So You're Afraid Of Winter

10 concepts informed by psychiatry and creativity to prepare for winter, create rituals, and use a season of interiority

In 2023, I started creating a series on my TikTok called Winter Mysticism, and it was a series preparing for and then journeying through winter in the northern hemisphere. We started in October—a month before the days shorten acutely and daylight saving time brings the sunset to an offensively early 4 pm. I’ve seen many people talk about being interested in better living in winter due to their own experience of depression or seasonal mood and energy changes in the darker, colder seasons—such as in Wintering, one of my favorite books by Katherine May . However, I started writing about winter because my experience has been the opposite.

I grew up in a small town in Illinois, without the luck of city lights to keep the winter interesting. I also am 30 year old, meaning the smartphones didn’t really exist until I went off to college, and the most interesting thing about the internet for a kid was Club Penguin and Webkinz (and, of course, AIM instant messenger as a teen). My childhood winters were filled with family dinners, being mediocre in multiple school sports (the gift of going to a small parochial school is everyone makes every team), the rise and fall of seasons in the Church, and lots of baking. When I went to college a few hours north in South Bend, Indiana (Go Irish), my freshman year of college was marked (some might say scarred) by the Polar Vortex winter, and my sharpest memory of that is walking 20 minutes against the wind, into the snow, to get to 8:30 am organic chemistry (which I struggled mightily in). Afternoons there were filled with visits to the dining hall, hot chocolate at the small cafe in the old liberal arts building, and movie nights in my all girl dorm.

cozy late morning brunches, made better by the warm in the cold

In medical school in St. Louis, and in residency out here in Boston, similar rituals of winter repeated, but what changed was my awareness of how winter impacted my friends, my family, and eventually, my patients, differently. In hindsight, this was true in college as well, when I think about my friends from warm regions of the country or world and how truly horrendous the cold was for them. As a psychiatrist, I know there is a biology to this, and even a genetic component. Also as a psychiatrist, I know that most mood states and energy changes for people come from a diathesis-stress model—there’s something that can increase your risk for a condition, and environmental factors that make that risk into a reality of symptoms. (For more on Seasonal Affective Disorder from a clinical psychiatry perspective, you can check out this episode from last year of my podcast, How to Be Patient).

You’ll be hearing more from me here and on Tik Tok and Instagram for tips on making it into, through, and deepening into fall and winter. For now, here are 10 ideas of how to help yourself prepare for winter before November 2nd.

Below the Pay Wall: 10 concepts—5 from psychiatry, 5 from creativity—to help better our winters.

First Up: Five Things I’ve Learned from Psychiatry

As always: I am a doctor, I draw on my clinical experience and reading of the clinical literature, but I am not your doctor, and therefore this information should be taken for education, entertainment, and maybe a starting off point, but not direct recommendations for you.

1. I will say—if winter has been hard for you 2-3 years in a row or more, and you’ve never talked with your healthcare provider or therapist about it, I’d recommend bringing it up now. Many people may have S.A.D. and could be helped by a formal treatment plan for it, but don’t realize it’s happening until they’re in it.

2. If fatigue is the big change: The vitamin D debate is actually somewhat controversial at present. If you get a lab, and you’re very low, and your clinician tells you to supplement it, that’s a clearer case. If, however, you do spend some time outside, get nutritional intake, and haven’t had a lab, I wouldn’t assume you definitely need to take it. Vitamin D, complete blood counts (CBC), talking about how heavy your period is if you are a menstruating person, iron panel, sometimes TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), and talking about sleep/snoring/sleep apnea are all my first considerations for my patients who notice fatigue more in the winter. Some people are fatigued all year, but they really notice it when there is less natural light/invitation to be outside/structured schedule in the winter.

3. “Happy Lamps”—aka lights that emit at least 10,000 lux—come in many shapes and sizes, and can be a big help for people with both clinical level seasonal affective disorder and the subclinical, coloquial “winter blues".” There are ones for 30-40$ on Amazon and Walmart, but if you’re interested in spending a bit more and shopping small, and want a more aesthetic one, I like Northern Light Technologies, which have been in the game as a family run business for decades.

4. If you can—eat enough, sleep enough. I KNOW! I KNOW! I hate when doctors say this too! I hate saying it! Unfortunately, it is true, and that sucks but also it’s kind of cool how there are some behaviors we can do to help our winter brains. Most adults need somewhere between 7-9 hours of sleep, but sleep patterns change in older adulthood and geriatric years, so if you’re 50+, you may need closer to 7 hours. If you struggle with insomnia, I’ll assume you’ve already covered the basics of sleep hygiene (low screen use, no napping during the day, keeping a regular schedule, no caffeine after 1 or 2 pm etc). The other thing I would add is that there are many effective apps that can help people do self-guided CBTi aka CBT for insomnia, which is perhaps the most effective intervention we have, even in app form (compared even to medications). It takes a level of commitment to the bit (the bit being CBT), but I’ve seen it be life changing for folks. Eat enough means that for some people, your energy is low because you are underfeeding yourself (whether on purpose or, by accident) OR your eating schedule is so unpredictable that your body is kind of confused. This doesn’t mean you need to eat the same thing at the same time each day or your body will be upset—but if you’re tired at 4 pm but have only had a bowl of soup, a coffee, and a cookie…space your nutrition in a bit more.

5. Exposure to sunlight (and still use some spf) via walking can help. The cold and cloud coverage can be issues, and this is where some of the dressing warm enough and having options (like insulated coats, wool socks, layers) is key. This one is a double win as it is both exercise and sun exposure.

   

   winter, deep in vermont snow last year

My Five Favorite Winter Habits or Plans

6. Play with temperature: There are components of sensory displeasure that automatically come with winter: the wet bottom of your pants from walking in the half melted snow, the blast of cold at 7:30 am when you step outside for the first time, the lack of sunlight as you leave your work at 4:45 pm. One positive sensory experience I like to add back in is the use of temperature— particularly heat— in the winter, especially close to cold exposure. This is a pleasure, and it’s also a heightened sense experience to pair them in contrast. This can be done in so many ways, from free to very luxury. A few I like:

   1. A hot bubble bath with epsom salts after getting home on a dreary Monday evening.

   2. joining a gym in the winter months with a sauna.

   3. hot tea on the stove the moment you get home after work, in from the cold.

   4. Warming up your towels or blanket in the dryer before bed or before that bubble bath.

   5. Hot soups and coffees for your midday lunch or coffee break at work.

7. Plan a Trip: Easier said than done, I KNOW! However, I want you to also be real with me and with yourself—is it that you absolutely cannot go on a trip somewhere novel or warm, or that usually by the time you realize you need to escape the cabin fever of February, it’s too late and too expensive and, dammit, you’re tired anyway? Right. The full expression of this is to go somewhere it is not winter where there is plenty of heat and sunlight—so much so that some clinical guidelines on SAD actually mention this as a strategy. Other expressions are a day trip from your town, or to a local health spa with a sauna, infrared, or heated stone massage. Novelty and exposure to warmth and light—these are the core elements. This one is out of touch for some in this current economy (hello, me last year), and I recognize that, but I would be amiss to not mention this one as it can be a big help for those to whom it is accessible.

8. Create Routine When Daylight Doesn’t: Something we can take for granted is the way that in the lighter months the outdoors provides a rhythm for our days. The fall and winter do, too, and we will come back to that, but for most of us darkness at 4:30 pm is not going to cut it, and I don’t recommend trying to sleep at that time. Because of this, though, sometimes part of difficulty in winter can be the way time stops having clear cut offs throughout our day. If it’s dark by the afternoon, then we don’t have cues until the next sunrise. When do we eat dinner? When do we start cleaning up and moving towards bed? When do we get up? When is the workday over? If possible, adding a little structure to your day can help with the sense of listlessness that the lack of the sun creates.

   1. Have a five minute end of day ritual when transitioning from wherever you work to Not Working. Make your to-do list for the next day, clean up your desk, listen to a playlist or non-work related podcast, call a friend on your commute—anything that done routinely will signal to your body that the work portion is done for today and we are moving towards play, connection, rest.

   2. Bring light into how you wake up. While I love my Hatch alarm, I also have been getting up at 5:30 am a few days a week to teach 6:30 am pilates, and have needed a bit more assistance in getting up. I had gotten color changing, smart Lightbulbs, and have learned how to schedule them so they turn on on a timer. Now, my alarm goes off, and a few minutes later, at a warm low tone, all my lamps turn on. It can be a calmer way to wake up but still powerful enough to actually wake you up on dark winter mornings.

   3. Bring some joy into your eating rituals. Consider an afternoon coffee break as a special 15 minutes of time. Sit at your table for dinner, or light a candle, plate your food well.

9. View the quiet and dark season as an invitation towards creating color and light through your interior world. Yes, this is where the mysticism part comes from. I studied theology in undergraduate, and one thread of old Catholicism I loved were the contemplative saints and mystics. So much of mysticism and contemplation sprung from the ability for stillness, repetition, and listening. Creativity often comes from these slow, still places, too. What if winter is the season of vivid imagination? The season you finally take that dance class, learn to water color, or make a new pastry every other week? What if you switched roles with the sun, and the responsibility of illumination became yours? How might it feel to remember that in a few months, the world will be vibrant, abundant, and busy again, and this is your time to tune into the inner vibrancy of your own soul?

10. Practice rest—most of us are bad at it. Hustle culture, fast fashion, social media addiction, productivity, health optimization—all of this is about constant, cancerous growth. Winter asks if you can slow down, and most of us—me definitely included—struggle to answer that call without judging our bodies and our emotions for not being the same every season. Winter can be a practice of seeing how much sleep feels good for our own bodies, not just what the wellness podcast protocol was. Winter can be a time to notice how much blank space we enjoy, if we let ourselves do so with criticizing it for being a waste. This can be a time that, for once, we stop hurrying. Can you imagine?

All of these ideas are for you to take or leave, to find what feels good as you read it, and to throw away what feels like another burden to take into winter with you. One of the lies that depression or anxiety can tell people is that they are isolated in their suffering—that there is something wrong about their pain or discomfort, and no one else feels it. This isolation can be devastating, and silo us off from our connection, support, and resources. This winter, solitude can be beautiful, but solitude is not the same as isolation.

I hope these ideas bring you some comfort, somewhere to start, and a way to help the dread of winter.

Take care, and thank you for your attention and time,

Margaret of Bad Art Every Day