There’s a specific kind of betrayal that happens when you leave your evening class and are met with complete darkness. Upon checking your phone, you realize that it’s only 5 p.m. and the sun is already gone. Not setting. Gone. Vanished. Fully clocked out for the day. It feels like you went to class in a different time zone than when you stepped out. Winter daylight savings feels like a personal attack on college students as it drains not only a sense of time, but also motivation, willingness and energy to push through the rest of the day.
As if college life wasn’t already hard to operate with unrealistic schedules, minimum sleep and tons of classes and social events, winter provides the best way to support us by making the coziest environment right when it’s peak lock-in time. For most people, as soon as the day gets dark, motivation crashes. Not “drops.” Crashes — straight to the ground with a thud.
Productivity decreases and your brain switches to a low-power mode, even though the day has barely gotten halfway. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the University of Utah Health, sunlight definitely plays a role in determining your moods. The decrease in light exposure affects your circadian rhythm, or your internal body clock, which relies on tracking light to keep a 24-hour cycle in check to regulate physical, mental and behavioral changes. In darker months, this can be thrown off because now our bodies are releasing more melatonin early on, which naturally makes us sleepy.
Mayo Clinic also states that due to the hormonal changes that occur with a change of seasons, people may feel moody and sometimes even depressed — particularly with Seasonal Affective Disorder, which is a type of depression linked to seasonal changes — making life at college especially difficult.
In addition to messing with our circadian rhythm, winter also messes with our extracurricular commitments and schedules. Club meetings are one of the winter’s cruelest jokes, because it feels weird walking about the campus at 7 p.m after it has been dark outside for so long. A night of “fun extracurriculars” feels less like a hobby and more like a punishment at that point.
The majority of the people who show up are either tired, half-awake or asking how it’s only 7 p.m. Meetings go by quietly, as people try to stay focused and pretend to care while internally fighting to keep their eyes open. No one wants to brainstorm or be enthusiastic in group meetings since it feels like 2 a.m., even though it’s not even dinnertime.
Speaking of dinnertime, that’s a whole other casualty of early sunsets. Eating at 5 p.m. feels too early, but waiting until 8 p.m. feels way too long. This is mind-boggling because you’re either eating dinner at an unreasonable hour or finding yourself snacking endlessly. However, your eating habits aren’t because you’re hungry, but because your body signals that it’s time to wind down soon. This behavior could start a cycle of potential health problems — binge eating and obesity to name a couple. To avoid this, it’s recommended to engage in physical activity, such as a short walk or a quick gym session, to help digestion and not build up fat.
Going to the gym would be possible if there were any motivation to step out of our rooms in the first place. During fall, working out after class felt reasonable — you finish up all your homework, eat at 8 p.m. and then hit the gym — it sounded like a perfect schedule. But now, just the idea of changing into gym clothes and leaving your warm room after sunset is laughable.
Although the gym is packed after class hours, the question still remains as to what motivates most people to step outside when their bodies are signaling “no, let’s go to sleep.” The darkness convinces you that rest is the only acceptable option, even though you started this year with your yet-again daily gym New Year’s resolution — which will get ruined by winter pretty easily in just a month into 2026.
Don’t worry, it isn’t just you that feels like you can’t meet your New Year’s goals; most of the University of California, Riverside’s (UCR) campus feels that way during these long winter nights. Many students are seen with caffeinated drinks to help keep them going for the next seven hours that are left. Everything feels heavier, quieter and slightly more exhausting than it has any right to be.
