Light & Mood: Seasonal Dissatisfaction

[gattino]

I was tempted to append this to the "getting old, death approaches" thread, but that's only because it sounds suitably maudlin.

For the last several days an old familiar sense of restlessness, anxiety about time passing, blues-iness rather than "depression" has lapped over me.

What's of fortean, or at least psychological interest is that the feeling is very limited in time and is as regular as clockwork. It afflicts me precisely between the the hours the sun starts to go down "unnaturally" early, and you have to put the lights on and about 9pm when it feels more reasonable to expect it to be dark at any time of year. In the daylight and later in the night im perfectly content. But in those early evening hours, every day, i feel left behind by life. What makes this doubly interesting to me is that as my facebook statuses and private messages attest, it's the same every single year and has been for as long as i remember. But then i forget it and am taken by surprise again each September.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is the term that leaps to the mind, but i don't think it quite applies as i understand that to be an all day funk, most deeply felt in the earliest months of the year, january and February. But to me, my mood lifts on the 2nd of January as it feels like we're on the upward slope into summer sunshine rather than the slow decline of a dying year. That's to say its clearly psychological and tied to the sense of time passing rather than a physiological response to a lack of magic rays from the sun. Or maybe its a bit of both.

I can't remember if this was leading to a question or not. I guess it's...does everyone else get this shift in mood with such precise limitations?

 

[mummyknave]

I don't get the problem until just about Jan 15th every year.

I guess this is when it starts warming up in theory and the days are nearly as short as they are on the solstice but there's never warm weather in sight

The last ten years I try to expose myself to bright lights between dust and the first couple hours of darkness.

It might be helping.

 

[Coal]

I can't remember if this was leading to a question or not. I guess it's...does everyone else get this shift in mood with such precise limitations?

I always get a bit wistful for 'something else' at the start of Autumn. Nearly every time I've left a job it's around this time and if I see a flock of geese off somewhere on a cold crisp morning, it's generally a struggle to go into work that day. All very unsettling, literally. Perhaps proto-humans migrated in our far-off past.

 

[onetwothree]

I'm the complete opposite. Autumn, for me, is a time full of possibilities and new beginnings and I feel energised by the cool mornings. I also really love it when it gets dark early and don't even mind getting up in the dark. A straw poll of my friends puts me firmly in the minority.

 

[escargot]

I'm the complete opposite. Autumn, for me, is a time full of possibilities and new beginnings and I feel energised by the cool mornings. I also really love it when it gets dark early and don't even mind getting up in the dark. A straw poll of my friends puts me firmly in the minority.

Can relate. In my current job I can bike to work in 15 minutes or less. I mentioned to Techy only yesterday how easy this is compared to driving, especially in winter, with no defrosting a windscreen/warming an engine up/driving in ice and snow/finding a parking space/walking a quarter of mile from the car park into work etc.

Even in the worst weather it's better to cycle that distance. When I'm setting off at 5:20am or so in the dark it's like being an Antarctic explorer. OK, I have to occasionally push the old iron when it's really icy but once I'm on a main road it's fine.

 

[Spookdaddy]

My brother is quite badly affected by winter. So is my partner - but she's from Barcelona, and we live in an area of the UK which has pretty tough winter weather as a matter of course, so maybe the contrast makes it more understandable.

I think I'm lucky - I like all the seasons (although Autumn maybe wins by a hairsbreadth). Both summer and winter can maybe drag a little - but I find that by the time that process starts to happen, I know that something else is just around the corner.

I enjoy the seasons - I think I would maybe have my own counter-version of SAD if I lived in a place where the changes are less marked.

 

[gattino]

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

I can empathise with that feeling.

For me, it's when the cricket season ends that I start to feel my mood sinking.
Finished our match last night in the near dark and only two Sunday games left.
I'm definitely a Summer person, but feel my mood improving from the time the clocks go forward in the Spring.

 

[gattino]

My remedy, at least for the sunshine bit, is to try and have a couple of short breaks to more southerly climes at both the end and the beginning of the year to break up the winter. it has the dual benefit of topping up your exposure to light and of giving you something to plan/look forward to. If i could i'd love to have a weekend away once a month till spring shows its face.

 

[Coal]

For me, it's when the cricket season ends that I start to feel my mood sinking.

Man, I miss playing.