When Work Ignores Winter and the Body Slows
December arrives like dense fog, making every action feel twice as heavy. My body craves hibernation but my calendar demands performance. The world operates on summer logic while my brain shifts into winter gear—slower processing, deeper contemplation, the evolutionary wisdom that suggests conserving energy during scarce-light months.
But the office doesn’t recognize seasonal depression as valid reason for decreased productivity. Deadlines remain unchanged by sunlight hours. Meeting energy stays consistently demanded regardless of my circadian chemistry screaming for rest.
“Just get some vitamin D,” colleagues suggest, as if seasonal affective disorder could be solved by supplements rather than systemic acknowledgment that humans are not machines designed for year-round identical output.
The guilt becomes layered: guilt for feeling depressed, guilt for decreased performance, guilt for having biology that doesn’t conform to economic demands, guilt for needing seasonal adjustments that modern life refuses to accommodate.
In agricultural societies, winter was naturally low-productivity season. People worked with seasonal rhythms rather than against them. But capitalism requires consistent performance regardless of natural cycles, creating collision between biological reality and economic expectations.
“Take a mental health day,” they say, not understanding this isn’t day-level problem—it’s seasonal biological shift that affects months of functioning. One sick day doesn’t address systemic mismatch between natural rhythms and artificial demands.
Some bodies are more seasonally sensitive than others. Mine happens to be tuned to light variations in ways that affect everything from sleep patterns to cognitive processing. This isn’t character flaw—it’s variation in biological design, like some people needing glasses or having different metabolic rates.
But seasonal depression gets treated as personal failing rather than natural variation requiring accommodation. We medicalize what might be natural response to environmental changes, pathologize what could be appropriate adaptation to reduced sunlight.
The real tragedy isn’t seasonal depression itself—it’s living in world that demands seasonal consistency from biological systems designed for seasonal variation. We fight our natural rhythms instead of honoring them, creating internal conflict that makes actual depression more likely.
Maybe wisdom isn’t overcoming seasonal changes but learning to work with them. Adjusting expectations during low-light months. Planning challenging projects for high-energy seasons. Accepting that optimal productivity might vary with available daylight.
Tonight the sun sets at 5 PM and won’t rise until 7 AM tomorrow. Fourteen hours of darkness that my body interprets as signal to slow down, while my schedule interprets as irrelevant environmental detail.
Some battles are worth fighting. Others are worth surrendering to—learning to move at winter speed during winter months, trusting that spring energy will return with spring light, finding productivity patterns that honor rather than oppose seasonal reality.
