Social

In a society that does not place great value on sensitivity, raising orchid children—children who are hypersensitive to environmental conditions—can be an overwhelming experience for parents. At least, until they realize the vital role they can play in unleashing the extraordinary potential that such children have.

One night while checking on his patients in a palliative care centre, the therapist risked asking a confusing question to a person whose universe had shrunk to the size of his sickbed: “What brought you joy today?” The answer was immediate: “Being alive.”

On 29 May 2023, photographer Oleksandr Kuchynskyi filmed a group of children in Kiev fleeing to a shelter during an air raid.

Both specialist research and common experience tell us how complicated it is when children reach adolescence. Dr Bryan Craig helps us to understand the reasons for this and how to turn the crisis into an opportunity for growth.

The Japanese Okinawans have a peculiar way of eating that supposedly extends their lifespan. What can we learn from them?

Although grief is a universal experience, we respond differently to its onslaught, so it's no wonder that words meant to comfort often add more suffering to an already heavy burden.

The importance of humour, including in the workplace, is often undervalued, as a series of studies suggest.

Because life in developed societies follows a more or less regular pattern, sociologists have managed to identify the age at which conditions are most conducive to forming a friendship. It's not that people who are not of this age are unable to form meaningful connections with other people, but at other ages, life takes us on different paths, without asking for our permission.

What if we weren't allowed to use more than 140 words a day? If we entered this game, among the useless words we would give up there would probably be words that convey encouragement too. The sad irony is that we use too few words of encouragement anyway, although the emotional and relational benefits are too important to neglect.

“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention, that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?” (Job 7:17-18)

People have always loved and cherished music, investing time into both composing and listening to it. Journalists from The New York Times sought to find the reason behind our deep attachment to this intangible thing that, for most of us, yields no material gain.

Raising children with the ability to empathise is key in creating a kinder, more compassionate and loving world. 

The miracle of modern technology today is idealised by almost everyone. The way in which technology has placed the world at our feet, ensuring that we are at the centre of the universe even while lying on our couches, and that we find solutions simply by swiping our finger along a screen, has irredeemably conquered us.

Love stories have a way of creeping into the foreground and convincing us that their effervescent debut is just the overture to a marriage that will always rekindle, in a different intensity, the same fireworks of beginnings.

The whirlwind of activities and deadlines that adult life throws at us often makes us resistant to closeness. We abandon old friends and neglect building new relationships until inevitably, the day comes when we start feeling pressed against the self-erected walls of loneliness.