Dazzle, your comments are very interesting!

I live in Southern California and no one sees snow in the winter unless you drive up to the mountains! and it has been so dry this year that even the ski resorts need to have snow-making machines to keep the slopes covered. Hardly any rain, and nice sunny days, although it does get colder at night, as we are really in a desert climate. Even though we've had no real winter this year, really an extended Fall, I still find my energy flagging and my need to sleep enhanced. If I lived in cold country I'd probably be sleeping 20 hours a day! I think though, at least for me, the winter doldrums seem to have more to do with the diminished number of hours that the sun is up--I just can't find any energy to stay awake when the sun is setting at 4:30 in the afternoon, even on warm days. Now that the Winter Solstice is past and the daylight hours are slowly increasing, I find I have more energy, and less need to sleep. So for me, it has more to do with the amount of sunlight than with the air temperature or the humidity (or lack thereof). I have two friends who live in Southern California who experience the same things that I do, and have also felt more awake now that the days are a bit longer. I have other friends who aren't affected by the change in seasons at all! So I'd have to guess that the sensitivity to seasonal changes is really an individual thing, and takes in a lot of factors. Obviously your seasonal changes are very much different than other parts of the country! When it's raining there, you have a lack of sunlight, I'd presume? I'd wonder if you and others you know are affected by the lessening of sunlight during the rainy season, or am I talking nonsense? I have a sister in Texas, and when I went to visit her one Spring I was very surprised when it rained while the sun was still shining, and it was so hot and humid people were wearing shorts and sandals and carrying umbrellas--a sight very weird for me! In California we usually get rain only in Winter, and it corresponds to darkness and colder temperatures.

I posted this article because I could relate so much to what the author was saying about winter hybernation and retreating within. I'd have to say it depends on where you live, what the weather patterns are, how much humidity there is, how much sunlight there is a day, and how sensitive an individual you are to changes in any of these factors.

Thanks for writing! Liora Leah