I used to think I wasn't like everyone else. Not in a radical, avant-garde way. More in a faintly embarrassing, “I have taste and perspective” sort of way. I am one of those millennial-slash-Gen Z hybrids, the children of roughly 1993 to 1999, which means I understand perfectly well why millennials became such a rich object of public mockery.

The Harry Potter obsession? Grim. Although, to be fair, one of my favourite hobbies remains reading the comments under the new TV adaptation trailer, especially when they are all about someone’s skin colour (you know what I am talking about). Then there is the workaholism, the strange urge to turn a party into a board game swamp, the childish behaviour, the emotional support tea, the marathon medals worn like signs of a dirty past. You name it. The childishness. The self-importance. The curated little hobbies that Gen Z find amusing, and Generation Alpha — well, I have got no idea what they actually think.

Still, life does change after 30. Or at least it changed for me. Over the past few months, I somehow tried a few things that were relatively new to me, and now I can say this: some of them might look ridiculous on Instagram, but they bring a weird feeling of satisfaction. They might look ridiculous on Instagram. They might even sound like the sort of thing a woman with a motivational water bottle would recommend to you. But they soothe my brain far better than doomscrolling ever has.

Am I getting old? Maybe. But here are the hobbies I used to think were lame, and now rely on to feel like a person again.

The last time I used colouring books regularly, I was in nursery. And yet here I am, a full adult, selecting the perfect shade from a box of 120 acrylic markers in order to colour Mulan’s sleeve or give the Little Mermaid a more emotionally accurate tail.

Recently, I found myself sitting up at midnight with my flatmates, half-watching some aggressively meaningless YouTube video while colouring in silence, completely unable to stop. There is something deeply satisfying about it. And yes, there are scientific explanations for why. Colouring is supposed to relieve stress because it keeps you focused and present, but without introducing any competitive element. No one is winning. No one is building a personal brand out of it. No one is trying to optimise their colouring performance for LinkedIn.

In the age of successful success, that feels like pure joy. It is honestly quite nice to have no bigger problem than choosing the right hue. Even for just an hour, that feels like luxury.

I used to be addicted to all kinds of silly phone games. Balls, blocks, trains, cakes, jewels — whatever brightly coloured nonsense was available, I was there. But once I reintroduced myself to Sudoku, everything changed.

It feels intellectual, which I enjoy because I am vain. But it is also exactly simple enough to entertain you during a bad film or a delayed train journey. It is just a few little boxes waiting to be filled with numbers, and yet somehow it can push you to the edge of despair. Then, the moment it clicks, the satisfaction is absurd.

Dopamine from AI slop? No thanks. I would rather get my serotonin from digits arranged in the correct order. Tragically, this isn't a sensation I experience when checking my bank account.

There is research suggesting that Sudoku may be useful for cognitive training, particularly in conditions involving the prefrontal cortex. What exactly does that mean in practical terms? What does that mean exactly? Well, I prefer to think it means this is useful. Maybe it won't make you the smartest person in the room. But it will probably make you a more content one.

I know what you are thinking: a board game is what people introduce when they want to assassinate the mood at a party. And in many cases, you would be right. I was recently at a birthday where people played Uno, and honestly, I am still processing it.

But there is one game that has genuinely converted me, and that is Wavelength. It is described as a telepathic party game, which already sounds insufferable, but somehow it isn't. The basic idea is that your teammates have to understand how your brain works based on a single clue, and that alone makes it both chaotic and revealing.

I will spare you the full explanation because no one has ever enjoyed hearing the rules of a board game recited at them. Watch a YouTube tutorial and preserve our relationship. But trust me: it is fun, fast, and weirdly insightful. You learn far more than you need to about how your friends think, what they consider “sexy”, “ethical”, “embarrassing”, or “chaotic”, and whether their internal logic bears any resemblance to reality.

It is fun, slightly unhinged, and suspiciously good for team building. Which means it is either an excellent party game or a grim HR exercise in disguise.

When you are 30 and alive in the modern world, you are almost certainly overstimulated. News, reels, voice notes, podcasts, messages, emails, step counts, sleep scores, reminders to hydrate, reminders to stand up, reminders to breathe as if breathing were some exclusive life hack you hadn't yet encountered. You are constantly taking things in, and eventually your brain begins to feel like an overfilled carrier bag.

There are countless ways to calm yourself down: meditation, breathwork, flotation therapy, and other activities that sound either luxurious or faintly cultish. But I increasingly believe the best solutions are the stupidly simple ones. Hence: the silent walk.

Or, if we are using the official medical terminology, a stupid walk for your stupid mental health.

The ideal version involves leaving your phone at home. Yes, actually at home. No music, no notifications, no podcast about rebuilding your nervous system, no emergency need to document the light falling nicely on a tree. Just you, outside, in the real world, with real people and actual ambient noise.

You notice things. A conversation in the lift. A cosy coffee shop you have somehow never noticed before. A deeply bizarre exchange between two teenagers that makes you feel ancient and alive at the same time. None of it is important, exactly, but it reminds you that life is happening everywhere, all at once, without asking for your input.

And that can be oddly comforting. Your work deadline starts to feel slightly less apocalyptic. Your Strava statistics lose some of their grip on your soul. Ideas start flowing. Stress softens. And 10,000 steps a day starts to feel like a nice bonus, not some ultimate health goal.

There is something both humbling and liberating about discovering that the hobbies you once dismissed as lame are, in fact, the very things keeping you sane. Maybe this is what ageing actually is: not becoming cooler, wiser, or more refined, but finally admitting that colouring books, number puzzles, niche party games, and wandering around with your own thoughts are enough.

Which is cringe, obviously.

But I have decided to embrace the aura.