Our mood is better in the morning Why we are happier early in the day than in the evening

Does the time of day affect our mood? A British study shows when people feel happiest - and what role the day of the week plays.

How happy, fulfilled, content or even lonely we feel may not just depend on our circumstances. According to a British study, people's moods are generally at their best early in the day and at their worst late in the evening.

As the research group from University College London writes in the journal "BMJ Mental Health", mental health and well-being are dynamic by nature and can change over both short and long periods of time. So far, however, there has been insufficient research into how these values change throughout the day.

Feifei Bu, Jessica Bone and Daisy Fancourt have now analyzed data from University College's Covid-19 Social Study, which began in March 2020 and ran for up to two years. As part of this study, participants regularly completed questionnaires and also indicated the time of day, day of the week and season.

They were asked questions such as "How happy did you feel in the past week?", "How satisfied were you with your life?" and "To what extent did you find the things you do in your life meaningful?"

The researchers also recorded the participants' age and gender, ethnicity, level of education, employment status, place of residence and physical or mental illness. In total, they had data from 49,218 people, of which women (76.5 percent) and people with a higher level of education (68 percent) were overrepresented. The sample was therefore weighted to reflect the population proportions.

Top in the morning, flop in the evening

When analyzing the data, the researchers were able to identify a time-of-day pattern. In general, the answers showed greater well-being in the morning and at the same time the fewest symptoms of anxiety, depression or loneliness. The indications of happiness, life satisfaction and fulfillment also tended to be clearest at this time of day. Conversely, these indicators tended to be most negative around midnight.

However, not only the time of day, but also the day of the week seems to play a role, albeit a rather small one. The researchers observed that happiness, life satisfaction and self-esteem were slightly more pronounced on Mondays and Fridays than on Sundays.

However, the indications of perceived loneliness appeared to be independent of the respective day of the week. And: mental health and well-being varied more at weekends than during the week.

The influence of the season was unsurprising: compared to winter, people in the other seasons tended to have lower levels of loneliness and fewer symptoms of anxiety or depression. At the same time, the values for happiness, life satisfaction and the feeling of a life worth living were higher in these seasons. The diurnal patterns, on the other hand, were similar across all seasons.

Causes of the diurnal patterns are not clear

As Bu, Bone and Fancourt themselves admit, this is a purely observational study that does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the causes of the patterns described. In addition, the choice of time at which the participants completed the questionnaires could have influenced the results. Sleep cycles, latitude or the weather could also have had an effect - but the researchers had no information on these factors.

The authors speculate that the diurnal patterns could be explained by physiological changes related to the body clock. For example, the level of the stress hormone cortisol peaks shortly after waking up and lows around bedtime, they write. "However, it is important to consider the differences between weekends and weekdays."