions at our disposal that are enormously helpful," she said.

However, for parents who believe their child falls into some gray areas, Davis recommended trying a few things before booking an evaluation appointment. She compared it to a young child with a mild fever: A responsible pediatrician would guide parents through modest steps, such as taking a temperature and offering plenty of fluids, before rushing to the ER.

Instead of assuming your child might have autism if they struggle to make friends or always hang out alone at recess, Davis suggested first making other plans with their parents to set up playdates. You can also sign up your child for a karate class or call the school's teacher to see if they can intervene and help the kids play together more.

Alternatively, she said, if you immediately seek out a diagnosis and place your child into therapy and social skills groups, you could be taking away from more enriching social activities.

If a child continues to struggle, Davis recommended getting a neuropsychological assessment — a form of standardized test that is broader than getting an autism or ADHD evaluation.

While not perfect, she said neuropsychological assessments can measure a child's motor skills, sensory processing, attention, cognitive efficiency, language, memory, and social functioning. Their scores are typically compared with norms for peers of the same age.

More importantly, it helps parents know which interventions are the best. "If your kid perceives life to be very stressful or upsetting, they're not making it up. Let's talk about what we can do to support them better in that environment," Davis said. "But we don't need a diagnosis to do that."