Drama out of crisis: how theatre and improv teach lessons in sexual consent

Exploring consent issues through interactive drama and comedy can effect lasting change, whether tackling violence against sex workers in Africa, sex education in South America or abuse in UK schools

Can you dig it? How to take the strain out of physical tasks

The Royal Horticultural Society has warned that using a spade incorrectly increases the risk of chronic back pain. Here are other actions you might be getting wrong

Don’t listen to Gwyneth Paltrow: keep your coffee well away from your rectum

The colonic irrigation and coffee enemas promoted on Paltrow’s website Goop are not merely unnecessary, they are potentially dangerous, writes obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Jen Gunter

A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind by Shoukei Matsumoto – digested read

John Crace simplifies Buddhist teaching on lightbulb cleaning, personal hygiene and other domestic essentials

Johann Hari: ‘I was afraid to dismantle the story about depression and anxiety’

The writer and author’s new book, Lost Connections, explores the problems with our understanding of mental health

Is everything you think you know about depression wrong?

In this extract from his new book, Johann Hari, who took antidepressants for 14 years, calls for a new approach

Why Christmas is for everyone

An atheist’s Christmas celebrates hospitality and generosity – just like a Christian’s, says Julian Baggini

‘Improv saved my life’: the comedy classes helping people with anxiety

Once the domain of aspiring performers, improv courses are increasingly being sought out by students experiencing mental health problems

‘We voice our concerns through a choir’: singing out about the UK housing crisis

Thousands of people are at the sharp end of the UK’s housing crisis. Sergio Figueroa has come up with one way to make a noise about it: singing

The 100 best nonfiction books: No 98 – The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621)

This compelling and occasionally comic study of melancholy became cult reading in the 17th century and has inspired artists from Keats to Cy Twombly