Category Archives: Health & wellbeing

Did I just pay someone to bash me up? The horror of a rough massage | Brigid Delaney

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She pulled my hair, attacked my ear lobes and pounded me with all her might. How was this helping my back?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an author who hands in her manuscript must be in want of a good physiotherapist.

After more than two years working on a book about Stoicism, my body had calcified around my laptop. My joints were always stiff and sore, sleep was unrefreshing and one shoulder had moved inches up towards my ear, as if I were perpetually holding a telephone receiver in the crook of my neck.

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Hedonism is overrated – to make the best of life there must be pain, says this Yale professor

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The most satisfying lives are those which involve challenge, fear and struggle, says psychologist Paul Bloom

The simplest theory of human nature is hedonism– – we pursue pleasure and comfort. Suffering and pain are, by their very nature, to be avoided. The spirit of this view is nicely captured in The Epic of Gilgamesh: “Let your belly be full, enjoy yourself always by day and by night! Make merry each day, dance and play day and night… For such is the destiny of men.” And also by the Canadian rock band Trooper: “We’re here for a good time / Not a long time / So have a good time / The sun can’t shine every day.”

Hedonists wouldn’t deny that life is full of voluntary suffering – we wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby, take the 8.15 into the city, undergo painful medical procedures. But for the hedonist, these unpleasant acts are seen as the costs that must be paid to obtain greater pleasures in the future. Challenging and difficult work is the ticket to survival and status; boring exercise and unpleasant diets are what you have to go through for abs of steel and a vibrant old age, and so on.

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‘It’s mind-boggling’: the hidden cost of our obsession with fish oil pills

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The market in this prized commodity is worth billions – but are the supposed benefits worth the cost to global ecosystems?

• Revealed: many common omega-3 fish oil supplements are ‘rancid’

Scanning the shelves and internet for fish oil is a dizzying task. There are dozens of brands available and, although the typical consideration for the popular supplement is that quality matters most, it is not the only factor.

These prized products travel a long way before being labelled as “pure” and “fresh” – starting with the industrial-scale grinding down of a tiny fish that is crucial for healthy ocean and food systems.

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Global heating linked to early birth and damage to babies’ health, scientists find

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Exclusive: Studies show high temperatures and air pollution during pregnancy can cause lifelong health effects

The climate crisis is damaging the health of foetuses, babies and infants across the world, six new studies have found.

Scientists discovered increased heat was linked to fast weight gain in babies, which increases the risk of obesity in later life. Higher temperatures were also linked to premature birth, which can have lifelong health effects, and to increased hospital admissions of young children.

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Panting, moaning and ‘pussy-gazing’: the couple who podcast their ‘elevated sex’ sessions

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Lacey Haynes and Flynn Talbot want to improve the world’s love life – starting by doing it live on air in every episode

Lacey Haynes is a women’s “intuitive healer”, and guides couples in yoga-informed “elevated sex”. When she opens her front door, the first thing I notice about the Canadian podcaster is her fashionable faux fur slippers and chic blunt fringe. Where is the western wellness guru uniform of linen tunic, elephant-print trousers and culturally inappropriate head jewellery, I wonder?

Inside the living room, I spot the hot-pink sofa that Haynes’ Australian husband, Flynn Talbot, a men’s life coach and fellow elevated sex practitioner, calls “love island”. Fans of their podcast – Lacey and Flynn Have Sex – will know it as one of many locations around their house where they take the title literally, recording themselves having sex in the bedroom, on the kitchen barstool, and beyond.

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A moment that changed me: I was crippled by negative thoughts – then I bought a silver bracelet

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My self-esteem was at rock bottom, but on a break from my academic job I found myself in Paris. As I wandered through the city, an impulse buy gave me hope I could value myself again

A couple of years ago, after a bad academic year, I’d thought things would get better over the summer. They didn’t. I kept walking out of shops without buying what I’d gone in for, because it felt wrong to be taking up space and expecting attention. I couldn’t buy train tickets, even at the machine, because other people deserved to go first and, as soon as there was someone behind me, I gave up mid-transaction. I wasn’t eating much – food was for other people – but at the same time I was travelling and appearing at literary events and festivals, confident on stage as I’d been confident in the classroom all year. It seemed to me that my low estimation of myself off stage was correct and so I didn’t think to seek help any more than I’d seek help for believing that rain is wet.

One day in September (kids at school, students still on summer vacation, a time when work can be done from a train or hotel), I was in Paris, changing trains, really, but still with enough sense to know that a person arriving at night and leaving the next day might as well leave late the next day and give herself a day in Paris. I wasn’t sure it would work, knew myself perfectly capable of walking the streets hour after hour telling myself that any competent person would be enjoying museums and shops and cafes and what kind of privileged neurotic steals a day from her work and her family and then doesn’t even have the guts to buy a croissant, days off are wasted on me and I don’t deserve … I knew the city, a bit, from teenaged (mis)adventures, and I set off into the Marais, hungry from missed meals the day before and carrying a backpack too heavy with books. Sunlight through plane trees, the streets still quiet. Old stone, balconies, geraniums, city squares with those perfectly geometric arrangements of trees and municipal planting that we don’t do in England.

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I interviewed hundreds of people in search of the perfect routine. I realised there isn’t one

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In our pursuit of improvement, we’re often told consistency is key. But obsessing over productivity means ignoring how our days vary – and how we vary within them

In our culture that places productivity on a pedestal, an optimised routine has been sold as the salve to all kinds of dilemmas. Lost your job? Stick to your routine. Experiencing anxiety, depression, or grief? Find a routine. Living through a pandemic? Get a new routine.

Sometimes we do need the support of a schedule. Routines are beneficial – they appear solid, they promise order, they seem reliable. They can be comforting, providing a sense of certainty and control in a world that offers neither. For some, a routine is crucial to reduce decision fatigue and simply get through the day, but for others the constant vigilance is exhausting.

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‘I’ve been expecting things to fall apart at any moment’: Dan Smith on 10 years of body dysmorphia, burnout and Bastille

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He has found critical and commercial success, while behind the scenes the frontman has battled with his self-confidence and severe stage fright. He explains why he still loves being in the band

Dan Smith doesn’t know how to switch off. In the decade or so that he has been the creative heart, and frontman, of the band Bastille, he has thought about music constantly. There was a two-week period over Christmas and new year where he thought he had managed not to. Then he went to a double bill at the cinema.

“I got the whole way through the first film and three-quarters of the way through the second film before I had to leave, sing into my phone in the corridor awkwardly, and then come back in,” he says. “If I have a song idea that pops into my head, I have to get it down. It will eat away at me if I forget it, or it’s just on loop in my head.”

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‘Don’t plan it, just go!’: how to be spontaneous – and grab some unexpected fun

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The pandemic has left our best-laid plans in disarray, but we can still have spur-of-the-moment adventures

Back in the wild old days, my best buddy and I used to call going out “looking for trouble”. We weren’t hoping for a punch-up or a little light robbery, but a spontaneous adventure involving music, strangers or just the city at night. All that spur-of-the-moment fun has taken quite a beating since the pandemic began, for many millions of us. First came the lockdowns, social distancing and closed venues, then the cautious reopening when even a trip to the pub or an art gallery had to be booked weeks in advance. And now, just when it seemed the world was finally getting back to normal, Omicron has come wielding its everything’s-off-again sledgehammer, crushing all those dreams of nights out, holidays and raucous parties. Not only does it seem foolish to plan anything, but after two years of frustration and self-restraint, it’s hard to summon up the enthusiasm to do anything off the cuff.

And that’s quite a loss. While we often think anticipation is half the fun, in 2016 researchers from two US universities found that people enjoyed activities more when they were impromptu. Scheduling a coffee break or a movie, for instance, made them feel “less free-flowing and more work-like”, wrote the authors. As Jane Austen put it 200 years ago in Emma: “Why not seize the pleasure at once? – How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”

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How to move: with osteoporosis

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The benefits of exercise for those with osteoporosis are great, and many exercises may be safe – so long as you avoid the risk of falling

Ageing brings with it inevitable physical declines, including loss in bone density which can lead to osteoporosis. This condition affects 3.8% of Australians, although many people don’t know they have it until they have a bone fracture. Importantly, it can be prevented and managed through lifestyle factors including exercise.

“Physical activity is one of the most effective tools to counter age-related health conditions,” including osteoporosis and osteoarthritis (which impacts the joints), says accredited exercise physiologist Richelle Street.

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How to learn the trick of confidence

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Can ‘confidence-whisperer’ Nate Zinsser help Jamie Waters boost his wavering self-belief?

Dr Nate Zinsser, a top US army psychologist renowned for helping lieutenants and officers build their confidence, is giving me a talking-to. We’ve been discussing highly disciplined writers who sit at their desks at 9am each day, no matter the circumstances, and assertively punch out stories. “I definitely don’t do that,” I say, remarking that I envy their confidence to sit and deliver. An aggressive perfectionist streak combined with niggling impostor syndrome insecurities mean I need conditions to be just-so in order to have faith that I’ll produce anything decent. Zinsser blanches.

“The statement ‘I don’t do that’ is a decision you’re making about yourself,” he says, speaking over video call from his office at the US Military Academy in upstate New York; behind him there’s a whiteboard, ornamental Japanese swords and photos of athletes he’s counselled, including the Olympic-medal-winning US men’s bobsled team. “A constructive shift in your thinking would be the idea that, ‘Whether or not I got the right amount of sleep the night before or had a good breakfast, once 9 o’clock strikes, I am at my desk, lights on, ready to go – and I’m producing good stuff,’” he says. “That’s a belief about yourself that you can de-li-be-rate-ly cultivate,” he adds, stretching out each syllable in “deliberately” so there can be no question that in this matter, as in all self-confidence-related issues, change lies with me.

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Skateboarding in middle age: ‘It helps me switch off’

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It’s good for mental health, a study found, but what’s it like being an older person at the skatepark?

Skateboarding in middle age can help people feel empowered and reduce the chance of mental health issues such as depression, according to a study.

Dr Paul O’Connor, 46, who published the research and is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Exeter, said he wanted to look at the phenomenon of ageing within a subculture.

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How to move: with chronic back pain

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Exercise is critical for the millions of people who live with chronic back pain. But how can you do it safely and effectively?

Back pain is the most common form of chronic pain, with about 4 million people living with it in Australia. The most effective way to manage chronic back pain is with a multidisciplinary approach, of which exercise is a key component.

“Any single treatment in low back pain is never enough by itself,” says Associate Prof Michael Vagg, a pain medicine physician and dean of the faculty of pain medicine at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. “But exercise is a fundamental part of recovering from low back pain and managing it if it becomes persistent.”

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We often fail to keep resolutions – but writing in a notebook brings great rewards

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Scribbling down our thoughts is a great way to make sense of things – and very satisfying

In 1989, when I was 16, I moved into a pub with my parents and my younger brother, Matty. It was highly exciting. I took to barwork as I liked the chat, and also enjoyed the opportunities offered for eavesdropping. I was curious about the adult world and up until then had learned most of what I knew from books. Now I had all these real lives to study. I should write some of this down, I thought, and would scribble into my diary before bed.

We couldn’t believe how busy it was that first Christmas, culminating on New Year’s Eve, when everyone piled out into the main street at midnight and exchanged drunken embraces and warm wishes for 1990. After the pub had emptied and the mammoth job of clearing up was done, we gathered with our staff for a few drinks and the chat turned to resolutions. All the women wanted to lose weight. A couple of people wanted to stop smoking. I announced very firmly that I wanted to write a novel.

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Covid clinics: hope and high prices on the long road to recovery

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Yoga, mud baths and liver compresses… Welcome to the world of luxury wellness and long Covid. Amelia Tait reports on the extreme wealth divide in the search for a cure

Underneath the shadow of the snow-topped Austrian Alps, in front of a forest of thick green trees and behind a pure azure lake, sits a sprawling chalet that has seen everyone from Kate Moss to Michael Gove pass through its wide glass doors. The VivaMayr health resort in Altaussee, Austria, has long been the picturesque home of celebrity detoxes – strict bans on caffeine and alcohol, combined with stricter rules about the number of times you need to chew your food (40, naturally) have helped numerous celebrity clientele lose weight. The detoxing might sound harsh, but tranquillity oozes through the resort’s Instagram page, where enchanting mists tickle thick evergreen trees and women pose with mugs in sleek, pine interiors. It’s not the image that comes to mind when you think “long-Covid clinic”, but it is one. For £2,700 a week (excluding accommodation), sufferers can attend VivaMayr’s post-Covid medical programme, which promises a “better quality of life”.

There is currently no cure for long Covid – the condition in which individuals continue to suffer Covid-19 symptoms for months after first being infected – but there are plenty of treatments. There is an entire network of specialist NHS long-Covid clinics across the United Kingdom – here, patients can undergo rehabilitative programmes to help them improve their stamina, breathing and cognitive functions (for many, long Covid is characterised by fatigue, breathlessness, and concentration problems). Yet in September, the Office for National Statistics estimated that 1.1 million people in the UK currently suffer with long Covid, while between July and August, only 5,737 people were referred to specialist NHS clinics. With the Omicron variant threatening more lives, there’s a gap in the market for long-Covid care, and plenty of private practitioners are happy to fill it – for a price.

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Lost your get up and go? Here’s how to get it back

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After a lifetime of loving exercise, Martin Love lost his motivation. But where had it gone? And could he get it back? Plus, five experts on how to maintain your mojo

On my parents’ mantelpiece, among the pictures of smiling grandchildren, lopsided graduation hats, old sports cars and a young soldier in smart uniform, is a picture of heroic athletic endeavour. In a little silver frame is a small blond boy in a white vest straining every sinew as he belts around the corner of a grassy athletic field, the parallel lines of the track marked out in white chalk stretching into the distance. He seems to be so far ahead of the pack that he’s almost on his own. He’s a champion in the making! Is the podium ready? Is that the music from Chariots of Fire you can hear?

The sad truth is that the little boy is me and I was so far off the pace everyone else that my dad was able to step out on the track to take the picture. “You were miles behind. It was almost as if you were running in slow motion,” he says now, with a laugh.

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Ditching the diet – how I learned to accept the body I have

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A lifetime of hating my body has got me nowhere. If I can’t love it, can I at least respect it?

Every January, the same old battle cry: this will be the year that I get thin. Last January, I did a week-long juice cleanse, and the year before that, I fasted for three days. It wasn’t quite nil by mouth, but almost. At the time, I told myself the science interested me (the fervour with which fasting evangelists assure you that a few days without food can reset your microbiome or stave off cellular ageing is compelling enough to make you ignore the health warnings). Really, though, what I wanted was rapid weight loss, minimum one dress size.

I made it to 81 hours. Practically levitating with hunger, I ignored the advice to reintroduce food slowly (soups and juices before solids) by bingeing on a cheese sandwich, which I promptly threw up. Happy new year to me.

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Say no to Fomo: how I embraced staying in

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Remember being inundated with invitations and parties? If the last two years have taught me anything, it’s that you don’t have to go to any of them

It was never my intention to hide in the toilet. There was lots going on outside: highbrow small talk and top-tier networking; free drinks, air kisses, and cold canapés that – I’d quickly discovered, following glances – were very much, like my fellow attenders, there only for show. The gallery was filled, I’d been assured, with fashion figures and media leaders. I was lucky to have been invited to this salon, one of the hosts had informed me, generously. Exactly what a “salon” is, I’m still unsure.

Deep down, I just didn’t want to be there. Only 90 minutes previously I’d been watching Gogglebox and scoffing Pringles in bed. But I went along out of some sense of duty. Perhaps a desire to broaden my horizons, or a compulsion to step outside my comfort zone, where I had become too safe and snug. Now here I was, sitting in a locked cubicle counting down the minutes before I could leave without seeming rude.

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The person who got me through 2021: Ami Faku sang the break-up track I listened to on a loop

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I’ve spent 12 months of the pandemic obsessively listening to the song Uwrongo, with its line: “This is not working, go home.” I’m very grateful to its singer

I was born on a farm in northern South Africa. My parents moved nearer to Johannesburg when I was still a baby. They have a photograph of me at maybe six months old, asleep inside my dad’s guitar case. Just picturing it in my mind makes me feel safe. I can hear my dad playing.

When I feel overwhelmed, I need something I can listen to on loop. Not just for hours, but for days, sometimes weeks. I think of these tracks as an aural hood. They hold my head together.

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Fatigue is an oppressive cocoon. It has made me seek joy wherever I can

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I have not ‘overcome’ anything, but I am happy and hopeful. Chronic illness is sometimes described as a form of grief, but I prefer to think of it as beginning the next stage

Four years ago, I caught the flu – and I am still stuck in bed, struggling to breathe. A bit like those with long Covid now, I developed postviral fatigue after a short illness. You could say I was into viruses before their mainstream second album.

Born with a muscle weakness, I was already familiar with the fragility of the human body. But the overnight change, post‑flu complications, hit me like a truck. In the early days, stuck on a ventilator and barely able to move, my brain was so traumatised that I thought my bedroom curtains were on fire. I didn’t even have curtains.

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