Look out for number one! Selfish self-help books are booming – but will they improve your life?

According to my research (tapping through Instagram stories), the most self-absorbed people you know love to declare they are “finally putting themselves first”!

Can you really blame them? As Zoe Williams writes, many of the best-selling self-help books of the past few years have shared a similar message: “the idea that you help yourself by only looking out for number one”.

Williams bravely read several of these books, including Mel Robbins’ the Let Them Theory, Fawning by Dr Ingrid Clayton, and the Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson. The books vary in quality – “from the smart and well researched to the less smart”, Williams writes – but each gives readers permission to “live their best, Ayn Randian life, one in which your only moral purpose is your own happiness”.

One problem: hyper-focusing on your own happiness is unlikely to make you happy. Most studies show the exact opposite, says Laurie Santos, professor of psychology at Yale University. “Becoming other-oriented boosts our mood and gives us a sense of purpose,” Santos says.

Or as psychotherapist and Zen priest Manu Bazzano put it: “The measure of mental health in a person is the degree of their interest in others.”

So maybe try giving a f*ck?

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Few things are as simple and as complicated as sleep. Well Actually’s The secrets of sleep series takes an exhaustive (pun intended, sorry!) look at it. Do you wake up at 3am and then can’t get back to sleep? Or do you grind your teeth at night? Why do pets sleep so much? And this week, I examined a topic near and dear to me: pillows.

People often choose the wrong pillow because they focus on how it feels rather than their sleep style, experts say. The best pillow is whichever one keeps the head and neck aligned with the spine. Here are the guidelines for:

• Back sleepers: Find a pillow soft enough that the chin is not touching the neck, and add another pillow under the knees to support the lower back.
• Side sleepers: Use a medium-firm pillow, and place a pillow in between the knees to keep the hips and back in line.
• Front sleepers: Experts recommend not sleeping on your front.

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A reader tells Eleanor Gordon-Smith they feel torn between their siblings and their parents. Their brother and sister say they “had a terrible childhood”. But the reader feels their parents tried their best and have tried to make amends. This type of conflict can feel intractable because each party is judging on a distinct set of criteria, Gordon-Smith says. The trick is not to dispute events, but to say “you’re allowed to weigh them differently,” she says.

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Modern dating has its own vocabulary. There’s ghosting, bread crumbing, situationships, and now, “chatfishing” – using AI to improve your conversations on dating apps. Alexandra Jones spoke to several chatfishers, some of whom said ChatGPT helped them craft thoughtful answers when they were busy. Others said their AI use quickly slipped into dependence. Those at the receiving end often feel bamboozled. One woman said she was “ChatGPT’d into bed”. Experts say AI will only take you so far. You have to “find if you have chemistry”, says dating guru Paul Brunson. “And no algorithm can do that part for us.”

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