Our Latest Articles

Most of us know what it feels like to wake up on a Monday morning after a long weekend of clubbing, head pounding and body aching all...

In my last article, I talked about the importance of parental response to the baby and, in general, of the parent-infant relationship for the infant's long-term development. But what do we mean by the parental response to the baby? Babies rely completely on their caregivers and have many needs that need to be met. These go from more “practical and basic” needs such as being fed, cleaned, dressed, and changed, to more complex and “psychological” needs such as being cuddled, co

How Your Mental Health Affects Your Skin For as long as I can remember, I have always been incredibly ticklish. This was a curse when I...

I woke up to the soothing pitter-patter of raindrops last week. Trees were swaying in an exhilarating dance on the music of rustling...

What comes to your mind when you hear the acronym TLC? For some (especially healthcare professionals), the first thought is "Tender...

Fairy tales provide a framework for how to deal with the challenges and conflicts of growing up...

Around 10% of the UK population is estimated to be affected by claustrophobia at some point during their lifetime, according to the NHS.

Hospital setting. A child is born and cries at the top of his lungs. The hospital personnel carefully takes the newborn from the mother...

How first experiences impact the infant development Two days after my daughter was born, in Milan, Italy, I was in the hospital nursery room. When I was there, another baby girl was ready to go home with her parents, when her dad said, loudly (in Italian), “Can you see how all the other babies and parents are happy to see you go finally, so they can stop hearing you cry? We cannot hold you all the time darling, life is painful, so you’d better get used to it”. I found these w

Most of us think that a cat purrs when it is happy, however, there is much more behind it, from communication to healing properties. As...

An interview with genetic epidemiologist Dr. Ashley-Koch about which genes are correlated with suicidal behaviours and why learning about them is crucial for early intervention. Allison Elizabeth Ashley-Koch is a genetic epidemiologist at Duke University School of Medicine and she’s dedicated her life’s work to figuring out the genetic basis of several diseases, especially those pertaining to mental health. She has recently published a paper pinpointing four specific genes wh

If you find yourself tossing and turning at night, your mind buzzing with thoughts — among them why you are not asleep — you are not...

An interview with our new columnist, a psychologist and a mother, Dr Alessandra Biaggi Image source: Photo by Dominika Roseclay on Pexels Ahead of the launch of the new column “The Perinatal Journey - Walking through the first years of life” on Inspire the Mind, I sat down with its creator, Dr Alessandra Biaggi, to learn more about it. I first met Alessandra a few years ago, when she worked as part of the perinatal (the time between pregnancy and the first year of life) psych

Chat GPT is the AI chat bot that is taking over the internet. At first glance it seems amazing and feels almost straight out of a Sci-Fi...

When you hear ‘eating disorder’, there’s probably a particular image that comes to mind – a white, teenage girl, emaciated, anorexic....

Co written by Prof. Andrew H. Miller and Dr. Charles L. Raison Despite substantial research showing that inflammation plays a role in...

A interview about the Science special issue on brain connectivity In the morgue. That’s where Stephanie Forkel, a researcher whose work focuses on neuroviability, first realized that there are differences between what people’s brains look like. “The first time I saw a brain, I was like, ‘hang on a minute!’ I thought my neuroanatomy was good, but this doesn't look like the textbook,” she says, laughing. “So that was my ‘aha moment’ of realizing that there is a huge degree of v

There are several seconds before a client enters my office or I open the “Zoom room” for a session, where I take a few deep breaths,...

By Dr. Ava Easton and Dr. Thomas Pollak Trigger warning: The following article describes research about suicidal ideation, suicidal...

Behind the Science with Sofia Quaglia. Sofia and I first met in October of 2022 via Zoom. She had interviewed Carmine, Inspire the Mind Editor in Chief, not long before and shortly after that, he suggested that the two of us meet. As Deputy Editor, I am always keen on expanding our network and meeting new talents. Sofia and I instantly clicked. We spent most of our time exploring our similarities, whether that was our childhood or the similar education systems we both went th

There was a time, five or six years ago, when I got very interested in philosophical pessimism. The idea that looking at life through a...

Growing up, I was never taught much about periods or the female anatomy… and I was certainly never taught about mental health issues...

Trigger warning: This blog contains discussions of mental health struggles (e.g., eating disorders, self-harm) and suicidal thoughts,...

I meet Natali over Zoom from her house in the Netherlands. This is not our first online meeting — in fact, online is how I met her a couple of years ago, attending one of her Raindance film school courses on self-branding for creatives. This time it’s just the two of us talking one-on-one. I’m keen to know the person behind the novelist, marketing consultant, and creative lecturer, now also a regular columnist on Inspire the Mind. “I’ve always been interested in mental health