Do You Have Autumn Anxiety?
What Causes Fall Freakouts and How to Manage Them.
Oh, fall. The crisp air. The crunching of leaves. The warm mugs of apple cider.
The shorter days.
The back-to-school, ultra-structured urgency.
The ongoing, surging international pandemic.
Yikes.
If you find yourself holding both the beauty and the stress– or just the stress! — that comes with the fall months, know that you are not alone. Autumn Anxiety is a term that describes the increase in worry, fear, and stress related to the changing of the seasons. There is typically not a specific or identifiable external trigger; for some, it may occur annually at about this time.
Symptoms may include:
- Sleep disturbances
- Appetite changes
- Increases in illness or pain
- Irritability
- Low mood
- Excessive worry
- Lethargy and fatigue
There are several different reasons why Autumn Anxiety might strike, some related to our biology and some related to our environment. But all are valid, can impact our functioning, and all mean that the changes we feel are NOT just in our heads.
