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Where Health Meets Beauty, Mental Health, and Faith: Learning from the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella

What is a pharmacy? And what are “medicines?” I’ve been thinking about this question for some time, and had the opportunity to consider this in real-time in a sort of back-to-the-past-to-the-future moment when I spent time at the glorious Farmaceutica of Santa Maria Novella (SMN) in Florence, Italy (in longhand, the “Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella)” on 8th November. This meet-up at this 800+ year old institution is one of many touchpoints in my work and personal life between late October and late November, where I’m working on health/care issues in 4 Euro cities: starting with London in week

 

Sleep in Our Lives: Self-Care, From Using PTO and Vacation Time to Tracking and Digital Detoxes

Sleep is a sort of luxury good when you don’t have it or get it: like water in a desert, it’s priceless and life-saving.               When someone thinks of health, “sleep” falls into the top 3 factors, as measured by the Kearney Consumer Institute’s global survey conducted for the Consumer Goods Forum 2025. You can see from Kearney’s data shown here that physical activity (say, mobility and walking and moving about) ranks top for global health citizens, followed by diet and nutrition.                   Amerisleep, a sleep