Podcast #1,046: The Winter Mindset — How Norwegians Love the Winter (And You Can Too)

The Art of Manliness

When people think about winter, they often focus on the negatives: the cold, the dark, and the seasonal depression the season can bring. But my guest today questions whether winter really has to be so miserable and says that by changing our mindset, we can actually learn to enjoy and even thrive during this season.

Kari Leibowitz is a psychologist and the author of How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. She spent a year at the northernmost university in the world in Tromsø, Norway, studying why people living in the Arctic, where the sun doesn’t rise for two months, don’t suffer from seasonal depression at the rates you might expect. Today on the show, Kari explains how our expectations can create a nocebo effect that makes winter feel worse than it needs to, why breaking winter into three distinct sub-seasons can help us appreciate it more, how Nordic practices like hygge can make darkness feel cozy rather than oppressive, and why getting outside and staying social — even when it’s cold and dark — are keys to thriving during the season.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Podcast #856: Befriending Winter
• AoM Article: 8 Things That Can Help You Get More Hygge This Winter
• AoM Podcast #566: How to Have a Hyggely Christmas and a More Memorable New Year
• AoM Article: How Saunas Can Help Save Your Body, Mind, and Spirit
• AoM Podcast #801: The Cold Water Swim Cure
• Sunday Firesides: Contentment Through Contrast
• Sunday Firesides: No Such Thing as Bad Weather

Connect With Kari Leibowitz

• Kari’s website
• Kari on X
• Kari’s Substack — Wintry Mix

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Read the Transcript

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. When people think about winter, they often focus on the negatives, the cold, the dark, and the seasonal depression the season can bring. But my guest today questions whether winter really has to be so miserable and says that by changing our mindset, we can actually learn to enjoy and even thrive during the season. Kari Leibowitz is a psychologist and the author of, How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. She spent a year at the northernmost university in the world in Tromsø, Norway. Studying why people living in the Arctic, where the sun doesn’t rise for two months, don’t suffer from seasonal depression at the rate you might expect. Today on the show, Kari explains how our expectations can create a nocebo effect that makes winter feel worse than it needs to, why breaking winter into three distinct sub-seasons can help us appreciate it more, how Nordic practices like hygge can make darkness feel cozy rather than oppressive, and why getting outside and staying social, even when it’s cold and dark, are keys to thriving during the season. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/howtowinter. All right, Kari Leibowitz, welcome to the show.

Kari Leibowitz: Thanks so much for having me.

Brett McKay: So you are a psychologist and you came up with a book called, How to Winter. It’s about the winter mindset. And you use this book to explore your research about how we think about winter and how our expectations of winter can influence how we experience and how this idea of expectations can carry over to other parts of our life. But this all started, you went to Norway, to the northernmost university in the world to study all this. How did you end up in Norway studying the winter mindset?

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, I wish I could say that it was a grand and masterful plan, but I sort of ended up there a little bit by accident. So I was really interested and still am interested in sort of the study of human flourishing and well-being. How can we take a science-backed, evidence-based approach to helping people live better, more meaningful, more fulfilled lives. And in sort of my research and learning journey about this, I stumbled upon the work of Joar Vitterso, who is a world leading expert in this science. So he studies human happiness, but also the difference between hedonic wellbeing, so things that sort of feel good and are pleasurable, and what we call eudaimonic wellbeing, which is things that are rich and meaningful and lead to a more fulfilled life.

So he studies things like personal growth. And I sort of wrote to him to see if he might be interested in collaborating with me on a research project. I was looking for a bit of adventure and Norway seemed very exciting. Frozen had come out recently, so I was like, yeah, that would be cool. And he offhandedly mentioned that his university, The University of Tromsø, is the northernmost university in the world. And so of course, I started thinking about winter. And as I was learning about Tromsø and reading more about it, I learned that they have what’s called the polar night, which is a two month period from the end of November to the end of January, in which the sun never rises above the horizon.

And so with my sort of own conceptions about winter having grown up in the US on the Jersey shore, I was sort of like, well, how is it that this world leading expert of human happiness lives somewhere that the sun doesn’t rise for two months each winter? And that is really what inspired the beginning of this study. And we sort of put together a research proposal to look at the lack of seasonal affective disorder that people experience in Tromsø because rates there are relatively low. And then I was awarded a US Norway Fulbright grant to go and study this question. And all of a sudden, like my hypothetical adventure was me actually moving to the Arctic for a year.

Brett McKay: Two months without the sun, that sounds awful. And it’s cold too. I mean, what was your experience like with winter before you went to Norway? So you grew up in Jersey. I mean, it gets cold there. I imagine there’s snow, but how did you experience that?

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, so I grew up at the Jersey shore and there we have all four seasons. We certainly have a real winter, but it’s a beach town. Summer is king and it sort of feels like we’re waiting the whole year for summer to arrive. I mean, that’s especially true, you know, when you’re a kid or a teenager and you’re in school, but everyone really has that feeling that like the town comes alive in the summer. And I really struggled with the winter growing up. I really disliked and actually still dislike the feeling of being very cold. I really struggled with morning darkness and getting up early for school in the dark and going out in the cold. And I really thought winter was just something to suffer through. So I had a very similar reaction to you of like, two months with no sun, that sounds terrible.

Brett McKay: Yeah, and I think most Americans would agree with that. Like the way we talk about winter is just like, ugh, winter, it’s so dreary, it’s gray. I’m tired of the snow, I’m tired of the darkness. And then you go like to Norway and they don’t have that approach. And yeah, going back to that research question you had, is why is it in Norway where it seems people are flourishing there, like rates of happiness are pretty high there. And they have these long hard winters. And here in the United States, when we think about winter, like we’re just like, oh geez. 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. Like, okay, yeah, winter’s coming and you’re probably gonna get SAD. 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?

Kari Leibowitz: So the question about rates of SAD or seasonal affective disorder is a little bit more complicated than it looks on the surface. 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 SPAQ, the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire. And basically what that measures is how seasonal you are, how much your behavior changes between seasons. 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?

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. Now modern psychologists take a different approach. So the current sort of gold standard for diagnosing seasonal affective disorder is that it is a subtype of clinical depression. So first you have to meet the threshold for a clinical depressive episode, which includes a number of symptoms almost every day for two weeks. Things like feelings of worthlessness, excessive change in sleep or diet, feelings of suicidality, not being able to meet your responsibilities, and critically, it has to cause you significant distress or impair your daily functioning in some way.

And if you use this criteria of diagnosis, you see much lower rates of seasonal affective disorder. And so, really, the question of sort of what are the rates depends a lot on what measure you’re using. And this is really important when we are thinking about places in the world that have these long, dark, extreme winters like northern Norway. Because in a place like Tromsø, 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. And so there, this idea that 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?

It’s obvious that it would be natural and perhaps even adaptive to really change your behavior seasonally. 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, 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. That doesn’t mean that nobody has winter depression or that nobody struggles with the winter, but the rates in Tromsø across several studies are about equivalent to the rates of seasonal affective disorder in Maryland in the US, which is way farther south has a much brighter winter and a much more mild winter. 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.

Brett McKay: Okay, so why are the rates in, say, Maryland the same as in Norway? Is it that people in Norway do change their behavior with the seasons? Like, you know, one thing you talk about is that people want to sleep more in the winter. It’s like, I think it’s like a half hour more, but people in Nordic countries don’t see that as a problem. And they don’t think that they have seasonal affective disorder unless they’re actually clinically depressed. 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. So I guess I have seasonal affective disorder. Is that what’s going on?

Kari Leibowitz: So, I think part of it comes down to measurement, part of it comes down to which studies are using which criteria for diagnosis. But I think another thing that’s happening is that actually seasonal adaptation is really useful and changing your behavior with the seasons is a way of embracing the winter and can be really healthy. So, viewing the winter as a time where you do slow down, you’re more tired but that’s not actually a problem, you make more space to rest, maybe you are less social or you socialize in different ways, maybe the activities that you do for fun are a little bit calmer or lower energy or more peaceful. All of these are ways of adapting to the winter 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.

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, that you should be equally productive year round, that you should be equally energetic year round. And so, if we feel the effects of winter on us, which is real, right, 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, I think we interpret that as a problem, as a sign of depression, as a sense that there’s something wrong with us 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, 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.

Brett McKay: All right, so it sounds like in America, our expectations of what we should be doing in the winter kind of out of whack. We expect we should still be as productive as we are in the summertime. Just as happy, whatever. Yeah yeah.

Kari Leibowitz: I think so. 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 and then actually you’re fighting against your natural environment.

Brett McKay: Yeah, this idea of expectations creating a problem that might not be a problem reminds me of like loneliness. Like people talk a lot about the loneliness epidemic and something I’ve brought up with guests who are experts in this is, maybe we’re just lonelier ’cause our expectations of what a social life looks like are higher than they really should be, because loneliness is like a subjective feeling. You can be surrounded by people who love you and whatever, and you can still feel lonely because there’s something going on subjectively. And it might be, maybe your expectations of what you want from those other people are not being met. And so you just feel like, oh man, no one understands me.

Kari Leibowitz: Right, or you can spend a lot of time by yourself and not feel alone.

Brett McKay: Right, exactly.

Kari Leibowitz: Right?

Brett McKay: Yeah, yeah.

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

So I think this idea that our narratives really matter is really at the heart of my research and the heart of this book is that, we look around and there’s some disconnect between how we think we should be feeling and how we should be feeling, and that creates or perpetuates these problems. And I think 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. So you’re selectively attending outside of your awareness to things that match that narrative. Your confirmation bias is kicking in, so you’re more likely to notice those things and really attend to those things and maybe talk about those things. And that furthers this narrative when the reality might be more complex. 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.

Brett McKay: Yes, basically us people living in the middle latitudes when we experience winter, we’re like, we nocebo ourselves about winter. It’s like nocebo is the opposite of placebo. So the placebo effect is if you believe like a medicine’s gonna work, it might work for you. The nocebo is like, if you think something’s awful for you, it’s gonna be awful for you, even though there’s nothing going on that’s actually making it awful for you.

Kari Leibowitz: Yes, and I think it both creates this sort of negative experience and reinforces it, right? So I think there’s two things that happen. One is that winter has pros and cons. Every season has pros and cons, right? Summer has sweating and sunburn and mosquitoes and lots of unpleasantness, but it has really good branding. 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. We think about the dreariness, we think about the gloom. There’s all these narratives about depression. So I think then what happens is we’re more likely to selectively notice those aspects of winter, right? 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. And then of course focusing on them doesn’t feel good because those are the negative unpleasant aspects of winter. At the same time with the nocebo effect, this happens a lot with medications, right?

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? Sometimes your stomach hurts. Sometimes you get a headache. Sometimes you feel a little bit lightheaded when you stand up too fast. 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. And I see this a lot with winter, where when people have a bad week in the winter, they attribute it to the winter. They’re like, I’m feeling down, and it’s because winter is depressing. Whereas if they have a bad week in the summer, they’re not like, oh, it’s because summer is making me depressed. And so I also think in addition to 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, sort of a scapegoat for anything that happens from November to March.

Brett McKay: So I think the big takeaway there is whenever winter arrives, you naturally want to slow down. You wanna not go out as much. You might feel a little down compared to when you’re in the bright sun of the summer, but that’s okay. Like that’s natural. You know, to see that as like, I’m depressed. You can just adjust your life. And then the other takeaway from this is, don’t know nocebo yourself about winter. Like yeah, winter has its cons, but don’t just focus on that stuff ’cause you’ll just make it more miserable for yourself. But I thought it was interesting, one of the responses, and you talk about this in the book, one of the responses that particularly we Americans have when it comes to seasonal affective disorder, or once we start feeling like, oh, I’m feeling a little lethargic, I’m feeling a little down. This is not good because I have to be on all the time, I gotta get stuff done. One of our responses is that we can do light therapy, I can buy a light box and I can sit in front of it for 30 minutes. And the research does show like that works. But then you highlight research that a better way, a more effective way to deal with what you think might be seasonal affective disorder, is just change your mindset about it. Reframe it.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah. So light therapy is the most common treatment for seasonal affective disorder and is 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. 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. So that calls sort of this whole thing into question. 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. So it’s not necessarily true that the darkness is what is causing this. And I think a lot of people, you know, this is sort of emblematic, right?

We want this quick fix that is gonna allow us to just keep on keeping on rather than actually change our behavior or lifestyle in any meaningful way. So there’s a ton of marketing and advertising and good press around light lamps for the winter. And they can be useful, especially if you’re feeling tired in the morning, we know that natural light and bright light wakes us up and helps our circadian rhythms. So sitting in front of a light box can help with that sort of morning feeling of tiredness. The problem is that it’s not as nice as people often think it’s gonna be. It’s not like sitting in the sun. You don’t have that feeling of warmth. It’s very harsh. And for it to be effective, you have to do it consistently every day, ideally first thing in the morning. And when you’re already having a hard time waking up in the dark, waking up 30 minutes earlier, 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.

And a researcher named Kelly Rohan at the University of Vermont has pioneered using cognitive behavioral therapy instead to treat seasonal affective disorder. And her sort of thinking and what led her to this theory is, humans are not just passive biological organisms. It’s not as simple as lack of light equals depression, light equals happiness, right? We’re meaning makers. We are making meaning of our environment and our feelings all the time. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Brett McKay: 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 it was like I just stopped doing it and I think the thing ended up in the trash.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah. I’m sorry. I should have asked, where do you live?

Brett McKay: I live in Oklahoma.

Kari Leibowitz: Okay. Yeah.

Brett McKay: So it’s mild. We get winters, but it’s not like, it’s terrible. It’s not like you’re in Norway or even Vermont.

Kari Leibowitz: But you’re still dealing with the darkness. That’s the thing, is like even if it’s not super cold, you’re still gonna have a lot less light in winter and you’re gonna 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 after breakfast or at the very least like stand by a window to try to get some of that, even if it’s a gray cloudy day, to get some of of that natural light earlier in the morning. There’s evidence that that helps. 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 bandaid solution, you know?

Brett McKay: Yeah. So what you do in the rest of your book, How To Winter, is you take this idea that a better way to experience winter, so it’s not as terrible or miserable, is 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. 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 gotta go out and like scrape the ice off my windshield. It’s terrible. But you offer some suggestions on how to direct our attention to more positive things in winter. So what are some things that we can do?

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah. So attention really creates our experience. What we pay attention to at any given time is what we are experiencing and we can’t attend to everything at once. And so consciously directing your attention is a way to change your experience. So at the simplest level, you can ask yourself, 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. 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. Or that 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 drinking your morning tea or coffee feels especially good on a cold day. These are very, in some ways simple things and simple pleasures. But really attending to them can change our experience in profound ways. And I think as a mindset researcher, I’m really interested in the mechanisms by which mindsets work, right? So often I think the research on mindset gets discussed as you change your mindset, you adopt a growth mindset and all of a sudden you’ll perform better. You adopt the mindset that winter is wonderful and all of a sudden you have a better winter. But it’s not this sort of magical switch that you flip.

There’s a whole cascade of things that happens when you work on changing your mindset. 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? 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. And then you’re gonna have a totally different experience than if you were just attending to the fact that the darkness makes you feel more tired. 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, really try to focus on them and lean into them.

Brett McKay: No, I like that. For me, one thing I really like about winter is I get to wear a hoodie all the time in my house. And just love the idea. Oh, it’s hoodie season, I can put on my hoodie. ‘Cause, yeah, I just think it’s so cozy.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah. Cozy clothes. 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?

Brett McKay: Yeah. And the other thing too, you recommend just go out on a walk and then just pay attention to your environment more closely. What are the things you enjoy about the winter time. So I went on a walk this morning, it was like 30 something degrees. It was cold, it was brisk, but it felt like it was 21. It started off kind of miserable, but then I started embracing, hey, I kind of like the feeling of that, just like that coldness on your nose. And it was kind of uncomfortable, but I was thinking when I get in my house, it’s gonna feel really good to warm up. And it wasn’t huge. It wasn’t like, now I love winter, but it made it less miserable.

Kari Leibowitz: Totally. I mean, you’re a star student. 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. And the narrative almost always follows that arc of like, I didn’t wanna do it. I was maybe gonna back out. 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. And then when you come back inside you can really experience that pleasure of being somewhere warm again. And I think it’s such a different mindset when you come in from the cold and say like, Ugh, it’s terrible out versus, ooh, like, it feels so nice in here. You know, that’s a really different orientation that’s gonna impact your whole day.

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. So if you’re feeling down in the winter, a short winter’s walk is a pretty reliable mood booster. And then when you notice these positive aspects, it makes you more likely to do it again. It pushes you towards that activity rather than sort of pushing you away from it. And so doing that once with this sort of intentional noticing might make it more likely that this turns into a habit which is gonna have all sorts of emotional and physical benefits for you.

Brett McKay: No, I love that. Another thing that I like about winter is when we do get snow, I love the feeling you get when you look outside the window and you see snow falling and it’s hitting the ground, but like it’s silent. It’s like it’s sort of weird things. You’re seeing this stuff falling from the sky, hitting the ground. You’d expect noise like you hear with rain, but it’s like silent. Something about that, I like it. It’s a pretty cool experience.

Kari Leibowitz: I mean snow is really amazing and also it really brightens the landscape. It unlocks a whole host of winter activities that you can do in the snow or you can do when it’s below freezing. So I think, yeah, if you live somewhere where you get a lot of snow, I think you have a leg up on winter. 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. And I think that can be harder to manage. But there’s just so much about winter snow that I think it is full of opportunity. You know, it makes things lighter and brighter. You can then ski, you can snowshoe. It’s visually, I think very appealing to have sort of that white freshness. And like you said, it does… I mean not only is it silent when it falls, but it actually dampens sound in the landscape. And so it makes everything feel more peaceful.

Brett McKay: We’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And now back to the show. Okay. So that first thing, just pay attention to the positives of winter, wintertime is the big one. Another idea you talk about in the book is changing how we think about the seasonality of winter. So here in the United States, we typically think of winter as just a single season that goes from December until March. But you talk about in other cultures, they actually break up winter into sub seasons. So how can breaking winter up into sub seasons help make it more enjoyable?

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah. So this is one of the things that I learned while I was researching the book that has changed my perspective the most. So the Sámi, who are the indigenous people of Northern Europe, of the Arctic, what is now Norway, Finland and Sweden, traditionally had eight seasons. So the four seasons we might be used to, spring, summer, fall, and winter, but also four bridge seasons. So spring, summer, summer, fall, fall, winter and winter spring. So there’s actually three sort of winter seasons. There’s autumn, winter, winter and spring winter. 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? When we can label things and they have a name, they feel real in a different way. And I think it helps us appreciate the evolution of winter. That autumn winter is when winter is coming on, the days are getting shorter, but maybe winter is still sort of novel and exciting.

It’s still fun that it’s hoodie season again. You know, we’re greeting winter and we’re sort of preparing to go into the darkness. And then winter for me is really this sort of deep winter time. It’s the darkest time of the year. The time you’re really gonna feel the effects most on your energy. It’s also got the holidays. So like it’s both kind of a restful time and kind of a stressful time. And those things are competing for real estate in your life. And that’s the real wintery winter. And then there’s spring winter, which to me, I mean it really is gonna vary where you live and based on your climate. But to me that’s sort of late February through whenever spring actually arrives, which sometimes is March, sometimes is April, sometimes isn’t until early May, depending on where you live.

And that is when 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. And there are signs of spring around like little things are growing and birds are coming back. But it’s not full t-shirt weather yet. 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. I think it can also give us some stamina for winter. So a lot of people I talk to really struggle with this tail end of winter, with like January, February, March. And that is what some of the Sámi 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. 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. So you can often walk or ski on this snow crust. And the conditions for that are really good. 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.

Brett McKay: 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. So I think a lot of us do this naturally, we just don’t really think about it as rituals. So I know, you know for me, whenever I feel like fall winter’s coming on, it’s hoodie season, it’s time to bring out the hoodies. It’s time to bring out… I got some jogger pants that I really like that are really cozy. And then as the holidays get closer, you get deeper into winter, like Christmas, Hanukkah, you’re putting up the decorations, there’s food that you’re eating for that deep, dark type of winter. And then in spring winter, that sort of tail end of winter, we all have probably things that we do naturally. Oh, I’m gonna spend a little bit more time outside later in the day because the light is extending a bit. So I love that recommendation you have is add in some rituals to the temporality or the seasonality of these different sub winters. And I think it’s funny you mentioned, your mom did exactly what my mom did with M&Ms.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, yeah. The seasonal colored M&Ms.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Kari Leibowitz: In the candy jar.

Brett McKay: In the candy… My mom did the exact same thing growing up, you could tell what part we were in winter based on the color of the M&Ms, so in the beginning it would be like the fall color M&Ms, and then as Christmas time came, it was the Christmas colored M&Ms. And then as we passed Christmas and we were still in winter it was like the blue white M&Ms.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, yeah. And then it gets to the Easter, the spring, like pastel colors.

Brett McKay: Yeah.

Kari Leibowitz: Like spring has arrived. Totally, and I think having these little things is a way of helping us mark time and also gives us things to look forward to. 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 go on walks after work so I can see all the little shoots growing. It helps us anticipate these different parts of the season more positively, and the other thing I really like about the three sub-seasons is how it can be adapted to the climate where you live. So in the US, winter starts on the same day, and spring starts on the same day, whether you live in Oklahoma or Minnesota.

And in reality, the climates of different places are really different, and so having your own personal markers of the season and your own personal rituals that maybe they’re tied to a day on the calendar, but maybe they’re tied to a weather event. Maybe you’re a gardener and you wait until after what you think is gonna 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. 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 the specific climate of our home or our community on a planet that is very rich and diverse in how the seasons manifest.

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

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, yes.

Brett McKay: Yeah, we’ve had Meik Wiking on the podcast to talk about hygge.

Kari Leibowitz: Oh cool. Yes.

Brett McKay: But for those who are familiar, what is hygge? And it’s a weird word. It’s spelled H-Y-G-G-E. For the longest time I thought it was hygge, but it’s hygge. So what is hygge?

Kari Leibowitz: Hygge. So hygge, it’s the Danish word for coziness, the Norwegian word is koselig, they use it a different word, but it’s roughly translated as coziness, but it’s more of a sort of un-translatable concept in Scandinavian countries, and a lot of these cold dark countries, there are special words associated with this feeling of being cosy. And I think of it as, like you talked about when the snow is falling outside and you know you don’t have to go anywhere, or a Friday night at the end of the work week when you come home and you have your favorite dinner, and you watch a movie, it’s this feeling of sort of peaceful contented-ness to me, that’s really facilitated by our environment, so often it’s practiced mostly in the winter when it’s dark outside and you light candles at home, and it’s cold out there, but it’s warm at home and you’re feeling cozy and connected and content. And I think that 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, 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. So this idea of coziness, but in a really sort of rich and meaningful way.

Brett McKay: Yeah. And some of the things they do, they get really big into lighting, like they’re obsessed about the type of lighting. So it’s gotta be low sort of dim lighting. It’s not really bright.

Kari Leibowitz: Yes.

Brett McKay: They use a lot of candles. Candles are big.

Kari Leibowitz: Yes.

Brett McKay: A lot of cozy hobbies. So crocheting, book reading. 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.

Kari Leibowitz: Yes.

Brett McKay: I love that.

Kari Leibowitz: I love it too. And I think, a lot of these things I think sound trivial until you try them. Light some candles in the evening and then you won’t feel depressed in winter. Right? Like, it’s almost a fluffy cliche. 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. 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. 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 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. And likewise, having these sort of slowed down activities. So knitting, reading books, even saying like you’re gonna watch a movie or watch Netflix with this cozy intention, changes the meaning of it. I’m personally, I’m an amateur ceramicist, and when it’s really warm and sunny out, it’s hard for me to spend a whole Saturday afternoon in the pottery studio. But when it’s dark and gray and rainy, that’s the perfect place to be. 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. 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.

Brett McKay: Yeah. So hygge makes the cold and dark, it makes it more enjoyable. It makes the… It even makes the darkness cozy.

Kari Leibowitz: It makes it an opportunity, right? It makes the cold and the darkness from something that limits what you can do and what you can enjoy. Oh, I can’t go to the beach. I can’t hike with friends. I can’t whatever, to this thing that, oh yeah, this is my hygge weather. This is my opportunity to do these other things that I love to do.

Brett McKay: All right. So hygge, if you wanted to be more hygge, get cozy, so nice lighting, candles, fireplace, fire would be in order. Hoodies, you gotta have the hoodie to make it cozy. Any other practices you found that you recommend to make things more hygge for people?

Kari Leibowitz: I would say, I mean, all those things are ideal, but I really like to think of hygge as something personal, right? So what feels cozy to you, right? So maybe you have your version of, oh, I love to wear a hoodie around the house. Maybe you have special pajamas. For me, a hot water bottle is something I’ve recently become very into of like, it’s sort of like, I think of like an old British grandma with her hot water bottle, but it’s so cozy to have 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. For me, drinking tea, winter is tea season and I really stock up and I’m drinking tea right now. I’m drinking tea all day long.

But I think these practices are the most powerful when you take a moment to think like, what makes me feel cozy? What things did I grow up with? Maybe for you hygge is the blue and white M&Ms in the candy bowl. 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. Maybe it’s a certain playlist that you play. Maybe it’s rewatching favorite comforting movies. Maybe it’s certain dishes from your childhood that you like to cook and eat. And so I think there’s this sort of Scandinavian brand of hygge and I think there’s some great principles, right? Things that make you feel warm, good low lighting, yummy foods and drinks. 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.

Brett McKay: So another reason a lot of people don’t like winter, particularly in the United States, is that they feel like they can’t go outside.

Kari Leibowitz: Yes.

Brett McKay: How do the Nordics think about getting outside during the wintertime?

Kari Leibowitz: 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. 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. So in Norway and throughout Scandinavia, they have this saying, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. And I really learned how to dress for the winter living in Norway. And now I bring that with me even when I’m home at my parents’ house in New Jersey.

So, I’ll be wearing sneaky thin woolen leggings under my jeans or my pants, or a woolen undershirt if I’m gonna be outside for a while. Lots of layers. So for me, like 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. So, in Finland we would go on a, 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 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.

And so I think experimenting with dressing 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. 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. We also know from research that people substantially underestimate how much of a mood boost time in nature will provide them. And so I think we can really take a cue from the Nordics and from Scandinavia in not letting the weather stop us.

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. When you’re inside and it’s dark out or it’s raining, it looks really cold and really foreboding and really wet. And there’s so many times… Actually, I currently live in Amsterdam, which is a very cold, rainy city, and also one where people bike everywhere. 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. Like I don’t wanna go out there. And then I bundle up and I go outside and it’s just misting or it’s only raining intermittently, or it’s a lot warmer than it looked. And so bundling up and getting outside I think can help us recognize when our expectations are wrong about how it’s gonna feel to go out.

Brett McKay: Okay, so dress for the weather. And then also, I mean, they even, the Nordics, they even get outside when it’s dark. They don’t even let the darkness get them down. Like they’ll go out when it’s pitch, almost pitch black and they’re having, like kids are having a great time. They’re not letting that get in the way of them having a good time outside.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah. I mean, if you live somewhere where the sun doesn’t rise for two months each winter, you have to. You put on a reflective vest for safety and you strap on a headlamp and you get out there. And I think when we look at winter and these excursions with a sense of sort of curiosity, there’s a lot to discover 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, or how things… How your other senses are a little bit heightened when things are dark. And 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.

Brett McKay: 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. What did you discover there?

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, so a lot of places in the world that are really cold have practices around heat. So in Finland it’s the sauna, in Iceland and Japan, which are sort of rich in geothermal waters. It’s going to public baths or public pools that are really hot. And so I think when it is cold all the time, you do wanna have things that feel warm and you do wanna have a way to warm up. 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. It’s basically the equivalent of a cardiovascular workout. So regular sauna use over your lifetime protects against things like heart attack and heart disease and stroke. And it also feels really good and feels really nice.

If you don’t have access to a sauna, taking hot baths, hot water immersion provides similar benefits. But also in these places I see a lot of people taking advantage of the cold and doing cold plunging and cold water swimming. And that was something that I wasn’t planning to include in the book. I thought it was like too niche and too hardcore and too biohacking. 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 once or twice a week for a few seconds or a few minutes.

And I tried it myself. And, I can’t believe to say that I am now actually a cold water swimmer myself. It’s something I’ve continued doing here in Amsterdam and there’s a lot of health benefits for that as well. But it also is really an invigoration to the system. And both of these things, sort of cold therapy and hot therapy can help our bodies heat themselves more effectively. And so the more time you expose yourself to the cold over time, the more you get used to it. Right? 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. So, these practices that help us heat up and cool down actually help make all of the winter feel more pleasurable and enjoyable.

Brett McKay: Yeah. I’ve got a sauna, I bought it a couple of years ago. And it’s amazing. I love it.

Kari Leibowitz: Jealous.

Brett McKay: And it’s funny, I’ve discovered, I started using it seasonally. Like I really enjoy using it when it starts cooling down, it’s not so much fun using as sauna in Oklahoma in the summertime when it’s 105 degrees outside, it’s like, what’s the point?

Kari Leibowitz: It’s a winter activity.

Brett McKay: Yeah, it’s a winter activity. It’s something else to look forward to, makes winter more enjoyable. And something else that Nordic people do is they’ll combine the hot and the cold for the pleasure of the contrast. 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. And that definitely feels good too. There’s that period like late fall, early spring when I have the pool open and it’s cold, I’ll get in the sauna and jump in the pool.

It feels amazing. Something that we mentioned earlier, one of our natural inclinations as it gets colder and darker is we just wanna spend more time by ourselves and not be as social. And I think one of the takeaways is that that’s normal. Like, there’s nothing wrong with you if you want to spend a Friday night watching a movie instead of going out, that’s okay. But socializing is still a big spirit lifter. 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. So what did you discover there?

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, so a lot of these cultures have communal gatherings that are an integral part of enjoying and appreciating the winter. 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. And in the summer it’s actually totally empty because everybody is out enjoying the sun and hiking and doing things. But I think this idea of coming together in the winter is really valuable. It’s both a pastime, something that fills the long nights and is something that we know is a mood booster for a lot of people. It helps us stay connected. So when we’re feeling down, you have those sources of social support. 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 Ceilidh Culture.

And so Ceilidh is this word for this kind of community gathering. So a big ritual dinner or having friends over and drinking whiskey and listening to music and sitting around by the fire. And I think winter is really about trying to find the right balance, right? You wanna let yourself slow down, but you also wanna motivate yourself to get outside. You wanna embrace it as a season for restorative alone time, but also acknowledge that you might need socialization. And so for me it’s really a lot about thinking about how do I wanna socialize in the winter?

So maybe that’s having a few people over for a dinner party or a movie night rather than sort of like a big raucous barbecue beach day. Or maybe it’s about connecting with friends individually in a slowed down way. Or maybe it’s about inviting people over to do a silent hang where you read your book separately, but you’re in the same room together. And so I think 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?

Brett McKay: I guess in Nordic countries like film festivals, that’s a big thing for them. And I think it’s interesting in… We have that kind of in the United States too in Park City, Utah, that there’s a like Sundance. There’s a big film festival there and I think it happens during the winter.

Kari Leibowitz: Yeah, I think a lot… 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. 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. 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. But not only did people not materialize, the locals didn’t wanna go to a book festival like at the end of the summer during the last long days.

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. And this was something I also experienced living in Tromsø, is they have a big international film festival towards the middle end of January and people really look forward to it, it gives people something to do at that time of year after the holidays are over when people maybe need a reason to go out and need something to do to fill the long nights. And it sort of makes that time of year celebratory. So I see now a lot of winter festivals.

There’s one in Minneapolis in St. Paul Minnesota called the Great Northern that takes place at the end of January. 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. The holidays are over. You’re like, okay, what am I gonna do with myself now? 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 do more of these things that are really cozy winter activities that lend themselves to it being dark and cold out.

Brett McKay: Well Kari, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Kari Leibowitz: You can go to my website, karileibowitz.com. The book is, How to Winter, available wherever books are sold. 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. And this was so great. 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.

Brett McKay: It’s been great. Yeah, thanks for your time, Kari. My guest today is Kari Leibowitz. She’s the author of the book, How to Winter. It’s available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about her work at her website, karileibowitz.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter Wintry Mix, which I think is a great name for a newsletter, where she shares research on how to make winter more enjoyable. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is/howtowinter, where you can find links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website, at artofmanliness.com where you’ll 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. And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review of the podcast on Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member you think will get something out of it. As always, thank for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay reminding you to not only listen to AOM podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

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