Winter as a Mindset: What Tromsø Teaches About the Long Dark Months
In Tromsø the sun stays below the horizon for two months, and many residents still look forward to winter. What a Norwegian study suggests, and how to write your own winter list.
The clocks went back a few days ago, and the first evening after the change always catches me out. I look up from whatever I am doing, expecting the afternoon, and the window has already gone dark. There is a small drop in the stomach. Here it comes, then. Four or five months of it.
Most of us treat that drop as the beginning of a season to be survived. We count weeks until spring, put up with the commute in the dark, and speak about February as if it were a sentence. I want to ask whether there is another way to stand inside the same weather, and a researcher who went looking for one in the far north of Norway has some useful things to say.
A town where the sun doesn't rise
Tromsø sits well above the Arctic Circle. For roughly two months in midwinter the sun stays below the horizon. What you get at midday is a deep blue twilight, then dark again. If the long dark were as bad for people as we tend to assume, you would expect Tromsø to be a gloomy place in January.
The health psychologist Kari Leibowitz spent time there to find out, and what she kept hearing from residents was surprising. Many did not describe winter as something to endure. They described it as a season with its own pleasures: candles in the window, evenings with friends, skiing under floodlights, a particular kind of cosiness. When she asked what they thought about winter, they tended to answer as though she had asked about something they looked forward to.
It would be easy to dismiss this as local charm. Leibowitz and Joar Vittersø, a psychologist who works on wellbeing, tried to measure it instead.
What the study found
In a 2020 paper in the International Journal of Wellbeing, Leibowitz and Vittersø surveyed 238 people from southern Norway, northern Norway and Svalbard. They built a questionnaire to capture what they called a wintertime mindset: whether someone sees winter as limiting and something to be endured, or as an opportunity, full of things worth doing.
Two results stand out. First, people who lived further north tended to hold more positive views of winter. Second, a more positive wintertime mindset went along with higher life satisfaction and more positive emotion, and statistically it accounted for part of the link between where people lived and how well they were doing. In plain terms: in the darkest places, how you think about the dark appeared to matter.
Now the caution, which matters as much as the finding. This was a cross-sectional survey, a snapshot, and it cannot say which way the arrow points. A positive mindset might lift wellbeing. Equally, people who are already doing well might find it easier to like winter. Likely it runs both ways. 238 people is a modest sample, and Norway is not everywhere. So take it as a good question, not a proven prescription.
A skill, not positive thinking
The part of this I find most useful is that the mindset is not what it sounds like. It is not "look on the bright side" or an instruction to feel grateful on a grey Tuesday. Forced positivity tends to fail precisely when you need it, because it asks you to deny what you actually feel.
What the Norwegian examples show is closer to a skill of attention. Winter gets a role in the year. If the long evenings are going to happen anyway, you can ask what they are good for. Slowness. Warm light. Stews that take three hours. Sitting in one room with the people you love, because nobody wants to leave it.
That also matches something I notice in my own practice of sitting quietly in the evening, in the Heartfulness way. The same hour can feel like a closing-in or like a gathering-in, and the difference lies less in the hour than in what I am willing to do with it. Darkness has always been the setting for rest. We just stopped designing for it.
The rituals
Notice how physical the Norwegian approach is. It is not an attitude held in the head. It lives in objects and habits.
- Candles and lamps. Norwegians have a word, koselig, for a kind of warm, unhurried cosiness, and candlelight is central to it. Low, warm light in the evening instead of overhead white light is a cheap way to tell the body the day is over.
- Gathering. A standing dinner, a regular game night, a neighbour over for tea. Winter is the season when making plans takes effort, which is exactly why a recurring one is worth having.
- Time outdoors. There is a Norwegian ideal called friluftsliv, roughly "open-air life", and the saying that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. A winter walk in the right layers is a different experience from a winter walk in the wrong ones.
- Something to look forward to. A soup you only make from November to February. A book kept for the dark months. A new blanket. Small things, but they give the season a character.
If you have a young child in the house, you probably already have the machinery for this. Early evenings are structured around bedtime anyway. Dim lights, warm food and a story are the same recipe.
What this is not
A good winter mindset is not a cure for seasonal affective disorder, and it would be unkind to suggest it is. Seasonal depression is a clinical condition. If you notice that every autumn brings persistent low mood, loss of interest, heavy fatigue, oversleeping or changes in appetite that make ordinary life hard, that deserves proper attention from a doctor or therapist, and there are treatments with real evidence behind them, including light therapy. Leibowitz herself has been careful on this point: attitude is one factor among several, not a substitute for care.
The two ideas can live together. Looking after your body's response to less light is a practical matter. Looking after your relationship with the season is a different one. If you also want to read about how the clock change affects sleep and evenings, a recent piece on this site covers permanent standard time and the dark evenings.
What a season-honouring life looks like
It does not look dramatic. It looks like a house that is a little warmer in feeling than in temperature. A weekly dinner on the calendar from now until March. A coat you actually like, so that going out is not a chore. A habit of saying "this is the season for soup" rather than "I can't wait for this to be over."
There is a quieter benefit as well. Wanting winter to be summer is a fight you will lose every year. Dropping it frees up attention that was being spent on resentment.
Your winter list
Take ten minutes this week and write a list with a title like "Things winter is good for." Aim for six to ten small items, specific enough that you could do them on an ordinary Wednesday. Some prompts:
- One warm thing to eat that belongs only to this season.
- One evening a week with a candle and no screen.
- One outdoor walk that you plan around daylight, not around your calendar.
- One person to invite for a slow dinner.
- One book, film or project saved for the long evenings.
- One piece of clothing that makes cold weather pleasant.
- One small ritual for the shortest day.
Pin it where you will see it. In January, when the dark feels heaviest, the list will be a memo from a calmer you.
FAQ
Does a positive attitude toward winter really improve wellbeing?
The Norwegian survey found that a more positive wintertime mindset went along with higher life satisfaction and positive emotion. Because it is a cross-sectional study, it shows association and cannot prove that mindset causes the wellbeing. It is a promising lead rather than settled science.
Is this the same as seasonal affective disorder?
No. Seasonal affective disorder is a recognised form of depression that follows a seasonal pattern. A winter mindset is about how you relate to the season day to day. If you suspect SAD, speak to a doctor or therapist.
What if I simply dislike the cold and dark?
That is allowed. The point is not to love every aspect of winter, but to find a few things you can look forward to, so that the season has some pull as well as some push.
I live somewhere with mild winters. Does this still apply?
The idea of giving a season a character travels well. Shorter days and colder evenings are enough to try it, even without polar night.
How soon will I notice a difference?
There is no research timeline for this. Many people notice the effect of small rituals, such as an evening candle and a regular gathering, within a few weeks, mostly as a change in how the evenings feel.
The dark will arrive on schedule whether or not we prepare for it. Some people in the far north have simply decided to make it welcome.