Frühlingsmüdigkeit kann nicht empirisch nachgewiesen werden: Eine Studie zeigt, dass Frühjahrsmüdigkeit eher ein kulturelles als ein messbares biologisches Phänomen zu sein scheint

>The study was based on an online survey in which participants were contacted every six weeks for a year starting in April 2024. The researchers evaluated responses from 418 people. In the survey, participants stated how exhausted they had felt over the past four weeks. They were also asked about their sleepiness during the day and the quality of their sleep. The survey was repeated to cover different seasons.
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>At the start of the study, around half of the participants had stated that they suffered from spring fatigue. “This should also have been evident in the evaluation of the survey data,” says study leader Christine Blume. However, this was not the case.
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>**Less fit than desired**
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>“In spring, the days get longer quickly. If spring fatigue were a genuine biological phenomenon, it should become apparent during this transitional phase, for example because the body has to adapt,” says the sleep researcher. In the data, however, the speed at which the length of the day changed did not play a role in the participants’ exhaustion. Similarly, no differences were found between the individual months or seasons. 
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>The researchers interpret the discrepancy between subjective perception and the measured data as an indication that spring fatigue is more a culturally influenced phenomenon than an actual seasonal syndrome. Because there is an established term for this, many people pay more attention to how tired they feel in spring and interpret symptoms of exhaustion accordingly. So the phenomenon self-perpetuates again and again.
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>“In spring, we may also feel that we need to be more active and take advantage of the good weather. If we can’t bring ourselves to do so, our expectations and our subjective energy level can be very different,” says the expert. Explaining or even excusing this with spring fatigue comes in handy. “It’s an explanation that is completely accepted in society.”
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[No Evidence for Seasonal Variations in Fatigue, Sleepiness and Insomnia Symptoms: Spring Fatigue Is a Cultural Phenomenon Rather Than a Seasonal Syndrome – Blume – Journal of Sleep Research – Wiley Online Library](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jsr.70319)

Agreed, spring brings nice weather, sunny longer days…why put the energy into things you don’t enjoy, when you can do nothing and enjoy the weather. So maybe its both, cultural and biological.

Isn’t this confusing cause and effect? Spring is the time where the body has accumulated the most damage over winter from the reduction of sunlight exposure. Like, it has a measurable biological effect on people, so i don’t understand why they call it cultural. Spring is the time where people are *starting to feel better*, but the recovery is like…not instant.

Spring time is when everyone breaks up, at least in the Midwest. Cold is gone so you’re no longer tied to indoor stuff.

What the hell is Spring fatigue? I’ve literally never heard of this.

How can a cultural phenomenon be empirically proven?

The only spring fatigue I get is in the springs on my mattress from jumping on the bed in celebration of winter being over.

But seriously, maybe allergies?

I always joke that I have the opposite version of seasonal affective disorder where the bright sunny days of spring make be depressed.

Last week almost every day was cloudy and rainy, then the spring forward time jump yesterday, and an extremely sunny drive into work this morning really ground my gears.

Anyways, I always assumed this was part cultural, part biological, and a lot individual variation. I’m a night owl and vastly prefer fall, winter, and stormy spring/summer days.

Anecdotal, but the topic is weird, so bear with me. I’m from Central Europe, which gives context to climate and weather.

My wife wakes up with spring. She’s energized, she sleeps less, eats less, and can do more in the day compared to winter. She has no observable fatigue.

For as long as i can remember, April has been a pause month for me. I need a nap nearly every day. I’m prone to headaches, i’m quickly tired, irritable, i yawn all day. I tested everything i could – no issues in blood work, no allergies, nothing that could explain it. I feel similar fatigue when summer changes to fall, in the few weeks when there’s abrupt change from sunny and nice weather into more cloudy and windy.

I say ‚April‘ but it’s really about the first month or so of nicer spring weather. We had 15-20 C some days recently and i already feel like crap for a week. I haven’t switched to daylight savings yet, so it’s not that either.

I don’t think it’s related to any _specific_ weather. I like when it’s sunny and warm. After adjustment period, typically mid-May, i enjoy spring and summer until a similar familiar crash around October. I’m fine throughout winter – like most, i am more drowzy during cold and dark, but there is a huge difference between ‚winter time hibernation‘ and ‚change of season fatigue‘ to me.

I think it’s just about the change of everything around, and seemingly all at once. I love a walk in the park but in ‚April‘ it’s extremely draining; i like listening to and observing birds, but i come home feeling strong sensory overload.

I have three decades of empiric ‚evidence‘ for change-of-season fatigue.

My best guess is it’s related to autism / ASD spectrum, or AuDHD specifically. A huge change to everything around all at once is overwhelming, even if every bit of that change is welcome and pleasant on its own. The visuals outside change, the sounds change, the smells, how other people look and what they wear, what i wear, how i need to prepare to go out, how to plan clothes for a day when it’s -2 at 6 am but 15 at 4 pm, how energy levels of everyone around change and how to adjust to them, what new options are open how to spend time… i’m getting a headache just typing this out.

I never heard of this.

I wish there was an opposite of this study. Why some people, like me for instance, get so much energy and higher libido in the coming of spring? Even when I take vitamin D supplements during winter, spring still makes me go warp 10.

That sounds like an illness that only people who watch modern family have

For me it’s always just poor adjustment to Daylight Savings Time. My body doesn’t like the arbitrary forced shift of my circadian rhythm.

That’s what they said about chronic fatigue until they looked at the mitochondria.

First time I ever heard about this.