Why do we feel better outside than inside?

Human beings, like every other animal on this planet, are naturally meant to live outdoors, in nature.

Of course, all animals need shelter.

We humans have simply taken the idea considerably further than most.

We build houses to protect ourselves from wind, rain and cold, even the sun. We sleep there, eat there and spend time with family and friends. How much space a family needs varies considerably, and most of us find something reasonably suitable. Some people, however, seem to live in houses so large that they practically need a GPS to find their spouse.

Then we spend much of the rest of our lives indoors as well.

We go to school indoors.

Many of us work indoors.

We eat indoors, watch television indoors and increasingly communicate with the world outside through the internet without actually going out into it.

Yet somehow it has always seemed more natural to me to be outside.

Perhaps that is one reason I love the four seasons.

The Seasons of a Human Life

In Iceland, as in many northern countries, it is impossible not to notice the seasons.

Elsewhere in the world, things are different.

In Thailand, for example, the seasons are nowhere near as distinct. There is a rainy season, but not the same dramatic cycle of trees losing their leaves, winter taking over and everything suddenly coming back to life in spring.

What we Westerners regard as pleasantly warm weather in Thailand in January can seem rather cold to people who actually live there, particularly in poorer regions such as Isan.

I used to find it slightly strange when my wife sent warm clothes from Iceland to her mother in Isan.

Warm clothes.

From Iceland.

To Thailand.

Then I visited Isan myself in January and found myself putting on a jacket in the evening.

Temperature, like so many other things, perhaps depends largely on what you are used to.

In recent years, the seasons have increasingly made me think about the cycle of a human life.

Spring is childhood.

Everything appears. Everything grows. The world seems to be starting up.

Then comes summer, when everything is in full bloom. Perhaps that is not such a bad comparison with those years when we are grown, healthy and fully occupied with living our adult lives.

Then comes autumn.

I am probably somewhere around there myself now.

But autumn is by no means a bad season.

Quite the opposite.

The colours change. The landscape changes and the northern lights return. The beauty is still there, just different.

Eventually winter comes, but I will leave the reader to complete that particular metaphor.

Nature goes dormant until another spring and another beginning arrives.

Still, I cannot talk about Icelandic winter without mentioning one of my favourite things: swimming outdoors on a winter evening in a warm Icelandic swimming pool, or sitting in a hot tub in the darkness, perhaps with snow falling around me.

There are worse ways to spend the winter of one's life.

Weather Gets Into Us

I have always been unusually sensitive to weather.

I can almost feel when a low-pressure system moves over Iceland.

Perhaps that sounds slightly ridiculous, but changes in the weather seem to affect both my energy and my mood.

I remember once, when I was just over twenty, falling asleep in the middle of the day. The weather was reasonably good. For some reason, I simply could not keep myself awake.

I slept for almost twenty-four hours.

When I woke up, the weather was reasonably pleasant again.

I had, however, managed to sleep through an absolutely ferocious storm. On the evening news I saw cars that had been blown around and buildings damaged by the wind.

Apparently my body had decided there was no reason to participate.

Sunshine has the opposite effect.

It can be the middle of winter or the middle of summer, but when the sun suddenly appears, something seems to lift with it.

I even sometimes think I can feel a difference when there is a full moon.

That, admittedly, may be complete bloody nonsense — or simply superstition.

When the World Wakes Up Again

One of the great pleasures of spring is watching life return.

At my summer house I can follow it almost from day to day.

One branch begins to change.

Then another.

The buds appear.

The leaves unfold.

Suddenly the landscape that seemed almost dead a few weeks earlier is alive again.

In recent years, this seems to happen earlier than I remember, and perhaps that is another small sign of our changing climate.

I have planted a great many trees around my summer house.

Some people probably think I have taken this slightly too far.

They may be right.

But I think there is a reason for it.

When I was a child and teenager, there were remarkably few trees in Iceland. Trees were almost something I associated with foreign countries.

Perhaps I have been compensating ever since.

In recent years I have even planted apple and pear trees. So far they have survived the Icelandic winters, although they are still too young to bear fruit.

I get an extraordinary amount of pleasure simply from watching these things grow.

Perhaps there is something calming about planting something that has absolutely no interest in your timetable.

Every Season Has Its Own Light

Every season has its own character.

Spring brings anticipation.

Summer brings the light and those peculiar Icelandic days when darkness almost disappears, sometimes called the midnight sun.  People who move to Iceland sometimes struggle with the almost continuous daylight of summer. I remember that when the American military was still stationed here, some of the windows in their accommodation were covered with aluminium foil during the brightest summer months.

Autumn brings its colours, the northern lights return and you sense that another part of the year is beginning.

Then winter comes and the darkness can affect your mood.

The days become short, but a beautiful winter day can still be magnificent. Snow, clear air and people skiing or simply enjoying being outdoors remind us that winter is not merely something to endure.

Iceland can be a rather confusing place for the internal clock.

Perhaps that constant change is part of what I love about it.

There is always something coming next.

Christmas — although that time of year was celebrated long before Christianity reached Iceland, around the winter solstice when the days finally begin to lengthen again.

New Year.

Spring.

Summer.

The next period of light.

At my age there may not be quite as many occasions during the year that produce the same wild anticipation they once did.

Perhaps one day I will be old enough to say what was supposedly said by an old man: that he had reached the age when he looked forward to Christmas more than sex.

Christmas came more often.

Perhaps We Still Belong Outside

There are good reasons why we built ourselves comfortable houses.

I certainly have no particular desire to move back into a cave.

But I sometimes wonder whether we forget how much of our biology was shaped long before offices, televisions, smartphones and central heating existed.

After a good day outside, I usually feel different.

Calmer.

Pleasantly tired.

I often sleep better.

And I don't think everything needs to be measured before we are allowed to notice it.

Sometimes it is enough simply to recognise how we feel.

I love Iceland and all the variations the seasons bring.

I would not want to lose them, although, like many others, I do feel a touch of the winter blues during the darkest months.

That reminds me of an exceptionally bright and good friend from my medical school days who became fascinated by the effects of sunlight.

During our third year we faced one of the most difficult examinations of the course — pharmacology, if I remember correctly. Quite a few students failed it.

We had three weeks to prepare.

The rest of us sat indoors studying late into the evening.

What did he do?

He booked a three-week package holiday somewhere sunny and studied on the beach.

As I remember it, he came back and got the highest grade.

He later continued his interest in different forms of light designed to mimic sunlight and eventually became a psychiatrist.

Perhaps he understood something the rest of us didn't.

It regularly occurs to me that spending the period from early January until the middle of April somewhere farther south, where the sun makes a more regular appearance, might not be such a bad idea if circumstances allow.

Plenty of older people already do exactly that.

Perhaps you don't have to experience every single day of every single season to be allowed to say you love them all.