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“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”

Sleep is perhaps the most important, complicated, and misunderstood physiological mechanism that keeps us alive.

Happiness must come naturally – and this is true for success: you must let it happen simply by not obsessing over it.

Big chain stores know them and use them to make a profit. What is more, they are willing to pay a lot of money for studies on how to improve them. We're talking about the secrets of optimal product placement.

In terms of short-term benefits to one's reputation, or monetary benefits, the illusion of deceit is intoxicating. But, in the long run, both from an individual and a social perspective, the negative effects of deceitful behaviours should be convincing enough in order to deter any and all from engaging in them.

The face muscles relax, and the eyes become empty before boredom urges them to seek another centre of interest. The restlessness culminates with some leaving and others immersing themselves in the exploration of their phones. Others seek to divert the discussion with a joke or hasten its end through a detached or ostentatious silence.

Self-sacrifice—the ability of some people to put the lives of others above their own—is not at all easy to understand.

Next to family and health, friends are among the top reasons that make us happy. But what if we are solitary, recluse or shy?

They have read that love lasts for two or three years, and although they’ve gathered every possible argument why it wasn't the case for them, they couldn't get the possibility out of their minds altogether.

“In the works of Comenius one feels that a prophet is speaking; he was indeed a colossal figure, but only in recent years have his ideas received the respect they merit”.

Ask any cinematographer what gets them excited, and I guarantee there’s a fair chance they’ll answer with “lenses”. Having spent many years studying film and many more practising it, I can safely say that I now understand why this is—and it’s probably the first response you’d hear from me if you asked me the same question.

People can’t live on bread alone. They also need hope.

What we think about ourselves, over time, becomes our reality. This is a good enough reason to identify thinking errors left running in the background and to seek out strategies for healthier thinking.

It takes a brave man to stand up to a dictator and perhaps an even braver one to stand up to his church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been held up as a hero of the cause of justice and equality, and a statesman of modern Christian theology. For some readers, these two things might not seem a natural fit. But for Bonhoeffer, the two...

“We all feel stronger if we are part of a tapestry. One thread alone is weak, but, woven into something larger, surrounded by other threads, it is more difficult to unravel,” says family therapist Stefan Walters, summarising the benefits of understanding the history of the family we come from.