From skin to nutrition, sleep to menopause, we are inundated with wellness advice. But what actually makes a difference?

DON’T get a sleep tracker for serious problems
They are fine if you are just curious about how your lifestyle affects you. “Lots of people are interested in measuring the effects of coffee late in the day, or the impact of alcohol on sleep,” says Alice Gregory, professor of psychology at Goldsmiths specialising in sleep. “And that’s all good.” But they are not helpful if sleep has become a real issue. In fact, they could make things worse.

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Like many of my letter writers, I have periods of feeling totally ‘meh’ about life. What is anhedonia and can I find a cure?

When I was nine, I discovered I had a superpower. Two classmates and I were playing in the playground, probably some horse-themed game, until one of them choked me in an assassin-style throat hold. It was one of those stupid things children do, perhaps copying something she’d seen on TV, not realising how dangerous it was. I simultaneously dropped to my knees, feeling as if I was floating out of my body, in tremendous pain, unable to breathe or speak. She let go just as a black curtain drew across my view of clouds and sky.

It was not my best playtime. I wasn’t able to speak for several minutes. I felt upset, confused, isolated: where were the adults? Who was looking after me?

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Exclusive: Home secretary cites knives and pressures of social media as she announces plans for ‘young futures’ unit to prevent crime

‘We fear the police’: young people share concerns with Cooper

Teenagers have it “much, much harder” than previous generations because of knives, mental health pressures and social media, Yvette Cooper has said, as she announced plans for a new unit to prevent violent crime among young people.

After the deaths of young people in stabbings in Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Croydon, Cooper told the Guardian she was initiating a new cross-government “young futures” unit to be based in the Home Office, as part of the ambition to halve violent crime in a decade.

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Highly infectious disease confirmed in 10-month-old as UN chief urges pauses in fighting to contain spread

Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after the UN chief, António Guterres, called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

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After report found ‘errors and misjudgments’ in Valdo Calocane case, how can mental health care be improved?

A “series of errors and misjudgments” in Valdo Calocane’s mental health care led to him being discharged – even though he repeatedly failed to take his medication and showed signs of aggression – months before he killed three people in Nottingham, according to a review by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The Guardian has spoken to experts about how mental health care in England could be improved in order to better prevent future tragedies.

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Experts respond to the review into Valdo Calocane’s care and shed light on the challenging conditions in which NHS clinicians have to operate

There are many ways of trying to make sense of tragedies involving people with severe mental illness (Nottingham attacks: series of errors led to Valdo Calocane being discharged, review finds, 12 August). Calls for new guidelines, changed legislation, and improved “risk assessment”, while well-meaning, are unconvincing, not least because that’s what’s been happening since the Clunis report 30 years ago. They miss how complex and profound the problems are.

NHS clinicians operate in a context of rationing and scarcity, gaslit by their own organisations with talk of “efficiency savings”, “flow” and “productivity”. This can sound an awful lot like the problem is with staff who are slow, lazy and inefficient. The service values high “churn” and rapid discharge, viewing every inpatient admission as a failure of community care.

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The World Health Organization is warning that the increasing spread of the virus in Africa could cross over into other continents

Mpox outbreak in Africa is public health emergency resembling early days of HIV, says WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the latest mpox outbreak in Africa a “public health emergency of international concern”, the category used in the past for Ebola outbreaks, Covid-19 and a 2022 mpox surge in Europe.

Many countries in Africa are experiencing more cases of mpox, as the deadly virus crosses national borders, with fears it could cause a significant global outbreak. Here is what we know so far.

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