Holly Willoughby recently posted a makeup free photo of herself on Twitter. She joins the growing brigade of female celebrities publicly baring their natural faces to prove that it's not always necessary to pile on the slap as soon as the first ray of sunlight penetrates their retinas in the morning.

The longer I live and explore a spiritual life the easier it gets. When I started off my adventures I visited a dozen or so different faiths and I got down and dirty with the meditation, the praying, the mantras. I had the patter and the pose, but none of it felt right. Some of it felt convoluted or ridiculous. Most of it didn't quite fit, it was someone else's story, someone else's journey.

I have friends who developed anxieties later in life. Many say having kids makes you worse, somehow hyper protective. One was in such a state on a recent flight, she accepted a random pill of a fellow flyer.

Think twice before eating vegetables you haven’t scrubbed clean – or biting into meat that’s a little on the pink side – because it could put ...

We are living through a time of endless choice and unlimited convenience. Whether we're deciding on cars, mobile phones, holidays or simply which sandwich to have for lunch, the range of available options can be genuinely overwhelming. Yet with so much effort dedicated to giving us what we want, and enjoying unprecedented levels of income, entertainment, and calories as 21st century Britons, we don't appear any happier for it. In return for having Everything Now, we have to work harder and longer. According to the TUC, UK employees work some of the longest hours in Europe, so it's no surprise that unhappiness at work is often cited as a major cause of this broader discontent.

The true currency of dating, the one you never really think about, is time. Whether you're buttering up a honey in a noisy bar, doing extra lengths at the swimming pool to impress a buff lifeguard or stumbling through endless online profiles, the amount of time you spend on this initial process can be disheartening if the end result is less than satisfactory.

Thinking creatively, drawing connections, brainstorming, focused thinking - all great uses for our grey matter. But counting on it to remind me of the fact that I need to buy olive oil? Allowing it to have the thought over and over "I need to email the proposal to the client"? That's brain abuse.

The hilarious thing is that the cancer I have is quite rare and a lot of people wrongly assume only old people get it, which makes you feel about 105 when they tell you this. Oh by the way you have cancer, you have cancer for old people....yeap, you are just old, with cancer....nice.

Willpower is overrated. A lack of it is not the reason why we are suffering an obesity crisis. We think willpower is the answer because we still think that depriving yourself on a diet is the only way to lose weight. It isn't.

6pm. Quitting time. Supposedly. That's what it says in your contract at least.

In the middle of the rolling Sussex countryside, tucked behind a picture postcard Tudor village, you'll find an enchanting Elizabethan house; it's Ockenden Manor and it's beautiful. Roaring log fires, cosy wood panelled bars and elegant drawing rooms with a wafting scent of fresh flowers.

Babies have become a commodity and people are paying for 'better ones'. The ability to pre-determine the sex of a child through IVF techniques and to learn the sex of a foetus early in pregnancy using ultra-sound or DNA analysis, has in parts of Asia led to a massive demand for male babies.

Whilst the top 10 reasons to claim on the travel insurance does tell a few tales of woe, we're doing some odd stuff too. If you think that we are all about getting blotto in Benidorm, think again.

The older generation, it turns out, are right – more and more kids these days really are becoming couch potatoes. But it’s not TV or the latest...