Of all of the weekends throughout the year, I enjoy the daylight savings weekend the most. There is something truly delicious about found time. It’s literally the only point during the year when you find more time.
And we are always trying to find more time.
We can stay up a little later on Saturday night, or stretch luxuriously into our pillow on Sunday morning, knowing that it feels like 9:00 but it’s really only 8:00. It feels decadent.
But Sunday night, the difficulty sets in when it’s dark at 5:00 – and you realize that winter is right around the corner.
New England winters are hard for many people without a pandemic. So many of us are thinking of the coming weekend and the changing of the clocks with a fair amount of existential dread because how will we get through the long dark nights?
By planning for them. We need to be proactive about our self-care. We need to take some time right now to think about what is necessary the preserve ourselves for the coming weeks. So here are a few strategies to help you plan.
1. Act against it
This piece of advice is a difficult one, but necessary when you find yourself on the cusp of falling into despair. You don’t feel like doing anything but going home after work and putting your jammies on and watching Netflix or reading a book at the end of the work day. The darkness and cold make it difficult to want to do more than that. So you find yourself giving in to that darkness, and then judging yourself for doing so.
Act against it means doing just that – when you want to do one thing, you force yourself to do the other. It’s not always easy, but it is doable.
2. Recruit and lean on your support
Do you have a pod? (Talk about a question I never thought I’d ask someone..) It wasn’t very long into the pandemic before most of us realized that we are social beings who are wired for connection. Even the most extreme introverts among us realized that we missed socializing after a few months.
Having a pod means having a few people in your life who are practicing social distancing and wearing a mask and doing whatever else you all may agree upon to feel safe and comfortable in shared space.
But support also means finding some people who can offer you a little gentle accountability - people who can help you get outside for walks or show up for a virtual book group even though most of us can’t stomach the idea of another Zoom call.
If you know that you struggle with those long nights, find a few friends and make some plans together. And let them know that this time of year is hard for you.
3. Exercise is more important now than ever.
Exercise, in some form or another, makes us all feel better. According to Dr. John Ratey, the author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, exercise makes us feel better because when we get our blood pumping, our brain functions at it’s best. As humans, we were born to move but we now live in a society where we do very little of that, and being that sedentary can dramatically affect the brain.
Many people suffer from varying degrees of Seasonal Affect Disordere (SAD)*. Some folks can find some relief in purchasing a light therapy box. But many folks can also find some relief by exercising. In fact, in October of 2000, researchers from Duke University performed a study showing that exercise is better than Zoloft at treating depression.
So make your exercise plan. Is that going for a walk as soon as you get home from work? Or doing yoga first thing in the morning? Coming in to the gym three times a week? Going hiking or snowshoeing on weekends?
It doesn’t matter what exercise you choose. What matters is that you choose some type of movement.
And I know that exercise might feel harder in the winter - that it might feel harder to go the gym after work when it’s dark - but that’s also when you need to refer back to the first two strategies. Act against that pull to go home and get on the couch, and lean into your support network.
And if you need a little help, let us know.
*If you are experiencing symptoms of SAD, or depression, talk to your doctor or call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health hotline at 1-800-662-HELP.