Dark November: light, mood and creative work in the short days

Today the clocks went back an hour, and almost everyone is talking about how nicely they slept on the Sunday of the change. I've already had my say about that gift of an hour. Today I'd rather look at what comes after it, which is less charming: from this week on, the afternoon in Madrid fades out shortly after six, and by the end of December the sun won't rise until past half eight and will be gone before six. For a few months, daylight will fit inside an office shift.

Some people don't mind. I do. I feel autumn in my body before I see it on the calendar: I'm slower to get going, the sofa calls me at seven in the evening as if it were eleven at night, and my head turns slower and greyer. It isn't a tragedy, but it isn't nothing either. And since I decided to talk about mental health on this blog without beating about the bush, today it's time to talk about light, what it does to our mood, and how I organise my creative work when the days shrink.

What a lack of light does to the body

Let me start with what the science says, told simply and without pretending to be something I'm not.

Our bodies run on an internal clock, the circadian rhythm, which resets every day thanks to the light that enters our eyes. Morning light is the strongest signal: it tells the brain the day has begun, slows the production of melatonin, the hormone that gets us ready to sleep, and helps put sleep, appetite, body temperature and energy in order. When light arrives late, in short supply or almost always artificial, that clock can drift. One fact surprised me when I read it: even on a cloudy day, outdoor light is many times brighter than the light inside an ordinary home, however many lamps we switch on.

Studies also link lower light exposure with changes in serotonin, a chemical messenger tied to mood, although the exact mechanisms are still being researched. What is clear is that the season affects how we feel, and that it affects people more the further north they live. In Spain we're lucky to have bright winters compared with Scandinavia's, but that doesn't mean we don't feel it.

Winter blues or seasonal affective disorder

This is the distinction I care most about, because online everything gets mixed up.

Many people notice a mild dip in autumn and winter: a little less energy, more desire to sleep, more appetite for warm and sweet things, less interest in plans. It's common, usually manageable, and doesn't stop you living your normal life. It feels more like tiredness than sadness.

Seasonal affective disorder is something else. It's a form of depression that comes and goes with the seasons, nearly always in autumn and winter, and returns year after year. Its signs are those of depression: low mood for most of the day, almost daily; no longer caring about things that used to excite you; sleeping a lot and still feeling exhausted; changes in appetite and weight; withdrawing from people; trouble concentrating; and sometimes thoughts of not wanting to go on. It lasts for weeks and really gets in the way of work, relationships and everyday life.

You can't diagnose it by reading an article, this one or any other. A professional diagnoses it: your GP, a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist. And it can be treated. Depending on the case, that may mean psychological therapy, medication or light therapy, which involves sitting in front of a very bright lamp every morning for a set amount of time. Those lamps are sold everywhere, but it's best to use one with professional guidance, because they don't suit everyone; for example, some people with bipolar disorder or with certain eye conditions.

I'm not going to tell you which of the two you have. What I will say is that if autumn weighs on you more than you can carry, it isn't a lack of willpower or something a coffee will fix. It deserves an appointment.

Why I pay attention to this

In this blog's mental health series I've told how I received a diagnosis of major depression, among other things, and how a psychologist is helping me keep going. That's why I watch out for anything that shifts the ground under my feet, and autumn shifts it a little.

I can't tell how much of my low mood at this time of year is seasonal. That's not my call to make, which is why I bring it up in therapy instead of diagnosing myself with whatever I've read. What I have learnt is not to let it catch me off guard. If I know November is going to be an uphill climb, I can prepare the way you get your coat out before the first cold snap, rather than waiting until you're shivering.

Everything I describe below is a habit of mine, not a treatment. These habits help me hold my work and my mood together through the dark months, and I'm sharing them in case one of them is useful to someone. If you're in a truly bad place, no routine replaces professional help.

Morning light as a standing appointment

The first habit is the simplest and the hardest for me: going outside in the morning, even briefly, even when it's cold and I've got nothing to do out there. Twenty minutes, half an hour. It doesn't need to be an epic walk. Taking the long way round to buy bread is enough.

When you work alone, as I do, nobody makes you leave the house. The computer is three steps from the bed, and it's terribly easy to string whole days together under the glow of a screen. In summer it doesn't matter, because sunlight pours in everywhere. In winter, if I don't go looking for the sun, it slips away entirely without my ever seeing it.

I move things around at home too. The desk where I write lyrics gets pushed towards the window as soon as October arrives, and I keep the first hours of the day for the work that needs the most brainpower. In the evening, once it's dark, I switch on warm lights and save the more mechanical tasks for then.

Madrid on foot, even when it gets dark early

Madrid helps a lot here. Its winters are cold but the skies are often a deep blue, the kind that catch you off guard in November and look like they belong to another month. And it's a city made for walking: the neighbourhoods, the markets, the squares with people in them at any hour, the parks where someone is always out with the dog, the streets that change character from one corner to the next.

Walking does three things for me at once. It gives me light, it gets my body moving, which tends to settle into the armchair when the days are short, and it fills my head with things that later end up in my lyrics. My songs are about everyday life, and everyday life is out in the street: in a conversation overheard in the queue at the greengrocer's, in a shop window that went out of fashion decades ago, in the lady who brings out her fur coat the moment it drops below twenty degrees.

Some evenings my walk falls exactly when the streetlights come on. That moment, which you barely notice in summer, has something theatrical about it in November, as if someone were dimming the house lights before the show begins. I've learnt to enjoy it instead of treating it like a defeat.

Routines for creating in the short months

My work is very elastic. I write the lyrics, decide which version of each song stays, edit the music videos and prepare the releases. Nobody sets my hours, and in winter that cuts both ways. So I set myself a timetable, or something like one.

• Mornings for writing. New lyrics, rewrites, the lines that won't behave. With window light and a rested head, ideas come out cleaner and the humour lands better.
• Mid-afternoon for listening. Comparing versions, checking whether a joke falls in the right place, deciding what gets released. It's work that needs attention, not invention.
• Nightfall for wrapping up. When it gets dark this early, a working day can stretch into the small hours without you noticing. I try to treat sunset as a signal that it's nearly time to switch off, not as the start of another shift.
• Sleeping at similar times. I don't always manage it, but I try. The body clock appreciates regularity more than any trick.
• Not shutting myself away. Winter pushes you to stay in, and staying in is my natural tendency. I sign up for small plans, a lunch, a coffee, a long phone call, so I don't spend a whole week talking only to a screen.

None of this is rigid. There are days when a lyric turns up at eleven at night, and I'm not going to send it away. But having a skeleton timetable keeps the short days from turning into shapeless ones.

Writing with what the season brings

There's another way to get through autumn, and that's to let it into what I write. Not forcing myself to write summer songs while it rains outside, but using what the season brings: coats, the central heating nobody can agree on, afternoons that end before they've started, sluggishness, the tenderness of places with the lights on.

In my catalogue there are songs I've learnt to hear differently at this time of year. One is my version of «Ya está amaneciendo», the El Fary classic. It opens with a line that in November sounds almost like a doctor's advice: «Ya está amaneciendo, la noche se va» («the day is dawning, the night is leaving»). It's a song about heading out early, doing your day's work and coming back home, and in winter that humble routine feels a bit like a lifebelt.

Another is «Un pueblo es», the María Ostiz song I adapted for the planet. Near the end comes a line that tastes like a promise in December: «Esperando sin miedo a que amanezca» («waiting without fear for the dawn»). The song is about something else, a people and how they deserve respect, but in the dark months I hold on to that calm waiting, free of dread, of someone who knows the light comes back.

And there are songs of mine born on the other side, in the place the light doesn't reach. In the chorus of «El abismo en mi cabeza», the mind is a maze «donde el sol nunca se acuerda» («where the sun never remembers»). Writing that helped me put words to something heavy, and I know some people have found it helpful to listen to. But let me say it clearly: writing songs does me good, and it doesn't replace therapy. The two go together, each in its place.

If you're reading this on a November evening with the light already gone on the other side of the window, try to get outside for a bit tomorrow while it's still early. And if the weight doesn't lift, tell someone.

If November weighs too much

If your low mood drags on for weeks, if almost nothing feels worth it or everyday life has become a mountain, see your GP or look for a psychologist or psychiatrist. Talk to someone you trust as well: saying it out loud already changes something.

If thoughts of suicide are crossing your mind, or someone close to you worries you, don't wait. In Spain, dial 024: the national line for suicidal behaviour, free, confidential and answered day and night. In immediate danger, dial 112. Across the rest of Europe, 112 is the emergency number too; from Latin America, dial your country's emergency number. If you want to keep reading, this page gathers my mental health series and where to get support.

The days will grow longer again. Until then, let's look for whatever light there is, and ask for help when we need it.