Autumn can be a tricky season to navigate. With children back to school and adults back to work after holidays. Then there’s a change in weather, and darker nights and mornings – not to mention external changes happening in the news at the moment – and it’s easy to become unsettled and feel unprepared.
Perhaps you can try a few of these quick techniques to support you this season:
- Allow yourself to cancel plans.
- Create some time to rest.
- Take some tasks off your to-do list.
- Spend time alone (this can help build resilience and empathy, and allow time for activities or creative projects just for you).
- Slow down (both your body and your breath).
- Gather your cosy socks, blankets, candles and hot-water bottles in preparation for warming yourself from the inside out.
- Go for a walk among the leaves and trees: collect conkers, kick the leaves and re-discover your inner child.
- Repeat to yourself “everything will be okay”, or another mantra that means something to you. It really helps.
- Find some slower yoga shapes and flows such as peaceful warrior and supine tree (which is like tree, but created while you’re lying on the ground).
- Press your hands to your heart in a butterfly shape (pictured below) and gently tap out a steady rhythm – this will help self-regulate your nervous system.
I’d love to hear what you do to self-soothe? Contact me and share your thoughts.
