To wonder if those who love winter have very robust mental health or very happy lives?

[Comedycook]

So I was thinking about this after reading a thread about weather. Lots of posters saying how they loved winter...some even said they love the dark evenings and what really surprised me was the poster who said they loved dark, cold mornings. I assumed everyone hated these!

Now I'm not in a terrible place mentally and I'm not depressed but I do find the dark, rainy, cold days do affect my mood. When the evenings are warm and light I feel so much happier.

I'm really interested in how others don't feel that the winter brings them down and actually enjoy it. Are they naturally happier, more positive type people?

I tend to be pessimistic and I had a crappy upbringing with plenty of trauma. I adore the darkness of winter. There’s a beautiful melancholy about winter that suits my general outlook.

Summer is nice when you are on holiday. You have no work, can lie by a pool/beach and go swimming all while sipping cocktails. Everywhere inside has air con etc

Summer in the Uk is not like that. You have to go about your day to day life still, a hot sweaty mess. You always feel like you need to be making the most out of it. Can't have cosy, lazy days.

I literally love autumn and winter and get excited for it. I think I had SAD in reverse

Maybe part of what I am describing is self-imposed denial. I won't eat a strawberry out of season, etc. That denial creates anticipation.

We had our first venison of season tonight, the home made elderberry and sloe gin are in making magic in cupboard, the board games are out after dinner, I'm reading Autumnal poetry, the DC are planning their 'party pieces' for guising at Hallowe'en, etc.

The hardest time is actually March. We switch to tropical fruit at that point in 'the hungry gap'. Nothing but rhubarb growing!

But what do you actually like about the dark evenings?

It's just a preference.
I love the smells of autumn and winter, I love Halloween, bonfire night and Christmas, I love my winter wardrobe......

I have had depression in the past, it just wasn’t caused or exacerbated by winter.

I don’t like being cold but given the choice I would rather that than being too hot. Very hot weather makes me feel awful and miserable.

however, I get that some people love really hot weather, and I’m not sitting in bafflement about it or imagining that they must have a particular kind of life to have a different preference to me.

I totally understand where you're comfortable from but like a PP said I've grown to quite like it. I embraced the whole 'hugge' thing a few years ago with my decor and love how snug my house can be when the weather is cold. I have a garden office I work in with twinkly lights and a Neom thing. And because I wfh I can get out for a walk in daylight so I don't feel like I'm missing daylight at all. I don't go out to gigs, bars, festivals etc like I did in my youth either so I'm not usually trying to find a taxi at 2am in sideways rain and minus temps. My kids also sleep longer!

I live in a flat in a city and still love most of those things. No lovely open fire but I light festive candles and watch a move with that,
or go on a nice frosty walk in a local big park.
It’s all about attitude imo.
Your logic is flawed, people who live in tower blocks are probably just as likely to be happy.

All of this.
Plus, I sleep better in Winter.
I hate Summer where it's too hot, light too early and the bloody noise when everyone is outside.

I think if you’re happy with your house & your home life, winter evenings can be lovely spent at home. However, if neither of those apply, I think it’s more depressing to feel stuck inside with dark, cold weather outside.

I'm another one who really loves each season. I'm very up and down emotionally but it's not seasonal.

Actually though I think summer may be my least favourite.

Winter is all very well and good when it’s the crisp and sunny type. But the unremitting grey and damp is just so dreary. No thanks. Not for me.

I speak as an insufferably cheery happy person.

This is such a good point. There's such expectation to enjoy summer, and be happy that I actually end up being more depressed because of it.

light candles etc. Basically, I like the cosiness of winter. It might be dark outside, but indoors there are sparkly lights and warm blankets, and tasty spices, and Christmas and various seasonal activities to look forward to.

Yeah.

I mean I like those things too but it's self-soothing isn't it.

Imagine winter without those things. They're lovely, but they're coping mechanisms.

I agree with all of this.

I find the dark evenings quite exciting, a bit like the end of The Tiger who Came to Tea where they go out for dinner and it’s dark and all the lights are on. Light in the dark warms the soul. There’s a reason so many religions make use of light during winter, from Diwali to Hanukkah to Christmas and Candlemas.

I think it helps to make positives out of the negatives, so take pleasure in little things like candles, socks, hot water bottles, hot chocolate. Basically be a hygge twat for half the year, or in other words take an active interest in how your surroundings can bring you comfort.

Couldn't put it better than this.

I wouldn't say I'm robust mentally, but I'm mostly alright now after a few bad years way back when. I do have a very happy life. I love winter for all the reasons @yogasaurus said, and snowy walks, Christmas lights etc.

I also love autumn for the crisp weather, colours, etc. I love spring cos everything is waking up. I used to love summer sunshine but we're starting to get too hot for my liking.

The people who get low in winter are people who need more sunlight, which is lacking in winter. Especially for those in offices etc, they go to work in the dark, inside all day, home in the dark. Sunlight has lots of physical and mental health benefits. We need it. Cos I work PT and from home, I get what I need now to not feel down from a lack of it.

My mental health is shit. I take antidepressants, anti anxiety meds, and Elvanse for my ADHD. I prefer the colder weather. My MH plummets in the heat.

I thrive in Autumn and Winter! I’m generally a resilient person (I have low times like everyone- particularly this year) but I’m definitely not a Summer person.
It’s all about perspective- I like to spend time baking some sort chicken or steak pie, go out for a frosty walk while it’s in the oven, come back from the cold to that lovely smell wafting through my house.

Try looking at things differently this year- watch leaves falling while you’re out driving, wrap up warm and walk through a woodlands, try an Autumnal soup recipe each weekend, put bird feeders in your garden and wait for robins to come visit..

These posters who describe their winter evenings seem to have idyllic lives. Happy families walking through the woods coming home to their big warm house with a casserole in the aga and the log fire going. Cracking open the red wine and having a hot chocolate whilst playing board games. Getting the bus home in an inner city area in the pissing down rain and cold just doesn't seem as cosy and lovely.

I love Autumn and Winter, and I don’t think I am an unusually happy person. In fact I can be a stroppy miserable cow 😝

I think with me, it’s the way I look at it. Before each season I think; what is going to happen this season? What do I need to embrace, what do I need to plan? If I can’t do X, then I’ll do Y.

So, Autumn/Winter. We have my and DS’s birthdays so we need to plan a meal, cake and activities. It’s cold and wet, so we’ll go the cinema more, the theatre and book some concerts in. We’ll invite family over for dinner more. We’ll do Halloween and Bonfire night. Book activities for Christmas. Watch loads of movies and eat loads of cake. After Christmas it’s a time of rest, and recuperation, getting ready for Spring and a mad summer. I’ll take loads of baths, watch loads of telly.

I can hear the rain picking up outside and I just love being cosy at home with everyone safe inside, the fire on and my dog asleep at my feet.

I go into every season with a plan, with ideas of what to do, and I don’t ever feel unhappy. I think a lot of this also has to do with I lived somewhere excruciatingly hot for 17 years, and it made me appreciate seasons.

I would quite like it apart from the illnesses!

I am in every evening with my young children anyway (single parent), so dark evenings just mean I don't feel so bad about being stuck in the house.

I absolutely love autumn and winter
I love wrapping up and going for a walk when the air is fresh and cold
I love cooking hot meals and having the slow cooker on
Coffee on my morning dog walk when it's just starting to get light
I love lighting my candles early and putting the lamp on 😂
I love the dark mornings feeling cosey and snug (yes it is hard getting up for work though!)
I love trips to the lakes for cold walks this time of year and my annual glamping weekend.

To me these dark nights are the start of Halloween, bonfire night , my daughters birthday and Christmas and it's gets me very excited , my favourite time of year, would choose it over summer!

Mental health been up and down including chronically bad always loved winter. Infact walks in the cold and dark were the only thing that made me feel ' alive ' at the worst times. I love the crispness and the dark nights make me feel cozy and safe. =)

My feelings about winter have changed. I used to absolutely hate it, hated everything about it. I’d be going crackers by Christmas week and absolutely desperate for longer days, it’s the lack of sunlight that got me. I used to obsessively check sunrise and set times from the winter solstice. I also felt really hopeless and like there was nothing good about life, a feeling that I just never felt in summer.

I then had a winter baby a couple of years ago and it seems to have reset something in me. Winter isn’t the problem it used to be. I’ve taken to loving winter clothes, slow cooking and planning lots of nice winter activities. I’ve wondered if it’s because I now feel grateful to winter because she brought me my daughter, who I thought I’d never have. I sort of see winter as a being who brought me the thing I wanted most of all.

You see this is exactly the kind of person I am overall - planning stuff for every season etc - but in the past few years, winter bugs have really ruined plans, and obviously it’s depressing to be ill. Last year was particularly bad, but I know people say that’s a post Covid thing, so hopefully will be better this year. And we have every jab going.