Latest news with #Gregory
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
‘I hate the way my husband breathes'
When Jane Gregory met her husband Steve at a comedy night in Melbourne, she thought she had hit the romantic jackpot. He was handsome, clever, and funny, and the two of them couldn't stop chatting. The only catch? He was British and lived 10,000 miles away. What followed was a three-year-long, transcontinental relationship, a wedding, and eventually – for Gregory, anyway – a one-way ticket to London. At last, they were living together in wedded bliss. 'After a few weeks, I started to realise something was really bothering me,' she says. 'Eventually, I turned to him and asked if he had always breathed that loudly. He looked really confused.' At the time, Gregory had never heard the word 'misophonia'. She just knew she felt a hot rage descend on her each time he inhaled. And then exhaled shortly after. Unlike a snore, which will often stop with a well-aimed kick, or a cough, which will usually get better with time or antibiotics, breathing is a sound you can't turn off. It's not a bad habit. It's a fundamental proponent of being alive – and even the most irritable spouse would pause before asking their partner to 'Please, for the love of God, just stop breathing'. Soon, Gregory was unable to sleep next to her husband or even share a sofa with him. 'I would beg him to breathe a bit quieter, but that wasn't easy for him either,' she recalls. 'It wasn't until much later that I understood what was happening.' Misophonia, literally 'hatred of sound', is a condition that affects an estimated 18 per cent of people in the UK, according to a study from King's College London. It's sometimes called 'sound rage', but that barely scratches the surface of the emotional chaos it can cause, and one of the most common triggers is breath. While most of us find heavy breathing annoying at times, people with misophonia are flooded with an almost primal reaction – disgust, anger, even panic – that can be set off by the sort of gentle inhalations others wouldn't notice. Now, new research shows that the way we breathe is as unique as our fingerprints – researchers measured the breathing of 97 healthy people for 24 hours and found that they could identify participants with relatively high accuracy from their breathing pattern alone. That might be shallow, slow or raspy – but for those with a sensitivity to spousal noise, the adjective they'd preferably use to describe their partner's breathing is 'silent'. Gregory, no doubt, is correct in saying that her husband breathes in an unusually loud way – but it is also true that if he had married someone without misophonia, they probably would never have noticed. 'I have lived with one other romantic partner before,' she says. 'But he was just a much quieter breather than Steve. My husband breathes loudly – that's just a fact. If he's standing next to someone, I can usually hear Steve breathing but not the other person. Gregory was already a clinical psychologist when she got married, but since learning about misophonia, she has joined a research team at the University of Oxford and is now one of the UK's leading experts in the condition. The more research she does, the more she understands that neither she nor her husband is to blame. 'Telling someone that the way they breathe is repulsive can be incredibly hurtful. But if you're the one being triggered, it's unbearable. It's a real problem unless you talk about it openly.' We are only in the foothills of understanding the condition, but some therapists believe an aversion to breathing can be an emotional shorthand for something going wrong in the relationship. A breath that's perceived as too loud might mean: You're not listening. You're not communicating with me. You're not helping me. Jasmine, 44, remembers the moment she realised she had misophonia. It wasn't during a doctor's appointment or in therapy. It was on a holiday in Mallorca with a seemingly great new boyfriend. 'I was 39 at the time and really wanted to meet someone and have a baby, and he ticked all the boxes,' she says. 'So I ploughed on with the relationship even though we didn't actually have that much to say to each other. We went on this romantic holiday together and one evening he told me he wanted to get serious, and I realised almost immediately that I couldn't stand the way he breathed. The more I was around him, the more I felt myself spiralling into panic whenever I could hear the sounds of his breath.' The relationship was over by the time they landed in Gatwick. It was the first time Jasmine wondered if she should explore this aversion to certain people's breathing patterns – but it wasn't the first time she had felt this way. 'I've felt rage and disgust with boyfriends and dates who have breathed in a way I didn't like,' she says. 'I've literally looked for exits during dinner because I am so desperate to get away from the sound.' Now, she is starting to understand that, for her, the condition is often tethered to situations where she feels trapped on some level. 'My therapist says it's like an alarm system. I notice it comes out when I feel claustrophobic: at home as a kid, at work, or with a partner I shouldn't be with.' For Elizabeth, married for 15 years with two children, similar feelings play out, only in the subtler tones of long-term domesticity. She doesn't scream or panic or storm out when her husband's breathing drives her to distraction. Instead, she slams the fridge door slightly harder than usual. 'We can communicate now without actually speaking,' she says. Elizabeth is so attuned to her husband's breath that she can now tell what response he is hoping to get from her by the tempo of his inhalations. Often, he will breathe more heavily while performing household tasks (cleaning the recycling bin with exaggerated sighs or grunting theatrically as he lugs garden waste to the car). 'It's his way of saying, 'Look at me, I'm being useful,'' she says. It used to drive her to distraction, and her anger was only slightly mollified once she realised it was a family trait. 'His dad does it too,' she says. 'Opening the dishwasher sounds like a cardiac event. I don't even ask his dad to help anymore. I assume that was the plan all along.' Like so much else in relationships, what began as an unnoticed quirk in those heady early days of dating has, over time, evolved into a major irritation. Jane Gregory and her husband now sleep in separate bedrooms, a decision that once might have portended the beginning of the end, but which, to the couple, feels almost romantic. 'We spent so long in a long-distance relationship,' she says, 'that coexisting separately actually feels natural. And it makes things so much easier – I can't sleep at all once I tune into the sound of him breathing.' They also use music as a buffer: often Gregory will turn on Taylor Swift mid-meal. 'When I click on Spotify, he knows something's bothering me. It's our way of handling it, without blame or drama.' Ezra Cowan, a psychologist who specialises in misophonia, says that without tricks like these, the dynamic can be heartbreaking, and explains he has watched otherwise happy couples ruin their marriages over something as universal as breathing. 'You have one person who's desperate for relief, and another who is just breathing like they always have since the day they were born. It becomes a vicious cycle. The breather tries to change, the other says it's not enough. Guilt turns into anger. Accommodation turns into resentment.' The real tragedy, he says, is that everyone is trying. And yet, the condition has a way of making both parties feel like there is something wrong with them. Interestingly, studies show that breathing-related misophonia is more prevalent among women, with some academic papers suggesting that they are almost twice as likely to get the condition as men. 'It might be a socially acceptable outlet for emotional pain,' says Cowan. 'If a woman feels ignored or overwhelmed, it might manifest in sensitivity to something as simple as breath.' Equally, it is an aversion that is far more likely to come out in relation to your spouse than to your children or, say, a friend. 'I know people worry about having kids as they worry they would be triggered by the sounds they make,' says Gregory. 'But when they are really little, in particular, it is very rarely a problem. It is usually directed at other adults who you share an intimate space with, in other words, a partner. And it's hard: I know people who have ended relationships because of it.' Complicated as it is to be driven to distraction by a sound that is keeping the person you love alive, misophonia doesn't always ruin relationships. In some cases, it even brings them together. Gregory and her husband are now putting on a comedy show together in Oxford this summer. And the title? If You Loved Me You'd Breathe Quietly. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Korea Herald
11 hours ago
- Business
- Korea Herald
We don't need more obejcts, just better ones: Antonio Citterio
Italian designer and architect shares his philosophy working for high-end furniture company Flexform, which launched its Seoul flagship store in May Behind companies that manage to build a legacy and maintain the quality of their products, there are often people carving out the company's identity and helping to write its history. For Italian luxury furniture company Flexform, designer and architect Antonio Citterio is one such person. Flexform was founded in 1959 by the Galimberti brothers in northern Italy, and is renowned for its high-end sofas, armchairs, tables and beds. Last month, the company launched its brand in Seoul with the Infini Cheongdam flagship store, one of a series of flagship stores opening around the world. 'Flexform's uniqueness lies in its quiet consistency. In more than four decades of collaboration, we have developed a shared language based on measured elegance, comfort and timelessness. It is a company that does not follow trends,' Citterio said in a recent interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul. The brand's signature sofas, such as Groundpiece, Soft Dream, Perry, Gregory, Asolo and Camelot, have been around for decades, and were created out of the designer's observations of people — the way they live, sit, rest and gather. 'Groundpiece, for instance, was born from observing the everyday: how a sofa isn't just for sitting, but for reading, relaxing, even working. I rethought proportions, making it lower and deeper, and introduced more informal elements,' the designer said. Since its launch in 2001, Groundpiece has become one of the most sought-after sofas by the company. Gregory, a sofa that features leather straps, is an example of visual expression of craftsmanship and quality, 'balancing between technical precision with material sensitivity,' Citterio said. 'It is never about decoration; it is about making each component meaningful. In all these projects, the goal is the same: clarity, comfort and design that stays relevant over time,' he said. The designer noted South Korea's growing appreciation for fine art and high-quality design aligns naturally with Flexform's values. 'South Korea is an extraordinary cultural landscape: design-aware and deeply connected to both tradition and innovation,' he said. 'Flexform speaks a language of restraint, continuity and subtle luxury, and I believe that resonates with the Korean sensitivity to beauty, calm and authenticity in the domestic space.' His design practice traverses different fields. An architecture graduate of Polytechnic University of Milan, he is a co-founder of ACPV Architects and was a professor of architectural design at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland. In fact, the design fields he bridges share a common aim — to improve the way people live through intelligent and coherent design, according to the architect. 'In Italy, there has never been a strict separation between architecture, interior and product design. They are different scales of the same conceptual process. 'When I design a chair or a sofa, I don't isolate it from its surroundings. I think about the space it lives in, the gestures of the people who use it, and how light, proportions and relationships shape the experience,' he said. In a world flooded with designs sporting loud aesthetics and where people can easily obtain objects or furniture with a single click, Citterio's designs stay grounded by his philosophy: clarity, durability and timelessness. 'I have always thought that creativity must exist inside the industrial process, not outside of it — that is where true innovation happens. When each component of an object has meaning, structural, functional and aesthetic, the result is not just elegant, it is durable,' he said. 'I believe the world does not need more objects. It needs better ones. Better means designed with care, with awareness of how people live, and with the intention to last. I would like to be remembered for creating work that endures not through recognition or style, but through coherence,' said Citterio.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘I am genuinely on my own': The TV chef living the wild life in Tasmania
Chef Analiese Gregory vowed to tone down the 'adventuring' for the second season of SBS Food's female-centric answer to the River Cottage franchise, A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Cooking. But there she is in the first episode, preparing to scuba dive for crayfish off the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, where the Michelin-star trained chef lives since trading the London-Paris-Sydney high life for a simpler existence on the land. 'I'm always putting myself in moderately dangerous situations, maybe because it makes you feel alive,' says the Kiwi chef, who is on during a break in preparing the Winter Feast for MONA gallery's Dark Mofo festival. The Huon Valley farmhouse we watched her restore in the first season is still a work in progress, as is the kitchen garden, from which she plucks lovage for the crayfish omelette she plans to cook on the beach. Sheep have joined the yard, as has a dog named Kana (a Maori word for 'sea urchin'). An Italian truffle-hunting breed called Lagotto Romagnolo, Kana has so far managed to forage a mushroom. There is another addition to the farm that upsets the image of solo female independence – Gregory's partner, Hobart chef and restaurateur Kobi Ruzicka. 'He lives in Hobart, so it's a very modern relationship,' says Gregory. 'But I am genuinely on my own in the country with my dog most of the time, just trying to muddle through.' Gregory was just 16 when she left the family dairy farm on New Zealand's North Island to train in London. 'I've always lived that way. I'm like, 'I'm going to move to France!', and I just do it.' But after regular restorative escapes to Tasmania during her years with chef Peter Gilmore (who appears in season two) at Sydney's Quay Restaurant, the pull of the quieter island state and its abundance of produce became too strong. 'Being part of big-city life for many years, and having high-pressure jobs, I think I needed to do that to value [farm life], and to want to come full circle.' A post-pandemic diagnosis helped Gregory make sense of her exceptional ability to focus under stress. In the series, she rarely appears ruffled, even when experiencing a panic attack during the crayfishing dive. 'From my 20 years in a commercial kitchen, you learn to internalise stress,' she says. 'And I've been diagnosed with autism, so maybe I do have a bit of that blank face. But it doesn't mean there aren't things going on below the surface … I went through a period of grieving for life being harder than maybe it needed to be, and then acceptance, and then learning to understand myself better … I think that in ways [autism] makes things harder for me, and in other ways it probably makes things easier. I do get hyper-focused and will stay up all night building bee frames to go in the beehive and things like that.'
The Age
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘I am genuinely on my own': The TV chef living the wild life in Tasmania
Chef Analiese Gregory vowed to tone down the 'adventuring' for the second season of SBS Food's female-centric answer to the River Cottage franchise, A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Cooking. But there she is in the first episode, preparing to scuba dive for crayfish off the south-eastern coast of Tasmania, where the Michelin-star trained chef lives since trading the London-Paris-Sydney high life for a simpler existence on the land. 'I'm always putting myself in moderately dangerous situations, maybe because it makes you feel alive,' says the Kiwi chef, who is on during a break in preparing the Winter Feast for MONA gallery's Dark Mofo festival. The Huon Valley farmhouse we watched her restore in the first season is still a work in progress, as is the kitchen garden, from which she plucks lovage for the crayfish omelette she plans to cook on the beach. Sheep have joined the yard, as has a dog named Kana (a Maori word for 'sea urchin'). An Italian truffle-hunting breed called Lagotto Romagnolo, Kana has so far managed to forage a mushroom. There is another addition to the farm that upsets the image of solo female independence – Gregory's partner, Hobart chef and restaurateur Kobi Ruzicka. 'He lives in Hobart, so it's a very modern relationship,' says Gregory. 'But I am genuinely on my own in the country with my dog most of the time, just trying to muddle through.' Gregory was just 16 when she left the family dairy farm on New Zealand's North Island to train in London. 'I've always lived that way. I'm like, 'I'm going to move to France!', and I just do it.' But after regular restorative escapes to Tasmania during her years with chef Peter Gilmore (who appears in season two) at Sydney's Quay Restaurant, the pull of the quieter island state and its abundance of produce became too strong. 'Being part of big-city life for many years, and having high-pressure jobs, I think I needed to do that to value [farm life], and to want to come full circle.' A post-pandemic diagnosis helped Gregory make sense of her exceptional ability to focus under stress. In the series, she rarely appears ruffled, even when experiencing a panic attack during the crayfishing dive. 'From my 20 years in a commercial kitchen, you learn to internalise stress,' she says. 'And I've been diagnosed with autism, so maybe I do have a bit of that blank face. But it doesn't mean there aren't things going on below the surface … I went through a period of grieving for life being harder than maybe it needed to be, and then acceptance, and then learning to understand myself better … I think that in ways [autism] makes things harder for me, and in other ways it probably makes things easier. I do get hyper-focused and will stay up all night building bee frames to go in the beehive and things like that.'
USA Today
4 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
2 Texas A&M WR commits listed as Top 5 Rivals Camp performers
2 Texas A&M WR commits listed as Top 5 Rivals Camp performers Texas A&M's wide receiver future will depend on quarterback play and, of course, offensive coordinator Collin Klein's performance during the 2025 season. However, if starting QB Marcel Reed improves from the pocket combined with Klein's solid playcalling, the future is very bright for two incoming 2026 wide receiver commits, as four-stars Aaron Gregory and Madden Williams were reportedly two of the top-performing pass-catchers during the Rivals Camp Series. Ahead of the annual Rivals Five-Star event taking place in Indianapolis at the end of the month, Rivals recruiting insider Sam Spiegelman detailed the top performers, which included Gregory and Williams, who both increased their recruiting stock before their official visits this summer. Last weekend, Gregory was one of three Aggie commits to shut down his recruitment. At the same time, Madden Williams, who Florida State is heavily pursuing, will take his official visit to Texas A&M on June 20, his final visit of the summer. Here's what Spiegelman had to say about each player's Rivals camp performances: 2026 4-star WR commit Aaron Gregory "Gregory has been one of the crown jewels of Texas A&M's 2026 recruiting class. After turning in a monster junior season for Douglasville (Ga.) Douglas County, Gregory has enjoyed a sensational offseason, including a strong showing in Atlanta." "The future Aggie has a knack for wow receptions. He's extremely smooth with outstanding polish and the ability to get open. He's a problem for opposing defenses with the ability to work at all different levels of the field." 2026 4-star WR commit Madden Williams "Williams was the Wide Receiver MVP in Los Angeles. Another step forward as a route-runner and playmaker with size, speed and toughness to operate outside the numbers, Williams also flashed more polish and won in various contested-catch situations working on the perimeter and back in the middle of the field. Williams also showed the ability to separate against some elite cornerbacks." "He's another Texas A&M commit who has taken advantage of a big offseason." Gregory's smooth transitions, downfield speed, and soft hands will make him an immediate threat once he finds his groove with the Aggies. At the same time, as Spiegelman notes, Williams has improved as a route runner and could become a nightmare matchup in the middle of the field against zone coverage. Both players, paired with four-star wide receiver commit Mike Brown, currently represent Texas A&M's future at the position. Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Cameron on X: @CameronOhnysty.
