An urn cost more than my rent. So I scattered my mother’s ashes at Yosemite from a Ziploc bag, without the federal permit I couldn’t afford to wait for

My mother is in a Ziploc bag on my lap, wedged between a half-eaten bag of trail mix and my purse.

My stomach is queasy from the switchbacks up to Yosemite, where I’ve come to spread her ashes, and I’m having an existential crisis.

Thinking about writing a book and doing it are two very different things – so how to get started and follow through?

At some point in their lives, many people are confronted with a big question: what if I wrote a book?

Writing a memoir, murder mystery or steamy romance is an accomplishment. Like running a marathon or successfully filing your taxes, it speaks to grit, determination and hours of research and effort.

How to start meditating

How to start weightlifting

How to start budgeting

How to start running

Christopher Gardner, the author of Food Sense and director of nutrition studies at Stanford, says we have overcomplicated the question of what to eat

Finally, some good news: eating well is more straightforward than you think. “There’s a lot of good science out there, and it mostly agrees,” says Stanford University’s director of nutrition studies and professor of medicine Christopher Gardner from his office in Palo Alto – beaming, bronzed and the picture of health.

In the age of social media and wellness grift, we’ve overcomplicated the question of what to eat, he says.

Embalming is one of the most common options for temporarily preserving bodies after death – but what exactly does it entail?

Most people don’t like to think about what happens to people’s bodies after they die. Victoria Bilstein is an exception.

“I’ve actually wanted to be an embalmer since I was 10 years old!” says the funeral director, embalmer and author based in the midwest. As a child, Bilstein had two leg surgeries that incorporated bones from two deceased donors. After that, she wondered about the people who had helped save her life and the families who had lost them.

The idea is popular in wellness circles, but experts say there’s no evidence that trauma uniquely affects the hips. Here’s what causes hip tightness and what can help

In yoga classes, on TikTok and throughout other wellness spaces, you’ve probably heard the saying: your hips hold tension. These joints have a reputation of being emotional storage units of sorts – but is it true that they are affected by old traumas and painful memories?

Pain and muscle tension hit harder when you’re going through a difficult time. But should tight hips make you question your mental health? And what can you do to reduce hip tightness? Here’s what you need to know.

We are all going to die, and so is everyone we know. So how can you not be terrified?

For most people, death is not a standard conversation topic. Once, at lunch, a friend began talking about her mother’s death several years earlier. Her voice caught occasionally, but she spoke about it plainly – like a simple fact of life. As we talked, I noticed another friend was shifting uncomfortably in his seat; he didn’t say much.

Afterwards, I asked him what was wrong. “I really don’t like talking about death,” he said, his hands twitching anxiously. “I don’t even like thinking about it. It freaks me out.”