Seasonal Depression: Why the Light Leaves — and Energy Drops

Seasonal depression is not “whining” or weakness of character — it is a natural breakdown, especially familiar to northern peoples. When there is plenty of light, the body “starts up” and energy is sufficient. When light grows scarce, a chain of processes is set off that gently but inevitably pulls a person down.

Light as fuel

Light acts directly — it “acts straight on the eyes,” and that is not a metaphor but a basic mechanism. Energy and everything else depend on it. In countries where light is scarce — Sweden, Finland, Norway — this is especially noticeable. When there is no light, the body is driven into a kind of hibernation: hormones and circadian rhythms switch to a “winter” mode.

Why energy runs short

The problem is that the load stays the same while, by definition, there is less energy. In summer a person runs around, gets things done, takes on more — and in winter the reserve falls. People don’t understand it: the body “won’t start up,” yet there is still just as much work.

The vicious circle

And then “the water spills over the edge” — illness. Very little is needed: a small push, and it’s off into a circulus vitiosus, a vicious circle. The bad pulls the bad. A person tries to lift their energy on their own — with sugar, food, alcohol. But this is only a combination that makes things worse: little light, poor food, alcohol — “that, of course, is brutal.”

Transitions the body doesn’t understand

It’s not only the dark months that are hard, but the transitions too. When the snow is already melting but the sun hasn’t yet risen, the body “doesn’t understand what this is” — and people slide back into depression. But a clear, frosty day, when the snow “burns like diamonds” and the sun is already high, brings relief. And in spring, when the greenery appears, “the green flashes — and the depression lifts.”

Exhaustion and asthenia

When the mechanisms break down, depression takes on an organic character through the signs of asthenia. A person wakes up already tired, unrested; their capacity for work drops; what was once easy now comes with heaviness. The key knowledge is to accept that it is the organism itself that is tired — at the level of cells and brain — not “a problem with the outside world.”

Practice

The steps follow strictly from the doctor’s own logic:

1. Prepare for light in advance, by the last ten days of October — for example, a little light therapy / light source.
2. Measure and, if needed, level out vitamin D — “a little higher, to even it out.”
3. If possible, “escape to the sun” during the dark months (October–December).
4. Remove the trap-combination: sugar, overeating, alcohol used to “lift energy.”
5. Recognize fatigue as a signal from the body, not as personal guilt — and lower the load.