When Lena Dunham turned 40 in May, it felt like a milestone for Millennial women. “I don’t want to freak you out”, she says as Hannah in , the era-defining TV show she wrote and starred in 15 years ago, “but I think I might be the voice of my generation, or at least a generation…” The line was meant to be ironic, an embodiment of the disastrous mix of mid-00s entitlement and naivety. Yet, led many to give Dunham that exact accolade.
So when Dunham hit this midlife birthday, it made me take stock. I’d turned 40 a few months before her. How many of us are where we thought we’d be? Dunham is married and has published a book. But what about the rest of us? I, like many of my friends, certainly don’t have the life I thought I would.
For starters, I’m financially dependent on my partner – something this millennial feminist swore would never happen. I have fallen into all the gendered traps I used to tweet about angrily: I work part-time and do the lion’s share of childcare. My partner works in finance; I am a freelance writer, so perhaps the financial discrepancy isn’t so surprising. What is more surprising is I now want to work part-time and be able to drop my son off at nursery every morning.
The golden rules for a happy, secure relationship
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr Amir Levine, author of bestselling book , explains why we behave the way we do in love.
Golden rules for happy relationships
Start with your own behaviours
The foundation of a secure, connected life is being what I call CARRP: that means being consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. All of these qualities can be enacted in small gestures every day.
Express your needs
People need consistency and connection to feel safe. This is not, ‘You hurt my feelings by never replying to me’, it’s more ‘this is the kind of contact that helps me feel secure’.
Golden rules for happy relationships
The appendix ‘inflammation’ rule
If a relationship repeatedly inflames your nervous system, you need to disengage and deprioritise it.
Lean on community
You don’t need hundreds of friends. You need people and places that regularly remind you that you belong.
Stop blaming childhood
Humans are much more complicated than: ‘this happened to you, therefore you are doomed to be anxious’.
Reach for a
secure script
When something unsettles you in a relationship, your first reaction is not always the most accurate one.
If you’re anxious, your brain may jump very quickly to: ‘this is the beginning of the end’. If you’re avoidant, your brain may say: ‘this person wants too much from me, I need to get away’. So one very practical thing you can always do is pause and ask: ‘What would a secure person do here?’
Loneliness elsewhere
When people talk about loneliness, they often assume it means you don’t have enough people in your life. But you can be surrounded by people and still feel lonely if those relationships leave you feeling excluded, ignored or disconnected.
What to do
- Build a community that works for your temperament and gives you regular, reliable moments of connection.
- You can still be kind to people while not treating them as someone who belongs in your inner circle.
- Explain what you need. Sometimes people simply don’t realise how you are experiencing them.
- Check in with people: does this person actually feel that I’m reliable? Do they experience me as predictable? That’s the only way that you can start to become more secure.
Do some foods leave
you feeling hungry rather than satiated? Experts say there are…
Foods that leave you hungrier
A bowl of cereal and glass of orange juice
More refined cereals are digested quickly, and fruit juice, whilst one of your five-a-day, contains less fibre than whole fruit. This might mean you find yourself hungry again within 1-2 hours of eating this breakfast.
Swap the orange juice for a whole orange, the cereal for oats and milk or serve it with Greek yoghurt or a boiled egg. This would increase the fibre and protein content; two nutrients strongly linked with fullness.
Foods that leave you hungrier
These pastries are made primarily from refined flour and butter, and are relatively low in protein and fibre.
Toast and jam
Shop-bought packs can contain a lot of white rice, which is digested quickly, and the protein content is often modest.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Vegetable soup
On its own, it is often very low in protein and calories, so hunger can return quickly.
Unless it’s loaded with veggies, it’s probably pretty low in fibre.
Liquids are generally less filling as they require little chewing which may not trigger satiety signals.
Foods that leave you hungrier
Snack bars
They are ideal for a quick pick-me-up, but if reducing hunger is what you’re after, it’d be better to swap it out.
Low-fat yoghurt
A full-fat plain Greek yoghurt with berries and seeds tends to be much more filling due to the protein, fat and fibre.
On an empty stomach, it can actually increase your appetite.
What to eat instead
Instead of thinking about avoiding foods, think about what you can add to them.
- Add beans, lentils or shredded chicken to your vegetable soup and pasta.
- Thicken your smoothies with Greek yoghurt, chia seeds and oats.
- Apple slices with peanut butter, yogurt with berries and hummus with oat biscuits are better snack options than a pre-made snack bar.
- Have alcohol alongside a balanced meal containing protein and fibre.
How to age well
without pain
Will Harlow, a physiotherapist
for the over-50s and author of Independence for Life, shares
the key signs you’re ageing
badly – and what to do about it.
How to know
Ageing well is maintaining the ability to do what you want you want for as long as you want without needing help. Everyone is talking about longevity but what’s the point in living longer if the last decade is painful and you’re [totally] reliant on people?”
The signs to look out for
- The most obvious early warning sign of bad ageing is pain says Harlow.
- Another is losing confidence in doing daily tasks, which can quickly lead to a lack of independence.
- One call Harlow often receives is people calling after having a fall and struggling to get up.
4
How to age without pain
Not just stopping
When people retire, they often put their feet up and stop. Your body really is use it or lose it.
Throughout our entire lives, Harlow says we need between seven and nine hours of sleep.
Social isolation
The lack of connection can increase the risk of premature death by
as much as 29 per cent.
Strength training
It really is the proxy for
overall independence.
The more muscle mass you have, the less chance of heart disease, diabetes, falls and even anxiety, depression and dementia.
The brain can be linked to muscle mass too, Harlow says. It’s not just about being able to lift things. It gives you more energy, better sleep and you’ll look and feel better.
How to age without pain
Daily habits
Do short bursts of exercise, between 30 and 60 seconds, in otherwise dead time during the day.
Stretch in bed
Take joints through a full range of motion for five minutes to loosen it before getting up.
Don’t crash diet
How to age without pain
Harlow advises 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight to stop muscle loss alongside resistance training.
Don’t wait
Harlow finds that many patients put off making a change to their lifestyle until their lives are consumed by pain.
For most people, it’s about reducing the number of times per week you’re exercising, not reducing intensity.
The three ageing tests to do
- Lie completely flat on the floor and get back up to a standing position using any technique. This should take less than 10 seconds.
See how many times you can sit on the chair and stand back up again in 30 seconds. Men should be aiming for more than 14 times and women 12.
The single-leg stand, which involves standing on one leg and balancing for 10 seconds. Everyone should be able to do that and for those under 65, Harlow asks them to do it with their eyes closed.
Despite the job market hiring fewer entry-level roles, employers are still looking for grads…
But you should be prepared to keep an open mind.
We’ve compiled the sectors hiring graduate roles, what degree is required, and what they pay.
The degrees to choose for a career
Hiring in the UK could
finally be on the up
47%
of employers offered entry-level
positions from July.
That is up nearly 15 per cent from the same period last year.
700,000
But graduate unemployment rose to six per cent in 2025 and 700,000 jobless graduates were claiming benefits.
Finance and insurance
- Around 42 per cent of UK finance and insurance employers say they will be open to graduate roles this summer.
- Business loan company Portman Finance Group has taken on 50 graduates over the past four years.
Portman graduates start on £36,000 for the two-year programme and the education you need to apply is a minimum “ABB” of A-levels, and a 2:1 or above university degree. But not in a specific subject.
Trade and logistics
What makes it particularly rewarding is that there’s always something to learn.
Nearly half (47 per cent) of trade and logistics companies will be giving graduates a go this year.
Salaries start at £30,000 with an uncapped bonus, rising to £50,000 plus a company car as a senior account partner.
Technology and IT
More than half (52 per cent) of UK tech and IT firms are actively looking for graduates.
Successful entry-level candidates can earn a basic salary of up to £35,000, with the opportunity to triple that within their first three years of working.
4
Public sector, health
and social services
46 per cent of public sector, health and social services organisations are also ready to take graduates, according to a survey by Manpower.
- For example, Police Now runs a graduate programme into policing. They recruit graduates from any degree field, as long as they achieve a 2:2 or above. Starting salaries range from £31,164 to £42,210 depending on location and rising each year.
Can we treat guests without blowing our budget?
According to Waitrose, a dinner party revival is underway led by younger people trying to reduce the cost of getting together.
Always have bread
People will feast on the
ELLA RISBRIDGER, AUTHOR OF THE KITCHEN BOOK – GOOD FOOD FOR EVERY DAY
bread, and then need less fish/steak/expensive whatever. All small plates restaurants know this: this is why the first thing on the menu is always artisan bread and butter.
Use vegetables as centrepieces
Add pantry items
Graham’s recipes include a braised cabbage with a preserved lemon sauce, a roast cauliflower with saffron, and harrisa roast carrots with mango labneh.
How to host on a budget
Improve the everyday
Guests will always appreciate a stellar interpretation of the ordinary. Think lasagna or curry.
Cooking dinner for your guests is spoiling them – you’re being generous with your time, your effort, and your home. So don’t feel the need to go overboard elsewhere.
Ask for help
Ask friends to bring a contribution, be it a nibble or a pudding.
Big platter energy
[Presentation] can be the key to elevating something . Spaghetti and tomato sauce suddenly looks like a feast when tumbled on a lovely big plate, dressed with olive oil and parmesan and placed in the middle of the table.
Food writer and editor Eleanor Steafel
How to host on a budget
Taco party
Have one expensive filling, like shredded chicken, and two cheaper options, like refried beans, says Ella Risbridger.
Shop-bought ice cream is so easily zhuzhed up with the help of handy toppings, says Eleanor Steafel.
Low-effort tricks for
a cleaner house
While many Britons feel inspired to tackle their homes during summer, the warmer months can also make cleaning harder.
But Lynsey Crombie, known as the Queen of Clean, says the hotter months can increase mould, musty smells and sweaty clothes.
Here, she shares the tips and practical
hacks she lives by.
A study of 1,000 UK residents by Domestic & General revealed that almost one in 10 Brits have never cleaned their washing machine, yet it could be grubbier than the toilet seat.
Crombie says after 30 washes, use 500 grams of soda crystals on the hottest wash to clean out the drum. If there’s sludge, run a quick rinse cycle with some white vinegar.
Always make sure to leave the door and drawer ajar for 10 minutes to dry out too and avoid stale smells.
Household ingredients to use
White vinegar
This is Crombie’s go to. It can descale the kettle and taps and deodorise places in her home.
Table salt
For tough stains like red wine, rub salt into the stain, leave overnight and wash as normal.
For stubborn water marks, use half a lemon and bicarbonate of soda and leave on for 30 minutes before rinsing.
Cold water is better
You’re damaging [wooden] floor [with hot water], making it expand, stretch
and cause gaps…
During hot days, Crombie says to avoid cleaning with hot water altogether to avoid adding humidity to the home.
“Cold water is much better, and if you’re using the right floor cleaning product, it’s still going to be clean,” she says.
Hacks for a cleaner home
Three is the magic number
Wash your towels after two to three uses and make sure they dry properly in-between.
Focus on hotspots
Clean the “high traffic” areas, like the toilets, kitchen worktops and the hallway daily.
Open the windows
To keep a home fresh open the windows for 15 minutes each day – even in colder months.
Weekly habits
Do it more frequently, to cut down how long it takes
One task Crombie does weekly is her fridge. This includes a 10-minute wipe-down, focusing on the salad and vegetable tray. “If you save that job up and do it every other month, it’s going to be a very big chore.”
4
Hacks for a cleaner home
Stainless steel
Crombie’s hack is one product: Barkeeper’s Friend in powder form.
The expensive products
“If you spend more money, you get the floral scents. The difference is scent, not performance.”
Ignore online advice
The biggest issue she sees is product overuse. “You don’t need half a bottle of washing up liquid to clean a surface.”
Crombie’s essentials
Four products can do do a full clean of the house.
- Antibacterial washing-up liquid: “It can clean almost anything, and any brand works.”
- : It’s pet-friendly, eco-friendly and “ticks all the boxes.”
- Cif cream cleaner: “It’s an old school product. It’s so good.”
- White vinegar: ““It’s great for washing sportswear, gym kits and is a great stain remover.”
How to keep your sex life going in a heatwave
Don’t endure it
For some people, the heat and the sun boost the production of hormones responsible for joy, pleasure and connection like serotonin and dopamine. For others, the heat causes fatigue and irritability. For them, being touched can set off an anxiety response.
GEMMA NICE [BELOW]
Don’t endure sweaty cuddles
- Long-term partners can be upfront and honest with each other and say that it’s too hot to touch right now.
- For others, break the tension by having an open and honest conversation.
- Choose dates with built-in air conditioning, like the cinema.
- Don’t ignore the issue or
power through if you’re too hot.
5
How couples can manage a heatwave
Take penetrative sex off the table
It may make you feel lightheaded, tired, and can even lead to erectile dysfunction because the body is overheating.
Indulge in dirty talk instead
Because you aren’t distracted by physical movement, your focus is entirely on your partner’s voice. This can help build a massive amount of tension and sexual desire.
How couples can manage a heatwave
This syncs up your nervous systems and can trigger a deep, full-body energetic response.
Mutual play
Set up a fan and touch yourselves while looking directly into each other’s eyes, says Nice.
Strip and chill out
Just sharing the space and being close to each other can strengthen your bond.
Why you shouldn’t have
sex in the sea
- Water actually washes away
your body’s natural lubrication. - It creates friction against the delicate tissue.
- This can cause micro tears and severe irritation.
- It drastically increases the risk of getting a urinary tract infection (UTI) or a yeast infection.
4
The one easy habit which keeps your
brain young
From adopting a different running route to taking up a new hobby, here are seven ways in which new experiences can dramatically alter your brain health for the better.
Why we need new experiences
A well-connected brain is more resilient to stress, illness and the effects of ageing.
Neurologist Dr Steve Allder says when we try unfamiliar things, our brain is forced to work in new ways.
Over time, this improves the brain’s ability to adapt to change and respond to challenges, helping us to preserve thinking skills and emotional balance.
Why we need new experiences
They strengthen memory formation
Regularly exposing yourself to new situations – even small ones – helps exercise your memory systems, which improves your ability to store and retrieve information.
They improve overall learning ability
Just as muscles adapt to new exercises, the brain adapts to new mental demands. As we age the brain then benefits from regular stimulation and maintains sharpness.
Why we need new experiences
Boosts dopamine
New experiences naturally stimulate dopamine, which encourages positive behaviour patterns.
Reduce cognitive decline
New experiences activate different brain regions, helping to keep more areas working.
Your brain must evaluate options, test ideas and adjust its approach.
The benefits of new experiences
Each time you adapt successfully to something new, your brain learns that change can be handled. This improves emotional flexibility, making it easier to cope with stress and unexpected events.
They also often involve other people, whether through travel or social activities. This stimulate areas of the brain
responsible for communication, empathy and understanding others’ perspectives.
We also don’t live in London; something once inconceivable to me became increasingly appealing when we started to think about buying a house. 27-year-old Marisa – the age I was when first aired – believed she would have been hosting Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and writing bestsellers after a stint living in New York City. I have done none of these things.
Of course, every generation has their own moment of realising that perhaps their life will be more ordinary than they’d imagined (and then trying to resist blowing it up in spectacular fashion). And yet the gap between where I thought I would be and where I am isn’t entirely of my own making. For all of our alleged avocado, flat white, nasal-gazing, millennials are a generation pummelled by global catastrophe after catastrophe.
Many of us graduated into the job market in or around 2008 – the year of the global financial crash and worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930. I fell into the bracket whose earnings took the longest to recover. I wrote about this at the time, and clearly wasn’t pleased: “I’m 28 and broke – so don’t talk to me about payday treats!” read the headline.
Pretty quickly, the financial crash made plain that we were not going to get what our Boomer parents had promised. The story we’d been led to believe went something like this: work hard, go to university, get a job, buy a house, have kids, book a nice holiday. Dr Eliza Filby, historian and author of , says: “Millennials were told education, hard work and a decent career would deliver basic markers of adulthood: a home, financial security and the means to start a family. They’re reaching midlife realising that they’re becoming their parents, but often cannot afford to live like them.”
We faced a broken housing market which would have long-term repercussions, stagnated salaries (one study suggested 15 years of wage stagnation made the average UK earner £11,000 worse off a year), and a shrinking economy, meaning fewer jobs, and which took five years to recover to a pre-recession size. It broke the entrenched idea that children’s lives are always better than their parents. Dr Filby says this has left many millennials “with a legitimate grievance: they followed the script, but the script stopped working”.
In the 1970s, both my parents graduated, moved to London, could afford to rent, and found roles working in TV. There were no years of working for free or staying on friends’ sofas. Instead, there were jobs with salaries that gave them skills that led to bigger salaries.
In their 20s, they were buying a large house in Surrey. My friend’s parents bought a house in Stoke Newington, East London (admittedly it was far from its gentrified current incarnation). But a tiny house on the same street sold recently for £1.9m. How many young couples have that? Things were possible then – and not through laborious self-optimisation strategies but because opportunity was accessible. My father, who worked in current affairs documentary-making, recently said to me: “I’d be on the streets if I had to do this today.”
Opportunity and prosperity began to seem lacking on a much larger scale, too. We voted ourselves out of Europe, and watched right-wing populism take off. To many millennials, the election of Donald Trump was yet more evidence of regression. When our parents were coming of age, they’d watched the civil rights movements, women’s liberation, anti-war movements, laws and culture shifting in the direction of progress.
I remember my mum waking me up in 1997 to tell me Tony Blair had won the general election. Things can only get better was the soundtrack to those years. Since 2008, and after the heady election of Barack Obama, things have arguably only got worse.
And then there was the greatest plot twist of all – a global pandemic that shut the world down. Throw in inept Prime Ministers messing with mortgages (under Sunak, mortgages for 20- 40-year-olds saw a rise twice as large as the rise for those over the age of 60) and a war in Ukraine, and the last few years have been marked by an interminable cost of living crisis. Is it any wonder a few of us are finding we’ve drifted quite some way from where we hoped to be.
“I think a lot of us are feeling quite existential – knackered, burned out, but cognisant of needing to work until we’re 80”, says Lucie Greene, founder of Light Years, a forecaster and strategist. “We’re questioning everything. Because the reality is the contract between employment and even the state with us has fundamentally shifted, the veil has been lifted. Now I see a lot of people exploring radically different routes and redesigning their lives to make it work – realising that the structures we’ve inherited from wealthy Boomers fundamentally don’t work.”
My partner and I didn’t try for babies during the pandemic because I didn’t want to give birth at that time. Now we may have left it too late to have the family we’d like. Other friends can’t afford children, or don’t want to bring them up in the insecurity of renting. The falling fertility rates attest to the inhospitable economic landscape to raise a family.
More friends are renting than they’d imagine. Single friends in their 40s still find themselves flatsharing in London, long past an age where they ever dreamed they would be. Others have moved home to live with their parents. In 2018, the Resolution Foundation released a report that predicted one in three millennials would never own a home, with half still renting in their 40s.
Some friends haven’t holidayed abroad in years – something my mum was always able to afford in the 90s, even as a single parent. Friends causally “joke” about having no pension, but there is an edge to their tone because we know there’s nothing to joke about. A recent study confirmed this: six in 10 millennials struggle to save for a pension.
Meanwhile, the friends who have earned well are starting to question what it’s all for. To earn well now demands such a huge toll on time and life, and the rewards are less obvious. Houses are expensive, hotels are expensive, eating out is expensive. A lawyer friend who has made partner at a successful London firm recently texted: “Dangerously close to burnout.”
“Many who have reached professional maturity are hit with massive disillusionment due to fiscal drag and tax brackets. I see many having strived for years, working long hours, climbing the ladder, building, now trying to earn less and starting to simplify their lives to have more meaning and free time,” says Greene. Some millennials are also now entering their “sandwich” generation era; looking after small kids and ageing parents – on top of everything else.
Today the only people living a Boomer lifestyle – the lifestyle we thought we would be at by the age of 40 – are the extremely wealthy. The rest of us have been priced out, and thanks to social media, anything less than that can feel like a failure. I think many of us are experiencing a paralysis, a crisis of confidence in what to do next.
People can’t figure out the best next move because there are no good options – we’re living at home longer, moving away from friends and closer to parents to help with childcare, staying in jobs we don’t like to pay the mortgage. Many of us believed we’d be settled and sorted by 40. Most of us feel lacking, off course or hugely compromised.
Greene says many are having an inverse midlife crisis: “[I think of] Steve Martin in Father of the Bride II, where [upon learning he will be a grandfather] rushes out to get an earring, a haircut and sell the family home. The Gen X/Boomer midlife crisis was to rebel from the norm. Have an affair, buy a sportscar. For millennials it’s the opposite. What Martin was running away from is actually their ideal. Stability is the new luxury.”
However, Dr Filby points out, it’s important to put things in context: “This doesn’t mean this generation is simply having a worse midlife.” She points to choices we have now that previous generations didn’t. “More choice over when we marry, have children and how often we change careers. For women especially, the expansion of economic and professional choice has been significant. You can have children and return to work, become the breadwinner, start a business or reinvent your career in a way that would have been so much harder [before].” She’s right; we do have these choices. If only we could afford to make them.
There is a silver lining: inheritance. Almost two-thirds are set to inherit from Boomers who own houses and have savings. However, if our parents need help in later life, that will come out of the inheritance, and as many live for longer, that money can’t be relied on.
At 40, we can’t claim to be the worst off anymore either. Gen Z has it pretty bad, a new report confirmed last week. And mid-life women in their 50s are finding getting employment just as tough, if not tougher, highlighted by the work of former editor Stacey Duguid.
I remember my mum at 40. Even as a 10-year-old I thought she was impressive. She had a big job in the civil service, and was a single mother of two. She was adventurous and bold and able to afford to take us on train trips across the Alps for her birthday.
By contrast, I feel out of control, re-examining life, career and money decisions. The map we were given was wrong, and now I’m not sure where I am. While I reroute, I’m trying to save money, be grateful and believe people when they say good things are coming my way. Greene is hopeful: “We have no choice but to continue. I think the shift that’s happening now is that feeling has moved to questioning, creativity, and agency. No-one is going to help us. Where next, and what can we do to finally build the lives we want?”
Dunham has considered writing a “where are they now” update of Girls. I have some insights for her; they’re renting, relying too much on their Boomer parents, spending too much time on their phones, surrounded by small kids or IVF needles, trying to think about how they’ll pay their bills, let alone save for their retirement, and wondering how the hell they got here.