Dreading Hardship? Think Like a Norwegian. Or a Stoic
Some people suffer from what psychologists call Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. For instance, people who live in areas of the globe where winter days are very short and it’s very cold. Yet, others seem to cope remarkably well with the hardship, for instance, the inhabitants of Tromsø, Norway, latitude 69 degrees north. They receive only two or three hours of light per day during the winter, and yet they don’t suffer from SAD. Why not?
An article by David Robson in the Guardian explains, focusing on the fascinating research conducted by health psychologist Kari Leibowitz. The answer, broadly speaking, is the mindset. Leibowitz’s research builds on decades of studies demonstrating that the mental framing of stressful events dramatically influences how we respond to such events. We cope better with dark winter nights, lockdowns, and what not if we consciously reframe the hardship or setback as a challenge. The Stoics would not have been surprised. Modern practitioner Bill Irvine wrote a whole book on precisely this technique, The Stoic Challenge. Epictetus famously put it this way:
“It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them.” (Enchiridion 5)
