Why Your PJs are a Problem - Season Affective Disorder has a Partner in Crime!

Letters for a Lighter November: Thoughts, practical ideas and weekend writing prompts to make the darker days a little easier.

Do you find yourself wanting to go to be at about 5o’clock when the clocks change? Yep, me too. PJs on ASAP!

Once I’m inside, I want to stay there…

Cosy, toasty, hibernat-y. But what if that’s part of the problem?

I know I should go out and enjoy- at Least - the evening sky. And I do, for a few minutes at my kitchen door. But maybe I’m actually hurting myself by hiding away before giving my brain a chance to do something helpful?

We find ourselves losing the battle between wanting to do, go, be out in the world having fun, and wanting to snuggle like our lives depend on it. Hello, confusion. Bonfire night and Christmas party or binge watch that one series you missed under your favourite blanket with a wheelie-bin sized bag of popcorn?

Putting your PJs on is a trigger for your brain to downgrade your activity levels, sending you back to when you were 6, just had a bath and had a jigsaw puzzle to finish before bed. Except now it’s Traitors that beckons (Elementary for me at the moment, I’ll admit).

So we shut ourselves away before the day is, officially, done.

But what if part of us actually wants to live a little more?

In A Little Light for November, my newsletter for Autumn, we’ll explore what darker, colder days can mean for our energy and mood, and how to make useful adjustments to everyday life. And why you shouldn’t feel there’s something wrong with you. Well, there is, but nothing we can’t find a way to reduce.

Three emails a week, starting Monday 2nd, plus a Saturday morning read and writing prompt to help you notice what’s happening.

Maybe you’ll write about your memories and stories, maybe you’ll write about how the science made something make sense, maybe it’ll be how the practices have helped you feel less low. But I hope you’ll share – it’s how we realise we’re not alone.