Why we become happier with nice weather
Where I was shining last week happiness and whistling my way through the week, this week my mood is a lot more serious. Okay, I might be slightly exaggerating, but still. The spring jitters are already well hidden under my not quite thick woolen sweater. I think we can agree that both you and I prefer to cycle to work in a swirly skirt rather than with an umbrella over our heads. I genuinely become a different person as soon as the mercury rises above twenty degrees. It turns out there is a whole explanation behind this and I am certainly not the only one on this planet who is now dealing with the baked pears. Are we really happier when the sun shines or is it perception? Meike Bartels, professor of genes and happiness at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, conducted research.
And yes, whether you are a fervent sun worshipper is ingrained in the genes, says Bartels. In people who actually become happier when the sun shows itself, processes in the body are set in motion that are still higher mathematics even for experts. It is a complex process that is partly physiology and partly feeling. It is well known that light affects the hormone levels and the number of neurotransmitters in our brain. By soaking up sunlight, we get vitamin D and feel warm, and all of this has a positive effect on our body. And by the way, sunbathing also makes you slim. I'm not making this up, it's just proven. But what certainly also plays a role is the situation we find ourselves in. When we have to work, we sometimes suddenly find high temperatures not so pleasant, unlike when we can flop down on a towel in a bikini.
Another explanation is that we are often forced by society to go through life more cheerfully when the days start to lengthen and the skirts can come out of the closet. Autumn and the first two months of the new year, which are often gray and dark, have not earned the label ‘depressive’ for nothing.
Whatever explanation may lie behind this, I would like the temperature to rise again and the skirt to come out of the closet. And then I will never complain again. Promise.
