Episode 109: When Wellness Becomes Overwhelming: Rethinking Midlife Health with Susan Hunter

Has looking after your health started to feel like another full-time job?

There’s always something else we’re told we should be doing. Another habit to add. Another number to track. Another expert telling us what we’re getting wrong. And with so much information available, it can sometimes feel harder—not easier—to know where to begin.

In this episode of It’s a Mindset, I’m joined by author, speaker and naturopath Susan Hunter, whose work challenges the story the wellness industry has been selling Gen X women. Susan has worked predominantly with women for more than 20 years and is the author of the book, The Health Edit: How Gen X Women Are Resetting the Script on Midlife.

Together, we explore why women have become both the wellness industry’s biggest market and some of its most confused consumers. We talk about the guilt and overwhelm that can arise when caring for our health becomes another long list of things to manage, particularly for women already carrying full professional, family and mental loads.

Susan shares her approach to simplifying health by identifying the area that needs our attention most, focusing on one essential change and allowing that change to become part of our lives before trying to do more. Rather than continually adding new routines, treatments or targets, she encourages women to develop the clarity and confidence to make health decisions that are genuinely relevant to them.

We also explore movement as an important health foundation, why constantly tracking our bodies can sometimes disconnect us from how we actually feel, and what a post-optimisation approach to health could look like.

As a woman in midlife myself, I found this conversation incredibly informative. I loved Susan’s hopeful perspective that our forties and fifties can be a time to think more intentionally about our long-term health, while also becoming clearer about our purpose, values and the way we want to live.

This is a thoughtful conversation about moving beyond health overwhelm, trusting ourselves more and recognising that caring for our wellbeing doesn’t need to mean doing everything at once.

Key Episode Takeaways:

• The wellness industry can make health feel like an additional burden. When women are continually reminded of everything they aren’t doing, looking after themselves can become another source of pressure rather than support.
• More information doesn’t always create greater clarity. Conflicting advice, emerging trends and health content on social media can make it difficult to understand what is relevant to our individual circumstances.
• One meaningful change can be more useful than trying to change everything. Susan explains how focusing on the area that needs our attention most can make health feel more manageable and create benefits that flow into other parts of our wellbeing.
• The foundations still matter. Movement we enjoy, real food, sleep and learning to listen to our bodies may not sound as exciting as the latest optimisation trend, but they can provide a practical place to begin. Complex or persistent concerns, however, may require appropriate professional investigation and support.
• Tracking can become counterproductive. Susan explores how an intense focus on scores, targets and data can create anxiety and draw us away from how we actually feel.
• Midlife can be approached as an opportunity rather than a decline. This stage of life can invite us to make more intentional choices about our health, redefine success and consider what we want the decades ahead to look like.

About the Guest:

Susan Hunter is an author, speaker and naturopath who believes the wellness industry has been selling Gen X women the wrong story. Through her work, Susan encourages women to view their health as a source of creative power in the second half of life—not as another part of themselves that needs to be continually optimised.

Her debut book, The Health Edit: How Gen X Women Are Resetting the Script on Midlife, offers an alternative to the overwhelm and complexity surrounding women’s health. Susan’s approach is grounded in greater clarity, realistic change and moving away from the idea that more is always better. She is also launching The Health Edit podcast alongside the book.

Show Resources:

Visit Susan’s website: https://www.susanhunter.com.au/

Read Susan’s Substack: https://susanhunterhealth.substack.com/

Follow Susan on Instagram: @susanhunterhealth

Connect with Susan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-hunter-67282024/

Follow, Emma the Podcast Host on Instagram: @emmalagerlow

Visit Emma's website: https://www.emmalagerlow.com/

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share it on your Instagram Stories and tag us @emmalagerlow and @susanhunterhealth.

Yours in Simplicity, Emma. X.