The weeks that lie ahead are infamous for being freighted with social challenges. With the tinsel and toddies comes trouble.

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News flash: Life is hard. People let you down. Things end badly. Sometimes it feels like your fairy godmother stepped outside for a smoke and never came back.

On that cheery note, we begin today’s conversation on hitting the reset button.

The weeks that lie ahead are infamous for being freighted with social challenges. With the tinsel and toddies comes trouble. Expectations are usually well out of alignment with reality. It’s a season of unbridled expenses. Overfull agendas. Massive traffic problems. Undisciplined social conduct. The urge to sucker punch weird Uncle Harold simmers just below the surface.

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None of this is new. Even Shakespeare recognized that life isn’t a bottomless bowl of Bings. In his first first soliloquy, Hamlet quickly identifies the low ROI he’s seeing in his life: “How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seems to me all the uses of this world.”

Man … that Shakespeare! Four hundred years later and he’s still killing it. In fact, a great deal of Shakespeare pivots on a general cynicism about life. Here’s one chestnut that gets trotted out with great regularity: “Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”

So, if the season has you feeling defeated, you’re not alone. The world’s pre-eminent dramatist felt it, too.

But what can you do when life loses its lustre?

Are there tricks for improving your outlook?

Nobody knows who said it first, but I’m guessing it was someone’s mom. It’s called the “Eat, sleep, shower, go outside” rule. It’s a gem of advice and well worth committing to memory. It goes like this:

“If you feel like you hate everyone, eat something.

If you feel everyone hates you, go to sleep.

If you feel like you hate yourself, take a shower.

If you feel like everyone hates everyone, go outside.”

As operating systems go, doesn’t that make a whole lot of sense? There’s actually some science behind it all, too.

If you’re feeling out of sorts, there’s a good chance your blood sugar is low — so have a snack. This isn’t surprising as the brain is primarily fuelled by glucose. Symptoms of poor glycemic........

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