It’s Dashain. It’s when you don’t have to go to school or work. It’s when you take a break. When you sleep in, and do as you please. It’s when you eat and often overeat. It’s also when you don’t exercise, when you get stressed about hosting the perfect party. The thing is when you don’t stretch your muscles, don’t eat wholesome food or forget to take care of yourself, you are doing your mind and body a big disservice. Here are five simple ways you can make sure you stay healthy and happy.

When we say oral hygiene, we usually think it’s about keeping our teeth clean and sparkling but, turns out, oral hygiene comprises a lot more than that. It’s about taking care of your gums and tongue and keeping them clean and germ-free as well. Dr. Shilu Shrestha, periodontology and oral implantology specialist, says a good oral hygiene routine can prevent many infections and gum and teeth problems.

The biggest festivals of Nepal – Dashain and Tihar – are knocking at our doors. And as per our tradition, during this time, we take special care in cleaning as well as renovating our homes. So, why not use this time to up your décor game? Decorating a home is something you should pay special attention to because how you feel in a particular space has a lot to do with it.

Like it or not, clicking photos or making videos is a huge part of any celebration. Be it a graduation, a dinner party or festivals like Dashain and Tihar, most of us want to capture and archive our experiences. And some of us want to be really good at it. So when the festival season arrives and our social media is flooded with pictures from our friends and family, it can be difficult to maintain a unique Instagram feed. But it’s not impossible. The Week is here to arm you with a few tricks to make your photos stand out from the rest this festive season.

We all know poetry is a somewhat elite form of literature. Have you ever tried reading a poem or two and wondered why it didn’t somehow make as much sense as you expected it to? If you are intimidated by the complexity of poems and have steered away from them all this while, then it’s time to change that.

For many of us, traveling for days or perhaps weeks high up in the mountains is the ultimate dream. However, due to work or school, we might not have the luxury of taking a week out of our busy schedule to travel for a long time. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t travel at all, we can still make short but frequent trips around the valley in order to get our dose of the wilderness. Here are a few places we recommend you visit.

Living in Kathmandu has its perks as well as its downsides. Be it the pretty cafes or the marvelous historical sites, Kathmandu is a city that’s very much alive and bustling. It’s a city that demands to be explored. However, the traffic, pollution, and potholed roads often take away from its beauty. We asked the residents of Kathmandu what they thought was the best and worst things about living in Kathmandu. Here are their answers.

We all want to eat healthy but try as we might we aren’t able to stick to our ‘resolution’ of eating fruits and veggies for more than a few days or a week at the most. But eating clean is possible.

Putali Nepal is a social enterprise that provides training on menstrual health management and sells menstrual cups in Nepal. Additionally, they give trainings on proper use of menstrual cups, especially to women in rural areas of Nepal where menstrual taboos and unhygienic sanitation practices still persist. The organization also distributes ‘Menstrupedia Comics’ which is a guide to educate people on menstruation and reproductive health. This comic is available in both Nepali and English.

According to the Zero Waste International Alliance, zero-waste can be defined as “the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”

Little things can add up over time to improve the quality of your life. Here are 12 things that, done on a regular basis, can make you smarter, healthier, and happier.

Over the past few weeks, the rise in the number of dengue patients has been alarming to say the least. According to Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, over 5000 people across the country have tested positive for dengue till date. In Kathmandu, over half of the people visiting the Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital are found to be suffering from dengue. What makes matters worse is that the incessant rainfall the capital is witnessing at the moment is believed to bring about a further surge in dengue causing mosquitoes.

Life would be boring if we didn’t do the stuff we know we shouldn’t and just focused on what’s important. There are some things we love doing even though eventually, we end up feeling bad about it. Case in point could be Saturday mornings when we sleep till one because of a hangover or indulging in a thick slab of chocolate cake and then one more. But guilty pleasures are necessary.

Acoustic guitars are one of the most popular instruments in the world. Anyone with a knack for music knows that acoustic guitars are the most basic yet one of the most important pieces of medium there is. Be it in front of a thousand people at a concert or with your friends at a campfire, acoustic guitars have a charm of their own.

There are a great many things we all want to do but they aren’t always safe and there’s no guarantee you will come out unscathed. If you were immortal for a day, would you do the things that fear has always stopped you from doing? The Week asked a few people about the things they would do if they were granted immortality for just one day.

The Unknown Kimi Raikkoenen, Race Course Road and S D Burma: The Prince-Musician

The beauty of films is not only in the plot or the characters but also in its visual storytelling i.e. the cinematography, shadows, colors, etc. For many of us occasional movie buffs, the cinematography and colors are there to add to the overall progression of the film, but for film-devotees, the visuals can be reason enough for them to truly fall in love with a film.

A small kitchen needn’t be a space where you go just to make your morning cup of tea or whip up a quick breakfast before moving on to the balcony. With the right décor and setting, it can be a space where you actually enjoy sitting down with a fragrant cup of tea or have some breakfast before you need to rush for the day. It doesn’t matter how small the space is, here we run you through how you can make your tiny cooking area feel spacious and cozy at the same time.

We all love gifts. And it’s all the more fascinating when we unwrap a present and it turns out to be something quirky and unique, instead of the regular stuff. But gift-giving can be tricky especially when you want to give someone something they don’t have or wouldn’t necessarily buy or know about themselves. Here are some pretty cool gift ideas you can use the next time you have to pick a present.

Your core is the center of all your bodily movements. Having a strong core has a lot of benefits including better posture and balance. It can also reduce back pain and all of your movements will be more efficient – meaning your body will have to exert minimal energy for even intensive movements. And the good thing is that you don’t always have to visit a gym and train under an instructor to strengthen your core muscles. Here The Week brings you three easy exercises you can do at home that will help strengthen your core muscles.