Everyone feels a little happier when the sun shines brightly over the city and everyone feels a little bit down when you have to cycle through heavy rain. But does the weather actually impact our lives and our actions? How do hot and cold temperatures affect our daily life?
Esmee Greveling, 16 years old
Dutch Expect Everything Editorial Board Contributor
That the weather has influence on our lives is certain, but how it actually affects our lives is still not proven. What is found is that the weather rather makes someone’s mood negative than positive. People are easily affected by change in the weather. There is a little range in temperatures that people appreciate, higher or lower temperatures will quickly affect the mood negatively. Not only heat or cold impacts our mood, but (heavy) rain, cloud cover and humidity as well.
That the weather impacts our mood can be seen in lots of different ways. For example in art, photography and in social media as well. When you want to bring a negative vibe over a painting or a photo, what do you do? You make it seem as though it is dark, rainy, misty or anything like that (Look at picture 1.). When you want something to bring over a positive vibe, what do you do? Sunshine, illumination (so no clouds) and more like that will give you the right vibe (Look at picture 2.). This proves that people are indeed affected by the weather.
Some sicknesses are affected by the weather, for example: seasonal affective disorder, also called winter depression. Winter depression is caused by the lack of daylight and the darkness causes negative vibes. It’s cold as well, so people tend to stay inside more often than in the summer, this will also make people unhappy. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a disorder which is real, people actually suffer from it. One of the treatments for SAD is a bright light treatment, which is very effective. This is because the hormone serotonin, the brain hormone associated with mood elevation, rises with exposure to bright light and falls with decreased sun exposure. In the summer this disorder is healed with just sunlight, and thus the weather affects your mood.