Upside Stories Library

Stay curious

Explore our evidence-based insights on life’s big questions, transitions, and challenges for people across midlife and beyond, and those facing these themes ahead of schedule.

Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Living With Uncertainty: The Psychology of Climate Worry, Political Stress, and the News Cycle

Intolerance of uncertainty, not the bad news itself, is the psychological mechanism behind climate worry, political stress and compulsive news checking. Research shows eco-anger predicts better outcomes than eco-anxiety, collective action buffers distress better than individual action, and older adults show greater emotional resilience following extreme weather adversity than younger adults.

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Sleep, Mood, and Cognitive Vulnerability in Older Age

Ask most people in later life how they are sleeping and the answer is rarely straightforward. Too light. Waking at 3am. Taking an hour to drop off. Feeling unrested despite spending eight hours in bed. Running on less than you used to. This article explains what the research tells us about sleep in older age, how it changes, why those changes matter, and what the evidence says can help.

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Adjustment Disorders in Midlife and Beyond

Most people in midlife and older age have considerable coping skills built up over the years. And then something arrives with enough weight, such as a diagnosis, a redundancy, or a retirement that doesn't feel like relief, where usual strategies of keeping busy, talking to a friend, or giving it time, aren’t enough. What follows isn't always depression or anxiety, it's often something more specific. Adjustment disorder is one of the most common mental health presentations in midlife and later life, and one of the most undertreated.

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

AI and Your Career: What Australian Midlife Workers Are Experiencing, and What Helps

Most Australian workers are already using AI at work. Many are finding it helpful. And some — particularly those in midlife, with deep expertise in roles that are changing rapidly — are also navigating something more personal: questions about identity, purpose, and what their professional future looks like. This article explores both sides of that picture, and what psychology can offer.

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Anxiety in the Second Half of Life: Health Anxiety and Existential Worry

Anxiety in midlife and later life often looks quite different. It might show up in the doctor’s waiting room and the 3am mind. It might show up as a persistent undercurrent beneath ordinary days; the sense that something is wrong, or will be, and that the window for doing something about it is narrowing. Anxiety in the second half of life is a significant clinical and wellbeing concern that responds well to evidence-based treatment; and one that too many people carry alone, for too long, without support.

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Subjective Cognitive Decline: When Memory Worries Become Anxiety

You sit down to tell someone a story and the name you need, whether it’s a person, a place, a film, it simply will not come. You walk into a room and forget why you went there. You read the same paragraph three times and feel the words sliding away before they settle. And somewhere underneath the ordinary frustration of these moments is a more persistent worry: Is this the beginning of something serious?

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Concerns About Dementia in Midlife: What’s Normal, What’s Not, and What You Can Do

You walk into a room and forget why you're there. A name won't come. And somewhere in the back of your mind: "is this how it starts?" Fear of dementia is one of the most common health concerns in midlife — and one of the least clearly addressed. This article explains what normal memory change actually looks like, when it's worth speaking to your GP, and what the research tells us you can do to protect your brain across the decades ahead.

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Dr Bruce Walmsley Dr Bruce Walmsley

Climate anxiety in midlife and older age: Why it hits different — and what you can do

Climate change is no longer a distant concern. For many of us, it’s becoming a lived reality — seen in more frequent bushfires, heatwaves, and floods like those recently devastating the Mid North Coast of NSW — and this hits many in midlife or older age especially hard. In this article we explore why it hits different and what you can do.

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