During cold months like this, I really miss the sunsets in summer. Watching the sun disappear, throwing a beautiful array of yellows, oranges, and red as its last hurrah before it disappears under the horizon, always seemed to have so much hope. Lately the cold gives us a bittersweet sunset because it is just as beautiful as it was in summer, but with a coldness about it that makes you scared for tomorrow.
It started snowing about a week ago and hasn’t really stopped since. One thing I always hated about Michigan is that no matter how bad the roads are, people still have to go to work. We just risk our lives for the silliest things, and ignore our natural instinct to hole up and wait for the promise of the summer sun to come back.
Death and the holidays
Missing the promise of the next day is part of what makes winter so hard. Around us everything is dying, and we don’t know which of our friends and family also won’t make it through the winter. The holidays are meant to help us gather and raise our spirits to help us get to spring, but being faced with the anniversaries of loved ones’ passings who didn’t make it also makes for a depressing time of year.
I lost both of my parents around the holidays ten years apart. My dad died first from a heart attack a few weeks before Christmas when I was in my early twenties. A few years ago my mom lost her battle with cancer on Thanksgiving. Luckily thanksgiving is never the same day every year, but that doesn’t make the pain of either death any easier. For many years I couldn’t abide the thought of Christmas, and though it has become more agreeable, it has not entirely improved.
I know that I’m not alone in grieving loved ones around the holidays even though we push ourselves so hard to be festive with this time of year. The winter holidays are as much about grieving the past as they are about celebrating a new year. As one door closes another one always opens, and that knowledge brings a little bit of peace to an emotional time of year.
Social Isolation and The Holidays
Some of us naturally want to surround ourselves with people when we feel sad, but many of us feel pulled to isolation. The link between social ties and quality of life is shown by many studies that I will link in the references section below. These studies show that being around loved ones promotes health, longevity, and happiness while isolation brings the exact opposite. Much of the scientific evidence is recent, but we have celebrated winter holidays in every culture for thousands of years. While religious explanations for the holidays dominate our culture, the celebrations we partake in combat the negative effects of the colder well for very logical reasons.
The Winter Blues
Seasonal affective disorder is a fancy word that describes how people get depressed during the winter. Of course, as this is a real disorder, it has to meet the criteria outlined inthe Diagnostical Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM) for a person to be diagnosed with it, but even those who don’t meet the criteria still may just get “the winter blues”.
Some reasons for this are biological as we tend to be deficient in vitamin D during the winter since our main source of being able to synthesize Vitamin D on our own comes from getting 20 minutes of sunlight a day which we definately do not get in the winter months of colder places. Another reason that depression (I mean the symptom, not Major Depressive Disorder)increases is because we see less of people, and we do less because of the weather.
Considering these two major causes for the increase in feeling depressed in the winter months, it is easy to see why a holiday that celebrates light, warmth, and gift giving is appropriate for this time of year.
In Conclusion
There are many holidays during the winter, and while they all have different ways of being celebrated, they all involve bringing people together. While we are trudging through these next few weeks, and snowy next few months for most of us, remember to hold the ones you love close. Eat lots of food, drink responsibly, and celebrate life instead of just the holidays.
References
Harmon, K. (2010, July 28). Social ties boost survival by 50 percent. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/relationships-boost-survival/
Mayo Clinic. (2021, December 14). Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) – Symptoms & causes. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20364651
Trilla, I., Dévora, S., Aparicio, S., & Deus, J. (2021). Social support and longevity: Meta-analysis-based evidence and psychobiological mechanisms. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, Article 717164. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717164
Yang, Y. C., Boen, C., Gerken, K., Li, T., Schorpp, K., & Harris, K. M. (2016). Social relationships and physiological determinants of longevity across the human life span. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113(3), 578-583. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1511085112
Diary of a flopping fish is not medically reviewed, or written by any kind of licensed professional. Any information on this website does not replace the opinion or advice of any kind of professional.
I’d love to hear what you think or what helps you through the winter. Comment below or find me social media!
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