The Pre-Holiday Buffer: Building Somatic Reserves Before November Arrives
Many people handle the holiday sprint reactively. We push at maximum capacity through October, enter November already running on low battery, and by mid-December, find ourselves completely burnt out, sick, or emotionally overwhelmed. Then we miss out on the end-of-year and the beginning of year traditions with friends and family.
It is at this point that we promise ourselves that next year will be different, but we wait until we are already drowning in stress before trying to practice self-care or make changes in our approach. This year consider trying a different approach: proactive capacity building.
Spooky Season for the Nervous System: Demystifying the Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response
When we step into haunted houses, fake monsters jump out of the shadows, and we may gasp, jump, or scream. We may even hear others behind us or ahead of us scream. Seconds later, we may then laugh with our friends or family as the adrenaline washes out of your system. We know that experience is a set up meant to intentionally give us a fright and that nothing can happen to us. And yet our mind and body respond in a manner that makes it all feel real.
It’s fun when it’s entertainment. But for millions of people—especially high performers, athletes, and those navigating chronic stress or trauma—a similar "haunted house" reaction is happening inside their bodies during normal, everyday moments: during a team meeting, right before a game, or while sitting in traffic.
Unmasking Your Survival Patterns, Not Your Halloween Mask
Long before October arrives, we wear invisible masks every day: the mask of the tireless overachiever, the effortless people-pleaser, the calm professional who never gets stressed, or the stoic athlete who feels no pain. We can either do this unconsciously or consciously.
In psychology and somatic therapy, these masks aren't costume jewelry—they are survival patterns. They were built by your nervous system and psyche to keep us safe, accepted, and protected in environments that felt overwhelming.
Ghouls, Ghosts, and Trapped Energy: The Somatics and Psychology of Unprocessed Experiences
October is the season of haunted houses, ghost stories, and things that go bump in the night. We adorn porches with pumpkins, skeletons, and maybe even creaking chains for good measure and gather around firepits to tell tales of specters that refuse to rest. So many fun Halloween traditions that many of us enjoy each year!
It’s easy to treat ghosts as fun fall fiction. But if you look at human behavior through a somatic lens, most of us are walking around being "haunted" every single day—not by supernatural spirits, but by the unprocessed energy and experiences of our own past.
The Bare Branch: Finding Strength in Vulnerability After the Shedding
And now, the leaves are gone. The tree is bare.
What remains of the trees are exposed and quiet. Standing under a canopy of bare branches can feel unsettling. Without the vibrant foliage to soften the skyline, every curve, bend, and scar on the tree trunks are completely visible. The trees are exposed.
The phase right after a major transition—after we’ve set the boundary, walked away from the old role, retired from the sport, or dropped an outdated habit—often feels like standing bare against a cold sky. It is vulnerable, quiet, and deeply uncomfortable.
Yet, the bare branch is not a sign of defeat or weakness. It is the moment a tree relies entirely on its core structure.
Fall Leaf Inspiration: Brown - The Healing Power of Letting Go
By late fall, the vibrant canopy of reds, oranges, and yellows gives way to an earthier tone: rich, grounded brown. Leaves fall to the ground, blanketing the soil. To the untrained eye, these dry brown leaves might look like the end of life—a stark symbol of loss or decay.
In reality, fallen brown leaves are proof that letting go is a natural, essential part of healing.
A tree doesn't hold onto dead foliage out of fear of what comes next. It drops its leaves to protect its roots from freezing temperatures, conserving its energy so it can survive the winter and bloom again in spring. Nature doesn't mourn what falls; it lets the old decompose to nourish the soil for future growth. Those leaves also provide critical winter shelter for wildlife.
Fall Leaf Inspiration: Red - The Strength of Setting Clear Boundaries
In nature, red leaves are a sign of intense, protective energy. Right before a tree sheds its foliage, it produces anthocyanins—the vivid red pigments—to shield its branches from sun damage and protect its core nutrients as cold weather sets in (Feild et al., 2001). The deep red leaf is not a sign of retreat; it is a masterclass in self-preservation and strength as the tree begins the process of pulling its resources into itself to prepare for winter.
Fall Leaf Inspiration: Orange - Embracing the Beauty and Fear of Life's Shifts
Sugar Maple and Shumard Oak leaves turn pumpkin and copper, glowing warmly against cool autumn skies. Seeing these colors is one of the most stunning visual displays in nature—yet biologically for the tree, it is a marker of transformation and the tree prepares for winter. The tree is letting go of what was, preparing for what is coming, and adapting to a brand-new season.
Fall Leaf Inspiration: Yellow - Finding Small Joys in Dark Seasons
Among the changing colors of the tree leaves, there are bright yellow leaves catching the sunlight. They don’t change the fact that winter is coming, nor do they erase the cold air and the changes that come with the season. But they do something equally important: they offer small spots of light right in the middle of the dark.
The Fall Slowdown: Overcoming the Fear of Resting as the Days Get Shorter
Last week’s blog post focused on a fall inspired digital detox. If you decided to give it a try by putting down your phone, clearing out your inbox, and stepping away from the endless ping of notifications you might have noticed an unexpected effect as the noise began to clear out.
Silence. And with that silence, a deeper awareness of what your mind and body are experiencing. And maybe, you might have noticed a sense of fatigue or a desire to slow down. If not that is okay as well!
Decluttering Your Mind: A Fall Guide to Digital Detox
While summer has not quite left us in the Northern Hemisphere, we can start thinking about getting ready for fall so we are ready for it when it arrives. Fall gives us the opportunity to breathe in crisp air, play in the leaves, enjoy pumpkin spice, and potentially enjoy a routine-oriented schedule. This makes fall a great season to reset, reduce mental overwhelm, and reclaim time for seasonal joys like reading, hobbies, or spending time outdoors. In this blog post we will look at practical strategies to help you get ready for fall!
Listening to the Body’s Wisdom: Addressing REDs Through Sport Psychology and Somatics
Now we come back to the cost of not paying attention to our bodies as athletes. If we are not connected to our bodies, we are missing an incredible amount of information that could help us take care of ourselves and help us be better athletes. So now we come back to ignoring or disconnecting from our bodies’ signals to take care of ourselves. We can now begin to see how problematic this is in general and how it has a role in female-identifying athletes developing REDs.
REDs: We Must Talk About It
Dedication, discipline, and the ability to push oneself are essential parts of being an athlete. But, what happens when female-identifying athletes push themselves beyond to the point of overriding fatigue to win and the very drive that helps fuel their performance becomes a detriment to their system?
Rebuilding Safety After Outdoor Sports Trauma
Many athletes love and enjoy their time outside engaging in the sport of their choice, whether it be cycling, running, football/soccer, field hockey, swimming, basketball, etc. It can happen where an athlete becomes injured or has an outdoor sports accident that leaves a lasting impact. When we are talking about outdoor accidents this may include being hit by a car while cycling, having a near drowning experience, or getting injured while running on the trail and not having help nearby. The lasting impact may not just be physical. It could be mental or a combination of both physical and mental. In this case, we are talking about the mental impact after a doctor has cleared the athlete and the gear is ready to go, but as soon as the athlete sees the trail, the mountain, or the water, their body completely freezes up. In this case it isn’t a lack of grit, mental fortitude, devotion, determination, or lack of passion. Rather, it is a highly intelligent, automatic survival mechanism where the brain, particularly the amygdala, is doing its job by sending a signal of danger in effort to keep the athlete alive. So, then how do we work with experience to get back out there? Enter the bottom-up approach. And, as we dive in please remember that this blog post is not intended to be mental health advice, treatment, or a plan. Rather it is meant to bring hope and know that trauma is not the end of enjoying a sport.
The Difference Between Treating Trauma and Being Trauma-Informed in the World of Sports
For the past two weeks we have been talking about the importance of being trauma-informed when working with athletes. We now reach a point where we need to discuss the difference between treating trauma and being trauma-informed. While both aim to support athletes, they are two different scopes of practice, clinical boundaries, and ultimate objectives. So let’s dive into our discussion!
Trauma-Informed Approach to Sports and Working Athletes Part 2
This week we continue with our discussion about the importance of a trauma-informed approach in sport psychology. Our focus switches to 6 Guiding Principles of a Trauma-Informed Approach introduced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018). As a gentle reminder, the 6 Guiding Principles are the daily behavioral values used to achieve the R’s discussed last week.
Trauma-Informed Approach to Sports and Working Athletes Part 1
Many of us have heard the old athletic mantra: Leave your problems at the locker room door or something similar. For decades, traditional sports culture has demanded that performers push through pain, bury their emotions, and rely on sheer "mind over matter" to win. This approach has cost many athletes when it comes to their mental health and from a neurobiological perspective. The leave your problems in the locker room approach ignores a fundamental truth: the body keeps score, and athletes cannot simply uncouple their lived histories from their physical performance.
Protecting Your Brain as an Athlete
Our brains are essential to our daily lives! That might be one of the most obvious statements. Still, it’s worth saying because we can occasionally take our brains for granted. We can see this in athletics sometimes, so it is essential that we make the brain the center of our conversation at times. So it is with that in mind that we take a look at what protecting our brain in the context of athletics means. Protecting the brain in athletics is a multi-layered approach that requires thinking about physical safety, neurobiology, and sports psychology. The brain serves as the “hardware” for our athletic performance and injuries or chronic stress, for example, can impact reaction time, emotional regulation, and physical coordination, to name a few. So let’s dive into our conversation about protecting the brain in the context of athletics!
Fallibility of Human Memory
Memory is a constructive process, not a literal reproduction of the past, which can be prone to errors and distortions (Schacter, 2012; Schacter & Thakral, 2024). Because memories are pulled together from different fragments or pieces of information, that is where our memories become subject to distortion, misinformation, or misidentification. With that being said, this constructive process is functional, allowing us to use our past experiences to help us imagine future scenarios.
Summer Solstice! Welcome Summer!
This year the solstice happens on Sunday, June 21, at 4:24 A.M. EDT when the Earth is at the point in its orbit where the North Pole reaches its maximum tilt (approximately 23.5 degrees) toward the Sun (Almanac, 2025). This is also the time when the Northern Hemisphere is exposed to the Sun at the most direct angle of the year. This time of year has some profound implications for neurobiology and psychological well-being. These are what we are going to explore in preparation for June 21st!
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