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48 results
  • Article
  • Article

A history of mindfulness

| Matt Drage

Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.

  • Article
  • Article

Graveyards as green getaways

| Allison C MeierJack Seikaly

Stressed city dwellers have been visiting cemeteries in greater numbers since the start of the pandemic. Discover how, despite the constant reminders of death, graveyards bring visitors a sense of renewal.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

How to manage your Schadenfreude

| Tiffany Watt Smith

Do you sometimes enjoy witnessing others’ distress? Tiffany Watt Smith suggests five ways to manage - and even embrace - the perplexing emotion of Schadenfreude.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Out of the mouth trap

| Jonty ClaypoleRory Sheridan

After 15 years of speech therapy, Jonty Claypole decided to make peace with his stammer. He explores our fear of disfluency, revealing how accepting it could actually increase our creativity and persuasiveness.

  • Article
  • Article

How can we prevent violence?

| Laura BuiJessa Fairbrother

Evidence shows that strategies to prevent some types of violence can be very effective, while other, less well-acknowledged forms continue unabated. But hope can still guide us into a more peaceful future.

  • Article
  • Article

Wonder Woman’s wonder women

| Elissavet Ntoulia

Discover more about the women who inspired an icon: Wonder Woman’s story of bondage, bracelets and birth control.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The psychology of Ouija

| Matthew L TompkinsBenjamin Gilbert

Explore the science behind table tilting and Ouija boards, and discover how the unscrupulous still make money from exploiting the ‘ideomotor’ effect.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Pum Dunbar’s living lessons

| Pum Dunbar

Read the ‘legends’ that give insight into Pum Dunbar’s creative process while producing her recent series of collages.

  • Article
  • Article

Dying at home and the doctor’s role

| The Secret GP

Our anonymous GP talks about the bittersweet rewards of supporting a patient when he chose to die at home.

  • Article
  • Article

Equality in genetics

| Sasha HenriquesTinuke Fagborun

Genetic counsellor Sasha Henriques harnessed her energy and resolve to tackle the racial biases she saw in her profession – with positive and promising results.

  • Article
  • Article

Searching for a place to call home

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.

  • Comic
  • Comic

Lazy

| Holly Casio

Are you being lazy… or just finding your peace?

  • Article
  • Article

How hip-hop can save your mental health

| Erica CromptonSteven Pocock

Hip-hop is an unusual tool in the mental health professional’s armoury. But fans and performers can testify to the sympathetic and restorative powers of the genre.

  • Article
  • Article

Religion and mental health

| Jamila PereiraMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

At a time of extreme distress, Jamila Pereira found that the faith she had relied on was failing her. Here she describes how she found other ways to begin healing and finding happiness.

  • Comic
  • Comic

Sport

| Rob Bidder

Are you a sporting legend or an athletic disaster? World peace might depend on it!

  • Podcast
  • Podcast

Tranquillity

Moya Lothian-McLean asks: when was the last time you felt utterly tranquil?

  • Article
  • Article

Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination

| Mark Honigsbaum

The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.

  • Article
  • Article

Shakespeare’s cholerics were the real drama queens

| Nelly Ekström

In Shakespeare’s times, people’s personalities were categorised by four temperaments. The choleric temperament was hot-tempered and active.

  • Article
  • Article

Graphic battles in pharmacy

James Morison’s campaign against the medical establishment inspired a wave of caricatures mocking his quack medicine.

  • Article
  • Article

Belonging, babies and self-belief

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

As a first-time mother living abroad, it seemed too exhausting to truly connect with new acquaintances. Instead, Tanya Perdikou began to make a kind of peace with herself.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Dangers inside and out

| Eimear McBrideAlexandra Gallagher

Eimear McBride reflects on the deadly consequences of misogyny in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard and argues why advising women to simply “stay indoors” is wrong.

  • Article
  • Article

Seeds for the future

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

Indigenous groups have a key role as guardians of biodiversity, and their knowledge could help us all preserve our world. To survive, we all need to collaborate, reject prejudice, and share what we know.

  • Article
  • Article

Medics and the bomb

| Taras Young

Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.

  • Article
  • Article

The sickness in the wellness industry

| Gwendolyn Smith

In recovery from anorexia, Gwen Smith began to realise how the wellness industry needs its followers to feel bad about themselves in order to make money out them.

  • Article
  • Article

Reassuring ghosts and haunted houses

| Christine Ro

Explore the perversely comforting appeal of a ghost in the house.