Title: Here comes the sun: how the weather affects our mood
Headings: Here comes the sun: how the weather affects our mood
Here comes the sun: how the weather affects our mood
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The weather supplies many metaphors for our changeable minds. Moods can brighten and darken, dispositions can be sunny, futures can be under a cloud and relationships can be stormy. Like the weather, our emotions sometimes seem like fickle forces of nature: unstable, enveloping and uncontrollable. Weather provides a vivid language for describing our emotional atmosphere, but does it also influence it? Do grey days bring grey moods? When the mercury rises, does our blood boil? Of the many aspects of weather, sunshine is the most intimately tied to mood. Although the link is weaker than many people imagine, sunlight has repeatedly been found to boost positive moods, dampen negative moods and diminish tiredness. Anything that alters our moods can affect our behaviour.