(Tuxedo Version)

Unprecedented problems demand unusual solutions. A couple of years ago, when my life was in total meltdown, I booked a karaoke booth, just for me. I arrived at reception, picked up the microphone (no, I only need one thanks, it's just me) and refused the cocktail list (thanks, but I'll be doing this sober), and then I went inside and cued up all my favourite tunes and belted them out all by myself for two solid hours. (Obviously, one of the songs I sang was All By Myself.) I ignored all karaoke protocols: some songs I put on then abandoned after two lines, others I sang several times (Freedom by Wham), I spent at least half an hour in a David Bowie deep dive, and towards the end I discovered that if I put on duets I could turn one of the vocals up and one down, and therefore had an extremely enjoyable stretch sharing singing duties with such luminaries as Marvin Gaye, Joe Cocker, Elton John and Diana Ross (or at least their licensed karaoke sound-alikes). Did any of them complain about me singing out of tune or hogging the mike? No they did not. Finishing up with a triumphant rendition of Goldfinger ("he loves goooooooooooold") I went back out to reception, gave them back the mike, and headed home feeling like I'd just had six months of therapy and a week in a spa.  As you probably know, for an incredibly long stretch of medical history, people believed in the humours: the four elements of your body that needed to be kept in balance for good health - black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. Black bile became associated with melancholics (sensitive, artistic types), yellow bile with cholerics (passionate and quick to anger), blood with sanguines (expressive, sociable optimists), and phelgm with phlegmatics (calm, rational, deep thinkers.) If your humours got out of whack, not only would your personality slide more alarmingly in one of these directions, but your physical health would go too, and the cure would be some god-awful combination of blood letting and purging. There is a lot to be said for two paracetemol and a lie down. Anyway, it's all hokum and has no basis in science, but lately I've been thinking that it is, nevertheless, a useful way of thinking about what's happening to all of us at the moment: our humours are completely out of balance.  As adults, most of us have more or less figured out how to live a balanced life. A certain amount of energy for work, a certain amount for play, a certain amount for family, a certain amount for friends. We have an inner gyroscope that tells us when we need to be with people, when we need to be alone, when we need to move around, when we need to be still. We know what to do when we are feeling a bit sluggish or a bit hyper. We know the impact that going on a run will have, versus taking a hot shower. Some people are perpetually off balance, whether through choice or circumstance (workaholics, people with young kids), but most of the time even they, within their extremity, have a sense of what feels about right for their reality, and have a way of restoring that when things go awry (four more hours at their desk, huge glass of wine).  A lot of the time, kids can't seem to self-regulate. We as adults often think that's because kids don't have the maturity to know how, so we will do it for them - you've got too much energy, go and have a run around in the garden. But actually, when you're a kid, you live a life that's regulated by people other than you. Somebody else decides what time you get up, what time you go to bed, what time you eat and what you eat, how much time you spend with your friends, quite possibly which friends you get to spend time with, and of course there is school, where you have to be present and attentive and hard-working every single day regardless of how you are feeling, otherwise you will get punished. Your opportunities for self-regulation are extremely limited and often forbidden (giant tantrum, seven hours on computer).  What is happening right now is a collective infantalisation, where the lockdown has taken the role of the parents or teacher telling you what you can and can't do and who you can and can't see, and many of the things that we've learned about how to balance our own humours have been taken away from us. Not only that, the things that we have come to rely on as mood medicine have taken on different qualities. Going for a run these days might feel like dodging your way through a plaguescape. Going on Twitter for some laughs becomes scrolling your way through harrowing accounts of sickness and misery. We attempt to find comfort in simulacrums of the things we can't have, only to discover that a conversation on a screen doesn't have at all the same impact of a conversation in person. We get more and more out of balance until we don't know the cure any more, we reach for the wine when what we need is the tantrum, we read a book when we should be dancing.  I'm feeling it in my body and in my mind. Anxiey attacks, grumpy moods, bursts of energy, sudden exhaustion, poor digestion, random cramps, plus my hormones have gone nuts - oh god, is this what menopause is going to be like? This morning I thought, I have to stop doing what I think I should do and spend a bit longer figuring out what I really need, because it's not going to be what I'm used to, not now that everything has changed. If I could go and spend two hours on my own in a karaoke booth I would, but I can't. Still, instead of my habitual daily yoga session earlier today, I spent forty minutes dancing to Just Dance videos on YouTube, which definitely scratched an itch (I highly recommend the Uptown Funk (Tuxedo Version) routine. Don't believe me? Just watch.) And now? It turns out that what I really need is to rewatch Bridget Jones's Diary. In my pyjamas.