Even if you do not have kids going back to school, do not work in education, and have no particularly good reason for September to mean anything to you, you may still notice a shift. The days are getting shorter, mornings are a little darker, evenings have a different feel, and suddenly the unstructured pace of summer starts to give way to routines, schedules, responsibilities, and the familiar feeling that it is time to “get back to real life.”

It can be subtle. You might find yourself feeling more tired than you were a few weeks ago, less motivated, or less interested in packing your calendar full. You may notice that you are craving more time at home or that the things that felt easy and enjoyable during the summer suddenly feel like they require more effort.

Summer tends to come with a different rhythm. There are longer days, more daylight, vacations, weekends away, late dinners, spontaneous plans, time outside, and often a little more permission to be less structured. Even if you are still working your regular job, there can be a sense that everyone is collectively operating at a slightly slower pace. People take holidays, schedules loosen, and there is often more room for doing things simply because you want to.

People return from vacations. Work picks up. Social calendars fill. Exercise routines become more structured. There are more appointments to remember and more things that need to happen at specific times. The expectation to be productive can quietly creep back in, and with it can come the feeling that you should be getting your sh*t together again. I definitely know for myself, throughout summer I feel like more of a rogue child, focusing on connection and community, rather than work and productivity.

There is often an assumption that if you are feeling tired, flat, or unmotivated, you should simply push through it. But seasonal transitions require adjustment, and our bodies and minds do not necessarily move from one rhythm to another overnight. Changes in daylight, sleep patterns, activity levels, social routines, and expectations can all influence how we feel, if you consider from a window of tolerance perspective, this all makes sense.

There can also be something emotional about the end of summer that is easy to overlook. Summer can feel expansive. There is more daylight and, for many people, more opportunities to be outside and more freedom around how a day unfolds. September can feel like the opposite. There is a gradual narrowing of things: fewer daylight hours, cooler evenings, less spontaneity, and more structure.

If you notice that you have less energy, it is easy to interpret that as laziness. If you are less social, you might decide you are becoming boring. If you are struggling to get back into your usual routine, you might tell yourself that you have lost your motivation or that you need to try harder.Maybe you do need some structure. But maybe you also need to recognize that your capacity has changed. Also, the reality of summer is that it isn’t all beach days, rainbows and ice cream. Seeing family, lack of routine, heaviness of life that doesn’t escape us just because the temperatures have risen about 20 degrees all still exists. The thing is, is that we just don’t notice them as much, when there is other distractions, and things to focus on.

But we all have our reckoning. There is a difference between giving yourself some room to adjust and completely withdrawing from your life. The goal does not have to be maintaining your summer pace while simultaneously getting back into your fall routine. It might be about finding a new rhythm that actually fits where you are now.

That could mean going to bed a little earlier instead of forcing yourself to maintain summer evenings. It could mean returning to exercise gradually rather than expecting yourself to immediately be as motivated as you were in July. It could mean leaving some empty space in your calendar rather than filling it every evening because you feel like you should be “back at it.”

And perhaps most importantly, it can mean noticing what you actually need rather than automatically responding to the pressure to be productive.

There is also nothing inherently wrong with feeling a little disappointed that summer is ending, cause as a summer baby born in December, I adore summer and am so sad to see it leave every year. You can enjoy having a routine and still miss the long evenings. You can be excited for fall and still feel a little flat as the seasons change. You can want to get back into your normal life and simultaneously wish you had a few more weeks of doing whatever you wanted.

Humans are capable of holding both. So if September has you feeling a little more tired, less motivated, or vaguely like you are supposed to be doing something that you cannot quite identify, you are not necessarily behind.

Instead of immediately asking yourself how to get your energy back, it might be worth asking what your current energy is trying to tell you. Maybe you need more sleep. Maybe you need more structure. Maybe you need less on your calendar. Maybe you need to reconnect with the things that make you feel like yourself after a summer spent doing things differently.

If the transition is feeling hard, I’m here to support. I’m accepting new in person and online therapy clients in Squamish, BC and virtual clients all across BC, and Canada wide!