We need to talk about how we treat getting sick like a moral failure. There is a subtle guilt that comes with being sick: the impulse to apologize for coughing, the guilt of needing rest, and viewing death as a mistake someone made. We’ve accidentally turned health into a status symbol and illness into a flaw. We have conflated health with virtue. In doing so, we have turned healing into a test one can fail, and dying into a mistake that people inflict upon themselves. I am p

Our bodies thrive on routine. Physiological functions — everything from hormone regulation to sleep patterns — rely heavily on...

"Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to persist in spite of it"