The time you wake up every morning is baked into your DNA – and it could have an impact on your mood and wellbeing
Name: The lark advantage.
Age: Suspected for years, but recently ratified.
Continue reading...Category Archives: Health & wellbeing
My best friend at school moved in with us – and taught me to trust again
How a close and enduring relationship forged in the school playground turned my life around
My school bully came in an unlikely package. She was a bushy-haired, bespectacled, briefcase-carrying pocket rocket who made my life miserable for a significant portion of Year 8 when I was 12 years old. I met her on the first day at our large and rowdy comprehensive school. With all my existing friends assigned to different forms, I was on high alert for someone to attach myself to as soon as possible. With her outwardly gawky appearance, she seemed like the ideal candidate and I approached her with the rather arrogant assumption that she would jump at the chance of my friendship.
It didn’t take me long to realise I’d severely misjudged the situation. Her meek physical persona belied a serious rebellious streak and I struggled to keep up from the start. When she dared me to join her in “the jungle” – a wooded area of the school grounds off limits to students, I shakily agreed. We eluded capture from the lunchtime supervisors who patrolled its perimeters, but my time in the jungle brought me little exhilaration or pleasure. More tests and challenges soon followed, all proposed with a glint in her eye that I came to dread.
Continue reading...Why self-belief is a superpower that can be harnessed
Lockdowns may have eroded people’s swagger, but research suggests there are ways to remedy the situation
In July 2007, the Irish golfer Padraig Harrington won one of golf’s most coveted competitions, the British Open. The story of how he did this, one of the most remarkable finishes in golfing history, illustrates one of the ways confidence works.
The Claret Jug – the Open’s famous prize – was within Harrington’s grasp as he teed off at the penultimate hole of the tournament. He had a one-shot lead on his arch-rival, Sergio García. He was entirely in the zone – “I am literally the most confident person at that point in time,” he said later. Then, something strange happened – a twinge of doubt came out of nowhere at the top of his back swing and he sliced the ball into the murky waters of the notorious Barry Burn river.
Continue reading...The Beatles in India: ‘With their long hair and jokes, they blew our minds!’
Two new documentaries offer intriguing insights on how the Beatles’ 1967 escape to study transcendental meditation shaped the band and India, baffled the KGB – and saw Ringo survive on a diet of baked beans
In 1968, Paul Saltzman was a lost soul. The son of a Canadian TV weatherman, he was working as a sound engineer for the National Film Board of Canada in India when he received a “Dear John” letter from the woman he thought was going to be his wife. “I was devastated,” he says. “Then someone on the crew said: ‘Have you tried meditation for the heartbreak?’”
Saltzman went to see the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi – the founder of transcendental meditation – speak at New Delhi University. Emboldened by promises of “inner rejuvenation”, Saltzman then travelled to the International Academy of Meditation in Rishikesh. It was closed, due to the arrival of the Beatles.
Continue reading...‘Don’t freak out!’ Why keeping calm and carrying on exercising can help back pain
When it hurts to walk, bend or even sit, it’s tempting to lie down until your spine sorts itself out. But moving can be the key to getting better
Turns out pandemics can be atrocious for our backs. By last October, more than a third of people in the UK had reported increased back pain, according to one study – and that was before an intense winter lockdown, followed by a month-long storm. We’ve been doing online yoga without an instructor’s watchful eye and lunging with Joe Wicks without warming up, but mostly slouching over laptops feeling tense or depressed.
While the onset of back, shoulder or neck pain can feel like the last straw, the good news is that it probably isn’t as bad as you think. “It’s not likely to be serious,” says Chris Mercer, an NHS consultant physiotherapist in Sussex who specialises in back pain. It was not uncommon to keep an old door under the bed, upon which to lie when your back “went”. But the latest evidence indicates that being active is essential for both avoidance and recovery. “Keep moving, keep active and things will settle,” he says.
Continue reading...Bees give me a sense of calm: discovering nature in my back garden
Their busy buzzing supplies the soundtrack to our summer – and by spotting them I’ve found a fresh sense of inner peace
Lockdown started, or reignited, a love of nature in many people. The RSPB reported a 70% increase in visitors to its website during the first lockdown. This came as no surprise to me; stuck at home, without the usual distraction of social engagement, my interest in nature grew. During the winter, I would look up into leafless trees trying to locate a bird whose loud call I could clearly hear. I even bought myself a pair of binoculars so I could acquaint myself with some of the local avian population.
But now I have a new hobby. As the warmer weather slowly arrives, I have been lowering my gaze towards the stirring flower beds and roadside verges, as well as rustling in the undergrowth in the hope of spotting my favourite insects. On a sunny day, there’s nothing better than sitting quietly by a patch of swaying flowers or under a blossoming tree to listen for the tell-tale sign of buzzing. This quintessential sound of summer connects me to the seasons and the natural world, even in the inner city, and fills me with joy. It is also a welcome break from staring at a screen all day. I wait peacefully, in anticipation and excitement of seeing different types of bees.
Continue reading...‘I was losing my mind’: can baby sleep gurus really help exhausted parents?
Growing numbers of frazzled parents are paying a fortune to people who claim they can help them get a good night’s rest. Are they being taken for a ride? Plus a doctor’s top tips for children of all ages
By the time her baby was four months old, Zara, a psychologist and executive coach from Surrey, was able to open a bottle of wine and have “a bit of an evening”. He was sleeping in four-hour stints, waking twice in the night. Then, at four and half months, his sleep pattern changed: “It was five wakes, then six, then eight,” Zara says. She was so exhausted she ended up Googling “can you die from sleep deprivation?”.
“I was broken, emotional, confused, sleep-deprived and catastrophising,” she says. “He wouldn’t be down for longer than 20 minutes, and I was losing my mind. Using a sleep consultant was the best money I’ve ever spent; £250 to give me the confidence to trust my child to get himself to sleep without me.”
Continue reading...Hot tub health kick: why a long bath is almost as good for you as a long run
Researchers have discovered that prolonged immersion in a piping hot bath has many of the same medical benefits as aerobic exercise
Name: Hot baths.
Age: First used by the ancient Egyptians 4,000 years ago.
Continue reading...Do you have a fear of returning to the office?
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...Thousands of breast implant victims will get payouts after court ruling
Case in Paris was brought by 2,700 women over implants made by French company and certified as safe by German firm
Thousands of victims of the PIP breast implant scandal, including 540 British women, will receive compensation after a Paris appeals court ruling.
The case in Paris was brought by 2,700 women who said they had suffered long-term health effects after receiving implants manufactured by a French firm which were filled with cheap, industrial-grade silicone not cleared for human use.
Continue reading...Snoring, slugs and sarcoptic mange: is it safe for cats and dogs to sleep on our beds?
Dogs can carry bacteria and parasites, while cats smuggle in gory ‘presents’. So is it best to lock them out of the bedroom?
Vomiting on the bed. Snoring. The shedding of hair. The stealing of sheets. The passing of wind. Night-time face-licking. A higher-than-average chance of catching sarcoptic mange …
If I could sit my dog down and quietly explain the risks associated with him sharing the bed with us, this is the list I would read to him. But I know he wouldn’t listen. Oz, our young lurcher, would only warmly reimagine that scene he recently saw. When, on my birthday, the family let him come upstairs and on to the bed to wake me up. When he saw, for the first time, Upstairs Land. And then widdled with joy.
Continue reading...Parent trap: why the cult of the perfect mother has to end
Worldwide, mothers are overworked, underpaid, often lonely and made to feel guilty about everything from epidurals to bottle feeding. Fixing this is the unfinished work of feminism
It’s the middle of a dark, November night, and I’m about to have my first baby. But instead of the joyful experience I’d hoped for, I am being rushed into the operating theatre to have an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic. I have a dangerous complication and my son’s life is at risk. Four hours earlier, I’d been sent home by a midwife who told me I couldn’t stay in hospital and have an epidural because labour wasn’t properly “established”.
It’s a week later and I’m back home with my son who, thankfully, made it. But I’m struggling. If someone asks me how I am, in a kindly voice, my voice cracks. I’m spending a lot of time sitting on the bed in a milk-stained dressing gown. In a few days, my partner will go back to work.
Continue reading...How to cure type 2 diabetes – without medication
It can be debilitating and last a lifetime, but type 2 diabetes, if caught early, can be reversed with weight loss
It’s 10 years since Professor Roy Taylor revolutionised treatment for type 2 diabetes with a groundbreaking study that showed the disease could be reversed through rapid weight loss. Until his research was published, type 2 diabetes was thought to be an incurable, lifelong condition. Now, for many people, we know it is not.
But his achievements – and the thousands of people he has cured – are not something he dwells upon. “I’m in a very lucky position of being able to do this research,” he says, “which really extends what I’ve been doing as a doctor throughout my life.” He laughs at the suggestion that he must occasionally marvel at his own success: “No, no,” he chuckles. “Lots of occupations make a useful contribution to society. I wouldn’t set myself apart.”
Continue reading...Dear Gwyneth Paltrow, welcome to everyone else’s sad-potato life
As the health guru and actor reveals she went ‘off the rails’ by drinking every day during lockdown, I say those rails are our lives – is this a sales pitch?
In these dark times, it’s nice to be reminded of our worth every now and again. And, with that in mind, perhaps we should all now repeat a quick affirmation: you are more powerful than Gwyneth Paltrow.
Of course you are. In a recent interview, Paltrow revealed that she had gone “totally off the rails” during the Covid pandemic by drinking two alcoholic drinks a night and eating some bread. “I mean, who drinks multiple drinks seven nights a week?” she said. “Like, that’s not healthy.”
Continue reading...Mission menopause: ‘My hormones went off a cliff – and I’m not going to be ashamed’
An estimated 13 million women in the UK are living with the menopause. So why are so many enduring the turmoil of its symptoms without help and support? It’s about time that changed. Portrait by Suki Dhanda. Illustration by Anna Kiosse
We are witnessing a tipping point: the rise of Menopause Power: a growing activist movement which will change the Change in the same way that Period Power fought period poverty and stigma. On social media, on podcasts and in newspapers, there’s a huge menopause conversation, as confrontational as it is celebratory. I’ve just produced a Channel 4 documentary, Davina McCall: Sex, Myths and the Menopause, and there’s nowhere we don’t go: losing jobs to hot flushes, vaginal dryness, memory loss, orgasms after menopause, and the shocking misinformation we’ve been fed on hormone replacement therapy.
But above all, we give the menopausal taboo the kicking it has long deserved. As Davina McCall, who’s presented everything from Big Brother to Long Lost Family and had her first hot flush at 44, says: “I was advised not to talk about it, that it was ageing and a bit unsavoury, but clearly that didn’t work out very well, because I’m sitting here talking to you… I’m not going to be ashamed about a transition that half the population goes through.”
Continue reading...Mend your clothes and do yourself some good
Care and repair is an invaluable mantra for your wardrobe, your mental health, your wallet and the planet
In today’s society, many of us go through our whole lives without ever working with our hands; we live, we work, we eat, we buy, we repeat. Everything is made and delivered at a blistering rate, from fast food to fast fashion and, although this may keep the economy buoyant, it’s not necessarily good for our mental health, or for our planet.
But during the past year of lockdown, we have been forced to stay still. The hamster wheel has stopped, and for some of us – without young children to keep entertained – this has provided a unique moment of quiet contemplation. We have suddenly found ourselves with time to spare; time to tackle those half-finished projects and abandoned hobbies – and an increasing desire to be creative, and make things with our hands.
Continue reading...‘Stop the Breast Pest’: MP’s ‘horror’ at being photographed while breastfeeding
Stella Creasy launches campaign to change law after a boy took pictures of her feeding her baby on a train
An MP has described her “horror” after she was photographed while breastfeeding on public transport, as she and a fellow MP launch a campaign to criminalise the taking of such pictures.
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, said she was breastfeeding her then four-month-old on a overground train near Highbury and Islington in north London when she noticed a teenage boy laughing and taking pictures.
Continue reading...The big squeeze: welcome to the pelvic floor revolution
There are books, podcasts, apps and devices devoted to it. But what’s behind this new obsession with a strong pelvic floor?
If you want to know about the wonders of a healthy pelvic floor, you could do worse than look to Coco Berlin, who styles herself “Germany’s most famous belly dancer”. Berlin started belly dancing in 2002, but it wasn’t until a few years later, when she went to Egypt to study dancers there, that she wondered why they were so much better. She concluded they were seriously in touch with their pelvic floor, the internal muscular structure that supports the internal organs and prevents incontinence, among other important functions.
“When I connected to my pelvic floor, for the first time in my life, I had this feeling of embodiment,” Berlin says. It improved her dancing – before, she says, it had felt “like mimicry” – but also affected the rest of her life. She felt more confident, “I had the feeling that I own my body”. Her enjoyment of sex was greatly improved, and she felt stronger and less stressed. She thinks it is a prime reason why people assume she is much younger than she is (she’s 42 and, speaking over Zoom from her home in Germany, she looks like a woman in her 20s).
Continue reading...Can magic mushrooms really help you understand bitcoin?
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...Talking to yourself: a good antidote to loneliness – or the sign of a real problem?
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.
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