Shinrin-yoku is defined as “taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing”, and is a mix of mindfulness, physical activity and group experience. Although it sounds like you might end up in a body of water, forest bathing is instead just the art of fully immersing yourself in the experience of being in the woods. Shinrin-yoku is different from just taking a walk in the forest and is attracting a serious following.

Why is being in the woods so appealing to some people? Turns out that we are either “biophilic”, those outdoorsy types who are drawn to camping and hiking, or “biophobic”, those who see the outdoors as a somewhat threatening place, filled with unsavoury bugs and critters.

I must admit, I have a serious love affair with the forest. I’m not picky – if there are trees and something that resembles a path, I’m in. I have spent a huge amount of time in the woods in the past few years while trail-running. Sometimes I run...

Having interpersonal relationships is one of the main ways that humans have evolved and endured. As people got older in early civilizations, supportive relationships were vital to their long-term survival.

You might be surprised to know that the importance of social connectedness has stubbornly persisted in to our modern life, and in fact, has one of the most profound impacts on our disease and mortality rates in aging. For women, social wellness is especially important because (bummer alert) we tend to outlive our partners.

Social wellness has its own field of study and has come to the forefront in healthy aging research and policy in the past decade. This week, I will help you explore the ways that improving your social connections can impact your health, and will offer five important tips for improving your social connections long-term.

Why is Social Wellness Important?

Typically, preventative health is focused on physical behaviours like quitting smoking, eating better,...

You may have noticed that I’m writing this blog post one day later than I normally would. Yesterday, with coffee in hand and feeling slightly smug that I had managed to carve out an entire day to write, my website went down.

Fast forward several hours after lot of panicked phone calls and hand- wringing, I stopped and took a breath. There was nothing I could do for at least a few hours. It was a beautiful spring day outside and I had two choices: I could let an annoying chain of events ruin my day, or I could put on my runners and go for a walk.

I decided that a good goal for the rest of the afternoon was to...

My sister and I fell in love with the same piece of public art, entirely independently of one another. There was something so powerful about that piece that we both remembered it in a conversation years later. The main body of the sculpture was a woman in a dress, staring steadily into the eyes of the observer. Her calm, vacant expression almost made you want to look away.

Coming from the woman’s head were multiple complex structures, her body a tree trunk, growing massive sets of branches from her skull. On closer inspection, each branch was revealed as an upside-down person. There were babies, children, older people, teenagers, friends and acquaintances.

That beautiful piece so perfectly depicted the life of a woman. It was one of those works of art that takes your breath away – one that captures a life so perfectly that the image has always stuck with me.

I thought a lot about that sculpture when trying to put words to International Women’s Day. It’s hard...

If you’ve watched the Netflix show “Tidying up with Marie Kondo”, then like me, you’re equally mesmerized by the diminutive Japanese woman who helps people get their homes (and lives) in order. One of the most appealing things about her approach is her use of the Kon Mari method to simplify spaces. This is done not by simply reducing clutter, but rather by asking her clients to keep things only if they spark joy.

Given that home organization is not a new concept, why is Marie Kondo so incredibly popular? My theory is that her gentle nudges toward respect and acknowledgment of inanimate objects seems like a way to teach her audience to live a more mindful life; if you must stop and think about the meaning of every item in your home, eventually you will make more measured decisions...

My mother stayed in bed almost every single morning, while we all got ready for school. Before he left for his own busy day of work, my father made our lunches and made sure we got off to the schoolbus. We knew at some point later in the morning, my Mum would have a slow moving readjustment to the world and would eventually emerge from the bedroom. Her day was usually one that was filled with cigarettes, books, and solitude.

My mother’s mood seemed to always colored by her past. Her early life was filled with the trauma of being shipped off to boarding school as a toddler, only to see her mother for a brief period each summer. She often recounted the pain of having no physical contact or emotional support...