Slowing Down When Everything Feels Like It’s Speeding Up

September 9, 2026

How do we find meaningful ways to slow down when Labor Day has barely passed and we’re already heading into shorter days, busier schedules, and the feeling that everything is speeding up again?

I’ve been thinking about that this week. Which is slightly ironic, because I’m writing this in the middle of a very full week and intentionally keeping it short (to the best of my ability) because I don’t have much time.

Maybe that’s exactly the point.

There’s something about the days right after Labor Day that feels like someone has flipped a switch. Summer isn’t technically over, but school is back. Homework is back. Hockey is starting soon. Other activities are finding their way onto the calendar. And here in Massachusetts, the chill in the air has been ducking in and out for the past few weeks.

My Louisiana-born husband, who after more than a decade up here still thinks anything below 70 is freezing, recently made his annual August joke: “Welp, it’s almost winter.”

He’s not entirely wrong.

As I sit here typing this, I can hear a squirrel outside knocking acorns down from the trees. Apparently he got the memo, too. He’s busy preparing for winter, and now I’m wondering how his nervous system is doing.

What feels like just a few weeks ago (even though it was actually in July), we spent a long family weekend at my sister’s house on Martha’s Vineyard, and we did almost nothing.

We relaxed. We swam in the ocean and chilled on the beach. We played cards and made a family playlist. We cooked together and ate outside. We weren’t rushing off to the next thing.

We just were.

At one point, I took a photograph of two seagulls sitting on top of tall wooden pilings. They were just sitting there, looking out over the water.

What made me happy was that I was still enough to notice them.

I’ve been trying to hold onto that feeling for as long as I can. Maybe I can even sneak in one more Vineyard weekend before it gets too cold. (Sis, if you’re reading this, is that okay?)

The reality is that my life isn’t going to stay at Vineyard-weekend speed. Nor would I necessarily want it to. I have a family, work I care about, and this blog that I’m loving building. My son has school and activities. There are dinners to make and places to be and things I genuinely want to do.

For me, slowing down can’t simply mean doing less.

It has to mean learning how to move through a full life without allowing my body and mind to act as though everything is an emergency.

You know the feeling?

I can tell when I’m doing it, which is far too often. I feel that familiar anxiousness in my stomach. My thoughts start racing ahead. Even my walking pace gets faster when there is absolutely nowhere I need to hurry to.

A fuller life doesn’t have to feel like an emergency.

So as our family settles into this new fall routine, I’m trying to be more deliberate with how I begin my days. A little quiet. Meditation. Prayer. A few minutes to remind my nervous system that a fuller schedule or a change in routine doesn’t mean something is wrong.

I’m trying to find little ways to slow myself down during the day, too. Drink the coffee while it’s hot. Take the walk without hurrying. Sit on the deck for five minutes just to feel the sun on my face. Leave a little white space on the calendar. Put on a favorite playlist while making dinner instead of treating it like one more thing to get through.

This is a reminder to myself as much as, and probably more than, it is advice for anyone else.

In fact, part of what I hope to create here at My Midlife Table is one small way to make life feel a little easier. Once there are enough recipes gathered here, maybe “What am I going to make for dinner?” can occasionally be one less thing taking up space in my brain or someone else’s.

Because nourishment isn’t only about what we put on our plates.

Sometimes it’s reminding our nervous systems that a fuller schedule or a change in routine isn’t a threat. More things on the calendar don’t have to mean spending the next few months with my stomach in knots and my body rushing from one thing to another.

Sometimes it’s making a little room to breathe, to pray, and to notice what God has already put in front of me instead of always thinking about whatever comes next.

The next few months probably aren’t going to slow down. The schedules will fill. The daylight will disappear earlier. And according to my husband, winter is practically here already.

I can’t control the pace of all of that.

But I can decide that I don’t always have to match it.

Maybe that’s the art of slowing down when everything feels like it’s speeding up.

Not escaping our lives or doing nothing. Just reminding ourselves that a fuller life doesn’t have to feel like an emergency. We can have more places to go and more things to do and still find moments to be right where we are.

And while the squirrels frantically pelt the yard with acorns, I can still stop long enough to notice the birds.