Summer has a sunny reputation, but August has always brought me a sneaky sense of malaise. That was even before air quality alerts, flood watches and parasites, Axios' Natalie Daher writes.

• July offers peak seasonal security (and my birthday). September brings back-to-school energy and fresh starts. August just hangs.

🥵 Why it matters: I'm not alone. The New York Times recently gathered practical advice to help summer skeptics to stay cooler, calmer and less guilty (gift link).

If you're not built for blazing heat, disrupted routines and relentless pressure to "make the most" of summer, try this instead:

1. 🧊 Create your own "summer hygge." Borrow the Danish idea of comfort, but swap winter blankets and candles for cooling rituals: a cold shower, breezy clothes, an air-conditioned movie or nighttime swim.

• 🌮 Try this: Curl your tongue like a taco, inhale slowly through your mouth and exhale through your nose, University of Pittsburgh professor Emily Lindsay, who studies mindfulness, told The Times.
• The yoga-inspired breathing trick can feel cooling and settle heat-fueled irritation.

2. ⚓ Protect a few routines. Vacations, visiting family and kids out of school can make summer feel unmoored. Choose two to three daily "signposts" to keep steady.

• Keep it simple: Coffee in the same chair each morning, a lunchtime walk or an early workout before temperatures spike.

3. 🙅‍♀️Drop the seasonal guilt. You don't have to love beach days (sand), barbecues (meat) or heirloom tomatoes (overpriced).

• Wish your sunhat-wearing friends well, then focus on the parts of summer you actually enjoy.

4. ✍️ Notice three good things. This is a solid year-round practice, but heat and disruption can make us especially prickly.

• Before bed, write down three things that went well. Maybe it's a cold drink, or your foresight to book an impossible dinner reservation for October.

😎 The bottom line: You don't have to seize the summer. But you can find pockets of respite. Bonus points if they're linen.

Reader Sam Trizza of Bentonville, Ark., shares scenes from a morning hike yesterday up Handies Peak, a mountain rising above 14,000 feet near Lake City, Colo.

• Trizza, her sister Cate Bowman and brother-in-law Brett Bowman of Houston took the American Basin rout, catching their shadows across the terrain.

They also caught two antlered grazers peeking over a ridge.