As part of the Guardian’s 200th anniversary, we asked young people how the worst global pandemic in a century has affected their lives, hopes and dreams. Fifty from Europe’s Generation Z tell us how they see their future
Researchers say industry practice should change to encourage workers to seek help when they need it
Airlines are overlooking the mental health and wellbeing of pilots and other aviation workers in their scramble to get planes flying again, according to researchers.
Many aviation workers experienced anxiety, stress and depression during Covid-19 lockdowns, but they report feeling discouraged from acknowledging problems or seeking help, creating potential safety hazards and health problems.
Continue reading...Celebrity endorsements, new techniques and lockdown have led to rising demand for follicular transplants. But with patchy regulation, are men being exploited when they are vulnerable?
Hamish says he’s not at all vain. He wouldn’t consider getting his teeth whitened. He has an average life, with a happy marriage and two children. But when he caught sight of the top of his head in a family photo about eight years ago, something consumed him.
“I just saw this massive receding hairline and it triggered intense emotions,” he says from his home in Edinburgh, where he works in marketing. “I can feel my heart rate has increased just talking about it. It somehow threatens my identity so much that the ground feels shaky.”
Continue reading...After a life marked by abuse, fame, scandal and struggle, the Irish singer-songwriter says she never lost faith
Sinéad O’Connor has been pretty much invisible for the past few years. There’s a good reason, though, she tells me with her usual disregard for social niceties. “I’ve spent most of the time in the nuthouse. I’ve been practically living there for six years.” She pauses, takes an intense drag on her fag, and warns me off being similarly politically incorrect. “We alone get to call it the nuthouse – the patients.”
O’Connor is a music great – her 1990 version of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U is one of the most transcendent five minutes in pop history, the solitary tear falling from her eye in the accompanying video one of its most beautiful images. The single topped the charts worldwide, as did the album it was taken from, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. Astonishingly, in the 31 years that have passed, she has never had another UK Top 10 hit single and only one Top 10 album. And yet she remains a household name.
Continue reading...If they want us back, will we go? And how can managers make workplaces more enticing? Emma Beddington wonders if office life will ever be the same again
My husband is standing in the kitchen, asking me if his shirt is stained. He looks different: clean-shaven, sharper. I like it. “I think it’s just the light,” I say. “It’s fine.” He changes anyway, then comes in again, looking preoccupied. “I don’t know whether these trousers work,” he says. “What would you usually wear?” I ask. “My Japanese jeans,” he replies. “But I’ve been wearing them every day for about six months.” “No, not those,” I agree. “Have you found an Oyster card?”
He’s heading back to the office. It’s not even his own, but a client’s – his regular co-working space was another casualty of Covid. He went into an office on an almost daily basis for 20-plus years, but now doing so has the intimidating aura of a polar expedition. Will he get blisters wearing proper shoes? Can he locate a respectable notebook? Will he know what to say when he gets there?
Continue reading...Study analysing brain scans of people finds psychedelic drug lowers barriers that constrain thoughts
When Aldous Huxley emerged from a mescaline trip that veered from an obsession with the folds in his trousers to wonder at the “miraculous” tubularity of the bamboo legs on his garden chairs, he offered an opinion on how the drug worked.
Writing in The Doors of Perception, his 1954 book that took its name from a William Blake poem, Huxley declared that the psychedelic “lowers the efficiency of the brain as an instrument for focusing the mind on the problems of life”.
Continue reading...Footage suggests Harry will revisit trauma of his mother’s death in Apple TV+ series on mental health
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex feature in an emotional trailer for Harry’s mental health documentary series with Oprah Winfrey, and footage hints that he will revisit the trauma he experienced after his mother’s death.
The two-minute trailer includes archive film from the 1997 funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, showing Harry, then 12, standing with his head bowed as his mother’s coffin passes by, alongside the Prince of Wales, who then turns to speak to his son.
Continue reading...Those who communicate online alongside traditional methods show less of a decline in episodic memory
Defiant in the face of Covid isolation, older people across the country ventured online, often for the first time, and mastered technology: reading bedtime stories to grandchildren over Zoom and holding book clubs on Microsoft Teams.
Now a UK study has shown that their determination to access and enjoy the internet’s social possibilities could have had another advantage: protecting them against dementia.
Continue reading...If you’re not ready to hug your neighbour, how about a safer elbow rub, air kiss or cruise tap?
Are you hankering for a hug, or horrified at the prospect of physical closeness? From Monday, people in England will officially be allowed to touch each other again. After a year of fist bumps, elbow rubs and hails across garden walls, it feels like a symbolic step back towards normality.
Yet with the spread of new variants, increasing coronavirus cases in some parts of the country, and much of the population still not fully vaccinated, some may be questioning whether they actually want to hug their neighbours, or shake hands with strangers again. Besides, there are so many other forms of social greeting to choose from now, from Boris bumps to spoon hugs. So which one should you choose?
Continue reading...Duke of Sussex also speaks of ‘genetic pain and suffering’ in royal family in new interview in US
The Duke of Sussex has appeared to criticise the way he was raised by Prince Charles, discussing the “genetic pain and suffering” in the royal family and stressing that he wanted to “break the cycle” for his children.
In a wide-ranging 90-minute interview, Prince Harry, who is expecting a daughter with Meghan and is already father to Archie, two, likened life in the royal family to a mix between being in The Truman Show and being in a zoo.
Continue reading...With one psychiatrist for 750,000 people and huge stigma about mental health, patients get little help
Radhwan Ali Hassan lives with his mother in a small house perched at the top of a sleepy Yemeni village called Aqeeqah, on the outskirts of Taiz city. From inside his bare-walled room, the 35-year-old hears the distant sound of an ice-cream van. He sees children running past his window and can smell goats, but he cannot remember the last time he walked outside.
Thick metal shackles around his ankles are attached to a heavy chain fastened to the far wall. They clatter as Hassan paces his room, rocks from side to side and smiles vacantly. His pupils are wide, his movements slow.
Continue reading...Holliday says she hopes her announcement helps to stop the idea that ‘only very underweight people can have anorexia’
Eating disorder campaigners have hailed a decision by the American plus-size model Tess Holliday to announce she is receiving treatment for anorexia, saying that it is helping to stop the idea that “only very underweight people can have anorexia”.
Holliday, who has 2.1 million followers on Instagram and has been featured on the pages of Vogue, recently wrote on Twitter: “I’m anorexic and in recovery … I’m the result of a culture that celebrates thinness and equates that to worth but I get to write my own narrative now. I’m finally able to care for a body that I’ve punished my entire life and I am finally free.”
Continue reading...Against a backdrop of Covid, a striking number of musicians, from hard rock to jazz, made music rich with positivity. In the first of a two-part series, they tell their stories
I had really given up on music after my mom passed away [in 2014], and then of course the record that I saw as my death rattle [2017’s Soft Sounds from Another Planet] got picked up in a big way. It was a very bittersweet moment where all these great things were happening in the wake of loss. I didn’t allow myself to feel that for a long time. Now I feel ready to embrace feeling.
Continue reading...That’s what one German billionaire says. But it’s not why the Aztecs and the hippies were such fans
Name: The shroom boom.
Age: Ancient rock art in Castilla-La Mancha in Spain suggests that Psilocybe hispanica, one of the mushrooms that contains the psychoactive compound psilocybin, was taken in religious ceremonies as long as 6,000 years ago.
Continue reading...During the pandemic, I have gone from uttering a few words of encouragement to myself to full-blown arguments. I’m not the only one. I asked psychologists what purpose this serves
“We should probably go out now,” I say to Danny as I vegetate in front of the TV. “Yeah, we should, but I can’t be arsed,” Danny replies, sitting in an identical pose. “C’mon, we need the exercise; can’t sit here all day,” I insist. “Well, we can ’cause that’s what we did yesterday and the day before,” he answers. “Exactly! That’s why we have to go. C’mon!” I yell. “God! Fine, then!” he shouts back.
So we get up from our pit and head into the crisp morning air for a much needed dose of fresh air and exercise. Only there is no we. There’s only me. I’ve had a shouting match with myself pretty much every day since Covid came along and changed everything.
Continue reading...Survey reveals remote consultations often felt inadequate and may have made symptoms worse
Mental health patients found their conditions deteriorated during the pandemic because the NHS switched from in-person help to support by telephone, video and text messages, new research reveals.
Many reported a lower quality of care, according to a study by University College London; others had trouble accessing medication, had appointments cancelled or felt the loss of face-to-face help meant they “were missing out on care”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: compulsive hygiene habits and fear of public places could remain for some after lockdown lifted, researchers say
Scientists have expressed concern that residual anxiety over coronavirus may have led some people to develop compulsive hygiene habits that could prevent them from reintegrating into the outside world, even though Covid hospitalisations and deaths in the UK are coming down.
The concept of “Covid anxiety syndrome” was first theorised by professors last year, when Ana Nikčević, of Kingston University, and Marcantonio Spada, at London South Bank University, noticed people were developing a particular set of traits in response to Covid.
Continue reading...In the wake of the pandemic, mental ill health is on the rise, putting more pressure on what some say is an already broken system. Editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor and associate editor Lucy Clark speak to Gabrielle Jackson about what’s causing Australia’s mental health crisis, and how to fix it
Check out the full Australia’s mental health crisis series here.
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue can be reached on 1300 22 4636. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...If the pandemic has left you devoid of promise, purpose and delight, sociologists have the perfect term to describe it
Name: Languishing.
Age: At least as old as the chaise longue.
Continue reading...UCL data of 10,000 volunteers shows cases 30% higher among those who slept poorly in their 50s, 60s and 70s
People who regularly sleep for six hours or less each night in middle age are more likely to develop dementia than those who routinely manage seven hours, according to a major study into the disease.
Researchers found a 30% greater risk of dementia in those who during their 50s, 60s and 70s consistently had a short night’s sleep, regardless of other risk factors such as heart and metabolic conditions and poor mental health.
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