Sunday morning is my magazine time. Each week I slip out of bed, leaving my husband snuffling softly rather like a badger on the loose, and creep to the living room with a large mug of tea and a magazine from my TBR pile. It’s a little ritual of mine. I switch on a mindful sea film on Youtube (usually a chilly Cornish beach, boring as hell but so relaxing with the sound) and sit with my feet up to read the magazine. Occasionally I crochet, often I finish the magazine and watch the birds in the garden, sometimes I haven’t saved a magazine and I read my book. But whatever I do, my Sunday morning is mine and mine alone.

This week my magazine was Psychologies. When I heard the announcement of the demise of In The Moment (how I love that magazine) this is the magazine that has been offered to subscribers as an alternative ending for their subscription. I already do subscribe to Psychologies, but I can heartily recommend it as a source of mental inspiration and advice to boost wellbeing.

October’s issue has several great articles in that speak to the hygge inside. Because they use photographs, not painted illustrations, the magazine has a lot of real places in. Frequent quotations are illustrated by photos of nature, including seaside, forests and a beautiful picture of a lady in a deckchair wrapped up in cosy throws.

The article on Autumn’s restless soul spoke to me: that back to school feeling, the idea that we start afresh in September with new pens, new pencils and the chance of a fresh new start in life.

The interview with Matt Haig highlights something that I truly believe as well: that at times when we feel low we can sometimes pull out of it through kindness, both being kind and being kindly treated. His new novel is on my list, but I’m waiting for the paperback version.

And another book on my TBR list is Still: The Slow Home by Natalie Walton. I’m hoping to spend my book allowance next month on this one, as the aesthetic seems perfectly cosy. It’s about living mindfully, living slowly, having meaningful onjects in our lives and curating life well. Blow that, actually. I may cheat and add this to my September pile.

Psychologies doesn’t have any pages with a craft/creativity focus, it’s a little more high-faluting than In The Moment, a little more therapy-focused but it’s a really good magazine with a strong emphasis on improving mental health and boosting the best of life. I love how they have courses available, plenty of advice, lots of information. For a slender magazine (98 pages) they cram a lot in.

You can follow Psychologies on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This possibly sounds weird, but I hope they adopt a little of the In The Moment DNA and develop a few looser, less cerebral articles. I’d love a regular craft for mental health column in there, perhaps a couple of tear and share quotes. The magazine is good already, but I worry that it will be too worthy for some readers who have moved across. That might just be me, with my infant teacher sensibility that likes making everything as simple as possible. Life isn’t simple, but it’s sometimes the best way to survive to look at it as if it is.

Ready to start thinking ahead for your own hygge Christmas?

I have a couple of Christmas books that you may well find useful if, like me, you’re planning a small, home-focused Christmas this year. Hopefully my short ebook, A Contagious Christmas, will be out by the end of September. Concentrating on spreading love while keeping healthy, it should give everyone some ideas for how to celebrate when everything has been cancelled.

Have Yourself a Happy Hygge Christmas is about ways to celebrate Christmas in the most hyggely way: that’s keeping it very small-group focused and about keeping it simple.It’s available in ebook and paperback form from Amazon.

Enjoying a Self-Care Christmas is about building in pauses into an ordinary Christmas or setting up Christmas to suit yourself and take care of your happiness as well. A lot of the ideas in it are completely useful in a Coronavirus Christmas. It’s only available as an ebook, but that means it’s cheaper. It also has a self-care advent calendar list that is very focused on boosting love and mood over the season.

Truthfully, there’s usually always a chapter on Christmas in all my hygge books: it’s peak hygge season, why would there not be? So, if you’re loaded and like my writing, feel free to support me in every way possible.

You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or find my books at Amazon. Details of all of them are available on the If You’d Like to Support Me page. Apart from that, I have to declare that I bought any books mentioned on this page myself, because if I recommend a book or a buy it’s because I’ve bought it, like it and think you’d like it too. I do make a couple of pence if you click through and buy from the links on my pages, because I am an Amazon Affiliate.