{"id":30514,"date":"2016-01-27T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/?p=30514"},"modified":"2016-01-28T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2016-01-28T18:32:10","slug":"the-psychology-behind-a-snow-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/psychology-behind-a-snow-day-0127165","title":{"rendered":"The Psychology Behind a Snow Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Family<\/a>I used to have this goal for my life in which I would eventually get to a place where I loved school or my job so much that I didn\u2019t desperately hope for a snow day during the long winter months. In the past, I would obsessively check the weather forecasts looking for signs of enough snow that school or work would be called off. I had difficulty sleeping the evening before a forecast indicating such a possibility. I would get up and look out the window throughout the night to check if the pace of accumulation was quick enough to cause administrators to foresee a “snowpocalypse,” make the right call, and cancel all school and work activities. My emotions<\/a> felt as if they were at the mercy of the snow, which is indeed an unreasonable thing to allow oneself to be controlled by. Did I just hate school or work that much<\/em>, or was there something less dramatic and more innocent going on?<\/p>\n

Often, a snow day is a child\u2019s dream come true. Depending on where you\u00a0are\u00a0in the world, it may be quite common, or it\u2019s possible you\u2019ve never even heard of a snow day if you live in a climate that is warm and mild. I grew up in Texas, where, unprepared for winter weather, school was called off for a bit of frost on the ground. When that happened, I\u2019d spend my day in the front yard trying to scoop up ice particles from the driveway to make the world\u2019s tiniest snowman (which was usually an epic fail). In much of the country, snow is commonplace during winter and schools build\u00a0snow days into their calendars to account for bad weather or unsafe travel conditions.<\/p>\n

\n\t

Find a Therapist<\/a><\/h2>\n\t
\n\n\t\t\t\n\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\tAdvanced Search<\/a>\n\t<\/form>\n<\/div>For those who live in states where snow is relatively common, does anyone other than me still experience the frenzied excitement of snow and, with it, the possibility of playing hooky?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m guessing I\u2019m not alone here. Snow days are interruptions to our routines, which may be a rare occurrence for some. Although some may not appreciate the disruption, for many of us, the monotony of responsibilities, the \u201cto-do\u201d lists that never get done, the expectation that work comes first, and the pressure of being \u201con\u201d at all times leaves us desperate for an unexpected reason to let it go. We go to work sick, or we stay up too late getting ahead on projects because our workloads exceed the 40 allotted hours. If we are sick and manage to stay home, we work from<\/em> home because technology says we can.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Snow days provide a great opportunity for a break because we can\u2019t control Mother Nature. It isn\u2019t our failing immune system (somehow our fault) or the failing immune systems of our families. It isn\u2019t our lack of being a \u201cteam player.\u201d It isn\u2019t a situation in which our colleagues question whether we drank too much last night and that\u2019s the real reason <\/em>we can\u2019t come to work. We have something tangible that everyone can bear witness to. When a snow day is called, the city is frozen and we all know it. No one can reasonably leave home without significant risk, and it isn\u2019t our fault.<\/em><\/p>\n

We look forward to days like this because we need them. We need moments in which we aren\u2019t in charge. We need moments where we can let go and allow something larger than ourselves to give us a break. As a population, we don\u2019t do this enough. We work longer and longer hours, we multitask ourselves into the ground, we do chores on our days off, we engage in endless errands to help make our lives run more smoothly, and we make appointment after appointment after appointment.<\/p>\n

We need moments where we can let go and allow something larger than ourselves to give us a break. As a population, we don\u2019t do this enough. We work longer and longer hours, we multitask ourselves into the ground, we do chores on our days off, we engage in endless errands to help make our lives run more smoothly, and we make appointment after appointment after appointment.<\/span>It can be difficult to take a break and do nothing, which is often forced when a snow day occurs. We may be sick from stress<\/a>, but it doesn\u2019t often make us quit doing. We may be exhausted and disconnected from those we love due to the demands of our busy schedules, but we may perceive that the world would fall apart if we don\u2019t keep going.<\/em> On the other hand, a snow day cannot be negotiated with. The blanket of white quiets the world and says, \u201cStop!\u201d We can\u2019t get out of the house to run errands, so we cook what we have in the cupboard, play board games if the cable goes out, and sleep when we\u2019re tired. We are often forced to just relax<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, peeking out the window all night and imploring the sky to save you from your busy schedule tomorrow, maybe it isn\u2019t so much that you\u2019re being silly or that you hate your job or hate school or you can\u2019t get a grip on your emotions. It could just be your body and mind<\/a> telling you that you need a break. I don\u2019t necessarily want to get to a place in my life where I don\u2019t long for breaks in the form of an unexpected snow day. Days like that help us remain grounded, healthy, and sharp. We need days where we can relax, even if we\u2019re forced, and allow the world to run without us. We need moments that allow us to reconnect with the feeling of quiet contentment and recognize that what we have around us in this moment is enough for this moment. It isn\u2019t likely that everything will fall apart in our absence, but perhaps more likely that everything may fall back into place.<\/p>\n

Let it snow.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hoping that your boss or school calls a snow day when bad weather strikes doesn’t mean you hate school or your job; sometimes it just means you need a break. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2990,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[542],"tags":[31,25,47],"class_list":["post-30514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-articles","tag-psychotherapy-practice","tag-psychotherapy-issues","tag-self-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2990"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodtherapy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}