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In the realm of health and wellness, few practices embody the principle of “no pain, no gain” quite like the revival of ice baths. Plunging into icy water might seem like a counterintuitive pursuit—a stark departure from the comforts of warm showers—but it’s precisely this discomfort that has drawn enthusiasts around the world.

Let me ask you a question: if a friend of yours or I were to stand in front of you today and ask, “Are you OK?” how would you respond? Could you, or would you, share how you really are? As a society, we seem to be becoming more and more aware of the mental health crisis we are in. On 8 September, Australia...

My husband and I realised that the inevitable had happened; rumours of a war in Ukraine had intensified in the previous month.

I’m going to be honest with you. I find prayer really hard. If I had to give reasons for all my tears over the past few years, most of them have come during conversations with God.

"It isn't the man I married. It isn't the man I knew." This is how Sabina Shalom, whose husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, begins her confession. The woman, who has reached a respectable age, says that it all started with some serious quarrels between her and her husband: "Papers were lost, bills were not getting paid."

"Loneliness irritates me like a broken nail," says a line in a Romanian poem. The truth is, loneliness stings, pulls apart, and resembles the coffee dregs left at the bottom of the pot in which joy and love once brewed. Although the fear of loneliness is natural, we can choose to see solitude as something more than a "flowering wilderness" and embrace it...

11pm and I am worried my patient will not make it till tomorrow morning, says Dr Glenn Wakam. Twelve hours after intubation, the COVID-19 patient's condition deteriorates dramatically, and Wakam knows that an even more difficult intervention follows: to explain to the patient's wife, who begs to be allowed to say goodbye, that the hospital does not allow her this sad privilege.

On the continent jaded by an irrelevant religion, a new denomination appeared, in addition to the Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican Protestants—the Arminians.

From television stories to personal experiences, we live in a world where honesty seems to be an increasingly rare commodity and suspicion and scepticism become protective shields.

Holiday greetings are a nice custom, but they are also an opportunity to assess how much we care about each other, how much we have grown closer or, on the contrary, how much we have grown apart over the past year.

“If you had asked me that morning, ‘Arianna, how are you?’ I would’ve said, ‘Fine.’ It was really the fact that being depleted, running on empty, had become the new normal for me.”

“I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth... The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul... the cross as the distinguishing mark of the...

Poverty and laughter don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. People who are worried about where their next meal will come from or where their children will sleep that night find it hard to wear smiles.

I was in the park with my little girl when a heavy summer shower began, driving us home. My little girl wanted us to stop for a moment in the stairwell of our apartment building to watch the rain. After standing there for a few seconds, I heard her whisper, "God, You're getting soaked."

Two strangers walk hurriedly through the busy streets of Constantinople. The great bells are quietly ringing out the call to mass, while the semantrons are hastening the footsteps of the faithful towards the place of worship. St Sophia's Cathedral stands majestically, its gates wide open, awaiting pilgrims seeking salvation.