The question we keep asking wrong After more than two decades in medicine, clinical practice, and research, I had the slow realisation that neither alone was enough. I've come to believe most of us are asking the wrong question about health. We ask what should I cut out? when we should ask what can I build in? We ask is this food good or bad? when the honest answer is almost always: it depends on the whole of your life. Healthy living isn't a set of rules. It's a way of relating to your body,...

“This world is a mountain, and our action the shout:the echo of the shouts comes back to us.” — Rumi, The Masnavi I Ma’navi , Trans. E. H. Whinfield She was walking past me in a hurry, headphones in, her pace light but determined — that London rhythm of people moving between places. But when she saw me raise a hand, signalling I wanted to speak, she paused. She slipped out one earbud, then the other, and smiled as if she had been listening to something she could easily return to later. There...

"We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity." — Charlie Chaplin He had been standing nearby while I spoke with the police officers — watching, hands in his pockets, a faint smile as though remembering something distant. When we finished, he walked toward me, unhurried. “I’m off to Spain this afternoon,” he said, his voice steady and light, “but I’ve got time. I like to share what I’ve learned.” He was in his seventies, his frame lean and upright, hair as...