The truth about Spring Fever

The vernal equinox ushering in the first day of spring on March 20 is symbolic of rebirth and new beginnings when the barren landscape comes alive with flora and fauna.

The term “spring fever” is associated with warmer days, wild flowers, and in some areas rolling green hills, as well as lazy days in idleness. But why would such a seemingly contradictory term transform modern folk into blissful contemplation?  In previous centuries, however, bliss was not the first consideration upon the arrival of spring.

Tales about the maladies of winter that thinned the blood were remedied in spring by partaking  strange brews like sulphur and molasses.  The medicinal effect of drinking the liquid would supposedly thicken the blood.  Rural remedies included some from the Farmer’s Almanac advising readers to drink sassafras tea and rhubarb mixtures to cleanse the body of winter’s ills.

Modernity, however, has a different perception of spring fever.  As the days are longer and warmer, the tendency is to gaze out a window with longing to be anywhere except sitting at a desk inside.  Is this just a myth, or is it real phenomenon?

Two University of North Carolina medical professionals believe that spring fever is a real condition.

“Spring fever is a term that describes the physical and psychological symptoms associated with the ending of winter and the coming of spring. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn said, ‘When you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!’”

Finn’s emotional ambiguity in spring speaks to the feelings of wanting to be anywhere except where you are.  Anyone who has worked in an office all day can bear witness to experiencing spring fever.

In terms of a biorhythm, the condition from March-April refers to an increase in energy, vitality, and for some an increase in sexual urges. 

The researchers believe it is hormonal with an increase in serotonin.  This hormone depends on daylight and is characterized by feelings of well-being.  Conversely melatonin responsible for sleepiness decreases.

The advent of spring is also responsible for bursts of endorphins telling us all is right with the world, and the hormones associated with urges like testosterone and estrogen.  

Measuring the effects of spring fever is juxtaposed with seasonal affective disorder, which is the opposite of spring fever.  People who experience low energy and moodiness, particularly in the northern hemisphere, are afflicted with this disorder.

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 “We know from studies of big populations of people that the incidence of depression goes up in the fall and winter,” says Dr. Thomas Koonce, associate medical director at the UNC Family Medicine Center. “And we think that that's affected mostly by decreased sunlight hours.”

The truth then about spring fever is that it exists because we can compare it to its darker relative seasonal affective disorder present in the dark days of winter. 

Poets have been describing spring fever for centuries without actually saying “spring fever” from Virgil to W.S. Merwin.  One poet, however, captures the enigma of the vernal equinox in a mystery.  E.E. Cummings challenges the “usual” and draws us into his poetry of inferences. 

He describes spring as a “perhaps hand,” and indeed it is like an invisible hand of possibility beckoning us to be somewhere else in the ether, whether it’s a balcony, a porch, a vegetable patch or a faraway place we have never been.  It’s your journey—he is merely the gentle conductor.   

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
Out of Nowhere) arranging
A window, into which people look (while
People stare
Arranging and changing placing
Carefully there a strange
Thing and a known thing here) and
Changing everything carefully

Resources
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1506/spring-fever-real.html
http://www.poets.org/text/poems-spring

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