With a range of experience and advice, our experts for November 2022 cover tips on how to look after your gut health, heal from childhood trauma, look after the wellbeing of yourself and your family and how to find the perfect caravan to get out and about and explore Australia! There is so much incredible information here and each of our experts is available to chat more about their field and how they can help you achieve your health and wellbeing goals, so get in touch to find out more!
Meet Melisa Byrne | Melisa Byrne Naturopath
Tip #1:
Make time for your health & wellbeing because it is extremely difficult if you are trying to juggle family, work/business, study and other commitments if you are exhausted and running on empty. You can’t pour from an empty cup.
Tip #2:
Your biochemistry is unique and so a particular diet and supplements that helped someone you know with their health may not help you. Popular diets don’t suit everyone.
Tip #3:
Always seek professional advice from a natural health practitioner about what supplements you require before self prescribing. You could be wasting your money at best if you are taking vitamins/minerals you don’t need and at worse you could be causing symptoms especially if you aren’t deficient in that nutrient and are taking an excess of it.
Facebook: Melisa Byrne Naturopath
ABOUT OUR EXPERT:
Melisa Byrne is a Women’s Wellness Naturopath with over 10 years experience helping women with their metabolism and hormones so they release weight and have more energy.
Meet Marina Vuckov |
Marina Vuckov Nutrition & Wellness
Here are 3 tips to start your journey to healing your gut.
Tip #1: Eat more, not less.
Plants that is! Fruits, vegetables and legumes are rich in dietary fibre, which is extremely beneficial for your digestive health. Research has shown that including a wide variety of plant-based foods in your diet is associated with a diverse and resilient gut microbiome. This is because certain fibres act as fuel for our good gut bacteria and help rebalance the gut.
Tip #2: Include natural probiotics in your diet.
Foods like yoghurt, kefir and kimchi are naturally rich in probiotics, which are live microbes that can benefit our gut and immune health, mood and even sleep. Specific probiotic strains help reduce gut inflammation, help with bloating, constipation, diarrhoea and reflux.
Tip #3: Seek answers.
Whether you’ve been struggling with bloating, constipation, were diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) years ago, or take antacid medications weekly, you don’t need to keep putting up with these symptoms – you can and deserve to feel your best.
The only way to get on top of your symptoms for good is to find out what’s actually causing them in the first place and address this. A qualified health professional such as a nutritionist can help uncover the real reason behind your symptoms and provide specific, tailored support to
Facebook: Marina Vuckov Nutrition & Wellness
ABOUT OUR EXPERT:
Marina is a degree-qualified, holistic nutritionist and physiotherapist, with over 14 years in the health field. She works 1:1 with women specialising in the areas of digestive health, fatigue and hormonal health. She considers the whole individual and provides personalised, holistic nutrition and lifestyle support and strives to empower her clients so they can thrive again and live the life they dream of.
Marina is based in Adelaide, South Australia but consults online and sees women from all over Australia and New Zealand. You can follow Marina on Instagram at @marinavuckov_nutrition for more holistic health tips.
Marina offers a free 10 minute chat if you’d like to find out more about how you could work together https://booking.simpleclinic.net/#/booking/Vno/services
Meet Carol Buchanan | Moveon Counselling
If you have experienced a difficult childhood here are 3 steps to healing.
Tip #1:
Emotional injuries need care and healing in the same way physical injuries need tending too. Trying to distract from your pain and escape your feelings doesn’t help in the long term. Unfortunately, there is stigma and shame attached to having emotional and mental health issues. You are not alone, everyone struggles at some point in their life, it’s a normal reaction to stress and distressing circumstances.
Tip #2:
Be compassionate to yourself and realise that the negative thoughts are not who you are. They are due to the programming you received as a child. Those messages can be changed to ones of self-love and empowerment, by working with a therapist. One that helps you release emotions from your body and mind.
Tip #3:
Ensure any therapist you choose is experienced in dealing with trauma and has the tools that will turn off the triggering in your mind and body for long lasting results, so you feel safe in your body and mind.
Facebook: Successful Women Healing from Childhood Trauma
ABOUT OUR EXPERT:
Carol is an ex-registered nurse with over 30 years of experience. Carol is a counsellor, hypnotherapist and trauma therapist. Carol uses neuro-dynamic approaches that are holistic, involving your senses and imagination to address and heal the root of the anxiety, PTSD and depression so you can leave the past behind. She has clinics in Blackwood and Mount Barker as well as offering appointments on-online people anywhere in the world in the comfort of their own homes.
Meet Vicky Taylor | Find My Van
Tip #1: What type of caravan do you want? New or pre-loved?
New or used? Pros and cons of both options. If you decide on new, ensure you agree an exact delivery month. Check the contract for the word ‘tentatively’ and ask the dealer to commit to an exact date or at least and exact month. This will protect you and ensure they keep their promise. Lots of buyers have ordered vans to coincide with long service or annual leave only to be let down by delays manufacturers knew about prior to accepting your order.
If you opt for pre-loved. Ask the seller questions about common faults and leaks, existing or previously repaired. Always check documentation in relation to repairs and servicing too. Always ask what price the seller paid for the van. They may not be forthcoming with this information, but you should always ask. New caravans depreciate by $5,000 -$10,000 the moment you drive them out of the dealership plus $1,000 – $5,000 per year thereafter depending on the manufacturer and inclusions.
Tip #2: Why buy through a Caravan Broker rather than a Caravan Dealership?
Caravan dealerships have one goal in mind when selling you a caravan. It’s to sell you one of the vans off their forecourt. They will try to meet your criteria but if they do not have anything which matches it, they will try to get you to change your criteria. For example, client A wants a full off-road van with a $60,000 – $80,000 budget. Full off-road vans at this dealership are over $90,000 but the dealership has a semi off road available in that price bracket. They may offer you finance to increase your budget which can be helpful. If this is not an option for their client, they will try to talk them into buying the next best thing. The semi off road. They will give a zillion reasons why full off road is not what the client needs and how the semi off road will be adequate for the client’s needs and at a price which suits them.
Find My Van clients will not experience this as we do not hold our own stock. Our brokers search the whole country to ensure we match our clients’ exact criteria. We will approach dealerships when searching for newly built caravans for our clients, but we generally approach private sellers for preloved vans as this ensures our clients will never pay above market value for their van. We also arrange and pay for independent vehicle inspections on all vans we facilitate the sale of.
Caravan dealerships usually conduct their own vehicle inspections which is viewed as adequate but cannot be considered independent like the ones we organise.
Caravan dealerships have extensive overheads (rent, utilities, insurance, repairs to name a few). They add these expenses to the price of caravans they sell.
Find My Van does not have these added expenses keeping the price of the caravans we facilitate the sale of, at or below market value.
Tip #3: Which caravan manufacturer is best?
There are over 80 caravan manufacturers operating across Australia today and regulation is voluntary. Always look for the RVMAP symbol as these manufacturers are registered. The vans built by registered manufacturers are regularly inspected to ensure they meet industry standards.
www.caravanindustry.com.au/rvmap
Facebook: Find My Van
ABOUT OUR EXPERT:
Find My Van is a concept from Vicky, an ex-police officer who took a break from her 19 years of service to explore Australia’s boundless plains and beautiful beaches by van.
Realising there needed to be less pain and more fun to the adventures of caravan buying, Vicky wanted to reduce time scouring showrooms, driving around sale yards, and haggling with salespeople… and that’s how Find My Van was…found!
Vicky is client focussed. As such, she holds her clients in the highest regard and states it is because of this, the company is growing at an exponential rate. Vicky envisions more women choosing to work in this industry and make caravan buying a more diverse experience for all.