This article is part of SELF’s 2024 Guide to Getting Outside, an editorial package that explores the connection between nature and well-being through the lens of awe. SELF will be publishing new articles for this series throughout October. Read more here.
Sunrises and sunsets are often the stuff of vacations—something you wake up early to catch at the top of a hike, amid the sonic bliss of birdsong, or the backdrop for a golden hour boat trip. But if you’ve ever found yourself gazing at a cotton candy sky while, say, stuck in gridlock traffic, you also know that the sun does not discriminate. It doesn’t care whether you are sipping a piña colada on a beach or slamming coffee at work. No matter how uninspiring your surroundings may be, a rising or setting sun can paint them dazzling.
And that’s no small deal. For the 80% of people in the US who live in urban areas, it can often feel like getting a dose of nature’s restorative benefits requires travel. But a spectacular sunrise or sunset can be like a blip of wildness in the flatline of city or suburban living, perhaps even long enough to make you forget about the concrete or the cockroaches or the literal garbage for a second. It’s proof that “even if you are in an incredibly built-up area, nature takes place in the huge canvas of the sky above you,” Alexander Smalley, PhD, a UK-based environmental psychologist who researches the impact of natural experiences on well-being, tells SELF.
That’s a poignant reminder as we barrel toward winter. You might be less enthused about getting outside; it’s colder and everything looks more barren. But that’s all the more reason to plan what little outdoor time you do take around the sunrise or sunset, when the show in the sky is every bit—if not more—stunning than in any other season.
This is the best time of year to see great sunrises and sunsets.
Any sunrise or sunset can be beautiful, and “best” is subjective. But perhaps the most eye-catching variety happens in a sky that has “high, thin, wispy” clouds, “which are able to get lit up in those bright orange and red colors like a projector screen,” Benjamin Reppert, a meteorology lecturer at Pennsylvania State University and cofounder of sunrise and sunset forecast site SunsetWx, tells SELF. At the same time, the lower part of the atmosphere needs to be clear in order for us to see it, he adds. And thanks to atmospheric conditions, these two factors are most likely to co-occur during the late fall and early winter.
That’s because weather systems are moving through more frequently during this time of year, Reppert explains. Those high wispy clouds that reflect sunlight tend to be present with clearer conditions below when a storm is just about to roll in or trailing away.
By now, some of the smoke particles from summer’s wildfires have also made their way high up in the atmosphere, Reppert says, “where they act in the same way as those wispy clouds by scattering red and orange wavelengths of light very efficiently.” That makes for even more colorful drama as dawn breaks or golden hour arrives. (When these pollutants are lower, like in summer, they have the opposite effect, bouncing light back toward the sun and muting the shades we see.) Fall and winter also bring a drop in humidity in many areas, and with less water vapor in the air, “the red and orange hues can come through instead of getting scattered away by all the moisture,” Reppert says.
There are real psychological upsides to taking in a beautiful sunrise or sunset.
You’ve probably heard about the mental and physical benefits of spending time in nature versus being boxed in by concrete. The soothing stimuli of the former—from lapping ocean waves to swaths of greenery—can reduce stress, boost happiness, and even enhance creativity by putting you in a state of “soft fascination” (a.k.a. a just-right amount of mental stimulation). It’s no wonder research shows that people tend to respond more favorably to natural settings than urban ones, and they find them more aesthetically pleasing. That said, these studies have largely compared the two during neutral or blue-sky conditions. What Dr. Smalley set out to investigate a couple years ago is how fleeting aspects of weather (like rainbows or thunderstorms) that occur in both kinds of environments might influence peoples’ experiences within them.
It turns out, when you factor in these ephemeral phenomena, people rate city settings more positively, shrinking the gap between urban environments and greener ones. Specifically, Dr. Smalley’s 2023 study found that when compared to pictures of urban scenes under blue skies, those showing the same place with a sunset, sunrise, or rainbow elicited “substantial bumps in awe, appraisals of beauty, and a willingness-to-pay measure,” he says. (Meaning, people were prepared to spend more to visit this locale during one of these fleeting conditions.)
It’s a pretty remarkable effect for occurrences that happen everywhere on earth—not just in super naturey settings, like beaches or mountaintops. There’s a wonderful opportunity there, Dr. Smalley says, to “unlock a whole bunch of benefits that go alongside the experience of the natural world but within an urban space.” After all, we know awe can induce feelings of calm and stillness and remind you that you are just a tiny speck in the scheme of the universe (making the problems of your mundane life feel smaller too). So getting a dose of this energy during any given daybreak or twilight can have far-reaching benefits for your psyche.
The fact that each sunrise and sunset is unlike any other—and that when it’s over, it’s gone for good—may be part of the awe-inspiring appeal. And spotting a particularly special light show in an environment you frequent daily brings a dose of novelty to what’s otherwise familiar, Dr. Smalley says; this comes with its own benefits, like the release of dopamine in your brain and a related spike in mood and motivation.
Gazing at the sky on a regular basis can also pluck you out of your own little world and reconnect you to the rhythms of the seasons, Dr. Smalley adds. Urban environments “are very good at insulating us” from those patterns, he explains, as they provide us with artificial lighting, heating, and cooling so we can go about life seemingly autonomously. But the sheer vastness of a whole-sky sunrise or sunset can quickly remind you of the larger natural system we’re all a part of, which can be deeply grounding.
A sunrise-sunset ritual can benefit your physical health too.
Part of the reason it can feel so right to immerse yourself in a sunrise or sunset is more physiological than psychological: This natural light acts as a cue for your circadian rhythm (a.k.a. internal body clock). You may know that daytime light suppresses your brain’s production of melatonin (a sleep-promoting hormone) while nighttime darkness gets it flowing again—but there’s more to keeping your body in sync with the 24-hour day.
A 2020 study found that the part of your eye responsible for relaying how light it is in your environment to your brain is actually color-sensitive, reacting to contrast between orange and blue tones. Think of this as your built-in “sunrise or sunset detector,” which allows you to assess what time of day it is more precisely, Jay Neitz, PhD, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the corresponding author on the study, tells SELF.
But when you aren’t glimpsing the sun’s ascent or decline each day (and granting your eyes access to this orange-blue time signal), it’s all too easy for your circadian rhythm to get thrown off-kilter. The reason? It runs slightly longer than 24 hours, meaning you’ll start to lag behind an optimal sleep-wake schedule (getting sleepy later and struggling to wake up)—unless you use sunlight to re-sync yourself to the 24-hour day, Dr. Neitz says.
Feasting your eyes on the morning sun, in particular, can shift your clock up, realigning your circadian rhythm so you can fall asleep and wake up more easily. But there’s certainly a benefit to bookending your day by viewing both the sunrise and sunset, Dr. Neitz says. The blue-orange lighting during these periods isn’t just a helpful time-setting signal; it also affects centers in your brain that influence mood and alertness, he adds.
What Dr. Neitz posits is that we’ve biologically evolved to find awe in a sunrise or sunset because witnessing one is, in fact, so good for our minds and bodies—and that’s certainly reason enough to step outside after dawn or before dusk this season. Just don’t forget to look up!
Related:
Living Next to a Botanical Garden Taught Me How to Feel Happy in New York The Scientific Reason Why the Smell of Autumn Makes You So Emotional Fly-Fishing Helps Me Find Magic in the Microscopic
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