Keeping Your Cool When You’re Feeling The Heat
How to care for your mental health during a heatwave
When you think about health risks from high temperatures, you usually don’t think about mental health. But heat does affect our emotions and our ability to think clearly.
We talked to Dr. Kim Meidenbauer, an assistant professor of psychology at Washington State University. She researches the psychological and emotional effects of heat.
Edited for length and clarity.
Can you share with us how heat impacts our brains?
When you expose your body to heat, your brain’s hypothalamus, a tiny part at the center of your brain, says “OK, our body is experiencing something. We must ‘thermoregulate’ or keep our body temperature in a safe range.” It directs this whole response.
Your body is quite good at regulating its core temperature. You might not see a change in your core temperature because your brain is doing its job. It’s regulating. It’s causing you to sweat and kick into gear. It’s doing all these processes that cool you down to maintain a safe core body temperature. But your body could use this energy for other things. Your body is prioritizing temperature over higher cognitive functioning, like thinking or decision making.
People that are experiencing hyperthermia or heat illness can’t think straight. They can’t get themselves to a safe spot because they’re so out of it. If we’re not having a core body temperature change, we’re not necessarily experiencing something as severe as heat illness. But research shows that people might have cognitive impairments even before they feel uncomfortable from hyperthermia.
Those impairments include impulsivity, less cognitive control, and negative emotions.
Also, my research suggests that discomfort from heat makes a big difference in people’s emotional responses.
What about the impacts of sleep? We know that heat can make it harder to get good sleep.
Yes, that is a whole other mechanism. It’s huge. Lack of sleep affects our ability to emotionally regulate. It puts us in worse moods. It affects our cognition. Heat impacts our ability to think clearly and makes us more impulsive. You see those same things with sleep deprivation.
Not getting enough rest increases all kinds of negative emotional states and damages our ability to emotionally regulate. When we have poor sleep, then our existing mental health conditions worsen. People who don’t have mental health conditions might see an uptick in subclinical symptoms, such as irritability or overreacting.
When it’s too hot, you have the potential for less sleep. Even if you get sleep, it’s worse quality of sleep. Those two things combined are a recipe for disaster.
It sounds like heat can affect you in multiple ways that add onto each other. First it affects you directly, then it adds extra impact through sleep disruptions.
100%. It affects a lot of things. When something affects our mood and ability to think clearly, then it impacts everything. This includes our interpersonal relationships, our ability to do our job correctly, and our ability to function well.
When people stay indoors to stay cool, sometimes that can lead to social isolation. What are the mental health effects of that?
I mean, we all went through COVID-19. We know how rough that was. Instead of months of isolation, we’re talking about a couple days during the heat wave, but still it matters. Social interactions are one of the things that promote our well-being the most.
Positive psychology literature tells us that social interaction is one of the best predictors of well-being. You take that away, that’s a problem. Loneliness is a huge predictor of mental health issues, and even early death and other health conditions. Reducing those social interactions, especially if they’re ones that make people to feel better, can be a big problem.
Is there some way to address the mental health effects of heat and social isolation at the same time?
Totally. There was a major heat wave in Chicago in the 1990s and researchers did an analysis on heat-related illness and death. The researchers found that neighborhoods with better social cohesion and sense of community had better outcomes in the heat wave. This was in part because they felt like they could rely on and trust each other. For example, neighbors who had a cool space would welcome their neighbors in.
Everyone doesn’t have access to heat mitigation tools, like air conditioning. So, when someone in the community does, they can bring that to others. They have a support network through their community. That’s one thing.
Additionally, having social support is huge for mental health. Having a group or a few people to rely on when you are struggling is protective against extreme mental health issues. Whether or not you have mental health issues, fulfilling social interactions and having people you can trust is important for general well-being. Other people are so important for our overall positive functioning.
Community building creates safety nets that have the potential to protect us against the direct impacts of heat. It also protects against mental health effects by helping us feel good from social connection. Prioritizing community building is a great approach to think about.
How can we reduce the effects of heat on our mental health?
Before a heat wave happens, people can spend time looking into options to keep themselves cool. For example, in a heat wave, there are often cooling centers available. Even without a heat wave, a lot of public spaces, like libraries, are air conditioned. If you don’t have A/C, look for and spend time in public spaces in your community that would be air conditioned. It may feel out of your way, but if you’re experiencing these effects, it’s worthwhile. Don’t wait until you’re feeling awful or for your situation to become dangerous to seek them out.
Are there things that we can do beyond the individual level to help keep everyone cool and support mental health?
One policy that could be beneficial and sustainable is urban green space. I’ve conducted a lot of research looking at the psychological benefits of nature exposure, and other work shows that we can use nature interventions, such as planting trees to reduce the temperature.
There are decades of research on how interacting with nature improves people’s moods. The effects are better when you have immersive or repeated exposures versus short-term, smaller, less immersive exposures. But across the spectrum, you see improvements. You see reductions in stress, both self-reported and physiologically. You see improvements in cognitive performance.
There’s research that shows a little bit of nature exposure can have huge impacts on heat effects. It improves mental health symptoms. It decreases violence. It has all these amazing benefits.
And so, when I’m thinking, how do we protect people against the heat? Well, you can try to do the indirect route of cooling things down. Use urban green spaces. That’s a great, sustainable way to do it.
Thanks, Dr. Meidenbauer!
How to care for your mental health in the heat
- Follow advice on how to stay cool and heat-safe.
- Drink plenty of non-alcoholic beverages to stay hydrated, especially if you take a medication that increases your risk for dehydration.
- Try to make sure you are getting several hours in a cool place to give your body and brain a break from dealing with the heat. If you don’t have air conditioning, find a public place that has air conditioning such as a library or cooling center.
- If you are experiencing or at risk of domestic or intimate partner violence, help is available through the Washington State Coalition on Domestic Violence and these hotlines.
- If you are having a mental health crisis, thoughts of suicide, or other emotional distress, call or text 988 or chat online to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also contact 988 to get support for a loved one in crisis. The 988 Lifeline provides support in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. Interpretation services are available in more than 240 languages and dialects.
