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

Byron Katie: ‘Just ask yourself, is that thought really true?’

Byron Katie was deeply depressed when a radical change left her joyful. She now uses her secret to help others – whether brutalised by war or merely stressed

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

Your guide to a happy new year… by Dawn, Eddie and other celebrity self-help gurus

Famous faces, including many comedians with tales of recovery from their own traumas, are dispensing life lessons in the latest publishing trend

Prescribed reading: Five of the best books by doctors

As Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt wins a readers’ choice award, we recommend five other author physicians. Please add to our notes

The spray’s the thing: how actors use perfumes to get into character

Playing Thatcher? Dab on Bluebell. Got a part in Hairspray? Reach for the Madame Rochas. We lift the lid on how actors use smells – from the finest fragrances to cheap tinned mackerel – to nail a role

How to Stay Alive by Bear Grylls – digested read

‘Nipping out for milk? Take a 12-inch knife, a defibrillator, three chicken tikka masalas and a solar-powered microwave oven’

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker review – how more sleep can save your life

A neuroscientist has found a revolutionary way of being cleverer, more attractive, slimmer, happier, healthier and of warding off cancer – a good night’s shut-eye