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Your parents may be right: Get some sleep and you’ll feel better in the morning, according to new research.
“Our study suggests that people’s mental health and wellbeing could fluctuate over time of day,” said lead study author Dr. Feifei Bu, principal research fellow in statistics and epidemiology at University College London, in an email. “On average, people seem to feel best early in the day and worst late at night.”
To find out how mental health and well-being ebbed and flowed, researchers analyzed University College London data of 49,218 people who were surveyed more than a dozen times between March 2020 and March 2022, according to the study published in the journal BMJ Mental Health.
The data showed a trend of people generally reporting better mental health and well-being earlier in the day, with less severe depressive symptoms and increased happiness, life satisfaction and sense of self-worth, Bu said.
It is important to note that while a correlation was found, researchers can’t say for sure that the time of day caused people to have better mental health and well-being, Bu added.
“Time of day could affect people’s mental health and well-being, but people’s mental state could also affect when they choose to respond to the survey,” she said. “While our findings are intriguing, they need to be replicated in other studies that fully address this possibility.”
And mental health and well-being may need to be looked at separately, said Dr. Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center and professor emerita of media psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.
“Mental health and well-being are two overlapping but distinct constructs. Mental health is a crucial part of well-being, but well-being is more than just mental health,” she said.
Well-being is a positive state determined by social, economic and environmental conditions that includes quality of life and a sense of meaning and purpose, according to the World Health Organization.
It makes sense that mental health and well-being are at the focus of this study, as previous studies looked mostly at associations with mood, Rutledge said.
“Mood is a temporary affective state, while mental health and well-being are broader and more stable conditions that include emotional, psychological, and cognitive appraisals,” she added.
Knowing how mental health and well-being fluctuate may give new insight into how resources should be made available.
“Mental health support services may consider adjusting resources to match fluctuating needs across the day — for instance, prioritising late-night availability,” Bu said in an email.
This latest study confirms what previous research has already found: “The demand for interventions and care, especially among young people, rises in the evening and seasonally, influenced by temperature, day length, and cultural, regional and individual differences,” Rutledge added.
Does the research show it’s better to just go to bed and handle emotionally difficult things in the morning, then?
The research is conflicting, but most evidence points to late morning as the best time for that kind of problem solving, Rutledge said.
“Research suggests that mood is relatively stable in the late morning, which makes it easier to handle tough topics with a level head and emotional distance,” she added.
Midafternoon is when levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, may be lower, but that decrease is countered by research that shows that mood dips and decision fatigue sets in around that time of day, Rutledge said.
“The early evening may be best for personal emotional processing, such as journaling and reflection, once emotional balance is regained. It may also be a good time for empathetic listening rather than having those tough conversations,” she said.
While there are physiological changes throughout the day that may influence how you handle things, there are bigger correlations between mental health and well-being and time of year, according to Rutledge. What’s more, stress, autonomy, social support and environmental conditions all have an impact on mood as well, she added.
And if you aren’t a morning person, this research doesn’t have to mean you should rearrange your life, Bu said.
“Your personal experience may vary,” she said. “If you are a night owl who feels (in) top form at midnight, don’t panic.”
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