By the time the day is over, you may be at your most irritable, sad, or anxious self—even if you started the day feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And it turns out, many people are likely experiencing the same pattern in their moods, a new study says.
Researchers at the University College London found that people tend to rate their feelings of happiness, life satisfaction, and sense of life being worthwhile highest in the morning, and lowest around midnight.
The findings, published in BMJ Mental Health, drew upon data from 49,218 people who answered the University College London COVID-19 Social Study. They were based on questions answered between March 2020 and March 2022, which included, “In the past week, how happy did you feel? How satisfied have you been with your life? To what extent have you felt the things you are doing in your life are worthwhile?”
“Across a large, diverse sample, we repeatedly saw mornings align with better mental health and well-being and midnight with the lowest—a pattern that held even when accounting for differences in individual characteristics,” says lead author Feifei Bu at the Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health, University College London.
Happiness, life satisfaction, and sense of life being worthwhile ratings also varied based on day of the week and season, according to the study.
Which days you feel your best and worst
Researchers found that people were happiest Sunday mornings, with Saturday coming in at a close second. Life satisfaction and sense of life being worthwhile ratings were also at their highest on weekend mornings. The authors point out that this could be due to socialization and employment patterns. Their findings are supported by previous research, which has linked dips in mental health and well-being during the week to work stress. Another study found that even unemployed people had improved well-being on weekends likely due to increased social time.
Researchers also found that anxiety symptoms were lowest on Sundays, which researchers attribute to the “sequence of daily activities,” that vary on weekends versus weekdays.
Feelings of satisfaction, that life was worthwhile, and happiness, however, plummeted to their lowest at midnight across all days of the week. Similarly, loneliness, was consistently lower in the morning and higher at night, regardless of the day of the week.
Researchers’ suspect that circadian rhythms, which cause cortisol to peak shortly after waking and decrease to its lowest levels around bedtime, play a role. “Cortisol is just an example of how physiological processes may explain why time of day may affect mental health and wellbeing,” Bu tells Fortune. “Many other factors such as environmental factors, patterns of daily activities may also play a role.”
Which time of year you feel your best and worst
It wasn’t just time of day or day of the week that influenced mood—the time of year also impacted respondents' well-being, researchers found.
Winter is associated with the highest levels of loneliness and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Respondents had lower levels of loneliness, depression and anxiety symptoms in other seasons, and had higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction, and feeling that life was worthwhile.
The researchers hypothesize cold, dry weather in the winter, low levels of sunlight, and even “sociocultural cycles, including cultural holidays, norms, and employment patterns” affect mood in the winter versus non-winter seasons.
This likely won’t come as a surprise to people with seasonal affective disorder (also known as SAD), which is a type of depression that can be caused by a drop in serotonin—the hormone that regulates mood—due to less overall daylight in winter. Additionally, the hormone melatonin, released before sleep, is triggered by darkness and can make people feel sleepy earlier, in turn affecting mood and mental health.
With this study, the authors are hoping that medical professionals will be better understand when and why mood can fluctuate.
“Mental health researchers or clinicians should take into account that people’s mental health and wellbeing could be affected by when they are assessed,” Bu says. “Mental health support services may consider adjusting resources to match fluctuating needs across the day—for instance, prioritizing late-night availability.”
More on mental health:
- Workplace well-being is at an all-time low. Here are 5 ways employers can actually help
- The world’s ‘winter depression hotspots’ may surprise you. Here are the top 15 countries
- 8 surprising, subtle signs you have high-functioning anxiety
- Stigma keeps many men from seeking mental health support. These 3 shifts in thinking can help
