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Most of us are familiar, either by experience or information, with the winter doldrums, a pervasive state of midwinter depression, fatigue, and low energy. Today, of course, this condition has a fancy medical name: seasonal affective disorder (SAD--get it?); by whatever name, it's a fact of life for millions in the north, and its etiology is unclear.
I propose an ingenious theory to explain the winter blues. They are fustrated hibernation. Many northern mammals, when winter food runs low, can slow their bodily processes down and enter a torpid state that amounts to a more or less deep sleep. In the depths of winter, men and women, also mammals, wish to do the same. Our minds and bodies respond to winter with an impluse toward hibernation. But, being human,we can't sleep the winter away. Hence the winter doldrums, "a vestigial remnant of an adaptive hibernation response.".
It's a persuasive idea, but there are many alternatives. The hypothesis seems to be that we're adapted to hibernate and go into the dumps at this time of year because we have to work instead. But couldn't it be that what we're adapted to, and denied, is not a long nap in a cold cave but a week at the beach in latitudes where hibernation isn't necessary?
