Sunshine Matters More For Your Mental Health Than You Think

There’s this special time of year that always gets me a little down – and I know I’m not alone.

It’s actually happening right now.

With the leaves becoming soggy on the ground rather than colouring the trees, Halloween now a fading memory, and the holidays just a little too far away to get excited about, the thick of November is never a particularly uplifting time for many of us.

Let’s not forget that daylight saving time is now in full effect, meaning you probably feel like you’ll never see the sun again.

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Let’s be honest: it’s a little bit of a bummer. Of course, there’s a difference in feeling a little down and experiencing depression. Seasonal Affective Disorder is not a new phenomenon. It’s been the subject of a substantial amount of research.

What is new is research that suggests that it’s the actual amount of time between sunrise and sunset that matters the most when it comes to the effect of weather on your mental and emotional health.

Meaning, it isn’t the heat, rain, gloomy skies or the city’s pollution that is getting you down the most – whether you have Seasonal Affective Disorder or not.

The research – published in Journal of Affective Disorders – showed that, as long as you’re able to soak up enough sunshine, your level of emotional distress should remain stable. So, “rainy day blues” may not be as much of a real thing after all as long as you’re getting your fix of vitamin D when you can.

Personally, I find rainy days inspiring and calming.

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“That’s one of the surprising pieces of our research,” said Mark Beecher, clinical professor and licensed psychologist in BYU Counseling and Psychological Services. “On a rainy day, or a more polluted day, people assume that they’d have more distress. But we didn’t see that. We looked at solar irradiance, or the amount of sunlight that actually hits the ground. We tried to take into account cloudy days, rainy days, pollution . . . but they washed out.”

He said the most significant of the findings involved the amount of time between sunrise and sunset.

“Therapists should be aware that winter months will be a time of high demand for their services. With fewer sun time hours, clients will be particularly vulnerable to emotional distress. Preventative measures should be implemented on a case-by-case basis,” he said.

Beecher teamed up with Lawrence Rees, a physics professor at BYU to assess the correlation between varied weather and mood. Rees had access to local weather data, while Beecher has access to emotional health data for clients living in the area.

The pair brought in BYU statistics professor Dennis Eggett to analyze the data.

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What makes this study different from the rest? Beecher cites a few reasons why this study is an improvement on pre-existing research on the effects of weather on mood.

For one, the study took into account a number of meteorological variables, like rainfall, wind chill, wind speed, solar irradiance, temperature and more. The weather data could be analyzed down to the minute in the exact area where the clients lived, focusing on a clinical population rather than a general population.

Furthermore, rather than relying on suicide attempts or online diaries, Beecher and Rees used a mental health treatment outcome measure.

In short, the findings show that longer days are the keys to happiness.

Of course, that’s not the most encouraging news given the fact that we’re less than a week into Daylight Savings Time, but it’s also incentive to book that winter getaway, right?

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