Winter dip: what light and warmth can and cannot do for you

A winter dip is that slow, dull feeling many people get as soon as the days get shorter and you travel to and from work in the dark. You are not ill, you still function normally, but you are not quite yourself either.

As soon as it turns grey outside, the tips and the devices start appearing. Lamps, blankets, panels, pills, schedules. This article sets out what a winter dip is, what is usually recommended, and what light and warmth at home can and above all cannot do for you. Honestly, even where that works out badly for the products we sell.

What exactly is a winter dip?

A winter dip is not an official diagnosis. It is a term people use themselves for a period in autumn and winter when they feel duller, slower and gloomier than during the rest of the year. You find it harder to get going, you feel less like doing things you normally enjoy, and by mid afternoon your energy is already gone.

What people often mention themselves:

• Needing more sleep, and still not waking up rested
• Feeling less like meeting up or going out
• More cravings for bread, pasta and sweet things
• A shorter fuse than usual
• The feeling that everything takes just a bit more effort

That is something different from winter depression. For that, doctors do use clear criteria, and it is not something you diagnose yourself based on a blog. The difference lies mainly in the severity, the duration, and whether your daily life suffers. Further on you will find roughly where that line is and when it is better to get someone involved.

Winter dip or just a busy period?

Not every slump in November is a winter dip. For many people, autumn is also simply the busiest part of the year: deadlines before Christmas, school, birthdays, renovations that need finishing. If you are tired because you have taken on too much, that is a different problem with a different solution. Then a lamp will not help you, but clearing your diary will.

A good rule of thumb: a winter dip comes with the season and goes with the season. If the gloom feels unconnected to the calendar, or it already started in August, it is probably something else.

Why the dark days affect you so much

In the Netherlands, for example, there are fewer than eight hours of daylight around the shortest day, compared with almost seventeen hours in June. For many people that means: going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark, and spending the only daylight hours behind a window. That is a big difference from summer, and you notice it.

Two things play a role here. The first is the amount of light that actually reaches your eyes. Outdoors, even on a dull, overcast winter day, it is many times brighter than in a well lit room indoors. Your eyes notice that difference, even though both seem "light enough" to you.

The second is rhythm. Your body uses light as its main time cue for your sleep and wake rhythm. If that cue becomes vaguer, your rhythm often does too: going to bed later, finding it harder to get up, and a kind of half awake feeling during the day. On top of that, we move less and see people less in winter, and neither of those helps.

It is important to be clear: this is an explanation, not a diagnosis. It explains why many people feel different in winter. It says nothing about your situation, and it does not turn any device into a solution.

Preventing a winter dip: what you can already do in autumn

If you know yourself and know that November is your hardest month, September is the time to arrange something. Not because you can switch off a winter dip, but because it is easier to hold on to a rhythm than to find it again once you are already in the middle of it.

What people usually do for this:

• Put the morning walk in their diary before it gets dark, so the habit is already in place when things get harder
• Move exercise indoors in winter instead of stopping altogether
• Make regular plans with people, every week, so you do not have to decide each time whether you feel like it
• Deliberately plan days off in January and February instead of using them up in December
• Avoid scheduling jobs that take a lot of energy in the darkest weeks

It sounds boring, and it is. But the things that make the most difference when it gets dark are rarely the things with a plug.

What to do about a winter dip: the advice that keeps coming back

There is no list that works for everyone, but almost all common advice about the dark days comes back to the same five things. They are not exciting, and that is exactly why they are skipped so often.

1. Seek out daylight, preferably in the morning

This is at the top for just about everyone who has anything sensible to say about it. Go outside, even if it is cloudy, even if it is only for twenty minutes. Outdoors on a grey day gives your eyes more light than a whole day indoors by the window. Combine it with something you already do: walking the dog, the trip to the shops, walking the last stop instead of taking the bus.

2. Move

Movement is mentioned in almost every piece of advice, and the nice thing is that it overlaps with point one. Walking, cycling or running outdoors gives you both at once. If outdoors does not work out, moving indoors is still better than not moving at all.

3. A regular rhythm

Get up at roughly the same time, weekends included. Eat at roughly the same time. That sounds strict, but it gives your day a framework at the moment when the light outside no longer provides one. Especially around the switch to winter time, many people notice how quickly such a rhythm can shift.

4. See people

In winter, the urge to cancel is stronger and the hurdle to plan something is higher. That reinforces itself. A fixed, recurring appointment therefore works better than loose plans you have to weigh up each time.

5. Sleep, food and alcohol

Sleeping more than you need rarely makes you feel fitter. Lots of fast carbohydrates and alcohol give a short boost and then a deeper low. None of this is a solution on its own, but it makes a difference to whether you are working against yourself or not.

What does and does not help: an honest overview

The table below sums up what comes up in common advice about the dark months, and what does not. See it as a direction, not a recipe.

Winter dip lamp: what a daylight lamp is

If you search for "winter dip lamp", you almost always end up with a daylight lamp. That is a lamp that gives bright white light, usually around 10,000 lux at the stated distance of use, meant to stand close to your face while you have breakfast or read, for example. It is about the amount of light your eyes take in, not about warmth and not about your skin.

Daylight lamps are often mentioned in advice about the dark months. What is sensible in your situation, for how long, at what time of day and whether it is relevant at all is a question for your GP, not for an online shop. Especially if your complaints are severe or persistent, buying something yourself and waiting to see is not the best route.

Luxyor does not sell daylight lamps. We sell infrared sauna blankets, infrared lamps and red light panels. Those are different products for different purposes, and it is important that you know that difference before you order anything.

A red light panel is not a daylight lamp

This is the misunderstanding we come across most often at this time of year, and it is the most important sentence in this whole article: a red light panel is not a daylight lamp and does not replace a daylight lamp.

A daylight lamp gives bright white light, about 10,000 lux, aimed at your eyes. A red light panel gives red and near infrared light, at wavelengths around 660 and 850 nanometres, aimed at your skin. Those are two different kinds of light, with different uses and different instructions for use. With red light panels, the advice is actually not to look into the LEDs and to use red light goggles if needed, which is exactly the opposite of how a daylight lamp is meant to be used.

So do not buy a red light panel because you have a winter dip and think it is a cheaper or nicer daylight lamp. It is not. If you want to know what red light is and is not used for, read our guide to red light therapy or the guide to choosing a red light lamp or panel.

Infrared warmth in winter: comfort, nothing more

Then the question you probably came here for: what does an infrared sauna blanket or an infrared lamp do in the dark months? The honest answer is: it makes you warm, and many people find that pleasant in winter. We cannot and do not want to make more of it than that.

A sauna blanket does not treat a winter dip. Nor does it prevent one. It does not relieve low mood and it does not replace daylight, exercise or a conversation with someone. What it does do is give warmth and a reason to do nothing for half an hour. For some people in January, that is exactly enough to have a regular, pleasant point in the day. For others it is simply a nice blanket and nothing more. Both answers are fine.

Where warmth is practical in winter: if you get cold easily, if you come home after a dark day and do not want to start on something new straight away, or if you notice that your evenings would otherwise be taken up entirely by screens. It is comfort and structure, not care.

Warmth can be a nice moment in your day. It will not solve a winter dip, and it does not need to.

If you want to know how infrared warmth works technically and what the differences are between a blanket, a cabin and a lamp, it is all covered in detail in our guide to an infrared sauna for at home. It also explains what you can realistically expect from each of those forms.

A winter evening you can keep up

If you do want to make something of it, keep it small and repeatable. The following is not a treatment plan and not a miracle solution, but a way of structuring a weekday winter evening that people actually keep up in practice.

1. Get your daylight during the dayTwenty minutes outdoors at lunchtime counts for more than anything you do indoors in the evening.
2. Draw a line under your working dayLaptop closed, phone away from the sofa. Without a clear end, the evening carries on without you noticing.
3. Move a little, however smallA walk round the block, ten minutes of stretching or going up the stairs a few times. It is about the break, not the performance.
4. Take a warm moment of restA bath, a blanket on the sofa or a session with a sauna blanket. Without a screen, with a book or music.
5. Stick to your bedtimeRoughly the same at weekends too. That is the part most people skip and the part that makes the biggest difference.

If you fall out of this rhythm now and then, that is not a failure. Just pick it up again the next day. Perfection is not a realistic goal in January.

What to watch out for

There are quite a few misunderstandings and pitfalls around this topic. The most important ones at a glance:

• Confusing red light with daylight. A red light panel is not a daylight lamp and does not give the bright white light daylight lamps are known for. If you buy one for that, you are buying the wrong product.
• Thinking a device will do the work. Going outside, moving and seeing people are at the top of almost every piece of advice. A device at home does not change that.
• Laughing off complaints as "just winter". If your daily functioning suffers, the calendar is not an explanation that will do.
• Diagnosing yourself on the internet. Winter dip, winter depression and other forms of low mood look alike and overlap. That is not a distinction you make yourself.
• Using warmth to avoid things. If the sauna blanket becomes the reason you no longer leave the house at all, it is working against you instead of for you.
• Seeing sleeping in as the solution. More sleep than you need rarely makes you fitter and shifts your rhythm further.
• Believing big promises from sellers. If someone sells you a lamp, blanket or panel with the promise that it will solve your low mood, that is not true. We do not make that promise, and others should not either.
• Wanting to change everything at once. Hardly anyone keeps up five new habits in the first week of January. One, they can.

When to see your GP

This article is about a winter dip: a period in which you feel duller, but in which your life carries on. There is a line, and it is important that you know where it is.

Make an appointment with your GP if one or more of these apply to you:

• The low feelings last longer than a few weeks and do not go away on their own
• Your daily functioning suffers: work, studies, housework or caring for others
• You no longer enjoy anything, not even things you normally do enjoy
• You consistently sleep badly or far too much
• Your eating pattern or weight changes a lot without you wanting it to
• You withdraw from people you normally like to see
• This pattern comes back every year in the same period
• You have thoughts of harming yourself. In that case, do not wait, and contact your GP or an out of hours doctor today

Going to your GP with "I do not know if it is bad enough" is a perfectly good reason to go. You do not have to make that judgement alone, and that is exactly what a GP is there for.

This article is general information and does not replace medical advice. We sell sauna blankets and red light equipment and are not a healthcare provider. If you are unsure about your complaints, see your GP.

Luxyor Comfort 150

• Warm from head to toe without leaving the house
• A regular, screen free moment of rest in a dark month
• Not a treatment and not a daylight lamp, but comfort
• 60 days to change your mind and a 2 year warranty

View the Comfort 150

In conclusion

For many people, a winter dip is a familiar and temporary phenomenon, and the things most often recommended for it are also the least exciting: seeking out daylight, moving outdoors, keeping a regular rhythm, continuing to see people and taking your sleep seriously. You do not need a device for any of that.

Warmth at home can also be a pleasant moment in your evening. No more and no less. A red light panel is not a daylight lamp, a sauna blanket is not a treatment, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a story. If you want a blanket purely for comfort, take a look at the infrared sauna blankets or first read our guide to choosing an infrared blanket. All the background and frequently asked questions about infrared are in the knowledge base.

And if the low mood stays, your daily life starts to suffer or you are simply unsure? Make an appointment with your GP. That is the only tip in this article we really insist on.