THE LONG DARK: In Antarctica, Scientists Enter an Extreme State of ‘Psychological Hibernation.’

Some of the world’s most important science is conducted in one of its most inhospitable, hostile places. But not without a cost, new research reveals.

A new long-term analysis of researchers stationed in Antarctica sheds new light on a psychological phenomenon very few of us ever have to experience: a unique coping mechanism, triggered when people are confined in isolation within a dark and extreme physical environment for several months at a time.

This condition – known as winter-over syndrome – isn’t just something that faces scientists in Earth’s extreme polar regions.

People could also be susceptible in other exceptional kinds of prolonged confinement, researchers think, like during months-long missions travelling to (or stationed on) Mars, for example.

“Our findings could reflect a form of psychological hibernation,” explains one of the researchers behind the new study, psychologist Nathan Smith from the University of Manchester in the UK.

“Previous research has suggested that this is a protective mechanism against chronic stress, which makes sense – if conditions are uncontrollable, but you know that at some point in the future things will get better, you may choose to reduce coping efforts in order to preserve energy.”

Zzzz.