23 Feb How to Beat Winter Depression and Embrace the Cold
Is your way of dealing with winter depression to lock yourself up and feel SAD (that’s seasonal affective disorder, FYI) while waiting for spring to thaw your icy mood? Then you could use some tips from science, the ancient Greeks and today’s Norwegians. Here’s how to shake off the winter blues and embrace the cold.
Don’t be wishing for figs in winter
Winter is a challenging season. The days are gloomy and short, while nights are freezing. But what is it exactly that we have against the winter season? If it’s the lack of warmth and sunshine, your biggest issue with winter is that it isn’t summer. That’s pretty foolish and like wishing for figs in winter, Epictetus would say.
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus would go on to say that you should view everything–things we enjoy, desire, or detest–as temporary. That way you don’t worry about them pointlessly, or freak out when, and not if, you lose them. Instead of cursing the cold, Stoicism teaches you to accept and surrender to the course of nature. But surrendering to the cold doesn’t mean stripping down to your undies and making snow angels. So what’s this surrendering about?
Stoics live in accordance with nature––and that includes your own. So while it’s supposed to get cold in winter, it’s not in our nature to wilfully freeze ourselves to death. We take the course of nature into account together with our own while using our heads to be reasonable and not just give in to our animal instincts. So no being a couch potato all winter, either.
3 ways to deal with being SAD
Accepting winter and what it brings will in turn make it much more bearable. But if you’ve adopted the Stoic mindset and just can’t seem to shake off the winter blues, you could be SAD––and that’s not just an emotion. You might belong to the one in four people that suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Seasonal affective disorder is a type of depression that’s related to changes in seasons. Symptoms start in the fall and continue into the winter months, sapping your energy and making you feel moody. And while many people experience lack of motivation and sadness during winter, having SAD versus the winter blue is like coping with depression versus sadness. As with depression, it can disturb your sleeping and eating cycle. And like depression, the worst coping mechanism is to just wallow in it. Instead, here are 3 simple ways to deal with SAD:
1. Get an extra dose of (artificial) sunshine
Lack of sunshine affects our circadian rhythm and sends our brain into melatonin overdrive. To keep a healthy balance of brain chemistry, make sure to soak up all the sunshine you can get. Opening the blinds and curtains and sitting behind a window helps, but likely isn’t enough. Using a sunbox and using it for 30 minutes every morning will give your brain that much needed additional input of light.
2. Find your fix of negative ions
The invisible particles called negative ions also affect winter depression. When SAD patients were exposed to high levels of negative ions for 30 minutes, their depression eased after just a few weeks. Natural concentrations of negative ions are highest at the seashore, by the pounding surf, or right after a spring thunderstorm.
3. Exercise regularly
The key to beating your blues might be an exercise schedule. A study published in the journal Depression and Anxiety suggests that individuals who engaged in recurring exercise each week were less likely to be diagnosed with depression, even in the face of high genetic risk for the disorder.
Love winter like the Norwegians
With both a healthy Stoic attitude and some changes in your daily routine, your winter depression will be much more manageable. Heck, winter might even become your favorite season. Case in point: residents of northern Norway seem able to experience SAD much less than elsewhere, even if that elsewhere is in locations more southern. Places that are warmer and receive more sun than the Norwegians living around the Arctic Circle where the Polar Night robs them of daylight for months on end.
The American psychologist Kari Leibowitz spent a few winters in Tromsø to find out that rates of seasonal depression are remarkably low. What she found was that Norwegians had a positive wintertime mindset. More than accepting winter and just going with it, “Norwegians really lean into it”, Leibowitz says.
That’s opposed to where she comes from, where “everyone is bemoaning the bomb cyclone and people are posting pictures of warmer places to pretend they’re not in the midst of this ”. In Norway, people look forward to the first snow. They really get out there during winter, skiing to work and going on hikes––but they also enjoy the time it allows them to stay in and spend time together, rather than feeling locked up. Norwegians are Stoics on skis.
