How do the changing seasons affect our emotions?

[Loren Booda]

How do you respond to climactic clues year-round? I find some subtle yet profound emotional memories involved with seasonal situations, like the depression I now am beginning to reexperience.

For instance, have you ever tried to recall the elements a half-year ago to appreciate what the weather will feel like in another six months? Do you recognize how cold snow, new life, oppressive sun or multicolored leaves affect you differently? Are these reactions mostly based in DNA, personal memory, societal behavior or immediate environment?

 

[Evo]

It's a personal thing, maybe brought on by psychological conditioning? I happen to hate bright light. I thrive in darkness. I almost never turn on lights. People around me are always turning on lights and complaining that "I" can't possibly see in such low light. I HATE LIGHT!

Fall is my favorite season, the shortening days, the cooler weather, the colors, the crispness of the fallen leaves under my feet. I get frisky in the fall.

Winter is my second favorite with the holidays, the snow. Snuggling up in front of a fire. The foods I associate with winter like hearty soups and chili and fresh baked bread. :!)

My least favorite season is summer, heat, humidity, bugs, too much sunlight.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm one of those who runs into a bit of winter depression (not every year though, so not sure what it really is all about...lack of good exercise perhaps), and prefer bright sunlight, though, I'm not enjoying it as much now that it's October and we're still having days with temps in the 80s and the sun is roasting me through the windows (there is NO shade behind my house, and it gets up to 110 in the full sun on the deck...or maybe more before the thermometer gives up trying...hot sun through glass makes me nauseous for some reason...totally strange, huh?)

I wouldn't mind more days in the mid-60s to low 70s. I do love the fall smells...dead leaves and fireplaces.

 

[loseyourname]

Where I grew up, it was pretty much 75-85 with clear skies year-round, so I've never experienced anything like what you describe. The closest thing is probably the evoking of emotional states buried in my memory when I hear songs that were popular in my early childhood that I hadn't heard in a long time. There is never the evoking of a disorder, though.

 

[chroot]

I get a little depressed mid-winter here, when it's overcast and drizzling for weeks at a time, and darkness sets in before I'm even out the door at work. Luckily, winter only typically lasts a few months here, and we generally have nine months of gorgeous sunny weather. Last year, however, it rained all the way into May, which was upsetting.

I don't think I could handle places like Seattle or Finland. I'd become a statistic pretty quickly.

I do have some trouble in that some of my favorite hobbies are at odds with each other: cycling and astronomy. I love the warm, long days of summer for cycling, but I love the early sunset and cold, crisp nights of winter for astronomy. The problem is that I don't want to do just one of these hobbies at a time -- I want to do them both year-round, so one is always frustrating me.

- Warren

 

[hypatia]

I half to make myself go outside in the winter, I could easily hibernate. Even a simple walk can make me feel better.
But when I start feeling depressed after days without sunlight, I go to a tanning bed. It's helped me quite a bit.

 

[Astronuc]

I prefer to be outdoors no matter what the temperature, and I generally prefer to wear a minimal amount of clothing.

I like all the seasons.

And I do prefer dryer days to humid, and I like cloudless skies at night in order to observe the stars and other astronomical objects.

I would not like living in an environment with a lot of fog, and I would prefer to like near the top of a mountain rather than down in a valley.

 

[Loren Booda]

Dreams often reflect the moods of seasons, often presaging the weather to come. While most of my dreams' scenery reflects the temperate climate of my bed and pajamas, the emotions therein could manifest glacial cold to searing heat.

Astronuc - my favorite of Satriani: Ceremony

 

[Smurf]

I can't wait for winter. THese holidays I'm going to have to get some good snowboarding time in.

 

[pattylou]

I like you, Loren.

I sort of go for the jungian cycle/masculine-feminine/birth-from-death thing myself. Hate fall, hate the decreasing sunlight, hate the holiday crush, hate it hate it hate it. October is a bit of a reprieve from the generally dreadful September (anniversary of our child's death, anniversay of 9/11, this years hurricane, shortening days, back to school, god do I hate september) and November/December are hopeless (anniversary of mom's death, a friend's suicide, Thanksgiving and Christmas.)

Favorite holiday is New Year's. New life, new promise, expectant spring.

But you got to have the death to have the rebirth.

Love spring, I'm a gardener, and in truth most seasons here are tolerable in terms of weather.

 

[Loren Booda]

pattylou et al.,

This is very near the anniversary of a longtime friend's suicide, perhaps the start for my mature personal growth. He hinted at what was to come, but I was more concerned as to why he didn't want to party. My week used to follow a pattern of almost constant pot smoking beginning Thursday and burning out Sunday afternoon. Here I had supplanted the natural work week with another, addictive ritual. Sometimes I wonder if my friend had given up his life to shock me from the weed he originally introduced to me.

The first week of October I also had my initial psychotic episode and resigned from Yale. In the Fall of 1994 I was "baptized by fire" when I had to care for a Mom deteriorating from dementia, with my father having entered a nursing home for Parkinson's the year before. Washington, DC had a heck of a windstorm a couple of Octobers ago that caused more destruction by downing trees than any hurricane in my remembrance.

pattylou, I try to empathize with your having your child predecease you. Such pain is one more reason I leave reproduction of our species to more capable people like you. My goal is to carry the hope of spring (or is it the hope of now?) within me through the dearth of winter - antidepressants and a light box help me with that. Some folks can winter that way, as others cope with the passing of loved ones.

 

[Astronuc]

My favorite of Satriani: Ceremony

I just found it on Satriani's 2 CD anthology.

I picked Rasberry Jam Delta-V as my theme song - the tune has punch to it - and so does Up in the Sky.

Searching is my other favorite.

Ceremony is a great tune too! Got some punch to it as well!

Back to the OP - I guess I am All-Seasonal like radial tires. I have a long way to go!

Hey, Loren - I am sorry to hear about your painful experiences. I've had a few of my own - including losing a brother to leukemia 5 years ago. That anniversary is coming up just a few days after my birthday.