Dreading a dark winter lockdown? Think like a Norwegian

Leibowitz’s findings build on decades of previous research showing that the mental framing of stressful events can powerfully influence the ways we are affected by them. People who see stressful events as “challenges”, with an opportunity to learn and adapt, tend to cope much better than those who focus more on the threatening aspects – like the possibility of failure, embarrassment or illness. These differences in mindset not only influence people’s mood, but also their physiological responses, such as changes in blood pressure and heart rate , and how quickly they recover after the event. And the impact can be long-lasting, even during major transitions: one Israeli study found that immigrants’ stress appraisals can predict how well they adjust to their new country. They also seem to determine how well police officers in Australia cope with the stresses of their work.

Needless to say, our appraisal of whether an event feels like a threat, or an opportunity, will depend on our circumstances and our resources to handle the problems we encounter. But it is sometimes possible to change our appraisal of a situation consciously . In one memorable experiment , Alison Wood Brooks, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, asked participants to face their fears of public speaking. Brooks found that simply asking the participants to repeat the phrase “I am excited” helped to reduce their anxious feelings and led to a better overall performance, since it encouraged them to view the situation as a new challenge rather than a threat. Many psychotherapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy, have also been found to increase our resilience by helping us to reframe stressful events in more constructive ways.

• There are many things to enjoy about the winter
• I love the cosiness of the winter months
• Winter brings many wonderful seasonal changes

She suspects that many other people could follow suit, once they find out about this research. “Most people don’t realise that their beliefs about winter are subjective,” says Leibowitz, whose research is currently under peer review. “They feel like they’re just someone who hates the winter and there’s nothing they can do about it… But once you put it in people’s heads that mindsets exist, and that you have control over your mindset – I think that that’s tremendously powerful.”

Even so, she suspects that adopting the positive wintertime mindset could make a second lockdown a little less daunting for those who worry about keeping their mood buoyed in the bad weather. We might recognise, for instance, that it’s a time for baking comfort food or cosy evenings curled up under a blanket in front of a box set – practising a little bit of the Norwegian koselig . And if we normally exercise on a running machine, we might try to find value in a bracing jog in the elements. Since the risk of contagion is much lower outside, we might also adapt to the Scandinavian way of outdoor socialising (lockdown regulations permitting). Tromsø, for example, has an open-air cinema, so residents can enjoy atmospheric film screenings in the eerie Arctic darkness . As the Norwegians say: “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”

The survey, which was set up before the crisis, ran from December 2019 to May this year – and as you might expect, there was a significant drop in life satisfaction and positive mood after the pandemic hit Europe. But certain psychological characteristics and coping strategies seemed to protect some people from the worst effects. This included “active coping” – such as setting up a proper office at home, schedulinghome-schooling times for the children, and making sure to eat well, sleep well, and exercise, Zacher says. As the previous research predicted, the most resilient participants also managed to recognise the potential opportunities in the crisis – such as “learning something from the experience, or trying to grow as a person as a result from the experience,” Zacher explains.

Like Leibowitz, Zacher emphasises that the aim is not to sugar-coat the situation or to deny the difficulties that we will face; we can’t hide from the shadow cast by the pandemic, any more than the citizens of Tromsø can pretend that the sun is still rising. By recognising our own capacity to control our responses to the lockdown and the changing seasons, however, we may all find some hidden reserves of strength and resilience to see us through the days ahead.