Aug. 29, 2025 – Earlier sunsets, cooler weather, and back-to-school sales: Summer is ending, and the signs are hard to ignore. For many, these changes trigger the end-of-summer blues – a mix of sadness, nostalgia, and longing that psychologists say makes savoring the season's final moments important.
Across the country, the mood shifts. Hilary Reiter Azzaretti, 49, a marketing and public relations strategist from Park City, Utah, feels the "dread" creep in by mid-July. For franchise executive Dianne Davis, 64, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, the earlier dusks darken her mood too. It didn't help that this year, her husband suggested they close the backyard pool early. Davis nixed that idea.
"People are starting to feel summer slip away," said Gayle MacBride, PhD, LP, a psychologist in Shakopee, Minnesota, where January temperatures can hover in the single digits. "When we leave summer, it's a type of loss."
Seasonal transitions can bring mood changes, research shows. As daylight hours wane and temperatures fall, your levels of the mood-regulating hormone serotonin can drop. While end of-summer blues isn't nearly as severe as seasonal affective disorder – now clinically known as major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern – experts say it makes sense if you're not skipping into September.
The feeling is normal, said Benjamin Bernstein, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. Some may regret not making the most of their summer, while others are simply reminded there aren't endless summers ahead.
You can't stop the seasons from changing, but you can take steps to improve your mood and well-being during the transition. For people like Reiter Azzaretti, Davis, and many others, the key is simple, experts say: Make the most of what's left. Cue the science of savoring.
Learn to Savor, Reflect
Savoring means slowing down to notice and enjoy small moments. It's the practice of mindfully focusing your attention on everyday pleasures to boost those feel-good emotions, said Eric Garland, PhD, a professor at the University of California San Diego's T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion, who has researched savoring for two decades.
As summer winds down, notice sounds, colors, smells, textures, and tastes – and the positive feelings they spark. "Relish and bask in that positive inner feeling," he said, "allowing it to grow and intensify." During his end-of-summer beach trips, Garland does this – focusing on "the color and sound of the waves," the feel of the breeze, the warmth of the sun, the cry of seagulls, and the joy these experiences inspire.
That focus on the positive is the crucial difference between savoring and mindfulness. (The latter encourages present-moment awareness with acceptance of any feelings it brings.) Savoring, as examined in a growing body of research, aims to regulate mood by enhancing and prolonging positive events. Recent research has looked into how it can protect against stress, substance use, and emotional disorders.
Garland's own research on mindfulness and addiction led him to study savoring. With addiction, "the brain's reward system becomes less sensitive to natural, healthy pleasure," Garland said. Learning the skill of savoring can retrain the brain's reward system, reducing addictive behaviors and fostering well-being.
"Savoring helps the person in addiction recovery to reclaim the sense of meaning that had been hijacked by the drug," Garland said, "and then to reinvest it back into the people, activities, and values they once cared about."
Savoring can also work as an analgesic. Garland and colleagues found it reduced pain in rheumatoid arthritis patients better than slow breathing did. "Savoring activates the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a key part of the brain's reward system," Garland said. "Activating brain reward response can reduce pain."
While savoring the past may have benefits, too, savoring the present "has the most evidence" for being effective, said Annmarie MacNamara, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and brain sciences at Texas A&M, College Station, who has researched savoring. But don't just focus on seasonal moments; also savor "the continuous things … such as your family and friends who are always there."
Journalist Cody Delistraty has written about his own mourning of summer's end. "It's often a season to which we've looked forward, when we've made exciting plans, perhaps gone on a restorative vacation," he said. Since summer returns, it can be challenging, he said, to categorize or legitimatize that feeling of loss.
It's "a time that encourages reflection," said Delistraty, author of The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss. He reflects by journaling, "a form of savoring," he said. "The best journaling goes deep into a feeling, a problem, an idea. To journal is to recognize the validity of our thoughts."
Keep Perspective, Keep the Best of Summer
Consider what the end-of-summer sadness is about for you, Bernstein said. Why are you feeling sad? Where does your mind go when you think about summer ending? If you feel like you've missed out, he said, "slow down, go do something you really like. Make a plan."
If the thought of returning to your normal fall routine saddens you, examine why that transition feels so difficult, he said.
For Davis, the biggest shift is reducing outdoor time once temperatures drop. "I find it depressing to go out and exercise in the cold," she said, noting that she often skips her workout when it's below 50 degrees. She also avoids running errands after dark because it doesn't feel safe, so she shifts them to daylight hours in the winter.
MacBride adjusts by taking her favorite parts of summer into the colder months. She cans fresh tomato sauce during the region's late-summer harvest to enjoy throughout Minnesota's long, frigid winters.
Having someone around who appreciates winter can help, too. "My husband reminds me I'm not totally miserable in winter like I think I am going to be," Reiter Azzaretti said. "Marco loves winter." He grew up in Rome, where snow is rare. "So, he's still enamored by it."
