With the arrival of winter and cold weather this year, the world is without a doubt facing one of the most disheartening and upsetting winters to ever exist.
But there IS a way to cope with the ‘winter blues’, and the Scandinavians have proven to know a thing or two about it.
Winters are always challenging especially for people in Scandinavia where they experience some of the longest and darkest winters that could drive any normal person mad.
Then how come, that Scandinavians never fail to rank among the happiest people in the world every year when the cold and the dark slowly become unbearable?
Credit: ZU Photography/ Unsplash
Kari Leibowitz, a health psychologist from Stanford University, recently set out to figure out the secret of surviving the Scandinavian winter.
She spent a year in the Norwegian town of Tromsø, located 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where the locals see at most a few hours of indirect light a day for 2 months straight (from the end of November to the end of January).
And one of the most important factors in keeping their winter-time depression rates low during this time? “Positive wintertime mindset.”
In her article, she explained how the people of Tromsø are brought up thinking of winter as an opportunity to thrive and enjoy their time, rather than dreading the limitations of it.
According to Leibowitz, the main strategy for the Scandinavians is going outside. All this time, they have evolved with the mindset that they have no other choice than to learn to embrace the ‘Polar Night’; going out and enjoying the dark days with all their little rays of light here and there.
So this winter, while we all look forward to warmer times and a healthy world, we can take inspiration from the Norwegians and their optimism.
Spend some time outdoors (all the while being safe and keeping our distance), rather than isolating ourselves in our homes for weeks on end.
Numerous studies have shown how beneficial going outside can be for mood elevation.
According to an article published in Nature, spending 120 to 300 minutes max outdoors is directly linked to good health or high well-being. That’s about 17 to 43 minutes daily of simple activities like going to your local park, enjoying a hot drink near the harbor, or walking your pets.
And just like that, winter doesn’t have to be as miserable as we make it out to be.
Simple self-caring tasks, optimism, and hopefulness can get us through a lot more than we may think. All of us have our down days, but it’s what we do to get ourselves out of that mindset that determines our outlook on life. And the Scandinavians have certainly learned that the hard way!
