keep the peace

11 little ways to preserve your fun, healthy summer vibe even as fall stress ramps up.

- BY MEGHAN RABBITT

What is it about summer that makes healthy living feel easier?

Maybe it's the extra daylight that inspires us to go for a walk every morning or evening or to get together with friends for impromptu patio hangs. It could be the piles of pretty produce at the farmers’ market that practically beg us to have a big salad for lunch. Or maybe it’s the vacation time we take—an opportunity to unplug and unwind.

No wonder so many of us get a bad case of “the Mondays” when autumn rolls around. As the pace of life picks up, those healthy routines that felt second nature to us just a few weeks ago can start to slip away.

This season, what if we didn’t let that happen? What if we kept up all the happy-making and good-for-us habits that feel effortless in the summer even as life takes a turn for the hectic? There are ways! We asked experts to tell us how they flip the script on fall and hold on to the calm energy of summer. Their advice offers the assurance that while summer may be over, the way it makes us feel can last.

stay easy-breezy

One of the best parts of summer is how gentle we are on ourselves. Stayed up too late due to an epic block party? Oh, well. Decided to skip the gym so you could catch sunset at the beach? No biggie. The fact that it’s hardcore back-to-work time doesn’t mean you have to jump into too-rigid routines and then beat yourself up for not sticking to them perfectly. In fact, you probably have more leeway than you think.

Take exercise, for example. “Your body doesn't care if you do a single hour-long full-body strength routine. Your body only cares if you do nothing,” says Vonda Wright, M.D., an orthopedic sports surgeon and the author of Unbreakable: A Woman's Guide to Aging With Power. So break your workouts into smaller chunks if that makes them feel more doable as your schedule gets busier.