{"id":521,"date":"2026-06-29T11:05:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=521"},"modified":"2026-06-29T11:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T11:05:46","slug":"why-you-grieve-the-end-of-summer-before-its-even-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=521","title":{"rendered":"Why you grieve the end of summer before it\u2019s even over"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The days are already getting shorter. The start of the school year is inching closer. You haven\u2019t even had time to make a bucket list yet, let alone check things off. Though the summer has just officially begun, you may be prematurely mourning its departure.<\/p>\n

Read more Should you keep practicing a religion even if you don\u2019t believe?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For people who live in a climate where warm weather only makes itself known a few months a year, summer means late sunsets, leisure, and outdoor recreation. Maybe even a vacation. Knowing how few blissful moments you actually have may inspire an ironic anticipatory anxiety: suddenly, you\u2019re dreading winter while sitting at the beach.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If summer is particularly meaningful to you or you have a tendency to downplay positive moments in order to stave off future disappointment, you might be more inclined to mourn summer\u2019s decline. But you can savor the season \u2014 and beyond \u2014 by keeping your calendar populated with events.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A brief respite<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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All of the hallmarks we\u2019ve come to associate with summer \u2014 no school, a slowdown at work, family trips \u2014 are relatively modern. Prior to the 19th century, kids attended school during most of the summer and only the wealthy took vacations during the warmer months. While labor unions fought for shorter work hours during the early 1900s, they largely ignored the issue of paid vacation time, Cindy S. Aron writes in Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States<\/em>. However, by 1930, many industrial workers were offered paid vacations by their employers. In the years following World War II, even more Americans had vacation time and were hungry for summer travel. Now hordes of Americans flock to beaches, lakes, national parks, and public pools, send kids to camp, and road-trip across the country from June through August. Workers, unofficially and officially, slack off on Fridays, or even the season on the whole.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Given all of summer\u2019s relative pluses (though there are some minuses, namely the heat and humidity, made worse by climate change), the thought of the inevitable conclusion can incite preemptive sorrow. Research has found that when people come to the end of a meaningful period of life \u2014 college, a job, your lease at your favorite apartment, and, yes, even summer \u2014 they experience feelings of both happiness and sadness. The melancholy stems from the fact that a chapter is closing, researchers found. Because summer can be a meaningful time for a lot of people, you might see its impending termination as a reminder of the fleetingness of those uniquely summery events. \u201cIn the context of an ending, it makes us sad because we\u2019re looking back at those good times and we\u2019re saying those good times are gone,\u201d Jeff Larsen, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, tells Vox.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The fear of enjoying something too<\/em> much<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The problem is that mourning the end of abundant sunshine well before Labor Day rolls around may hamper your ability to savor it in the first place. Downplaying positive moments by thinking they won\u2019t last or that we\u2019re undeserving of them, known as dampening, has been shown to reduce happiness and could distract you from making the most of summer while it\u2019s here. Dampening is \u201ca very human tendency,\u201d Filip Raes, a professor of clinical psychology at KU Leuven in Belgium, tells Vox. \u201cWe don\u2019t do this because we don\u2019t want to enjoy positive experiences; more often we do it because we\u2019re trying to protect ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The US is better off than it was in 1976. So why does it feel worse?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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People tend to believe dampening will soften the blow of disappointment; if we enjoy something too much, we\u2019ll feel even worse when it\u2019s over, the thinking goes. \u201cIt\u2019s a protective strategy in many cases, but it backfires,\u201d Raes says. \u201cRather than shielding us from future disappointment, it reduces the enjoyment in the moment. We\u2019re sacrificing today\u2019s happiness just to feel less bad in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rather than focus on what\u2019s on the horizon, Larsen and Raes say you should make an effort to savor the season. \u201cMaybe the people who are thinking about summer and its ending throughout the summer, they\u2019re going to do a better job of sucking the marrow out of it,\u201d Larsen says. Part of that is recognizing summer is indeed fleeting, trying not to feel guilty if you dampen during the warmer months, and actually enjoying the season by making meaningful plans: day trips to the lake, weekly walks at dusk with a friend, catching fireflies with all the neighborhood kids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Research has shown that anticipating positive events \u2014 in other words, having things to look forward to \u2014 bolsters positive mood and minimizes stress. On the other hand, \u201csavoring summer\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily mean saying yes to every invitation and packing your downtime. In fact, overscheduling can make leisure feel like work, research suggests. It\u2019s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of possibilities, but try to make just one solid plan per weekend \u2014 say, going to the public pool on a Saturday \u2014 and leave one day free for spontaneous afternoon ice cream hangs. You can also mimic summer travel at home by replicating travel experiences: booking tours, exploring new neighborhoods, and asking for recommendations from locals. (You can also use these tactics in the fall and winter; anticipation isn\u2019t reserved for summer.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When fall rolls around, and you look back on these memories with fondness, you can say you savored summer, even if you\u2019re bummed you have to pack the shorts and flip-flops away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIf you find yourself feeling sad about time being limited, it tells you something,\u201d Larsen says. \u201cIt tells you that this time that you\u2019re in the middle of, or maybe you\u2019re in the end of, you\u2019ve enjoyed it, and it tells you that it\u2019s meaningful to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Four easy ways to live longer<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

See More:<\/span><\/p>\n
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  • Advice<\/li>\n
  • Even Better<\/li>\n
  • Life<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you\u2019re already stressed about the end of the season, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy you grieve the end of summer before it\u2019s even over - American Living Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=521\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why you grieve the end of summer before it\u2019s even over - American Living Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you\u2019re already stressed about the end of the season, you\u2019re not alone.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanlivingreport.com\/?p=521\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Living Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-29T11:05:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/7b970e3bc484fe2e26860a4380d70de8\"},\"headline\":\"Why you grieve the end of summer before it\u2019s even over\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-29T11:05:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521\"},\"wordCount\":1027,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/5ffcd9ab2e169775f30f0edf8f1bb2cb.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanlivingreport.com\\\/?p=521\",\"name\":\"Why you grieve the end of summer before it\u2019s even over - 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