How To Deal With The Dark Days of Winter

This week is the first full week of winter

…but to other people who don’t like the Winter, this is also known as…

The Darkness That Never Seems To End.

So today I’m gonna discuss 5 Strategies for Beating The Darkness

When you’re going to work; you may go to work in the dark, and you’re also getting home in the dark.

So this can feel like the proverbial “Gut Punch”, and it feels like you’re never seeing the light of day and can be a real challenge to stay positive and cheery.

When this happens now, the dark days of winter can bring about changes like

• sadness and depression,
• loss of energy and fatigue.
• excessive sleep,
• changes in appetite weight gains and excessive eating and cravings.
• You can also get irritability.
• You can get burnout,
• you can get feelings of isolation, feeling like you’re trapped in your house.

Now, Dr. Ramanpreet Toor, a psychiatrist from the university of Washington did a study.

And she said that this lack of motivation, the increased sleeping, the irritability, the, these different behaviors that you see in people in the winter were typical behaviors. And, she actually called this behavior “Seasonality”.

Now the doctors say that they’re not exactly sure why this happens, but they think it has something to do with the seasonal changes and our exposures to light and darkness and how that changes our sleep cycle. And they feel it has something to do with the levels of melatonin and that when there’s lightness, the Melatonin is told to shut off, but when there’s increased levels of darkness, it increases our level of melatonin, which is the sleep hormone and that cues our body to sleep and gives us the desire to want to sleep more.

Now, Dr. Tour says that our mood is a complex web of the relationship of how we are affected by light and darkness, our melatonin levels, also our serotonin levels, which are affected by light and how this affects us overall.

Now, if you think that you’re somebody that’s affected by what’s called SAD or Seasonal Affective Disorder, Dr. Toor recommends that you see your primary care physician.

You may have larger swings in what’s called  Seasonal depression. You may also have other issues like vitamin D deficiency. Now, if you’re diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder, your physician will recommend different possible treatment options. It will probably depend on the severity of your symptoms. It may include things like light therapy, Dawn simulation, medication, and possibly even cognitive behavioral therapy.

So let’s talk about the different things that you can do to deal with the dark days of winter.

These Include:

1. Focus on a Positive Mindset
2. Exercise
3. Keep a routine
4. Get Sunshine
5. Find A Winter Purpose  

Bonus: Stay Socially Connected

1. First I want you to keep your mindset focused on the positive.

There is so much power in your mindset and what we focus on.

If you focus on the negative aspects of winter, then you will always have a negative outlook towards the season of winter. Now, if you focus on the positive, you just might change your mind about winter.

Now, I like to tell people is a point about winter that happens to be an “Aha Moment” for a lot of people.

Now, I love the darkest day of the year, which is the winter solstice. I know that seems a little weird, but you have to remember that most people have a skewed view of the winter season.

Now, most people just think it stays the darkest of the year throughout the whole winter, but we need to be reminded, by science, that each day after the winter solstice gets a little bit longer.

And as my friend Craig and I like to say, “Every day of the winter, gets a little bit brighter and a little bit lighter.”

Every day, we get brighter out.  Every day by 90 seconds to two and a half minutes, progressively as the days go on throughout the whole winter.

So if you have the focus on the whole winter as being dark and being dismal; I want you to change your focus, knowing that every day during the winter, it’s getting a little bit brighter out every day.

My friend, Nancy, likes to say that she thinks of Early Spring starting on the first day of Winter.  I love that frame of mind. It keeps your mind focused on the positive aspects that each day of the winter is getting progressively brighter and it keeps your mind focused forward on the spring and not on the “overall” darkness of winter.

And you’ll notice that after about three or four weeks, when we get into January, it makes a big difference. You can actually start to see it and feel it.  Instead of it getting dark at 4:30, it starts to get dark at about 5:30 and before you know it’s February and it’s 6:00pm and then  6:15. And then we hit daylight savings time in the second or third week of March and “BOOM” at 7:00pm at night before it gets dark.

Now I’ve always enjoyed the winter, whether it’s hikes or winter walks with the dogs or snowshoeing or skiing, I’ve just always loved the winter season. But even with that, you know, sometimes those dark long days of darkness can really get to you and we need to stay positive and need to be reminded of the things that we need to focus on.

Now, I’ve been happily married for almost 25 years, and my wonderful wife is of Norwegian descent. And I’ve been fortunate enough to go to Norway numerous times and I consider it a second home now. 

Norway, is a Scandinavian country and they are used to long winters. There’s a city, Bergen, which is in the Northwest side of the country. In December, they average about five and a half to six hours of daylight each day.

Now in an article by Vox media titled, “How To Make It Through Winter”. They talked with a Norwegian man who discussed the term, “Hygge” to make winter less challenging.

“Hygge”

Now, “Hygge” (Higg-ga) is a Scandinavian term, which means:  the value of warm, happy coziness and togetherness, which people make time for an everyday life. Now, “Hygge” is also referred to  as: the good feeling you get from a cozy aestheticly, pleasing environment.

Now, another word that’s used by my Norwegian family is “Koselig” (Coos-i-ly), which means: cozy or a cozy warmth, or a comfortable feeling.

Now this “Koselig” (Coos-i-ly) or a cozy feeling is about lighting candles. It’s about sitting on the couch by the fire. It’s about warm conversations with friend and comforting foods. This is the feeling and it helps us through the darkest times of the year.

“Koselig”

Now there’s a great quote by Edith Sitwell that I believe captures us feeling well. And the quote is…

“Winter is time for comfort, for good foods and warmth.  For the touch of a friendly hand. And A talk beside the fire. It is time for home.”

Now I’m gonna give you a few other quotes that  I think give you the good spirit and a good, positive feeling about having a positive mindset  for winter.

Here’s one from John Steinbeck.

“What Good Is The Warmth Of Summer

Without The Cold Winter To Give It Sweetness?”

Here’s another one by Hal Borland…

“No Winter Lasts Forever, No Spring Skips Its Turn”.

So, no matter how you feel about winter, spring will be here before you know it.

Here’s another one from Albert Camus

In the depth of winter,

I finally learned that there was,

in me, an invincible summer”.

So the first tip for getting through the dark days of winter was to be positive, to have a positive mindset and see the winter in a positive light.

2.  Now, the second tip is: Exercise.

Very often with the dark days of winter, there’s a tendency, when you get home in the dark from work, and you want to just sit on the couch, eat something and do anything but exercise.

But if you can, you want to keep the same habits that you had when there was more light in the late spring and the summer and the early fall. So what you can do is to, make sure that you keep up your level of exercise, and that the easiest way to do that is to is keep a routine.

So number two is to make sure you regularly exercise, which may mean going out for a walk when you get homes and schedule it in. Even though it’s dark out, you could do things like wear a reflective vest, or you can, as I have, dog leashes that light up, so you can stay safe and be on the sidewalk and be lit up, so cars can see you.

3. The Third way beating the dark days of Winter is: Keeping A Routine

There is a tendency when the dark days Winter come and when it’s dark when we get home from work or the dark just creeps up on as quickly when it’s dark at 4:30 or in some ares further north, even earlier, that we need to keep routines.  We need to have a plan of exactly what we’re going to do.

So let’s say it gets dark at 4:30 and you get home from work from 5:00pm. What are you doing between five o’clock and dinner? What are you doing after dinner?

So instead of going right to that couch and watching more TV and then going to bed, do the things that you would normally do.  You want to schedule ’em out so that you make sure that you’re doing them.

And you may have to adjust according to the darkness.  Whether it’s driving out to the store, whether it’s exercising either at a gym or in, your house, you want to keep your routines going.

4.  Number Four is:  Getting Sunshine.

So what this means is making sure that, some point during your day, you get out of your house and you get sunshine. So whether it’s at lunch hour, where you can eat outside if weather permits, or walk around the building or walk around the block. That way you get exercise and you also get some sunshine as well.

Sunshine will help your mood and also helps you synthesize vitamin D.

There is also the possibility of a vacation in a warmer climate during winter for sunshine and increased daylight  as well

5.  Number Five is:  Finding A Winter Time Purpose.

Set a goal for yourself. If you set a goal for yourself, you’re less likely to be less efficient during the wintertime.

There’s that tendency when it gets dark to be less active.  To sit down after dinner and sit on the couch and, and watch more TV and then go to bed and put that on “rinse and repeat”.  Find a purpose that you can set for yourself so that you can accomplish this through the wintertime months. 

Whether it’s playing an instrument like guitar, piano or saxophone, or maybe you want to read a certain number of books that are going to help you on your way to reaching a goal. By finding that wintertime purpose, you’ll find that you’ll have more structure and more motivation to do things during the dark days.

Bonus Tip is to:  Stay Socially Connected.

Now, remember, in the winter months, there’s a tendency to have increased levels of sadness and depression, anxiety, feeling of loss, feeling of fatigue and energy. So keeping socially connected, whether it’s with your friends, family, church members or other groups, or going out to help those in need will help reduce the tendency towards depression and anxiety during the winter months.

All of these things will help you find purpose during the winter months and keep you socially connected to other people which will increase your levels of energy and happiness.

So in review. my five ways to deal with the dark days of winter, there was:

1. Keep a positive mental attitude.

2. Exercise.

3.  Keep a routine.

4.   Make sure you get some sunshine. During these winter months,

5.   Find a wintertime purpose for yourself.

Bonus Tip: was to stay socially connected.

Here’s a final winter quote:

“We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than what they are, are gifts from the universe. And we cannot refuse them, but we can choose what we will contribute to life when each one arrives.” …Gary Zuko. 

Happy Holidays and have a Wonderful Winter!!

Be Positive, Be Motivated, Be Focused and Be Well,

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