In 2016 I worked for someone who was unpredictable in a way that made every day feel uncertain. I never quite knew what version of him I was going to get. I started keeping a record of conversations and decisions so I would have something to refer back to if anything became disputed later. I did not want to keep a paper diary because anyone could read it and I would probably have lost it anyway, so I used an app instead. At first it was just protection. Later it became something else entirely. When I walked out of that job due to my boss being too much for too long, the journal mattered. I had a record. More importantly, I had a timeline. After that I began using it differently. I started noticing patterns in my mood. I could see what triggered difficult periods and what helped me recover from them. Off an on for 10 years and everyday for the last 3 years. It has become one of the most useful habits I have. Journaling is not complicated. It is just a place to put things when they are too noisy to keep in your head. Research supports this. Expressive writing has been linked with reductions in symptoms of anxiety and depression in multiple studies, including work published in the Journal of Affective Disorders examining structured writing exercises over several weeks. Example review evidence: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15094266/ Getting Things Out of Your Head Writing things down changes how they sit in your mind. Thoughts that feel overwhelming when they stay internal often become clearer once they are on the page. They stop looping in the same way. You can look at them instead of being inside them. It does not need to be structured. It does not need to make sense to anyone else. It just needs to be honest. Spotting Patterns Over time a journal becomes a record. You start seeing what affects your mood. Certain conversations. Certain environments. Sleep. Exercise. Stress. Isolation. Digital mood tracking research suggests that people who record emotional patterns are more likely to adjust behaviour in ways that support mental health.

In 2003, I went to my first Jujitsu class. I had been playing rugby for 15 years as a second row. My job was either to smash into people with the ball in my hands or smash people who had the ball in theirs. Not exactly a role that prioritised flexibility. At the time, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu had not reached my area yet, so I started with traditional Jujitsu. I was bigger and stronger than most of my training partners and enjoyed the physical side of sparring, but I kept losing matches because I was so stiff. My joints felt like boards. Even light submission pressure forced me to tap. It was frustrating. Then I came across a book called Real Men Do Yoga by John Capouya. If you think yoga is only for the ultra spiritual or not for men, this book makes a strong case otherwise. Through interviews with professional athletes and practical routines, it explains how yoga improves strength, flexibility, endurance, and focus. It also helps prevent injuries and manage stress. If you train in any sport, it is worth reading. I genuinely enjoyed yoga from the start. I had done stretching in rugby before, but yoga felt different. Deeper. At first I struggled because I was so stiff, but my flexibility improved faster than it ever had with traditional training. My strength improved because I could move through a better range. My recovery improved. My breathing improved. But the biggest change was mental. The Power of the Present Moment For years I dismissed mindfulness as nonsense. Learning to stay present turned out to be one of the most useful skills I have ever learned. Someone once explained meditation to me like this. Imagine you are standing beside a busy road. The cars are your thoughts. Your job is not to stop the traffic. Your job is to watch it pass. When you try to control your thoughts, it is like stepping into the road. Everything gets louder and more chaotic. Meditation is not about having no thoughts. It is about not getting pulled along by them. The same applies in everyday life. At work. In sport. During stressful moments.

In The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene tells the story of an ancient warrior who trained his soldiers by taking them out to sea and forcing them to fight in deep water. The lesson was simple. Learn to be comfortable with drowning. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is a lot like that. It constantly puts you in situations where you feel like you are drowning. Pinned under someone heavier. Caught in a choke. Exhausted but still expected to move.At first you panic. Every instinct tells you to thrash and fight your way out. But the more you struggle, the worse it gets. Then something shifts. You stop panicking. You slow your breathing. You think. And suddenly you realise that if you relax, you can survive. You can find an escape. Eventually you can even learn to enjoy the chaos. That is why BJJ is more than just a sport. It is a system for dealing with pressure, both on the mats and in life. It teaches you to stay calm when things feel overwhelming. A Community of Weirdos BJJ attracts a particular kind of person. It is not a mainstream sport, and that is part of its charm. You will meet computer programmers. Bartenders. Ex military. Artists. People who would never cross paths anywhere else. There are no flashy uniforms. No big money prizes. Just a bunch of people trying to strangle each other and laughing about it afterwards. To outsiders it probably looks ridiculous. Try explaining to someone that you spend your evenings letting people sit on your chest and twist your joints the wrong way. You will get some strange looks. But inside the gym it feels different. For many people it becomes a sanctuary. One of the few places where ego disappears quickly. Getting Your Ego Smashed If you think you are strong, BJJ will humble you. If you think you are fast, it will slow you down. It does not matter how big, fit, or young you are. On the mats, technique beats everything. In your first year you will lose. A lot. You will be dominated by people half your size. You will tap constantly. Sometimes to the same move again and again.

I think of philosophy in simple terms: a gym for your mind. Thought experiments like the Ship of Theseus or Plato’s cave force you to turn inward and work through difficult questions. They slow you down. They pull you away from the constant noise of media, advertising, and distraction. The word philosophy comes from the Greek philo (love) and sophia (wisdom). That’s worth sitting with for a moment. Philosophy isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about loving the act of questioning. In a world that often feels unkind or overwhelming, philosophy can be a quiet companion. A lantern in the fog. It doesn’t illuminate everything, but sometimes seeing a few feet ahead is enough. Contrary to what many assume, philosophy isn’t reserved for dusty libraries or ancient bearded men in robes. It’s a way of approaching the world. It’s the instinct to ask why when something feels hollow. It’s the question that wakes you at 3 a.m.: does any of this matter? Philosophy isn’t about mastering a syllabus of ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, or logic. It’s about exploring them. It’s about poking the universe to see what pokes back. When you begin engaging with philosophy, your mind stops feeling like a prison and starts feeling more like a landscape. Complicated. Uneven. Sometimes uncomfortable. But worth wandering through. Some therapeutic approaches influenced by philosophical traditions also appear to help people reflect on meaning, purpose, and suffering. Small studies of philosophy-based approaches such as logic-based therapy or logotherapy have found reductions in anxiety or depressive symptoms in certain groups, although the research base is much smaller than for established therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Sources: Cohen et al., 2024; Chand, 2023. Try it yourself for a moment. Sit still. Say nothing. Ask: What can I truly know? What is a good life? If nothing ultimately matters, does that make everything meaningless, or infinitely meaningful?

Some books helped me understand my depression. Some were just for the joy. I see reading like a diet you have to have somethings that are hard to digest but good for you in the long run. Others, you can pick up and snack on and some are just a bit self indulgent but they all give you some sort of nutrition of the soul likes literal version of a cheesecake. . Not every book that helps has to be about mental health. Sometimes a novel about war, a graphic novel about flawed superheroes, or a story about working class history can shift something inside you. It’s not about self-help. It’s about self-understanding. These books did that for me. Lost Connections by Johann Hari This book completely changed how I thought about depression. Hari questions the idea that depression is just a chemical imbalance and instead looks at disconnection. Loneliness. Loss of meaning. Lack of community. It never feels preachy. It feels human. It helped me stop seeing myself as broken and start seeing how much of this struggle is shaped by the world we live in. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr Julie Smith This feels like advice from a calm, sensible friend who also happens to be a clinical psychologist. It’s practical without being clinical. You can read a few pages and walk away with something useful. It helped me build small daily habits when bigger goals felt impossible. The Chimp Paradox by Dr Steve Peters This book helped me stop hating myself for having a brain that sometimes feels out of control. Peters explains the emotional part of the brain in a way that makes sense without dumbing it down. Understanding this helped me work with my thoughts instead of constantly fighting them. The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger I read this as an adult and found it heartbreakingly accurate. Holden’s grief, confusion, anger, and alienation mirrored parts of myself I hadn’t looked at properly in years. It reminded me that feeling lost doesn’t make you weak and it doesn’t make you alone.