If you’ve had a terrifying dream at night or felt emotionally drained after a long day of work, don’t worry – things will get better when you wake up in the morning. A study from the UK has found that generally people tend to perceive the world in a more positive light after waking up in the morning.
According to a report from The Guardian in the UK, mental health and overall happiness are essentially dynamic and can fluctuate over short and long periods of time. However, there has been limited research on how these factors change throughout the day, with most studies focusing on specific or limited groups.
In a study led by University College London, researchers sought to explore how time of day may be related to changes in mental health, happiness, life satisfaction, sense of purpose, and feelings of loneliness. They also wanted to investigate whether these correlations vary with dates, seasons, or years.
For this purpose, researchers analyzed social research data related to the COVID-19 pandemic starting from March 2020, which included approximately 100,000 questionnaire responses from about 50,000 adults over a period of 2 years.
Participants in the study were asked questions in the questionnaire such as “How happy have you felt in the past week?”, “How satisfied are you with your life?”, and “To what extent do you feel what you do in life is worthwhile?”.
Researchers took into account factors such as the participants’ age, health conditions, and employment status.
The results of the study showed that people start their day with a more positive mindset in the morning but end it with a more negative mindset around midnight. Mental health conditions tend to be more stable during the weekdays but more varied during the weekends.
According to the study, happiness, life satisfaction, and sense of purpose ratings on Mondays and Fridays were higher compared to Sundays, and happiness on Tuesdays was also relatively high. There was no evidence to show a difference in feelings of loneliness across different days of the week.
Regarding the impact of seasons on emotions, compared to winter, people often experienced lower levels of depression, anxiety symptoms, and loneliness in the other three seasons, while feelings of happiness, life satisfaction, and sense of purpose were higher.
Overall, people’s mental health condition was found to be best during the summer season. However, seasons did not appear to affect the daily psychological changes mentioned above.
Researchers believe that the fluctuations in mental health and happiness throughout the day may be related to physiological changes associated with the body’s circadian rhythm. For example, cortisol (a hormone that regulates emotions, motivation, and fear) peaks shortly after waking up in the morning and decreases to its lowest levels at bedtime.
The differences between weekdays and weekends could be attributed to factors such as the sequence of daily activities, which may vary between weekends and weekdays.
Researchers note that this was an observational study, so causation cannot be determined. The timing at which people chose to fill out the questionnaires may have influenced the survey results. Additionally, the study lacked data on sleep patterns, latitude, or weather, which could also have an impact.