Predictable
Would you like to predict whether my mood will be bad or okay on a particular day? It's easy:
- Is the weather nice (warm, sunny)? If so I will be in a better mood. If the weather is grey or cold or dark I won't.
- Have I been getting enough sleep? If so then I will be in a better mood. Otherwise I won't. Six hours of sleep is bad to the point where I can barely function. Four hours of sleep is catastrophic. In either case I will be upset and spend lots of dollars and calories on junk food, which will make me feel worse the next day. (Hello akrasia.)
- Have I been exercising? If not, my mood will be bad.
- Are my anxieties bad? If I am freaking out about insect infestations or chronic pain or cancer then my mood will be bad. If I am in my baseline state about freaking out about my weight I might be okay, but if I had a bad weigh-in this morning then my mood will be worse. Work (or lack of it) frequently factors into this.
I am tempted to declare that these are the complete set of factors determining my moods, which is not true but not all that far from the truth. It is depressing just how predictable I am.