why/how does the sun shining have a positive effect on our mood?
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The theory is that we evolved, generally, using sunlight as our direct light source. As a species we have only had artificial light for a hundred years and how that changes our minds compared to natural sunlight is not thoroughly understood but to say that it is unnatural what we are doing *now.*
It isn’t just the light, although that is a common factor, it is also cardiovascular exercise for more than 40 minutes at a time. Same theory, our bodies evolved to move (it is how we hunted before technology) and we never de-evolved that need. Sitting around is unnatural, and our bodies don’t like doing things that are unnatural.
I think there is a growing body of research that will help us tell exactly what is happening, the link between mental health and exercise/being in the sun is definitively established. Your therapis/psychiatrist/GP isn’t telling you to go out and get some exercise to chase your blues away to make fun of you, it is founded in real research. It isn’t just mental health, the degrading vision in young people is also directly related to growing up seeing under artificial light. South Korean health officials are prescribing outdoor time to combat bad vision and depression in young people.
So the ELI5 explanation is ‘the body evolved to do certain things and live a certain way, when we don’t do that our bodies don’t like it and it manifests itself mentally as well as physically”.
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