There is a reason you feel different during Diwali, not just festive, but genuinely lighter. The shift is real, and it has less to do with the occasion and more to do with what the occasion asks your brain and body to do. Several of the things Diwali involves, gathering with people you know well, moving through brightly lit spaces, following a familiar sequence of rituals, eating alongside others, are the same things that researchers studying mood, stress, and social behaviour have identified as reliably shifting mental state in a positive direction. The festival does not create those effects. It concentrates them into a few days.
