How to recover from an India v Sri Lanka ODI series

Are you depressed? Do you struggle with feelings of self-loathing, worthlessness and disappointment? Are you consumed by the thought that you might have frittered away the best years of your life? Do you find yourself having developed a glazed thousand-yard stare while watching television, oblivious to the drool that has seeped out of a corner of your slack-jawed mouth, or to the spouse who has slipped out the front door, having given up on you once and for all? Do you care?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above, you could be suffering from having just watched yet another India v Sri Lanka ODI series. But it helps to remember that you are not alone: prolonged, year-long exposure to India v Sri Lanka ODI series has affected millions of people, and recent studies have shown that it is possible to wrest back control of your life by following a few simple rules of action. Many have come back from this debilitating condition and can still just about function in society. There's no reason you can't either.

Act quickly: Experts agree that the first few minutes after sitting through an India-Sri Lanka ODI series are the most crucial. In this phase, when one is most vulnerable to acting on self-destructive impulses, it is imperative that you get yourself to an isolation booth at a specialty clinic as quickly as possible. Once there, you will be asked to observe a series of freshly painted walls slowly dry, the idea being to jolt the patient's dulled senses to life by exposing him to something more varied and intellectually engaging.

Take up yoga: Do the Downward Facing Dog. Do the Sun Salutation Pose. Do whatever you need to do to mend mind and body after having subjected them to endless hours of watching two teams wearing the same shade of Smurf blue blur into a sickly fever dream with no beginning or end. Do this until one day you ask your yoga master whether he has heard of the Upward Facing Dickwella. Get expelled from yoga class.

Sue the West Indies Cricket Board: When you think about it, is $42 million really enough for having made you watch another series featuring these two teams? Is any amount?

Remember, it could be worse: You could, for example, be watching Sourav Ganguly offering his expert opinion about football and uttering the words "Atletico de Kolkata" in all seriousness.

Do something meaningful with your life: Try to make up for the many, many hours of time lost to watching India v Sri Lanka ODIs by trying to make a difference. Fly to far-flung parts of the world and offer your services teaching in schools and helping clear arsenic from drinking wells. Revel in how it actually feels like your life is finally back on track; you are doing something worthwhile with it at last.

Then one day you realise there is still something missing. You suspect it is the lack of a partner, someone with whom to share this interesting life of service and travel. As luck would have it, you fall in love with a like-minded soul, a fellow volunteer working at the community housing project, and after a brief courtship you eventually get married in a quaint ceremony that incorporates traditional local customs.

After a few weeks of living together, however, you realise it wasn't marriage that was missing after all. Then one day, while occupied with building shelters for the destitute, it hits you. You stand up slowly, eyes wide with the dawning realisation of what it is you've been lacking. You leave on the next plane out of there, without telling anyone, and go straight to your parents' house and switch on the TV. It's India v Sri Lanka. You settle in with a sigh, and you don't notice after a while that you've started drooling from a corner of your mouth. You don't get up from the couch again for the better part of the next two years.

Tell yourself that this isn't a regular Sri Lanka v India series: No, this one is different from the last couple of dozen because it's a platform to see new faces in action with an eye towards picking a team for the World Cup. This new kid Kohli seems a bright prospect. And that fresh-faced Mahela... definitely one for the future.

Choose to be fine with it: So what if you're watching India v Sri Lanka again? Be okay with that. People are okay with doing all manner of things, you know. Indian commentators are perfectly fine with continuing to do a dreadful job of shamelessly mimicking West Indian accents, for example. And though it is another glaring omission from his recent autobiography, Sachin Tendulkar was apparently fine with having permed his hair straight between 2010 and 2012. So by all means, you have every right to be okay with watching yet another India-Sri Lanka series. More power to you.

If all else fails: Resort to trying to write something about the situation for Page 2, in the hope that you can fool yourself into feeling better about yourself.