In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed the weather getting more and more odd. Just last week, there was a seemingly endless stretch of four days where all it did was rain. After about two days with no sunshine and gray skies, I began to feel down, praying for sun. Luckily enough, by the weekend, it was beautiful again.
As a resident of Ohio for all of my life , I’ve known the insanity of Ohio weather. I have begun to believe that it would be entirely impossible to have a snowstorm in July. However, since moving from Cleveland to Westerville this August, I’ve witnessed some of the most unpredictable weather.
Even some days, it has gone from pouring rain to sunny. It’s left me unsure how to feel. My mood had seemed to change because of the weather, so I started to wonder if this was common among others, and if it was possible that the weather really does have an effect on our moods.
It really does.
“Sunshine encourages the production of vitamin D in the body,” Otterbein psychology professor Margaret Lobb said.
Lobb said that sunny weather encourages vitamin D in the body — not necessarily warm or hot weather, just sunshine. A deficiency in vitamin D can lead to physical and mental illness. This all seems to add up to me feeling so down when the weather is gloomy and rainy.
There have been quite a few studies done on weather in correlation to mood. It seems that the effects of weather on how we feel can be a bit stronger than I had originally realized.
According to psychcentral.com, humidity, temperature and hours of sunshine have the greatest effect on our moods. The higher the level of humidity, the more likely a person is to feel sleepy, while higher temperatures appear to lower anxiety. More hours of sunshine also seem to increase optimism.
Some people are just more prone to having their mood affected by the weather. According to Rich Maloof, MSN’s health blogger, people prone to bad moods on rainy or cold days can experience what is called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD.
SAD is a type of depression that affects people during the same season every year. There is not an exact cause to SAD, but some think it is a lack of sunlight.
“Most cases of situational depression occur during the winter months,” Lobb said.
I have felt more down during winter months. Winter has seemed to drag on forever at times, while summer flies by. I believe there could be several factors that cause this, but the cold and darkness of winter is definitely one of them.
Though I did expect weather to have an effect on mood, I didn’t realize it could have such a strong effect on some people, or that it could even cause some types of depression.
I think SAD varies from person to person. Some people are simply more prone to mood changes during bad weather. And with weather like ours in Ohio, I guess it’s safe to say that we can all be a little moody.
