4 ways science can help your baby sleep
I’ve read some pretty depressing books in my life (1984, The Road, Twilight etc) but Why We Sleep blows them all out of the water. Professor Matthew Walker cheerfully details the precise mechanisms by which sleep loss makes us fat, stupid, sick and ugly whilst shrinking our reproductive organs and propelling us towards untimely deaths. It is an (ironic) wake up call to the disastrous public health implications of sleep deprivation. The science is fascinating but it’s all rather academic unless you’re actually able to get some. My child, dog, feeble bladder and neighbours all routinely conspire against my sleep attempts. Despite explaining to my son that every nocturnal demand…
Alcohol and health: is there really no safe level of drinking?
I’m writing this with a crisp glass of verdejo in hand, curled into a worn leather armchair in our Cornish holiday cottage (after some negotiation with the dog). It’s a welcome reward following a day at the beach, where the idyllic photographs belie the effort required to ensure nobody gets too hot, too cold, or swept out to sea. So many of us use a drink at the end of a long day to relax, to celebrate our joys and forget our woes. It might act as a tonic for the soul, but is even one glass a day damaging our health? It is according to the authors of a…
