How to Care for Yourself as a Caregiver
Forget yoga or weekend escapes. There are more realistic tools to put in place, experts say.
JOURNALISM
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Health, Psychology, & Relationships
5 Ways to Get Your Focus Back
Attention frackers are everywhere. Here's how to retrain your brain to focus.
4 Ways to Embrace the Happiness Boost That Comes with Age
Take heart, midlife sloggers. We’re wired to feel more joyful as we age, starting right about now.
How to Guard Against Relationship Autopilot
What's the point of a long partnership if it doesn't flourish? Here's how to increase the health span of your love life.
The Empath’s Guide to Surviving a Narcissist
How a little praise and a lot of boundary setting can help you hold on to your sanity with that “me me me” person in your life.
Why a Daily Dose of Awe Might Just Be the New Prozac
A leading researcher explains the mind-blowing science behind that goosebump-y feeling.
Four Expert-Approved Ways to Strengthen Your Core
The gold standard for a fit midsection is no longer a six-pack or cinched waist. It's a balance of inner strength and all-around stability that, yes, makes you look lean--but more important, helps you move freely and avoid injury for years to come.
Here's How Several Women Over 40 Discovered New Passions and Hobbies
We're not sure about old dogs and new tricks, but for humans of a certain age, the science is clear: Being an absolute beginner is an absolutely great way to stay sharp and strong. Learn from eight women who mastered new skills in their 40s and beyond, and warm up for your next act.
Step Outside: Experts Say That Walking Has Many of the Same Benefits as Running
It turns out there's no need for speed. A long, head-clearing walk brings many of the same benefits—to body, mind, and spirit—as a jog or even a sprint. Lean into this low-impact, all-ages exercise and unlock the upsides of hitting your stride.
Back to School Advice for Parents
Your kid is starting high school or—swallow hard—college. Experts share their advice on helping them crush (or at least survive) the frosh challenges. Here’s the ultimate freshman orientation (for parents).
Mother's Day Essay: Confessions of a Hypocrite Mom
Mother's Day Essays: Whatever kind of mom you are—and whatever kind of mom you had—we see you, and we're celebrating. This is one of 11 essays in the series.
How Sitting All Day Is Damaging Your Body and What To Do
A twinge between the shoulder blades, a knot above your hip. The culprit is often something we do every day: sit, and sit, and sit some more. Here's how to shift your habits to support the muscles that protect your spine—and prevent future pain, too.
Raising Resilient Kids
Simple strategies to help your child weather life's rainy days and tough times.
Could a Club Drug Be the Secret to Curing PTSD?
The groundbreaking, remarkably effective, and more-than-a-little-trippy new treatment for severe trauma.
Is Divorce Contagious?
Science suggests that divorce can spread from couple to couple to couple, from neighborhood to neighborhood. Louisa Kamps explores a new therapy to help people combat the contagion and learn how to cope with their own misgivings about marriage
I'm Quilting to Save My Sanity
Want to improve your memory, concentration, and creativity? New studies show that New Age brain-training apps can't hold a candle to one old-timey hobby: quilting.
7 Commandments for Disconnecting From Your Device
Are you reading this on your phone? According to our analytics, there's a 50% chance that you are.
How to Love Your Work
Social scientist Eve Ekman sheds light on how to make good work relationships great and bad ones better.
Could a Pill Be the Key to Marital Bliss?
Improving a long-term relationship can be grueling, but what if you, your partner, or both of you could make things easier by taking a pill? Would you? Louisa Kamps reports
Fashion & Beauty
The 6 Most Prized Pieces in Sharon Coplan Hurowitz's Closet
Who says it's wrong to love the things we wear—like, really love them? Presenting five women whose curatorial focus—devoted to everything from tiny, tough wearable sculptures to light-as-air lace blouses—lends powerful individuality to their personal style.
The Woman Who Can Find the $3 Yves Saint Laurent Skirt
No stranger to challenging designs, fashion-world fixture Cecilia Dean has worn, arrestingly, everything from a giant white sail-shaped Philip Treacy hat that gave the appearance of a small Calatrava perched atop her head, to one of Commes des Garçons' iconic "bump" dresses, with small, pillowy nodes lumped irregularly across its backside.
The Life-Changing Magic of a Beauty Transformation
Whether it's by trying a new lipstick or undergoing a major overhaul, there's nothing like tweaking one's appearance to open new horizons—both in body and mind. This month, we celebrate beauty transformations great and small: those that bring us closer to who we want to be, and those that simply deliver a (very worthwhile) flash of joy
Foreign Service
Hopscotching across cultures and countries, Louisa Kamps found a novel way to connect: by putting herself—and her hair—in the hands of strangers
The Nostalgic—and Liberating— Power of Makeup
From a punk-rock eyeliner to an editor- approved pressed powder, Louisa Kamps' beauty talismans infuse her future with power from her past.
The Rebirth
When Louisa Kamps decamped from America's fashion capital to the bucolic setting of her childhood, she shelved her well-curated wardrobe for the uniform of her milieu—roomy, anonymous, sexless. But this season, she's back. She's so back.
Supersize Me
Tall and curvy, Louisa Kamps always thought her clothes had to be short and tight to fight--or flaunt--her shape. But that was before she tried on this season's remarkable new oversize styles.
Book Reviews & Author Interviews
Africa Writ Large | College of Letters & Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Once you start clicking through Brittle Paper, the sprawling digital magazine Ainehi Edoro created to chronicle African literature and literary culture, it’s hard to stop. One link takes you to a blurb covering the Oxford English Dictionary’s recent inclusion of 29 Nigerian words, the next to a hefty profile of a globally influential British-Zimbabwean fiction editor who’s opening doors for many writers from Africa and the African diaspora.
Melinda Gates' Next Mission: Making Life Better for Women
In her new book, "Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World," Gates details how fear and resistance proved to be "a painful step on the way to a deeper commitment."
True Confessions: The Secrets Only a Therapist Would Know
Author and therapist Lori Gottlieb pulls back the curtain on what people really say when they're "on the couch."
You're Not All That
In a world where navel-gazing is almost a cliche, psychiatrist Mark Epstein proposes a new, very old way: Curb your ego
A Hygge Skeptic Is Won Over
Just when we need it most, a bevy of books extolling the Danish mantra of camaraderie and coziness, in a Scandinavian-chic package, hits our shores.
The Art of the Apology: Is Saying "Sorry" Ever Really Enough?
Sorry is the hardest word, but it may be the most useful one, especially in this era of acute political polarization and loose talk of violent retaliation. Psychologist Harriet Lerner schools Louisa Kamps in the art of the apology
The Magician of Madison
Lorrie Moore on Life, Love, and Her First New Book in 11 Years.
Work & Money
The New Yorker Editor Who Had My Back
By the time I arrived in New York at 24, I was already a weary veteran of what social psychologists call “identity work”—the burdens women shoulder to navigate workplaces too often rife with sexual objectification and harassment.
The Sweet Spell of Success
Let's admit it: We're obsessed with the S-word. Louisa Kamps follows our evolving relationship with it, plus how we track and define it.
Power, You Have It
Now here's how to use it. A new book by psychologist Dacher Keltner illuminates ways women can hone their innate advantages—and avoid the pitfalls—on all the playing fields.
Fun At Work
Two new books argue for an Organization Woman 2.0: one who knows the value of friendship in the office
The Sneaky Upside of Stress
We tend to think that stress can only rush us to early grave. But there's good and growing evidence that stress can be really, really good for us—fueling productivity, enhancing our relationships, even improving our health—if we learn to think about it differently.
Aggressive or Assertive? Bitchy or Blunt? Three women on overcoming sexist feedback feedback at work--and rising up through the ranks.
Pro tips on dodging, overcoming, and untangling the garbled messages (spoken and unspoken) of old-school workplace sexism with ingenuity, determination, and truly intelligent coaching.
The Big Turn-On
Feeling dull? Logy? Uninspired? A band of psychologists, neuroscientists, and business gurus have a raft of new techniques to help you tap into your creativity.
Defusing the A-Bomb
What do do when faced with today's pandemic of bad behavior by the no-Golden-Rule-for-me-thanks zombie horde? Louisa Kamps ponders her temptation to liberally apply the A-word—and gives herself a time out.
Just Hit Refresh: How to Keep Your Head on Straight
Our writer discovered that a lot of her time-saving desires were sucking up all of her...time. So she detoxed and saw her creativity—and output—rise.
End The Spend
The first step to financial recovery, Louisa Kamps learns, is cluing in to our boneheaded behaviors.
Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Why do some people get ahead while others are perpetually stuck at the bottom? Louisa Kamps investigates ambition—where it really comes from, why it can be hard to maintain, and how to get some of that mojo back.
Food & Travel
Broomball: A Wintry-White Dinner
As a defiant fist shake to the bitter Midwestern winter—with its short days and limited pantry—chef Tory Miller and the staff at Madison, Wisconsin's L'Etoile follow an entertainingly dorky afternoon of broomball with a brilliant dinner featuring local winter-white ingredients.
First Family Trip to Europe
How retracing a trip I took as a child with my own son brought me back, beautifully.
Life of Pie
On a Midwestern road trip, a writer zigzags from one small-town cafe to another in search of spectacular pie. Here she extols her favorite discoveries and the bakers behind them—some sweet as peaches, others tart as rhubarb.
Drinks: Milwaukee Untapped
With cracked vinyl, plastic flowers and the occasional polka band, Milwaukee's best bars are tiny strongholds of authenticity in a world full of imitation.
Cheese Curds
When I moved back to Wisconsin, my home state, two years ago, I couldn't help saluting the first huge sign I saw, just over the Illinois-Wisconsin border, for cheese curds—those squiggly, squeaky chunks of young cheddar we learn to love early here in America's Dairyland. Right along the Interstate to Milwaukee, there's a cluster of cheese-curd, porn and firecracker stores that has always made me wonder about the guy who would indulge in all three; but driving a distance to score curds alone—well, that makes sense to almost any Wisconsinite.
Profiles & Interviews
Tavi Gevinson on Career Risks and Being a Cosmophage
Today in "This Woman's Work," we're talking to the bold, bright, and delightfully mold-dodging Tavi Gevinson.
In Memoriam: An Interview With Lauren Bacall
For over six decades, Lauren Bacall rafted the kind of tough-talking come-hither characters women want to emulate and actresses only dream about playing. Here, we revisit a conversation that originally ran in the November 2007 issue of ELLE.
The Magician of Madison
Lorrie Moore on Life, Love, and Her First New Book in 11 Years.
Macy’s Parade
What it takes to launch a fresh talent: a profile of singer/songwriter Macy Gray.
