New studies, books, apps and more to help you stay well in mind and body.
HOW TO STAY HAPPY
You can learn to be happy but the benefits only last if you keep working at it. The University of Bristol’s Science of Happiness course found that teaching the latest scientific studies on happiness created a big improvement in students’ wellbeing. But a further study found wellbeing boosts are short-lived unless the habits learnt on the course, such as gratitude, exercise, meditation or journaling, are continued long-term. Professor Bruce Hood said: It’s like going to the gym – you can’t expect to do one class and be fit forever. You have to continuously work on your mental health, other wise improvements are temporary.’ Students on the course reported a 10-15 per cent improvement in wellbeing. But only those who practised what they were taught had enhanced wellbeing when surveyed two years later.
SLEEP TO DODGE DIABETES
The importance of getting your seven or eight hours of nightly sleep is highlighted once again. Lack of sleep raises your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and can’t be compensated for by healthy eating, says a new study from Uppsala University in Sweden. Researchers used data from the UK Biobank to follow participants for more than 10 years and found sleeping for less than six hours per day was linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. Healthy eating habits led to a lower risk of developing the disease. However, people who ate healthily but slept less than six hours a day were still at a higher risk. So, results suggest a healthy diet can’t compensate for lack of sleep. Time for an early night!
1in 4
people in the UK get less than six hours of sleep per night.*
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APPY AND YOU KNOW IT
Improve your run time with KICRUN, an eight-week programme on the KIC app (£14.99 monthly, kicapp.com) to help runners of all abilities speed up from three miles to twelve. The app also has more than 1,000 workouts, 800 recipes and 100 meditations so you can build sustainable, healthy habits – with no calorie counting or weigh-ins in sight!
NEW READ
The Pulling, by Adele Dumont (£9.99, Scribe Publications). Trichotillomania is compulsive hairpulling that spirals into a health-harming obsession. In this poetically written memoir, the author chronicles her experiences with this disease, from hiding it from family and friends to uncontrollable urges and trance-like episodes. She tries to unravel the origins of the disorder and identify the difference between a nervous habit and a compulsion in order to shed light on the mind-clouding condition.
