Unfortunately for hairdressers, “How’s your summer going?” is a loaded question this year. Even basking lizards and barbecue obsessives are wavering in their sun worship as cataclysmic wildfires engulf our nearest neighbours (and threaten the UK), Wales and parts of England experience drought, and farmers issue dire warnings about our food supply in the near future. Rescue centres are filling up with dehydrated hedgehogs and the Environment Agency is having to rescue fish. Lazy, joyful, sunscreen-scented days are giving way to stifling, existentially terrifying ones spent skulking in the dark (assuming you don’t need to be out in the extreme heat, as many workers do), sweatily scrolling through apocalyptic images.
Vanity Fair has decreed it’s a “sad-girl summer”, highlighting the female singer-songwriters soundtracking the myriad anxieties of an “undeniably cruel” 2026 season, but it’s not just the girlies who are sad – many of us are struggling and we still have August to survive. How?
I’m a veteran of sad-girl summers (possibly Sad summers – some people get seasonal affective disorder when it’s hot and bright). For years, July and August have sent me into an anxious, distressed funk, afflicted by brain shutdowns that leave me useless for days at a time. That means I’m ahead of the curve in finding little survival tactics, so here are some, if you find yourself struggling with what used to be the carefree, fun season.
Treat yourself like a beloved dog
Look at canine heatwave advice and apply it to yourself. Little walks in the coolest parts of the day, frozen treats, wet towels and top-ups of chilled water will all help maintain your mental equilibrium. Naps won’t hurt either.
Start your day with a book
Defer your engagement with the horrors – they’ll still be there in half an hour; they don’t need to be the first thing to hit your eyeballs. Immerse yourself in something – anything – engaging offline for a while. If your concentration is shot and you fear you will struggle not to scroll, the novelist Naomi Alderman is running a brilliant reading version of Couch to 5K on her Substack.
Take up a temporary hobby
Distract yourself with something ultra-low stakes. Last year, I tried growing melons. My misshapen babies were inedibly disgusting, but tending them helped during my twitchiest hours. This summer’s project is “making elaborate salads that would cost £17 in London”. Every day, I craft a photogenic heap of fancy, fibremaxxing fodder, take a picture, save it on my phone in a folder called “lunch” (that I will delete in September), then feast. It’s daft, but it is the high point of many distressing, scratchy-brained days.
Delete your weather app
I am not saying weather apps are gaslighting us, but it can feel like that when you are in the grip of summer derangement. Watching a tantalising chance of rain in five days’ time fall from 90% to 40% to 20%, then disappear altogether, or temperatures hover stubbornly around the mid-30s is at best a waste of time, at worst, actively maddening. For a few weeks, switch off and experience weather in the way your ancestors did: as an awe-inspiring, often awful but occasionally wonderful thing that happens (possibly because you have displeased the gods).
Become a bit nocturnal
It is often too hot to sleep at your normal bedtime and there’s a special quality to summer nights that never quite get dark or cold. Last night, I saw bats, a hedgehog and many foxes in my suburb, but I enjoy late wanders around big cities too. There is almost always something unhinged going down that affirms how the inside of my head feels.
Enjoy what summer still does well
Namely fruit. The blackberries are already ripe (yes, worrying), there are peaches so juicy you have to eat them over the sink, fat and fragrant green figs and chunks of crisp, sweet watermelon to be bought. Also, not every apricot I’ve tried has been a sour marble of disappointment and I’ve even eaten melons my French in-laws wouldn’t have drop-kicked off their dinner table in righteous fury. This glut of good fruit is one puny (and doubtless temporary) upside.
Remind yourself you’re right
It’s sane and rational to feel angry, grief-stricken and frightened. Wouldn’t it be weirder if you didn’t?
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
