Best time of the day

But wait, what about the rest of the day?

Feb 25, 2025

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First thing in the morning

I might have some potentially bad news. It comes from a group of happiness researchers. Let’s get right to the data.

Researchers at University College London said they reviewed 1 million survey responses that almost 50,000 people submitted over two years regarding their mental health and happiness.

Their goal was to figure out whether people feel better at any particular time of the day than others.

Or else, as they put it in the article itself: “to assess time-of-day association with depression, anxiety, well-being and loneliness.”

Sure enough, they came up with an answer.

Writing in the journal BMJ Mental Health, they said they found that people are generally happier and report better mental health first thing in the morning.

The worst time of day, according to the responses? Very late in the evening.

“Our findings suggest that on average, people’s mental health and well-being are better in the morning and worst at midnight, said lead author Dr. Feifei Bu, from UCL’s Department of Behavioural Science & Health. “While these findings are intriguing, they need to be replicated in other studies that fully account for this potential bias.”

See what I mean about the potentially bad news?

The idea that across the board most of us have the best and happiest moments in the morning, suggesting that as the hours go by things might get worse – to the point that we’re at our lowest at the very end of the day – isn’t exactly happiness-inducing in its own right.

Then, we get up the next day to do it all again? Tell me there’s a silver lining.

Actually, there might be a few.

The first has to do with the research itself. It turns out that the questions posed to survey respondents didn’t actually ask what time of day they felt best.

Instead, they were asked about their moods and mental health, and then the researchers correlated the answers with the times of day that people replied.

As Bu put it: “[T]his pattern could reflect when people choose to respond to the survey, rather than a direct effect of time of day. For example, those already feeling better in the morning might be more likely to engage with the survey at that time.”

Also, researchers found that happiness increased over the course of the study itself, which ran from the height of the pandemic in 2020 through the year 2022. So that’s good.

On top of that, “[h]appiness, life satisfaction, and worthwhile ratings” were highest on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays – and lowest on Sundays.

I suppose that might make sense, at least if we consider whether people might generally be happier on weekends.

I also think we need to account for the general skepticism that night owls — myself included — might have have about the researchers’ conclusions.

Also, if this is true, would it be paradoxical that somebody like me sends a newsletter at 7 a.m.?

Counterpoint: Irony makes me happy, or at least makes me laugh.

Wait, I think I just realized the most optimistic way to look at this, if it rings true:

Don't measure the day's clock from the early morning moment of supposedly supreme happiness. Instead, start it at the moment afterward, so that we're always rising toward the moment of maximum happiness?

Let the record show I came up with this interpretation at 12:30 a.m.

Poll time. Let’s do our own experiment and see if these BMJ Mental Health people know what they’re talking about.

7 other things worth knowing today

Before the final votes in Germany's election were even counted, Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party, who is set to become the next chancellor, promised a major shift in relations with the U.S. In a post-election debate, he promised to confront head-on a new reality -- that the Trump administration looks to overturn about 80 years of policy and raises the prospect of abandoning security guarantees for Europe. "My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA," Merz said Sunday. (ABC News)
Dan Bongino, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned right-wing pundit and podcaster, will be the next deputy director of the F.B.I. President Trump made the announcement on his social media site, saying the newly installed F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, had named Mr. Bongino to the No. 2 post, which does not require Senate confirmation. The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino represents the least experienced leadership pair in FBI history, and ensures that the bureau will be run by men who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics. “My entire life right now is about owning the libs,” Mr. Bongino said in 2018. He has also echoed a popular grievance among the far right denouncing the so-called deep state. (NY Times)
Volodymyr Zelensky, elected in a 2019 landslide, says he is willing to sacrifice his presidency to secure peace for war-torn Ukraine. On the eve of the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, he vowed to stand down in exchange for NATO membership. "If to achieve peace, you really need me to give up my post, I'm ready," Zelensky said in response to a question at a press conference. "I can trade it for NATO." (The Mirror)
A man who has been released from prison in Hawaii after 30 years for a crime he says he never committed has been readjusting to life - and getting used to just how connected people are now. Gordon Cordeiro was jailed in 1994 over the murder of Timothy Blaisdell on the island of Maui, but due to new DNA evidence his conviction was overturned on Friday. Mr Cordeiro, who has always maintained his innocence, said he has been trying to get used to how connected people are. "Everybody is looking at their phones," he said. (Sky News)
Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin is on pace to pass Wayne Gretzky's NHL career goal record before season's end. Ovechkin, 39, entered this season needing 42 goals to break Gretzky's record of 894 career goals, which has stood since 1999. The Washington captain, who scored three times on Sunday afternoon, has 29 goals this season. He needs 13 more with 25 games left to become the NHL's all-time leader. (USA Today)
Singer Roberta Flack has passed away. She was 88 years old. The Grammy-award winner was known for hits like “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” She passed away at home “surrounded by her family,” her publicist Elaine Schock said. In 2022, Flack retired from singing after revealing she had ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing. (KTLA)
One of the biggest airport brawls to have ever erupted in Atlanta was captured in a video that has now gone viral. Dozens of travelers broke out in a massive fight last week at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. The video shows the brawl taking place at a waiting area near a Spirit Airlines boarding gate. The footage, which received 2 million views since it was posted to X on Friday, shows a chaotic crowd rapidly punching and kicking one another in front of a Spirit Airlines poster. (Fox News)

Understandably by Bill Murphy Jr.

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