Depression is a thief. It steals energy. It steals motivation. It steals clarity. And worst of all, it steals your sense of control. When you’re in the thick of it, everything feels dictated by the fog in your head. You might feel like a puppet yanked around by emotion. Or like you’re watching your life happen from behind glass. Powerless. Numb. Exhausted. But here’s the hard, liberating truth: You always control two things. Your effort — what you do, no matter how small. Your response — how you react, no matter what happens. Even if the world crashes down, those two things remain yours. Depression can make that feel impossible. But leaning into this truth is one of the most powerful survival strategies there is. It comes from Stoic philosophy — yes — but more importantly, it’s been stress-tested by everyone from Roman emperors to ordinary people just trying to endure. Your Effort: Tiny Acts of Rebellion Effort isn’t about hustle culture. It’s not waking up at 5am, drafting a novel, and running a marathon. It’s about survival. It’s about defiance. It’s about small acts of rebellion against the voice that says, “Why bother?” In February 2025, I lost my job. It was handled badly — underhanded and hurtful. The day after the adrenaline wore off, the realisation hit like damp concrete. I lay on the sofa and felt that heavy rug of depression start to suffocate me. I looked at my little dog — newly adopted — and thought I’d never be able to walk him again. Even though I needed to. So I didn’t try to fix my life. I just did small things. Ten minutes of French. Read a poem. Edge the wedge in. Eight hours later, I was walking the dog — something that felt impossible that morning. On a bad day, effort might look like: • Brushing your teeth. • Sending one text. • Eating a banana instead of skipping food. • Moving your body for five minutes. • Making your bed — even if you crawl back into it. These small efforts are not meaningless. They signal to your brain: I’m still here. I’m still trying.

Think about all the things you’ve always wanted to try but never did. You gave up at the first hurdle, or you were too embarrassed, worried that people would take the piss. Well, do you know what? Fuck them. And fuck that little voice in your head telling you that you can’t do it. Try it anyway. Do it just for yourself. Don’t compare yourself to others—compare yourself to who you were yesterday. The only real measure of progress is how far you’ve come; not how close you are to some imaginary finish line. Fail. Fail fast. Fail often. And then keep going. Nobody is a natural. Nobody starts as an expert. Every master was once a beginner. The key is persistence, not perfection. I started rugby at 12 with my friends and other people some had been playing since they were six. It’s almost like a form of torture to be on a rugby field in the winter and not know what you’re doing with boys twice your size trying to smash into you and you can’t catch the ball. It was similar thing going to a Muay Thai class 25 years later and a BJJ class 38 years later. Walk into a martial arts gym where everyone is throwing hands and/or throwing people around is the most intimidating. You look and feel and stupid for a year, but the key is to remember that comparison is the theft of joy. The people who are better than you are because they have been coming longer. Their path has been different to yours. Do not compare to other people. Compare to your own progress on a month-by-month basis. The path to success is rarely linear. Why This Helps Your Mental Health Research shows that learning new skills can improve mental well-being. A study by the University of Otago found that engaging in creative activities—whether it’s painting, playing an instrument, or even learning a new sport—leads to an increase in positive emotions and life satisfaction. Another study in the Journal of Positive Psychology found that people who regularly engage in learning new skills experience higher levels of happiness and lower stress levels. This is because novelty and challenge stimulate the brain, releasing dopamine (the feel-good chemical) and reducing symptoms of depression.

A key factor in my recovery was walking - daily walks around a nearby lake with my mother. It got me off the sofa, breaking the cycle of being stuck, ruled by the empty rhythm of daytime TV ads. The Japanese have a practice called Shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, which involves immersing yourself in nature to improve mental well-being. Studies show that spending time in green spaces reduces stress hormones like cortisol, lowers blood pressure, and improves mood. Walking in nature helps you gain perspective - it reminds you that life moves at its own pace. There’s no rush in nature, yet everything reaches its goal in time. Seeing mountains and forests, knowing they were here long before you and will be here long after, can help put your problems into perspective. Aim for 20 minutes a day. Track your time, track your steps. Research suggests that 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day is best for physical and mental health but start small and build up. Even a short walk can make a difference. I’m lucky enough to live in the valleys of South Wales near Bannau Brycheniog so I can be on a dirt track in a 10-minute walk from my house. If your mindful, it can feel like a bathing experience. The air is somehow different in a forest, thicker, cleaner, and even cleansing. Take in the air in greedy inhales. Focus on the permanence and constant flux or nature. Listen to the sounds. It refreshing to realise that your problems as big as they seem mean nothing in the forest. It will be here after your gone and was here way before you were born. Why Nature Heals the Mind Scientific research backs up what ancient cultures have always known: spending time in nature has profound effects on mental health. Lowers stress and anxiety – exposure to forests reduces cortisol, the stress hormone, helping to ease feelings of overwhelm. Boosts mood and reduces depression – nature has been shown to increase serotonin and dopamine levels; the brain chemicals linked to happiness and motivation. Slows down overthinking – being in the forest takes you out of your head and into the present moment.

When you’re surviving depression, it’s easy to feel like your brain turns against you. Simple tasks feel overwhelming. Small setbacks feel catastrophic. The idea of progress — real, steady progress — feels impossible. That’s why you need ways to train your mind to move again. And one of the most underrated, accessible ways to do that is chess. I found chess as a child. It isn’t as complex as people make it out to be. I can’t remember who taught me, but the rules are no harder to grasp than any other game when you’re starting out. I didn’t play much growing up, apart from Battle Chess in the late eighties on an Atari ST. I knew the rules, enjoyed the occasional game, but hardly anyone around me played. I signed up to play chess online in 2014 and barely touched it. During lockdown, though, I became addicted. I was drawn to it because, much like jiu-jitsu, you can never fully master it — there’s always another level. In many ways, chess is the closest thing to jiu-jitsu I’ve found. You can’t go all out recklessly. You need caution, backup plans, and patience. You have to think. A Puzzle You Can Actually Solve In life, problems are often murky, and solutions uncertain. In chess, the rules are clear. The aim is simple: protect your king, defeat theirs. It’s a game of small problems, one after another, each demanding focus and a plan. Even when you lose, you learn. Even when you make a mistake, you can trace it, understand it, and do better next time. When you’re fighting depression, it’s hard to trust that effort will be rewarded. Chess rebuilds that trust. You put in effort. You improve. You see the results. Daily Mental Workouts Playing chess daily — even just a five-minute game — becomes a mental gym session: - You practise patience. - You work on foresight. - You manage frustration and impulsiveness. - You learn resilience after mistakes. Just as training your body strengthens muscles, working through chess problems strengthens the mind. It becomes easier to stay focused on difficult days. Easier to pause and plan before reacting.

“In my craft or sullen art / Exercised in the still night / When only the moon rages…” — Dylan Thomas Overcoming the Cringe of Pretentiousness Let’s start here: art gets a bad rep. I remember being a kid and laughing at the boys in school that were doing drama or were all “Jazz handsy” as I would put it. To like that shit would affect my masculinity, I would have to do a manly laugh with my hands on my hips like superheroes at the end of cartoons in the eighties to join in the bullying of the arty types. For a lot of people, the arts come with this awkward stigma - one that whispers, “This is for posh people,” or “You’re trying too hard.” As if reading poetry or watching an arthouse film somehow makes you pretentious. As if feeling something deeply makes you is somehow embarrassing. That’s the lie. The truth is simpler: Art isn’t about looking clever. It’s about feeling something. Strip away the social baggage, and you realise something freeing - art belongs to everyone. Shakespeare wasn’t writing for professors in turtlenecks. He was writing for loud, drunken crowds who heckled and cheered. Music isn’t for critics - it’s for the person alone in a car, crying quietly as a song says the thing they couldn’t. You don’t have to “get it.” You just must let it in. Why Art is Vital to Society My grandfather was no-nonsense union man in the steelworks where he also worked as fireman. He fought in the second world war and boxed for the army. Every year he was the pantomime dame in the steelwork panto. He was always in shows and productions. Steelworkers and miner in the local institutes and clubs would put on productions and people loved them it was a part of the community. Picture a world with no books. No music. No paintings, films, theatre, comedy, or stories. It would be hollow. Mechanical. Loveless. The arts aren’t indulgent. They’re essential. Civilisations are remembered not just for their wars or inventions - but for their culture. Their myths. Their architecture. Their songs.