3 Reasons Why Autumn Should Make You Smile*

*This is a collaborative post*

It's certainly no secret that autumn can be a very melancholy time, and not just because of the disappearing sun and the lower doses of mood-elevating vitamin D we can expect to get on a regular basis.

Autumn is rich in symbolism and metaphors, straight from mother nature, and which humans have been obsessing over for centuries if not millennia. Autumn is a time of things retreating and dying back, of animals preparing to hibernate or migrate for the winter months. It’s a time when the vitality seems to be draining out of the natural world, as trees shed their leaves and the weather turns chilly.

But for all that you might feel like visiting LazyLawn for a synthetic lawn to create the illusion of eternal summer, there are in fact good reasons to embrace autumn and the lessons it has to teach, and to take heart from the season.

Here are some of those lessons and why they can lift you up rather than get you down.

Autumn is a reminder that things come in cycles

Nature is defined by cycles, whether it’s in the form of the tides of the ocean, the cycles of sowing and harvest, or death and birth. These same cycles play out in our ordinary day-to-day lives on a regular basis, but instead of seeing the patterns and taking heart from the fact that every winter is followed by a spring, we tend to get disheartened.

Autumn is a great reminder that things come in cycles, that the bad doesn’t last forever, and that the periods of blissful energy are followed by more subdued periods, only for the cycle to repeat.

If you find yourself feeling down about something in life — maybe something at work hasn’t gone the way you wanted it to, or your fitness program hasn’t yielded the results you wanted — take heart that you’ve planted seeds. And the cycle is constantly moving on, ready to bring you a brighter tomorrow.

Autumn gives us the signal to look inward and deal with ourselves for a while

Autumn is a very reflective time, a time when the whole world is “drawing in”. And just likes trees shed their leaves and prepare to withdraw into themselves until next spring, and just as many animals stow themselves away in their dens to hibernate, so too do humans have the chance to withdraw and look within for a time.

If you’ve had anything bothering you throughout the year — something about your lifestyle or mindset you’d like to change — autumn can be the ideal period for doing so. With the world less active, making a mental inventory of your hopes for the future, and buying some books about self development may be just what the doctor ordered.

Autumn is the perfect time to start planning and preparing for new adventures in the new year

Much as a squirrel stowing stockpiles of nuts is looking ahead to the future, so too does it make sense for us to use the autumnal months to begin planning and preparing for the great adventures we intend to have when the spring arrives.

Planning for your future summer holidays and travels isn’t just a great way of keeping your spirits up during the chilly months, it also allows you to hit the ground running once the weather turns for the better.

*Contributed by Sam Jones

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