Summertime Madness

Us humanfolk are prone to a bit of mild hibernation during the winter months; rugging up in jumpers, snuggling next to fires, guzzling mulled wine and gorging on carbs, Winter is a honey trap for idleness and battlefield of the SADs – also known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Many a psychology study has proved that the lack of sunlight through the winter months affects our mood, predominantly due to the imbalance of our brain’s chemicals melatonin and serotonin. Melatonin promotes drowsiness, which in darker months, is bountiful; while Serotonin affects mood, appetite and also sleeping patterns. A lack of sunlight can increase appetite, decrease energy and induce depression in more severe cases.

We need the sun, just like the plant-types do…

Basic Instinct

As we can’t much control the weather and the planet’s orbit, most of the year in Britain is spent not feeling quite as good as we could when we are engulfed by the sun’s glorious rays… Imagine the population’s delight as a whole, when the sun actually comes out and it is actually warm enough to take your jumper off!

All of a sudden our place of home is transformed into somewhere exotic, and foreign where people are suddenly, happy! The rose-tinted glasses of the sun’s rays produce a haze that not only changes the way we see things, but the way that we feel them.

Everybody changes, our attitude, our inhibitions and even our looks. We morph back into Homo sapiens where Beer good. Sun nice. Work bad. Grrr. The change in light and warmth has a profound effect on the Biology throughout the entirety of our world, it’s almost impossible not to react to that, and much more fun to!

Shed your winter skin

Primitive urges are thrust to the forefront of our minds; we forego what we are meant to do and strive for whatever it is that we want to do! The animal from within is released…

We become more body conscious due to the necessity to wear smaller items of clothing. Craving to look better through the wanton desire of sex appeal as summer increases the libido don’t you know!

Women become obsessed with the ‘bikini body’ and whatever pathetic fad diets are the fashion of the moment. I would know, as I just spent two days eating raw only and suffering with starvation and a sour mood to-boot, only to follow it through on day three with a couple of glasses of wine and a six packets of crisps in a beer garden. I’m not even sorry. It was totally worth it!

This impulsive behaviour is something that seems to take over everyone’s better judgement, like the sun is a commanding force that reduces our usual rational, responsible and reliable selves in to lazy, beaming alcohol enthusiasts.

Men

It’s not just us ladies that go loopy, guys adore the summer. The amount of times you hear “where do the hotties hide in winter,” increases as women derobe to reveal the flesh that was masked under an abundance of layers throughout every other day of the rainy and cold year. This makes the men-folk happy, and happiness is contagious don’t you know…

Guys also embrace preening regimes. Now I’m not one for the fake-tanned eyebrow plucked types, but I am thankful for the summer time embrace of the razor. Beards be gone! They might be nice to look at, all rugged and manly and so, but I’m not too keen on the red beard they give me; even if it’s just coming from a hug off a best mate.

Most fascinatingly is the magnetic awe men feel to the outdoor-flame-cooking-contraption. The cavemen like to get their burn on, and that isn’t just referring to the almost cult-like anti-suncream club that they appear to have blood sworn, but the intense impulse to incinerate by barbeque. Better than raw I assure you!

Adrenaline and testosterone levels are proven to rise in warmer climates which somewhat explains the draw to the Hunter Gatherer instinct. Me man, me kill animal, me make fire and burn animal and my naked torso. You Jane, you bring me beer.

Lifestyle

Interesting how their craving to cook plummets in winter… We can’t have it all, and summer does bring us a lot! Everything is simpler. Those strangers that used to scowl or even swear at you, now smile. It’s a phenomenal phenomenon that absolutely delights me. We all seem to have a lot more time for each other when it’s not pouring with rain or blowing an icy gale.

People venture outdoors, the beer gardens are rammed, the scent of barbeques fills the air, random music seems to come from everywhere, people crawl out of their windows on to shop-fronts, children are covered in ice-cream and mud, and generally everyone seems healthier, happier and more attractive whilst they are enjoying themselves.

Summer is about being carefree. Life doesn’t give you many opportunities to kick back with no worries and just enjoy your surroundings and the beauty that the world has to offer. Chilling out while drinking up the drugs that the sun provides gives you the reason to do so. Relax and enjoy life in exactly any way that you should see fit in the spur of the moment that the sun might shine this summer!