About the Polar Dayling Wellbeing Guide

Polar experience and polar science

The author of these pages is a for­mer research engi­neer in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, then sci­ence jour­nal­ist, writer and trav­el­er. Orig­i­nal­ly from Cen­tral Europe, he became enam­ored with the Far North: he has been a per­ma­nent res­i­dent in Nor­way, Fin­land, Esto­nia. He has made long stays in the Arc­tic regions of Nor­way, from Trom­sø to Nord­kapp, and Sval­bard. Above all, the light of the Far North fas­ci­nates him: these win­ters muf­fled by snow and the blue light of a full moon in the strange polar night; the clear end­less sun at the thresh­old of sum­mer; these round celes­tial bod­ies rest­ing all day, all night on the hori­zon in these calm lands.

Nev­er­the­less, it is clear that adap­ta­tion to the north­ern pho­tope­ri­od required cer­tain con­scious efforts from him. He is not alone here; Sea­son­al Affec­tive Dis­or­der, for­mal­ly defined in 1984, is a stud­ied phe­nom­e­non affect­ing – with notable excep­tions, as we dis­cuss in these pages – the pop­u­la­tions of the Nordics and high lat­i­tudes. The sci­en­tif­ic term refers to a win­ter form of depres­sion, more pre­cise­ly sea­son­al changes in sleep pat­terns, social activ­i­ty, mood, weight, appetite and ener­gy lev­el.

Dur­ing his very first expa­tri­a­tion to the North, yet in South­ern Nor­way, the author expe­ri­enced some of these symp­toms. His mood was per­fect­ly in bal­ance thanks to some good dai­ly prac­tices; how­ev­er, the changes in sleep rhythm were clear: falling asleep reg­u­lar­ly shift­ed until a dis­or­ga­nized night stretched from two in the morn­ing to noon. The fol­low­ing year, with sim­ple and rad­i­cal mea­sures, the prob­lem was total­ly resolved: the sec­ond Nordic win­ter was sim­ply a Christ­mas tale.

About the Polar Daylight Wellbeing Guide

The author shares in these pages the best tips for adapt­ing to the pat­terns of sun­light at north­ern lat­i­tudes. This guide is based on his per­son­al expe­ri­ence and con­sci­en­tious review of the sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture.

Do you won­der why extreme polar nights or mid­night sun dri­ve you crazy? Start here.

Do you want to know the length of today’s sun­shine in your Far North loca­tion? Check our Polar Day­light Track­er by cities and lat­i­tudes. Com­pare to south­ern lat­i­tudes and mar­vel at the geo­graph­ic phe­nom­e­non the track­er illus­trates.