The Art of Manliness - The Winter Mindset： How Norwegians Love the Winter (And You Can Too)

00:00:00.000 We're at McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.420 When people think about winter, they often focus on the negatives, the cold, the dark

00:00:16.200 and the seasonal depression the season can bring.

00:00:18.860 But my guest today questions whether winter really has to be so miserable and says that

00:00:22.860 by changing our mindset, we can actually learn to enjoy and even thrive during the season.

00:00:27.100 Carrie Leibovitz is a psychologist and the author of How to Winter, Harness Your Mindset

00:00:32.260 to Thrive on Cold, Dark or Difficult Days.

00:00:35.400 She spent a year at the northernmost university in the world in Tromsø, Norway, studying why

00:00:39.300 people living in the Arctic, where the sun doesn't rise for two months, don't suffer from

00:00:43.300 seasonal depression at the rates you might expect.

00:00:45.580 Today on the show, Carrie explains how her expectations can create a nocebo effect that makes winter 0.98

00:00:49.560 feel worse than it needs to, why breaking winter into three distinct subseasons can help us

00:00:53.940 appreciate it more, how Nordic practices like hygge can make darkness feel cozy rather

00:00:58.520 than oppressive, and why getting outside and staying social, even when it's cold and dark,

00:01:03.200 are keys to thriving during the season.

00:01:05.320 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash howtowinter.

00:01:18.800 All right, Carrie Leibovitz, welcome to the show.

00:01:21.140 Thanks so much for having me.

00:01:23.400 So you are a psychologist, and you came up with a book called How to Winter.

00:01:28.160 It's about the winter mindset.

00:01:29.640 And you use this book to explore your research about how we think about winter and how our

00:01:36.580 expectations of winter can influence how we experience it and how this idea of expectations

00:01:41.760 can carry over to other parts of our life.

00:01:43.780 But this all started, you went to Norway, to the northernmost university in the world,

00:01:49.260 to study all this.

00:01:50.480 How did you end up in Norway studying the winter mindset?

00:01:55.240 Yeah, I wish I could say that it was a grand and masterful plan, but I sort of ended up there

00:02:00.480 a little bit by accident.

00:02:02.560 So I was really interested and still am interested in sort of the study of human flourishing and

00:02:09.280 well-being.

00:02:09.760 How can we take a science-backed, evidence-based approach to helping people live better, more

00:02:17.880 meaningful, more fulfilled lives?

00:02:20.400 And in sort of my research and learning journey about this, I stumbled upon the work of Yor 1.00

00:02:27.580 Vitterso, who is a world-leading expert in this science.

00:02:32.000 So he studies human happiness, but also the difference between hedonic well-being, so things

00:02:37.960 that sort of feel good and are pleasurable, and what we call eudaimonic well-being, which

00:02:42.780 is things that are rich and meaningful and lead to a more fulfilled life.

00:02:47.980 So he studies things like personal growth.

00:02:50.540 And I sort of wrote to him to see if he might be interested in collaborating with me on a research

00:02:56.860 project, I was looking for a bit of adventure, and, you know, Norway seemed very exciting.

00:03:02.360 Frozen had come out recently, so I was like, yeah, that would be cool.

00:03:06.180 And he offhandedly mentioned that his university, the University of Tromsø, is the northernmost

00:03:12.900 university in the world.

00:03:15.000 And so, of course, I started thinking about winter.

00:03:17.540 And as I was learning about Tromsø and reading more about it, I learned that they have what's

00:03:22.320 called the polar night, which is a two-month period from the end of November to the end

00:03:27.120 of January, in which the sun never rises above the horizon.

00:03:31.900 And so with my sort of own conceptions about winter having grown up in the U.S. on the Jersey

00:03:38.120 shore, I was sort of like, well, how is it that this world-leading expert of human happiness

00:03:43.900 lives somewhere that the sun doesn't rise for two months each winter?

00:03:48.360 And that is really what inspired the beginning of this study.

00:03:53.020 And we sort of put together a research proposal to look at the lack of seasonal affective disorder

00:04:00.940 that people experience in Tromsø because rates there are relatively low.

00:04:05.300 And then I was awarded a U.S.-Norway Fulbright grant to go and study this question.

00:04:10.860 And all of a sudden, like, my hypothetical adventure was me actually moving to the Arctic for a year.

00:04:16.660 Two months without the sun, that sounds awful.

00:04:19.600 And it's cold, too.

00:04:21.100 I mean, what was your experience like with winter before you went to Norway?

00:04:24.760 So you grew up in Jersey.

00:04:26.500 I mean, it gets cold there.

00:04:28.120 I imagine there's snow.

00:04:29.800 But how did you experience that?

00:04:32.500 Yeah.

00:04:32.940 So I grew up at the Jersey shore.

00:04:34.700 And there, we have all four seasons.

00:04:36.800 We certainly have a real winter.

00:04:38.320 But it's a beach town.

00:04:39.920 You know, summer is king.

00:04:42.260 And it sort of feels like we're waiting the whole year for summer to arrive.

00:04:47.480 I mean, that's especially true, you know, when you're a kid or a teenager and you're in school.

00:04:51.640 But everyone really has that feeling that, like, the town comes alive in the summer.

00:04:57.300 And I really struggled with the winter growing up.

00:05:00.980 I really disliked and actually still dislike the feeling of being very cold.

00:05:06.280 I really struggled with morning darkness and getting up early for school in the dark and going out in the cold.

00:05:14.160 And I really thought winter was just something to suffer through.

00:05:17.860 So I had a very similar reaction to you of, like, two months with no sun.

00:05:21.900 That sounds terrible.

00:05:24.000 Yeah.

00:05:24.200 And I think most Americans would agree with that.

00:05:26.520 Like, the way we talk about winter is just like, ugh, winter.

00:05:29.940 It's so dreary.

00:05:30.960 It's gray.

00:05:32.260 I'm tired of the snow.

00:05:33.500 I'm tired of the darkness.

00:05:34.800 And then you go, like, to Norway, and they don't have that approach.

00:05:40.820 And, yeah, going back to that research question you had is, why is it in Norway where it seems people are flourishing there?

00:05:48.000 Like, rates of happiness are pretty high there.

00:05:50.720 And they have these long, hard winters.

00:05:53.260 And here in the United States, when we think about winter, like, we're just like, oh, geez.

00:05:57.760 And something you talk about in your book is that it seems like here in the United States, whenever winter starts approaching, you start seeing this increase in articles about seasonal affective disorder.

00:06:08.680 Like, okay, yeah, winter's coming, and you're probably going to get sad.

00:06:12.200 What is the rate of sad or seasonal affective disorder for people living in areas where they really get hit hard in the winter, like in Norway?

00:06:22.000 So the question about rates of sad or seasonal affective disorder is a little bit more complicated than it looks on the surface.

00:06:30.000 Because when sad was originally described in the 1980s by an American psychologist named Norman Rosenthal, the scale that they used to measure seasonal affective disorder was called the SPAC, the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire.

00:06:46.800 And basically what that measures is how seasonal you are, how much your behavior changes between seasons.

00:06:55.580 So when do you sleep the most, when do you eat the most, when do you socialize the most, when do you feel the best?

00:07:02.620 And if you have too much fluctuation between seasons and you don't feel good in the winter, it suggests that you probably have seasonal affective disorder.

00:07:13.260 Now, modern psychologists take a different approach.

00:07:16.460 So the current sort of gold standard for diagnosing seasonal affective disorder is that it is a subtype of clinical depression.

00:07:25.940 So first you have to meet the threshold for a clinical depressive episode, which includes, you know, a number of symptoms almost every day for two weeks.

00:07:35.320 Things like feelings like feelings like feelings of worthlessness, excessive change in sleep or diet, feelings of suicidality, not being able to meet your responsibilities.

00:07:47.940 And critically, it has to cause you significant distress or impair your daily functioning in some way.

00:07:55.240 And if you use this criteria of diagnosis, you see much lower rates of seasonal affective disorder.

00:08:04.580 And so really the question of sort of what are the rates depends a lot on what measure you're using.

00:08:11.280 And this is really important when we are thinking about places in the world that have these long, dark, extreme winters like northern Norway.

00:08:20.860 Because in a place like Tromso, in the summer, they go from 24 hours of what they call the midnight sun, the sun never sets, to the winter of 24 hours where the sun never rises.

00:08:34.420 And so there, this idea that, you know, you wouldn't adapt your behavior or your sleep patterns or your socializing with the seasons, it's obvious that that doesn't really make any sense, right?

00:08:47.220 It's obvious that it would be natural and perhaps even adaptive to really change your behavior seasonally.

00:08:55.280 So what I can definitely say is that there are a lot of studies that use these really rigorous criteria of understanding seasonal affective disorder and find that a lot of places with very long, dark winters.

00:09:09.520 So in Iceland, in northern Norway, in the Netherlands, they find much lower rates of seasonal affective disorder than you would expect given how far north they are.

00:09:22.720 It doesn't mean that nobody has winter depression or that nobody struggles with the winter, but the rates in Tromso across several studies are about equivalent to the rates of seasonal affective disorder in Maryland in the U.S., which is way farther south,

00:09:36.560 has a much brighter winter, has a much brighter winter, and a much more mild winter.

00:09:39.980 So it's clear that there's something about these cultures and these communities where they're not falling prey to this concept of wintertime depression as much as we might think.

00:09:51.020 Okay, so why are the rates in, say, Maryland the same as in Norway?

00:09:56.940 Is it that people in Norway do change their behavior with the seasons?

00:10:00.960 Like, you know, one thing you talk about is that people want to sleep more in the winter.

00:10:04.900 It's like, I think it's like a half hour more.

00:10:06.980 But people in Nordic countries don't see that as a problem.

00:10:10.800 They don't think that they have seasonal affective disorder unless they're actually clinically depressed.

00:10:16.180 Whereas Americans are using the looser scale where it's like, well, I'm not actually depressed, but I'm more tired and want to socialize less in the winter.

00:10:24.700 So I guess I have seasonal affective disorder.

00:10:28.200 Is that what's going on?

00:10:29.340 So I think part of it comes down to measurement.

00:10:31.820 Part of it comes down to which studies are using which criteria for diagnosis.

00:10:36.980 But I think another thing that's happening is that actually seasonal adaptation is really useful.

00:10:45.180 And changing your behavior with the seasons is a way of embracing the winter and can be really healthy.

00:10:52.300 So viewing the winter as a time where you do slow down, you're more tired, but that's not actually a problem.

00:10:59.620 You make more space to rest.

00:11:01.800 Maybe you are less social or you socialize in different ways.

00:11:06.700 Maybe the activities that you do for fun are a little bit calmer or lower energy or more peaceful.

00:11:13.760 All of these are ways of adapting to the winter.

00:11:16.860 And I think when you live in a culture where the winters are so dark and so extreme and so long, where it's so much of the year that you're in winter, you have to adapt.

00:11:27.820 Whereas I think if you live in somewhere like Maryland or a middle latitude, even though there can be a pretty significant shift in the day length between summer and winter, we sort of have this cultural narrative that you should have the same schedule year round.

00:11:45.340 That you should be equally productive year round, that you should be equally energetic year round.

00:11:50.600 And so if we feel the effects of winter on us, which is real, right?

00:11:54.940 Like when the days are shorter in the winter, when it gets darker earlier or the sun rises later, it's normal to feel more tired.

00:12:02.720 I think we interpret that as a problem, as a sign of depression, as a sense that there's something wrong with us.

00:12:11.520 And that leads us to, I think, respond maladaptively where we're really focused and perpetuating this narrative that we are depressed and winter is depressing, which actually crowds out a lot of space to say, what do I need right now?

00:12:29.080 What would help me respond to these feelings of tiredness or lack of motivation or lethargy in a way that is useful for me and my body?

00:12:39.060 All right. So it sounds like in America, our expectations of what we should be doing in the winter are kind of out of whack.

00:12:45.800 We expect we should still be as productive as we are in the summertime, just as happy.

00:12:50.640 I think so.

00:12:51.220 Yeah, yeah.

00:12:51.940 Yeah. And I think that like when the winter isn't as extreme, you can sort of delude yourself into thinking that you don't have to change your behavior.

00:13:00.220 And then actually you're fighting against your natural environment.

00:13:03.480 Yeah. This idea of expectations creating a problem that might not be a problem reminds me of like loneliness.

00:13:08.520 Like people talk a lot about the loneliness epidemic and something I've brought up with guests who are experts in this is, you know, maybe, maybe we're just lonely because our expectations of what a social life looks like are higher than they really should be.

00:13:23.200 Because like loneliness is like a subjective feeling.

00:13:25.160 You can be surrounded by people who love you and whatever.

00:13:28.560 And you can still feel lonely because there's something going on subjectively.

00:13:31.620 And it might be maybe your expectations of what you want from those other people are not being met.

00:13:37.160 And so you just feel like, oh, man, no one understands me.

00:13:39.260 Right. Or you can spend a lot of time by yourself and not feel alone.

00:13:42.840 Right. Exactly.

00:13:43.460 Right.

00:13:43.700 Yeah. And I think, I mean, a lot of this is comparison and reference point with the age of social media where it looks like everyone is always having the best time surrounded by friends and loved ones.

00:13:56.320 Maybe that it does shift our narratives about how much we should be socializing or how socializing should feel because it doesn't feel as good as it looks on social media.

00:14:08.000 You know, I think about the Gini coefficient, which is a measure of inequality in countries and poorer countries that have less inequality.

00:14:18.260 People tend to be more satisfied with their lives, whereas wealthier countries that have greater inequality, even people who are much wealthier than the people in these poor countries tend to be less satisfied because you're sort of looking around and comparing to what things should be.

00:14:34.540 So I think this idea that, you know, our narratives really matter is really at the heart of my research and the heart of this book is that, you know, we look around and there's some disconnect between how we think we should be feeling and how we should be feeling.

00:14:51.500 And that creates or perpetuates these problems.

00:14:56.000 And I think, you know, like what you're sort of talking about with loneliness is it also shows you how when you get in this narrative of I am lonely or winter is depressing, all these systems in your mind start coming online to confirm that assumption about the world.

00:15:16.740 So you're selectively attending outside of your awareness to things that match that narrative, your confirmation bias is kicking in.

00:15:25.640 So you're more likely to notice those things and really attend to those things and maybe talk about those things.

00:15:31.880 And that furthers this narrative when the reality might be more complex.

00:15:37.840 And this is how sort of shifting your mindset can put you on a different path to experiencing things really differently because you start noticing different things and looking for different things and seeing different things and then feeling a different way because of that.

00:15:56.500 Yeah, it's basically us people living in like the middle latitudes when we experience winter, like we nocebo ourselves about winter.

00:16:04.080 It's like nocebo is the opposite of placebo.

00:16:06.200 So the placebo effect is if you believe like a medicine is going to work, it might work for you.

00:16:10.900 The nocebo is like if you think something's awful for you, it's going to be awful for you, even though there's nothing going on that's actually making it awful for you.

00:16:18.480 Yes, and I think it both creates this sort of negative experience and reinforces it, right?

00:16:27.340 So I think there's two things that happen.

00:16:29.080 One is that winter has pros and cons.

00:16:32.320 Every season has pros and cons, right?

00:16:34.160 Summer has sweating and sunburn and mosquitoes and lots of unpleasantness, but it has really good branding.

00:16:42.620 And so I think when we think of summer, that's not the first thing that comes to mind for many of us, whereas winter, which has lots of opportunities for coziness and for doing things outdoors in the cold that actually feel really good, that's not what is top of mind for people.

00:17:01.320 We think about the dreariness.

00:17:02.640 We think about the gloom.

00:17:03.840 There's all these narratives about depression.

00:17:05.560 So I think then what happens is we're more likely to selectively notice those aspects of winter, right?

00:17:12.780 When you have to clean the snow off your car or when you are commuting in the dark or you feel more tired at the end of the day, those things are really grabbing a lot of your attention because they fit your narrative about winter.

00:17:25.820 And then, of course, focusing on them doesn't feel good because those are the negative, unpleasant aspects of winter.

00:17:31.740 At the same time with the nocebo effect, this happens a lot with medications, right?

00:17:36.960 You take a medication and it has a long list of side effects that include things that might be very specific to the medication, but also things that are sometimes just being a person, you know?

00:17:49.860 Sometimes your stomach hurts.

00:17:51.540 Sometimes you get a headache.

00:17:53.180 Sometimes you feel a little bit lightheaded when you stand up too fast.

00:17:56.900 And when you're taking this medication and you've been warned about these possible side effects and you're hypervigilant about them, you might be more likely to attribute something that would have happened to you anyway to the medication.

00:18:10.500 And I see this a lot with winter where when people have a bad week in the winter, they attribute it to the winter.

00:18:18.060 They're like, I'm feeling down and it's because winter is depressing.

00:18:22.020 Whereas if they have a bad week in the summer, they're not like, oh, it's because summer is making me depressed.

00:18:27.640 And so I also think in addition to, you know, making us notice some of these unpleasant aspects of winter, we also are more likely to attribute sort of any vague, amorphous discomfort we're feeling that's a normal part of being a person to winter weather or winter darkness.

00:18:45.640 You know, it's sort of a scapegoat for anything that happens from November to March.

00:18:50.260 Yeah. So I think the big takeaway there is whenever winter arrives, you naturally want to slow down.

00:18:56.760 You want to not go out as much.

00:18:58.860 You might feel a little down, you know, compared to when you're in the bright sun of the summer.

00:19:03.700 But that's okay. Like that's natural.

00:19:05.860 You know, to see that as like, I'm depressed, you can just adjust your life.

00:19:09.780 And then the other takeaway from this is, you know, don't nocebo yourself about winter.

00:19:14.980 Like, yeah, winter has its cons, but don't just focus on that stuff because you'll just make it more miserable for yourself.

00:19:20.260 But I thought it was interesting.

00:19:21.200 One of the responses, and you talk about this in the book, one of the responses particularly we Americans have when it comes to seasonal affective disorder, once we start feeling like, oh, I'm feeling a little lethargic, I'm feeling a little down.

00:19:33.040 This is not good because I have to be on all the time.

00:19:35.340 I got to get stuff done.

00:19:36.800 One of our responses is that we can do light therapy.

00:19:39.280 I can buy a light box and I can sit in front of it for 30 minutes.

00:19:43.680 And the research does show like that works.

00:19:46.280 But then you highlight research that, you know, a better way, a more effective way to deal with, you know, what you think might be seasonal affective disorder is just change your mindset about it.

00:19:55.800 Reframe it.

00:19:56.400 Yeah, so light therapy is the most common treatment for seasonal affective disorder and it's actually, it's inextricably linked to our understanding of the disorder because the theory about the cause of seasonal affective disorder was reverse engineered from finding that light therapy treated it.

00:20:14.680 So light therapy treated seasonal affective disorder and so researchers were like, oh, then this disorder must be caused by the lack of light in winter, which led to this hypothesis that places with darker winters should have more seasonal affective disorder, except for the research doesn't support that.

00:20:31.100 So that calls sort of this whole thing into question.

00:20:33.720 And actually more recent research shows that even non-seasonal depression responds to light therapy and that light seems to be effective at treating not winter depression.

00:20:44.180 So it's not necessarily true that the darkness is what is causing this.

00:20:48.820 And I think a lot of people, you know, this is sort of emblematic, right?

00:20:52.480 We want this quick fix that is going to allow us to just keep on keeping on rather than actually change our behavior or lifestyle in any meaningful way.

00:21:02.480 So there's a ton of marketing and advertising and good press around light lamps for the winter.

00:21:09.840 And they can be useful, especially if you're feeling tired in the morning.

00:21:13.820 We know that, you know, natural light and bright light wakes us up and helps our circadian rhythms.

00:21:19.840 So sitting in front of a light box can help with that sort of morning feeling of tiredness.

00:21:27.540 The problem is that it's not as nice as people often think it's going to be.

00:21:32.500 It's not like sitting in the sun.

00:21:34.260 You don't have that feeling of warmth.

00:21:36.280 It's very harsh.

00:21:38.100 And for it to be effective, you have to do it consistently every day, ideally first thing in the morning.

00:21:43.480 And when you're already having a hard time waking up in the dark, waking up 30 minutes earlier, you know, before you have to go to work, before you're getting your kids ready for school to sit in front of this bright artificial light is actually not so nice.

00:21:56.660 And a researcher named Kelly Rohan at the University of Vermont has pioneered using cognitive behavioral therapy instead to treat seasonal affective disorder.

00:22:07.120 And her sort of thinking and what led her to this theory is, you know, humans are not just passive biological organisms.

00:22:13.980 It's not as simple as lack of light equals depression.

00:22:18.180 Light equals happiness, right?

00:22:20.400 We're meaning makers.

00:22:21.720 We are making meaning of our environment and our feelings all the time.

00:22:27.100 And so she felt like cognitive behavioral therapy, spending 12 sessions really interrogating and then changing your mindsets about winter in this case, that that would be more effective in really helping people handle winter.

00:22:43.620 And what her research finds, which I just love, is that while people are in treatment receiving CBT or doing the light therapy, the treatments are equally effective.

00:22:53.960 But once the clinical trial is over, lots of people discontinue the light therapy and the CBT continues to be effective even after the end of what we might call active treatment.

00:23:06.060 So two years out, people who received this mindset shift, this cognitive behavioral therapy for their winter depression were significantly less likely to have re-experienced winter depression than the people who were just using the light lamp.

00:23:23.020 And I think for me, that really shows that examining the way that we relate to winter, questioning our negative schemas and narratives and frameworks around winter and replacing them with more adaptive ways of coping and responding to winter is a really effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder.

00:23:43.660 Sure. You mentioned the light therapy not being so nice. I can attest to that. So I remember several years ago, I decided to buy a lamp, one of those lamps for seasonal affective disorders. I was feeling kind of down. And yeah, you're right. It's just like, okay, you have to do this thing every day. And I remember like, it was just so boring. I'd be sitting there like 30 minutes every day. And it got to the point where I just stopped doing it. And I think the thing ended up in the trash.

00:24:07.920 I'm sorry. I should have asked the B. Where do you live?

00:24:09.800 I live in Oklahoma.

00:24:11.460 Okay.

00:24:11.860 So it's, it's my, we get winters, but it's not like it's terrible. It's not like you're in Norway or even Vermont.

00:24:16.160 But you're still dealing with the darkness, right? That's the thing is like, even if it's not super cold, you're still going to have a lot less light in winter and you're going to feel that. And I mean, I have one of these sort of, it's actually like a bright ring light, but I'll put it on at my computer in the morning, in the winter. Like if I'm sitting in front of my computer anyway, I also personally try to go for a walk.

00:24:39.260 After breakfast, or at the very least, like stand by a window to try to get some of that, you know, even if it's a gray cloudy day to get some of that natural light earlier in the morning, there's evidence that that helps.

00:24:52.360 But I think it's really become this idea of sort of a magic cure-all for winter. And really, to me, it's like a little bit of a band-aid solution, you know?

00:25:03.820 Yeah. So what you do in the rest of your book, How to Winter, is you take this idea that, you know, a better way to experience winter, so it's not as terrible or miserable as you change your mindset about it. It's basically cognitive behavioral therapy. And what you do in your book is you provide practices that people can do to help them change their mindset.

00:25:22.640 And one thing you start off talking about is this idea of shifting your attention. You were talking about that earlier. A lot of times when we think about winter, we just focus on the bad stuff. It's cold. It's dark. I got to go out and like scrape the ice off my windshield. It's terrible.

00:25:35.500 But you offer some suggestions on how to direct our attention to more positive things than winter. So what are some things we can do?

00:25:43.600 Yeah. So attention really creates our experience. What we pay attention to at any given time is what we're experiencing, and we can't attend to everything at once. And so consciously directing your attention is a way to change your experience.

00:26:02.320 So at the simplest level, you can ask yourself, you know, what things do you like about winter, and how can you attend to that more? So it might be things like the fact that it's actually really nice to sit inside and work at a computer if it's raining outside.

00:26:20.720 Or when you go outside in the winter to get to work in the morning, the air smells very crisp and clean and fresh, or that the darkness of winter can actually feel sort of calming, or a sunny winter day can be very golden.

00:26:37.640 Or that, you know, a hot bath or a hot bath or a hot shower at the end of the day feels really good after you've come in from the cold or, you know, drinking your morning tea or coffee feels especially good on a cold day.

00:26:51.780 You know, these are very, in some ways, simple things and simple pleasures, but really attending to them can change our experience in profound ways.

00:27:01.520 And I think, you know, as a mindset researcher, I'm really interested in the mechanisms by which mindsets work, right?

00:27:08.540 So often I think the research on mindset gets discussed as, you know, you change your mindset, you adopt a growth mindset, and all of a sudden you'll perform better.

00:27:17.540 You adopt the mindset that winter is wonderful, and all of a sudden you have a better winter.

00:27:22.640 But it's not this sort of magical switch that you flip.

00:27:26.660 There's a whole cascade of things that happens when you work on changing your mindset.

00:27:32.520 And one of them is that you notice different things in your environment, and that makes you more likely to engage with different things, right?

00:27:40.780 So if you are noticing that the darkness can feel cozy rather than oppressive, then maybe that motivates you to light some candles and have a cozy evening and really revel in the early darkness and use that as a time to relax.

00:27:59.400 And then you're going to have a totally different experience than if you were just attending to the fact that the darkness makes you feel more tired.

00:28:07.400 So start very simply, pay attention to the things that you like about winter, even if, you know, you feel that they're in the minority of things that you experience during the season.

00:28:18.540 Really try to focus on them and lean into them.

00:28:21.360 No, I like that.

00:28:22.400 For me, one thing I really like about winter is I get to wear a hoodie all the time in my house.

00:28:26.720 I just love the ideas.

00:28:27.980 Oh, it's hoodie season.

00:28:29.260 Put on my hoodie because I just think it's so cozy.

00:28:32.220 Yeah, cozy clothes.

00:28:33.520 I mean, these things are like, they're so simple, but really being like, yeah, it's hoodie season totally changes the experience of being cold in your house, you know?

00:28:44.120 And the other thing too, you recommend just go out on a walk and then just pay attention to your environment more closely.

00:28:49.220 What are the things you enjoy about the wintertime?

00:28:52.180 So I went on a walk this morning.

00:28:53.920 It was like 30 something degrees.

00:28:56.280 It was cold.

00:28:56.800 It was brisk, but it felt like it was 21.

00:28:58.500 You know, it started off kind of miserable, but then I started embracing, hey, I kind of like the feeling of just like that coldness on your nose.

00:29:07.620 And it was kind of uncomfortable, but I was thinking when I get my house, it's going to feel really good to warm up.

00:29:13.580 And, you know, it wasn't huge.

00:29:15.400 It wasn't like now I love winter, but it made it less miserable.

00:29:20.420 Totally.

00:29:20.820 I mean, you know, you're a star student.

00:29:22.960 Like this is what I sort of assign my students in my classes to do is to bundle up and go for a winter walk.

00:29:29.160 And the narrative almost always follows that arc of like, I didn't want to do it.

00:29:33.700 I was maybe going to back out.

00:29:35.020 At first I was really uncomfortable, but then you get moving and you can sort of attend to the feeling of freshness or crispness on your face.

00:29:44.700 And then when you come back inside, you can really experience that pleasure of being somewhere warm again.

00:29:52.800 And I think, you know, it's such a different mindset when you come in from the cold and say like, oh, it's terrible out versus, ooh, like it feels so nice in here.

00:30:03.420 You know, that's a really different orientation that's going to impact your whole day. 0.76

00:30:08.760 And I think this idea of bundling up, going outside in the cold, we know that movement, fresh air, and nature are all natural antidepressants.

00:30:19.300 So if you're feeling down in the winter, a short winter's walk is a pretty reliable mood booster.

00:30:26.120 And then when you notice these positive aspects, it makes you more likely to do it again.

00:30:31.380 It pushes you towards that activity rather than sort of pushing you away from it.

00:30:36.340 And so doing that once with this sort of intentional noticing might make it more likely that this turns into a habit, which is going to have all sorts of emotional and physical benefits for you.

00:30:49.200 No, I love that.

00:30:49.960 Another thing that I like about winter is when we do get snow.

00:30:52.980 I love the feeling you get when you look outside the window and you see snow falling and it's hitting the ground.

00:30:59.840 But like it's silent.

00:31:01.160 It's like it's sort of weird things.

00:31:02.320 You're seeing this stuff falling from the sky, hitting the ground.

00:31:04.160 And you'd expect noise like you hear with rain, but it's like silent.

00:31:07.360 Something about that, I like it.

00:31:08.960 It's a pretty cool experience.

00:31:10.440 I mean, snow is really amazing.

00:31:12.080 And also like it really brightens the landscape.

00:31:15.080 It unlocks a whole host of winter activities that you can do in the snow or you can do when it's below freezing.

00:31:23.040 So I think, yeah, if you live somewhere where you get a lot of snow, I think you have a leg up on winter.

00:31:29.260 A lot of people I talk to are the people who live in places where it doesn't really snow, where it's cold and gray and rainy.

00:31:35.680 And I think that can be harder to manage.

00:31:38.140 But there's just so much about winter snow that I think it is full of opportunity.

00:31:44.860 You know, it makes things lighter and brighter.

00:31:47.860 You can then ski.

00:31:49.200 You can snowshoe.

00:31:50.800 It's visually, I think, very appealing to have sort of that white freshness.

00:31:55.480 And like you said, it does, I mean, not only is it silent when it falls, but it actually dampens sound in the landscape.

00:32:02.500 And so it makes everything feel more peaceful.

00:32:05.860 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:32:10.720 And now back to the show.

00:32:12.220 Okay, so that first thing, just pay attention to the positives of winter.

00:32:17.140 Wintertime is the big one.

00:32:18.360 Another idea you talk about in the book is changing how we think about the seasonality of winter.

00:32:26.160 So here in the United States, we typically think of winter as just a single season that goes from December until March.

00:32:33.700 Yes.

00:32:33.960 But you talk about in other cultures, they actually break up winter into subseasons.

00:32:38.040 So how can breaking winter up into subseasons help make it more enjoyable?

00:32:41.900 Yeah, so this is one of the things that I learned while I was researching the book that has changed my perspective the most.

00:32:49.260 So the Sami, who are the indigenous people of northern Europe, of the Arctic, what is now, you know, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, traditionally had eight seasons.

00:33:00.280 So the four seasons we might be used to, spring, summer, fall, and winter, but also four bridge seasons.

00:33:06.980 So spring, summer, summer, fall, fall, winter, and winter, spring.

00:33:13.660 So there's actually three sort of winter seasons.

00:33:17.100 There's autumn, winter, winter, and spring, winter.

00:33:21.460 And I think that this is really helpful because, first of all, we know that having different names for things helps us notice and appreciate them more, right?

00:33:30.300 When we can label things and they have a name, they feel real in a different way.

00:33:35.760 And I think it helps us appreciate the evolution of winter.

00:33:41.020 That autumn winter is when winter is coming on.

00:33:44.540 The days are getting shorter, but maybe winter is still sort of novel and exciting.

00:33:50.180 It's still, you know, fun that it's hoodie season again.

00:33:54.240 You know, we're greeting winter and we're sort of preparing to go into the darkness.

00:33:58.340 And then winter, for me, is really this sort of deep winter time.

00:34:02.840 It's the darkest time of the year, the time you're really going to feel the effects most on your energy.

00:34:09.400 It's also got the holidays.

00:34:10.820 So, like, it's both kind of a restful time and kind of a stressful time.

00:34:15.400 And those things are, you know, competing for real estate in your life.

00:34:20.060 And, you know, that's the real wintry winter.

00:34:22.540 And then there's spring winter, which to me, I mean, it really is going to vary where you live and based on your climate.

00:34:30.240 But to me, that's sort of late February through whenever spring actually arrives, which, you know, sometimes is March, sometimes is April.

00:34:38.000 Sometimes, you know, isn't until early May, depending on where you live.

00:34:41.940 And that is when, you know, the days are getting light again, maybe you're feeling sick and tired of winter, like you're over it and you're ready for spring.

00:34:51.600 And there are signs of spring around, like, you know, little things are growing and birds are coming back, but it's not full T-shirt weather yet.

00:35:01.200 And I think this idea of splitting the winter into three both helps us sort of notice the different parts of winter and the way that it's sort of not static.

00:35:12.360 I think it can also give us some stamina for winter.

00:35:15.600 So a lot of people I talk to really struggle with this tail end of winter with, like, January, February, March.

00:35:23.100 And that is what some of the Sami people that I spoke to in Inari, Sápmi, what is now Finland, talked about that in their community, they still really use this designation of spring-winter and start talking about spring-winter and how the days are getting lighter, the sun is coming back.

00:35:42.440 If you're somewhere snowy, it's the best time of year for skiing because the sun will melt the top layer of snow and then it will refreeze at night and it will form like a crust.

00:35:53.260 So you can often walk or ski on this snow crust and the conditions for that are really good.

00:35:59.180 But I think when a lot of people are feeling ready for spring, calling it spring-winter and acknowledging that it's not fully spring yet, but it's also not deep winter in the same way can really help you appreciate the parts of that season and also give you a little bit more stamina for sort of making it through that tail end of winter that a lot of people often struggle with.

00:36:26.680 And you also recommend one thing you can do with the breaking of the winter in different sections, these three sections, is you can add in some rituals kind of to help you usher in the different parts of winter.

00:36:39.120 So I think a lot of us do this naturally.

00:36:40.780 We just don't really think about it as rituals.

00:36:43.000 So I know, you know, for me, whenever I feel like fall winter is coming on, it's hoodie season.

00:36:47.840 It's time to bring out the hoodies.

00:36:49.040 It's time to bring out, I got some jogger pants that I really like that are really cozy.

00:36:53.380 And then as, you know, the holidays get closer, you get deeper into winter, like Christmas, Hanukkah, like you're putting up the decorations, there's food that you're eating for that deep, dark type of winter.

00:37:05.140 And then in spring winter, that sort of tail end of winter, you know, we all have probably things that we do naturally.

00:37:11.620 Oh, I'm going to spend a little bit more time outside later in the day because, you know, the light is extending a bit.

00:37:18.080 So I love that recommendation you have is add in some rituals to the temporality or the seasonality of these different subwinters.

00:37:25.080 And I think it's funny, you mentioned your mom did exactly what my mom did with M&Ms.

00:37:31.520 Yep, yep.

00:37:32.500 The seasonal colored M&Ms in the candy jar.

00:37:36.180 My mom did the exact same thing growing up. 0.99

00:37:38.360 Like you could tell what part we were in winter based on the color of the M&Ms.

00:37:43.140 So the beginning, it would be like the fall color M&Ms.

00:37:46.580 And then as Christmas time came, it was the Christmas colored M&Ms.

00:37:50.560 And then as we passed Christmas and we were still in winter, it was like the blue white M&Ms.

00:37:55.120 Yep, yep.

00:37:55.780 And then it gets to like the Easter, the spring, like pastel colors, you know, like spring has arrived.

00:38:01.240 Totally.

00:38:01.740 And I think, you know, having these little things is a way of helping us mark time and also gives us things to look forward to, right?

00:38:11.100 It gives us things where we say, oh, this time of year is when I bake cookies or throw my big Valentine's Day party or, you know, go on walks after work so I can see like all the little shoots growing.

00:38:26.860 You know, it helps us anticipate these different parts of the season more positively.

00:38:33.080 And the other thing I really like about the three subseasons is how it can be adapted to the climate where you live.

00:38:38.760 So in the U.S., winter starts on the same day and spring starts on the same day, whether you live in Oklahoma or Minnesota, you know, and in reality, the climates of different places are really different.

00:38:51.960 And so having your own personal markers of the season and your own personal rituals that maybe they're tied to a date on the calendar, but maybe they're tied to a weather event, right?

00:39:02.540 Maybe you're a gardener and you wait until, you know, after what you think is going to be the last frost to do your gardening in the spring or you wait until the sun sets at a certain time where you are to have some sort of evening ritual.

00:39:19.020 I think this way we can really adapt them to wherever we live, which helps us appreciate winter where we are and sort of connect us to, you know, the specific climate of our home or our community on a planet that is very, you know, rich and diverse in how the seasons manifest.

00:39:42.020 Another thing you talk about we can do to make winter more enjoyable, change your mindset about it is incorporating a practice that Norwegians use called hygge.

00:39:51.600 Yeah.

00:39:52.000 We've, yeah, we've had Mike Viking on the podcast to talk about hygge.

00:39:56.160 But for those who aren't familiar, what is hygge?

00:39:58.640 And it's a weird word.

00:39:59.740 It's spelled H-Y-G-G-E.

00:40:02.060 For a long time, I thought it was higgy, but it's hygge. 1.00

00:40:04.860 So what is hygge?

00:40:05.600 Hygge. 0.97

00:40:06.340 So hygge is, it's the Danish word for coziness.

00:40:09.020 Coziness, the Norwegian word is kushlig.

00:40:12.040 They use a different word, but it's, it's, you know, it's roughly translated as coziness, but it's more of a sort of untranslatable concept.

00:40:22.060 In Scandinavian countries, in a lot of these cold, dark countries, there are special words associated with this feeling of being cozy.

00:40:31.700 And, you know, I think of it as, right, like you talked about when the snow is falling outside and, you know, you don't have to go anywhere or, you know, a Friday night at the end of the work week when you come home and you like have your favorite dinner and you watch a movie.

00:40:48.540 It's this feeling of peaceful contentedness to me that's really, you know, facilitated by our environment.

00:40:58.620 So often it's practiced, you know, mostly in the winter when it's dark outside and you light candles at home and it's, you know, it's cold out there, but it's warm at home and you're feeling cozy and connected and content.

00:41:14.720 And I think that, you know, there's this cultural value of this peacefulness that winter really facilitates that I think helps people in these Nordic countries appreciate and enjoy winter.

00:41:31.300 That it's this special atmosphere and feeling that is especially well suited to the long nights and sort of the cold air of the winter season that people really relish and really look forward to.

00:41:48.060 So this idea of coziness, but in a really sort of rich and meaningful way.

00:41:53.800 Yeah.

00:41:53.900 And some of the things they do, they get really big into lighting, like they're obsessed about the type of lighting.

00:41:58.780 So it's got to be low, sort of dim lighting.

00:42:02.640 It's not really bright.

00:42:04.140 They use a lot of candles.

00:42:05.520 Candles are big.

00:42:06.820 A lot of cozy hobbies.

00:42:08.520 So crocheting, book reading.

00:42:11.480 I love how, I think it's in Iceland, instead of giving toys and presents for Christmas, they give each other books and then they just read the books that they gave each other in front of each other.

00:42:21.120 Yes.

00:42:21.740 I love that.

00:42:22.920 I love it too.

00:42:24.020 And I think, you know, a lot of these things I think sound trivial until you try them.

00:42:29.680 You know, light some candles in the evening and then you won't feel depressed in winter, right?

00:42:34.040 Like it's almost a fluffy cliche.

00:42:36.340 But the truth is, when you are intentional about lighting and you use candles, what you're doing is you're changing the meaning of the darkness.

00:42:46.700 And the darkness goes from something that is a negative, that makes you feel tired, that is limiting to an opportunity for hygge, for this cozy feeling, for this contentment.

00:43:00.340 And when you light these candles at the end of the day or before dinner, I even light them when I eat breakfast on a, you know, gray rainy day now, with the intention of reveling in the low light at this time of year and inviting the darkness in, that's a really powerful reframe and a really powerful mindset shift.

00:43:23.480 And likewise, having these sort of slowed down activities, so knitting, reading books, you know, even saying like, you know, you're going to watch a movie or watch Netflix with this cozy intention changes the meaning of it.

00:43:38.760 I'm personally, I'm an amateur ceramicist.

00:43:41.640 And when it's really warm and sunny out, it's hard for me to spend a whole Saturday afternoon in the pottery studio.

00:43:46.640 But when it's dark and gray and rainy, that's the perfect place to be.

00:43:52.020 And so you have these activities that you look forward to that you say, winter is my time to do this thing that I love.

00:44:01.040 And it really reclaims the darkness as a chance to connect with these things in a way that gives you something to look forward to and really, really transforms your experience.

00:44:13.700 It's a hygge makes the cold and dark.

00:44:16.200 It makes it more enjoyable.

00:44:17.500 It makes the darkness cozy.

00:44:20.020 It makes it an opportunity, right?

00:44:21.760 It makes the cold and the darkness from something that limits what you can do and what you can enjoy.

00:44:26.500 Oh, I can't go to the beach.

00:44:27.660 I can't, you know, hike with friends.

00:44:30.200 I can't whatever to this thing that, oh, yeah, this is my hygge weather.

00:44:35.320 This is my opportunity to do these other things that I love to do.

00:44:38.720 All right.

00:44:38.940 So if you wanted to be more hygge, get cozy. 1.00

00:44:41.540 So nice lighting, candles, fireplace, fire would be an order.

00:44:47.360 Hoodies.

00:44:48.080 You got to have the hoodie to make it cozy.

00:44:49.980 Any other practices you found that you recommend to make things more hygge for people?

00:44:54.400 I would say, I mean, all those things are ideal, but I really like to think of hygge as something personal, right?

00:45:01.520 So what feels cozy to you, right?

00:45:04.480 So maybe you have your version of, oh, I love to wear a hoodie around the house.

00:45:08.740 Maybe you have special pajamas.

00:45:10.240 For me, a hot water bottle is something I've recently become very into of like, you know, it's sort of like I think of like an old British grandma with her hot water bottle.

00:45:20.420 But it's so cozy to have like this little warm thing on my lap or in my bed when I'm either working at my desk or watching TV or doing whatever.

00:45:31.140 For me, drinking tea, like winter is tea season and I really stock up and I'm, you know, I'm drinking tea right now.

00:45:38.100 I'm drinking tea all day long.

00:45:39.900 But I think, you know, these practices are the most powerful when you take a moment to think like, what makes me feel cozy?

00:45:47.460 What things did I grow up with?

00:45:49.460 Maybe for you, hygge is the blue and white M&Ms in the candy bowl.

00:45:53.600 You know, what are the things that I can have in my environment or that I can do with myself or my partner or my friends or my family that make me feel this sort of like calm, content, peaceful feeling?

00:46:06.860 Maybe it's a certain playlist that you play.

00:46:09.160 Maybe it's re-watching favorite comforting movies.

00:46:12.740 Maybe it's certain dishes from your childhood that you like to cook and eat.

00:46:16.960 And so I think, you know, there's this sort of Scandinavian brand of hygge and I think there's some great principles, right?

00:46:24.400 Things that make you feel warm, good, low lighting, yummy foods and drinks.

00:46:29.540 But I think this idea that we should all be doing the Scandinavian hygge like there's a right way to do it is not totally aligned with the principles of hygge, which is really what makes you feel calm and cozy at home.

00:46:44.960 So another reason a lot of people don't like winter in the United States is that they feel like they can't go outside.

00:46:52.560 Yes.

00:46:52.820 How do the Nordics think about getting outside during the wintertime?

00:46:55.480 Yeah, so I think if you live in a place with such a long, dark, cold winter, you know that you can't let it stop you.

00:47:02.620 You know that you have to find ways to brave the elements because otherwise you really are not going to feel very good if you're trying to stay inside for six months of the year.

00:47:13.900 So in Norway and throughout Scandinavia, they have this saying, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

00:47:20.980 And I really learned how to dress for the winter living in Norway.

00:47:25.260 And now I bring that with me, you know, even when I'm home at my parents' house in New Jersey.

00:47:30.560 So, you know, I'll be wearing, you know, sneaky, thin woolen leggings under my jeans or my pants or a woolen undershirt if I'm going to be outside for a while.

00:47:42.500 Lots of layers, so for me, like, you know, a sweater under a cardigan under my waterproof coat with a scarf and a hat and my rain boots and really sort of fortifying yourself against the elements so that you can go outside and be comfortable outside.

00:48:01.120 So, you know, in Finland, we would go on a, you know, when I was researching the book and I visited Finland, we went on a day that I think it was 14 degrees Fahrenheit and we went for a picnic and we, there were little metal fire pits and we roasted hot dogs and we drank hot chocolate and we hung out outside for an hour or two around the fire, totally bundled up.

00:48:25.760 And so I think experimenting with dressings so that you are sort of weatherproof, so that you are warm and you are dry and then going outside in the winter is a really freeing feeling.

00:48:41.280 I think a lot of people underestimate how good it can feel to be outside in the cold or the wet when you're properly dressed.

00:48:49.660 We also know from research that people substantially underestimate how much of a mood boost time in nature will provide them.

00:48:57.120 And so I think we can really take a cue from the Nordics and from Scandinavia in not letting the weather stop us.

00:49:05.720 And another thing I've experienced and was taught by my friends in Norway is that it often looks worse outside than it actually is.

00:49:13.440 When you're inside and it's dark out or it's raining, it looks really cold and really foreboding and really wet.

00:49:21.760 And there's so many times, I actually, I currently live in Amsterdam, which is a very cold, rainy city and also one where people bike everywhere.

00:49:29.460 And living here, there's so many times I look out the window and I'm like, oh my God, it's raining so much.

00:49:34.900 Like, I don't want to go out there.

00:49:36.180 And then I bundle up and I go outside and like, it's just misting or it's only raining intermittently or it's a lot warmer than it looked.

00:49:45.180 And so bundling up and getting outside, I think, can help us recognize when our expectations are wrong about how it's going to feel to go out.

00:49:55.800 Okay, so dress for the weather.

00:49:57.900 And then also, I mean, even the Nordics, they even get outside when it's dark.

00:50:02.000 They don't even let the darkness get them down.

00:50:04.620 Like, they'll go out when it's, you know, pitch, almost pitch black.

00:50:08.780 And they're having, like, kids are having a great time.

00:50:11.060 Like, they're not letting that get in the way of them having a good time outside.

00:50:14.380 Yeah, I mean, if you live somewhere where the sun doesn't rise for two months each winter, you have to.

00:50:18.420 You put on a reflective vest for safety and you strap on a headlamp and you get out there.

00:50:23.240 And, you know, I think when we look at winter and these excursions with a sense of sort of curiosity, there's a lot to discover.

00:50:30.960 That your neighborhood looks different in the dark and you can see how the shadows fall from the streetlights or the light of the moon reflects off snow if you live somewhere snowy.

00:50:41.740 Or, you know, how things, how your other senses are a little bit heightened when things are dark.

00:50:47.980 And, you know, as long as you're somewhere where it's safe to be out in the darkness, that it can be a really peaceful feeling to go out on an excursion and go for sort of an evening walk under the streetlights or under the city lights and see what feels different.

00:51:06.320 Another thing you explore is how cultures around the world that live in cold areas use heat and cold contrast to make winter more invigorating.

00:51:14.400 What did you discover there?

00:51:15.300 Yeah, so a lot of places in the world that are really cold have practices around heat.

00:51:21.600 So in Finland, it's the sauna.

00:51:23.700 In Iceland and Japan, which are sort of rich in geothermal waters, it's going to, you know, public baths or public pools that are really hot.

00:51:33.120 And so I think, you know, when it is cold all the time, you do want to have things that feel warm and you do want to have a way to warm up.

00:51:42.140 And so if you have access to a sauna, there's a lot of psychological and physiological health benefits of time spent in the sauna.

00:51:51.540 It's basically the equivalent of a cardiovascular workout.

00:51:54.840 So regular sauna use over your lifetime protects against things like heart attack and heart disease and stroke.

00:52:02.800 And it also, you know, feels really good and feels really nice.

00:52:06.400 If you don't have access to a sauna, you know, taking hot baths, hot water immersion provides similar benefits.

00:52:13.240 But also in these places, I see a lot of people taking advantage of the cold and doing cold plunging and cold water swimming.

00:52:23.520 And that was something that I wasn't planning to include in the book.

00:52:28.160 I thought it was like too niche and too hardcore and too biohacking.

00:52:32.420 But then in multiple places throughout Scandinavia, I talked to multiple people who said that their number one thing that helps them feel good in the winter is doing cold plunging and doing cold water swimming for, you know, once or twice a week for a few seconds or a few minutes.

00:52:50.760 And I tried it myself and, you know, I can't believe to say that I am now actually a cold water swimmer myself.

00:52:58.820 It's something I've continued doing here in Amsterdam.

00:53:02.280 And there's a lot of health benefits for that as well.

00:53:05.220 But it also is really an invigoration to the system.

00:53:09.280 And both of these things, sort of cold therapy and hot therapy, can help our bodies heat themselves more effectively.

00:53:16.660 And so the more time you expose yourself to the cold over time, the more you get used to it, right?

00:53:22.640 It's like that first chilly day in the fall feels so much colder than a day that's the same temperature in the spring.

00:53:30.780 So, you know, these practices that help us heat up and cool down actually help make all of the winter feel more pleasurable and enjoyable.

00:53:41.520 Yeah, I've got a sauna.

00:53:42.940 I bought it a couple years ago.

00:53:44.680 And it's amazing.

00:53:45.240 I love it.

00:53:46.040 And it's funny, I've discovered I start using it seasonally.

00:53:49.220 Like I really enjoy using it when it starts cooling down.

00:53:52.020 It's not so much fun using a sauna in Oklahoma in the summertime when it's 105 degrees outside.

00:53:57.340 It's like, what's the point?

00:53:58.680 It's a winter activity.

00:53:59.880 Yeah, it's a winter activity.

00:54:00.980 It's something else to look forward to.

00:54:03.000 It makes winter more enjoyable.

00:54:04.600 And something else that Nordic people do is they'll combine the hot and the cold for the pleasure of the contrast. 0.99

00:54:11.560 Like they'll heat themselves up in the sauna and then they'll run out and take a cold plunge and then get back in the sauna.

00:54:16.920 And that definitely feels good, too.

00:54:18.700 There's that period like late fall, early spring when I have the pool open and it's cold.

00:54:24.880 I'll get in the sauna and jump in the pool.

00:54:26.640 It feels amazing.

00:54:27.860 Something that we mentioned earlier, one of our natural inclinations as it gets colder and darker is we just want to spend more time by ourselves and not be as social.

00:54:39.140 And I think one of the takeaways is that that's normal.

00:54:41.380 Like there's nothing wrong with you if you want to, you know, spend a Friday night watching a movie instead of going out.

00:54:46.800 But socializing is still a big spirit lifter.

00:54:50.140 And something you found is that in a lot of these cultures, when they have long, hard winters, they got some practices to inject a little bit more sociality into the season.

00:55:01.340 So what did you discover there?

00:55:03.240 Yeah.

00:55:03.380 So a lot of these cultures have communal gatherings that are an integral part of enjoying and appreciating the winter.

00:55:13.720 So I actually heard this about a cafe in Fairbanks, Alaska, that in the winter, the community board is full of activities and gatherings and meetups.

00:55:26.140 And in the summer, it's actually totally empty because everybody is out enjoying the sun and hiking and doing things.

00:55:32.140 But I think this idea of coming together in the winter is really valuable.

00:55:37.700 It's both a pastime, you know, something that fills the long nights and is something that, you know, we know is a mood booster for a lot of people.

00:55:50.200 It helps us stay connected.

00:55:51.940 So when we're feeling down, you have those sources of social support.

00:55:55.760 And so this was something I experienced on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, which are islands off the coast of Scotland, where they talk about Cayley culture.

00:56:07.060 And so Cayley is this word for this kind of community gathering.

00:56:10.480 So a big ritual dinner or, you know, having friends over and drinking whiskey and listening to music and sitting around by the fire.

00:56:19.600 And I think, you know, winter is really about trying to find the right balance, right?

00:56:26.660 You want to let yourself slow down, but you also want to motivate yourself to get outside.

00:56:30.900 You want to embrace it as a season for restorative alone time, but also acknowledge that you might need socialization.

00:56:39.900 And so for me, it's really a lot about thinking about how do I want to socialize in the winter?

00:56:46.260 So maybe that's having a few people over for a dinner party or a movie night rather than sort of like a big, you know, raucous barbecue beach day.

00:56:58.140 Or maybe it's about connecting with friends individually in a slowed down way.

00:57:04.340 Or maybe it's about inviting people over to do a silent hang where you, you know, read your book separately, but you're in the same room together.

00:57:13.900 And so I think, you know, we can take a cue from these cultures where community is a really important part of getting through the winter and say, okay, what kind of socialization do I need or would feel really good to me at this time of year?

00:57:28.900 Yeah, I guess in Nordic countries, like film festivals, that's a big, big thing for them.

00:57:33.760 And I think it's interesting.

00:57:34.600 And we have that kind of in the United States too, in Park City, Utah, there's a like Sundance, like there's a big film festival there.

00:57:41.980 And I think it happens during the winter.

00:57:43.900 Yeah, I think a lot, you know, winter is a chance to have these kinds of indoor community gatherings and events that maybe would be poorly attended at other times of year.

00:57:55.640 So I also heard about this book festival on the Isle of Lewis that was originally scheduled for the end of August, which is when the Edinburgh Book Festival happens.

00:58:05.880 And so they thought, oh yeah, people will come from Edinburgh, they'll do that book festival, and then they'll come to our book festival.

00:58:10.500 But not only did people not materialize, the locals didn't want to go to a book festival, like at the end of the summer during the last, you know, long days.

00:58:20.240 And so they moved it to the end of October, beginning of November, where it's really flourished, where at that time of year, when it's starting to get really dark out, people want something to do.

00:58:33.180 And this was something I also experienced living in Trumso, as they have a big international film festival towards the middle end of January, and people really look forward to it.

00:58:43.680 It gives people something to do at that time of year, you know, after the holidays are over, when people maybe need a reason to go out and need something to do to fill the long nights.

00:58:55.940 And it sort of makes that time of year celebratory.

00:58:59.320 So I see now a lot of winter festivals.

00:59:02.000 There's one in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, called the Great Northern that takes place at the end of January.

00:59:08.360 A lot of these winter-themed festivals are popping up sort of at the end of January, beginning of February, which I think is when a lot of people experience a dip.

00:59:20.640 The holidays are over.

00:59:22.160 You're like, okay, what am I going to do with myself now?

00:59:24.480 And it's a great chance to sort of get out in your community, go to a film festival, go to a winter festival, or go to a museum, or see more movies, or, you know, do more of these things that are really cozy winter activities that lend themselves to, you know, it being dark and cold out.

00:59:43.420 Well, Carrie, this has been a great conversation.

00:59:44.980 Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:59:47.740 You can go to my website, CarrieLebowitz.com.

00:59:50.660 The book is How to Winter, available wherever books are sold.

00:59:54.500 I also have a substack newsletter called Wintry Mix that you can sign up for, where I send out sort of winter tips and practices throughout the season that you can try if you want even more than what the book offers.

01:00:07.180 And this was so great.

01:00:08.080 Thanks so much for your thoughtful questions and sharing your own experience with winter, and I hope listeners really get a lot out of it.

01:00:16.160 It's been great.

01:00:16.660 Yeah, thanks for your time, Carrie.

01:00:18.900 My guest here is Carrie Lebowitz.

01:00:20.260 She's the author of the book, How to Winter.

01:00:21.780 It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

01:00:24.380 You can find more information about her work at her website, CarrieLebowitz.com.

01:00:27.520 While you're there, sign up for her newsletter, Wintry Mix, which I think is a great name for her newsletter, where she shares research on how to make winter more enjoyable.

01:00:34.900 Also, check out her show notes at awim.is slash howtowinter.

01:00:37.680 We find links to resources, and we delve deeper into this topic.

01:00:39.960 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

01:00:50.200 Make sure to check out our website at artofmanlies.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that we've written over the years about pretty much anything you'd think of.

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01:01:09.920 Until next time, I'm Brett McKay.

01:01:11.440 Remind you to our list of AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - December 11, 2024

The Winter Mindset： How Norwegians Love the Winter (And You Can Too)

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