With a glittering lake at your doorstep, live music humming in the distance and the endless buzz of bars, coffee shops and restaurants to explore, the city of Madison is alive with summer. Yet, sometimes, it all feels just out of reach.
I spent the entire winter counting down to summer, ready for warm weather and stress-free days with my best friends. But after finals week and what felt like 400 failed internship applications, I found myself with almost no responsibilities, and instead of feeling liberated, I felt stuck.
My motivation dissipated as steeply as my bank account, and the lack of a consistent routine turned lofty dreams of summer into a harsher reality of “fomo”, stagnation and an infuriating lack of inspiration.
As days blended into each other, discernible only by 7 hour shifts at my minimum wage summer job, I began to feel restless, determined to find the cause of my growing apathy in the most beautiful months of the year. Discussions with friends—and some frantic late night Googling—led me to realize the universality of my experience, the reasoning behind the “summer slump” and a few ways to break the unending cycle of nothingness.
Many articles attribute feelings of isolation or unproductivity in college students during the summer to the sudden switch from a packed schedule to a complete lack of structure and routine. The predictable nature of student life that anchors our day-to-day lives disappears, creating an overwhelming feeling of aimlessness that can be hard to pull yourself out of, especially when dealing with burnout from a grueling semester.
Then there’s the heat. Madison humidity is no joke, and when you’re used to 40 degree “highs,” 85 degrees and sticky feels like stepping into an unwanted sauna. Heat-driven fatigue is a real thing! As your body uses more energy to cool yourself down, it creates physical and emotional lethargy. I found myself lying on the couch for hours avoiding the heat- and realized that doing nothing was kind of addictive. Science backs this up: lounging around releases dopamine, which can trick you into staying lazy. It’s a feedback loop that feels impossible to break.
It’s easy to feel isolated in the summer. Even surrounded by friends in a beautiful city, the crushing lack of motivation leaves me staring at Instagram, scrolling through endless posts of what appear to be jam-packed summers of adventures.
The first step to breaking the cycle is to offer yourself grace. Rest is productive! It’s a necessary reset after months of late night studying and constant deadlines. Reframing your downtime as a way to recover rather than as a failure can help shift your mindset and give you a fresh start to summer.
Give your days just enough structure to stop them from melting into one endless nap. That doesn’t mean setting 6 a.m. alarms; it just means building a loose routine that keeps you moving. Start with the basics: wake up at a reasonable time, eat something that isn’t microwaved noodles and find one small thing each day that makes the day feel valuable.
Planning ahead with friends also saves you from the 5 p.m. couch paralysis, where every plan feels like too much effort. When there’s something on the calendar — a picnic, a concert or even just grabbing gyros on State Street — it’s harder to bail last minute. My friends and I decided to make a summer bucket list! It doesn’t have to be a grand list of impossible adventures. It can be as simple as trying that new food truck two streets over or watching the sunset at Picnic Point.
Madison’s summer isn’t just about concerts, crowded patios or proving you’re having the time of your life on Instagram. It’s about finding joy in the in-between moments: late night ice cream at the Terrace, walking around Lake Monona with no real destination or just lying on the couch watching a movie with the people you love.
Maybe the real dream of Madison summer isn’t living every day like a highlight reel, but learning that a summer that’s quiet, slow and a little messy is still worth celebrating. Sometimes the most rejuvenating summer means doing less and feeling good about it.
Miranda Simpson is a junior and staff writer for The Daily Cardinal. Miranda studies journalism. Do you think the so-called 'summer slump' actually exists? Send all comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com
