Chat to strangers and let your kids be bored: how to embrace a ‘slow September’ – and enjoy life more

The pressure to self-optimise at the start of the new school year can lead to disappointment and burnout. Instead, here are seven ways to slow things down and reap the benefits

What would our lives look like if we no longer had to work? As a thought experiment, I tried to imagine

The abundance that AI promises to deliver represents an enormous and radical opportunity – a chance to reconnect with the ancient project of how to live

My job provides financial stability but my passion has gone. What do I do?

You don’t have to force passion about a role you find boring, writes Eleanor Gordon-Smith. And it could help by asking if work has to be meaningful at all

I’ve finally hit my midlife crisis. How do I know what I’m meant to do?

Knowing time is finite is not easy, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But you’re not alone in this feeling

The curse of burnout Britain affects politicians as much as everyone else: give Carla Denyer a break

The Green MP’s decision to take time out has angered some – but many more will see endemic stress as a blight we must address, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

As a furniture removalist I learned all mattresses are stained, and that’s fine

You’ll never catch me owning a glass dining table now I’ve moved so many. But it was the people I worked alongside who made the job what it was

Promotion burnout: why women are quitting the race to be boss

In a survey of 1,000 professional women, more than half said they felt less motivated to progress in their jobs than they did two years ago

Do you have a ‘competence hangover’?

It’s what happens when people, especially women, are overworked and underappreciated. Time for all the incompetent slackers to step up, writes Emma Beddington

Facing meltdown? Over 75% of people suffer from burnout – here’s what you need to know

Does it only affect weak people? Is work always the cause? Burnout myths, busted by the experts

My patient’s near-death experience in hospital left me with worry and guilt. This is how vicarious trauma starts

Afterwards, my team and I kept going without ever discussing the event. But something felt heavy. And because I couldn’t name it, I didn’t know how to deal with it