745: How the changing fall weather can provoke anxiety and what helps
This week on the Anxiety Slayer podcast, we ask, “Can weather increase anxiety?” We also discuss why Autumn’s changing seasons can be challenging for people with anxiety and share simple ways to care for yourself during this seasonal shift.
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Points covered in this episode:
Ayurveda, India’s ancient life science, says each season has its own benefits and challenges. Knowing this helps us care better for our body and mind.
Autumn is Vata season
Autumn is the most challenging season for anxiety sufferers because it provokes vata, one of the three body types of Ayurveda.
Vata dosha has these qualities: dry, rough, changeable, cold, subtle, and clear. These are all qualities shared by Autumn and that’s why Autumn is considered a vata season.
Ayurveda teaches that similar qualities increase each other - like increases like. Autumn's qualities raise vata by being similar in nature (rough, light, cold, moving, changeable), and more vata can lead to anxiety.
What helps?
Get in step with the season
Living in tune with nature helps us follow the seasons. Picking apples, nuts, pumpkins, and gathering firewood are simple ways we prepare for Autumn.
Get outside and walk, stretch and breathe. Make as much of the daylight as you can as the nights draw in.
When outside, be sure that you’re warm and keep your ears covered if the weather is windy.
Nutrition & seasonal foods
The nuts, pumpkins and squashes coming into season are rich with the properties that help us create a healthy Autumn. Baked apples with cloves and cinnamon are rich with vitamin C. Hot apple juice with ginger protects us from colds.
Eat regular nourishing meals
Warm wet breakfasts are perfect for Autumn. Oatmeal with almond milk and cinnamon, or a date and almond shake made from soaked dates and hot almond milk blended together with warming spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.
Other meals perfect for calming vata: sweet potato with vegetable soup, rice with steamed vegetables and warming spices like cumin, black pepper and a splash of olive oil, mung dal with rice and vegetable stews.
Warm, wet and slightly oily are the key words to remember for a vata-pacifying diet.
CCF Tea
This popular Ayurvedic blend of coriander, cumin and fennel seeds is sipped warm between meals for healthy digestion. It's a cleansing and anti-inflammatory combination that's very easy to make at home.
Add half a cup each of cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds to a glass jar and shake well to mix. Each morning, add a heaped teaspoon of the blend to hot water and steep for 5 - 10 minutes.
This tea should be consumed hot - heat opens the blood vessels and increases circulation. Cold is constricting. The benefit of this tea is to increase blood circulation in the digestive system, so that everything is working well.
Oil as seasonal protection
Oil massage balances the dry and cold nature of Autumn, it also balances the moving nature of Autumn by the stillness of the practice, and it balances lightness by grounding touch, which is always beneficial for calming anxiety.
Aid a little oil to your ears, nostrils and belly button before going outside in cold weather.
Bundle up and protect your ears when you go outside.
Warm Baths
Take warm baths (listen to something relaxing: gentle music, a podcast or audiobook, or a guided relaxation - so you’re not stuck in the bath with your mind!)
lavender
oatmeal
magnesium or Epsom salts
Baths balance the dry nature of Autumn.
Make a nest
Make evenings calm and grounded, gentle and restful. Make a soft, warm space with cushions and a blanket where you feel secure to read and relax.
Relaxing with a heavy blanket balances the light and moving nature of Autumn.
Protect yourself from taking on too much
Anxiety and overwhelm go hand in hand. Autumn invites us to retreat into deeper self-care wherever possible.
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