How Weather Affects Mood

754 Words4 Pages
It’s seen in children’s drawings and in cartoons everywhere; does the weather really affect one’s mood? Metaphors are used to describe rain as gloominess and sunshine as happiness all over the world, but is it a scientific fact? Research shows that weather does have some affect on the human mood. It really is the person’s decision to enable the weather to distraught them. However some do suffer from S.A.D or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Why? Because we are free to make choices that either better our disposition or worsen it. Since the early 1970s, around the time B. J. Thomas sang "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head," researchers have sought to confirm a relationship between weather and temperament. Predictably, the lion's share of studies correlate a low mood—episodic depression, lack of vigor—with high humidity and limited exposure to sunshine. Spirits tend to rise with increased time in the sun and higher barometric pressure. More recently, in October of 2008, a group of European researchers examined the impact of six different daily weather factors—temperature, wind, sunlight, precipitation, air pressure and length of day—on more than 1,200 participants from Germany, most of them women. Contrary to most prior research, the study's central conclusion was that the average effect of "good" weather on positive mood was minimal. Windy, cool and darker days seemed to have just a slight negative effect on mood, with many subjects reporting that they felt tired or sluggish. Though the study is ambitious and offers a new perspective on research on weather's relationship to mood, it strains to draw a consensus. From the range of responses the study's subjects recorded in their journaling, the researchers determined in the end that "people differ in their sensitivity to daily weather changes." Sunny day, dreaming the clouds away Some people's emotions
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