The Science Of Thriving In Winter—By Embracing It

IRA FLATOW: This is Science Friday. I’m Ira Flatow.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And I’m Flora Lichtman. Ira, we are in the winter doldrums right now. The days are short. It is so cold here in New York.

IRA FLATOW: Yeah.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And I have to say, I do not love it.

IRA FLATOW: No one loves it.

[LAUGHTER]

FLORA LICHTMAN: Are you a winter person? Do you have strategies to get through the winter?

IRA FLATOW: I developed a strategy when I was going to school in Buffalo. And you know what those winters are like. It is so windy. It is so cold. And you know what? I figured out, if you turn backwards, you walk backwards into the wind with your parka over your head, it actually helps.

FLORA LICHTMAN: You’re never going to see my eyes again because everywhere I go, I’m going to be backwards. And you know what I learned this week is that there are actually scientifically supported things you can do to better cope with winter. Our next guest traveled to some of the coldest, darkest places on Earth to learn how people there don’t just survive but thrive in winter.

And one of the key ingredients is a positive wintertime mindset. Joining me to tell us more is Dr. Kari Lebowitz, Health Psychologist and author of How to Winter– Harness your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. She’s based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Welcome to the show, Kari.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Oh, thanks so much for having me.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Have you always been a winter love?

KARI LEBOWITZ: No, I’m here with you today as a reformed winter hater, actually.

FLORA LICHTMAN: That’s a relief.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Yeah. Right. So I think hope out there for you out there, if you’re feeling like this can never be you, because I thought it could never be me for a long time. I grew up at the Jersey Shore, which is a beach town. And summer reigns supreme, and winter was the season that you just have to get through in between the best times of the year.

And I really struggled with the winter growing up, really did not like the feeling of being cold, really had a hard time getting up, especially for school in the winter, in the darkness, but also really feel like I was steeped in a culture that was very celebratory of summer and where the general assumption was like, yeah, winter is depressing.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah, there was a bias.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Totally huge bias.

FLORA LICHTMAN: So you were converted by your own research.

KARI LEBOWITZ: I was converted by my own research and by my experience moving to Northern Norway, which was a thing that I did mostly on purpose but also applied to do a research study in the Arctic to understand how people there make it through these very long, dark winters with relatively low rates of winter depression and never really actually expected to get the grant funding to go.

And then I got it, and I was like, oh my God, what have I done? Am I really going to blow up my life and move to this place? And also, how will I survive this Arctic winter?

FLORA LICHTMAN: But you did.

KARI LEBOWITZ: I did, and I learned a lot. And that was where my reformation really took place was in Northern Norway, where I was exposed to, I mean, both a very special winter– I think Northern Norway is a very magical winter wonderland– but also was exposed to a culture and a perspective where people were really doing things to embrace the season, really looking at winter differently, really approaching it differently, and where I learned a lot of lessons that, even in places with perhaps slightly less magical winters that I have lived since then, I’ve been able to take with me through to other kinds of winters.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah. I mean, I would have expected, if you go to the Arctic, you would find widespread misery in the winter. But that is not what you found.

KARI LEBOWITZ: If you look at lots of places in the world, including Norway and Northern Norway, including Iceland, including the Netherlands, they actually tend to have lower rates of seasonal affective disorder than we would expect. And so it’s clear that people all over the world who lived through these very extreme, long, dark winters are able to do so without a lot of the winter depression that, sort of paradoxically, we see at lower latitudes and milder climates.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Kari, what is their secret?

KARI LEBOWITZ: [LAUGHS] OK. I mean, there’s a lot of things, I think. But part of the secret is that I think they have a really different mindset and approach to the season. And so a big part of what that looks like is this willingness to adapt to winter.

So I almost think there’s an advantage of having a really extreme winter because, when you live in a place, like where I was living in Norway, where the sun actually doesn’t rise for two months, it’s obvious that is going to affect you. And it’s obvious that you can and should change your behavior to adjust to that. It’s OK that you feel more tired in the winter, duh, because the sun isn’t rising.

And you’re in the Arctic, so obviously, you’re going to dress appropriately for the winter weather. Whereas I think people at more middle latitudes, we try to pretend like we can just carry on the same as in other seasons, like winter shouldn’t affect us. And so I think it’s both our perspective and our approach. And of course, I also think there’s a lot of cultural things and infrastructure in places that are really built for winter that enable people to embrace the season differently, as well as their individual mindsets and perspectives.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And we’re going to get into all that. We asked our listeners for their wintertime survival strategies. And first of all, I have to say, Michigan, Wisconsin, upper Midwest was out in force for this one, as we might expect. And a lot of the strategies we heard were Nordic inspired. So here’s a clip.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

– My name is Shannon Mitchell from Grand Haven, Michigan. And how do I get through the lake effect darkie winters that we have here? I have adopted a Finnish lifestyle from my experiences up in the Keweenaw, which is saunas, cold plunges, Nordic skiing. And when the sun is out, it’s guns out, no matter what the situation is.

[PLAYBACK ENDS]

KARI LEBOWITZ: I mean, this both exemplifies this idea that we can really learn from the Nordics and apply it to wherever we are. But also what I like about these strategies is that they work with the season to find the opportunities in winter. What things are better in the winter?

FLORA LICHTMAN: A cold plunge? I don’t know.

KARI LEBOWITZ: A cold plunge. Well, a cold plunge you can really only do in the winter.

FLORA LICHTMAN: true.

KARI LEBOWITZ: And so the question is, what seasonal activities can you give yourself in winter to look forward to annually?

FLORA LICHTMAN: Let me run another listener strategy by you. What do you think about this one?

KARI LEBOWITZ: OK.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

– Hi, this is Tony in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I’m sitting in a Chick-fil-A parking lot, having my peppermint shake. That’s one help. It’s starting to snow, but my most regular thing that I go to is a nice cup of tea and the Hallmark Channel. It seems to help quite a bit.

[PLAYBACK ENDS]

KARI LEBOWITZ: Tony, you and my mom are birds of a feather. Cup of tea and the Hallmark Channel, you could be in my house any day in December.

[LAUGHTER]

But I think what’s special about the Hallmark Channel is it’s this seasonal ritual that you look forward to. It’s such a small ritual, and so many of these ways of embracing winter is– they sound trivial. They’re basic. But when you do that with a little bit of intention, this is one of those strategies that takes on an outsized meaning because it transforms something that we usually feel is unpleasant or uncomfortable or a negative of the cold and makes it into an opportunity for this other kind of sensory pleasure that is small but comforting.

FLORA LICHTMAN: No, it’s so true. I mean, Hot Frosty does work better in December than in July.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Yeah, you can’t watch Hot Frosty in July. Get out of here.

FLORA LICHTMAN: All right, let me run another listener message by you.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

– Hi, this is Dee from North Manchester, and I was sharing how I make it through the winter. I’m 72, so I’ve made it through several. [LAUGHS] Every fall I plant more daffodils in the ground, and then I just wait impatiently for them to sprout in the spring. And it’s always something to look forward to.

[PLAYBACK ENDS]

KARI LEBOWITZ: Yes, I love this one also, Dee. I mean, this one does two things right. So it gives Dee something to do in the fall as the days are getting shorter, which is a time that I think many people of consciously or unconsciously have sort of winter panic.

The days are getting shorter. We’re going into it. We’re like, Oh. No, here we go. And so an activity that is seasonal to that time of year can really counteract that.

And then the other thing it does is it gives Dee a marker of early springtime. So one of the strategies that I really love is the Sámi, who are the Indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia, actually have eight seasons. So they have winter, spring, summer, fall and also four bridge seasons, so spring summer, summer fall, fall winter, and spring winter.

And I think spring winter is a really handy subseason to separate out in our hearts and minds because often, depending on where you live, any time between mid-February to late April, early May, you’re in this transition period, where maybe mentally you’re over the winter. You’re kind of done with it.

And you get that first warm day of spring, and you’re like, that’s it. I’m putting my coat away. I’m done. And then the next day it’s cold again. And it’s not spring, but it’s not winter. It’s spring winter.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I love spring winter. And actually, having you name it really does bring me to very, very specific memories of it. I almost can smell it, like that petrichor, that sort of earth smell that comes back when the ground isn’t frozen anymore and I can see my front yard, where there’s a lot of little crocuses popping through. And it’s interesting, that just giving it the name somehow then carves it out in my own mind.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Totally. I mean, I think having the language to describe these things is really powerful. And I think this is even the whole power of talking about your wintertime mindset. You already had a wintertime mindset before it was named for you. But when it’s called out and you have a word for it, you can start noticing it and paying attention to it and experiencing it differently.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah. I want to talk more about this positive wintertime mindset. Is this like snowflake pilling ourselves? How do you define it?

KARI LEBOWITZ: So I use that word very specifically. So we think of mindsets as the core assumption about something in the world and how it works. And so the truth is that lots of things in the world are ambiguous.

Stress is a good example. Stress can be harmful for our health and well-being, but it also can be helpful for our performance and our health and well-being. The stress response evolved to help us meet our goals. And so when we encounter stress, what is our mindset about it? And how does that determine something like stress’s impact on us?

And you can think about that with winter as well. So winter has objective qualities. Winter is objectively dark, cold, usually wet. But the meaning of cold, dark, and wet is very ambiguous. Cold, dark, and wet can be refreshing, rejuvenating, cozy, magical.

FLORA LICHTMAN: That never occurred to me until you just said it.

KARI LEBOWITZ: To most people. But really, it can be if you let it be.

FLORA LICHTMAN: We had a listener who left us a message, and when I heard it, I was like, yes. This listener has the positive wintertime mindset. Listen to this.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

– Hello, my name is Cody. So typically, living on the Oregon Coast, we get all sorts of overcast. It is pretty oppressive for a lot of people. Me though, I don’t know if I’m a vampire, but I just soak it up. Winter is my favorite time.

[PLAYBACK ENDS]

KARI LEBOWITZ: Yeah, so I think Cody has the positive wintertime mindset. Some people just like that overcast or inherently feel that it is cozy. But I think even if you’re not naturally like Cody, it’s a thing that you can train yourself to appreciate a little bit.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, and let me run another listener’s coping mechanism by you.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK]

– Hi, this is Dan in Bear Lake, Michigan. I adopted a couple dogs. They love the snow, and they truly love it when I get outside with them. So they’re helping me a lot in not just coping with but enjoying winter.

[PLAYBACK ENDS]

FLORA LICHTMAN: What do you think?

KARI LEBOWITZ: I mean, I think dogs are good for everything. [LAUGHS]

FLORA LICHTMAN: You can’t go wrong with a dog.

KARI LEBOWITZ: You can’t go wrong–

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah. That’s it.

KARI LEBOWITZ: –with a dog. I mean, a dog is a really great motivator for getting outside. But I also think there’s something so pure about a kid’s relationship to the snow or a dog’s relationship to the snow. You’re just experiencing the fun of it is something we can learn from dogs.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Let’s talk about seasonal affective disorder. How many folks actually fit the diagnosis for that?

KARI LEBOWITZ: So seasonal affective disorder is really interesting because I think there’s a lot of popular misconceptions about it. I think a lot of people think that it is a mild form of depression, that it is sort of a lower threshold than clinical depression.

But the truth is that seasonal affective disorder is a subtype of clinical depression. So you first have to meet the criteria of clinical depression. It has to severely disrupt your quality of life and your daily functioning. And I think a lot of people have the experience of feeling affected by winter, a feeling like they’re more tired in the winter or they’re less motivated. They have less energy. They feel less social.

And actually, we can see that as a natural and normal response to the seasonal changes in light. If you look at every other living thing on Earth, plant or animal, they’re all changing their behavior or slowing down in some way in the winter. A lot of the times when people have this feeling like, oh, I’m so tired in the winter, What’s wrong with me? it’s almost because we’ve pathologized having any response to winter, and we’re so hesitant to adapt to the season that we’re quick to label it winter depression when, in fact, it might not be.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Kari, it seems like we have a lot of shorthand for this negative view of winter, winter doldrums, winter blues. Do we need a new shorthand for winter, like winter whoopees, glacial giddies? Brainstorm with me here, Kari.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Yeah, I mean, yeah, let’s be the winter PR team. I think winter wonder, winter wellness. It doesn’t maybe have to be alliterative. [LAUGHS]

FLORA LICHTMAN: It has to be.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Yes.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, listeners, we know, listeners, you’re the cleverest among us. We want your thoughts on this. Call us with your winter rebranding, and let’s get a movement going. 646-767-6532. Give us a positive winter catchphrase. 646-767-6532. Get your pencils 646-767-6532. Kari, thank you so much for the polar positivity today.

KARI LEBOWITZ: Oh, thank you for having me. I can’t wait to hear what the listeners come up with. It’s going to be great.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Dr. Kari Lebowitz, Health Psychologist and author of How to Winter– Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. Kari is based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

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