If life came with an instructions leaflet, conveniently pinned to your crib by the midwife, then it might read something like this:

A guide like this would surely be the perfect blueprint. That’s of course, only if your parents had the same pamphlet clipped to their cribs – and if every previous generation, and each human, the planet over, had also been in receipt of, and followed, such simplistic advice.

However, such a leaflet is yet to be in circulation, and even if it was, it can’t take into account your life events or how they may negatively affect your mental health. So these values frequently get forgotten; or they are stuffed, like a childhood toy, in the attic of your distracted mind.

Yet when we recall these fundamental life pillars, we can help clamber back onto the tracks from which we may have strayed. Anxiety, depression and other mental health impairments blur and steal away our sensibilities. They distort and unbalance our minds.

We might forget that we are an intelligent race in possession of enviable brains and capable of using our intellect to help guide us. We may have neglected our temples, yet could benefit by getting fitter or practicing self-kindness.

So, whilst we wait for such a guide to be mass circulated, we can at least be reminded of these useful grab rails.