“Boxes of light” are being used to help people who struggle with low winter mood while living in one of Scotland’s darkest communities as part of a wider research initiative to support the million-plus sufferers of seasonal affective disorder across Britain.
Residents of the Orkney Islands have been able to borrow a Wintering Well Box from their library since the clocks went back in October, with the kits already proving “super popular” according to Sue House, an assistant librarian at Orkney Library – the oldest public library in Scotland and coincidentally an online sensation, thanks to its goofy social media presence.
“With only six hours of daylight in wintertime there’s a growing awareness there are some very positive things you can do for yourself,” says House, who talks through the constituent parts of the box – a therapeutic lamp to help counteract the negative effects of low light levels on mental health and a guidebook with tips on simple indoor and outdoor activities to develop a new winter routine, as well as access to free online resources.
House especially likes the sky frame that comes with the kit: “You hold it up to the clouds and it helps you focus on what light is available.”
Sunset is expected at 3.30pm on the day that Erika Copland, a community link practitioner with Orkney GPs, speaks to the Guardian. While the Orkney Islands enjoy extended daylight during the summer months, winter brings grey, wet and miserable weather, she says. “It’s that feeling of being enveloped by the darkness, especially when the rain is battering against the window. You don’t feel like going out, and it does bring your mood down.”
There’s a waiting list for the boxes, which are also available in more remote areas from the mobile library van, known locally as Booky McBookface. “The way things work in Orkney is very much word of mouth, so we’re hoping more people will hear about it and be better able to cope through the winter,” says Copland.
The development of the Wintering Well boxes is part of a UKRI-funded research project, Living with Sad, led by Prof Hester Parr of the University of Glasgow. It follows a successful pilot further south in East Dunbartonshire libraries last year.
Feedback from those box borrowers was effusive – people felt more able to start their days thanks to the kit, and more than half changed their daily routines to include walking in daylight hours and spent more time noticing seasonal changes in nature and in the sky above them. Staff noted that Winter Well users also got excited about other library facilities.
Sad is a historically contested condition, says Parr. It was given its own diagnostic category in 1987, which was later removed, with a continuing critical discussion about whether it exists on its own or as a subset of depression.
Beyond this, however, there is a clear social recognition of how winter light affects individuals, she says. “The public absolutely understand this experience and recognise what it means: that we are all of us, obviously, affected by light.”
The light boxes are designed specifically so that people are “not just passively receiving light but creatively engaging with it”, adds Parr, arguing that coping with Sad “depends on the attitude that comes with the latitude”.
“People in Scandinavian countries tend to have different attitudes towards winter because they’ve had to, embracing winter light and embracing their relationship with the season.”
Ultimately Parr would like to see these boxes of light in every public library, given how these buildings can be important health and wellbeing hubs, particularly in rural areas. “We plan to take over the world,” she says brightly.
