Build strength with gym workouts Sprinting is very high impact – when elite athletes hit maximum speed in a 100m race, their feet will strike the ground with a force equal to more than three times their body weight. Dina Asher-Smith – who clocked the new British record time for 100m last year, and was the first [...]

I want to tell you about a difficult place that I visit regularly since moving to my suburb in the inner fringes of a large Australian city. The place is a gym, and I like it in the winter because there is a steam room there, a good place to zone out and think about the day. In the summer, the place is best known for [...]

Schoolchildren across Britain may be offered sleep lessons to help tackle the problem of insomnia among young [...]

I apologise for starting a column about the joy of small things with the doom of depression, but it was in the middle of a quagmire of ennui, nocturnal sleeping patterns and the cold winds of increasing isolation – familiar to many who experience mental health problems – that this particular delight was [...]

Val McDermid, author When I want truly to wind down, it’s a chance to read something fresh and unfamiliar. The risk is the possibility of being let down by a writer – we all have bad days – or, conversely, being sucked into something so compelling that I emerge with nerves completely jangled. So usually I go for [...]

As a fellow “dog runner” and longtime reader of the Guardian, I was intrigued, and subsequently disappointed, to read Zoe Williams’ article (The dog and I can run together – what could possibly go wrong?, Weekend, 15 December). In a clumsy attempt to be humorous, Williams both belittles a burgeoning sport [...]

Get help Anxiety is real. In her mental health memoir First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, Sarah Wilson wrote that where “depression is stigmatized … anxiety is sanctified as propping up modern life, which ironically sees depression treated as a legitimate illness, and the anxious left in a cesspool of [...]

Sign up to a challenge Whether it is undertaking the NHS Couch to 5K plan or signing up to a marathon, having a goal can give shape and structure to an exercise routine. Whatever your motivation and fitness level, there are numerous events (many of them free) that you can [...]

Have a filling breakfast Nutritionist Kerry Torrens advocates a filling and sugar-stabilising breakfast, such as porridge, if you are heading out in the evening. Starting the day with a generous breakfast can help control your appetite later in the day. She recommends adding a dollop of probiotic yoghurt to help [...]

Eight years on, veganism still has me scratching my head. My commitment hasn’t wavered, but the questions surrounding what is and isn’t vegan continue to plague me on a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis. While many assume veganism is strictly about refusing to use animal products, for most vegans it is also about [...]