Good grief: how to get over a bone-crushing disappointment

Sorrow and disappointment are a big part of pandemic life - and England football fans are now feeling them keenly. But there are ways to deal with these distressing emotions

How do you cope with crushing disappointment? Is it better or worse if everyone's feeling it at the same time? Should you allow yourself those flights of fancy - where your mind disappears into a different outcome - even if you have to come crashing back to real life? These questions, by the way, are about the emotion of disappointment, not just about the football. Because, as Arj Thiruchelvam, a coach and lecturer in performance psychology, says, with a clear-eyed sense that few of us are feeling at the moment: Put it in perspective. Flip the mentality. We've got back-to-back semi-final and final appearances in the last three tournaments, 2018, 2019 and last night." In other words, life, or this green corner of it, at least, has never been more amazing.

So maybe this isn't about football or any other sporting event, or indeed any particular event. Let's just pretend you woke up feeling disappointed and you don't even know why. What should you do?