Science Friday - The Science Of Thriving In Winter—By Embracing It

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

Health psychologist Dr. Kari Leibowitz traveled to some of the coldest, darkest places on earth to learn how people there don’t just survive, but thrive in winter. She says that one of the key ingredients is adopting a positive wintertime mindset by focusing on and celebrating the good parts of winter.In a conversation from January, Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. Kari Leibowitz, author of How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days, about saunas, cold plunges, candles, and other small ways to make winter a season to look forward to rather than dread. Plus, she responds to some of our audience’s own tips to make the season enjoyable.Guest: Dr. Kari Leibowitz is a health psychologist and author of How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. She’s based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Transcript is available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hey, I'm Flor Lichten, and this is Science Friday. Winter has just started, and I'm already in the doldrum. So I wanted to pull an episode out of the vault today that I personally need to revisit to help me get through these cold, dark days. It's an episode where I talk to a wintertime expert of sorts. She's a researcher who's traveled to some of the coldest, darkest places on Earth to learn how people there don't just survive, but thrive in winter. Apparently, one of the key ingredients is something I do not possess at the moment, which is a positive wintertime mindset. Here to tell us more is Dr. Carrie Leibowitz, health psychologist, and author of How to Winter, harness your mindset to thrive on cold, dark, or difficult days. She's based in Amsterdam and the Netherlands.

Carrie, welcome to Science Friday. Oh, thanks so much for having me. Have you always been a winter lover? No, I'm here with you today as a reform. winter hater actually. That's a relief. Yeah. Right. So there's, you know, I think hope out there for you out there if you're feeling like this can never be you because I thought it could never be me for a long time. I grew up at the Jersey Shore, which is a beach town and, you know, summer rain supreme and winter was the season that you just have to get through in between the best times of the year. And I really

struggled with the winter growing up, really did not like the feeling of being cold, really had a hard time getting up, especially for school in the winter, in the darkness, but also really feel like I was steeped in a culture that was very celebratory of summer and where sort of the general assumption was like, yeah, winter is depressing. Yeah, there is a bias. Totally. Huge bias. So you were converted by your own research? I was converted by my own research and by my experience moving to Northern Norway, which was a thing that I did mostly on purpose, but also, you know, sort of like applied to do a research study in the Arctic to understand how people there make it through these very long, dark winters with relatively low rates of winter depression

and sort of, you know, never really actually expected to get the grant funding to go. And then I got it and I was like, oh my God, what have I done? Like, am I really going to blow up my life and move to this place? And also how will I survive this Arctic winter? But you did. I did. And I learned a lot. And that was, you know, where my reformation really took place was in northern Norway where I was

exposed to, I mean, both a very special winter. I think, you know, Northern Norway is a very magical winter wonderland, but also was exposed to a culture and a perspective where people were really doing things to embrace the season, really looking at winter differently, really approaching it differently, and where I learned a lot of lessons that, you know, even in places with perhaps slightly less magical winters that I have lived since then, I've been able to take with me, you know, through to other kinds of winters. Yeah, I mean, I would have expected if you go to the Arctic, you would find widespread misery in the winter. But that is not what you found. If you look at lots of places in the world, including Norway and northern Norway, including Iceland, including the

Netherlands, they actually tend to have lower rates of seasonal effective disorder than we would expect. And so it's clear that people all over the world who live through these very extreme, long, dark winters are able to do so without a lot of the winter depression that sort of paradoxically we see at, you know, lower latitudes and milder climates. Carrie, what is their secret? Okay, I mean, there's a lot of things, I think, but, you know, part of the secret is that I think they have a really different mindset and approach to the season. And so a big part of what that looks like is this willingness to adapt to winter. So I almost think there's an advantage of having a really extreme winter because when you live in a place like where I was living in Norway where the sun actually doesn't rise for two months.

It's obvious that that is going to affect you, and it's obvious that you can and should change your behavior to adjust to that. It's okay that you feel more tired in the winter, duh, because the sun isn't rising. And you're in the Arctic. So obviously you're going to dress appropriately for the winter weather, whereas I think people, you know, at more middle latitudes, we try to pretend like we can just carry on the sun. same as in other seasons, like winter sort of shouldn't affect us. And so I think it's both our perspective and our approach. And of course, I also think there's a lot of cultural things and infrastructure in places that are really built for winter that enable people to embrace the season differently as well as sort of, you know, their individual mindsets and perspectives.

And we're going to get into all that. We asked our listeners for their wintertime survival strategies. And first of all, I have to say, mission. Michigan, Wisconsin, Upper Midwest was out in force for this one, as we might expect. And a lot of the strategies we heard were Nordic inspired. So here's a clip. My name is Shannon Mitchell from Grand Haven, Michigan. And how do I get through the lake effect darky winters that we have here? I have adopted a finished lifestyle from my experiences up in the Q&A, which is saunas, cold plunges, Nordic skiing. and when the sun is out, it's guns out, no matter what the situation is. I mean, this is both exemplifies this idea that we can really learn from the Nordics and apply it to wherever we are.

But also, you know, what I like about these strategies is that they work with the season to find the opportunities in winter, right? What things are better in the winter? A cold plunge? I don't know. A cold plunge. Well, a cold plunge. you can really only do in the winter. And so the question is, what seasonal activities can you give yourself in winter to look forward to annually? Let me run another listener strategy by you.

What do you think about this one? Okay. Hi, this is Tony in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I'm sitting in a Chick-fil-A parking lot having my peppermint shake. That's one help. it's starting to snow. But my most regular thing that I go to is a nice cup of tea and the Hallmark Channel. It seems to help quite a bit. Tony, you and my mom are birds of a feather, cup of tea and the Hallmark Channel. Like, you could be in my house any day in December. But, you know, I think what's special about the Hallmark Channel, right, is it's this seasonal

ritual that you look forward to. It's such a small ritual and so many of these ways of embracing winter is like they sound trivial. They're basic. But when you do that with a little bit of intention, this is one of those strategies that takes on an outsized meaning because it transforms something that we usually feel is unpleasant or uncomfortable or a negative of the cold and makes it into an opportunity for this other kind of sensory pleasure that is small but comforting. No, it's so true. I mean, hot frosty does work better in December than in July. Yeah, you can't watch hot frosty in July.

Like, get out of here. We've got to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We have got lots more when we come back. All right, let me run another listener message by you. Hi, this is Dee from North Manchester. and I was sharing how I make it through the winter. I'm 72, so I made it through several. Every fall, I plant more daffodils in the ground,

and then I just wait impatiently for them to sprout in the spring, and it's always something to look forward to. Yes, I love this one also, D. I mean, this one does two things, right? So it gives D something to do in the fall as the days are getting shorter, which is a time that I think many people sort of consciously or unconsciously have sort of winter panic, you know, like the days are getting shorter, we're going into it, we're like, oh no, here we go. And so an activity that is seasonal to that time of year

can really counteract that. And then the other thing it does is it gives D a marker of early springtime. So one of the strategies that I really love is the Sami, who are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, actually have eight seasons. So they have winter, spring, summer, fall, and also four bridge seasons. So spring, summer, summer, fall, fall, winter, and spring winter. And I think spring winter is a really handy subseason to sort of separate out in our hearts and minds. because often depending on where you live, anytime between, you know, mid-February to late April, early May, you're sort of in this transition period where maybe mentally you're over the winter, you're kind of done with it.

And you get that first warm day of spring and you're like, that's it. I'm putting my coat away. Like, I'm done. And then the next day it's cold again, you know? And it's not spring, but it's not winter. It's spring winter. I love spring winter and actually having you name it really does bring me to a very, very specific memories of it. I almost can smell it like that petricor, that sort of like earth smell that comes back when the ground isn't frozen anymore.

And I can see my front yard where there's a lot of little crocuses popping through. And it's interesting that just giving it the name somehow then carves it out in my own mind. Totally. I mean, you know, I think having the language to describe these things is really powerful. I think this is even, you know, the whole power of talking about your wintertime mindset. You know, you already had a wintertime mindset before it was named for you. But when it's called out and you have a word for it, you can start noticing it and paying attention to it. and experiencing it differently. Yeah, I want to talk more about this positive wintertime mindset.

Is this like snowflake pilling ourselves? Like we just, how do you define it? So, you know, I use that word very specifically. So we think of mindsets as sort of the core assumption about something in the world and how it works. And so the truth is that lots of things in the world are ambiguous, right? like stress is a good example. Stress can be harmful for our health and well-being, but it also can be helpful for our performance and our health and well-being, right? The stress response evolved to help us meet our goals. And so when we encounter stress, what is our mindset about it and how does that

determine something like stress's impact on us? And you can think about that with winter as well. So winter has objective qualities. Winter is objectively dark, cold, usually wet. But the meaning of cold, dark, and wet is very ambiguous. Cold, dark, and wet can be refreshing, rejuvenating, cozy, magical. That never occurred to me until you just said it. To most people, but really, it can be if you let it be. We had a listener who left us a message, and when I heard it, I was like, yes, this listener has the positive wintertime mindset.

Listen to this. Hello, my name is Cody. So typically living on the Oregon coast, we get all sorts of overcast. It is pretty oppressive for a lot of people. Me, though, I don't know if I'm a vampire, but I just soak it up. Winter is my favorite time. Yeah, so I think Cody has the positive wintertime mindset. Some people just sort of like that overcast or inherently feel that.

it is cozy. But I think even if you're not naturally like Cody, it's a thing that you can train yourself to appreciate a little bit. Okay. And let me run another listener's coping mechanism by you. Hi, this is Dan in Bear Lake Michigan. I adopted a couple of dogs. They love the snow and they truly love it when I get outside with them. So they're helping me a lot in not just coping with, but enjoying winter. What do you think? I mean, I think dogs are good for everything. Can't go wrong with a dog.

You can't go wrong with a dog. I mean, a dog is a really great motivator for getting outside. But I also think, you know, there's something so pure, right, about a kid's relationship to the snow or a dog's relationship to the snow. You're just experiencing the fun of it is something we can learn from dogs. Let's talk about seasonal effective disorder. How many folks actually fit the diagnosis? for that. So seasonal effective disorder is really interesting because I think there's a lot of

popular misconceptions about it. I think a lot of people think that it is a mild form of depression, that it is sort of a lower threshold than clinical depression. But the truth is that seasonal effective disorder is a subtype of clinical depression. So you first have to meet the criteria of clinical depression, it has to severely disrupt your quality of life and your daily functioning. And I think a lot of people have the experience of feeling affected by winter, of feeling like they're more tired in the winter or they're less motivated. They have less energy. They feel less social. And actually, we can see that as a natural and normal response to the seasonal changes in light. You know, if you look at every other living thing on.

earth, plant or animal, they're all changing their behavior or slowing down in some way in the winter. You know, a lot of the times when people have this feeling like, oh, I'm so tired in the winter, what's wrong with me? It's almost because we've pathologized having any response to winter and we're so hesitant to adapt to the season that we're quick to label it winter depression when, in fact it might not be. Carrie, it seems like we have a lot of shorthand for this negative view of winter, you know, winter dole drums, winter blues? Do we need a new shorthand for winter? Like winter whoopies, glacial giddies. Brainstorm with me here, Carrie. Yeah, I mean, yeah, let's be the winter PR team, you know. I think winter wonder, winter wellness.

You know, it doesn't maybe have to be a litterative, I guess. It has to be. Dr. Carrie Leibowitz, health psychologist and author of How to Winter, harness your mindset to thrive on cold, dark, or difficult days. Carrie's based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. This episode was produced by Shoshana Bucksbaum. And before we go, I just want to give a bittersweet shout out to Emma Gomez, Science Friday's digital producer who is moving on to a new role.

If you have ever read a newsletter from Science Friday, you've read Emma's work, and you've heard her too, reporting on movies and shows and duck stamp art. Emma, your energy, your enthusiasm, and your ability to run a Zoom meeting are truly unparalleled. But most of all, you're a creative powerhouse. And I know I speak for all of us when I say, Emma, we're so sad to see you go, but we're so excited to see what you do next. Thanks, Emma.

and thank you all for listening. Happy holidays. I'm Flora Lichtenen.