Your Inner Hedgehog: Understanding Why Winter Makes You Want to Disappear
Maybe you’re not falling behind, maybe you’re wintering.
Trees don’t apologise for looking bare in Winter, instead they quietly keep growing where no one can see. Maybe you are doing the same.
If you’ve been cancelling plans, craving more sleep or wondering why you’ve gone quieter than usual this Winter, this gentle reflection explores why slowing down isn’t always something that needs fixing.
Winter has a bit of an image problem. We talk about it like it’s the season where everything dies, which always feels a little dramatic to me, because what’s actually happening underground and in the trunks of trees is closer to a very quiet kind of housekeeping. Roots growing where you can’t see them. Sap moving slowly through the trunk. Nothing photogenic, but nothing broken either.
I think the same thing happens to us. If you’ve noticed yourself feeling slower, flatter, more inward, or like your motivation has quietly packed a bag and left without telling you, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. I think you might be wintering.
This article builds on Living in Tune with the Seasons – Hello Winter, where I explore the wisdom of living with the seasons rather than pushing against them. In this article, you’ll explore:
- What wintering is, and why feeling slower, quieter or more withdrawn in Winter is often a natural response rather than a personal failing.
- How seasonal changes in light influence your mood, sleep and energy, and when Winter tiredness might be something more.
- The difference between wintering and burnout, and why understanding which one you’re experiencing matters.
- A gentle five-minute reflection to help you listen to what this season might be asking of you.
The Biology Behind Wintering
Wintering isn’t just a nice metaphor either. Andrew Huberman, the neuroscientist, talks a lot about this exact shift, the way our bodies quietly track the seasons through the light reaching our eyes, melatonin rising as the days shorten and easing off again as they lengthen.
Most of us feel some version of that, a bit less energy, a slightly flatter mood, without anything actually being wrong. For a smaller group it becomes something more, the National Institute of Mental Health’s own research on Seasonal Affective Disorder points to that same seasonal light shift disrupting serotonin specifically in people with the condition, and it’s genuinely treatable, not a personality flaw.
It’s also worth knowing this isn’t the same thing as burnout, even though the two can feel remarkably alike from the inside. Put simply, wintering is your body responding to less light, burnout is your capacity responding to too much demand for too long. Burnout comes from ongoing, unmanaged stress, a job or a responsibility that’s simply outpaced what you’ve got left to give. What I’ve just described is driven by something else entirely, the daylight actually reaching your eyes, and it tends to ease as the days lengthen again regardless of what’s happening at work. They can genuinely turn up together, but they’re not the same thing, and it’s worth knowing which one you’re actually dealing with.
Signs You Might Be Wintering
A season of wintering rarely announces itself, instead it tends to show up as small things that feel a bit out of character:
- Cancelling plans and, for once, not drowning in guilt about it
- Needing more sleep than seems socially acceptable to admit to
- Losing the spark for things that usually light you up
- Craving warmth, simplicity, quiet, fewer inputs
- Feeling more emotionally raw than usual, closer to the surface
- Lying awake asking yourself uncomfortably big questions about your life
None of this means you’re falling behind, or something is necessarily “wrong with you”. It might simply mean you’re in a season, the same way a garden can be.
Why You Don't Need to Fix Your Winter Energy
There’s a strong societal pull to treat this state as a problem to be optimised away. More supplements, an earlier alarm, a new routine borrowed from someone else’s morning. However, notice how nothing in nature is trying to push through Winter?
The bear isn’t checking in with a productivity coach before it disappears into the den. The hedgehog isn’t apologising for curling up. Whatever is happening underground right now is happening because it needs to, not because it’s failed to keep up.
Modern life doesn’t leave much room for this. We’re expected to run at roughly the same output all year, and when our own energy dips the way every living thing’s does, it’s easy to read that as a personal failing rather than a season. You’re not a machine that should hold one constant setting. You’re closer to a tide, or a garden, or, if you’d rather a less flattering comparison, that temperamental indoor plant that you just haven’t worked out what it needs yet.
A Five-Minute Winter Check-In
No need to get this perfect… just find somewhere warm, coffee in hand if that’s your thing, and sit with these for a few minutes.
There’s decent research behind why a small, repeated check-in like this actually helps rather than just feeling nice. Harvard behavioural scientists have studied what happens when people build a short ritual around a stressful or uncertain moment, and found it genuinely lowered anxiety and gave people a stronger sense of control, even in people who didn’t believe the ritual would do anything at all. The structure itself seems to be doing the work, regardless of whether you buy into it.
What in me actually feels like Winter right now? Not the intellectual answer, the felt one. Is it tiredness? Withdrawal? A heaviness in the chest? A need for more space than you’re currently giving yourself?
If this part of you were a creature, what would it be doing? A hedgehog curled tight. A bear gone quiet in the den. A very unmotivated sloth with good intentions. There’s no wrong answer, just notice what comes.
What is this part of you actually trying to protect? Wintering is rarely random. Something in you is conserving energy for a reason, even if you can’t name it yet.
What would honouring that look like just for this week? Not a life overhaul, just something small and realistic:
- Fewer social plans, for now
- An earlier night, even by half an hour
- Saying no without a paragraph of explanation attached
- More slow, unstructured time
- Less scrolling, less noise, more simply being
What could you stop forcing, just for now? Not completely abandoning your responsibilities, but maybe lightening your grip on the ones that can wait.
When it's more than a season
Sometimes this passes on its own once the light starts coming back. Sometimes it doesn’t, and the flatness sticks around well past the season that brought it, or it’s been showing up every Winter for years without you ever really looking at why.
If that’s where you’re at, it’s worth bringing to a counselling space rather than waiting it out alone again. There’s often something underneath the tiredness worth understanding properly, especially if you’re someone who’s used to holding things together for everyone else, whether that’s clients, a team, a family, or a business that doesn’t stop just because you need to.
A final thought
Winter isn’t asking you to become less, it’s asking you to get quiet enough to hear what’s actually there. Remember to pause… withdraw… and restore. Spring will eventually come whether you rush toward it or not.
Key Takeaways
- Wintering is a natural response to the quieter rhythm of the season, not necessarily a sign that something is wrong.
- Seasonal changes in daylight can affect mood, energy and sleep, making it normal to feel more inward during Winter.
- Wintering and burnout can feel similar, but they are not the same. Understanding the difference can help you respond with greater compassion and choose the support you actually need.
- Gentle rituals and regular check-ins can help you listen to what this season is asking of you, rather than rushing to fix it.
- Sometimes the most important growth happens beneath the surface. You don’t have to bloom in every season.
Meet The Author
Amy Doyle
Amy is a Holistic Counsellor who helps her clients move from this idea that they are broken or missing pieces of their own puzzle, to owning their story, claiming back all parts of themselves and merging together as one team to allow them to rest and be in their deepest expression.
References
- Brooks, A. W., Schroeder, J., Risen, J. L., Gino, F., Galinsky, A. D., Norton, M. I., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2016). Don’t stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 137, 71–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.07.004
- Huberman, A. (2024). Time perception & entrainment by dopamine, serotonin & hormones [Audio podcast episode]. Huberman Lab. https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/time-perception-and-entrainment-by-dopamine-serotonin-and-hormones
National Institute of Mental Health. (2025). Seasonal affective disorder. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/seasonal-affective-disorder
World Health Organization. (2019, May 28). Burn-out an “occupational phenomenon”: International Classification of Diseases. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases
If you loved this article please feel free to share this on your favorite social page
Inner work tips and tools
Sign up to our newsletter, no spam, just free helpful advice for life-harmony seekers.
We respect your privacy. We will never pass on your details. We promise.