Hospital wards struggle to cope with rising cases of self-harm and eating disorders, the study warns

The number of children admitted to acute hospital wards in England due to serious concerns over their mental health has increased by 65% in a decade, with a particularly alarming surge in girls who have self-harmed, research reveals.

Doctors are treating almost 40,000 children with acute mental ill health in general wards every year, up from about 24,000 10 years ago. The increase is six times higher than the rise in admissions of children for all conditions (10.1%) over the same period.

It’s time to celebrate all the little things in life, according to an annoyingly upbeat Belgian campaigner. But what if whingeing is actually good for you?

April may be the cruellest month – but January is easily the most depressing. The weather outside is frightful and, around this time, everyone’s despondently giving up their new year resolutions. It’s dreary and dark and, if you’re the complaining sort (which, you may have noticed, I quite definitively am), there’s – waves hands vaguely at our crumbling dumpster fire of a planet – a lot to complain about. Indeed, a new report has found that champagne sales are sinking. Not just because of dry January, but because people can’t find much to celebrate.

Enter Isabelle Gonnissen, a Belgian woman who seems to be annoyingly obsessed with positivity. She wants all the whingers and whiners out there to change their tune and celebrate the little things in life. Several years ago, Gonnissen launched a 30 Days Without Complaining challenge in Belgium; this year, she’s reportedly bringing it to the Netherlands. According to the NL Times, the campaign launched on Blue Monday (the third Monday of January), which is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. It probably isn’t, by the way. Rather, Blue Monday is a pseudoscientific PR stunt that entrenched itself into our consciousness because it feels kind of true – but I’m not going to grumble about that now. In fact, I’m going to try not to grumble at all. There’s no way I can give up complaining for 30 days, but I’ll heroically give it a go for the next few sentences.

Much of the power of work like counselling lies in a relationship where we really see each other. And tech just can’t do that

• Allison Pugh is a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World

When I interviewed a nurse practitioner in California about what she cherished most about nursing, it was the “human element” of being present with others. “I think we all just want acknowledgment of our suffering, even if you can’t cure it or do anything about it,” she told me.

She still remembered when a homeless man came into her clinic, his back hunched, feet gnarled and callused from being on the streets for years, and she “just sat and did wound care for his feet”. The moment stood out for her, in part because the opportunity to take that kind of time is getting rarer in clinics and hospitals as drives for efficiency impose time constraints.

Allison Pugh is a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. All names have been changed.