Holed Up For The Winter: Surviving The Coldest Term at Dartmouth

It's so cold! I can't believe it's already dark outside! I can't wait for the summer! You're not even a paragraph in here and you're probably already bored because you've heard exactly that countless times today. Probably without the exclamation points. We get it, random person standing in line at Collis, winter just sucks sometimes. Maybe it'd be better if we stopped talking about how awful everything is and started bringing up how beautiful it is. It's nice to think that for every person who says the cold sucks, there might be another who says "Yay fresh powder, time to hit the slopes!" Being able to enjoy the snow (or ice!) is what makes winter at Dartmouth awesome. "I'm a winter person," Chuxi Zhang '16 said. "I teach snowboarding. Part of the reason I wanted to come here was because of the Skiway."For every person who complains about the cold, someone else came here because of it. They might even be the same person.Because if we're honest with ourselves, we don't really have that much "time" to hit the slopes. We're more likely to be stuck in the library, hitting the books instead of the slopes as we watch the daylight fade to dark before it's even actually nighttime. Across campus, the cold, dark abyss that is a Hanover winter is enough to have an effect on just about everyone."I just feel like people do fewer things," Michael Zhu '14 said. "Once you go someplace you don't leave, so campus is less active."Not wanting to leave the library and face the cold isn't always a bad thing for your GPA, and potentially your social life. Unfortunately, shorter days may also have the more detrimental affect of making people SAD an appropriate acronym for seasonal affective disorder.You've probably read about SAD in an email from your dean, or from some poster around campus or maybe not. But in case you were wondering or even if you weren't it helps to know what SAD looks like so you can help yourself, or your friends. Because as fun as it is to play with the acronym, it's not fun to be SAD. Know that the disorder is real, and listen up."Before coming to Dartmouth, I thought it was some kind of made up disorder something that people used as a scapegoat for the winter blues," Lindsay Newton '15, a member of Active Minds, said. "After hearing an Active Minds panel last year, I realized that it is a real affliction. Unfortunately, people stick their noses up at it because the acronym almost makes it seem like a joke." According to the one and only Web MD, SAD is a type of depression that occurs in the fall and winter months, when the days get shorter. It's most likely caused by a lack of sunlight, and it's certain that it's more than just the winter blues."Having a depressed mood is the number one sign," Da-Shih Hu, a psychiatrist at Dick's House, said. "In contrast to other kinds of depression, SAD is associated with an increased desire for carbohydrates and classic symptoms of depression include low energy levels, decreased concentration and decreased motivation."Hu said that the onset of SAD usually occurs in the fall, when the days begin to get shorter. But that doesn't mean it's too late to get help.As detrimental as SAD can be, it's unfortunately rare for Dartmouth students to talk about the way the winter might be affecting their mood beyond a common, shallow "It's cold!""People here are very much overachievers and we tend to ignore the psychological affects of stress," Gabrielle Forestier '14, president of Active Minds, said. One of the best things we can do for each other might just be to talk about how we're feeling."Active Minds is in part about letting people know that there are options for them to talk to professionals at Dick's House," Forestier said. "If it's simple day-to-day issues, those are great things to talk about, and it prevents you from getting to a place where you have a huge weight to carry. It's okay to talk about things, even if it's not a direct conversation about those problems." If you do need help, there are resources available for every student. Dick's House offers counseling services and lends out light therapy lamps, and if you want a boost in the library, the Dean's Office has a happy lamp outside its office that you can sit under whenever, provided someone else hasn't already snagged the spot.Of course, there are other ways to experience winter here that involve more than just misery even for people like Forestier who come from warmer climates like Miami."Getting outside during daylight hours can be helpful to maximize the light that we do have," she said. "Other things like going skating and sledding can be fun and interesting and help you adjust to the winter and to enjoy it."