We’re told to dress for the life we want — not the life we have.

That if we change how we dress, we’ll change how we feel.

That confidence, motivation, discipline, and even happiness might be hiding in a blazer, a slicked-back bun, or a pair of cowboy boots.

But… is that actually true?

Or is this just another internet reinvention fantasy dressed up as self-improvement?

In this episode of Field Notes, I look at main character dressing, aesthetic identities, and the idea that clothes can function as behavioural cues — through humour, cultural anthropology, and lived experience.

This one is for anyone who:

• feels permanently scruffy, flat, or half-alive
• knows they care about how they look, but can’t seem to follow through
• suspects there’s something psychologically real going on here… but also something deeply ridiculous

• Main character dressing — what it actually means, and why it’s everywhere

• Dressing for the life you want vs dragging yourself around in leggings and a fleece

• Why clothes can genuinely affect mood, confidence, and behaviour (without becoming delusional about it)

• A gentle roasting of men in tracksuits (you can sit with us — just behave)

• The aesthetics currently doing the rounds online:

• Clean Girl
• Tomato Girl
• Mob Wife
• Cottagecore
• • Why switching aesthetics can feel like trying on identities
• • Whether “rehearsing” a version of yourself helps — or just makes you overthink everything
• • The anthropology of adornment, status, and signalling (including a Copper Age man buried with a solid gold penis sheath)
• • Why Old Ma is always dressed properly — and why she might be onto something

This episode also sets up a new weekly segment starting next episode:

Ask Guru & Granny

Each week we’ll answer listener questions using:

• a chronically online take (me)
• and a chronically offline take (Old Ma — archaeologist, control group, deeply unimpressed by nonsense)

You can ask about:

• identity
• work
• confidence
• relationships
• motivation
• or anything you’re quietly spiralling about

Send questions to: rosefieldnotespod@gmail.com

Or DM me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan

Tell us if you’d like to be anonymous or named.

(Neither of us are licensed psychologists or counsellors. My mum’s main credential is “a life well lived” and decades of not indulging bullshit.)

I’ll be actually trying this in real life:

• testing different aesthetics
• seeing whether clothes change behaviour, mood, or self-control
• and reporting back honestly — including whether it’s worth the laundry, the sensory overload, or the effort

Photos, visuals, and Old Ma’s homework will be shared on the podcast Instagram.

📸 Podcast Instagram: @field.notes.pod

(behind-the-scenes chaos, visuals, and things that didn’t make the edit)

If this episode made you laugh, think, or feel mildly called out — share it with someone who’d enjoy being part of this group chat.

See you on Friday for the Field Report.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tiny cultural translation (for non-UK / under-25 listeners)

•Bargain Hunt: British daytime TV where people buy antiques and act like it’s a pension strategy.

•Wordle: a daily five-letter word game we all got hooked on in lockdown.

New listener segment starting next week: Ask Guru & Granny

From next week, we’ll be answering listener questions — anything you’re stuck on, spiralling about, or quietly panicking over.

You’ll get:

•a chronically online take (me)

•and a chronically offline take (Old Ma)

Send your questions to: rosefieldnotespod@gmail.com

Or DM me on Instagram: @rosehoneymorgan or @field.notes.pod

Tell us if you’d like to be anonymous or named.

Neither of us are licensed psychologists or counsellors. My mum’s main credential is “a life well lived” and several decades of being unimpressed by nonsense. Mine is that I'm now a guru.

We are all exhausted. Properly frazzled. Brain-fogged. Running on caffeine, habit, and whatever scraps of motivation are left after bedtime.

And then you open Instagram or TikTok and get hit with the most infuriating contradiction imaginable:

Drink coffee for energy.

No — coffee is ruining your nervous system.

Try mushroom coffee.

No — you need to microdose psychedelics.

Actually, you just need perfect sleep, perfect routines, and zero stimulants (good luck with that).

So today, I’m trying to work out what we’re actually supposed to do when we’re tired, overwhelmed, and drowning in wellness advice that can’t agree with itself for more than eleven seconds.

This episode looks at energy, focus, and brain fog through the lens of:

•coffee vs no coffee

•mushroom coffee / nootropics / adaptogens

•microdosing psychedelics

•and why optimisation culture often collapses in real life

I react to some of the most common reels doing the rounds right now — doctors, nutritionists, biohackers, and internet experts all offering wildly conflicting advice — and try to slow the whole thing down enough to make sense of it.

What we cover

•Why so many of us feel permanently tired and mentally scattered

•Coffee on an empty stomach: cortisol, hormones, gut health — fearmongering or fair warning?

•Mushroom coffee explained (what it is and what it definitely isn’t)

•Common functional mushrooms and adaptogens you’ll hear about online, including:

Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Chaga, Reishi, Maca, and other “brain-boosting” blends

•Nootropics vs stimulants: focus without the crash?

•Brian Johnson, extreme optimisation, and the fantasy of total nervous-system stability

•Psychedelics and microdosing: potential benefits, real risks, and why this conversation has gone so strange online

•The Stoned Ape Theory (and why archaeologists absolutely love an unprovable idea)

This episode also introduces my mum — Old Ma — an archaeologist, lifelong observer of human behaviour, and proudly chronically offline control group. She brings a very different perspective on psychedelics, energy, and the idea that modern life can be “fixed” with powders and protocols.

This is not medical advice. It’s an honest attempt to translate modern wellness culture for tired people who don’t have the bandwidth to fact-check every reel.

⸻

Follow for clips, extras & deleted scenes

•Podcast Instagram: @field.notes.pod (deleted scenes, extra bits, behind-the-scenes chaos)

Next up: I’ll actually test some of this advice in real life and report back.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.