In the two-week window leading up to the end of the 2020 school year, I noticed a frightening phenomenon in my seven-year-old son’s school bag. He had amassed a small mountain of junk food.From play dates and birthday parties, to after-school-care and team sport, it seemed everyone and anyone had deemed it a special occasion to be celebrated with gifts of cookies, chocolate, chips, and candy.I haven’t always been the kind of person who pays close attention to junk food. Six years ago, when I was writing my first book, which is about my efforts to live well, despite being... Read full article »

In 1993 author Peter James caused a global outrage when he published his thriller Host on two floppy disks. The first “electronic novel,” which is about a scientist who downloads his brain into a computer and has his body frozen, was considered the beginning of the end of literature as we know it, not because of its plot, but because it was thought to be a sign that printed books would soon join clay tablets as relics of our technologically primitive past. Fortunately predictions about the book apocalypse have not yet manifested and when it comes to my endless pursuit... Read full article »

When the conference director of Happiness and Its Causes asked me to host a panel discussion between experts on deepening our mind-body connection so that we can lead healthier lives, I was delighted. It’s a topic I’m dedicated to raising awareness about and the lineup was terrific. There was Michael Mosely – the famed English doctor and BBC presenter known for self-experimenting in the name of science, Elissa Epel – an American psychiatry professor and stress expert, who co-authored the bestselling book The Telomere Effect about healthy ageing, Amit Bernstein – an Israeli mindfulness professor who is doing extraordinary work... Read full article »

This year I set myself an ambitious goal to be eating a completely whole-food diet by the end of the year. At a time when experts are increasingly concerned about the impact of junk food on our health, I wanted to see if was even possible to learn to cook everything from scratch while leading a busy life as a working mother of two young children.With the customary zeal that accompanies every well-intentioned “New Year New Me” resolution, I signed up for an intensive cooking course, gave my pantry a makeover, planted seeds for a fledgling herb garden and invented... Read full article »

Normally people discover they're iron deficient during a visit to their GP that was prompted by feeling unusually fatigued. I learned abut my anaemia in slightly more unusual way. During the production of my new film about mindfulness I had a team of scientists tracking my biological markers as I meditated every day for a year. This included various brain scans, blood tests and saliva analysis. When it came time to reveal my saliva results, we hit an unexpected anomaly; “If your cortisol levels were any lower, you’d probably be dead,” the scientist who was analysing the data told me.While... Read full article »

If you’re anything like about half of the population, the chances are you started out the new year with the best of intentions. Perhaps you resolved to sleep more, or party less. Maybe you decided to loose weight, save money or donate time. Whatever it is that signifies your particular “New Year New Me” pledge, if you’re anything like up to 90 percent of your fellow resolvers, the chances are you’ve already failed, and possibly didn’t even make it through the first week.I’m no exception. I’m a health journalist who’s job is to stay on top of the latest health... Read full article »