Coronavirus in winter: 'This time of year is harder than lockdown'

Full lockdown is over - but so is summer. As the days get shorter, darker and the temperature drops below acceptable BBQ conditions, we're all slowly realising our lives are going to be very restricted for months to come.

Just from talking to people, it feels many are finding this bit harder than full lockdown - the inability to plan, the uncertainty of what's to come, the very real lack of fun - to simply not knowing if you'll be able to see your mum at Christmas.

In short, after an emotionally draining six months, a lot of us have run out of steam.

Radio 1 Newsbeat's been getting mental health tips on the things we should - and shouldn't do, as well as hearing from some of you on why this time is so tough.

Natalie White graduated from the University of Salford in the summer.

"Obviously we didn't have a graduation which a lot of students experienced," she re. "Which was extremely disheartening."

But she got a job and started working as a content creator for a streaming site. But things didn't work out as her mental health began to deteriorate.

So she quit.

"Being stuck inside the house, away from my friends and family, I really struggled.

"There was a lot of anxiety and I got consumed by all the news stories around the virus."

Her boyfriend had been in hospital last Christmas and she was "terrified that he'd end up back there and I wouldn't be able to be with him".

"The fact we could go through the same again, I honestly don't know how to feel about it. If I carry on putting my life on hold, I think I'll explode. I don't think I'd be able to handle another one."

Natalie's far from alone.

"The time we've spent coping with the day-to-day difficulties during lockdown, it's easy to not notice the emotional toll that's taken on us - and we haven't had enough time to recover properly," says Chris O'Sullivan from the Mental Health Foundation.

After one of the toughest six months any of us have ever faced, "the idea of going backwards is challenging", he adds.

"We're all burned out and jaded and now we have to go all over again."

Chris says there's no point pretending it won't be hard but there are things we can do to help ourselves. And a lot of that boils down to only worrying about what you can control. Easy to say but when when you're terrified about losing your job or having no money - it's harder to put into practice.

It's an odd mental image but it's a good phrase to back up what Chris is saying.

"There are things that will happen over the next few months that we can't plan. We don't know where we'll be at Christmas, we don't know where we'll be in the next month," he says.

Chris suggests focusing on what you can control on any given day. "Make short term goals, the next hour, the next day, the next week. Don't worry about what comes down the line."