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09Jan

Can You Teach Yourself to be More Empathetic?

Roman Krznaric

empathy, relationships, self, wellbeing

Soul

Roman Krznaric explains why empathy is an essential element of wellbeing
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08Jan

The Restful Mind

Jon Madge

meditation

Soul

Gyalwa Dokhampa has earned an international reputation for making the life-changing parts of Buddhist thought approachable and easy to understand
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08Jan

Mindfullness is not Mindfulness

Aaron Balick

mindfulness

Therapists

The cursor on my screen moves along swiftly. My wifi is off and my mobile is on “do not disturb” – so no emails, no notifications, and no phone-calls or texts. I’m not worried. I know that in about 30 minutes I’ll check all those devices and whatever I need to attend to can wait until then. Just now I have to write this column and I want to be mindful and present for the task. In many ways, there’s something delightfully calming about this, which is paradoxical because it’s still work. It seems that as mindfulness is gaining more space in the public conversation, our...
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07Jan

What is Bikram Yoga?

Lucy Greeves

yoga

Body

Bikram Yoga is the creation of Bikram Choudhury (b. 1946), who began studying asana at the age of three. At 20 (so the story goes) he was badly injured in a weightlifting accident and despite a grim prognosis from the doctors, managed a full recovery with the help of yoga. Since the 1970s,...
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07Jan

Let’s Do Lunch – in a Graveyard

Ann Treneman

books

Soul

When I tell people that, for four years, I have spent most of my spare time in graveyards, they always look a little alarmed. They shouldn’t. In the process of writing and researching my book Finding the Plot: 100 Graves to Visit Before You Die, I have visited scores of graveyards: grand and tiny, Victorian and modern, manicured and tumbledown.  Not depressing, nor weird, they are fascinating places with so many things to notice: those names (like Myrtle, Ethel etc) you’d forgotten existed, intriguing epitaphs, and some amazing monuments which, in places such as Highgate in...
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06Jan

When Depression Strikes in Your 20s

Anonymous

counselling, depression, experienceoftherapy, student, therapy, university

Mind

We're often told our twenties are meant to be the best years of our lives. What does it feel like to struggle with depression at this supposedly golden age?
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03Jan

Culture Tip: The Circle

Louise Chunn

books, society

Soul

I was racing through Dave Eggers' The Circle over Christmas and enjoying it so much, I just had to tweet something about it. But what? "Am loving the way this book makes social media sound like a totalitarian state #1984"  Or "Mister Cool Dave Eggers is acting like a technophobic dinosaur" Or simply "Step away from the screens!"? To explain. This novel is about a young woman, Mae Holland,  who gets a job at a Google-(or is it Facebook?)like company and gets drawn further and further into a technological takeover of her life. What starts out as social...
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30Dec

How to Spot a Sociopath at Work

Jane McGregor

career, sociopath

Work

Do you have a manipulative colleague or boss who is always trying to undermine you and make themselves look better? Perhaps they are a sociopath says psychologist Dr Jane McGregor
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27Dec

Why My Relationship with My Brother Led Me to See a Therapist

Angela Neustatter

experienceoftherapy, family, siblings, therapy

Relationships

A true story of one woman's relationship with her brother and how finding a therapist ultimately helped
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24Dec

A Jewish Family Christmas

Claudine Levy

Christmas, family

Relationships

Going away to a secluded part of the Norfolk countryside for a week, with 12 members of your family, ranging from in age from nine to 90, may strike fear into the hearts of most normal folk. And yet, my family has insisted on making this a sadistic tradition for the past three years. I’m currently writing this amidst a storm of testosterone over a heated game of Risk. Family reputation is on the line here. And I find myself reluctantly pulled into conversations about football, as the only younger woman in a family of men: 3 male cousins, 2  brothers, and me. In the...
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