A sybaritic lifestyle is synonymous with a state of repose. Yet there are, it seems to me, two mistakes which people frequently make concerning relaxation and its opposite—stress. Number one: because external sources of psychological stress exist we tend to lose sight of the fact that stress is an internal phenomenon. What occurs in the world outside ourselves is possessed of no objective stress value; it is only stressful insofar as it provokes a reaction inside us. As anyone who has ever been tired or hungover knows, those internal reactions are subjective; they are subject to our mental and physiological states when we experience the stimulus which sparks off our response. Even I, saintly paragon of moral perfection that I am, will be less inclined to camaraderie before breakfast. Our experiences of stress are relative to, but not exclusively determined by, the world around us. The assumption that the removal of external stressors will necessarily remove stress is a falsity that many people fail to recognise.

Mistake number two is neglecting the fact that relaxation― on a neurophysiological level― is not entirely voluntary. There is only a limited extent to which we can juggle our neurotransmitter responses (the main culprits being serotonin, dopamine and noradrenalin; what magazines like Cosmopolitan term your ‘happy chemicals’). We can affect the secretion of these chemicals by altering sleep patterns (and circadian rhythms more generally; melatonin also comes into play here), exercise (or lack of it), diet and exposure to stimulation of various positive or negative kinds (being with people you like, for example, releases endorphins), but it remains the case that one can only put oneself in a situation where relaxation is likely. The imperative ‘relax’ can be tactless and infuriating, to be followed in some circumstances with ‘I don’t WANT to RELAX’, but it is also, in a more significant respect, a useless command. It is a little like telling a dog, not to sit, but to fly. The dog might, if she is as intelligent and computer-literate as my dog Buster (yes, Buster is a girl), go off and make an online booking with Easyjet. But she can only put herself on a plane; her will, no matter how strongly bent upon taking flight, will sadly be forever constrained by the Basset Hound’s depressed anatomy. She is, like the rest of her breed, heavily earthbound. Willing ourselves to relax might achieve slightly better results than willing ourselves to fly, but if your anxiety is severe and chemical, wholly internal, largely unaffected by removal of stressors, and to most appearances random; if the anxiety is such, any exertion of the will is going to achieve precisely as much as attempting to fly by sheer determination.

The problem must, therefore, be approached side-on. You must place yourself in a situation where relaxation will hopefully happen to you; like Buster you can, at least, put yourself on the plane. Or you can try what rising numbers of American airline passengers have recently discovered to be an effective cure for flight-anxiety: the self-administration of muscle-relaxants before boarding. Do not overdo this, however: I saw one family at the check-in desk in Crete who had taken rather a lot and were having great difficulty with both speech and the manipulation of their passports.