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12 results
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A history of mindfulness

| Matt Drage

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

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Good animals, bad humans?

| Simon Jarrett

Could an animal be more evolved than a human? Victorian psychologists thought that in some cases the answer could be ‘yes’.

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The healing power of breathing

| Effie Webb

The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.

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In search of the ‘nature cure’

| Samantha WaltonSteven Pocock

Under the competing pressures of modern life, many of us succumb to mental ill health. Samantha Walton explores why so-called ‘nature cures’ don’t help, and how the living world can actually help us.

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An insider’s view of Play Well

| Gwendolyn SmithSteven Pocock

Curator Shamita Sharmacharja offers behind-the-scenes insights into an exhibition about the serious business of play.

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The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War

| Ken Hollings

In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.

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Coleridge’s hypochondria

| Mike JayNaki Narh

An intense focus on his own bodily sensations led poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to self-medicate with narcotics. But this fascination also put Coleridge ahead of the medical sensibilities of his day.

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Do you see what I see?

| Kirsten Riley

Is reality actually what you see, or just an elaborate illusion?

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The blood notebooks

| Rupert Thomson

Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.

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Thunderbolts and lightning

| Ruth Garde

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

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Devilry and doom in 1666

| Charlotte SleighGergo Varga

Disastrous events and a significant combination of numbers signalled the end – or perhaps a new beginning – in 1666. But for some, this feverish period fuelled unprecedented inventiveness and development.

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Yoga adapts to time and place

| Lalita Kaplish

A yoga teacher in 1930s India inspired today’s transnational practice with his spectacular fusion of tradition and innovation.