Winter is Coming
And this is my battle plan.
Winter is coming.
This time every year,1 daylight hours grow scarce. Darkness falls earlier, and clouds obscure the daytime sun.
The lack of light makes it difficult to feel great. Earlier in my life, I suffered from winter blues, spending my winters feeling tired and dull. In the past 4 winters, I have developed strategies to turn this around.
This post outlines my battle plan for the upcoming winter.
1. Lumenator - Sunlight replacement
A cornerstone of my winter survival strategy is my Lumenator. It consists of light-string(s) with E27 sockets.2 I fill these sockets with really strong LED lights, each about half as bright as a standard sun therapy lamp. I have 40 of them.3 I cover the LED lights with rice paper balls.4
The result is a good enough sun replacement. The lamps turn my room bright like a light cloudy summer day. This is very bright for winter. It doesn’t help me produce vitamin D, but it’s great for my psychological well-being.
I’ve moved recently. Putting the lamps up is one of my top priorities.
2. Nostalgia, cosiness and winter activities
I do my best to get into the Christmas spirit, decorating, putting up candles and making my living space cosy. I try to get into the vibe with snowmen, good Christmas music and some pomanders.
I also do a “cosy meditation”, where I calm down, relax and start relating to things as cosy. It’s possible to think of most things as cosy; I’ve sat at a Thai food place, enjoying the sound of frying food and humming refrigerators
When I start relating to everything as cosy, my mood improves. It’s hard to be depressed while feeling cosy.
I also make sure to go winter bathing, since this is an enjoyable activity that I can only do during winter. Finding winter-specific things to enjoy, and making sure to do them, is a great way to start appreciating the season.
3. Tryhard healthy living
During summer I can drink alcohol and eat sugar without fucking myself up too bad. During winter, there is no slack for that. I need to exercise, sleep at regular times, not eat sugar or drink alcohol, and keep doomscrolling at bay.
When I slip up during winter, I have a rough time recovering. Christmas candy is a popular coping mechanism, and also one of my greatest seasonal enemies.5 When I eat sugary Christmas candy, I wake up sluggish and craving more candy. This easily turns into a destructive spiral.
If I go into a funk, I engage in self-care. If I feel resistant to training, I lower the weights and appease short-term me by making the training more enjoyable. Mindful lifting and post-workout sauna usually do the trick.
I have no great strategy for candy, other than taking a militant zero-tolerance stance. The cravings usually go away after a week or so. The biggest win with a zero-tolerance policy is that I don’t fall into the trap of “just eating a little bit”. That road leads to damnation.
Also, basic things like supplementing vitamin D is a given.
4. Selfcare as prio numero uno
During winter, I prioritize feeling excellent. If I don’t feel great, I stop and focus on taking care of myself rather than pushing through.
I should do this all year long, but for some reason, I find it easier to go into self-care during winter. I know the stakes are higher, and find it easier to take my own well-being seriously.
I used to think that winter suffering was inevitable and that my best bet was to survive without suffering too much. Shifting my intent towards feeling great as priority number one has helped me a lot. I wrote a short post about this mindset shift last winter:
Ending notes
Every winter, I try to come up with new ways of taking care of myself. This winter, I’m going to try adding cardio exercise and a Vajrayana-based meditation. Do you have any tips and tricks? Drop them in the comments :)
Ever since I started badgering people to share, more people have started signing up. I don’t know if there’s a causal effect here, or if I’m just cargo culting. I find it funny to write sincerely ironic messages like these, so I’ll keep at it anyway.
Please share this post with people who hate Christmas. Send it to that friend who gets bitter every winter, the one who keeps a sleeping schedule that would impress a brown bear. Send it to relatives who are a bit too fond of mulled wine, as well as your 9th-grade English teacher.
I hope to save a few souls from damnation, giving others the tools they need to avoid being miserable for the dark portions of the year.
Winter is coming.
I have a yearly reminder on October 15th.
Note, I bought mine a while ago. The recommended products below are things I think should be feasible replacements. It might be possible to get the price down through some more research, if you have improvement suggestions, pop them in the comments.
Light strings: link
1/3 yellowish LED lamps: Amazon link
2/3 whiteish LED lamps: Amazon-link
Together with mulled wine: both sugar and alcohol.
Singing songs abour autumn, winter, santa Lucia and Christmas is a good way for me to feel happy and cosy.
Snuggling under a blanket, lighting a candle or a fire are also good for the cosy feeling.
But one of the most important things for me is to stay in contact with people and meet them IRL.