One of my earliest memories is of pain. My teenage years were filled with hospital appointments, calendars circled with dates for surgery. At 13, over the course of one night, my spine twisted like a plumbing trap to more than 80 degrees. At one point, a piece of hardware from the titanium rods supporting my …
It’s been a good year for cancelling. There’s the pandemic, of course, which crushed all of our plans and some hopes and dreams along the way. But there were also more specific cancellations. From celebrities – Jimmy Fallon, J K Rowling and Ellen DeGeneres – to brands like SoulCycle and Oatly (as well as a …
Parisian café people watching with the soft lick of rain drops caressing my cheek. My mother’s warm embrace, the one that tells me everything will be just fine. Huddled in the corner of a crowded bar, with a friend I haven’t seen in months, shouting “WE NEED TO DO THIS MORE!” over Bowie’s “Modern Love” …
Boundaries? What boundaries. My bedroom is my office and my children are my colleagues. The work day begins when the Zooms begin, but collaborators on the West Coast call in for our 9 a.m. EST, and you can bet they are not in business attire, even from the waist up. What this time isolating at …
Do you remember this meme that made the rounds on social media at the start of lockdown? The one that simply said: “Your grandparents were called to war, you’re being called to sit on your couch. You can do this.” While it was meant to lift our spirits, no one knew at the time that …
As home fitness equipment sales soar – partly due to fluctuating lockdown restrictions – the desire for multiple pieces of equipment has risen too, and rowing machines are trending. With apps such as Apple Fitness+ offering on-demand rowing classes and the discipline being recognised as one of the best total body workouts around (due to …
Venus, the Roman goddess of love, sex, and beauty has long since been associated with matters of the heart. In terms of astrology, the planet Venus plays a significant part in your astrological profile, influencing your intimate relationships — both romantic and platonic — sensual desires, self-esteem and relationship with money and the material world. …
Has your sex life taken something of a nosedive in recent months? It’s likely, at this point in lockdown, that the answer is yes, since the majority of us fall into one of two camps: those who have been unable to see (or meet new) sexual partners; and those who have now been inseparable from …
Despite knowing this January would be the bleakest on (unofficial) record, I embarked upon an alcohol-free month. For my physical and mental health, and having overindulged at Christmas, I wanted to have a month devoid of the hard stuff, a feat I’d never achieved before. Which is all well and good, but when the monotony …
Philosophers call it ‘our best teacher’, psychologists claim it’s ‘essential to the human condition’ and evolutionists credit it for our survival as a species, but anxiety has a really bad rep. Anyone who has experienced it knows just how deeply unpleasant and unsettling it can be — however, emerging data shows that there may be …