Reseach

     Research was my next step in writing this blog. As I did some research I was very surprised to find out that studies show that the weather actually has very little to do with your daily mood. I thought to myself well okay there goes my whole blog, what am I going to do now? I went on looking at some more websites and found that the amount of sunlight and temperature do effect your mood. I found some interesting information that explains a lot about why my mood changes when it does.

     One research that I found showed that there was a great connection between sunlight and tiredness. In his study, Denissen found that the less sunlight people were exposed to, the more they showed signs of depression-like symptoms. One example of what Denissen learned is that as the days get shorter, some people may start to experience the feeling of fatigue during the day. Another example that I can certainly relate to is having trouble waking up when it is still dark outside. Naturally our bodies think it is night time still, so our brain tells us to go back to sleep. This goes along with the next point that I learned.

     I learned that when we are not exposed to the sun, then we may start to have depression like symptoms. This is true scientifically because the amount of sunlight people are exposed to can have a tremendous impact on mood because it affects the amount of vitamin D people absorb. Denissen found that, “Vitamin D, which is produced in skin exposed to the hormone of sunlight, has been found the change serotonin levels in the brain, which could account for changes in mood.” So what is serotonin? Serotonin is a hormone that plays a huge role in mood regulation. Depression-like symptoms correspond with low levels of serotonin. The less you are exposed to the sun, the lower your serotonin and Vitamin D levels will be. In conclusion Denissen realized that “Lower levels of Vitamin D could be responsible for increases in negative affect and tiredness”. This makes sense because when most people think of bright sunny day they think happy. An example of when we would not be exposed to the sunlight would be a stormy, yucky day and on stormy days we are usually tired and have depression-like symptoms.

     Because some people are more sensitive to weather changes than others, they will have a different reaction. Someone who is prone to a low mood on dark cold days are likely to experience a winter full of depression when there’s a extended sequence of like-weather days. This behavior is called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). One researcher described this disorder well, “At the extreme along the continuum of seasonality is full-blown winter seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a syndrome involving recurrent depressive episodes during the fall and winter months with periods of remission in the spring and summer”.  The symptoms of SAD are more common in women and are common at higher altitudes. Doctors will tell patients who have SAD that they have the decision to decide what feelings they have and that they can always turn them into positive thoughts.

     This comes to my conclusion that the weather does affect your mood, just more scientifically than we think.

Sources: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/fall-weather-brings-risk-of-de/18331198
http://healthyliving.msn.com/diseases/depression/does-weather-really-affect-our-mood-1