The winter solstice occurs at 8:27 p.m. MST on Thursday, Dec. 21. That’s the specific moment when Earth’s northern hemisphere is tilted as far away from the sun as possible. Also known as midwinter, it’s the shortest day and the longest night of the year. From this point through midsummer, or the summer solstice, the amount of daylight we see increases incrementally each day.
Celebrating the return of longer days and more light bypasses culture, geography, religion and time. It’s difficult to find a society — particularly in the northern regions — that doesn’t have some kind of celebration or festival this time of year. Most of those celebrations involve lots of lights, whether it’s Advent candles, Yule logs, floating lanterns, or twinkly LEDs on your tree. We all seem to crave light at this time of year, and that may be as much of a physiological need as a mental/emotional one.
Sometime in November, I tend to start feeling sad and sluggish. I’ve usually attributed those symptoms to my general dislike of cold and snow. In the last few years, credit has gone to the bittersweet flavor grief and loss brings to the season. Tired of feeling tired and gloomy this year, I asked my doctor if there was something I could do to avert the winter blues. I expected some sort of better living-through-chemistry option, but she recommended light therapy.
“Like, go to the beach and don’t come back until April or May?” I asked, hopefully. Can you get a prescription for “beach”? That’s not an option, so I ordered a $20 light therapy lamp at her recommendation.
Turning it on triggered an instant flashback to the buzzy fluorescent ring-shaped bulbs that dominated the fixtures in my best friend’s house in the early ‘80s. Shaking off those memories, I set the timer on my new “lamp” that looks more like a tablet and sat down to soak up its bluish-white glare for 30 minutes before work.
I’ve been told it may take several weeks of daily use before tangible benefits appear. At that rate, it may be difficult to gauge whether any results are coming from the lamp or the natural extension of daylight hours as part of the astronomical calendar. It doesn’t matter. Even if it’s just a placebo effect, if it works, that will be great. If it doesn’t, at least we’re promised that the days keep getting a little bit longer from here till June.
A little bit of light can dispel a whole lot of darkness. And isn’t that the promise of the season?
Merry Christmas to you, one and all.