When the Season Changes, the Body Notices

Every October, I feel the shift.

The mornings are darker. The air changes. The days get shorter almost without us noticing. We start closing the windows, reaching for sweaters, making soup instead of salads and turning inward a little earlier in the evening.

I love this time of year.

But my body doesn’t always love the transition quite as much as I do.

I didn’t always notice it this way.

For years, we lived in Charleston, where there was more warmth and sunlight throughout the year. I don’t remember experiencing this same seasonal shift in my body there.

We eventually moved back to Virginia to care for our aging parents. And somewhere along the way, as I readjusted to four very distinct seasons, I began noticing a pattern.

Every fall, my body seems to notice the change before my mind does.

And even now, I have to remind myself of it.

It’s October. The light is changing. The temperature is changing. Your body is adjusting, too.

Living with an autoimmune disease has made me incredibly aware of the ways our bodies respond to things we don’t necessarily think about.

We tend to think of seasons as something happening outside of us.

The leaves change.
The temperature drops.
The light disappears earlier.

But we’re changing right along with it.

Our bodies are seasonal, too.

October changes more than the view outside the window.

We get less daylight. Temperatures can swing dramatically from morning to afternoon. We spend more time indoors. Cold and flu season begins creeping in. Our sleep patterns can shift. We may move less, get less sunlight and naturally start craving more rest.

All of those things require the body to adapt.

And when you live with an autoimmune condition, sometimes you feel that adaptation more.

For me, it can show up as fatigue. That familiar feeling that my battery isn’t holding quite the same charge. Sometimes old symptoms become a little louder. My body asks for more rest than my mind thinks I should need.

My first instinct can still be to wonder what’s wrong.

Then I remind myself: I’ve felt this shift before.

Sometimes my body is simply working harder to adjust.

Less light matters.

One of the biggest changes happening in October is something incredibly basic: sunlight.

Morning light helps set our circadian rhythm—the internal clock involved in sleep, hormones, energy and many other processes throughout the body.

As the days shorten, the timing and amount of light we’re exposed to changes. We may also spend considerably less time outdoors.

Vitamin D enters the conversation here too. Sunlight helps our bodies produce vitamin D, which plays an important role in normal immune function. But seasonal changes in how we feel can’t simply be blamed on vitamin D.

The relationship between sunlight, our internal clocks, sleep and the immune system is much more complicated than that.

Having lived somewhere with abundant sunshine and now somewhere with four very distinct seasons, I can’t help but notice the difference in my own body.

Maybe that’s why October catches me off guard.

I can know what’s happening intellectually and still wake up one morning wondering why I suddenly feel so tired.

Then comes everything else.

Fall also means more respiratory viruses circulating.

The air becomes cooler and drier. Indoor heat starts coming on. Our skin and mucous membranes can become drier. Sleep can change. We start spending more time inside.

And then there’s life.

Schedules fill up. The holidays start appearing on the calendar. There are things to do, people to care for, businesses to run, families to tend to.

Meanwhile, nature seems to be doing the exact opposite.

Slow down.
Get darker.
Rest.

There’s something worth noticing in that contradiction.

We expect ourselves to operate at exactly the same speed in July, October and January.

Our bodies may not agree.

A flare isn’t always a flare.

This is something I’ve had to learn through living with MS.

Feeling different doesn’t automatically mean my disease is progressing or that something new is happening.

Things like illness, temperature changes, exhaustion, dehydration, stress and poor sleep can temporarily make old MS symptoms more noticeable. The nervous system can simply have less reserve.

Learning that has changed the way I respond to my body.

I try to pay attention without immediately becoming afraid of what I’m feeling.

Of course, genuinely new or significantly worsening neurological symptoms deserve a conversation with your medical team. Listening to your body doesn’t mean ignoring something important.

It means learning its language.

This is my reminder, too.

I wish I could say that after all these years I immediately recognize what’s happening.

I don’t.

Every fall, I seem to have a moment when I wonder why I’m more tired. Why my body feels different. Why something that felt easy a month ago suddenly requires a little more from me.

And then I remember.

You’ve been here before.

The season changed.

Give your body a minute to catch up.

So I get outside in the morning.

I open the blinds and let the light in.

I walk.

I feed myself warming, nourishing food.

I protect my sleep.

I drink water.

And when my body tells me it needs more rest, I try to listen instead of arguing with it.

There’s something interesting about having moved home to care for our aging parents while, at the same time, learning how to care for myself through another season of my own life.

Maybe that’s part of what aging has taught me.

Pay attention to the patterns.

Know your body.

And don’t assume every difficult day means something is wrong.

The trees aren’t fighting to hold onto summer.

Maybe we don’t have to either.

There is a season for expanding and a season for coming inward. A season for long days and a season for earlier nights.

Our bodies are part of nature, too.

And perhaps one of the kindest things we can do as the season changes is allow ourselves to change with it.

— Natalie