Health

For decades, Kate Edgley struggled with insomnia. She tried everything, but nothing seemed to work… Here, she reveals the terrible toll it took on her life – and how she eventually realised her dreams.

We all feel hungry before dinner and full after a banquet, but those moments are the tip of the iceberg. Hunger is a process that’s always present, always running in the background, only occasionally rising into consciousness. It’s more like a mood.

This Hotel lists hotel, hostel and bed & breakfast recommendations from trusted experts like New York Times, Lonely Planet, Fodor’s, Frommers, CNN and many more.

Eating alone has become a defining feature of modern life: the breakfasting commuter; the household members with conflicting schedules; the widower who receives few visitors.

Say hello to Emma, a life-sized representation of how we could look in 20 years’ time if we continue working with poor posture and inadequately set-up workstations. If left unchecked, by 2040, workers’ will be left with permanently bent backs caused by sitting hunched over a desk with poor posture for prolonged periods of time.

In Silicon Valley, there is a newish craze called dopamine fasting. What you must do is disconnect — take stock. Not look at your phone, not drink celery juice in your co-working kitchen, not hike, not touch, and not walk on busy streets. Attempt to prevent the activation of any dopamine at all and do deep thinking instead.

In the United States, workers work among the longest, most extreme, and most irregular hours; have no guarantee to paid sick days, paid vacation, or paid family leave; and pay more for health insurance, yet are sicker and more stressed out than workers in other advanced economies.

The germs we are exposed to over a lifetime, as well as lifestyle factors like stress, sleep, diet and exercise all play a role in the strength of our immune response. Here’s what works — and what doesn’t.

Oliver Sacks on the Psychological and Physiological Consolations of Nature: “In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical ‘therapy’ to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.”

A hangover is about being poisoned, no doubt. The toxins linger in the body and must be expelled, or waited out. We’re sick with a mini-flu and need to get better. But isn’t a hangover about more than physical toxins, at least some of the time? I’ll wager that a hangover is frequently about shame as well.

Too many Americans don’t have access to sufficient mental health support. A large reason for this disparity is that physicians aren’t moving to rural areas, but innovative partnerships are helping bridge the gap for some patients.

Scientists worldwide are working against the clock to find a viable coronavirus vaccine – but are corners being cut for the sake of political gain and profit?

Living a life free from screens. It’s something we all wish we could do, but, thanks to the now-ubiquitous nature of technology, can’t. I spent a week cutting my screen time in half each successive day: eight hours on Monday, four hours on Tuesday, and so on until I had less than 10 minutes on Sunday.

With such a focus on the physical concerns around vaping, the main psychoactive ingredient in e-cigarettes, nicotine, is often left out of the conversation. The addictive drug can boost your cognition and won’t give you cancer, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe for casual use.

Celebrations marking the end of the First World War were cut short by the onslaught of a devastating disease – the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. The University of Cambridge has made a new film exploring what we have learnt about Spanish Flu, the urgent threat posed by influenza today, and how scientists are preparing for future pandemics.

Physical activity boosts short-term brain function and heightens awareness. And even on days they don’t train — which rules out fatigue as a factor — those who habitually push their bodies tend to confront daily stressors with a stoic demeanor.

Potent societal powers create a culture of nutrition confusion that not only obfuscate the truth about diet, they undermine science as a whole. Begin by asking critical questions when digesting diet news. Does the writer have an advanced degree in nutrition, or does she or he have expertise in science journalism?

Before this underwater forest in the Gulf of Mexico disappears, scientists recently raced to search for shipworms and other sea life that could serve as incubators of unexpected medicines, churning out new lifesaving formulas and compounds that may not be found anywhere else on the planet.

Instead of engaging in deliberation about oneself, what the arts of mindfulness have in common is a certain mode of attending to present events – often described as a ‘nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment’. Mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral but it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the cosmos.

Sober curiosity is spawning both a philosophical movement whose adherents have holidays (Dry January and Sober October) and is creating an industry through sober influencers; nonalcoholic beer, wine, and “spirits”; dry bars; dry events; and sophisticated cocktails without alcohol.

Air pollution may be damaging every organ and virtually every cell in the human body, according to a comprehensive new global review. The research shows head-to-toe harm, from heart and lung disease to diabetes and dementia, and from liver problems and bladder cancer to brittle bones and damaged skin.

“The darker-colored items with fewer ingredients will be the best.” This is because dark-colored vegetables are particularly rich in an assortment of plant compounds called phytochemicals, which help ward off diseases and tend to make them healthier than their lighter counterparts.

I’ve long thought the human body was not meant to run on empty, that fasting was done primarily for religious reasons or political protest. But it turns out there is something to be said for a daily fast, preferably one lasting at least 16 hours.

We ended up living in northern Baja, joining the millions of people who commute between Tijuana and San Diego at the busiest international border crossing in the Western Hemisphere. Medical tourism is one of the leading industries connecting the two regions.