Health

There are many ways to kill a man. Some are sudden. Some are brutal. Some are mercifully brief. Crucifixion was a slow, deliberate medical death. The Romans may not have had physiology textbooks, blood gas analysis or intensive care units, but they understood something grimly practical about the human body: …

For some time, the thought of approaching a memoir as a collection of essays has been floating about. Assembling memories in the hope that they might make for useful reading means committing to candour and truth. People’s feelings have to be taken into account. What to include, what to leave …

At six o’clock one morning not too long ago, a woman sat quietly outside a public clinic with a numbered card in her hand. She had arrived before sunrise. Not because she wanted to—because she had to. Her eyes were failing for months. The headaches were becoming more frequent. Work …

Hard to imagine that Sade is 67. For decades, she wooed the world with her mellifluous voice and songs about passion. I suspect many people believed themselves to be madly in love at her behest. How easy it is to float away on the cloud of Kiss of Life! Listening …

Something strange has been happening in Trinidad and Tobago. Ask almost anyone how they are sleeping and the answer is rarely enthusiastic. “I not sleeping good these days.” It is said casually, often with a small shrug, as if poor sleep were simply another inconvenience of modern life. Covid exacerbated …

Many women arrive in clinic apologising for their bodies. “Doctor, I know… it’s my weight.” They say it before I check their blood pressure. Before I review their blood tests. Before I ask about sleep, stress, grief, work, hormones or the fact that they have not eaten a quiet meal …

There is a fashionable word for what many people feel right now. Burnout. It sounds modern. Sophisticated. Almost noble. The inevitable tax of ambition. But I am not convinced burnout is the correct diagnosis. I suspect something far less poetic. You are not burned out. You are biochemically overloaded. And …

At first glance, the “wellness industry” looks marvellous. It speaks about prevention. It mentions gut health, cortisol, mitochondria and hormones. But if you watch closely, you’ll notice something peculiar. It never wants you finished. It wants you improved. Optimised. Detoxed. Biohacked. Reset. Rebalanced. Rejuvenated. But never done. A cured patient …

Valentine’s Day performs romance very well. Restaurants fill with dodgy service and inflated prices. Florists thrive. Social media becomes an exhibition of curated devotion. Even the chronically indifferent develop an opinion about love. However, Valentine’s Day does not create loneliness. It exposes it. For most of the year we can …

“[…] Consider slavery. The transatlantic slave trade was not opposed by scripture—it was justified by it. Genesis 9:25–27 legitimised enslavement of Africans. Ephesians 6:5 instructed slaves to obey masters. Leviticus 25:44–46 explicitly permits buying slaves and passing them as inheritance. “[…] The sexual abuse crisis represents the starkest contemporary failure. …

Disclaimer: I don’t work for Tribe Carnival. I am not a fan of the waste-generating, classist, exclusionary commercialization of Carnival. As a former Minshall and 3Canal player and fan, if I were to resume playing mas myself, it would most likely be with a mas band like Berkley Mas or …

There is a troubling pattern in our public life: moral leaders who sound their trumpets loudly, yet hollowly choosing the easiest battles while leaving the hardest untouched. Their sermons bloom like roses, but without thorns: ornamental, perfumed and harmless. They raise their voices against costumes, symbols and sensuality but fall …