Many people dread the arrival of winter, with 42% naming summer as their favourite season. But clinical psychologist Stephanie Fitzgerald, who once felt the same, now believes winter can be "a captivating and truly gorgeous season". In her new book, The Gifts of Winter, she explains how she changed her outlook and how others can do the same.
Fitzgerald, who lives in Warwickshire, developed seasonal affective disorder (Sad) in her mid-20s. She says the name minimises how debilitating the condition can be. "I didn't feel 'sad', I felt really horrific," she writes. To manage her symptoms from October to April, she uses a Sad lamp for at least 60 minutes each morning, a sunrise/sunset alarm clock, takes vitamin D, and prioritises eating well, exercise and sleep. She advises anyone struggling with winter depression to seek professional help.
Beyond managing the condition, Fitzgerald advocates living more seasonally. She goes to bed an hour earlier in winter, increasing in 15-minute increments. "As our lives get busier, the temptation is to stay up later – it's known as 'revenge bedtime procrastination'," she says. She now focuses on what she gains from rest rather than what she loses, and notes that while consistency matters, a modest seasonal variation aligns with nature's rhythms.
One of her most striking suggestions is to treat the new year as beginning in April. She divides the year into seasons of three months, with January to March as winter, a time for planning and reflection. "People start their new year resolutions on 1 January, but everything seasonally is saying 'rest'," she explains. Most resolutions fail by the third week of January, she notes, and we are more likely to succeed if we realign with the seasons. She also warns against combining autumn and winter into one long "homogenous blob", pointing out that winter has barely begun by Christmas and the new year.
Instead, she encourages seeing winter as a season of increasing light after the solstice. "January and February are actually quite dry, and March is a lovely transition month," she says. With a different mindset, she argues, winter offers "a gentle glow of light" that brightens until spring, making it a season of beauty and joy rather than darkness.
