Can The Weather Predict Your Moods?

Do you feel:

• That your joints are aching for no reason?
• Depression/lack of motivation?
• Inflammation in your joints?
• Feel cold?
• Edema?

If you are experiencing any of these situations, then it might be the weather that is affecting your mood and your body.

The Weather

Does the weather forecast make anyone smile? Whether it is nothing but bright, sunny skies and warm temperatures or gray, overcast skies with threats of rain and thunderstorms, the weather can affect a person’s joints and cause them pain. The old saying “Feel it in my bones” comes to play when environmental conditions can affect the physical body. Research has indicated that these effects are not just skin deep, but the weather can affect a person’s mood and emotional health. They found that patients experience increased joint pain in response to a decrease in pressure and indicating that low atmospheric pressure conditions exacerbate joint pain.

Lots of people are affected differently by different weather patterns. There are no hard-fast rules regarding the influence of how the weather affects people’s moods. The research suggested that high humidity may increase sleepiness and can negatively affect concentration and focus on a person. While rising temperatures can help lower anxiety and skepticism mood scores in a person. Since humidity is the most significant predictor since it implicates for school and office performances are being discussed and highlights the importance of humidity as a weather variable.

Some individuals love to sit out in the sun and soak up every ray while basking in the heat. Others instead prefer to let themselves stay indoors surrounded by air conditioning and feeling so much better in the colder weather with less sunshine.

Types of People Affected By The Weather

Studies have researched that there were four distinct types of people, especially in children and their mothers that were identified when it comes to the weather and their moods. They are:

• Summer Lover
• Unaffected
• Summer Haters
• Rain Haters

Summer Lovers have better moods in warm, sunny weather while the Summer Hater has the worse moods under the warmer conditions. People in the Unaffected category has shown only the weak association between the weather and their moods. When it comes to rainy days, Rain Haters experiences particularly bad moods during those types of days. The correlation between the children and their mothers was founded for two of the types. It stated that there might be some intergenerational influences, and the finding from the study and many others show that there is a massive individual difference in how the weather affects people’s moods. Some people love rainy or sunny days, while others loathe them.

A 2013 paper found that rising temperatures and increased precipitation can have a significant impact on human conflict and interpersonal violence. The correlation between the higher temperatures like more extreme rainfall and increased violence was seen on both scales, large and small. Other researchers have suggested that the psychological effects of the weather are influenced by seasons and the time a person is outside. What they found was that higher temperatures or the barometric pressure were related to better moods, memory, and “broadened” cognitive style in the springtime as an individual spends more time outside has increased.

Weather Can Affect People’s Mood

While this relationship is perfect for some people, others see this relationship as an inverse during the other seasons. Some people found out that during the warmer seasons, lowers their mood. It is correlated strongly with individuals who live in the south. The hotter weather can cause them to have poorer moods when the summer has higher temperatures, and it can become downright debilitating.

Researchers speculated that the discrepancy between spring and summer moods might be related to seasonal affective disorder. With seasonal affective disorder, the results were consistent with their findings. They suggested that pleasant weather improves moods and broaden cognition in the spring because people have been deprived of such weather during the winter.

The founder and editor-in-chief of Psych Central, John M, Grohol, Psy.D., noted that the weather could affect people’s moods and emotions. He also mentions that the strength of that relationship varies from person to person, and the effects are noticeable, whether it be small in some people or more pronounced in others.

Another study found that many people intuit that the bad weather makes them sad and pleasant weather makes them happy. Scientific investigations have largely failed to support such associations, however, with variations in meteorological variables either showing no or weak relationships with variations in normal moods. It means that a person’s definition of  “good” or “bad” weather is their own opinion. If someone likes the rain, then gray, rainy days are “good” in their view while others view rainy days are “bad” and prefer sunshine, blue skies, and warmer weather.

Conclusion

The weather can affect anyone’s mood. Whether people enjoy the colder seasons or the warmer seasons, their moods can change due to the type of weather. If they are aware of their mood patterns, taking supplements can ease the transition of the change of seasons and be a beneficial impact on their moods. Some products can help support the body and making sure that the entire system is functioning correctly by targeting amino acids and sugar metabolism.

The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic, musculoskeletal, and nervous health issues or functional medicine articles, topics, and discussions. We use functional health protocols to treat injuries or disorders of the musculoskeletal system. Our office has made a reasonable attempt to provide supportive citations and has identified the relevant research study or studies supporting our posts. We also make copies of supporting research studies available to the board and or the public upon request. To further discuss the subject matter above, please feel free to ask Dr. Alex Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900.

References:

Bullock, Ben, et al. “Highs and Lows, Ups and Downs: Meteorology and Mood in Bipolar Disorder.” PloS One, Public Library of Science, 9 Mar. 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5344507/.

Grohol, John M. “Weather Can Change Your Mood.” World of Psychology, 28 Mar. 2019, psychcentral.com/blog/weather-can-change-your-mood/.

Howarth, E, and M S Hoffman. “A Multidimensional Approach to the Relationship between Mood and Weather.” British Journal of Psychology (London, England: 1953), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 1984, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6704634.

Hsiang, Solomon M., et al. “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 13 Sept. 2013, science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6151/1235367.

Keller, Matthew C, et al. “A Warm Heart and a Clear Head. The Contingent Effects of Weather on Mood and Cognition.” Psychological Science, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2005, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16137259.

Keller, Matthew C, et al. “A Warm Heart and a Clear Head. The Contingent Effects of Weather on Mood and Cognition.” Psychological Science, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Sept. 2005, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16137259.

Klimstra, Theo A, et al. “Come Rain or Come Shine: Individual Differences in How Weather Affects Mood.” Emotion (Washington, D.C.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2011, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21842988.

Team, DFH. “Weather Forecast – Can It Predict Your Mood, Too?” Designs for Health, 15 Aug. 2019, blog.designsforhealth.com/node/1085.

Vergés, Josep, et al. “Weather Conditions Can Influence Rheumatic Diseases.” Proceedings of the Western Pharmacology Society, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2004, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15633634.