There are spring fevers – but they are not directly related to sex hormones

Parship had 11 percent more registrations in the spring and even 17 percent more elite partners than in the fall. According to dating sites, the spring fever is certainly real. And scientists also confirm their existence. However, with different explanations than expected.

The public tenor is that particularly many sex hormones are released in the spring. “However, it is controversial whether there are actually seasonal fluctuations,” emphasizes Karsten Müssig of the German Endocrinology Society. “You have to think around the corner a bit.”

What this means concretely: It’s the fact that people are getting out and moving more and seeing life awaken around them that boosts libido, but not the season itself. “For example, if a man sports more again in the spring, he usually produces more testosterone,” explains the internist and hormone expert. “But that’s mainly because of the sport and only secondarily because of the spring.”

Women would also be affected by the fact that they often take the pill and are therefore permanently in a state comparable to pregnancy. “As a result, spring can hardly change your sex hormones,” explains Müssig.

Instead, the hormones serotonin and melatonin play a much bigger role in spring fever. The first is also called the feel-good hormone because of its mood-enhancing effect, while the second induces sleep.

As Peter Walschburger of the FU Berlin explains, the balance between the two is essentially determined by the innate clock for the day-night rhythm: the suprachiasmatic nucleus. “It’s actually deep in the brain,” says the biopsychologist. “But it adjusts its rhythm to external light conditions through special receptors in the eye.” For example, he ensures that as the days get longer, more serotonin and less melatonin are released.

The result: we feel more awake and alive, go through life more attentively and this can of course eventually lead to us becoming more receptive to erotic stimuli. According to a Forsa survey, about a third of Germans met their current partner in the spring. “But there is no evidence that a particularly high number of children are being fathered during this time,” Walschburger points out.

On the contrary. In Germany, ten percent more children are born in the spring than the annual average. Which, in hindsight, means that the “spring fever” actually culminates in midsummer. However, if the summer was extremely hot, the natal tree will not come out next spring. Because under the tropical heat, the libido of the Central European slackens.

On the other hand, spring leaves its traces all the more in a different direction. According to a study by the Hildesheim Wickert Institute, 54 percent of men and 60 percent of women suffer from spring fatigue. For Müssig, this phenomenon can be explained by the fact that our body can have problems in spring to adapt to the new situation after the weather-related inactivity in winter. “In addition, a vitamin D deficiency often builds up in the dark months, which can also manifest itself in lethargy and a weakening of the immune system,” says the doctor.

The Swiss chronobiologist Anna Wirz-Justice found that in spring the number of morning moods decreases by half, which actually speaks against the existence of spring fatigue. On the other hand, nervousness and psychosomatic complaints then increase sharply. The state of arousal of the vegetative nervous system is so high that it is no longer experienced as pleasant and can eventually turn into exhaustion – which sounds like spring fatigue.

However, in the case of sad or even depressed people, as biopsychologist Walschburger points out, it can be explained in another way: “When life everywhere wakes up and mood improves, it reinforces the impression that something is wrong with them.” Following the pattern: it starts everywhere, just not with me. And this feeling of being left behind depresses their mood even further. (aargauerzeitung.ch)