When we talk about the autumn blues, we are referring to the slight decrease in mood that most people experience as the temperature goes down and the days get shorter. As the shiny, warm summer days fade into rainier, gloomier and colder autumn days there is a tendency for many people to start to feel a little depressed, demotivated and melancholic.

To learn how to make the most of this season, let’s see first a short list of some easy things and activities that we can do to feel better just now and than we move on to how we can see things differently on the long run and have a better response to change in general. You just need to commit to taking a little time to plan and to add some of these activities to your schedule.

10 PRACTICAL TIPS TO COPE WITH THE AUTUMN BLUES

Let’s enjoy Autumn!

1.Let’s cozy up our home for fall !

Coping with seasonal change is not easy mainly if we value stability and safety over everything else in our lives. Our homes are interwoven with us on many levels and one easy way to adapt mentally to accepting the seasonal change easier is to be the change itself. You can plan upfront to redecorate your home seasonally and thus prepare yourself mentally for the coming changes in the environment. Rotating home decoration seasonally means a lot more than just a frivolous design activity. It eases up the way through creative, joyful, fun activities of decorating to adapt and accept the inevitable change.

So let us start enjoying autumn by taking care of the environment in which we live. Bring home the warm colors of the season. Surround yourself with a cozier, fuller more abundantly decorated atmosphere. This can mean an extra carpet, a bedspread, nicely colored curtains and pillows. Surround yourselves with elements that encourage the desire for relaxing and nesting. As the daylight is getting shorter and shorter it is a good idea to purchase candles, decorative lamps, incense burners and lanterns. Candles do so much for elevating your mood with their dancing little light and wonderful fragrances. You can go all the way to even changing the pictures that you have around the house and create season specific collages for your gallery walls.

2. Let’s go outside! What?

It’s difficult for many just to get out of bed and so it is really tempting to just cuddle under the warm blankets and watch Tv, but a daily dose of walking can do miracles for your physical health and mental stability. Just a 10-15 minutes walk can help you cope much better with seasonal transitions.

In Autumn nature is magnificent and it is changing day by day, little by little. Nature is changing in spring, in summer as well but in autumn it is a little more difficult. In spring the change goes forward with enthusiasm for life, things are growing, improving. That is a transition that is easier to go with. That kind of flow is easier to participate in. In autumn maturity is reached and it is followed by a decay. Processes are ending, seeds are produced, the potential for the new life is created so nature prepares itself for a rest. As you go outside and notice these little changes around you it mentally smooths the acceptance of the transition from a state of activity to a state of relaxation and resting.

Nature is full of colors and this is the time to fill yourself up. It’s not only the flowers now that add a spark of color, it is the flowers, the trees, the bushes, the leaves that have fallen to the ground and are mixed with the still green grasses. Parks, forests are full of interesting colors so taking a walk in the park in your lunchbreak can be a really rewarding experience in autumn. And so are the sunsets. The autumn sunsets are just simply grandiose so try giving yourself the chance to see a few sunsets in the fall. This simple, unplugged activity can do wonders for the brain. Nature is wonderful so take time to see and take in the colors before they disappear for a while.

3.Let’s have some me-time !

In the summer days it is hard to carve out time for ourselves and for our passions. Everything is so vibrant and full of energy that staying at home alone in the summer seems like such a waste of time. But as the weather gets chillier and the mornings get foggier autumn arrives to offer you the chance to unwind. The best is to have self-care habits and practices year-round, and you can let some of these self-care practices to change with the seasons. Changing your self-care routine seasonally can provide the needed variety to tap into the different emotions and energies of each season.

Self -care is not only about physical needs it is about emotional, mental and spiritual needs too. So you can rewrite your exercise routine now that the weather is getting colder. You can start a fall gratitude journal and write a gratitude list every day for 1-2 months. Fall is also a lovely season to explore your personality. You can do personality tests online and ponder on their results. It can feel so rewarding to spend a little more time with yourself during the autumn days.

4.Let’s have some Fall Fun !

Fall brings with it the season of harvest and gatherings. It is the harvest season so people in some smaller places gather to help each other with the harvest activities. This tradition of gathering in the fall is now changing and it is replaced by a different type of getting together. In many places there is the tradition of organizing the Oktoberfest events and visiting such a festival is a lot of fun. In other places you have the grape harvest festivals where you can enjoy music and wine events, workshops, tastings, and meals. You can choose to visit a pumpkin patch with your friends or family or check out some of the free apple picking offers in your area.

Autumn is great season for hosting board game afternoons. Add extra chairs or poufs to the living room to create more seating options for a warm welcome for your friends and family. Invite your friends over for a dinner or some hot drinks and spice up the evening with watching a show or two from you favorite stand-up comedians. baking is a good way to express not only your creativity but also your love and caring towards others.

Autumn is maybe the hardest season to focus on fun but that is exactly why you want to put special attention on this aspect of your life. It is a good opportunity to discover what is fun for you, and what is that you do out of sheer habit and for pleasing others.

5. Let’s eat fresh fruits and veggies !

When you think fall, you think harvest season which means hearty meals and fresh foods. Even if you are not really into cooking you can still mind what you eat and autumn is a good season to do your best for eating healthy. You have an abundance of choices now: fresh fruits and veggies are plenty all around you, in shops and on the farmers market. There are so many colors and tastes now. Focus your attention on eating fresh a little more than usual. Beside that don’t forget that all the fruits, leaves and beans are also supporting the production of happy chemistry in your body.

6. Let’s accept a challenge !

Have you always wanted to do some 30 day challenges? Now is the time for that. With the shorter daylight closing on you it is a good idea to fill your afternoons with something challenging and interesting. It is also easier to stick to your goals in this period of the year, mainly because others are a little melancholic too so they don’t call and disturb you just as much as they do in the spring or the summer.

7. Let’s get creative and add a spot of culture to the days!

Putting your time, energy, and money into something you feel passionate about can improve your mood and help you feel more empowered and hopeful. Some people are not creative in an artistic way but more like in finding creative , unique solutions to problems. You can go and get involved with a cause that you care about, or you can unleash your creative expression in a more artistic way like painting, drawing, music. Creative expression can mean something that seems trivial like cooking or baking. Autumn with all the magnificent color and mystical sunlight is resonating well with the creative energies. It’s a good time to be involved in creative projects.

Sparking your creativity can mean to spend an afternoon at your local museum or art gallery. You can visit a nearby castle, a historical place of interest, such as monuments or statues. Beside being a good opportunity to learn about your city, and your surroundings many times it is also a good program to do together with friends or family. Buy a ticket to the theater and watch a new show. Who knows, maybe it adds to your life in ways you cannot see right now.

8. De-clutter time. Let’s get organized!

Autumn time also means that you will spend a lot more time inside than usual. It is best for you when your physical surroundings promote your clarity and wellbeing. Clutter is associated with anxiety and stress so pre planned organizing can make a great difference in your mood. You can combine it with the previously mentioned point of accepting a challenge.

You can create a 10 day declutter challenge and plan a sorting and organizing activity for each day. You can choose to declutter and organize your clothes, countertops around the house, your pantry, your garage, the kitchen drawers, laptop desktop or your folders with pictures. You name it. Just choose an activity for every day and stick with the organizing activity for at least one full hour .

Decluttering is most important in case of clothes. As the summer days are over it is a good idea to pack the summer clothes and store them somewhere out of sight. Reorganizing your clothes gives you a much welcome clarity around your belongings. You can create autumn looks, fashionable outfits easier when you see more clearly what you have available for the season. When everything is mixed up it seems like you have more choices. But our minds have a limit for optimizing between choices and too much choice is simply overwhelming. It makes you stressed and anxious and results in the much known sentence that : “I have nothing to wear.” In most cases the problem is that you have too much to wear and it overwhelms you. So create a smaller, clearer wardrobe for the season and put aside everything that isn’t practical to wear or you just don’t feel like wearing these days.

9. Learn something new!

Why not to learn a new skill or start a new hobby? For some reason autumn feels like the best period to start learning new things. It’s the perfect time to start a new activity, a hobby that maybe we had not found the time to devote ourselves to but that will definitely give us well-being and gratification. It is not by chance that autumn is the returning to the school time. Maybe there is this natural tendency in the air that this is the time to continue our learning journeys.

Our passions and visions we have probably neglected in the previous months. Autumn is when all the classes are starting and it is easy to find a teacher for almost anything you feel like learning. You can experiment with taking dance classes, language classes or learning to swim or skate. You can spark your learning by reading the books that you have on the shelf for a while or listening to the Ted talks that you have on the watch it later lists. By trying something new you can get a new friend or receive a good idea that can change your life.

Why there is no 10th tip?

Having just nine tips gives this quality of being unfinished to this list. And that is exactly what we wanted here. This is not an all inclusive list but more like an inspiration to find your own ideas about living well in the fall. Discover what is fun for you, what feels good to you and create your own experience that fits you and benefits you. Living authentically means being true to yourself, having a strong sense of who you are, and behaving in ways that reflect your values, interests, and goals. Autumn is an opportunity to discover some different aspects of who you are than you do in the other seasons.

To wrap it all up

The seasons go and come back and each is able to bring opportunities. It’s up to us to know how to grasp them. We can enjoy Autumn by getting outside and taking advantage of the foods and visual pleasures that are unique to this season or we can get fixated on the decay and the falling leaves. It is up to us what we do mentally and when we are free to choose why not to choose something that feels good.

Enjoying the time of transition from summer to winter, from activity to relaxation can be challenging but not difficult. These activities listed above are easy to do and easy not to do. That’s why you need planning and not only motivation to benefit fully from the gems and possibilities hidden between the autumn leaves.

Credits: Featured Image-12019;

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