Your life will be measurably enriched when you become more deeply engaged with people and your living environment. Want to take action? Try this: Becoming aware of these pre-judgements may be difficult, but a helpful way to hunt them down is to attune yourself to...
A winter ritual for inwardness and restoration As the winter season sets in, the cold and shorter days beckons us to cuddle up and close in. Yet this is not a time for doing ‘nothing’ but rather an opportunity for a change of focus from outward...
Often there is confusion about what mental health means. Many people immediately start thinking about severe conditions like chronic depression and personality disorders – but there are other factors that create feelings of anxiety and worry, that may impact our...
New research has suggested that being lonely may be worse for your health than being obese – with those who experience ‘chronic loneliness’ having a 14% increased risk of early death. Despite often being associated with old age, loneliness is also common amongst...
What you do with your body can have a powerful affect on your mind. Mental wellbeing means feeling good, about yourself and about the world around you. It means being able to get on with life in the way that you want. Evidence shows that there is a link between being...
We live in a switched-on world in which it’s almost unthinkable to be without social media for so much as a day. According to Statista, a company specialising in market and consumer data, around 30 million South Africans were on social networking sites in 2019. What’s more, this number is set to grow to close to 50 million by 2026!
There’s no two ways about it: being bullied isn’t just tough in the moment, it continues to take a toll in other areas of your life. Bullying leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. It shatters your self-esteem and increases your risk of anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance and self-harm. It can even result in physical health problems like high blood pressure, stomach pain and poor appetite.
It’s something that has puzzled researchers from the start of the pandemic – why do some people experience severe illness, and others do not? These differences extend beyond known risk factors – like age, and existing disease. To answer this question, researchers began studying the genetics of people exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and were able to identify links between developing the disease and variations in specific parts of their DNA.
The pandemic has highlighted the idea of a disease being front and center in all aspects of our lives. However, for someone living with a chronic condition, this has been their reality long before COVID-19 came along, and the pandemic has simply made things worse. Economic, social and psychological distress is common amongst those living with chronic conditions, such as tuberculosis (TB).
Underlying all human rights is a deep respect for human life. There are those passionate people whose daily lives center around defending and upholding these precious rights so that we can all live in a more caring and just world. Each one of us can take inspiration from this and make choices that demonstrate how our own personal values uphold human rights.