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 gray days bring gray 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.
People enjoy a summer evening performance at Bryant Park in Manhattan on July 10, 2015. Benjamin Chasteen/Epoch Times
