Experts from University College London (UCL) have published a new study examining how our mental health and wellbeing changes over 24 hours.
At present, few studies have looked into how our mental state can change over the course of a day and those that have, have often used small and selective samples. With this in mind, a team of researchers from UCL have analysed the matter via online questionnaires that rely on validated assessment tools or single direct questions.
The questions used in the study, which was published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health, included: ‘In the past week, how happy did you feel; how satisfied have you been with your life; to what extent have you felt the things you are doing in your life are worthwhile?’
To get a sense of when the survey was answered, time stamps were provided upon completion which revealed time of day (continuous from 6am to midnight); day of the week; season and year (2020,2021,2022).
From the research, which included 49,218 people, a clear pattern was discovered between people waking up and feeling their best, with reports of depressive and anxious feelings being quite low, and people were found to be feeling their worse at around midnight.
Surprisingly, general happiness, life satisfaction and worthwhile ratings were all slightly higher on Mondays and Fridays but were lower on Sundays. However, there was no evidence that loneliness differed across days of the week.
‘Our findings suggest that on average, people’s mental health and wellbeing are better in the morning and worse at midnight,’ Lead author of the study, Dr Feifei Bu said. ‘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,’ Dr Bu continued.
‘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.’
It should be noted that this is an observational study, and as such, cannot establish causality. No information was provided for sleep cycles, latitude, or weather – factors that can also affect mental health.
Despite this, researchers suggested that changes in wellbeing could be explained by physiological changes associated with the body clock.
‘For example, cortisol peaks shortly after waking and reaches its lowest levels around bedtime. However, it is important to acknowledge the differences between weekends and weekdays,’ the researchers wrote. ‘Given there is little evidence that physiological processes differ across different days of the week, differences might be related to other factors that drive [mental health and wellbeing] changes over the course of the day. This could include contextual factors and sequence of daily activities, which are likely to be different between weekends and weekdays.’
In related news:
Interview: BooSnoo! and making TV for neurodivergent children