Why I’m Socially Hibernating This Winter (and Why You Should, Too)

Photo by Fredrik Matheson.

Photo by Fredrik Matheson.

I’m going to be going into a social hibernation period soon. No, it won’t be absolute. There are a handful of exceptions I’ll be making for it, but for the most part I’ll be enjoying a lot of peace and quiet for the rest of the autumn as well as this winter.

There are several different reasons why I’m doing this. If any of them sound familiar to you, you might want to consider hibernating as well over the next few months.

  1. My brain craves the downtime. I may come across as a social butterfly online sometimes, but I’m actually deeply introverted. It feels really good to me to have multiple weekends in a row when I don’t have any plans to see anyone at all. This has nothing to do with how much I enjoy my friends and everything to do with my inborn need for a lot of time alone. This autumn has included more socialization for me than normal, so I’m really looking forward to finding a better balance this winter.
  2. I have mixed feelings about the holidays. Explaining why this is so would take up far more writing space than is available in this post. I might talk about it in detail in the future, but this isn’t a time of year I look forward to. One of the best tools I’ve found for making it a more pleasant experience for myself is limiting what I do participate in. I’d much rather do one small thing joyfully than ten things begrudgingly.
  3. There’s not enough sunlight. Remember last spring when I blogged about waking up at 5 a.m. with the sun? Now I’m getting sleepy much earlier in the evening than I used to. My brain doesn’t quite understand that one can stay up hours after the sun sets, and that makes it difficult for me to go out in the evenings. (This makes me glad I don’t live in the Arctic circle. I would not be able to handle the non-traditional sun activity they have there at certain times of the year!)
  4. My Netflix queue is full of fascinating shows. I want to watch all of them, and this time of year is a great time to do exactly that.
  5. I don’t feel particularly social. No, I don’t mean this in a depressed or anxious sort of way at all. There are seasons for everything in life, and right now I’m in a place where I’m not really craving that kind of interaction. And that’s okay.

This won’t last forever. It never does.

For now, though, I am looking forward to all of the peace and quiet that comes with the short, cold days ahead.

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0 Responses to Why I’m Socially Hibernating This Winter (and Why You Should, Too)

    • Opa!

      My summer hibernation is similar. Being a walking ambassador for Phx AZ requires 10 hours of 105+ degrees F of walking outside while socially interacting. I get home and am done moving. I am after work social from November-May each year.

  1. 1. #same…keeping nephews for summer vacation knocked out a LOT of my downtime…time to recover.

    2. #same

    3. i’m pretty much a go to bed when the sun goes down guy also…and this most recent time change has hit me hard…way too much dark & not enough shine!

    4. don’t netflix…but my inbox of interesting blogs i follow (ahem…like you) imma way behind. so imma catch up best i can 🙂

    5. a little “social” goes a LONG way…concur

    be well,
    dave

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