Eurovision star SuRie on how she looks after her mental health and wellbeing

Singer-songwriter and counsellor in training Tom Ryder, the founder of mental wellbeing charity Retune, writes for the Indie

Welcome back to my wellbeing column. Our charity Retune has a system called SCALES, which stands for Sleep, Creative, Active, Listen, Earth and Social. We teach SCALES as part of our workshops. The six ‘strings’ must be kept in tune in order to achieve mental harmony.

As part of this column we will be hearing from starlets of Stortford, who step ‘on the SCALES’ to measure how they fare in terms of mental health.

This week it’s the turn of singing sensation SuRie, the former St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School pupil and Herts and Essex High School student who represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018. How does she keep her mental wellbeing nicely in tune?

Sleep

“I take sleep very seriously. It took me too many years to appreciate that sleeping is healing. I used to burn the candle at both ends until I inevitably crashed, then learnt nothing from the experience and repeated the same pattern.

“I much prefer ‘prevention over cure’ now and sleep is a vital ingredient for me. Fortunately it never takes me long to fall asleep, but if my mind is dancing with unhelpful or irrelevant thoughts I utilise Bob Mortimer’s catchphrase from Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. I observe the thought that’s swimming in the way, I metaphorically hold it and, in Bob’s gentle, jolly tone, say “And, awaaay!”

Creative

“Monetising creativity can have its drawbacks, but that feeling of losing oneself in the art of making music is precious and something I hope I never take for granted.

“At times, when the admin of a creative career overshadows the freedom of flow, I remind myself of two elements of Julia Cameron’s seminal book The Artist’s Way that really work for me.

“Morning pages: three long-form pages written just after waking up, filtering out plenty of brain fog and ‘clearing the deck’.

“Also, a weekly solo artist date. A couple of hours by yourself, entirely for yourself. It doesn’t have to be expensive or exotic, it can be mindfully preparing a meal, sitting in a nearby park or listening to an album from start to finish without being on any screens at the same time.”

Active

“When touring or working on a theatre show, I embrace a disciplined, athletic mindset and routine of training and nutrition. Playing Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun involved some fun acrobatics that I trained for for months.

“It’s not just the physical strengthening and preparation, but also maintaining solid vocal health, mental stability and overall stamina to perform eight shows a week, in varying weather conditions and, whilst touring internationally as Cathy Hiatt in The Last Five Years, working through jetlag, long-haul flights, air conditioning and so on.

“I’m all or nothing, though. When predominantly sedentary, writing the next SuRie album, I foolishly think I’ve earned the right to be horizontal, eating Cheerios for dinner and binge watching The West Wing for the umpteenth time.

“Having a dog helps, except my cushion of a canine friend can be lazier than me, so we drag each other out.”

Listen

“My job is to listen, which fortunately gets me out of my own head. Acting is reacting, so listening is vital.

“As a writer, I soak up sounds like a sponge; mining conversations with friends for lyrics or recording boisterous birds in a park. I accumulate phrases and voice memos on my phone like an insatiable babble magnet and I constantly look to better wordsmiths to inspire me.

“I’m currently reading World As Lover, World As Self by Joanna Macy and The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing. Both are fuelling my curiosity to not just continue studying Buddhism, but to practice it daily too and to, one day, live in a fisherman’s cottage by the sea like Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage in Dungeness.

“I enjoy the How To Academy podcast series and would recommend the Paul Bloom episode on the surprising secret of happiness. I also listen to a secular Buddhism podcast in my quest to become ever more present and insufferable.

Earth

“I appreciate London’s theatre scene and buzz of momentum, but I love being surrounded by nature where the silence is a deafening oxymoron. I composed a song cycle of Greta Thunberg speeches and I hope some clever science whizz is going to rescue us from the burning mess we’ve made.

“I don’t take enough individual responsibility, though. I love to travel, so my carbon footprint undermines my passion for preserving this precious planet we inhabit.

“That hypocrisy fuels my laziness in still not becoming a functioning adult with a driver’s license, pretending smugly, on every train ride, that I’m therefore ‘doing my bit’.

“My life centres around singing, so breathing deeply is a regular practice and I always start my warm-ups with abdominal releases. Such a simple, efficient, effective, grounding exercise that neutralises my larynx and mind.

“I use it in every situation – calm writing days in my shed, just before walking into scary, stressful audition rooms, in the wings before entering a high-pressure stage show or when the trains have been cancelled yet again and I should’ve learnt to drive.”

Social

“The older I get, the more I appreciate it’s not what we do with our lives but who we do it with.

“Just as you’re thinking I’m ever so lofty and luvvie, let it be known that I’m so out of tune when it comes to my social (media) string, that I’m in another key signature that hasn’t yet been heard by human ears. I’m so tragically addicted to this almighty pocket computer and I am not remotely immune to the endless doom scrolling and brain rotting.

“My screen time can be revolting. I opened TikTok once and 11 hours later I sicked in my mouth and deleted the app… much to the detriment of my self-promotional music business.

“Aside from the fact I’m far too old to be on TikTok, watching other humans parade on it makes me want to throw my Greta Thunberg song cycle in the bin and let humanity quickly die out. But I can flick between any other platform with zero control over my thumb, hypnotised into oblivion.

“I try not to follow many people on Instagram to mitigate my weakness, but it only mildly helps. I’m hooked. One day my cottage by the sea won’t have wifi.”

SuRie will headline Retune Live at South Mill Arts on Friday March 14. Tickets are £12 from southmillarts.co.uk. Doors open at 7.30pm.

@tomryder___

@RetuneWellbeing