“What if our obsession with cosiness has risen in step with our growing feeling of collective precariousness?” she writes, “…the colder and more brutal it is in the outside world, the more it feels precious and delicious to be inside our homes.”

And this certainly rings true at the moment. Now more than ever, with rising anxieties about Christmas cancellations and the Omicron variant, I’ve found myself craving a retreat into dark evenings. I’ve taken more long, hot baths, cancelled plans, cupped hot chocolates in my palms and rearranged my space to feel even more ‘homely’.

As Jezer-Morton defines it, “Cosiness is a heightened, almost erotic feeling of belonging: you are in your own space, and if there’s anyone in there with you, they are allies who truly know you, because you wouldn’t share this sock-footed intimacy with just anyone. This is the melty core of cosiness.”

“This is the dragon we’re all chasing,” she says. And chasing relentlessly, it seems.

Over the years, our lexicon has been expanded with words that encourage us to optimise our wellbeing for winter. From the Danish ‘hygge’, which itself translates most concisely to “cosiness”, and Norway’s ‘koselig’, which seemingly promotes the opposite: social connection and connection with nature and the outdoors. There’s even ‘döstädning’, the Swedish lifestyle trend that involves ridding yourself of items you no longer need, and ‘friluftsliv’, translating roughly to ‘open-air living’, to entice you into a more down-to-nature lifestyle.

But behind these words, and the products we buy in order to help achieve their meanings, are deep-rooted anxieties and emotions.

Why we're obsessed with cosy living and what it says about our mental health during the pandemic