On the days that I’m feeling down, this is what I do to pull myself out of it

Recently, on a particularly drab, cold, windy day, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt stuck, sad, exhausted, overwhelmed – by everything generally and nothing specifically. All around felt grey, 50 shades of – and not the sexy kind.

Jo Stanley: “Day naps aren’t uncommon. So, too, day ice-cream, or 40 minutes spent looking for whiskers to pluck.”Credit: ISTOCK

There are beautiful words for how I felt: melancholy, malaise, ennui. And if I’d been the heroine of a Victorian novel, I would have described myself thus. I would also give myself auburn, flowing locks and a magnificent, heaving cleavage, which in themselves might pull me out of the doldrums. But as a very much 21st-century C-cup, I was too flat, too blah, too utterly without distinctive qualities to use beautiful words. So I was grey. Grey as the weather and my trackie daks.

I want to be clear: this felt a step away from crisis. This was no black dog, although the darker side of this grey might come near it. And I know anxiety well, and this wasn’t it – yet. It was simply a wallowing in the murky waters of life, in part made possible by the fact I work from home and on my own.

It’s a lifestyle conducive to moping, underpinned by procrastination. Day naps aren’t uncommon. So, too, day ice-cream, or 40 minutes spent looking for whiskers to pluck. And with nowhere to be and no one to see, there’s little reason to snap out of it.

But I know that grey days can also go with you to work or school or dinner with friends. That a faux fur coat and a too-loud laugh might mask your mood, but we all have moments when we’re managing the shades of grey. And I’m certain my grey list is no different from yours.

As I stood at the fridge for the 40th time, willing cake to miraculously appear, it took all my strength not to just go to bed.

JO STANLEY

There’s the churning grey of life’s hardest parts. Sickness, loss, financial distress – of yours or your loved ones. The challenges that are as unmovable and bleak as a thunder cloud. On its own, this grey is hard. Then add the dishwater grey of never-ending housework. Constant “What’s for dinner?” and “Where’s my … ?” questions that make me want to scream. The ice grey of a bitter Melbourne winter, which turns you to stone. And the grey pallor of life weariness that comes with modern-day living. Hours in traffic, long working days, password fatigue.

This grey day my email account inexplicably stopped receiving emails, I’m guessing because it had decided to ruin my life. The overwhelmingness of it all was as heavy as concrete. As I stood at the fridge for the 40th time, willing cake to miraculously appear because you can’t eat your feelings with carrots, it took all my strength not to just go to bed.

Instead, I had a stern chat with myself. It’s a pep talk I’m practised at, because morose is a familiar feeling for me. If I’m neglectful of my own mental maintenance, it settles upon me semi-regularly, like dust on a bookshelf.

So I knew I had two choices. One: surrender to the grey with a big box of tissues and Adele on repeat. It’s a perfectly valid option, as sometimes you’ve just got to make space to feel the feelings. To hold the wounded, scared part of you in your heart and tell her it’s going to be okay. Because it is. Or two: just do one thing. One thing to shift just a tiny part of me. One thing is often all I can manage, but one thing is all you need. Because after that one thing, you can do another one thing. Until the stuck becomes unstuck.

I have a list of things pinned above my desk of things I sometimes forget to do when I’m in the grey. Meditate. Journal. Run. Walk the dog. Stretch. Sing Sia. Together they’re the daily routine of a smug and unrealistically positive influencer. Separately, though, they’re entirely possible.

Cleanse my face. Eat an orange. Look at that colour! Seek out colour. Even the nuance of grey, from elephants to mushrooms to marble to my daughter’s eyes. Gratitude and wonder often sit in the minutiae. Sit outside. Too hard? Just step outside then. Break the hard things into even smaller things. Online yoga? Not today. But I can do just one downward dog. And then one plank. And then the next downward dog. And then that’s three things I’ve done, until bit by bit I feel better.

This isn’t a self-help book, so I won’t suggest doing one thing is a cure for all ills. I’m not saying the grey day will turn to rainbows. Sometimes it does, or the next day it might, or sometimes the grey will linger. But the triumph is in the trying. It might make for a terrible romance novel, but I call it heroic.

Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.