Dealing with less daylight

[Fambo Number Mive]

I don't know if I have SAD, but I definitely feel the shorter daylight hours around this time of year has a bad effect on my already not good mental health. I bought a lightbox a few years ago and I have that on during the evenings, but it's still hard to get up in the dark, go to work and when you're on the bus coming home it's getting dark again. I tell myself that in a few weeks the amount of daylight will be increasing but it's still difficult.

Does anyone else find the relative lack of light around this time of year difficult and how do you manage? Do you find going for a walk during the day helps? Or just trying to be kind to yourself (something I struggle with).

[Johnny Foreigner]

I used to be quite an active amateur astronomer, sitting up outside all night stargazing. Winter was my favourite season, because our northern hemisphere has many more interesting night-sky objects in winter than in summer. I'm probably talking cobblers, but if you take an interest in the night, your whole perspective on shorter days is turned around and you cannot wait for it to go dark again.

[Fambo Number Mive]

That's a good point, I like looking at the stars if they are visible when I walk home from the bus stop, I might try and get more into it and see if I can spot any constellations.

[BeardFaceMan]

I'm a miserable cunt at the best of times but it definitely gets worse during the winter. I was thinking about getting one of those SAD lamps this year, see if that helps, are they any good?

[badaids]

Short days never used to bother me, but in middle age they fill me with dread. Still, the lovely feeling that comes in March time when you first notice the days getting longer again is wonderful.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

Fewer daylight.

[flotemysost]

I love this time of year and I'm about as far from a sun-worshipper as you can get, but I do find the shorter days often precede a spell of murky thoughts.

For me, being able to get out and about helps, even if it's dark - last winter was a real struggle because it didn't feel very safe to go for walks in the evening, as everything was shut and no other fucker was about, so just having that very limited one-hour window of my lunch break to get out of the flat (which I appreciate I was lucky to have in itself) felt pretty crushing at times.

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'm a miserable cunt at the best of times but it definitely gets worse during the winter. I was thinking about getting one of those SAD lamps this year, see if that helps, are they any good?

I find my one helps, I tend to use it when it is dark all year round but have it on earlier in the winter.

[Glebe]

I think I may actually have SAD. I love the change of the seasons and everything but darkness and coldness can be a bit of a drain.

[Butchers Blind]

Get on the amphetamines ASAP.

[bgmnts]

Dunno if the winter has fucked my throat because i have had a full on tickly cough for months now and it's made life like borderline unliveable really just cough cough cough. So yeah winter can fuck off but the darkness is ace.

[Ray Travez]

Fewer daylight.

Fewer daylights

[Ray Travez]

Its not just short days, it's really weak-ass sunlight as well.

I'm a tropical monkey, I hate it. Don't like being in England from October to March. I hate the cold and rain and grey

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Can't be doing with ass sunlight. Terrible.

[Glebe]

It would be all right if you were a drakleea. They love the dark nights!

[poo]

Vit D

[paruses]

Not sure if I suffer SAD but I struggle more October to March pretty much. Having said that I love this time of year and I like drawing the curtains and a definite end to the day and all that. Internally though my mental health deteriorates.

I have a desk lamp that has a daylight setting - it was pretty cheap but it's a nice light to have on while I work. I also have a cheap-ish dedicated light that chucks out lots at the supposedly correct wavelength(?). I think they help.

On the dedicated one there's a load of stuff about having it at certain angles - I imagine that's to mimic the sun shining on me. Does anyone who uses one of these have it set up like that and does you anecdotal evidence suggest the lamp might as well be in the bin if I am a couple of degrees off?

[shoulders]

Sack it off, the shitty sun wanker.

Go to pub, cinema, light fires (for example, your friends house)

[Glebe]

Sack it off, the shitty sun wanker.

Go to pub, cinema, light fires (for example, your friends house)

Best to stay home until covid cases drop.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

So set my own house on fire then? 10-4

[shoulders]

Best to stay home until covid cases drop.

You can't go home, your arsehole mate torched your house %(

[Glebe]

You can't go home, your arsehole mate torched your house %(

:(

[sovietrussia]

I don't think I have SAD but the transition from BST to GMT always hits me for a couple of weeks.  I feel inert, depressed, irritable and unmotivated.  Add to that I will sleep the sleep of the just, not being able to wake up in the morning and feeling intensely drowsy most of the day.  It's almost a desire to hibernate.  Having said that it seems to be passing now and I'm readjusting - I must be very light-sensitive in some way.  A bit of sunshine in the last couple of days has really helped, as has being outside and walking in it.  Today's lunchtime walk in the countryside near my home was a quasi-religious experience, I was just beaming with gladness.

[Glebe]

Got out for my first actually walk in daylight for the first time in yonks this morning. Just kinda getting back into a normal daily routine.

[IsavedLatin]

A bit of sunshine in the last couple of days has really helped, as has being outside and walking in it.  Today's lunchtime walk in the countryside near my home was a quasi-religious experience, I was just beaming with gladness.

When I was leaving secondary school, all my peers (it seemed) were desperate to 'take a year out' in Australia. I couldn't think of anything worse, my stereotype then being that Australia was a) about beaches, b) the outdoors more generally and c) THE SUN. I was going to get to horrible grotty rainy cultural epicentre LONDON as soon as I possibly could, unlike those basic sun-worshipping knobs.

Joke's on me: in the, err, fifteen years since, I've become increasingly aware that a single day of sunshine, regardless of the season, can completely alter my outlook on life for the better.

It's far from an original observation, but I do believe that to a surprising degree, humans really are just houseplants with more complicated emotions.