Health

Why spoil perfectly crisp, clean bedding with dusty old accessories that have been used by hundreds of strangers? Yuck

Picture the scene: you enter a lovely clean hotel room. There are newly laundered crisp sheets and fluffy fresh towels. But as you sit on the bed, the cushions let out a cloud of dust and you realise the bed is covered with an unwashed bedspread that has been sat on by every other guest who has ever visited this room. It’s usually slung across the bottom of the bed, so lots of them have probably put their feet on it, too.

I hate decorative cushions and throws on hotel beds. The first thing I do on seeing them is remove them with the tips of my fingers and shove them in the wardrobe. Doesn’t everyone? Due to the often impressive efficiency of hospital corners on the bed, removing the throws can be a challenge, frequently resulting in wresting the entire duvet off the bed so I can discard the offending bedspread. And don’t get me started on when everything reappears on the bed the next day, and I have to begin my weird ritual all over again.

Annabel Lee is a freelance writer

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They can hurt more than broken bones or pancreatitis. But with the right drugs and therapies, relief is possible from this debilitating and often misunderstood condition

It was a dreary Monday morning in September 2016, and I was working as a teacher, trying to settle a new year 7 class, when a sharp pain bloomed behind my right eye. It was followed by quick jolts, like electric shocks. As each class came and went, the pain eased and then returned with greater intensity. Four times that day I left a teaching assistant with worksheets and ran to the school bathroom to douse my face with cold water. I took ibuprofen, paracetamol, aspirin, but the pain remained unbearable.

The headaches appeared repeatedly that autumn, and again in spring, and soon formed an annual pattern. September and October were the worst, then February and March. I could predict the routine: aura in the shower, early twinges on the train, full-blown agony in class by 9.30am. In late 2019, a GP finally referred me to a neurologist and I was diagnosed with cluster headaches.

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‘You don’t have to be tortured to make great art,’ says founder of mental health support organisation Artist Wellbeing

From Vincent van Gogh to Virginia Woolf, from Nina Simone to Amy Winehouse, the tortured-artist archetype looms large: private torment fuelling public brilliance.

But across opera, theatre, film and television, a growing movement is pushing back against what many now insist is a corrosive myth – the romanticised necessity of creative martyrdom.

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Your friend fears dependency and wants to regain control. Is there someone you can talk to about your own feelings?

I am in my 80s and an old friend has several health issues. She will probably die in the not too distant future due to the inoperable cancer she has been aware of for some years.

She has two adult children, with domestic and career problems of their own, but she sees them frequently, and I know them both.

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Rutger Bregman, Josie Long, Michael Rosen, Meera Sodha and others on what they are no longer wasting their time on

Rutger Bregman, author

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Stop stressing about self‑improvement or waiting until you’re on top of everything. This year give yourself permission to prioritise pleasure

I have a proposal to make: 2026 should be the year that you spend more time doing what you want. The new year should be the moment we commit to dedicating more of our finite hours on the planet to things we genuinely, deeply enjoy doing – to the activities that seize our interest, and that make us feel vibrantly alive. This should be the year you stop trying so hard to turn yourself into a better person, and focus instead on actually leading a more absorbing life.

Naturally, I anticipate certain objections to this suggestion.

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Do hot baths improve endurance? Will creatine bolster your brain power? Does pickle juice prevent cramp? Here’s what we learned about living well this year

The best advice for living a healthy, well-adjusted life – eat your vegetables, get a good night’s sleep, politely decline when the Jägerbombs appear – never really changes. Other nuggets, such as how much protein you should be eating or how to maximise workouts, seem to change every year. But as we wonder whether we should really give sauerkraut another go, science marches on, making tiny strides towards improving our understanding of what’s helpful. Here’s what you might have missed in the research this year, from the best reason to eat beetroot, to how to ruin your five-a-side performance before the game even starts. There’s still time to break out the pickle juice shots before 2026 …

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From preparing safe topics to taking silly games, we ask the experts how to avoid falling out with your nearest and dearest – before, during and after the big day

• I threw a potato. Mum brandished a knife – would whole-family therapy save our Christmas?

Plan breaks in your schedule
Spending time with difficult family members requires careful planning, says Katie Rose, a therapist registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the founder of TherapEast. “If you’re going to stay with somebody for three or four days, find ways to politely give yourself a break. Go for lunch with friends who live locally, or book a ticket to a museum or a National Trust place so that you have ways of getting yourself out of the house.” Tamara Hoyton, a senior practitioner for Relate at Family Action, agrees that scheduling breaks is a good strategy. “Arrange a trip out, or offer to cook so that you’re away from the living room where everyone else is,” she says.

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Eight years ago, after yet another disastrous festive get-together, my mother decided we needed professional help. Which is how a new festive tradition began

It is early December, and I am sitting in a psychoanalyst’s office in central London, about to do 60 minutes of pre-Christmas family therapy. Outside, the Christmas lights are twinkling. I can hear a drunk person literally shouting for joy on the street beneath the window. But inside the consulting room, it is eerily silent. My mother, my sister and I sit in squishy armchairs and pretend to admire the art, but really we are eyeballing one another like prizefighters, looking for weak spots. My father is just a tiny, flickering face on an iPhone, propped up next to my mother on a cushion. My father doesn’t really believe in therapy, but he’s compromised by dialling in via Zoom. He keeps falling off his cushion and on to the floor.

Our therapist peers benevolently at us over her spectacles. She is in her 80s and has a world-weary look about her. Like she has seen all manner of dysfunction before. She lets the silence hang for a moment, and then she clears her throat: “Shall we begin with presents? Or the meal?”

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