A Diagnosis for Your Seasonal Doldrums

by Deborah Carver

Cabin fever can make your house feel small and like it’s stuck in the middle of a frozen wasteland.

Photo by Deborah Carver, from Minnesota’s Art Shanty Projects.

Does it seem like it’s been cold forever? Is the snow black and unsleddable? Every time you go outside to play, do you just get stuck in the mud?

Or every time you go outside, are you baking in the sun? Are you tired of slathering on sunscreen and carrying around a water bottle that heats up after twenty minutes outside? Do you just want to run back inside, where the air is cooler?

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is on its way! But, especially if you’re in most northerly parts of the world, you still have a few more weeks of wacky weather to go—one day it will be warm and rainy and the next it might be cold and wintry again.

And if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, the milder temperatures of fall will soon be settling in. First, though, there are going to be a couple more hot weeks, dragging out the long, dusty summer until you’re sick of it.

No matter where you are in the world, you know what it feels like to be stuck inside because of the weather. You’ve run out of puzzles. You’re tired of playing board games with your family. All you want to do is go outside, get some fresh air, and stretch your legs! But the outdoors just isn’t within your reach . . . yet.

There’s a name for this feeling: cabin fever.

Sounds scary, huh? But cabin fever isn’t an actual sickness. It’s just something that happens to your brain. Okay, that still sounds scary. But this is what it means:

Cabin fever happens when you’ve spent too much time indoors. If you feel as if you’ve been inside forever, you probably have cabin fever. Do you feel trapped by your house, your school, and your family? You might have cabin fever.

Everyone gets cabin fever sometimes. Adults get cabin fever, and it might make them seem cranky. Even pets get cabin fever! Your dog might be pacing around the house, craving a run in the still-too-muddy dog park. If you have an outdoor cat, it might be noisy and unfriendly, longing for the days when it can chase squirrels through the bushes.

But there are cures for cabin fever: First, if it’s really too terrible to go outside, find some kind of indoor physical activity—put on an exercise DVD , ask your family to take you to the gym, or just do some sit-ups on your floor.

If you’ve spent all day indoors and there’s no possibility of going outside, start a journal of how cabin fever feels. When you’ve exhausted all the words you can conceive for being stuck inside, begin thinking of what it will be like again to be outside. Be as descriptive as you can.

Or grab some couch cushions and some old sheets, and make a fort. Imagine that it’s a completely new world, one where it’s eternally spring. The best cure for cabin fever is a vivid imagination!

Next, at the first opportunity, spend a lot of time in the fresh air. In March, all around the world, the weather is erratic—this means it changes a lot! Even if today is gloomy, a warm, sunny day shouldn’t be too far off. On the first nice day, ask an adult to take a long walk with you. Go to a park (and take the dog). See how the seasons are changing, and then write it down in your journal when you get home.

One day outside will be all it takes to cure your cabin fever. In a week or so, March will have settled in, as the saying goes, like a lamb.