UCL study into mental health and wellbeing finds that people generally feel worse at night and on Sundays
Nightmare day at work? Date stand you up? Don’t worry, things really will seem better in the morning.
In the most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have found that generally, the world feels brighter when you wake up.
People start the day in the best frame of mind in the morning, but end in the worst, at about midnight, the findings suggest, with the day of the week and the season also playing a part.
Mental health also tends to be more varied at weekends but steadier during the week, according to the study led by University College London.
“Generally, things do seem better in the morning,” the researchers concluded. Their findings were published in the journal BMJ Mental Health.
Mental health and wellbeing are dynamic in nature, and subject to change over short and long periods. However, few studies have looked at how they might change over the course of the day, and those that have, tended to only look at particular, or very small, groups of people.
Scientists wanted to explore whether time of day was associated with variations in mental health, happiness, life satisfaction, sense of life being worthwhile and loneliness. They also wanted to find out if these associations varied by day, season or year.
They analysed data from the UCL Covid-19 social study, which began in March 2020, and involved regular monitoring until November 2021, and then additional monitoring up to March 2022.
This involved almost 1m survey responses from nearly 50,000 adults over two years.
People in the study answered questionnaires, with questions such as: “In the past week, how happy did you feel?”, “How satisfied have you been with your life?”, and “To what extent have you felt the things you are doing in your life are worthwhile?”
Factors such as age, health conditions and whether people worked were taken into account.
The results showed that happiness, life satisfaction, and worthwhile ratings were all higher on Mondays and Fridays than on Sundays, while happiness was also higher on Tuesdays. There was no evidence that loneliness differed across days of the week.
There was clear evidence of a seasonal influence on mood. Compared with winter, people tended to have lower levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and loneliness, and higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction and feeling that life was worthwhile in the three other seasons.
Mental health was best in the summer across all outcomes. But the season didn’t affect the associations observed across the day, however.
This was an observational study, so cannot establish cause. When people chose to fill in their questionnaires may have influenced the findings, the researchers said, adding that no information was available for sleep cycles, latitude or weather, all of which may also have been influential.
But the changes in mental health and wellbeing across the day might be explained by the physiological changes associated with the body clock, they suggested.
“For example, cortisol [a hormone that regulates mood, motivation and fear] peaks shortly after waking and reaches its lowest levels around bedtime,” they said.
However, they said the differences between weekdays and weekends may be driven by things such as the sequence of daily activities, which are likely to be different between weekends and weekdays.
Dr Feifei Bu, from UCL’s department of behavioural science and health, said: “Our findings suggest that on average, people’s mental health and wellbeing are better in the morning and worst at midnight.
“We drew on a large sample of repeated data – nearly a million survey responses from 49,000 participants over two years.
“However, this pattern could reflect when people choose to respond to the survey, rather than a direct effect of time of day. For example, those already feeling better in the morning might be more likely to engage with the survey at that time.
“While these findings are intriguing, they need to be replicated in other studies that fully account for this potential bias.
“If validated, this could have important practical implications. Researchers investigating people’s mental health and wellbeing should take into account the time of day people respond.
“Mental health support services might consider adjusting resources to match fluctuating needs across the day – for instance, prioritising late-night availability.”
