Every year when we turn the clocks back, I swear I hear the opening line to Hello darkness my old friend in my head. And not in a poetic cozy sweater, pumpkin-spice-fun way. More like an immediate emotional dip, a season shift that feels heavy before winter even arrives, a reminder that it will be pitch black at 4:30 PM and we are all supposed to just pretend it is fine.
This year it hit harder than usual, maybe you feel it too, the anxiety, the emotional fatigue, that wired and tired feeling, the wanting to curl into bed at 5 PM but also staring at the ceiling at 2 AM, because the world feels loud lately.
And here is what is really getting to me, the internet shouting at us to get seven to nine hours of sleep like it is the secret to enlightenment when in reality most of us would pay actual cash to sleep like a 25-year-old on a Saturday morning again. It is not that we do not want sleep. It is not that we are not trying. Tell the mom waiting for the sound of her teenager walking in the door safely, tell the mom who is the Uber driver for the kid who is not old enough to drive yet, tell the mom feeding a newborn in the quiet of night, tell the women in perimenopause whose hormones went rogue and forgot what melatonin even is. We are tired and now you go and change the clocks on us and the clocks go back an hour and it is DARK way too early, and dark in the morning when kids are off going to school.
This is not about laziness or discipline. I promise you moms want to sleep, we really do! But this is life for a lot of moms. This is responsibility and love and worry and changing bodies and changing hormones and a world that is overstimulating most days.
And the time change magnifies it all.
The darker days hit differently when you are already stretched thin, when anxiety has been sitting quietly in the background just waiting for the right cue. If you are like me, the house finally gets quiet and instead of sleeping your brain suddenly has all the things to say and think about, and also why does 8 PM feel like midnight?
I am not going to pretend this year and give you a blog on how to create a positive mindset for the time change and the darker days, I hate when it gets dark at 4:30 PM. I am allowed to feel off, you’re allowed to feel off, we are allowed to be tired, tired of being told how many hours of sleep we should be getting.
But here is what I am reminding myself, maybe you need it too.
You are not failing because you feel tired right now.
Your nervous system is responding to a real shift.
Your body is allowed to slow down.
Winter is not the season of peak performance.
This week I am giving myself permission to:
- Lower the bar on productivity
- Ask for support instead of carrying everything quietly
- Feel what I feel without apologizing for it
If you need to pull back, pull back, if you need more gentleness, give yourself more gentleness, if you are tired, it is not a character flaw. It is a sign your body wants you to rest.
This season is not forever, light always returns, and until then, we are doing the best we can, even if that looks like wearing warm, fuzzy socks, and making lots of soups and stews.
And, if one more guru (especially if he is a male) says get seven to nine hours of sleep at night, like we are choosing chaos on purpose, I am sending them my car keys and telling them to escort my teenager home at midnight and then report back.
We are trying, we are exhausted, and we are STILL doing a beautiful job!
And if you are humming hello darkness my old friend with me right now, I see you.
Nikki Lanigan
Nikki Lanigan is a yoga, HIIT, and Barre instructor, she is also a Holistic Health Coach through Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Nikki is trained in Yoga Shred, Yoga Psychology, meditation, chakra balancing, and EFT/Tapping. She has done trainings with Sadie Nardini and Ashley Turner. She got her 200 hour yoga teacher training in 2017 at the Carrie Treister School Of Yoga. Nikki takes a holistic view of health, helping her students and clients reach a place of self-love not just through movement, but with mindset and lifestyle guidance as well. Nikki is also show prep writer for The McVay Media Show Prep and host of the podcast Fit, Fun, and Frazzled. Connect with Nikki on Instagram. www.instagram.com/nikkilanigan.yogaandwellness www.instagram.com/fitfunandfrazzledpodcast
