The extreme heat we’ve experienced can take a toll on our physical well-being if we’re not careful – heat stroke or heat exhaustion, for instance.
However, extreme heat can also impact our mental health.
Carolina Pena, a licensed professional counselor and mental health therapist at Parkland Health explains how to KERA’s Sam Baker.
Carolina Pena: Our body and mind are connected. Extreme heat puts the body in a stress response. So, when this happens, your mental and emotional state also is affected. You could get more irritable, more anxious, or even a lower mood. And from there, there are other also reactions like aggression, impulsivity, violence.
Baker: So, you say it could lead to depression or irritability?
Pena: The depression part could come from when it's so hot, you don't go outside, so you tend to isolate more.
The anxiety part could come from the stress reaction, but also you could start thinking about where the world is going and climate changing and what's coming ahead. This could also increase your anxiety.
Baker: But I understand extreme heat can even lead maybe to psychotic outbreaks?
Pena: More so this will happen with pre-existing conditions. People who were already diagnosed with bipolar (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bipolar-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355955) or schizophrenia (https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia) may, or even people who are living in the streets. So, they're being affected, you know. They don't have these on and off the stress reaction because they may be on the street 24-7. That could lead to more extreme situations.
Baker: Why does the extreme heat affect the body that way?
Pena: Stress that our body gets because of the extreme heat affects our brain in the sympathetic nervous system. This is the part of your brain that regulates functions like your heartbeat and impulsivity.
So, your heart rate starts beating faster, all your body gets beat, stress response. You're going to be pumping more blood, your body's going to get more tense, so you could have headaches.
It could lead to dehydration. So again, your body is working harder than it should. And as well, all these other functions of your brain that are affected in the sympathetic nervous system also have a harder time coping. So, we do get more irritable and we do have a harder time coping with situations and trying to cognitively evaluate everything as we usually do.
Also, long periods of time in this stress could also affect your sleep hygiene at night, your sleep patterns. It could increase depression, it could increase anxiety. There's a lot of things that come with this extreme heat that I think we never think about it.
Baker: Are there steps that people should take when the heat is having an adverse effect on their mental health, or to prevent such things from happening?
Pena: Keeping hydrated is always necessary. And trying to find cooling places like grocery stores, shopping centers, anywhere that you could go and cool down a little bit.
Be in touch with yourself. Like feeling these body and physical sensations and trying to reset this stress response in your body. And we do that with breathing, right? When you focus on your breathing, you slow down your breathing. Deeper breaths. When you do that, your heart rate starts slowing down. You're not pumping so much blood. That means it's not so hot, the blood that is running through your body. And all this lowers your temperature in your body, and takes care of your sleep patterns as well.
Try taking a cold shower before going to bed, so we have a better night's sleep, and our mental health is better because we are sleeping better.
Just being aware of the consequences that extreme heat could have, and it's not just melting your ice, right? It's in your health.
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