Rebalancing Your Nervous System Through Anxious Times

"But my yoga teacher was not just talking about the external weather forecast. She was also talking about the shift of weather inside of each of us; that is, a feeling of worry, frenzy, and overwhelm that ramps up quite predictably each fall. Not coincidentally, these freshly stirred up feelings might bear relation to the weather around us; after all, we're intimately connected to what philosopher David Abrams calls the "more than human world.""

"Fall coincides with many transitions: back-to-school, back-to-work, changing bathing suits for sweaters in a closet, crop rotations in a garden, etc. For many folks, there's a ramped-up pace of life every September, October, and November: more events, activities, work, social engagements - and the challenge of juggling and multitasking to meet so many demands. Pile on top of that a huge heaping of today's looming existential burdens, be it on the personal level (i.e., health issue) or global level (political unrest)."

"Indeed, there's a strong current of unease and worry that's pervasive and visceral - and, for many folks, it is haunting their bodies with stress accumulation. We can intellectualize this all day long and call it "chronic stress," "collective trauma" or "malignant normality." Nonetheless, the prescription from a mental health perspective will often come back to the body, breath, and allowing unconscious thoughts and feelings to come forward."

Autumn often brings external physical changes—cooler air and stronger winds—and simultaneous internal shifts of increased worry, frenzy, and overwhelm. Seasonal transitions such as back-to-school, job routines, wardrobe changes, and agricultural cycles raise demands and accelerate daily pace. Modern existential pressures, from personal health concerns to political unrest, intensify cumulative stress held in the body. People may label these responses chronic stress, collective trauma, or malignant normality, yet effective responses frequently return to somatic practices: breath awareness, body-based regulation, and allowing unconscious thoughts and feelings to surface. Simple reflective prompts like an internal weather report help track emotional states and guide regulation.

Read at Psychology Today