Didn’t expect to be posting another comment, as I visit only infrequently but this one resonated with me. For me, I tend to notice that August-October are productive and energetic, but it’s November when the blues kick in, or things start happening. I also do tend to see this month as a “bellwether” for the year ahead. Sometimes issues that arise in November (even something like sleeping badly) stick around (albeit on and off) until well into the following spring (though never during my university days in my experience). It’s rarely dreadful, and I have to all intents and purposes been able to live a perfectly normal life – in that sense I am fortunate – but there is enough of an impact for me to personally notice it now.

Likewise, I only recognised this recently (4-5 years ago) but, thinking back, it probably goes back much longer and I just hadn’t really noticed, partly because it hadn’t affected me so overtly (it’s not as though every November has been unrelenting misery!).

Reasons? I do think the clocks going back and the nights getting longer are contributory factors; less natural light! Also, I wonder if there is an “internal body clock” element; August is usually still the summer break in England, and September and October the start of a new year, though there is maybe a cycle of mental and physical replenishment followed by applying that energy to a new term, which repeats over time even though I’m no longer in academia. November then gets dark and accumulated tiredness plus the grim reality of the term sets in.

Finally, and I appreciate this is a grossly unfashionable view, I wonder if this is partly astrological. This thinking was triggered by one particularly low winter (though, again, it could have been worse!) where my material circumstances had not changed one iota but my behaviour and response to things changed quite a bit. It made me think that this was not at all rational and that, somewhere out there, things were happening and balances of probability were tilting to influence my change in mood.

Anyway, essay over. Hope some of this is helpful, or thought-provoking, and all the best with the challenges you face! Thanks for the tip on physical fitness; my knee’s been playing up so not sure it’s an option for me right now but the benefits of it are well documented.