Winter Blues: Why It’s Okay (and Necessary) to Feel SAD This Season
When I pitched this writing piece, I was in the honeymoon period of winter. You know the one: crisp pre-season leaves, hygge everything, fluffy socks, scented candles. I was ready to romanticise the season and get all lyrical about the joy of slowing down.
I told myself and boasted to others I’d approach this winter differently. This would be the season of balance and zen. I’d lean into it. I’d lean into it like a warm radiator, a restorative yoga pose, or the bottom of a candle-lit bath.
I wrote poems about seasons changing. I signed up to use the local spa and sauna. I booked in for an Indian head massage.
I wish I could leave it there and say - that’s all you need to do; “just be at one with winter; go do loads of zen stuff, man.’’
But alas, the winter wobbles got me better than ever.
Auld Lang *sigh*
I wasn’t emotionally equipped to deal with this year’s fallout with my drunk dad (an annual festive tradition, apparently). I wasn’t prepared for the annual self-inflicted pressure to finish everything before the 22nd. I couldn’t handle the social demands, the sequin dresses I no longer owned, the cost of mulled wine crisis. And don’t get me started on the end of the bloody sellotape.
This bubbling undercurrent of anxiety and melancholy hit hard, and oh-holy-night did it linger, refusing to be shaken by my best efforts and Michael Buble’s Christmas album.
But at least I had January to look forward to. The. Longest. Month. Ever. The month payday feels like a hallucination on the horizon. Everyone’s on a diet or detox. No money, same problems. You’re still mentally recovering from seven days of cheese, beige buffet binges, and wine-fuelled holiday indulgence. Now you are sitting in a 9 AM Monday meeting, trying to look interested while your soul longs for another mince pie.
There’s even a ‘Blue Monday’ in January. The so-called most depressing day of the year. While the science behind it is questionable, the sentiment resonates. The month is heavier than the weights you stopped lifting in its second week.
And here I am in February, though the shortest month, somehow feels double. This is the month people start waking up from the winter daze and making plans for brighter days. The spring and summer calendars have started filling up. And what’s happening here? We’re grasping at the promise of better days ahead, stuck in a seasonal limbo that asks more of us than we have the energy to give.
We’re all guilty of clinging to the next chapter - desperate for simpler seasons. It’s a bit like booking a holiday: the months leading up crawl by slowly, but once you’re on that sun lounger, it’s over before you’ve even had a chance to finish your second sangria.
Why the wobble in winter?
I’ve been thinking, maybe winter is hard for the same reason life is. After all, we’re acutely aware of endings, and winter is the seasonal equivalent of death - the final act.
Bit morbid, but it is winter.
Nature retreats. Things die. Winter is a metaphor for our deepest fears: the inevitability of endings and the uncomfortable reality of letting go.
Not only this, the colder, shorter days, and darker nights can bring up all sorts of intense and unwanted feelings. According to the NHS, approximately 1 in 3 people in the UK experience Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in some form, with around 5% facing severe symptoms. ‘’Winter blues” is much more than a collective term for attempting to articulate feeling seasonally shit; it’s fatigue, irritability, and a deep sadness that feels out of step with the “most wonderful time of the year.”
The cycles of life
Everything in life moves through cycles: the seasons, the moon, menstruation, and even the breath. Inhale, exhale. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Each of these cycles reflects the natural ebb and flow of life.
Periods, for example, mirror the seasons: spring is the follicular phase (new growth), summer is ovulation (full bloom), autumn is the luteal phase (winding down), and winter is menstruation (rest and retreat). Even the breath has its winter - the pause at the end of an exhale before we begin again.
But unlike nature, we humans are pressured to keep going, to resist the natural urge to slow down. Can you imagine animals doing this? A hedgehog in hibernation opens one eye and says, “Gotta keep grinding, guys!” No. They surrender to the cycle because they understand something we don’t: rest is NOT laziness. It’s survival.
What winter is trying to tell us
I realised the one thing missing from my winter plan: slowing down. Instead of surrendering, I ramped it up. Work, errands, social obligations. I tried to control the uncontrollable. I wanted to outpace the darkness rather than sit with it.
And guess what? It didn’t work. Winter should not be a season to resist but rather one to accept. Just like life’s other inevitable cycles, we can’t skip ahead to spring. We have to go through it, uncomfortable as it may be.
I’ll try again next year with fewer obligations and more acceptance. I’ll embrace the cycles instead of fighting them. This was my first attempt at doing it differently, and though it seemed like the most intense yet…with our darkest times come the best revelations and reflections.
Right now, I’m leaning into the melancholy - acknowledging it but not letting it define me. I’m creating some inner warmth. Yes, winter might be weird and wobbly, but it’s also a reminder: even in the darkest season, there’s the promise of light ahead.
I’m going to be warm this winter. Yes. But I’m also going to be a little bit weird too.
Written by Chelsea Branch
Chelsea, 34, is a writer exploring the psyche, relationships with others and ourselves, and the messy, beautiful journey of being human. She is currently juggling her online marketing business, blogs, multiple Google Drive folders with book ideas, a TV script, and poetry—all the things writers will get around to doing. Through her relatable ramblings, she hopes to bring laughter, hope, and healing. Find her on Instagram @chelseabwrites.
