How Scandinavians cope during winter (and now covid) blues: mental reframing
Kari Leibowitz, a Stanford University health psychologist in
the Mind and Body Lab and an expert on what’s often called the “wintertime
mind-set,” asserts that these first months of the new year “are where the
rubber really meets the road in terms of winter.” In December, the cold and
darkness have some novelty, and there are holidays — many of them festivals of
light — to anticipate. By January, she says, the season becomes “the coldest,
darkest, wettest time of year. . . . People are sick of it.”
Leibowitz has long studied what’s known as “mental
reframing,” which can help us adapt to midwinter darkness, approaching winter
storms and even stress. Several years ago, she moved to the Arctic to learn how
Scandinavians don’t just survive but thrive during the long winters. The sun
doesn’t rise at all in the far north for two months, but she noted that
Norwegians have comparable rates of seasonal depression to those of us in the
United States.
“One reason . . . is that they tend to have a positive
wintertime mind-set” unlike many Americans. “They see the winter as a special
time of year full of opportunities for enjoyment and fulfillment, rather than a
limiting time of year to dread.”
Her research found that a positive mind-set — the result of
reframing — is associated with well-being, greater life satisfaction and more
positive emotions like pleasure and happiness. Accepting the inevitable helps,
too — as a yoga teacher once told my class, “Let go or be dragged down.”
“People who see
stressful events as ‘challenges,’ with an opportunity to learn and adapt, tend
to cope much better than those who focus more on the threatening aspects — like
the possibility of failure, embarrassment or illness.” She suggests that mental
framing can not only impact our mental health but also result in physiological
differences — for instance, changes in blood pressure and heart rate — and our
capacity to recover more quickly after a challenging situation.
At a meditation retreat, Sinikka Isokaanta, a
psychotherapist, stated that Nordic people don’t see the “dark cold winter as a
crisis but more as a challenge that can be managed in different ways.” For her,
it’s all about “kotoilu,” similar to what the Danes call “hygge,” meaning the
coziness of home. “It’s a time to enjoy being home with dim lights on, feeling
like wintersleeping bears,” she said. Echoing Leibowitz’s research, she added,
“These periods bring about a sense of grounding, contentment, happiness and togetherness.”
Isokaanta also had a surprising reframing about how she
experiences the long nights. “The darkness offers a safe container to hide from
the world. It can be thought of as protection, unlike the bright daylight when
everything is visible.”
Is it too late for us to cultivate such a mind-set this
year? Leibowitz says no, but urges people to deploy two strategies as soon as
possible. Spend time outside, perhaps walking in a park or enjoying winter
sports if you are in a snow zone. Or just gathering at a coronavirus-safe
distance around a fire pit. Being in nature is a well-known way to boost mood
as well as mental and physical health. Use natural light to celebrate the
darkness of winter, Leibowitz says.
Appreciate the winter months, and be conscious of your
perspective. Try to stop thinking about this season as dark and depressive,
with backbreaking snows to clear or gray skies to wear you down, in favor of
something magical or evocative of happier times. Take out that instapot to cook
up stews and soups, pull out the baking soda and tins to make muffins and
cakes, even take a few minutes or more to enjoy the magic of a new snowfall
before turning to the salting and shoveling.
Mental reframing, however, is not only a strategy about
fighting the wintertime blues. This concept can also be applied to how we
experience illness and other daily challenges.
Leibowitz also cited studies indicating
that people tend to perform better under stress if they view it as a positive
influence rather than a negative or destructive one. “When you’re able to adopt
this mind-set, that stress is something that can propel you to achieve your
goals, then stress becomes a positive thing.”
Adapted from an article by Steven Petrow in the Washington
Post
