The English winter makes me depressed every year. Did anyone move because of it? Where?

[Winterhater7]

I get depressed every single winter. It starts in November and tends to really ramp up in January (this year it’s ramping up early) and doesn’t lift until early April. I am sick of living like this!

I also feel vaguely unwell in the winter. Tired, heacachey. I take a really high quality multivitamin, so I get vitamin D etc. I also spend a good amount of time outdoors all year round because of the sport I do.

Did anyone else feel like this and decide to move away??? Where did you go?

We didn't move because of it but are currently in the UK visiting family and oh god the weather is making me so anxious and depressed. We live in California now and see the sun nearly every day of the year (albeit some days are cold in winter), and it's not the rain that gets me in the UK but rather they grayness, that you might not see the sun properly for days on end, let alone a blue sky!

I moved to Spain but pre brexit

Same. I take vitamin D, do yoga and meditation and recently bought this lamp and I feel it helps.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lumie-Vitamin-Light-Effective-Therapy/dp/B073P2WNDS/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3JZ2M3QDS9C9C&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wDKQViXQ29iV6ZJykz8SLrebgqUBTh8zJtfqCbpWDaHb0GSZA7Q6bbMbajPi8V9pliJ8Lsh1EWsgEAaYBzXNwy0FXTE6R__07slIGhUCQZyeWxrpYzHjHf8xSZ49_W8m0ulTyq4HI2Jwatzs8yIo0CidDgE7JLT4EfmCYL2UcAPPgqKfariSqHGH6i2hZvswz-llwt3qDmK5CZvJl4dLPw.uy9vW26PCMcfQLM8HTZFKsMhVz0TwzUCkol-TMuEyuo&dib_tag=se&keywords=lumin+vitamin+L+sad+lamp&qid=1705611260&sprefix=lumin+vitamin+l+sad+lamp%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1

Moved to Portugal in 2016. Not regretted it.
Portugal is fantastic
Great climate
Great food
Lovely people
Great wine
Cheaper than UK
Not the misery island (UK)

@Winterhater7 I feel the same and am already dreading the winter to come and thinking about how to escape the UK for the winter. I'll make a separate post on that.

@Isheabastard@tribpot there does seem to be some evidence to support the use of good quality SAD lamps (high lux and blue light intensity) in the early morning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001f4xg?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

@tribpot - I have very long standing friends in Finland and Sweden - winter depression is a very real problem - I don't know how they manage to live without much daylight month after month, year-in year-out.

My parents! (Kind of). My dad said about 25 years ago he was on the high street in November in a howling gale with that horizontal rain and turned to my mum and said “we don’t have to do this, let’s go somewhere warm and sunny”.
They bought a one bed place in the Caribbean and go there every winter now. They were able to work from there originally (retired now) as they ran their own business. They were early adopters of online work!
My dad hates the cold winter, it makes him miserable, he has asthma and it always gets worse when he gets colds and things.

And actually, my DH and I were on the train in 2006, it was sheeting with rain, dark at 7.30am and we were schlepping into London to jobs we kind of tolerated. I was skimming through the Law Society Gazette and there was an advert that was a picture of a beach and the heading “you could be going here after work” with details of how to work as a lawyer in Australia.

I turned to my DH and said “look at this”.

We looked at each other, looked out of the rain streaked window, and said “let’s do it”

18 years later we’re still here in Sydney and it’s brilliant! The sunshine just adds to what is a very good life we have built here.

We're thinking about HK - maybe too hot, but then it's convenient, better food, and warmth is better than freezing cold grey days.

Ahh do good for those that made the move or can spend winter somewhere else. I feel the same every winter I just want to scape the UK; the SAD lamp helps but it is not a miracle cure.

I did it. We were living in Ireland, where we had moved after ten years in London. One day we were driving home from work and the sleet was sideways, it had been raining every day for what felt like forever, and we just thought fuck this! We moved to Western Australia, and my only regret is we didn't do it sooner. The weather is incredible, we have a dry Mediterranean climate and apart from a few months of mild winter when we get all our rain, it is blue skies and sunshine most of the time. I used to suffer from SAD, so it has made an enormous difference to my life. If you can move, I highly recommend it, I even dread coming back to the UK and Ireland for holidays now solely because of the shit weather.

Yes i moved to spain. I have arthritis and the British weather was killing me off.

I moved to Spain. The lack of grey really boosted that and my mental health. Of course this was pre brexit and we wouldn't be able to do it now. Its do much more complicated and we couldnt move here under the post brexit conditions

We have zero regrets

I moved to the south of China, and the winter being short and mild and the days being roughly the same length all year is a big plus for my mental health. Summer is five months of sweating to death, though, so it has really made me appreciate beautiful English summers!

Moved to Australia. Life changing

Moved to the Middle East with primary aged children 4 years ago. Absolutely no regrets when it comes to the weather. Live in an expat community so feels relatively British. We do come back to the uk for the long summer break every year though, as have kept our home there. Keeps us connected to friends and family.

@Ozgirl75 Very pleased you can talk about the sunshine after your last few days.

😁 Two days of rain and then it’s back to beautiful clear blue sky and sunshine again!

I don’t mind the rain, I like the seasons of Sydney especially but in England it’s just weeks upon weeks of overcast sky.

@Ozgirl75 We came to Sydney in 2007 so similar timing, best thing we ever did (and our now adult kids agree). DD and I binged “Masters of the Air” on Friday as it poured down outside, my eldest works for emergency services so didn’t have such a good day, but gosh the weekend has been gorgeous. We have entertained outside both days this weekend in the sun.

I'd be more concerned about the weather in summer in aussie than winter in europe - especially with climate change increasingly taking effect. I don't handle heat well.

I moved from scandinavia to north england though for a number of reasons, but the winters were effecting me more and more as I got older. It's all relative - for me a winter in england is fairly tame still! In future I'm hoping to spend the winters in southern europe. I just need to find a suitably flexible job (and wait for the DC to fly the nest) :)

My DH is from southern Europe and we spend a lot of our holidays there. What worries me about moving there permanently is how hot their summers are. I love warm, sunny weather but with climate change they're often dealing with temperatures in the high 30s/40s in the summer. I find this absolutely unbearable and I can't do anything. In the summer I like to be outdoors and active (walking, sightseeing, picnics etc) - but when it's 39/40 degrees you just want to hide in the shade. It's actually dangerous to be too active. So I prefer the British summer, to be honest.
Also, while their winter are most definitely better than ours they're still not great. Yes they have milder temperatures and more sun but they still have plenty of bad weather. We've just returned from his home country after 10 days. It rained every day and was around 12 degrees.

My parents moved to Australia primarily for this reason like a few pp's.

For those that moved because of the weather - clearly the weather affects mood, wellbeing and also your overall energy (i.e. you're probably more likely to be out and about and more active). Do you think this benefit outweigh the discruption to life in general - for example uprooting children, resettling elsewhere, figuring it all out again?

You have to weigh up the pros and cons. If you have a large close family then it's obviously a bigger sacrifice to uproot everything and leave. We didn't have that, I am an only child and the only family member I left behind is my mum (my dad is dead and mum happily remarried). We had already moved around several countries so we had friends all over rather than deep roots. I found figuring it all out again invigorating, I feel like I've lived several lives and certainly life has never been boring! Even apart from the weather I feel the quality of life here is better, I have a house I would never have dreamed of affording in the UK, we earn more money, and of course the sunshine helps. But I know other people, especially those with large close families have struggled more with homesickness etc. And emigration is stressful, if you aren't rock solid it can break you. For us the benefits certainly outweighed any negatives, for others, it doesn't.

The Sydney summer is quite hot but it’s not as bad as people make out. Like obviously it’s hot, but it’s mainly in the late 20s and mid 30s with a few days up in the 40s (where we all hide inside!). Personally I think southern Europe seems way hotter in the summer. We were in Greece in July and it was roasting 24 hours a day whereas in Syd it’s often lovely to sit outside in the morning and evening.

As for the moving hassle - we moved before we had kids and we also travel back to the U.K. fairly often so it hasn’t been much of an issue for us. My parents also live overseas in the winter and travel a lot. They come to visit once a year as well.

I am the same OP. I grew up in the tropics so I don’t think I would ever get used to the English weather. I am not so much into history, museums, galleries either. I am happier when I am near the sea or a mountain and when the sun shines,

The rest of the family seem ok with it or at least used to it and we have our jobs here so we are stuck here until youngest finishes school. I don’t want to disrupt their lives as they are in their teens. We don’t have family here either as both of us are from different continents.

In the meantime I cope by having lots of holidays, using my SAD lamp and taking vitamin D.

I'm another Sydneysider. Its brilliant. I used to have SAD and it has completely disappeared since I moved here.
It rains quite a bit (and is often very heavy), but its almost never cold so I don't mind it at all.