Hey everyone and welcome back to the Understandable English Podcast.
I'm Oliver and today we are going to be talking about how seasons affect our mood.
So as we come into springtime, so the season of spring, I noticed that my mood is beginning to change.
I start to feel like I have more energy.
I'm sure you have noticed a change in your mood too at different times of the year.
So I decided to start reading online and I found a very interesting article, that by the British Psychological Society.
And it's called Seasons and the Psyche.
So it's looking at how seasons affect our mood.
And today I'm going to read a bit of this article and talk about the different points.
So let's get started.
But first, I want to remind you that this podcast is on YouTube.
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Okay, let's get started.
So people often say they have seasonal affective disorder.
So this is when they feel depressed or sad in different seasons and in others they feel better.
So seasonal affective disorder, or SAD for short, And often this affects about 2 million people in the UK alone.
That's crazy.
But this change in mood and feeling is not only in winter.
It isn't only when we feel bad or worse.
According to a lot of research, SAD, so Seasonal Affective Disorder, is just the beginning.
There are many other ways that seasons affect our behavior and how we think.
And this can be on everything from how much we like to give money to other people right up to color preferences.
So which colors we prefer.
The first point is mood.
How do seasons affect our moods?
So psychologists have known about SAD, so Seasonal Affective Disorder, for decades.
People suffering from SAD eat more, sleep more, feel less motivated and are less productive at certain times of the year.
And this low mood is most common in winter time.
These kind of symptoms are almost like animal hibernation.
So when an animal hides away for the year, they eat lots of food and they sleep more waiting for the spring.
And the article.
It talks about an interesting study which was studied with sorry, a UK study which looked at Twitter users.
And they did an analysis of their music streaming, so the songs that they listened to on Spotify.
And they found that there was a link between the length of the day so how long our days are and the intensity of the songs.
So on longer days which are brighter and lighter, for a longer time people listened to more energetic songs.
Whereas on shorter days, people listen to more relaxed and lower mood songs.
And this behavior reflects the season and the days around us.
But I think this point on mood is the most clear and simple one to all of us.
We all know that our moods change with the seasons.
How much is different from each person to person.
But of course brighter, longer days make most people feel happier, and darker, quieter days make a lot of people feel a little bit more sad sometimes.
But Let's look at the next point in the article.
And this is physical harm or violence.
So when someone hurts someone else or themselves.
Some studies have shown that crime is higher with certain types of weather.
So a study in Philadelphia in the US found that there was almost 10 more violent crime on hotter than average days.
And another study in the same area finds that there was higher rates of domestic violence.
So that is violence at home during the summertime.
So this shows that when the weather is hotter, there may be a higher risk of violence.
And that's interesting.
I wonder why it happens.
And some psychologists are worried that rising temperatures could cause more violence.
So with climate change, there could be more violence around the world.
So the third point we will look at today is diet and exercise.
So this article talks about how Some studies show that in warmer days, we eat less.
So when you eat a meal outside on a warm day, you feel more full faster.
So you need to eat less.
Whereas on a colder day, you don't feel as full.
So warmer temperatures might make us feel fuller after fewer calories.
And this might help to explain why we eat more and gain more weight in winter.
This is interesting, but the article also points out that differences in weight and diet could be affected by cultural reasons.
So, for example, in springtime, more people start diets.
So a diet is when you maybe eat healthier or eat less food to try to lose weight.
And people do this, possibly culturally, because they have a feeling that they want to look good for summertime, because they will have less clothes in summertime and people will see more of their bodies.
This one makes more sense to me.
I think a lot of people in springtime think hmm, I want to start a diet and look better for my holiday.
So maybe that explains why there are differences in diets and weights between winter, spring and summer.
So another really interesting point is color preferences.
So this is the colors that we like the most.
And this article and the studies they talk about show that seasonal changes, so different seasons, make us prefer different colors.
So some studies show that in autumn people prefer yellow greenish, yellow colors in autumn because these are associated with the autumn leaves, so the color of the leaves on trees in autumn, whereas in winter time These colours are associated with sickness, so being unwell.
And people don't tend to like these colours in January, for example.
And in summertime there tends to be a preference towards brighter colours like blues and reds, very bright colours.
But what do you think?
Does the change in seasons or different seasons affect you?
And how does it affect you?
Does it affect your mood, your activity, your behavior?
Tell me in the comments below.
Let me know what you think.
How do seasons affect you?
So I hope this was interesting for you and a useful podcast.
If you want to read the article that this podcast episode is based on, I will include it in the description for you of the podcast and the YouTube video.
Thank you very much for listening and I hope that you enjoyed this episode.
Have a great rest of your day.
Goodbye.
