What comes to mind when you think about winter? Snowflakes? Mittens? Reindeer? In much of the Northern Hemisphere, winter means colder temperatures, shorter days and year-end holidays.
Along with these changes, a growing body of research in psychology and related fields suggests that winter also brings some profound changes in how people think, feel and behave.
While it’s one thing to identify seasonal tendencies in the population, it’s much trickier to try to untangle why they exist. Some of winter’s effects have been tied to cultural norms and practices, while others likely reflect our bodies’ innate biological responses to changing meteorological and ecological conditions. The natural and cultural changes that come with winter often occur simultaneously, making it challenging to tease apart the causes underlying these seasonal swings.
Do you find yourself feeling down in the winter months? You’re not alone. As the days grow shorter, the American Psychiatric Association estimates that about 5% of Americans will experience a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.
Scientists link SAD and more general increases in depression in the winter to decreased exposure to sunlight, which leads to lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Consistent with the idea that sunlight plays a key role, SAD tends to be more common in more northern regions of the world, like Scandinavia and Alaska, where the days are shortest and the winters longest.
What comes to mind when you think about winter? Snowflakes? Mittens? Reindeer? In much of the Northern Hemisphere, winter means colder temperatures, shorter days and year-end holidays.
Along with these changes, a growing body of research in psychology and related fields suggests that winter also brings some profound changes in how people think, feel and behave.
While it’s one thing to identify seasonal tendencies in the population, it’s much trickier to try to untangle why they exist. Some of winter’s effects have been tied to cultural norms and practices, while others likely reflect our bodies’ innate biological responses to changing meteorological and ecological conditions. The natural and cultural changes that come with winter often occur simultaneously, making it challenging to tease apart the causes underlying these seasonal swings.
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