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Maybe you’ve caught yourself saying something like this lately: “Here comes the dark season again.” The American psychologist Kari Leibowitz arrived in Tromsø as a young fellowship holder with exactly that expectation. The city lies far north of the Arctic Circle, and from late November to mid-January the sun doesn’t rise there; only a few hours of twilight light up the day. Leibowitz wanted to find out how people get through those weeks.
Many of them didn’t quite know what to make of her question. They told her about the first snow and skiing, about candles in the windows and the northern lights. Some were genuinely looking forward to winter, and the word koselig kept coming up. It roughly means cozy, but it also refers to being together with others in a warm, bright room while it’s dark outside.
Together with the Norwegian psychologist Joar Vittersø, Leibowitz later surveyed people in Oslo, in the Troms region and on Svalbard about how they view winter. Among other things, the two wanted to know whether people like the soft light of the winter months or whether they often don’t feel like doing anything at all in winter. The farther north respondents lived, the more positively they viewed winter on average, and despite the longer darkness they were no less happy. Those who saw winter more positively were also more satisfied with their lives and experienced more positive emotions.
Whether this mindset lifts well-being or satisfied people simply view winter more kindly can’t be settled by a one-time survey to which only a small share of those contacted responded. People who move to Svalbard also probably liked winter to begin with.
How a mindset shapes what you notice
If you drive to work in the dark and get home after sunset, it doesn’t help much when someone tells you to simply see the dark season more positively. Northern lights are rare here, and November brings drizzle more often than snow. Leibowitz based her questionnaire on the work of Stanford psychologist Alia Crum, who calls such basic attitudes mindsets. In Crum’s model, they act like a filter that steers what you pay attention to and what you plan to do.
If you see winter mainly as something to get through, you’re more likely to notice the grey outside the office window and perhaps cancel that evening plan because it’s already dark. The study did not examine whether such a mindset can be deliberately changed. Many of the people Leibowitz met in Tromsø had filled their winter with things they could look forward to, even though not every dark day there is beautiful.
When memories warm you
Baking cookies from your grandmother’s recipe in winter often brings back the past, and that may have something to do with the cold. A team led by Chinese psychologist Xinyue Zhou and social psychologist Constantine Sedikides of the University of Southampton found that people become nostalgic more often on colder days. A room at twenty instead of twenty-four degrees Celsius was enough.
The memory then seems to actually warm. People who put themselves back into a pleasant experience from the past perceived the same room as warmer. In another experiment, participants had to hold one hand in ice-cold water, and those who had first thought of something they liked to remember held out longer than those who had recalled something ordinary.
According to studies by Sedikides and his colleague Tim Wildschut, nostalgia often sets in precisely when people feel low or lonely. The memories usually revolve around people close to us, and they strengthen the sense of being connected to others. The experiments were mostly small and conducted with students, so the findings should be read with caution. If you look through old photos on a cold evening or call someone you went sledding with as a child, you can find out for yourself what such a memory does for you.
Rituals that connect
Many of the winter pleasures Leibowitz heard about in Tromsø were shared with others. Behavioral scientist Ovul Sezer and colleagues studied what shared holiday rituals do, surveying people after Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Easter.
Those who kept fixed rituals with their family, such as a particular meal, opening presents together or going to a church service, felt closer to their family and enjoyed the holidays more. What mattered most was having a fixed ritual at all. People with a ritual were also much more likely to spend Christmas with their family. Cause and effect can’t be cleanly separated here either, though, since close-knit families are probably more likely to keep rituals.
Because rituals come back every year, you can look forward to them long in advance. A Dutch survey of around fifteen hundred adults offers a hint that anticipation matters. People with a trip ahead of them were happier in the period before it than people without travel plans. After they returned, the difference usually disappeared, and even after a very relaxing vacation it faded within about two weeks. The researchers suspect that anticipation plays an important role.
In a few days, children in Germany will again walk through the streets with lanterns for St. Martin’s Day, a tradition many people remember from their own childhood. New fixed points in winter can also be created, such as an annual mulled wine evening with friends or a walk through the lit-up streets on the first Sunday of Advent. People who live alone or far from their family in particular can create their own traditions this way. Even the dark commute can become one of these fixed points, for instance with a cup of tea for the train that you look forward to as soon as you leave the house.
When winter gets hard
A large study of almost nine thousand adults in Tromsø found no higher psychological distress in winter on average than in other seasons; only sleep problems were reported more often. Because different people were surveyed in different seasons, however, it says nothing about how each individual fares over the winter.
For some people, the dark season hits much harder. In depression with a seasonal pattern, symptoms return year after year in autumn and winter and often last for weeks to months. People affected feel low and lack drive, and they lose pleasure in things that usually matter to them. This often comes with a strong need for sleep, cravings and a wish to withdraw. Winter depression can be treated well, for example with psychotherapy, light therapy and, if needed, medication, and a friendlier attitude toward winter cannot replace that.
Exercise: the winter list
Take ten minutes and write down what you could look forward to in the coming weeks. These areas can help.
With others: Invite friends or family for dinner, or go to the Christmas market with colleagues after work. Long evenings leave more time for conversation.
For yourself at home: Set aside an evening for something that often gets left undone in summer. Maybe you paint or do crafts again like you did as a child, or pick up the instrument sitting in the corner.
On your commute: For the dark weeks, set aside something that belongs only to those journeys, such as an audiobook series or a playlist you don’t otherwise listen to.
Outdoors: Go outside on purpose in the cold months too, dressed warmly, on the weekend in daylight or in the evening under the stars. When you come home with cold hands, a cup of tea or a hot shower feels especially good. Physiologist Michel Cabanac showed that warmth feels more pleasant when the body is chilled.
A tradition: Think of a tradition you’d like to revive or start, perhaps with friends or just for yourself.
Put the things on your list into your calendar like appointments, especially plans with other people. That way you’ll have something to look forward to in the days before. Small things that take only a few minutes count too. If you don’t feel like it on a given day, that’s okay.
Also pay attention to how you talk about winter. When you catch yourself saying something like “Dark again already,” ask yourself briefly what this early evening leaves room for today.
For one week, write down each evening in one sentence how you felt. Afterwards, you can consider which of these small things you’d like to keep up over the coming months.
What would you miss if there were no more winter?
If it’s more than a hard day: This exercise is not a substitute for treatment. If your mood stays low for weeks, talk to a psychologist at Mindvise. Whether depression is behind it should be assessed by your GP or a psychotherapy practice, where you can also get treatment if needed. If you are in acute crisis in Germany, you can reach the TelefonSeelsorge free of charge around the clock at 0800 111 0 111 or 0800 111 0 222. In an emergency, call 112.
Sources
Leibowitz, K. & Vittersø, J. (2020). Winter is coming: Wintertime mindset and wellbeing in Norway. International Journal of Wellbeing, 10(4), 35–54. https://doi.org/10.5502/ijw.v10i4.935
Leibowitz, K. (2018, January 13). A small Norwegian city might hold the answer to beating the winter blues. Salon (republished from The Conversation). https://www.salon.com/2018/01/13/a-small-norwegian-city-might-hold-the-answer-to-beating-the-winter-blue_partner/
Crum, A. J., Salovey, P. & Achor, S. (2013). Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 716–733. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031201
Zhou, X., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Chen, X. & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2012). Heartwarming memories: Nostalgia maintains physiological comfort. Emotion, 12(4), 678–684. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027236
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Sezer, O., Norton, M. I., Gino, F. & Vohs, K. D. (2016). Family rituals improve the holidays. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 1(4), 509–526. https://doi.org/10.1086/688495
Nawijn, J., Marchand, M. A., Veenhoven, R. & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2010). Vacationers happier, but most not happier after a holiday. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 5(1), 35–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-009-9091-9
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National Institute of Mental Health (n.d.). Seasonal affective disorder. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/seasonal-affective-disorder
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