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Living in Iceland · Health

The dark winter: what it does, and what helps

People who move here prepare for cold and prepare for money. Almost nobody prepares for the dark. From November to February you can leave home before the light and come back after it, day after day, and slowly stop doing the things that keep you well. This page says plainly what happens, what the official advice here is, and where to ask for help before it becomes serious.

Guided by a resident. Written by someone who has lived through Iceland’s systems, with help from people who pointed the way, and checked against official sources.

Last verified 7 September 2026 · Embætti landlæknis (island.is/d-vitamin)

The words you will hear

  • Skammdegi (say: SKAM-day-yee) — the dark season. Literally the short days.
  • Skammdegisþunglyndi (say: SKAM-day-yis-THUNG-lin-dee) — winter depression: low mood that comes back each year with the dark and lifts in spring.
  • Lýsi (say: LEE-see) — cod liver oil. The traditional Icelandic source of vitamin D, sold in every supermarket, as liquid or as capsules.
  • Heilsugæsla (say: HAYL-su-gyes-la) — your local health centre. This is where you start with any health worry, including your mood.

What actually happens to the light

Around the shortest days in December, Reykjavík has roughly four to five hours between sunrise and sunset, and even then the sun stays low and often behind cloud. Further north it is shorter again. If you work or study normal hours indoors, you can go a week without seeing real daylight unless you plan for it.

The other half of this is how fast it turns around. From late January the daylight grows by several minutes a day, and by April the evenings are long. The hard stretch is real, and it is also short and dated. It helps to know that the worst weeks are usually late November to late January, not the whole winter.

The wind and the wet matter as much as the dark. Plan for both, or you will simply stop going outside.

Vitamin D: the one piece of official advice everyone here follows

The Directorate of Health (Embætti landlæknis) recommends more vitamin D in Iceland than the general Nordic advice, for one reason: the country sits far enough north that sunlight cannot make vitamin D in the skin for a large part of the year. The Icelandic recommended daily amounts are:

  • Babies from 1–2 weeks old and children aged 1–9: 10 micrograms (400 IU) a day. Babies are given vitamin D drops.
  • Ages 10–70: 15 micrograms (600 IU) a day.
  • Age 71 and older: 20 micrograms (800 IU) a day.

You can get it from cod liver oil, capsules, tablets or a spray, and partly from oily fish and foods with vitamin D added. Any pharmacy or supermarket sells all of these. The official page is here.

One caution from the same source: these amounts are meant to keep a normal level, not to correct a real deficiency. If a blood test shows your level is very low, higher doses for a period may be right — but that is decided with a health professional, not by guessing in a shop.

Tiredness, or something more?

Feeling slower and heavier in the dark months is common and is not an illness by itself. It is worth taking seriously when it lasts, and when it changes how you live. Signs that this is more than a dull week:

  • Low mood or emptiness most of the day, most days, for two weeks or more.
  • No energy for things you normally enjoy, and cancelling plans again and again.
  • Sleeping much more than usual and still waking tired, or not being able to sleep at all.
  • Eating much more or much less, especially craving heavy food all winter.
  • Struggling to concentrate at work or in class, or making mistakes you would not normally make.
  • The same pattern arriving every autumn and lifting every spring.
  • Thoughts of harming yourself, or that others would be better off without you.

The last one is not something to wait out. Call 112, or the free helpline 1717, straight away.

What helps, in the order people actually manage it

  • Take vitamin D daily, all winter, at the amount above. It is cheap, it is the standard advice here, and it is the one thing everyone can do.
  • Get outside in the middle of the day, even for twenty minutes. Daylight at noon is worth far more than a lit room in the evening.
  • Fix one repeating thing in the week that gets you out of the house: a class, a pool, a choir, a language café, a shift with other people. One fixed thing beats five good intentions.
  • Keep sleep and wake times steady. Dark mornings make it very easy to drift, and drifting makes everything else harder.
  • Buy the clothes for the weather early — a proper windproof outer layer and shoe spikes (mannbroddar) — so bad weather stops being a reason to stay in.
  • Warn people at home that you will be quieter this season, and arrange fixed calls rather than waiting until you feel like it.

Light therapy lamps are widely used in the Nordic countries for winter low mood. If you are considering one, ask at your health centre first, especially if you have an eye condition or take medication.

Where to ask for help

You want to talk to someone tonight, in English

What actually happens
Winter evenings are long, and the health centre is closed. People wait, and the wait itself makes it worse.
What to do
Call 1717, the Red Cross helpline. It is free, open day and night, anonymous, and answered in English as well as Icelandic. There is also a chat on the same site.

This has lasted weeks and is affecting work or study

What actually happens
Winter low mood is treatable, and it is a normal reason to see a doctor here. Left alone it can cost you a job or a school year.
What to do
Book at your local health centre and say clearly that the appointment is about your mood. Ask for an interpreter when you book if that is easier — you have the right to be understood. Your health centre is the door to further support in the public system.
The common trap
Waiting until spring "because it will pass anyway". If it comes back every year, that is exactly the pattern a doctor wants to hear about.

You are new, alone, and the dark is the loneliest part

What actually happens
For most newcomers the problem is not the weather itself. It is being far from everyone who knows you, in a season when nobody is outside.
What to do
Put one regular meeting point in your week before December. Where to meet people in Iceland lists the places that run all winter, including Red Cross activities, libraries and swimming pools.

Where this fits

Deciding whether to come? Before you move explains why a winter visit tells you more than a summer one. New here? Starting out in Iceland.

This page is general information, not medical advice. In an emergency call 112.

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