A recent study conducted by University College London (UCL) found that most people experience their highest levels of well-being upon waking but feel their worst around midnight. The study analyzed data from over 49,000 adults between March 2020 and March 2022.
"Our findings suggest that on average, people's mental health and well-being are better in the morning and worse at midnight," said Dr. Feifei Bu from the Department of Behavioural Science and Health at UCL, according to The Independent.
Scientists believe that this fluctuation in mental health and well-being may be tied to the body's natural rhythms and hormonal shifts. Researchers cited cortisol, a mood-regulating hormone that peaks shortly after waking and reaches its lowest levels at bedtime, as a factor in the fluctuation of well-being.
The study revealed that mood changes not only over the course of the day but also vary across days of the week and seasons. "There is also an association with day of the week and season, with particularly strong evidence for better mental health and well-being in the summer," stated the research study.
In addition to time-of-day patterns, the study found that happiness, life satisfaction, and feelings of life being worthwhile were all higher on Mondays and Fridays than on Sundays, with a peak of happiness on Tuesdays, according to Discover Magazine.
Participants in the UCL COVID-19 Social Study provided nearly a million survey responses over two years. They answered 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 employment status were taken into account in the study, with additional information on age groups, gender, ethnicity, educational attainment, residential area, and diagnosed physical and mental health conditions.
Researchers noted that people tended to have more varied mental health during weekends while things were steadier during the week. These time-of-day patterns applied to any season, indicating that the fluctuations in mental health and well-being were consistent throughout the year.
Scientists suggested that mood fluctuations are related to biological rhythms.
While the study provides insights, the researchers cautioned that the findings are observational, so exact causes cannot be established, and causation cannot be determined. "The time at which participants chose to complete their questionnaires may have influenced the findings," noted the researchers.
Despite these limitations, the researchers believe that the results have practical implications. "If validated, this could have important practical implications," said Dr. Bu, according to pa.media. "Mental health support services might consider adjusting resources to match fluctuating needs across the day—for instance, prioritising late-night availability," Dr. Bu suggested, as reported by iefimerida.
The study underscores the importance of considering time of day in mental health assessments and interventions. "Researchers studying people's mental health and well-being should consider the time of day when people respond," Dr. Bu explained.
Mental health and well-being constantly change, but few studies have traced how they depend on the time of day. The analysis was based on nearly 1 million survey responses from about 50,000 adults over two years, with complete information available for 49,218 people, three quarters of whom (76.5%) were women, as reported by Discover Magazine.
The sample was weighted to reflect population proportions, although people educated to degree level or above were overrepresented (68%), while those from ethnic minority backgrounds were underrepresented (6%). Factors such as sleep cycles, geographic latitude, or weather, which may also affect the results, were not available in the study.
The differences between participants' best mental health and worst mental health were more dramatic during the weekends than during the weekdays, possibly driven by the sequence of daily activities. The researchers suggested that the difference between weekdays and weekends may be explained by different daily routines, as activity patterns change.
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