What winter is actually for

The cold arrived here in Wangaratta properly this week.

That particular cold that comes in under the door and sits at the floor level until mid-morning.

The kind that makes you want to stay in bed a little longer and feel vaguely guilty about it.

I want to make a case for not feeling guilty about it.

There’s a story we tell in this culture about winter - that the low energy, the reluctance, the preference for stillness and warmth and early nights is something to push through.

A productivity problem.

Possibly the early sign of something clinical that should be addressed.

I think we have it almost exactly backwards.

The human nervous system is not a machine that runs at the same output year-round.

It is a biological system, and biological systems are governed by cycles - light, temperature, season, rest.

What we experience as the heaviness of winter is, in a well-regulated system, the body doing something it is designed to do: drawing inward, conserving, consolidating.

The land around us does this without apology.

The paddocks are not failing because they’re not growing at full pace in July.

They’re doing something slower and less visible - something that makes the spring growth possible.

A paddock that never rests produces less over time, not more.

People work the same way.

What concerns me, professionally and personally, is how quickly we pathologise the winter signal.

Low mood in July is sometimes depression.

But it is also sometimes your nervous system responding appropriately to shortened days and cold temperatures – asking, quite reasonably, for less stimulation, more warmth, earlier sleep, slower days.

The distinction matters.

One needs clinical attention.

The other needs permission.

If you’ve been feeling sluggish and unsociable and strangely drawn to soup and fireside evenings – that’s not a warning sign.

That’s a biological system doing what seasons require of it.

The question worth asking isn’t what’s wrong with me?

It’s what does this season actually need?

In the middle of winter, the honest answer is usually: less than you think.

And more rest than you’re allowing yourself.