The nights are drawing in

and I find myself increasingly concerned that I might slip back into depression now autumn is firmly established and Greenwich Mean Time awaits.

The shorter days affect me in strange ways. I've always seen the short evenings of winter as a bad thing. I crave daylight and sunlight, and during the cooler seasons we're lucky if we see eight hours of good light. With the inclusion of generally grey skies, I find myself battling with depressive symptoms.

Before I considered myself 'normal again' early this year, I've often noticed how the symptoms of my depression would intensify during the winter months. As soon as summer drifted into autumn and the weather turned, I'd start to feel lethargic and demotivated, low and withdrawn. Then, as soon as the first snowdrops flowered and heralded the beginning of spring, my mood would lift immeasurably and I'd become a different person.

The sudden nature of this transformation has always been apparent. It's like something clicks in my brain and I tell myself 'Spring is coming! Summer is coming!' and my mood changes for the better.

An opposite brain-click happened last week when I noticed it was dark at 7pm, dark when I got up at 6am and I looked-up the date for the clocks going back, which was three weeks away. These actions conspired to draw me into a funk and dwell on the short days to come.

It occurs to me that this is purely an attitude change which I should be able to manipulate. A book I read recently suggested that our reaction to events can be influenced by subtle changes in the way we think about these potentially life-changing events. It said to think about how often our mood is changed, for better or worse, by good news or bad. Good news brings a smile and elation, bad news brings sadness and depression. These changes are instant and tangible, and can be altered by how we perceive the event.

What I'd like to do is keep the elation that comes at the break of spring but discard the morose outlook that comes when the nights start getting longer. The realisation that my attitude has much to do with how I feel about the latter is really helpful. For example, while writing the above two paragraphs, it's dawned on me that there's much I love about autumn and winter - I often quote the transitional periods of spring and autumn to be my favourite times of year, and winter brings much of its own charm and enjoyment - not least my birthday which looms just eight weeks away. The bright sunlight of early February is only four months away, and there's plenty of nature to enjoy out walking during those months. I've been walking since spring this year and it'd be nice to get a good twelve-month experience of the cycle of nature by keeping up the walking. This also helps my mood, not only with exercise but with exposure to sunlight and a sense of pride and achievement every mile I add to my tally.

This is good motivation to keep up with my walking too, on which I've been pretty slack for the past couple of months. There's a few reasons for that which I won't go into now, but it's definitely impacted on my general wellbeing, my diet and alcohol intake. It's an odd circle which can be broken simply with a little effort and a good chunk of walking every week.

So, there. In the space of half an hour bashing this post out on my phone, I seem to have changed my attitude to the dark mornings and evenings. Result! Now, if I can just re-adjust my attitude to fatty foods and cider...