Finding Comfort in this Harrowing Time

Spring 2019
This list will be updated when the mood strikes. Please feel free to send in your own suggestions to the email link at the bottom.

Take slow, deep breaths.

Listen to “Eroica” (Symphony No. 3) by Ludwig van Beethoven, “Become Ocean” by Luther Adams or choral music by Morten Lauridsen.

Take a warm bath while drinking a glass of wine and doing a crossword puzzle or Sudoku.

Raid the cookie jar.

Put your feet up and have a leisurely cup of herbal tea.

Go for a walk, a hike, an overnight camping trip under the stars.

Read Marcus Aurelius (gets characters as diverse as V.S. Naipaul’s Mr. Biswas and Donna Leon’s Brunetti through the rough times).

Take a break from the TV and the computer. Get offline.

Light some candles.

Rub your feet over a golf ball.

Squeeze a stress ball.

Read mysteries by Donna Leon or Tony Hillerman to help you sleep.

Go for a swim.

Relax in a hot tub.

Go for a sail, leaving land and everything on it behind.

Watch a meaningless (no team you care about) ballgame.

Watch the moon rise and the stars come out.

Go fishing.

Read to a child.

Draw/Knit/Paint (worked for Churchill).

Dance with your partner.

Watch the Netflix presentation of the BBC’s “Death in Paradise,” fun and guaranteed to put you to sleep in 15 minutes.

Garden.

Laugh.

Cut dovetails by hand.

Stomp in puddles.

Read New Yorker cartoons.

Enjoy a foot bath.

Tip over the table, chairs, and all the dishes and walk away.

Pour yourself a glass of the “good stuff.”

Pet an animal.

Watch “The Great British Baking Show.”

Do a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of the web of dark money.

Take a walk, scuff the leaves, and helicopter the maple seeds.

Hug someone you love.

Sit in the warm sun of autumn.

Bicycle to your favorite viewpoint.

Have a cappuccino.

Do something nice for someone else.

Do what you can while you can and then sleep well.

Keep your chin up and remember the long game.