It's fall. Let's get cozy!

Marielle Segarra opens the episode with a small but telling story: jet-lagged at 5 a.m. after a trip to Poland, she lit candles in the dark and sat awake with the covers over her legs. That simple act of intentionally embracing the darkness, she says, transformed her experience of the season. "When you light candles with the intention of embracing and celebrating the darkness, it actually has a profound impact on your experience and changes the meaning of winter darkness." The episode then draws on psychologists, chefs, and authors to offer five practical strategies for making fall and winter genuinely enjoyable — not just bearable.

Transition your space, clothes, and diet

Psychologist Carrie Liebowitz, author of How to Winter, suggests that we can reorient our attention away from what's unpleasant about cold weather by deliberately switching our surroundings and routines toward what we do enjoy. Bring out the flannel sheets and velvet curtains. Dig into your cold-weather wardrobe — the leather jacket, the lace-up boots, the leg warmers. And change what you eat: a warm breakfast instead of cold cereal, hot tea or coffee instead of iced. "All of these things reorient my attention from the negative things about the cold and the dark and the wet to the things that I enjoy when the temperature drops."