According to addiction expert Dr Anna Lembke, our smartphones are making us dopamine junkies, with each swipe, like and tweet feeding our habit. So how do we beat our digital dependency?Dr Anna Lembke, a world-leading expert on addiction, is concerned …
Here’s the rub: facial massage can have benefits but not for your skin
Touted as an anti-ageing treatment on social media, it is relaxing, but dermatologists say other claims are ‘fundamentally mythological’Whether it’s with a jade roller, a gua sha or simply your fingers, facial massages are all over social media, from T…
Dear Diary: how keeping a journal can bring you daily peace
Writing a diary is a great way to offload – and, if memory fails, it’s a wonderful window on the pastI still get funny looks from people when I mention that I keep a diary. Maybe the practice strikes them as shifty or weirdly old-fashioned. It’s true t…
Jesy Nelson on leaving Little Mix: ‘I felt everybody hated me’
The singer left one of the most successful girl bands of all time after a decade of relentless trolling. Now, as she prepares to go solo, she reveals why she’s ready to return to the spotlight on her own termsJesy Nelson is having her photo taken. For …
I relish a good Freudian slip – that revealing giveaway of the tongue | Hannah Jane Parkinson
It has become a term for a general gaffe, but the true joy is in its original formSigmund Freud has his fans and his detractors. My take? A lot of his work was pioneering and has relevance to this day; a lot of it was nonsense.One of Freud’s greatest l…
Rhik Samadder tries … silent disco meditation: ‘A man in socks and a bandana is romancing a tree’
A dance-based ‘soul journey’ – in the middle of Clapham Common? While I stream with sweat and onlookers laugh, I can’t stop worrying about what I’m having for dinnerI’m shaking my pelvis with brio, when a goldendoodle ambles up. Don’t you poo, I think….
Blood, gore and a healthy dose of catharsis: why horror can be good for us
A grisly feast of scary British films is heading our way. Why now? Once seen as ‘video nasties’, many believe they have a positive role to play in a pandemicThe terror begins in the London of 1985 when Enid Baines, a film censor, spots an eerie reflect…
How to take the lead in dog walking – and earn unconditional love in return
Enhance your pooch’s wellbeing and your own by making daily walks an interactive, quality experiencePepper meets Mr Binks for the first time and bottom-sniffs the diminutive pooch by way of greeting. As ever, I look away. But Mr Binks’s owner, dog beha…
Fit in my 40s: can I master tap dancing? | Zoe Williams
The day I break into a sweat doing a waltz clog is some way offI was on board with Broadway Weekends – an online platform of classes that aims to connect theatre lovers to professional performers – even before I read its origin story. It was founded by…
‘It became a compulsion’: how fertility forums took over my life
After years trying for a child without success, I sought solace in online message boards. Before long, I was spending hours a day poring over intimate posts, sharing everything with total strangers. Would it help?Leanne was having her fringe cut when s…