© Alena Koval
May 14, 2025
Margit Hiebl
- Mental Health
- Mind
Why do we have spring fever?
It fills poetry books, triggers emotional outbursts or surges of energy. But what’s really going on?
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© Alena Koval
May 14, 2025
Margit Hiebl
It fills poetry books, triggers emotional outbursts or surges of energy. But what’s really going on?
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Spring is like a party where you lose a bit of control. Finally, lightness returns. Life emerges from nothing. It's as if someone poured color into a black-and-white still image, pressed the Enter key, and turned on the speakers. You could hug the whole world.
Full of drive to tackle everything: from cleaning the house (spring cleaning!) to falling in love again (spring fever!). The feeling of a new beginning – something our ancestors also experienced. And for them, it was not just about quality of life, but survival, as winter supplies were dwindling.
The culprit, to return to the party image, is a cocktail of hormones that like to wear party hats. First and foremost, dopamine – something like a personal cheerleader, constantly motivating and driving us. Then there's norepinephrine – it does cause a bit of stress, but it's also an energy provider that keeps us alert and attentive. And serotonin – the mood booster that hands out rose-colored glasses.
Why are these particularly in party mood in spring? The main biological trigger is light. The increasing duration and intensity of light is transmitted via the retina of the eyes to the pineal gland – a conglomerate of nerve cells in the brain. This gives the signal to start the party by reducing melatonin production.
This makes us more awake and receptive to stimuli. Additionally, the production of sex hormones increases, which studies suggest no longer affects human reproduction. Civilizational advances like artificial light, heating, and modern contraceptive methods have evidently had an effect.
Even if goal orientation in terms of reproduction is not clearly demonstrable in humans today, the hormone power still provides partial spring awakening and butterflies in the stomach. According to researchers, however, external stimuli primarily contribute to more libido and willingness to flirt: It's warmer, we are more open and send out corresponding signals.
In earlier times, having offspring often timed for winter was more about the fact that there was less work on the fields then, allowing more attention to the offspring. Timing is still less strategic for many mammal species: Here, light clearly affects mating willingness. Also, many plants sprout in spring mostly due to light – they have a kind of light sensor.
How much light affects the mood is something everyone feels. Especially people who suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). This is because it is caused about 60 percent by a lack of light, which is considered a trigger for so-called winter depression. For comparison: In spring, there is a lux value of up to 70,000; in winter, on cloudy days, it is only about 3,500. This is just the light value that people need daily – and often you get even less because you spend more time indoors.
So is light a mood enhancer? Yes, but unfortunately this does not apply to all forms of depression. Because often, and this is the downside, the discrepancy between the perceived external and internal mood worsens the clinical picture. But even mentally healthy people can have adjustment difficulties – the so-called spring fatigue. Once the internal clock is reset – after about two to four weeks – it should disappear again.
Apart from hormones and light values: What makes the spring feeling? There are explanations or interpretations from artists of all genres. The list of poets overwhelmed by spring is long and reads like the who’s who of Romanticism: From Mörike’s Spring lets its blue ribbon, which flutters again through the air, to Goethe’s Easter Walk in Faust I.
Even on the canvas, spring feelings were expressed: In Botticelli's vision of Primavera the goddess Venus gathers colleagues in an orange grove to herald spring – from Flora, the goddess of plants, to Amor, who is already drawing the bow. Giuseppe Arcimboldo was inspired by spring for one of his anthropomorphizing still lifes – and created a portrait with a collage of blossoms and leaves.
Impressionist Claude Monet dedicated several delicate mood images to spring. Even Georgia O’Keeffe, a representative of American modernism, couldn't resist: In the painting Spring she lets her iconic giant flowers overrun her husband's photo studio. Spring is also gladly and timelessly interpreted in music.
In Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons the practiced ear hears in the spring section bird chirping, rustling leaves, spring storm, and shepherd dances. And with the text to Here comes the sun the Beatles were very close to the scientific explanation
The feeling of spring is multifaceted. In all interpretations, a feeling resonates: the desire for a new beginning – at any age. It's not for nothing that people talk about a second spring. And even if the charm of spring first makes itself known in the nose. A little tip: go to the city in the morning and to the countryside in the evening, as the pollen concentration is lowest there. Because you should not let spring fever be spoiled.
