What if you’re still not feeling tip-top?

IT’S TRICKY. The sun is out (most days), spring has sprung, the vaccine machine rolls on and lockdown is easing. But you are still mired in the ­winter of discontent. Perhaps you are even bluer than you were ­during the early lockdowns, when at least it was respectable to be glum. Surely we shouldn’t still be feeling down when there are so many reasons to perk up?

Actually, these counter-intuitive feelings are understandable. Psychological studies show that shared pain can lead to solidarity. For many of us, when we were deep in crisis at the height of the pandemic, our individual angst was held in check by a kind of Blitz spirit.