Theresa Briggs is the Clinical Manager of Outpatient Behavioral Health at Amery Hospital & Clinic. She’s also a mom of two young boys and has a hobby farm. She joins us to share how her family celebrates fall and finds joy. She also offers her advice and coping strategies for when life gets stressful and busy.

How does your family like to celebrate fall? What does fall mean to you?

September is the busiest month of the year for me and my family. Nearly every single birthday and my wedding anniversary is in September. And school starts and my kids are gearing up for sports. Plus, the season is changing and we’re getting ready for winter. There's just a lot at once!

Sounds like a ton of joy.

A ton of joy, yes. There's just so much for my family to be joyful about.

On the flip side of joy and balancing life, there can be those valleys.

You know, there is a kind of sadness that comes with the end of summer. Even though there can be a lot of joy and excitement with the beginning of the school year, for some kids and families the big change in routines can feel hard and bring big feelings for everyone in the household.

How do you manage it all and stay present and joyful?

I have to plan ahead and be very purposeful with my time while also trying to stay in the present moment, which is hard to do. I take things a little bit at a time and try to not get too ahead of myself. And when things don't go exactly as planned, I have to let it go. When things don't go as planned or when the stressors start to pick up, focusing on healthy coping strategies or tools are helpful.

What advice would you offer other families for this busy and changing time of year?

Try to slow down and enjoy your time together. Try to stick to a routine as best you can. Try to find things to be joyful about together.

My family is fortunate that we have “built-in” celebrations in the fall with lots of birthdays, but there are many ways to celebrate and be joyful together as a family in the fall. It could be going to a pumpkin patch or apple orchard. Carving or painting pumpkins. These are purposeful ways to celebrate fall where your family can be joyful together.

I love how you point out that your family has many “built-in” birthday celebrations in the fall, and while other families might not, there are lots of opportunities to build-in celebrations, which could be big or small. You noted some great fall activities and PowerUp Fall Fest happens to be another opportunity! Our hope with Fall Fest is to give families ideas and inspiration for celebrating fall.

Earlier you talked about being purposeful with your time. Can you share more about other ways you or your family is purposeful?

• ­We try to be purposeful with getting outside and playing together. We love fall campfires!
• ­We always eat together. My kids enjoy breakfast and lunch at school, but we always eat dinner together as a family.
• ­We always have a purposeful bedtime routine. The one thing we always do every single night is read. We read with our kids every single night, or they read to us. Even when we're tired and they might be falling asleep while we're reading, it's still very important to them and to us. We try to keep that routine as best we can and keep a consistent bedtime for our kids.

We have a hobby farm with goats, chickens, horses, dogs and cats. It can be a lot to keep up with, but we were purposeful in choosing the animals that we have and choosing the environment that we raise our kids in. We hope for there to be peace and joy and connectedness with animals and with the outdoors; something bigger than ourselves. And so we try to create that.

Being purposeful can look like “protecting” your time. It’s another way of prioritizing and staying present. I try to protect our family time together and I try to protect my mornings. I take my time outside with the animals versus rushing through feeding the cats, horses, dogs, and goats. This helps me feel connected and grounded. There is actually a lot of joy to be found in routine, daily life activities if you can create the space for it.

Going back to managing or coping with change and stress, do you have specific tools you would recommend?

5-4-3-2-1 grounding is one of my favorite grounding strategies. It’s a great grounding strategy to help calm your body back down when feeling nervous, anxious, or agitated.  This strategy involves all of your senses.  Begin by taking 5 deep breaths and then identify:

• ­5 things you can see
• ­4 things you can touch
• ­3 things you can hear
• ­2 things you can smell
• ­1 thing you can taste

Touch could be feeling your back in a chair or toes wiggling in shoes; you can feel those sensations.

Smell could be your hair smelling like shampoo or your shirt smelling laundry soap or sweat. The smell could be purposeful, like grabbing a candle or whatever is near you. It might not necessarily be a pleasant smell, but it will activate your senses.

Taste. This can be as simple as your saliva. What does your saliva taste like? Are there hints of the last thing you ate or drank? Maybe minty toothpaste?

Activating all of the senses grounds and calms kids and adults alike.

Another strategy I am always recommending is ice water. Ice water is one of the most calming coping strategies. It activates the vagus nerve, which is part of the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the system that controls heart rate, digestion and the immune system – the things you cannot control voluntarily. Drinking ice water will activate the vagus nerve and naturally calm us down. It's the best kept secret!