How to fight the bleurgh

It's a bleak time, winter is coming and that grouchy, gloomy, heavy feeling I call the 'bleurgh' is circulating as quickly as the common cold - here are the things to do to fight it...

Is anyone having a good time at the moment? Is anyone you know fantastically happy right now? I can think of only one person in my life who, newly in love, is floating around on a cloud of bliss. Pretty much everyone else is just trudging on, getting through the days, hoping things will improve. 

It is not a good time. I'm not going to add my voice to the commentary on the pain and suffering we are seeing on the news every day (because my voice would not add anything and sometimes it's time to zip your lip and listen instead of pontificating), but needless to say events around the world over the last two weeks have been heartbreaking and terrifying. 

Back home, the economic outlook is bleak, the cost of living crisis shows no sign of leaving town, the AI machine monsters are coming for all the jobs, the government is stale, uninspired and hopelessly out of touch, and, with the arrival of soggy old Storm Babet, it feels like we are being jolted into winter.

I've felt low this week and, of course, instead of doing all the things I know will help me feel better, I've done the things guaranteed to make me feel worse. Instead of getting off my phone and prioritising my sleep, I've been scrolling into the early hours. Instead of cooking myself nutritious meals full of veggies, I've been reaching for the crisps and chocolate. Instead of going for blustery walks to blow the cobwebs away, I've spent far too much time rotting indoors. 

All in all, I've been feeling bleurgh. I often do around this time of year. I can get on board with autumnal days - chill in the air, blue skies, leaves turning a crinkly brown - but the approach of true winter fills me with despair every damn year.

The bleurgh is not depression - thank God - but I believe it’s a cousin of the awful D. It’s a grouchy, gloomy, heavy feeling. So just in case you too have the bleurgh (a survey of my friends suggests the bleurgh is most definitely upon us and catching), here is my list of things that have been scientifically proven (probably) to fight it. None of what follows is groundbreaking - turns out boring old common sense applies urgh - but these are the things I’m going to do in the next few weeks to tackle the bleurgh…

COOK (SOUPS AND SCONES)

My dearest friend considers cooking an act of self care. He tells me that he feels like he has his shit together when he is cooking for himself regularly. I think it's both the act of taking time to prepare himself a meal and the fact that the meal he cooks for himself will not contain all the nasties that takeaways and instant food are likely to have. Nigella Lawson once said that she found the mindless repetition of cooking meditative and therapeutic. Sadly I don't think I've ever hummed with inner peace while chopping an onion but I definitely feel very virtuous when I rustle up something from scratch instead of just dumping a packet of tortellini into a pan of boiling water. But cooking for me is mainly beneficial because it ensures I eat the good stuff - the dark green vegetables, the protein etc - which I know makes me feel better in the long run. 

La Nigella said that she found the mindless repetition of cooking therapeutic

Yesterday, in Suffolk - I fled to my parents' place thinking that if I left London, I'd leave the bleurgh behind me; this was a rookie mistake - my mum and I made spinach soup (surprisingly delicious when made with cream and chicken stock and plenty of salt and pepper) and cheese scones, from scratch. I cannot tell you the sense of satisfaction I received from sieving flour and baking powder into a bowl, rubbing in cubes of butter, mixing in grated cheese, patting it all into a hunk of dough, rolling cute little circles out of that dough, sliding them into an oven and, in a matter of mere moments, pulling out delicious puffy golden fluffy scones. 

So I'm making a resolution to cook far more when I go back to London and soups are top of the agenda. I want to make warming bowls of lentil, mushroom and french onion soup (yum) - big welcoming pots that will be fabulously cheap, ward off winter nights, and fill my body with nutritious goodness. I also plan to make scones for friends just because I think making a scone from scratch is possibly the most impressive yet nonchalant thing you can do in a kitchen.  

READ A GOOD BOOK (WATCH A GOOD MOVIE AT A PUSH) 

Reading is good for the soul for a whole host of reasons - it broadens the mind, teaches empathy, opens up the world, delights and entertains but more and more, I think the main benefit of reading is helping me reverse some of the damage my iPhone, the internet and social media networks have done to my attention span and the way my mind works. Tucking up in bed over successive nights with a book I enjoy undoubtedly improves my mental state. Simply falling asleep after putting down a book instead of to the strains of a Youtube video has got to be key in fighting the bleurgh. 

A word of caution though: be careful what book you pick up when feeling bleurgh. A safe bet might be to return to an old favourite, for me that could be a Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice or Emma), I Capture The Castle, an Agatha Christie because you can't beat a top drawer Agatha, or I have been feeling a niggling desire to reread Rebecca or The Secret History lately. But there are books I wouldn't touch during a bleurgh period and top amongst them is The Bell Jar. This book is an absolute barnstorming masterpiece from Sylvia Plath but it's also a book about depression so convincingly narrated that by the end, well if you were feeling even a little iffy when you picked the book up, The Bell Jar will tip you right over the edge. 

As for movies, I do not think two hours of watching a film is as good for the head and the heart as reading a book over several days but I do think a truly great movie can help fight the bleurgh. At this time of year I always have a hankering to watch Nora Ephron's finest. You've Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally were made to be watched and enjoyed in the wintry months. 

You’ve Got Mail is essential autumn/winter viewing

DELETE SOCIAL MEDIA APPS OFF YOUR PHONE 

Argh, I haven't done this. I spend way way way too much time on Instagram and yet, I don't want to come off it completely. I do see the benefits of Mark Zuckerburg's app - it keeps me in the loop with what is going on in the lives of the people I know, it helps me stay in touch with friends who live in other parts of the world and I genuinely enjoy sharing aspects of my life on that app and interacting with people on it. But I still hate the amount of time it sucks up, what it does to my head when I spend too much time on it. I'll lose an hour scrolling and it leaves me feeling jealous, disgruntled, like I'm missing out and irritable. And when I am feeling bleurgh, the time I spend on Instagram shoots up. 

But deleting my whole account feels draconian and, like I said, there are things I like and would miss about Instagram. So instead I've been inspired by the writer Pandora Sykes's method of dealing with social media apps. In this brilliant substack about how she finds time to be a voracious reader with a full-on job and two children, she revealed she doesn't keep the gram on her phone.

'I do not keep social media apps on my phone, not because I am holier than thou, but because it makes me a jittery mess and I hate the time it eats. That saves me, say, 30 mins a day? (That's a conservative estimate, I'd hazard).'

My God, I wish I only spent 30 mins a day on social media. Anyhoo, I'm going to do a Pandora and delete the app from my phone and see how I get on. 

LEARN SOMETHING NEW 

I think the bleurgh is a close relative of ennui and I certainly have grown bored of feeling like the only things I do in my social life are go out for dinner, coffee or drinks. This is very boring! I miss feeling energised about learning something new. As one of my best friends told me tonight: 'I've realised I need to find my passion in life.' Now, I'm not going that far - sadly in my experience passion cannot be found - but I am keen to pursue something beyond my ken, learn something new, flex some muscles that I didn't even know existed and so... I've signed up for a sewing class. 

I love clothes and I'd love to be able to make a skirt, say, and a cushion cover, maybe even a cute lampshade that would look like those hideously expensive but ever so grandma chic Alice Palmer ones. Also, I think there's something to be said for doing something with your hands. So much of my work is linked to thinking that I like the idea of doing something creative but manual that allows me to just switch off.

These are the silly, frilly, adorable Alice Palmer lampshades I’d love to make

EXERCISE 

Oh how very annoying that all those well-meaning goons were right when they said exercise helped your mental health. In some ways, I wish this wasn't true - it just feels so bloody predictable and irritating that moving your body on a regular basis does indeed boost your mood. And yet, when I'm grumpy and grouchy and all of life seems to have gone wrong, nothing hits the spot like walking to my yoga studio - which is a beautiful space of wooden floorboards and massive warehouse-style windows - and flowing through a vinyasa class where, when it's really good, all my grumbly thoughts and complaints empty out my head for 75 minutes as I simply follow the teacher's instructions to move from warrior two, through chatarunga into downward facing dog. 

Obviously the exercise doesn't have to be yoga. You just need to find an exercise you can not only stand but actively enjoy. I dream of being a runner but every time I've run, I just hate it. And yet yoga, even after years of going regularly, still feels like a treat. I might not adore every single moment in class but I enjoy most of them and my God, I love the feeling afterwards. 

Back when I was a full on yogi with a certificate to prove it

HANG OUT WITH ADORABLE CHILDREN OR PET AN ANIMAL 

I used to work at this newspaper which had a gym on site and one morning I found myself in the changing rooms with a high-flier of an editor who worked long hours and shouldered responsibility for quite a major section. We made some awkward smalltalk about the importance of exercise and she went on tell me something that has stayed with me. She said that while having a consuming job was a privilege, it was important to 'unplug' from it and one way to do this was to spend time around little children or animals. 

Crawling across the floor with my nephew Huw, pushing a model of a New York taxi and declaring that it's on its way to Uncle Alex's house, not only brings me joy but forces me to live in that moment and forget the petty stresses and crises going on in my life. I've not been far from my dog Sadie for the last two days. In fact, as I write this, she lies at the end of the bed, snoring loudly. Just having her nearby has eased the bleurgh this past weekend. And the science backs it up! According to a quick Google, playing with a pet can elevate levels of serotonin and dopamine, which calm and relax.

BOOK SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO 

Is this the trick to life? Always having something in the diary that you can gaze at like an oasis in the desert, that one gleaming fun thing to look forward to? I suspect so. The obvious example is a holiday. But if, like me, you are too broke to book one right now, you might need to get inventive. Here are two of mine for inspiration: my friend's 40th birthday party in a fuck-off country mansion where we'll all play murder mystery games and getting my Christmas decorations (all free and pink as they are leftovers from this ridiculous story) out of the loft and decking my home for (an admittedly quite bizarre looking) Christmas. Having some things booked in to look forward to goes a long way to diminishing the bleurgh. 

TALK, PREFERABLY LAUGH, WITH A FRIEND 

We all know this helps. 'A problem shared is a problem halved' is the saying that comes to mind. I have one dear friend in particular who I always call when I'm battling the bleurgh and worse. This friend received endless teary FaceTimes from me during lockdown. She is the first person I want to talk to whenever I am beset with the bleurgh. And here’s why: I don’t know how it happens but I always ends up roaring with laughter when I call her in distress. Nothing cheers me more than hooting down the phone with her. This I think is key to tackling the bleurgh - you must laugh at it. It reminds me of the boggart in Harry Potter, a monster that took on the shape of whatever the person who encountered it feared the most and the only way to defeat it was to laugh at it. A good sense of humour is an essential tool to banishing the bleurgh.