January is always the longest month of the year for me, and I don’t mean because there are 31 days in it. You would think considering I am born and raised in Minnesota I would be used to these long, dark winters, but the older I get the rougher they are on me.
I don’t hate the four seasons, in fact, I don’t think I could live in a place that didn’t have all four. But winter seems to be that one season that tries to encroach on all the others. Fall is beautiful, but it only seems to last about a minute before the bitter cold comes along with its dark evenings. Spring is the time for a slow rebirth but oftentimes mother nature seems to forget that snow is supposed to stop in April so those flowers can bloom in May.
I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this. In fact, there is even a term for what I have, it’s called SAD or seasonal affective disorder. For some, it’s mild and a nice, brisk walk in the frigid temps helps greatly, but for others, there’s a little more to it than that.
In my house, it’s all about the lights. My husband goes around the house turning off the lights, you know, to save on electricity, while I follow behind him turning them all back on. It’s almost comical, the little game of cat and mouse we play with the lights. But the gloominess of the days followed by early evenings are really a struggle for me. It’s hard to be motivated to do anything when it’s 10 degrees outside and dark by 4:30 p.m.
“More vitamin D,” my doctor says, and she’s right, it does help, but nothing really compares to the warmth and the light that comes directly from the sun. I may have even joined our beagles on the floor in our den at one point to “sunbathe” with them as the sun shined bright on our hardwood floors. Hey, we do what we have to do to get by, and if it’s good enough for my beagles, it’s good enough for me.
Lately though, I’m tiring of just trying to “get by.” Every year I lose a good month or two to these sad, isolated days where “energy” is something only my lights give off, that is when my husband allows it.
I’ve learned a few tricks throughout the years to help me through, the only problem is remembering to use them when it’s the last thing I feel like doing. Yoga is a good start. Well, in my case, it’s probably more closely related to a good stretch than the actual art of yoga. At any rate, taking some time out of the day to move my body increases my energy and reduces the overall feeling of blah that comes with winter.
And of course, nutrition is important too, but I think what helps the most is knowing that much like our climate, our bodies go through seasons too. This is my newest focus. Trying to have the same amount of vigor we do when it’s summer, for example, is not necessarily what our bodies need. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to slow down in the winter. After all, the trees don’t fight it.
In the autumn trees let go of their leaves, knowing that in time they will return. They don’t fight to hold on to them or try to force them to keep their color. There’s a certain sense of calm that comes over nature in the wintertime that I think we all try to avoid. Our current lifestyles certainly don’t cater to the calm, and maybe that’s where this anxiety comes from.
So instead of fighting to maintain my spring, summer or even fall energy, which really hasn’t worked for me in the past, I think this year I’ll take a page from nature and welcome it.
