Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at You

If you think that showing off our holiday snaps and flaunting other details of our lives is the stuff of Facebook and Instagram, you would be wrong.  The craze predates the internet by at least 400 years. Now the British Library has opened its collection of alba amicorum, or ‘friendship books’ – in which wealthy...

Plan your way out of personal debt How to get the best out of life in a village Technoference Why you should not keep your curtains closed What is happening to our pets? Eat your way out of depression Is the internet increasing your secret addictions? Self-harming A new kind of diet All the lonely...

‘… making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.’ (Isaiah 43:19) The bills left over from Christmas are still coming through your letterbox with a thud. You can recognise which are bills before you open them, and your heart sinks. Many people have debts which they struggle with and which they cannot...

Have you recently moved, or are planning to move, to our village?  Villages can be beautiful, with pretty cottages and roses at their doors. But villages can also be lonely places.  So – here are some tips for how to survive – and enjoy village life! Make the most of your children. Children provide parents...

We’ve all seen them: mothers engrossed on their mobile phones and ignoring their children nearby.  But now research has found that children whose parents are addicted to their phones are significantly more likely to have behaviour problems. The problem is called ‘technoference’. It is when the everyday relationship between parent and child is constantly disrupted...

In dark rooms, 12 per cent of bacteria can reproduce; in rooms exposed to sunlight, only 6.8 per cent can reproduce.  Remember that when you consider your household dust and the effect that simply opening your curtains can make. Researchers at the University of Oregon point out that we spend most of our time indoors,...

It is getting harder to own a pet.  In 2012 two-thirds of homes had pets.  Now it is down to just over half.  In fact, families are now ten times more likely to own a virtual assistant like Amazon’s Alexa than even a hamster. It is not our fault.  We still love animals, but can...

What you eat affects how you think. So says a recent international study, which has found evidence that a Mediterranean diet can cut the risk of depression – by reducing inflammation in the body. The study, conducted at University College London, found that people who ate plenty of fruit, vegetables, nuts, fish and plant-based foods,...

Don’t let your access to the internet mess up your head.  That is the warning of a number of experts who are calling for urgent action to address the growing problem of a range of mental health disorders. Now an international team of more than 100 researchers say that the ‘all pervasive’ nature of the...

Here is a very sad statistic:  one in four girls aged 14 has already self-harmed.  And a recent survey by the Children’s Society has also discovered that girls are less happy than boys with school life.  The charity analysed data from the Understanding Society survey and may have found the reason:  jokes and comments in...

You might well lose weight by eating a late breakfast and an early dinner. A study published in the Journal of Nutritional Science has found that if you delay breakfast by 90 minutes, and eat supper 90 minutes earlier, you may well lose weight, even if you do not change what you eat. Researchers believe...

Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Where do they all belong? The Beatles saw loneliness all around them back in the 60s, when they wrote the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby.  And loneliness is growing:  the number of lonely over-50s will hit two million within seven years, according to recent data from...