The change of seasons brings more with it than just a shift in the weather products that you need to be using. Your body begins to shift itself in response to the weather. Winter’s short, dark days slowly give way to longer, sunnier days that bring with them a burst of new life. Most people look forward to spring. The return of a vibrant world is enough to bring a smile to people’s faces and get them moving again after the lethargy and dreariness of winter. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always play out exactly the way we’d like. Some people experience different symptoms of either a condition or psychological response to the shift in the weather known as “spring fever”. If it exists, it isn’t really a disease in the way you are likely used to thinking, but it might still be something you experience.

Energized or Depleted
Interestingly, spring fever is considered to manifest differently depending on the person. Psychologically speaking, most people begin to feel more mentally energized the coming of spring. It makes us happier and more inclined to interact with others and enjoy their company. It is a marked change from winter where many of us simply withdraw into our homes and make safe, warm nests to ward off the cold and damp. This extra mental burst is viewed as spring fever by some, but the flip side is that people suffering from depression and anxiety may actually feel worse. The mental energy begins to push too many buttons and starts piling stress onto them. In turn, they begin to feel more depleted and find greater difficulty doing things until their body reaches an equilibrium again.

Get Up And Move
Many people also experience what is called spring fever as more physical energy as well. People need to get up and do things instead of remaining in their homes. A lot of people start new exercise routines in spring as a result. It’s a general sort of restlessness that gets to everyone. The need to do things means people are also more inclined to put energy towards their interpersonal relationships and start organizing things to do with greater frequency. You might be particularly interested in how spring cleaning and spring fever seem related. That impulse to clean and do something creates spring cleaning. That’s what a lot of people view as another symptom of the energy brought along with spring fever. These multiple layers of energy help most people get beyond their winter funk and start living again as spring progresses more and more towards summer.

A Little Less Drowsy
You might also notice that spring makes it a tad harder to sleep. This is actually related to the growing availability of sunlight. Sunlight plays an important role in our body’s well-being by triggering the production of some things without our body and slows the production of other things. One of the things that slows down in production is melatonin. This hormone is produced as part of keeping your body in rhythm with the amount of sunlight available. In winter, more of it is produced and leaves us feeling lethargic and less inclined to do anything. Spring signals your body to start cutting back on the production and in turn, makes you feel like you need a little less sleep than you did during the winter. This may also play a crucial role in the other “energized” symptoms people associate with spring fever.

Spring fever definitely isn’t a disease, but it may very well be a collection of things that happen to your body as winter begins to give way to spring. The extra energy and happiness is a welcome change from the dark days of winter. It doesn’t always improve things for everyone though. You should keep an eye on friends and loved ones taking the change in seasons a bit hard and help them cope if they’re having a difficult time. Sooner or later the energy of the changing seasons should hopefully settle into them as well and help them get moving too.