Emergency happiness

Antidotes for overwhelm

There are so many reasons to feel heavy at the moment.

America – Israel – Iran. Gaza. The Epstein files. The Reform party. Endless rain, mud, and dark skies. Money. Work. The future. Jim Carey(!).

I found myself drawing an imaginary line in the calendar; when it gets to X, I’ll be able to do Y, I kept telling myself. I.e. when I finish this job, I’ll kick off all my good habits and feel myself again. This includes writing, exercising, getting into a sleep routine, seeing friends and family, travelling, pursuing passions, hobbies, interests, taking courses, taking trips… an onward list full of really nice, lovely things that are on hold until I cross a fictional threshold in my mind.

The trouble is, that fictional threshold is in about a month’s time and I already feel like I am trudging along somewhat. Morning after morning, I am waking up with what is becoming a customary ball of anxiety in my chest, throat and stomach, and I had a moment of realisation: I really don’t want to spend a month like this. I don’t want to just wait it out, holding my breath until life can resume. Life is passing me by.

I needed to come up with a plan. But it had to be gentle, because I don’t have enough in the tank in this moment to summon a complete overhaul.

I made myself a cup of tea, opened my notepad, and at the top of a new page I wrote: what can I do to help myself feel better?

Here are some of the things I came up with, and I’m sharing them in case they’re of any use to you too.

• Delete social media from your phone. Delete it!! It is toxic and crap, a total time suck, and an utter mood vampire. Off, off, get it off.

• Speak to real people who love you. Talk to family, friends, and anyone who even vaguely likes you. Do it in person or on the phone, not on voice note or on text. Or with AI. Big difference. Very much worth it.

• Charge your phone out of reach at night, ideally in a different room. Physically removing it will a) stop you from keeping yourself up late watching useless shite in bed b) stop you from reaching for it as the very first thing you do each day. Win / win.

• Wake up with the 7am alarm, even on weekends. Don’t snooze it and don’t sleep in. The mornings are a really good bit of the day; it’s free time off the clock to do whatever you want. You’ll come to love what you can do in this time. And that’s not even going into how beneficial it is for your circadian rhythm.

• Get up and out of the house as the first thing you do, even if it’s only for 30 seconds. Seriously.

• Laundry. Use as many nice-smelling things as humanly possible. The house smells good, everything’s soft and ready to be worn again. JOY!

• Read instead of watching (or not-watching) TV. Are you even actually watching TV, or are you on your phone? Exactly. Try reading a book instead and enjoy the legitimate escapism. Don’t be surprised if you need to keep re-reading the same page. Your attention span has gone to shit!

• Pursue creative hobbies. Take all the pressure off – it doesn’t have to be for longer than 10 minutes at a time – pick up the ukulele, or the crochet hook, or sketch out a blog post. Little and often.

This post is me taking my own advice. Writing has been off the agenda for months and I’ve missed the community, the discipline, the self-expression and the self-exploration. I’ve had a few ideas knocking around my head and have been waiting for this month to be over before sitting down at the keyboard. I’ve enjoyed the spontaneity of sketching this out as I wait for a 45 minute timer to let me know dinner is ready, rather than waiting for life to start again when this period of time is over.

Phew! What a lovely way to spend an evening.

As I attempt to practise what I preach, I’d love to know: what are your go-to antidotes for overwhelm?