Stressed About the End of Summer? Here’s How to Deal With September.

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Stressed About the End of Summer? Here’s How to Deal With September.

If January is the Monday of the calendar year, then summer is clearly its weekend — June is its Friday, July its Saturday and August its lazy, delicious, fretful Sunday. Which is why so many of us currently find ourselves in the grips of the “September Scaries.”

Those familiar with the concept of the Sunday Scaries will recognize this feeling. (And yes, the analogy suggests we should call it the August Scaries, but alliteration trumps symmetry here.) It’s a combination of dread, regret and anticipation that accompanies the end of a communal pause and the beginning of a hectic and demanding time.

You can blame it in part on our collective fantasy of summer. Regardless of whether you are still bound to a school schedule, the months when school is out are inexorably associated with pleasure, freedom and spontaneity. “We underestimate how much our scripts and our narratives about the season really affect us,” said Kari Leibowitz, a research psychologist whose forthcoming book, “How To Winter,” examines our preconceptions about the seasons and how to reframe them. “Summer is ice cream cones and being on the beach. Responsibilities and real life are for September.”

August, perhaps more than any other month, is when we give ourselves permission to rest. Emails don’t need to be responded to as quickly; even texts to friends can be returned at a leisurely pace.

“There’s a lot of putting-off that happens in summer,” said Will deFries, whose popular

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has been posting memes about that phenomenon since 2014. “There’s a lot of, ‘I’ll worry about that later.’” But by late August, later is very soon, and we can feel the pressures of a busy season bearing down. (Mr. deFries said his account sees an uptick in engagement around Labor Day weekend — a sign that the “scaries” are especially acute this time of year.)

You may also feel like you squandered your summer — you didn’t sip Negronis on a pebbly Italian beach or admire enough fulsome hydrangeas — and now have regrets. August can be really challenging, said Amelia Aldao, a New York City psychologist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy. “You are expecting your summer or your vacation to be great, and then it’s not. There’s often a mismatch of expectations, which can be a trigger for anxiety.”

If you find yourself mired in malaise and panic, a good first step is to figure out exactly what is bothering you. Is it the looming stress of school or work? Is it that you took a vacation and won’t have another one for a long time? Or is it that you love all the activities associated with summer, but you won’t be able to enjoy them again for many months? The remedies for each woe are different.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your impending responsibilities, make a plan for tackling them. But instead of a to-do list, try a “to-do matrix,” Dr. Aldao suggested. Label the two ends of an x-axis “urgent” and “less urgent,” and the y-axis “important” and “less important,” then plot your tasks in the quadrants accordingly. Seeing where your worries fall can help mitigate your dread. You may realize that a few of the items can be dispatched immediately (such as signing that form the school keeps bugging you about), but you’ll also have a better sense of what you need to do as soon as Labor Day is over — and what things can wait till October.

You could also try “microdosing” a few September tasks this week, said ********** Waugh, a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University who studies positive coping mechanisms. Slow transitions are always easier than rapid ones, he said. He also recommended ditching the “good-bad dichotomy” of summer fun versus September obligation. If, for example, you have to shop for back-to-school supplies, don’t frame that trip as the official (and sad) end of summer. Instead, plan to buy notebooks in the morning and go to the pool in the afternoon.

It can also help to make some fun plans for fall.

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that people who can anticipate positive things — even small things like a date with a friend, or a recipe they want to try — are more resilient in the face of stressors, said Dr. Waugh.

“Everyone on the internet is obsessed with autumn now. It’s soup season, it’s spooky season, it’s pumpkin spice season. There’s a lot to look forward to,” Dr. Leibowitz said.

And finally, don’t ****** it. Transitions are inherently stressful, and you may have to accept that this time of year will always be fraught. “Moving from one activity to another is always ******* than just doing what you’ve been doing,” said Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who studies motivation. Beginning a new project — or in this case, a new season — is the hardest part, but once it’s underway, it becomes easier.

“People often feel that Monday is easier than Sunday,” Dr. Fishbach said. “On Sunday, you were afraid of Monday. On Monday, you just do it.”

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#Stressed #Summer #Heres #Deal #September

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