Anchoring, Autumn & You: How to Feel Grounded This Season

There’s a particular feeling that arrives with October. The light drops earlier, the air sharpens, and the summer’s easy momentum starts to slip away. For a lot of people, it brings a quiet unsettledness. Diaries fill up, the days shorten, and it can feel as though everything is speeding up just as the world outside is slowing down.

Here in North Devon, autumn is one of our favourite seasons. The lanes turn copper, the sea is still warm enough for a brave dip, and there’s woodsmoke in the evenings. It’s also the season that asks the most of us to slow down and get our feet back on the ground.

We call that anchoring.

Why autumn can leave us feeling unmoored

Nature is shedding and drawing inwards at this time of year. Trees let go of their leaves. Animals prepare to rest. Meanwhile, most of us carry on at summer pace, then wonder why we feel scattered, restless or run down by November.

Anchoring isn’t about doing less for the sake of it. It’s about giving body, spirit and mind something steady to hold on to while the season turns.

Five ways to anchor yourself this autumn

1. Get outside every day, whatever the weather. Autumn light is precious, and it fades fast. A walk in the morning, even a short one, does more for your mood and your sleep than almost anything else we know. Wrap up and go anyway.

2. Eat warm, grounding food. This is the season for soups, roasted roots, stews and slow-cooked grains. Our kitchen leans into whatever is ripe and local, and in autumn that means squash, beetroot, apples and greens from close by. Warm food, eaten slowly, is one of the simplest ways to feel held.

3. Bring your practice down to earth. If you do yoga, shift the emphasis towards grounding: standing poses that root you through the feet, slower flows, longer holds and a proper rest at the end. If you don’t, simply standing barefoot on the grass for a minute counts.

4. Keep a rhythm. Regular mealtimes, a regular bedtime and a regular wake-up are deeply steadying when the days are shifting around you. Darker evenings are an invitation to go to bed a little earlier, so take it.

5. Let something go. Take a cue from the trees. Autumn is a good moment to look honestly at what you’re carrying into winter, the commitments, habits or worries that no longer serve you, and put one or two of them down.

Autumn at Yeotown

Autumn has always been a special time to realign with us. The walks are wild and beautiful, the evenings by the fire are long, and guests tend to leave feeling ready for winter rather than braced against it.

If you’d like to anchor yourself properly this season, our five-day Realignment in Devon runs through the autumn, and Realign: The Long Weekend in November is there if you’re short on time. And if you’d rather chase the last of the sun, Madeira stays warm all year round.

However you spend it, we hope you find your footing this autumn.