Reflecting on the stress of the years leading up to your 30s is far from a novel concept. As much as we vow not to equate our worth with our age, there’s nothing like approaching a new decade to give you an existential crisis. However, a growing number of women believe that the pressure is coming from more than just society and our peers. In fact, they think the planets are at play. 

Enter: your Saturn return, aka the tumultuous years between the ages of 27 and 30, when major life shake-ups often occur. Adele has previously referenced struggling during her own Saturn return on her 2021 album 30 and Ariana Grande named a track Saturn Returns Interlude on her latest album. Emma Watson, Katy Perry and Gwen Stefani have also credited it as a major shift in their lives.

But what exactly is it? And how do you know if you’re experiencing yours?

Essentially, it means a time of reckoning. “The first Saturn return happens when we are about 29, as Saturn gets back to the degree it was when you were born,” astrologer Francesca Oddie tells Stylist. 

“Saturn is like the strict headmaster who wants the best for us – to grow up and achieve,” Oddie explains. “If you’ve been in a job that you don’t particularly like, but you have great friends and fun weekends, you can get through your 20s just dealing with the frustration. However, at Saturn’s return, any frustrations become very heavy and depressing, and the same goes for a relationship that was once OK and had been ticking along nicely.

“Saturn returns to wake us up to our true selves. The more we are sleepwalking through life, the more painful this process will be.” 

But be warned, going through your Saturn return is no walk in the park. Hayley Quinn, a dating coach who’s now in her 30s, spoke publicly about her difficult late 20s in a 2018 Ted Talk, and she puts it down to her Saturn return. 

“It was a horrible time, my life got totally flipped around. I lost my (very dodgy) boyfriend, all our shared friends, our house and my pregnancy,” she shared. When she began desperately searching to figure out why life had suddenly become so difficult, she stumbled upon the idea of the Saturn return. To her, it made complete sense. “I had such a brutal life change,” she says, “but I’m thankful now because I was so off my ‘path’. I needed a drastic realignment.”

Of course, not everyone is quite so quick to believe in the power of Saturn return. Despite an increased interest in astrology (apps such as Co-Star, which has well over 5 million registered accounts, offers daily readings for millennial fans), many young women merely consider themselves as curious spectators. But while we really don’t need anything else to worry about, even the most sceptical can’t shake the feeling that there’s something about the concept of Saturn return that rings true.

“Not one part of me follows or believes in astrology,” says Maddy, 29. “I’d never heard of Saturn return until about a year ago when a co-worker mentioned it. At the time I brushed it off, but over the last year, I’ve started doubting ambitions and principles that have always felt firmly set. And I see my female friends of the same age going through similar experiences; ending long, unsatisfying relationships, changing careers, moving countries. It seems as though there’s this tidal wave of change and transition that breaks in our late 20s.

“I don’t think the Saturn return is what makes a lot of women in their late 20s feel a bit wobbly and start making changes. I think it’s more likely social, cultural and financial. But not being linked to cosmic events doesn’t make it any less painful,” she adds.

It’s true that often women who have begun to feel more comfortable in their chosen career might feel a need to break free, and have more of a safety net to do so having often worked for a few years. But Oddie argues Saturn return is universal: “I’ve seen just as many men struggle with their Saturn return as women. We are living in times of change, and today Saturn return is more of a question of what norms we have absorbed and obeyed without questioning.”

In an increasingly chaotic world, most of us are simply looking for ways to find a light in what often feels like a dark tunnel. Personal feelings aside, Dr Perpetua Neo, a London-based clinical psychologist, thinks there could be some truth in the astrological concept. “I do believe quite strongly in Saturn return,” she says. “Psychologically, it makes sense that there’s a time of reckoning around your 30s.”

“The clients I speak to around this age want to define who they are,” Dr Neo explains. There’s an urgency to get started on the goals that they have, perhaps, set aside for whatever reason. Don’t forget that biologically your hormones change, too; your oestrogen will go down. All this translates to the ways we might think differently. There’s a very strong mind and body link.”

But, whether you put it down to astrology or not, Dr Neo says the important thing for anyone going through a time of change is to “be aware and try not to be too hard on yourself”.

“It’s important to step back and think: if you were your own psychologist, what would you say?” she asks. “Objectivity means being able to acknowledge things that you’ve done – your strengths and your gifts – so that you can use this to rethink all of your different challenges.

“There are always going to be points in our lives when we question, so rather than pretend that we don’t, it’s OK to face it and get through the metaphorical eye of the storm. Wisdom is being able to adjust ourselves.”

Images: Getty