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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/03/sun-people-happiness-summer-weather-wellbeing
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| Sun + people = happiness? | Sun + people = happiness? |
| (3 months later) | |
| Stow those cagoules! Pretend you like prosecco rosé! Prepare yourself for articles why-oh-whying about men with the least attractive chests walking around with their tops off when everybody else rather wishes they wouldn't! | Stow those cagoules! Pretend you like prosecco rosé! Prepare yourself for articles why-oh-whying about men with the least attractive chests walking around with their tops off when everybody else rather wishes they wouldn't! |
| The Met Office is forecasting something unexpected. A proper summer with – here's a new word for younger readers – sun. "There is reasonable confidence that high pressure will build, giving fine and dry weather across most parts of the UK from Friday onwards, with a mixture of variable cloud and sunshine," says a Met office spokesman, adding that "rainfall should be below average, with above-average temperatures and above-average sunshine amounts". | The Met Office is forecasting something unexpected. A proper summer with – here's a new word for younger readers – sun. "There is reasonable confidence that high pressure will build, giving fine and dry weather across most parts of the UK from Friday onwards, with a mixture of variable cloud and sunshine," says a Met office spokesman, adding that "rainfall should be below average, with above-average temperatures and above-average sunshine amounts". |
| Reasonable confidence, people! Above-average sunshine amounts! This forecast is, quite possibly, why the economy is growing 0.6%. Ninety nine per cent of that 0.6% growth is sales of espadrilles. True, your espadrilles are probably made by exploited children, but let's not harsh your newfound summery mellow. | Reasonable confidence, people! Above-average sunshine amounts! This forecast is, quite possibly, why the economy is growing 0.6%. Ninety nine per cent of that 0.6% growth is sales of espadrilles. True, your espadrilles are probably made by exploited children, but let's not harsh your newfound summery mellow. |
| Imagine for a moment that you run the donkey rides on Bridlington beach. Tough gig. Imagine, further, that after the collapse of Lehmann brothers you thought to yourself: "I'll buy more donkeys." Your reasoning seemed impeccable. The failing global economy indicated that Britons would stop getting sunburned in Torremelinos and visiting Renaissance chapels in Umbria and save money by holidaying in Britain. | Imagine for a moment that you run the donkey rides on Bridlington beach. Tough gig. Imagine, further, that after the collapse of Lehmann brothers you thought to yourself: "I'll buy more donkeys." Your reasoning seemed impeccable. The failing global economy indicated that Britons would stop getting sunburned in Torremelinos and visiting Renaissance chapels in Umbria and save money by holidaying in Britain. |
| But there was a problem with your business model. Recession was accompanied by some of the wettest British summers on record. "We could have been in Majorca," your damp, unridden donkeys would have said if they could have talked. "Thanks, pal." | But there was a problem with your business model. Recession was accompanied by some of the wettest British summers on record. "We could have been in Majorca," your damp, unridden donkeys would have said if they could have talked. "Thanks, pal." |
| Now, though, the staycationers are coming and the donkeys are less sarcastic. There is, in other words, a feelgood factor sweeping the nation so powerful that it could only be rivalled if George Osborne announced that he's taking a two-year sabbatical. | Now, though, the staycationers are coming and the donkeys are less sarcastic. There is, in other words, a feelgood factor sweeping the nation so powerful that it could only be rivalled if George Osborne announced that he's taking a two-year sabbatical. |
| But spare a thought for those news crews who usually descend in August on Bridlington's outdoor lido to interview the handful of doughty kids who paddle in torrential rain when everybody else in town is sitting in their cars writing suicide notes in the condensation on the windscreen. Who will they interview now? | But spare a thought for those news crews who usually descend in August on Bridlington's outdoor lido to interview the handful of doughty kids who paddle in torrential rain when everybody else in town is sitting in their cars writing suicide notes in the condensation on the windscreen. Who will they interview now? |
| And what about the rest of us staycationers who have spent recent summers indoors playing board games and going to bed early, where we would lie awake coining such neologisms as wetcation, wallydays, and glummer (a tortured play on summer). We couldn't have been more miserable. Even our wordplays were rubbish. What are we going to moan about now? Hold that thought. | And what about the rest of us staycationers who have spent recent summers indoors playing board games and going to bed early, where we would lie awake coining such neologisms as wetcation, wallydays, and glummer (a tortured play on summer). We couldn't have been more miserable. Even our wordplays were rubbish. What are we going to moan about now? Hold that thought. |
| But does sunny weather really make us happier? According to a study in The American Journal of Psychology, nearly 10% of residents of Alaska experience depression during dark winter months. I know what you're thinking. Only 10%? | But does sunny weather really make us happier? According to a study in The American Journal of Psychology, nearly 10% of residents of Alaska experience depression during dark winter months. I know what you're thinking. Only 10%? |
| Psychologists at the University of Alaska at Anchorage say that Alaskan winters can cause lethargy, carbohydrate craving, melancholy, incoherent thinking, libido loss and unsociability. They could be talking about Britain during the past three summers. Not that I want to indict British libidos. Nor imply that wet weather makes us all want to lie in bed alone eating chips with curry sauce. | Psychologists at the University of Alaska at Anchorage say that Alaskan winters can cause lethargy, carbohydrate craving, melancholy, incoherent thinking, libido loss and unsociability. They could be talking about Britain during the past three summers. Not that I want to indict British libidos. Nor imply that wet weather makes us all want to lie in bed alone eating chips with curry sauce. |
| Similarly, psychologists at the University of Michigan found that pleasant weather improves mood, memory and creativity. That's why Italians talk as though they're singing lovely operatic arias and had a Renaissance, while in Finland conversations so often go like this – First lugubrious man: "This beer's good." Second lugubrious man: "Are we going to drink or talk?" The authors of "A multidimensional approach to the relationship between mood and weather" didn't link indie bands' existentially dismal lyrics with the incidence of rainfall in Greater Manchester, but they could have done. | Similarly, psychologists at the University of Michigan found that pleasant weather improves mood, memory and creativity. That's why Italians talk as though they're singing lovely operatic arias and had a Renaissance, while in Finland conversations so often go like this – First lugubrious man: "This beer's good." Second lugubrious man: "Are we going to drink or talk?" The authors of "A multidimensional approach to the relationship between mood and weather" didn't link indie bands' existentially dismal lyrics with the incidence of rainfall in Greater Manchester, but they could have done. |
| But human being plus sun does not equal happy. Indeed, in one study, rates of depression in the Netherlands were found to be highest in the summer and autumn. Is this because one group of Dutch people were kept awake all summer by another group of Dutch people sitting outside the first group's house with their tops off, out of their nuts on funny cigarettes and Amstel, and singing along to Poker Face and Skyfall? Of course it is. The study's findings may be skewed by Dutch psychologists spending summers doing glum research rather than catching rays. | But human being plus sun does not equal happy. Indeed, in one study, rates of depression in the Netherlands were found to be highest in the summer and autumn. Is this because one group of Dutch people were kept awake all summer by another group of Dutch people sitting outside the first group's house with their tops off, out of their nuts on funny cigarettes and Amstel, and singing along to Poker Face and Skyfall? Of course it is. The study's findings may be skewed by Dutch psychologists spending summers doing glum research rather than catching rays. |
| Other research has found that levels of aggression rise with temperatures. If you want to get punched in the face, just wait until the next hot day and go next door to complain about a) their barbecue fumes stinking up your washing line and b) how the Rihanna on their outdoor stereo contains sexually commodifying messages that will corrupt any child within earshot. | Other research has found that levels of aggression rise with temperatures. If you want to get punched in the face, just wait until the next hot day and go next door to complain about a) their barbecue fumes stinking up your washing line and b) how the Rihanna on their outdoor stereo contains sexually commodifying messages that will corrupt any child within earshot. |
| Weather psychologists Klimstra et al (2011) divided humanity into four types. There are summer lovers (whose moods improve with declining rainfall and higher temperatures), summer haters (who like rain, especially when it ruins Wimbledon) and rain haters (who aren't all that bothered by the amount of sunshine but who, you'd think, keep leaving their umbrellas on the bus). | Weather psychologists Klimstra et al (2011) divided humanity into four types. There are summer lovers (whose moods improve with declining rainfall and higher temperatures), summer haters (who like rain, especially when it ruins Wimbledon) and rain haters (who aren't all that bothered by the amount of sunshine but who, you'd think, keep leaving their umbrellas on the bus). |
| Astoundingly, the biggest group (50%) is not emotionally affected by the weather. This figure confounds the very idea that a sunny summer will make us feel good and give the economy a boost. For the meteorologically unmoody it might as well rain. | Astoundingly, the biggest group (50%) is not emotionally affected by the weather. This figure confounds the very idea that a sunny summer will make us feel good and give the economy a boost. For the meteorologically unmoody it might as well rain. |
| Apparently, people in industrialised countries such as the UK spend, on average, 93% of their time indoors, disconnected from the weather. If the weather were better we might go outdoors more and that percentage would fall, but would we be happier? Unlikely. | Apparently, people in industrialised countries such as the UK spend, on average, 93% of their time indoors, disconnected from the weather. If the weather were better we might go outdoors more and that percentage would fall, but would we be happier? Unlikely. |
| Klimstra et al's typology feels inapplicable to Britain. We are not just haters or lovers of particular weather conditions but perverse creatures, wishing it would be sunny when it rains and rainy when it's sunny. Indeed, if this summer is unremittingly lovely, we may well be miserable. We need the weather to be as protean as we are. That's how it becomes a conversation point. | Klimstra et al's typology feels inapplicable to Britain. We are not just haters or lovers of particular weather conditions but perverse creatures, wishing it would be sunny when it rains and rainy when it's sunny. Indeed, if this summer is unremittingly lovely, we may well be miserable. We need the weather to be as protean as we are. That's how it becomes a conversation point. |
| And that's why, even if the Met Office is right in forecasting a lovely summer, by early August we'll be moaning and yearning for the day temperatures plummet. The scantily clad, aggressive, barbecuing narcissists will head indoors allowing us to – yay! – premiere our autumn knitwear. At which point we can start moaning about how cold and wet it is again. | And that's why, even if the Met Office is right in forecasting a lovely summer, by early August we'll be moaning and yearning for the day temperatures plummet. The scantily clad, aggressive, barbecuing narcissists will head indoors allowing us to – yay! – premiere our autumn knitwear. At which point we can start moaning about how cold and wet it is again. |
| • This article was amended on 4 July 2013 to correct the spelling of Klimstra. | • This article was amended on 4 July 2013 to correct the spelling of Klimstra. |
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