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In short: Your body clock is set mainly by light. In winter the mornings are dark, the days are grey and we spend most of our time indoors, so the signals it gets become blurred, and you may feel sleepy in the morning, flat in the afternoon and wide awake at night. What helps is giving it clear signals again: daylight in the morning, regular meals, some movement, softer light in the evening and a calm, regular bedtime.
The alarm goes off and it’s pitch dark. Your body tells you, very clearly, that it’s the middle of the night. You drag yourself up, switch on the kitchen light, make a coffee and wait for your brain to arrive. By mid-afternoon you could curl up on the sofa. And then, at eleven at night, when you finally go to bed, you lie there feeling oddly awake.
Does that sound like your winter? Then your body clock is probably a little confused, and you can help it gently, with things you already have: the sky, your kitchen, your evenings. Let me explain how it works, and what I suggest when winter mornings feel like wading through fog.
What is my body clock, and why does it matter?
Deep inside your brain there’s a tiny master clock. It runs on a cycle of roughly one day and tells every part of you what time it is: when to feel awake, hungry, warm, sleepy. You may have heard it called your circadian rhythm. I like to think of it as the conductor of an orchestra. When the conductor keeps a clear beat, everything plays together. When the beat gets vague, the musicians start drifting.
What most people don’t know is that this clock needs resetting every single day, a bit like an old watch that runs slightly slow. What resets it, more than anything, is light reaching your eyes. Meals, movement and temperature help too, but light is the main signal.
Why does winter throw my body clock off?
Because in winter the light signal gets weak and muddled, from both ends of the day.
The mornings are dark. You wake up before the sun, and the first light your eyes see is a lamp in the kitchen. Indoor light is much dimmer than you’d think, and for your clock it barely counts as morning.
The days are grey and spent indoors. In summer you were in the garden, at the market, walking the dog in the sunshine. In winter many of us go from house to car to shop to house, and the clock gets very little daylight all day.
The evenings are bright. After dark, we switch everything on: ceiling lights, television, phone, the tablet in bed. To your clock, that looks a little like daytime, so sleepiness arrives later.
Put those three together and the message to your clock becomes: “not quite day, not quite night”. So you feel half-asleep in the morning and half-awake at night. Nothing is wrong with you. Your clock is simply missing its cues.
Why am I so tired in the morning in winter?
Two natural messengers follow your clock closely. The first is melatonin, often called the sleep hormone. Your body releases it when darkness falls, and it makes you feel drowsy and ready for bed. Light in the morning switches it off. When the morning is dark, it can linger, and you wake up feeling heavy and slow.
The second is cortisol. You may know it as a stress hormone, and it is part of how your body responds to pressure. But it also has a lovely everyday job: it rises naturally in the early morning to get you up and going. It’s your built-in wake-up call. Morning light helps that rise happen at the right time.
So on a dark morning, your sleep messenger lingers and your wake-up messenger is late. That’s the fog you feel.
Can what and when I eat help my body clock?
Yes, and this is where nutrition and rhythm meet. Your digestive system has its own little clocks, and they listen to when you eat. A proper breakfast tells your body “the day has started”, regular mealtimes help everything settle, and a big dinner close to bedtime keeps your body busy digesting when it would rather wind down.
When I work with someone who feels sluggish all winter, I always look at the shape of their eating day first. Very often it’s coffee for breakfast, a small lunch, a long gap, then a large late dinner. The body gets no clear “morning” and no clear “evening”. Moving more of the food into the first half of the day often helps energy, mood and sleep at once.
Morning coffee is one of life’s pleasures, and I won’t take it away from you. But caffeine stays with you for many hours, so a late-afternoon cup can still keep you alert at bedtime. And alcohol may make you sleepy, but it tends to make sleep lighter and more broken later in the night.
Does exercise help my body clock in winter?
Very much. Movement is another signal your clock listens to, and moving outside during the day gives it a double message: light and activity. Many people sleep more soundly on days they’ve been out walking.
It doesn’t need to be intense. A brisk walk in the morning or at lunchtime is perfect; on rainy days, some yoga or a little strength work at home. If very vigorous exercise leaves you buzzing at night, keep it for earlier in the day. I wrote more about finding movement you enjoy in Let’s talk about exercise.
Why do I feel low in winter, and when is it more than the winter blues?
Many of us feel a little flatter when the days are short. Less light, less time outside, less movement and fewer get-togethers can all pull the mood down. Some people notice they want to sleep more, crave sweet things and carbs, and feel less like seeing anyone. If that sounds familiar, I wrote about the eating side of it in The afternoon energy dip in autumn.
For some people it goes further. If you feel low for weeks, lose interest in things you usually enjoy, or find it hard to get through the day, please talk to your doctor. Seasonal low mood is real, and there is proper help for it. You don’t have to push through until spring.
What helps?
Here’s what I suggest when someone wants to feel brighter through the winter. You can start tomorrow morning.
1. Get daylight into your eyes in the morning
This is the most important one, so it comes first. As soon as you can after getting up, go outside, or at the very least sit right by a window. Even a cloudy winter sky is far brighter than any room in your house. Drink your tea on the doorstep with your coat on. Walk to the bakery for the bread. Let the dog out and go with it. No sunglasses for this little moment, and never look straight at the sun; just be out in the daylight.
Make it a walk if you can, and you’ve given your clock light and movement together. Indoors, sit near a window and open the curtains wide as soon as you’re up.
2. Give your days a rhythm
Your clock loves regularity. Try to get up at roughly the same time every day, weekends included, and eat your meals at roughly the same times. Have a real breakfast with some protein in it: eggs, yoghurt with walnuts and an apple, goat’s cheese on rye bread, or a bowl of overnight oats you prepared the night before. Make lunch a proper meal. And try to finish dinner a couple of hours before you go to bed, so your body isn’t still busy digesting when you lie down.
Winter is the season for warm, simple food: soups, stews, lentils, roasted squash, leeks, chestnuts. You’ll find ideas in Eating with the seasons, autumn guide.
3. Soften the light in the evening
Once it’s dark, let your home get darker too. Switch off the big ceiling lights and use lamps instead, the lower and warmer the better. Candles are lovely. Turn your screens down, or better still, put the phone away in another room for the last hour of the evening. Your clock reads all that bright light as “still daytime”, so the softer you make the evening, the clearer the message that night has come.
4. Build a calm bedtime routine
A little routine before bed tells your body the day is closing: a warm bath, a cup of herbal tea, a few pages of a book, some gentle stretches, tomorrow’s to-do list written down so it stops going round in your head. Go to bed at about the same time each night.
Keep the bedroom cool, quiet and dark: a cooler room helps your body temperature drop, which is part of falling asleep. Thick curtains or an eye mask help if there’s a streetlight outside. I wrote more about winding down in The power of an evening routine and about sleep itself in Let’s talk about sleep. If you fall asleep easily but wake in the small hours, I wrote about that in Waking at night in midlife.
5. Calm your nervous system before sleep
Stress keeps your body in alert mode, and alert mode and sleep don’t get along. A few minutes of slow breathing in bed, letting each out-breath be a little longer than the in-breath, is a quiet signal to your body that it’s safe to rest. In yoga we’ve known this for a very long time.
If you’d like something deeper, this is where autogenic training is wonderful. It’s a gentle relaxation method, done with your eyes closed, that teaches your body to switch off by itself, and many people find it helps them fall asleep. It’s best learned with a qualified teacher. I explain it in Autogenic training: more than just a relaxation technique.
What about wake-up lights and light boxes?
A wake-up light is an alarm clock that slowly brightens the room before your alarm goes off, a bit like an artificial sunrise. Many people find dark mornings gentler with one. It’s a nice option, but it doesn’t replace going outside.
Light boxes, or light therapy lamps, are much brighter and are sometimes used for seasonal low mood. I don’t recommend them myself, because whether one is right for you depends on your health. If you’re thinking about one, please talk to your doctor first, especially if you have an eye condition, a mood condition such as bipolar disorder, or take any medicine that makes you sensitive to light. The same goes for melatonin or any other sleep supplement: your doctor or pharmacist is the right person to ask.
What doesn’t help?
Long weekend lie-ins. A long lie-in shifts your clock later, and Monday morning feels even harder.
Skipping breakfast and eating most of your food late. Your body gets no clear start to the day and a busy evening.
Coffee in the late afternoon to get through the dip. It can still be keeping you awake at bedtime.
Bright screens in bed. The light and the scrolling both keep your brain switched on.
Try this for one week
For seven days, choose a wake-up time and keep to it every day, weekend included.
Within the first hour after you get up, spend a little time outside in the daylight: a walk, a cup of tea on the doorstep, a trip to the bakery. Then have breakfast.
When it gets dark, switch off the ceiling lights and use lamps. In the last hour before bed, put your phone in another room.
Each evening, write down two things in a little notebook: how you felt when you woke up, and how you felt at four in the afternoon. At the end of the week, read your notes with a cup of tea. Many people find their mornings start to feel lighter surprisingly quickly.
Frequently asked questions
What is the circadian rhythm in simple words?
It’s your body’s inner clock. It runs on a cycle of about one day and tells your body when to feel awake, hungry, sleepy and ready to rest, and it’s reset every day mainly by light.
How can I wake up more easily when it’s dark outside?
Get up at the same time every day, switch on soft light as you wake, and get outside into daylight as early as you can. Soft light and a regular bedtime the evening before make a big difference too.
Does a grey, cloudy day still count as daylight?
Yes. Even a cloudy winter sky is much brighter than the inside of your house, so time outside still sends your body clock a clear morning signal.
When should I talk to my doctor?
If you feel low for weeks, lose interest in things you usually enjoy, sleep very badly for a long time, or feel exhausted however much you rest, please see your doctor. And always talk to your doctor or pharmacist before trying a light therapy lamp, melatonin or any sleep supplement.
Would you like some help?
Light, meals, movement, sleep and stress all sit together in one rhythm, and that’s exactly how I like to look at them. I run group programmes in nutrition and health, such as Six Tuesdays in Montignac, where we work on the shape of your day as well as what’s on your plate. If you’d like to hear when the next group opens, write to me at hello@catherinepolet.coach.
If you’d rather work one to one, I coach online too. Book a free 20-minute call, tell me what your winter days look like, and we’ll see together how to make your mornings a little brighter.
About Catherine
I’m Catherine Polet, a holistic nutrition health coach, yoga and autogenic training teacher for more than 30 years, author and speaker. I help people find a way of eating and living that suits their own body, online in English, French, Spanish and German, and in person in Southwest France.
