It’s spring in the UK. The daffodils are out, the days are getting longer. Spring is my favourite season. But, as always, it feels like it’s been a long winter. 

Brits seem to talk a lot about seasonal affective disorder (surely named for its acronym. Tyler tells me this is called a backronym, which is delightful). There is a thriving UK market for vitamin D supplements and SAD lamps, which simulate bright sunlight for dreary mornings.

Regardless of whether we are pathologising it or not, living in London isn’t the easiest in winter. It becomes a city grey with concrete and drizzle. I don’t know if I would call myself SAD (ha), but I certainly felt a bit lower-case sad. My resilience was low. 

Perhaps as a consequence, winter blues and climate gloom hit me simultaneously this year. On one of our long dark evenings in, we started watching BBC Planet Earth, which – for the three people in the world that haven’t seen it – is a documentary about animals and the natural world. While beautiful and often uplifting, very episode has an angle about climate and nature degradation. This really got to me. It was a bit weird, admittedly, to be feeling so sad about global warming in the middle of winter, when temperatures were hovering around freezing. But when climate gloom hits, it hits. 

I’m certainly not alone in feeling gloomy about climate change. Climate anxiety is on the rise in the UK and elsewhere, particularly among young people. A global survey of 16-25 year olds in 2021 showed that three in five young adults were very concerned about climate change, with almost half saying it was affecting their everyday lives. I would guess that a 2021 survey was also capturing some of the mental health impacts of Covid lockdowns. But still, that’s pretty grim. 

I spoke about this with a colleague who is an expert in sociology, and a mum. Her perspective was that, while we have to be realistic, it’s equally important to acknowledge the reasons to be hopeful about climate action. We have made progress in reducing emissions in many countries; the prices of some low carbon technologies are coming down precipitously; public awareness and engagement on climate issues is much higher than it was a decade ago. I worked hard to remind myself of this progress. Eventually I started to feel less gloomy. Working in climate helps. 

Low periods are inevitable. But the first couple of months of this year were honestly hard. I’ve been trying to take on the advice of Marc Berman in his recent book, Nature and the Mind. He uses science to explore the fortifying effects of getting outdoors. I don’t think this is rocket science – going for a walk outdoors has long been a prescription for low mood. But one of the interesting themes of Berman’s book is that you don’t even need to relish the time outdoors for it to benefit the mind. Nice weather and enthusiasm are not required. 

I tested this theory on a recent trip to Norway. My uncle Adam and his family live in Oslo, and I’ve visited several times. This time, my friend Suzanne and I were joining Adam and a couple of his friends on a cross country skiing trip. We took the train four hours from Oslo to a tiny place called Finse, only accessible by train. Finse had one hut for skiers run by the Norwegian trekking association, one hotel, and a handful of cabins, half of which were entirely covered in snow. 

The next morning’s sunshine was short lived. We had biting wind and sideways snow for most of the next two days. But the trip was gorgeous. We skied across lakes, between towering cliffs, and up and down hills (the latter very clumsily – going downhill on cross country skis is no joke). We stayed the night at another tiny, isolated hut before skiing back to Finse the next day. I thoroughly enjoyed the views, the company, and the exercise. As Berman predicted, even the wind and snow were welcome, making the huts seem even cosier.

I came back from Norway feeling better. Time in nature doesn’t necessarily solve anything. The winters in London still suck, climate change is still terrifying. But for me, being in nature makes everything just a bit easier to manage. Remind me of this next February, okay?