Eight Documentaries on the Mind, for a Slow Evening
Some evenings the best thing to do is stop, light something, and watch one good hour that leaves you a little clearer than it found you. Not a boxset. One film, the phone in another room. Here are eight documentaries about the mind and how we look after it, chosen at the studio for a quiet night in, with a candle to go with each.
The Mind, Explained
A short Netflix series on how the brain actually works: memory, dreams, why we worry, how we focus. Clear and calm, twenty minutes an episode, and the right place to start. Light Forest Bathing: cedarwood and hinoki, the head clears.
Stutz
Jonah Hill films his own therapist, Phil Stutz, and the sessions become the film. Warm, funny in places, and full of tools you can actually use the next morning. Manifest suits it: frankincense and sage, the face softens.
My Octopus Teacher
Not billed as a film about the mind, but it is one. A man swims every day in a cold kelp forest off Cape Town and slowly comes back to himself. It is about paying attention to one thing for a long time. Forest Bathing again, or nothing at all and the window open.
Happy
Older, and it has aged well. It travels across five continents asking what actually makes people happy, and the answers are simpler than you would expect. Happy, obviously: sweet orange and bergamot, the step lightens.
I Am Maris
A young woman finds her way through illness and recovery with yoga and art. Quiet, honest, and close to where Yougi began. Soothe, lavender and rose geranium, lit an hour before.
Headspace: Unwind Your Mind
Half documentary, half guided practice. You can breathe along with it, which makes it the gentlest one here to end a hard day on. The Soothe reed diffuser in the room does the same job without a match.
The Great Disconnect
How modern life pulls people apart, and what real connection does for the mind. Best watched with someone, and with the phone genuinely elsewhere. New Romantic for the two of you: damask rose and sandalwood, the heart opens.
All the Lonely People
On loneliness, and how ordinary community quietly holds people up. Sad in places. It leaves you wanting to ring someone, so do. Soothe for after.
None of these fixes anything on its own. But an evening spent thinking honestly about the mind, yours or other people's, is its own small kind of care. If you want more of that kind of evening, The Art of Doing Nothing and Sleep, Rest and Mental Wellbeing are the two to read next. Everything Yougi makes is 100% essential oils in eco soy wax, with every ingredient on the page.
