Why Do I Feel Low When the Clocks Go Back?

If your mood dips when the clocks go back, you’re far from the only one. Less daylight shifts your body clock, your sleep and your energy, and for some people that turns into a low mood that hangs around all winter.

In Ireland the clocks go back an hour at 2am on Sunday 25 October. You get a little more light in the morning and lose it at the other end of the day. By December it can be dark before half four, which is tough when you’re driving home from work or doing the school run.

What’s actually going on?

Nobody has the whole answer yet, but the main theories hang together. Light tells your brain when to be alert and when to wind down. As the days get shorter that signal gets weaker, and your sleep and your levels of melatonin (the hormone that helps you feel sleepy) can drift out of step.

Less daylight may also affect serotonin, one of the brain chemicals linked to mood. Put that alongside colder weather, fewer reasons to go out and weeks of grey, damp Irish afternoons, and it’s easy to see how it builds up.

For lots of people this is a mild dip. They feel flatter, slower and a bit more tired than normal. Others go through something heavier that comes back at the same time every year. That pattern is known as seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, and it’s a recognised form of depression.

What it can look like

Winter low mood often doesn’t match the picture people have in their heads. It isn’t always sadness. It can show up as:

• Sleeping more than usual and still waking up worn out
• Craving carbohydrates and eating more than you’d like
• Losing interest in things you’d normally enjoy
• Feeling irritable, restless or hard to be around
• Finding it hard to concentrate, especially in the afternoon
• Pulling back from friends and putting plans off

None of this tells you what’s going on for you. Plenty of things can cause these feelings, including stress, grief and plain burnout. But if it arrives every autumn and lifts every spring, that’s worth knowing. Mention it to your GP, who can talk it through with you properly.

Small things that tend to help

You can’t stop the clocks changing. You can change how you meet the dark months.

Get outside early, even on an overcast day. Daylight on a cloudy Irish morning is still far brighter than the light in your kitchen. A twenty-minute walk before work or at lunchtime is one of the simplest things to try, and the research behind it is encouraging.

Keep your sleep steady. Go to bed and get up at roughly the same times, weekends included. The pull to hibernate is strong in November, but an erratic sleep routine tends to make low mood worse.

Put things in the diary. In winter, cancelling can feel like you’re doing yourself a favour. It rarely is. A regular coffee with a friend or a class on a Thursday evening gives your week some shape and a reason to get out the door.

Consider a light box. Some people find a bright light lamp useful in the mornings. Check with your GP or pharmacist first, especially if you have an eye condition or take medication that makes you sensitive to light.

How counselling fits in

Talking therapy is one of the recognised ways to approach winter depression, and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has been studied for seasonal patterns in particular. CBT helps you spot the thoughts and habits that creep in as the days shorten, like “there’s no point going out” or “I’ll just stay in bed”, and slowly change them.

Counselling also gives you a place to say it out loud. Plenty of people spend weeks telling everyone they’re just tired. Saying “I think this is more than tiredness” to someone who won’t judge you can take a real weight off.

Many clients see meaningful improvement within nine to twelve sessions. Our approach draws on CBT, person-centred work, psychodynamic ideas and mindfulness, and we offer evening and weekend sessions, so the winter doesn’t have to be what stops you coming. All our counsellors are members of APCP, BACP or IACP. Most of our clients choose online sessions, and we work online right across Ireland and in person in Limerick.

If you’d like to try it before committing to anything, the €40 introductory full session is a low-pressure way to see whether it feels right for you.

Winter is long, but you don’t have to get through it on your own. Starting that conversation now, before the dark properly settles in, is a good idea.

Mind Healing is not a crisis service. If you’re struggling right now and need to talk to someone urgently, you can call the Samaritans free on 116 123, any time of day or night, or text HELLO to 50808 to reach a trained crisis volunteer. In an emergency, call 999 or 112.