1. Thinking

Always available, escaping into distracting thoughts, games and fantasies can be a great way of providing some emotional relief.

  • If you were invited onto the Desert Island Discs programme, what music, books, and possessions would you impress the audience with. And which ones would you really like to bring?
  • Think about, or write down, what you love about your friends, family, favourite celebrities and pets.
  • Do that Parisian boulevard, sitting outside a cafe, thing - people watching. Watch them wherever you happen to be - at a bus stop, walking down the high street, sitting in a PTA meeting .... Think about what they're wearing (is it like so last season?), how they're walking (not surprising with shoes/jeans/a dog like that), what their job might be (tattoo artist? croupier? embalmer?)
  • Do a mental maths puzzle, like counting backwards in 3s from 100 or 1000 (or on a bad day, 10. On a very good day, try it in 7s).
  • Or those old favourite letter puzzles, used over the decades to parry the car cry of 'are we nearly there yet?' - eg finding the name of an animal, plant, flower, type of food or country for each letter of the alphabet
  • Choose an object in the room. Examine it carefully and then write as detailed a description of it as you can, as if you were describing it to a blind person. Include everything: size, weight, texture, shape, colour, possible uses, feel, how light falls on it etc.
  • Pick an object, like a glass or a tube of toothpaste, and try to list 20 different uses for it.
  • Escape! Wherever you want to go, it's only a second away when it's in your imagination - the Costa Rican rainforest, a Zen retreat, anywhere at all in Las Vegas, a Jamaican beach. Or escape upwards by paragliding, curling up in a treehouse, hot air ballooning...

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