1. Pretox

According to Dr John Briffa, we're never going to go an entire month on wheat grass and whole foods alone. Much better to pretox - balance the bad we do to our bodies with pre-emptive nutrients and compensatory behaviour. Here are the basics.

Drink vodka: Some alcohols are purer than others. Vodka is, relatively speaking, a pure spirit, when compared with port or cheaper red wines. So if you drink, drink this. The herb milk thistle, meanwhile, protects and stimulates the liver - 500mg taken even a few hours before a night out will help.

Drink water: It's best to build up to significant water consumption gradually over a few days. If you're not used to consuming large amounts, your body won't retain it - building up to two litres gradually over a week will help your body rehydrate effectively.

Eat the right fat: The fat we get from untainted, unprocessed food is the least toxic for our liver. Even if additive-free meals do have fat in them, it's the kind of fat that your body knows how to deal with.

Get sleep: There's something in the theory that the body naturally detoxes at night. That's why we go to bed with clear skin, and then wake up with a spot. Therefore it follows that if you're not sleeping adequately, you're not detoxing adequately. Also, when we're asleep, we don't have the opportunity to drink too much or eat the wrong foods.

2. Find a good therapist

Dorothy Rowe, psychologist and author of Beyond Fear, explains how you can spot a good and bad therapist at 20 paces.

There are those therapists who will listen to you uncritically forever, especially if you're paying them a large whack. It's very easy to keep someone in therapy saying 'Oh, poor you', and coming up with another terrible thing that your wicked relatives did to you in your childhood. A bad therapist will keep you from growing up.

A good therapist knows about timing. They will make you feel like you can cope. Without terrifying you, without doing it too early. They won't make you feel like you'll need help for ages for all your fundamentally insoluble problems.

When you're looking for a therapist, ask them about their qualifications and theory. If they won't tell you, if they ask you why you want to know, get out of there. That means they're an analyst; they are trained not to answer questions about themselves. And while there are some very good analysts out there, a ban on small talk will make the sessions very nerve wracking.

A good therapist should have a sense of humour.

A good therapist will make you feel like you're in a safe place, with a safe person.

The British Psychological Society has a directory of chartered psychologists working in the UK. Visit www.bps.org.uk.

3. Stop dieting

After years in thrall to diets, we're finally realising that they don't work. Paul McKenna, hypnotist and creator of a very successful weight-loss programme, explains that the best way to get slim is to eat.

I'm not on a moral crusade to make the world thin, but I am interested in helping overweight people who are unhappy about their size, and also in exposing the diet industry con for what it is. I teach an incredibly simply three-step plan, which I call 'The Secrets of Naturally Slim People'. My clients can't believe it's so straightforward.

Step one: when you are hungry, eat. I don't mind what you eat. Obviously, it's better if it's low in sugar and fat, and unprocessed, but it's not crucial. In fact, it's more important that you eat what you want, not what you think you should eat. If you deny yourself, or you're hungry and you don't eat, your body will think it's in starvation mode, and will store fat when you finally do eat.

Step two: over-chew each and every mouthful. Savour it. Often, overweight people shovel food in - they don't taste it, they get the serotonin high we get when our bodies are engaged in survival activity, but the act of shovelling it in again deceives the body into thinking it's in famine mode.

Step three: when you feel full, stop. Ignore the fact that our culture believes we should waste not, want not. The fact that you are savouring rather than shovelling will make it much easier for you to hear the full signal your stomach will send you.

Contact Paul McKenna training on 0845 230 2022 or go to www.paulmckenna.com.

4. Be Quirkyalone

According to a new book, being single is about more than the constant search for a mate.

Renounce the blind date, 'resist the tyranny of coupledom,' reject this year's husband-luring work, The Program, and anything else that encourages the idea that you should abandon all your free time in panicky pursuit of a relationship. This is Sasha Cagen's manifesto, a life policy explored more thoroughly in her book, Quirkyalone, (published later this year). 'I think the era of the pitied single is out,' says Ms Cagen, who is 'certainly not anti-love, and even more vehemently not anti-sex', but merely 'anti-dull relationships'. 'It's about trusting yourself and respecting yourself despite the onslaught of subtle and not-so-subtle messages that there's something wrong with you if you're not dating.'

The quirkyalone lifestyle is not about resigning yourself to a life lived completely on your own. Quirkyalones, Cagen explains, can find each other and be quirkytogether. 'For the quirkyalone, it would be better to be untethered and open to possibility, living for the exhilaration of meeting someone new. We seek momentous meetings.'

Cagen's website is the basis for quirkyalone, and features a deeply satisfying quiz to discover your quirkyalone rating.

5. Look better without Botox

Facials - when done properly - are the clever woman's answer to facelifts and the crafty woman's supplement to them.

A good facial will have you falling asleep midway between exfoliating scrubs, says Kathleen Baird-Murray, author of How to Be Beautiful: The Thinking Woman's Guide - but a truly great facial gets you compliments. Get on the waiting lists of three of the very best in the UK: Deborah Mitchell reads your aura to establish what you really need, before moving on to lymph drainage and aromatherapy. Jackie Denholm-Moore (£125, 020 7730 2322) is fantastic for a good cleanse and a quick lift. Ewa Berkmann at Claridges (from £90, 020 7409 6565) is brilliant at attacking acne-ridden complexions.

Or go for an extreme facials This is where cosmetic surgery and treatments meet. Shenaz Shariff does incredible, pioneering things with light therapy at her Harley Street Face and Body Clinic (020 7436 3936). Maureen Gillander's Body and Skin Care Clinic, (22 Seymour Street, London, 0701 0707 310) offers Bioskin Las delicate peeling, using a fine jet of micro-crystals, which makes you look like you've just been on a 10-mile hike in very fresh air.

Or facial work-outs Noel Kingsley, lauded practitioner of the Alexander Technique, lays his hands on relevant muscles and, through a combination of very subtle massage, muscular suggestion and an almost hypnotic spiel, gently releases the tension within them, to relieve headaches, neck and jaw aches, and general stress. 'Frowns and wrinkles are released, so we have a more open expression,' he explains, and clients rave about the youthful results gained after just one session.

Jon Sandifer, meanwhile, is the country's leading pioneer in face yoga. Like Kingsley, he argues that removing tension from the face will reduce the appearance of wrinkles. He recommends the following exercises, which should be performed after you've dotted moisturiser around the relevant area.

The bridge (which helps wrinkles in between the eyebrows) Place your fingers on each side of your nose and gently rotate them in small circles, down along the length of it, and then back up. Breathe in as you rotate the fingers down, and then out as you move the fingers back up. Repeat four times.

The snake (for a fallen chin) With flat fingers, flick your chin from underneath with each hand in turn, breathing in and out deeply. Then, using small movements, rotate the fingertips along the jaw-line and back to the chin, breathing out as your fingers move up towards your ears, and in as you rotate them to the chin. Repeat eight times.

Sessions with Noel Kingsley last around 45 minutes and cost £65. Call 020 7491 3505 or visit www.alexander-technique.com. Read more about Jon Sandifer's work on face reading, feng shui and face yoga at www.fengshui.co.uk.

6. Redesign your home

Learn how to make the most of your home.

The Design School in London's Queens Park, is running a series of courses and workshops that could change your home, if not your life. You can learn how to mix and match colours; how to source materials like they do in the trade; what to do with them; and how to transform a room with lighting. The courses are run by respected, practising designers such as lighting designer Jayne Fisher, who will teach you how to set the perfect mood, and Cheryl Knorr, who, as writer of The House and Garden Book of Essential Addresses, knows just about everything there is to know about the world of interiors. Both will happily pass on their trade secrets, and the school will even advise you on changing careers if you want to take your newfound knowledge further. Start with the Interior Design Starter, which is a one-day introduction course. The £95 fee will be refunded if you sign up for further studies.

The London Design School, 22 Lonsdale Road, Queens Park, London NW6 (020 7372 2811).

7. Give more

www.justgiving.com is changing the face of charity, with a one-stop option on fundraising.

Justgiving.com is an internet site that allows you to virtually one-click donations to any of the 450 subscribing charities, and also to launch or to sponsor individual charitable endeavours. 'You can build your own page, describing what you're doing and who you're doing it for, in literally five clicks,' explains Zarine Kharas, company director. 'You then email the link to 50 friends, and you can make two and a half grand in days.' Two and a half grand that justgiving.com will collect for you once you've completed your marathon run/parachute jump/ whatever, and dispatch to your chosen charity. The company charges 5 per cent for its services, 'compared with the estimated 25 to 30 per cent cost of fundraising that charities incur on a good day, 90 per cent if you're talking about an awards ceremony,' says Kharas, and is particularly adept at picking up Gift Aid Tax.

This Christmas, it launched a charity gift voucher system - 'Exactly what you want to give to people who already have everything,' says Kharas.

8. Cancel your private gym membership

Refurbished and renovated to luxe health club standard, many local gyms are luring people away from the expensive, restrictive contracts of private sports clubs. We profile three of Britain's best.

The Riverside Swimming Centre, Norwich: The gyms here are organised by Harpers, which runs over 80 local-authority gyms across the country, and are full of up-to-date cardiovascular equipment and often cardio theatres (supplied by the same companies who supply private centres). Lynette Eaborne, marketing director for Leisure Connection,says, 'We try to be more accessible and less intimidating; it's not just the beautiful lipstick and Lycra brigade. We're trying to attract a broader market.'

The Guildford Spectrum, Surrey: Boasts a cardio theatre with views over the athletics track. Also received a Quest achievement award of 85 per cent, the highest score awarded to a leisure complex in the UK. If you fancy some cross-training there's also martial arts, swimming clubs and an ice rink.

The Porchester, London: Following a massive refurbishment, the Porchester is in excellent shape. General manager Gareth Jenkins is the perfect person to assess the public vs private situation, having come from the Schrager-designed Sanderson. 'The main difference now is the pricing structure. To be honest, the facilities are very similar.' Monthly fees range from £19 for a swim membership to £43 full use, and you won't be tied into a contract. Westminster residents get a further discount. As well as a famous spa, the Porchester also has brand new changing facilities.

10. Subscribe to Think

A philosophy magazine addresses the big questions, with pithy articles written by key academics.

'Most of us can easily drift through life without taking a step back, or asking ourselves some of the bigger moral questions,' says Dr Stephen Law, editor of Think and author of The Philosophy Files. 'We all have a duty to ask ourselves searching questions every now and then. Two hundred years ago, in some places most people thought slavery was morally acceptable, for example.'

Think grew out of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, which already published an academic journal, but felt it was time to launch something aimed at the general public. 'If you look in a typical issue, you'll find us addressing the questions,' says Law. 'Should we allow designer babies? What's wrong with gay sex? And, Does God exist?'

'There's been research done recently in Australian schools, exposing underachieving children to philosophy,' says Law. When they were tested later on, they were outperforming other children across the curriculum. There's been a similar pilot programme in Scotland and the results are very impressive.'

Subscriptions: 01442 879 097.

10. Make money

We can all, apparently, be rich beyond our wildest dreams. Robert Kiyosaki, self-styled personal wealth guru, author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book series, reveals what it is 'that the rich tell their kids about money that the poor and middle-class do not'.

While capital growth may be important, cash-flow - or regular income - is king. Learn to understand the difference between an asset and a liability, and invest accordingly. Assets put money into your pocket every month. Liabilities do the opposite.

Investment property, such as a buy-to-let home in a bankable location, is good, because it can produce steady long-term rental income in excess of the cost of owning and maintaining the property. Your home, however, drains you of utility, mortgage, maintenance and other bills each month. When people tell you that your home is a big asset, they are not lying to you. They just aren't telling you whose asset it is. If you have a mortgage, it's the bank's asset.

Become less dependent on being an employee, and get more financially literate about things like investing in real-estate property or businesses. You may be able to start a business or an investment on the side that generates additional income each month. Start small and make some mistakes.

You don't necessarily need to start with your own money to make money, and can borrow (often known as leverage), but you need to know the difference between good debt (eg a mortgage that is of the right size on a solid rental property) and bad debt (eg borrowing money to buy shares). There's no insurance against collapsing shares, and it's very difficult to use them as collateral on a loan.

Visit www.richdad.com.

11. Mentor a child

Chance UK is looking for volunteers to spend a few hours a week working with children with behavioural difficulties. Akin Ojumu mentored Richard, aged 8, for a year.

It used to make me smile when people asked how I spent my day off. I might have been rowing in Regent's Park, scurrying around the Science Museum, or playing snakes and ladders at my local library. Much less taxing than being a parent, mentoring was a challenging, a rewarding way to stretch myself and, hopefully, make a difference.

Once a week, I took Richard, who was originally referred to the scheme because he was struggling to fit in at school, out and about in London. Despite the 20-year age gap, we formed a good friendship. I showed him how to take a free kick and use a pair of oars; he taught me how to dive to the bottom of the swimming pool, and once in a while we'd talk about serious stuff. It took a few months to win his trust, mainly through listening and setting boundaries, but my Monday afternoon sessions eventually became one of the highlights of my week. When Richard graduated from the scheme last April, I felt more nervous and proud than when I collected my own degree.

Visit www.chanceuk.org or www.friendsunitednetworkuk.com.