It’s only in the last decade really that I have settled on ways to manage my bipolar effectively. They’re founded on routine and enjoying and recognising simple pleasures. Not that my life before was all sex and drugs and rock and roll, it wasn’t, but the ingredients that work for me now include:
- medication
- mild exercise
- regular and good food
- regular and sufficient sleep
- social contact
Mild contentment
Years ago, when I was still working all this out, I listened to an edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme All in the Mind where they were exploring the topic “What is happiness?” In the end they concluded you should aim for mild contentment and it’s something I have adopted and find works. In therapeutic circles I think it is framed as gratitude and I consciously make time to reflect on what I have been up to and what has been good about that. It helps me to see the positive, even if I am not feeling too great in myself.
I also love lists – especially colour coded lists on my phone. I can change the colour slide the deadline and then I get great satisfaction in ticking things off once completed. At the moment (December) painting the shed, a half day job and planting onions, garlic and shallots (see my post on gardening and recovery), have been overdue for the last two months because of the rain we have been having.
My main and simplest focus of positive achievements is around food, which I have always appreciated and which of course features daily – during lockdown even more so, when cooking from scratch was the norm. I took, and still take, great pleasure when sitting down after the washing up, in thanking myself for a good meal, well cooked – everything from a cheese omelette to an elaborate lemon drizzle cake where I found myself poaching slices of lemon in syrup to honour Nigel (I’m not much of a baker, but will go the extra mile for some cookery writers).
Recipe bingo
Also out of lockdown has come recipe bingo – I Google two or three things in the fridge or cupboard as a single search string and try one of the recipes that gets returned. From this I have enjoyed:
- Hungarian veggie goulash from the Hairy Bikers – which I cannot find now but was pure winter comfort food – root vegetables in a rich tomato and paprika gravy
- Sweet potato chilli from Jamie Oliver – cheap and delicious and like a good curry , it improves overnight
- A wonderful winter coleslaw (see image at top of this post) at Christmas from Yotam Ottolenghi, whose recipes had always just been a good read before
- Clafoutis – quite a simple French dessert (fruit baked in a batter) and with donated greengages, it was not expensive.
Colour me calm
As you already know, I’m a gardener and the palette of the plants and flowers in my back garden were selected to soothe rather than stimulate: blues, purples, pinks and white. Before I had a garden, and knowing that it would always be small scale, I thought about what I would like – I had visited Sissinghurst Castle one summer and The famous White Garden and had settled on white, til my Nan advised she thought it would look cold and a bit sterile. An influencer. I read a few books on colour and discovered that the reason green is so relaxing is that the rods and cones at the back of the eye have less work to do when perceiving the colour green that other parts of the spectrum. So I am also trying to build in greenery alongside flowers. I recently heard that gardeners are optimists, because they tend to look to the future and on the BBC TV show, Gardeners World presenter Monty Don remarked recently that he looks three years ahead in his garden. I have not quite got to that stage and my garden evolves in a hit and miss style as I learn from my mistakes each season.
In term of bipolar recovery and self-care though, the main benefit of gardening for me is that it offers the possibility to focus quietly on something else, be it seeing new shoots emerging from the soil, buds opening in spring, tomatoes ripening, changing colour each day or the small chores of pulling up weeds (I get special pleasure tracing bindweed roots and trying not to break these brittle worms too short) or patching up holes made by squirrels burying their swag in the pots on the patio. Even in the winter, a short review once a week gets you out and noticing things.
Community gardening and wellbeing
At last this is being recognised and therapeutic gardens are more common than they were. It’s acknowledged on the enthusiast programmes, like Gardeners World, with individuals telling their story of recovery and communal gardens featured more often alongside private homes. And of course there is lots of support and groups online to help you take those first steps.
More information
- Food and mood – Mind (charity)
- Gardens and health – National Garden Scheme
- How to practice mindful gardening – Headspace app
- Beginners guide to gardening – RHS