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.
Delirium, Dementia, and Depression: How to Tell the Difference
Confusion, forgetfulness and low mood can look alike in midlife and later life, but they call for very different responses. Find out how delirium, dementia and depression differ, what to watch for, and when to talk to your GP.
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.
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.
The Midlife Advantage in the Age of AI: Why Experience Is Your Superpower
The narrative around AI and work is mostly about threat. This article is about what midlife workers actually bring to this moment, and why the research suggests experience, judgment, and emotional intelligence are becoming more valuable, not less.
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.
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.
Who Am I Now? Identity Reconstruction in Midlife
Something shifts in midlife. Not a crisis, often just an unsettling sense that the person you've been no longer quite fits. This article explores what the research tells us about why identity changes in midlife, what makes it harder, and what helps you build a new sense of self.
Life Review: Why Looking Back Strengthens the Present and the Future
Looking back isn't the same as being stuck in the past. Life review is an individualised yet structured, evidence-based approach that explores how you make sense of your experiences, resolve what's unfinished, and move into the next chapter with greater clarity and purpose.
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?
Online therapy in Australia: It stacks up for busy midlife & older age
See why online therapy in Australia delivers proven results for midlife and older adults — convenient, effective, and backed by real evidence.