In Defense of Darkness: Why We Actually Need These Shorter Days

Every year, as the clocks turn back and daylight slips away earlier, the same sentiment resurfaces: seasonal depression season has begun. Social feeds fill with laments about darkness, cold, and the collective dread of losing the light.

But what if the dark isn’t the enemy? What if these shorter days so often treated like an inconvenience are actually an invitation?

What if fall’s dimness isn’t the start of something sad, but the space our souls have been craving to rest?

The Rhythm of Retreat

We’re conditioned to believe productivity equals worth. That if we’re not glowing, growing, or grinding, something’s wrong. But the natural world doesn’t live by that logic.

Every tree outside your window knows when to stop blooming. Every animal senses when it’s time to hibernate. Even the sun bows out early, trusting that the cycle will turn again. Yet humans resist the pause. We drag the energy of summer into every season, caffeinated and overstimulated, afraid to slow down.

But rest is not laziness, it’s rhythm. The shorter days aren’t punishment; they’re a reminder that the body and mind were never meant to operate in constant light. Darkness offers what brightness can’t: stillness, reflection, and repair.

The Science of Slowness

There’s actually something healing about these dim months. As daylight wanes, our bodies produce more melatonin, signaling it’s time to sleep earlier and longer. Our cortisol levels (the stress hormone) naturally lower, and our metabolism subtly shifts toward comfort and warmth.

Instead of fighting those signals, what if we listened? The darkness gives us permission to linger, to cook slower meals, to read more, to take our time waking up. In a world obsessed with the glow of screens and endless noise, shorter days might just be our annual dose of balance.

Light Within the Ritual

Of course, there’s a reason people struggle in the darker months. We miss light. We miss warmth. But maybe the answer isn’t to chase constant brightness, it’s to create our own version of it.

For some, that might be candles flickering on a cold morning. For others, it’s the hum of conversation in a coffee shop, steam rising from a mug as the sky stays gray. Coffee becomes more than caffeine—it’s light in liquid form.

There’s a reason we reach for it more in the fall and winter. It’s not just about energy; it’s about ritual. The act of brewing, pouring, and holding something warm becomes a daily sunrise we can summon ourselves.

Darkness can’t swallow that kind of light.

The Emotional Beauty of the Dim

Culturally, we’ve been trained to equate darkness with sadness, but in truth, there’s deep emotional value in it. Darkness slows perception, it makes sound sharper, scent stronger, thought clearer. It’s a creative space, a space for introspection.

Poets, painters, and philosophers have all known this. They worked in shadow because the shadow reveals what brightness can’t. Fall and winter remind us that we can’t stay in bloom forever, that decay and quiet are part of the same cycle that gives us spring.

The dark asks us to notice what’s still glowing.

The Gift of the Early Night

There’s something strangely comforting about walking home while the world has already gone quiet. The streetlights hum, windows glow, and life takes on a softer rhythm. It’s less about isolation, more about intimacy.

Shorter days make us seek connection differently through warm kitchens, shared dinners, long talks over coffee. The light might be scarce, but the moments of presence grow richer.

Reframing the Season

What if we stopped saying “I hate how early it gets dark” and started saying “I love how early it asks me to rest”?

What if, instead of chasing daylight, we embraced the darkness as something sacred, a built-in reset, a collective exhale before the year ends?

Maybe we’re not meant to resist the shift but move with it. Maybe the darkness isn’t closing in, it’s wrapping around us like a blanket, reminding us that rest is a form of resilience.

So light a candle. Pour something warm. Let the quiet come.

The days are shorter, yes, but maybe that’s how we finally find time to breathe.