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Nix Adams is best known for her social media presence and victory on Celebrity Treasure Island, but there's more to her story than that.  She's survived intergenerational trauma, losing a child, meth addiction, and a short stint in prison - which ultimately inspired her to turn her life around.  She's shared her journey of survival and starting over in a new memoir, Nothing to Lose. "It's been pretty scary, I've shared bits and pieces over the years, but to have it all in your hands is pretty freaky, actually."  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Irish comedian and tv host Dara O'Briain has always known he was adopted and he's worked that detail into his standup comedy routines. His 2023 tour focused on his journey to find his birth mother, and his upcoming tour - set to arrive in New Zealand later this month - will share the story of finding his birth father. He's promised the show will be a 'romp' as it's a 'lovely' story to tell. "I'm lucky to have got in under the length of it being a long and involved story." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chain Reaction by Lee Child and Andrew Child. The latest outing from the two brothers is the 31st in the Jack Reacher series and for me, it held up very well. General Susan Turner is a former colleague of Jack’s from his Pentagon days, and when someone on her team is brutally murdered she needs someone she can trust to work out what happened and why, Jack being the obvious candidate. She tracks him down and the mission rekindles their previous relationship as they take on the bad guys, set in a modern world where data farms are the new big thing and not everyone is on the right side. It’s full of action, as always with Reacher, but there’s some great human interaction as well and is less one dimensional than some in the series. King’s Ransom by Matthew Reilly. This is the second in a new series featuring an autistic detective, Sam Speedman, who is called on to help with a case when the world’s richest man and some of his family are kidnapped in New York and the kidnappers demand that five of America’s smartest detectives be brought in to solve the riddles and clues they’ve laid down as a challenge. It’s fun, pacy, requires some serious willing suspension of disbelief but is extremely entertaining and I’ll be looking out for the next in the series. Highly recommended for some great escapism.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The summer season is over for another year in the US, and tourism in Hawaii has seen a noticeable decline. Visitor numbers are down, and there's less flights in and out of the region, according to new reports. BloggerAtLarge.com writer Megan Singleton was recently there, but she cited a weakening dollar and growing political discontent in America. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on the Sunday Panel, partner at Freebairn and Hehir Liam Hehir and journalist and TV producer Irene Gardiner joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the week - and more!  We've got one week of the election campaign left to go - but is is too negative? What have we made of the campaigning across the board? Winston Peters said people are sick and tired of it and that this campaign has been among the worst he's seen. Is he right?  How do we see the election playing out? What are our predictions?  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin Full Show Podcast for Sunday 1 November. Get the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin Full Show Podcast every Sunday on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Your brain and your gut communicate with each other all the time, and certain emotions can impact how your body feels. Often, when people experience gut symptoms like diarrhoea or constipation, they attribute them to gut problems rather than to stress or the nervous system.  Naturopath and wellness expert Erin O'Hara explained this process further - and revealed some techniques to address stress.   LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Coddled eggs with beans and meatballs Cook time: 25 minutes  Prep time: 30 minutes  Serves: 6 250gm beef mince  150gm pork mince  ¼ pumpkin, grated  2 tsp Dijon mustard 400gm tin whole peeled tomatoes 400gm tin chickpeas in spring water, drained 400gm tin white haricot beans, drained 1 onion, finely diced 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 3 tbsp chopped fresh thyme  1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce  4 eggs  1 tbsp sunflower oil  5-6 sprigs sage (optional)  Salt and black pepper Preheat the oven to 180*C. Mix the mince, mustard, pumpkin and 1 tbsp fresh thyme in a bowl and season with salt and pepper.   Roll the mix into golf sized balls. Heat a little oil in a cast-iron frying pan and shallow fry the meatballs, just enough to colour the outside. Set aside. Now add a little more oil to the pan and sauté the onion, garlic and remaining thyme.   Add the tomatoes, beans and Worcestershire sauce, cook for one minute.   Pour this mix into a large baking dish (about 50cm square). Place the meatballs into the tray then gently crack the eggs in around the balls. Bake in the oven for around 15-20 minutes or until the egg white is cooked (the yolks should still be a bit runny). While this is cooking, shallow fry the sage in hot vegetable oil until crispy.  Set aside on absorbent kitchen towel.   Garnish the baked dish with the sage and serve.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Good news if you like taking a hot bath as new research, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology I, investigated how our blood vessels respond to heat compared with exercise. Researchers recruited 25 adults aged between 45 and 70, with an average age of 59 who were all classified as overweight or obese and were relatively physically inactive. Each volunteer took part in two different experiments. In the first experiment, participants sat in a hot 40°C bath for 30 minutes.   In the second experiment, the same people spent 30 minutes cycling on a stationary exercise bike at a moderate intensity, working at around 60–70 percent of their maximum heart rate. The scientists measured their heart rates, core body temperatures and blood pressure before and during the experiments and had the volunteers swallow tiny electronic temperature sensors that transmitted readings from inside their bodies. The researchers used optical coherence tomography which allowed them to examine microscopic blood vessels in the skin of participants' forearms, measuring their width, the speed at which blood travelled through them and how much blood was flowing. They also used laser Doppler flowmetry, to independently measure changes in skin blood flow.  After 30 minutes in the hot bath, participants' tiny skin blood vessels had widened by an average of 5.2 microns, allowing more blood to flow through them compared to a decrease of 1.1 microns for the cyclists.  They also measured 14 percent more blood-perfused vessel density after the bath, compared with a decrease of 3 percent after cycling.  After the hot bath, participants experienced an average reduction of approximately 6 mmHg in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) and 10 mmHg in diastolic pressure (the bottom number).  After cycling, the average systolic reading increased by approximately 1 mmHg, while diastolic pressure decreased by around 2 mmHg.  When you exercise, your muscles produce heat as they work and your body responds by moving blood towards the skin, where that heat can be released.  When you sit in hot water, you absorb heat from your surroundings, your body still needs to regulate its temperature, so it responds by widening blood vessels near the skin and increasing circulation.  Wider blood vessels generally create less resistance to blood flow, which can help reduce blood pressure.  While heart rate increased more during cycling, showing that although the bath produced a stronger response in the skin's small blood vessels, the two activities were putting different demands on the cardiovascular system.  The findings suggest that heat exposure alone can create a significant circulatory response, even without exercising your muscles.  Of course, physical exercise provides many benefits that passive heating cannot replicate, including improvements in muscular strength, endurance and physical fitness.  However, this is particularly interesting for people who find conventional exercise difficult, including those with mobility limitations or conditions that restrict physical activity.  So while a hot bath probably isn't going to replace your daily walk, it's reassuring to know that relaxing in warm water isn't necessarily doing nothing.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Director Lance Oppenheim's newest project is set to examine the impact of one of the most infamous reality shows out there.  To Catch a Predator ran from 2004 to 2007, and the series and host Chris Hansen are back under scrutiny in Primetime, a new film starring Robert Pattinson.   Entertainment correspondent Steve Newall explained further.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Despite some tough economic conditions impacting the hospitality sector, one big industry success story is set to hit a milestone. Tala, the famed Samoan restaurant, celebrates three years in business this Tuesday, and it's accomplished a lot over those years. Bookings are up, wait-lists are growing, and demand has only surged since Tala became the world’s first Michelin-starred Samoan restaurant earlier this year. Chef Henry Onesemo says he's very thankful for the restaurant's success.  "It's huge, we are super grateful for where we're at. We opened in the middle of a recession, and then just to see it grow incrementally within the last three years has been a testament to the community." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National's revealed it was behind a complaint to the Electoral Commission, regarding Harry Mowbray's Split the Vote website. Mowbray's taken the website down after the Commission started looking into a potential advertising breach - and National says this is a deliberate attempt to confuse voters in a very close election.  Newstalk ZB political reporter Azaria Howell says the issue of vote splitting is causing tensions among the right bloc, especially given the state of the polls. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Recent polling predicts a tight race in the US midterm elections next week, and there's a lot at stake for President Donald Trump. Both the House and Senate are currently controlled by the Republicans, and the fate of Trump's final two years in office could rest on the outcome. US political analyst Dan Schnur says it's likely the Democrats will take at least one of them, and that could have consequences for Trump. "Historically in the US, the party that does not hold the presidency easily does much better in those midterm elections than the President's party." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With less than a week until New Zealanders have their say at the polls, our political leaders have become remarkably good at telling us who they won’t work with.   Christopher Luxon has ruled out Labour, the Greens, Te Pāti Māori and The Opportunity Party. Chris Hipkins has ruled out National, ACT and New Zealand First. David Seymour has drawn his own line against the left, but would consider Opportunity. Winston Peters has made it abundantly clear that Labour and Opportunity aren’t on his Christmas card list.   The Greens, meanwhile, have kept their options open, although their preference for a change of Government is hardly a secret. And then there’s The Opportunity Party, led by Qiulae Wong, which has pitched itself as willing to negotiate across the political spectrum - albeit with serious reservations about serving in a Government with Peters as Foreign Minister. Welcome to MMP: the electoral system in which everybody wants the numbers, but not necessarily the people and parties that come with them. The two big ‘ifs’ are of course the possibility of an overhang, and whether The Opportunity Party will hit 5 percent. We have to wait and see how it unfolds, but given the tight polling and steady demise of the major parties, knowing who is prepared to deal with who matters.   Voters deserve to know what they’re voting for. If a party has fundamental disagreements with another over tax, climate policy or the role of Government, pretending those differences don’t exist would be dishonest.  But there’s a difference between establishing principles and bolting the door before you know who’s knocking. National’s rejection of Opportunity is the much discussed case in point. Luxon objects to its proposals for a land tax and universal basic income, which sit awkwardly with National’s low tax philosophy. That is a legitimate policy argument. Luxon is also desperate for both the party and electoral vote so has kept the messaging simple. But if the numbers on election night leave National needing Opportunity to govern, what then?  Does Luxon stick to his promise and risk handing the Government benches to Labour? Or does he discover that Qiulae Wong is, after all, a perfectly reasonable person to have a cup of tea with?   The difficulty is that a change of heart would come with a price. Having repeatedly ruled a party out, a leader cannot simply welcome it aboard and expect nobody to notice. Opponents would call it desperation. Disillusioned supporters may call it betrayal. And the media would have a field day replaying every previous emphatic denial. Yet voters may also recognise political reality. A party that negotiates a workable agreement, secures sensible compromises and delivers stable Government could argue it had put the country ahead of campaign rhetoric.   There is a difference between changing your mind because circumstances have changed, and abandoning your principles because the ministerial cars are beckoning. The irony is that ruling parties out potentially reduces a leader’s bargaining power. The fewer options you leave yourself, the more leverage you hand to those still at the table.   Opportunity’s potential importance lies precisely in its ability to talk across the divide, provided it can win enough votes to enter Parliament.  LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Film director Travis Knight and his studio Laika have built up a name for themselves in the world of stop-motion animation, but his newest project is his most ambitious one yet. Wildwood is in theatres now, after 16 years in development - and it took 6 years of filming, 233 handmade puppets and over a thousand artists to get it all done. There's already plenty of Oscar buzz around this project, with early speculation claiming it could take home the prize for Best Animated Feature. Travis Knight says it was 'bittersweet' getting this wrapped up. "Now we're finally sharing this thing that we've been working on for years with the rest of the world and I'm really thrilled by the response so far." LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.