Category Archives: Health & wellbeing

Fear on the ward: UK mothers threatened with social services for refusing maternity care

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Women who turn down advice from health service staff say they are being coerced with threats of referrals to agencies and police

Pregnant women and new mothers are being referred to social services by midwives for refusing to follow their advice, patient advocacy groups have warned.

Expectant parents who have declined care, including opting out of scans, refusing inductions or failing to attend antenatal appointments, are among those who have faced threats from healthcare professionals amounting to coercion, according to the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services (Aims).

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Screen time: are Harry and Meghan right to limit it to just 20 minutes?

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The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are advising visitors to their Archewell website to take regular screen breaks. How does this approach line up with the evidence?

Name: Screen time.

Age: It’s less about how old, more about how long.

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How standup comedy helped me conquer anxiety, depression – and fear of public speaking

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Finding a humorous angle to some of my darkest episodes – and sharing them with strangers – was strangely cathartic

“Have you gone mad?” asked one friend. “You’re so brave. I could never do that. Wouldn’t meditation be wiser?” said another. For someone with a long history of depression and anxiety, plus a morbid fear of public speaking, taking up standup comedy might seem like a masochistic decision. Yet to me it makes perfect sense. Excruciating fear of failure is at the heart of most people’s aversion to attempting to make a room full of strangers laugh. But controlling that fear, and not succumbing to it, is the central reason I’ve chosen to expose myself in this very public and potentially humiliating way.

I grew up in comfortable, middle-class suburban Hertfordshire in the 1970s and 80s, but my upbringing was a complex one of emotional uncertainty. Years of therapy have lent me an understanding of how I learned to cope over the years. To avoid facing difficult issues during my childhood and teenage years I buried my emotions, and that evasion only escalated in adulthood. By my early 20s, I was mentally ill-equipped to deal with life’s thornier challenges.

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Seven simple steps to sounder sleep

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How I overcome my chronic insomnia with science

Everything about our day impacts our sleep. How many minutes we spend outside, what and when we eat, what’s happening with our hormones, our habits, emotions, stress and thoughts – all this feeds into the sleep we end up with at night. All of which I was completely oblivious to when battling chronic insomnia for years on end.

Sleep anxiety can create a very real and vicious circle. I would spend hours lying in bed, increasingly wired, anxious and exhausted as time ticked by, with prescription sleeping pills within reach for those 3am nights when I had to be up first thing. The problem is that the more we worry about sleep, the higher our stress hormones go – and too much of the stress hormone cortisol, whatever the trigger, disturbs our sleep. We’re left in a state of fight or flight, when we need to be in the opposite state of rest and digest. When my insomnia was at its worst, I’d start my day exhausted, running on empty, and have recurring burn-out days, where an overwhelming fatigue would stop me in my tracks, forcing me to lie down and recharge.

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Texas anti-abortion law shows ‘terrifying’ fragility of women’s rights, say activists

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Campaigners fear ban emboldens anti-choice governments as more aggressive opposition, better organised and funded, spreads from US

The new anti-abortion law in Texas is a “terrifying” reminder of the fragility of hard-won rights, pro-choice activists have said, as they warn of a “more aggressive, much better organised [and] better funded” global opposition movement.

Pro-choice campaigners have seen several victories in recent years, including in Ireland, Argentina and, most recently, Mexico, where the supreme court ruled last week that criminalising abortion was unconstitutional. Another is hoped for later this month when the tiny enclave of San Marino, landlocked within Italy, holds a highly charged referendum.

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Is it ethical to travel right now? Experts on flying in the age of Delta

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Questions to consider before you inflict the ‘moral injury’ of a risky, nonessential trip

A new season is here and, with it, seedlings of holiday escape plans to some sun-drenched beach or snowy mountain ski slope. In view of passenger data from the US and the UK, air travel is on its way toward recovering from the slump of a pre-vaccine Covid-19 pandemic – despite the rise of the Delta variant.

But does that mean it’s a good idea to buy that plane ticket, even if you’re vaccinated? And if you’re comfortable assuming some degree of personal risk, is it unethical to do so?

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A decade after she died, I can finally grieve the Amy Winehouse I knew and loved

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Coming to terms with the loss of my friend Amy Winehouse, amid the media frenzy that surrounded her death, has taken me 10 years

God knows what I must have looked like: a bedraggled 25-year-old dressed as a psychedelic game hunter with glitter smeared across my face crying hysterically in a Cambridgeshire field. It was 4pm on 23 July 2011, and a friend of mine had broken the news to me: Amy was dead. I was totally inconsolable, while around me fellow-revellers danced.

It was the Saturday of Secret Garden Party and my friends had been deliberating among themselves how best to tell me. Their hands were forced when they realised it was about to be announced on the festival stage. In the end, a guy called Jamie opted for directness: “Amy Winehouse is dead.”

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The Taliban are not the only threat to Afghanistan. Aid cuts could undo 20 years of progress

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The most vulnerable people will bear the cost of sanctions, as services and the economy collapse

Watching Afghanistan’s unfolding trauma, I’ve thought a lot about Mumtaz Ahmed, a young teacher I met a few years ago. Her family fled Kabul during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.

Raised as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahmed had defied the odds and made it to university. Now, she was back in Afghanistan teaching maths in a rural girls’ school. “I came back because I believe in education and I love my country,” she told me. “These girls have a right to learn – without education, Afghanistan has no future.”

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‘I’m going to change, why can’t my body?’: tattoo removal grows up

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As tattoos become commonplace, so has the once-pointy subject of their removal. But it isn’t all exes’ names and embarrassing ink that motivates people to part with body art

A tattoo’s permanence was once considered part of the package, equally a source of frisson-like appeal and finger-wagging peril. But as tattoo removal grows more commonplace, many of those associations are now in flux.

In recent years the laser removal process – which breaks up the ink into smaller fragments that can be spirited away by the body – has been embraced by many of the celebrities who helped cement body art’s 2010s pop culture ascendancy, from the Kardashians to the Osbournes. Recently, Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson set about scrubbing his famously inked frame – which spans the gamut from stoner gags to famous exes – in order to pursue more film roles.

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Experience: a stranger secretly lived in my home

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Late one night, I noticed the attic hatch was open. All the puzzle pieces fell into place – someone was in my apartment

In 1995, when I was 20, I moved to Enumclaw, a farming town in the US state of Washington, to be close to my brother and his family. I rented an apartment. My room was on the top floor but on my first night, lying in bed, I heard footsteps above me. Over the months, I started to notice things going missing. I would buy a six-pack of soda, drink one, come home from work and find only four left. It was the same with packets of soup and ramen noodles. I also noticed that doors I had left open were closed, or vice versa.

Mostly, I found it amusing – I assumed that my brother, who had a key, was coming over and eating my food. (Looking back, I should have known it wasn’t him because there would have been dirty dishes everywhere.)

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‘I was sliding towards the drop and couldn’t stop’ – the writer who fell from a mountain

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It is every climber’s worst nightmare. In this extract from his thrilling book about the glorious – and treacherous – Cuillin Ridge on Skye, Simon Ingram recalls the day its wild peaks almost took his life

I had been out of signal for most of the day, so when my phone suddenly stirred in my pocket, I decided to have a look. Remembering a climbing maxim – “Don’t try to do two things at once” – I shouted for my friend Kingsley to hang on, stopped and took out my mobile. The message was junk, but I took the opportunity to send some that weren’t and then check my voicemail.

Wandering absent-mindedly to where a boulder jutted off into the mist, I noticed Kingsley moving down the path. Shouting to alert him that I’d stopped, I brought the handset up to my ear and looked out at the cloud hanging off the Cuillin Ridge, waiting for the phone to connect. I took another step, just a small one to the left. And then everything went wrong.

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‘Sex isn’t difficult any more’: the men who are quitting watching porn

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Addiction to pornography has been blamed for erectile dysfunction, relationship issues and depression, yet problematic use is rising. Now therapists and tech companies are offering new solutions

Thomas discovered pornography in the traditional way: at school. He remembers classmates talking about it in the playground and showing each other videos on their phones during sleepovers. He was 13 and thought it was “a laugh”. Then he began watching pornography alone on his tablet in his room. What started as occasional use, at the beginning of puberty, became a daily habit.

Thomas (not his real name), who is in his early 20s, lived with one of his parents, who he says did not care what he was doing online. “At the time, it felt normal, but looking back I can see that it got out of hand quite quickly,” Thomas says. When he got a girlfriend at 16, he started having sex and watched less pornography. But the addiction was just waiting to resurface, he says.

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Life being put on hold was just the spur this writer needed to fulfil her youthful ambition

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Charlotte Northedge wrote a new novel in lockdown. She considers others who have realised the dreams of their youth

I wrote a novel in the last lockdown. To be clear, it wasn’t one of those creative outpourings some people had in between yoga with Adriene and baking banana bread. I had a deadline. Some days, I thought I’d never cut through the brain fog brought about by living through a pandemic. But gradually, as the initial panic subsided and the usual distractions of daily life fell away, I found the words did start to come, and the process of writing my second book was much more fluid and focused than my first.

Which is hardly surprising. I started my debut while on maternity leave with my second baby. I had dreamed of writing a novel since I was a child. I was one of those bookish kids whose weekly highlight was a visit to the library and who spent the best part of my teens squirrelling away short stories and beginnings of novels that never seemed to go anywhere. When I moved to London after my English degree, I joined a writing group and started a thriller.

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Delivering babies in a Nigerian camp: ‘I’ve had to use plastic bags as gloves’

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After seeing a woman die in childbirth, Liyatu Ayuba stepped in and has now delivered 118 babies in a community cut off from public health services

Having watched a woman and her baby die needlessly after being refused admission to a hospital over a lack of money, Liyatu Ayuba wanted to never let it happen again.

The 62-year-old is one of Nigeria’s nearly 3 million internally displaced people (IDPs) – driven out of their homes by the violence of the Boko Haram Islamist militants. Ayuba fled Gwoza in the north-eastern state of Borno in 2011 with her family. After her husband was killed by Boko Haram and her teenage son badly wounded, she went to the makeshift Durumi 1 IDP camp, in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where about 500 families live.

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The chronic stress survival guide: how to live with the anxiety and grief you can’t escape

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Stress can feel like a baseline condition for many of us – especially during a pandemic. But there are ways to help alleviate the very worst of it, whether through support, sleep or radical self-care

At a time when all life’s challenges have been amplified by the pandemic – and awareness of burnout, at home and at work, has never been higher – stress might seem to be our baseline condition. For most of us, these periods of pressure pass relatively quickly. Even serious stress can be temporary and, given the chance to recover, we usually will. “But emotional resilience won’t solve everything,” says Rachel Boyd, from the mental health charity Mind. “Some of the causes of stress are very challenging to cope with, even when we feel OK.”

Many of our everyday challenges have been amplified by the pandemic and its consequences for the economy and society. Those living with financial hardship, health conditions, or caregiving responsibilities, in particular, may feel there is no end in sight. But even if stress seems essential to your circumstances and you don’t have the option or the resources to change them, there are ways you can support yourself.

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‘Sleep is venture capital’: employers wake up to benefits of a nap

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After lockdown some businesses understand better how flexible working hours enhance productivity

A three-hour break in the middle of the working day for a languorous lunch, followed by a restorative nap sounds like the Mediterranean dream, but employers in Spain are increasingly moving away from this rigid schedule, which for many workers feels more like a nightmare.

The merits of introducing the siesta in the UK have been hotly debated this week after the National Trust unveiled plans to move towards “Mediterranean working hours” at some sites in the south-east, to help cope with rising annual temperatures.

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Dear Diary: how keeping a journal can bring you daily peace

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Writing a diary is a great way to offload – and, if memory fails, it’s a wonderful window on the past

I still get funny looks from people when I mention that I keep a diary. Maybe the practice strikes them as shifty or weirdly old-fashioned. It’s true that I never feel more furtive than when my wife finds me writing it at our kitchen table – it’s like being spotted entering a confessional box in church. What exactly have I got to tell this black book about a life that we share all day, every day? What secrets can I possibly be keeping?

The answer: nothing of any great note, and yet so much of my life is in it. I started writing a journal (as I used to call it) when I went on holiday. Twenty years ago I decided to go full-time and since then I’ve kept it more or less every day. Why? I suppose it began as an experiment – and became an obligation. You can’t hold back time, but you can try to save the past from being completely erased. It often feels trivial to record things as they happen (a stray remark, hearing a song, fleeting moments of doom or delight), but later they may prove useful, or instructive, or amusing. It also maintains the illusion of diligence – that you’re not just pissing away the days. A diary is good exercise for the writing muscle, the way a pianist practises scales or a footballer does keepy-uppies. During lockdown, like everyone else, I got into routines that felt numbing in their repetition and diary-wise left me short of material. I took recourse to discussing the books and box sets I was involved with – not exactly Pepysian, but it got me through.

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‘My bosses were happy to destroy me’ – the women forced out of work by menopause

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Almost a million women have left their jobs because of menopausal symptoms. Countless others are discriminated against, denied support and openly mocked. Do they need new legal protections?

In 2019, Mara’s weekly performance review meetings grew intolerable; she would sit in a cramped conference room with her supervisors only to be told that she wasn’t performing well enough. “I felt like a child,” says Mara, who is 48, lives in Hampshire and works and works as a public servant. “They would tell me off. They’d say: ‘You won’t meet this deadline, will you? You didn’t put a paragraph in this document.’”

A year earlier, Mara had had a hysterectomy, to alleviate her endometriosis. Afterwards, in surgically induced menopause, she began to experience debilitating brain fog, anxiety and depression. “I was drowning,” she says. “I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t see or think.” Doctors prescribed antidepressants and oestrogen gel, but nothing helped. Mara could barely function at work. “I couldn’t retain anything,” she says. “I had no memory. I couldn’t see or think clearly enough to do my work. I had no confidence at all. I thought I was useless.”

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Rhik Samadder tries … silent disco meditation: ‘A man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree’

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A dance-based ‘soul journey’ – in the middle of Clapham Common? While I stream with sweat and onlookers laugh, I can’t stop worrying about what I’m having for dinner

I’m shaking my pelvis with brio, when a goldendoodle ambles up. Don’t you poo, I think. Then again, doing what comes naturally is the point of today. My friend Beth has invited me to try 5Rhythms: a silent disco movement meditation class on Clapham Common. I didn’t understand any of those words, but said yes­, because this column has turned my life into a second-tier Jim Carrey film­. Now I’m in deep with the hippies. To my left, a man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree. A nearby game of touch rugby has paused so its players can laugh at us. This is my nightmare.

5Rhythms was developed in the 1970s by Gabrielle Roth, a New York theatre artist, but moved mainstream in the last 15 years, adopted by the wellness crowd. The practice involves dancing to five distinct moods of music, in a specific sequence known as the wave, which corresponds to different aspects of the self. The resulting “soul journey” is designed to unlock unlimited creativity and wholeness in the psyche of the dancer. Assuming they buy into the new-age framework, that is. My own personal five rhythms are lazy, dissatisfied, hungry, laughing and a freeform malaise I refer to as Kenneth.

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