How heatwaves are making you angrier, irritable and depressed

Mbongeni Mguni | Monday March 18, 2024 06:00

The country is experiencing one of the most prolonged periods of above average temperatures this summer. Besides the obvious effects of rolling heatwaves on livelihoods, these conditions also put significant challenges on mental health.

This week, Mmegi spoke to Dr PJ van der Walt, a doctor (PhD) in Clinical Psychology. Van der Walt runs a clinic in Block 10, Gaborone.

Mmegi: What would you say are the impacts on people’s psychology of consistently high temperatures over several months, as is the case in Botswana where we are experiencing persistent heatwaves all through this summer season?

Van der Walt: Hot weather according to my experience and training has a significant impact on the body. Your body and your soul and mental health are very much integrated and an effect on the body will definitely affect your emotional well-being and psyche.

The body needs to maintain homeostasis or a correct balance between water, heat, osmotic potential, glucose, minerals and many other factors and therefore during heat the body loses more water and more sodium chloride through sweating. This then means the body has extra stress on it to cope with this especially the internal body temperature and the hormones and the proteins need to operate within specific heat ranges. Since the body and the metabolic processes take much more effort from the body, this has an impact on the psyche of raised anxiety and stress and levels.

This (in turn) can lead to sleep disturbance, depression and being overwhelmed easily because even the brain has higher stress. Short term memory is the first thing to be sacrificed as well as emotional control, so people do get more irritable, depressive.

Mmegi: Do people generally become more short-tempered, angrier, unhappy or even suicidal when high temperatures persist for several months, or what changes in behaviour have you seen in research or anywhere else?

Van der Walt: According to my experience in cases I have handled, it’s very seldom that prolonged hot weather would lead to suicide. Higher anxiety can have an impact on higher suicidal ideation but not as much as we would expect. Suicide is a very complex and deep rooted issue and hot weather may contribute but not as much as you would expect. But in people’s responses to one another, the irritability is there.

I work with farmers a lot. The drought and the financial impact that it has on the farming community has a severe impact on our agricultural sector. Their financial stability and security is under threat and some have even resorted to pushing the limits of ethics a little bit in order to survive because they feel desperate. Others the wives feel insecure and now there are some domestic conflicts here and there; with, one or two cases, an increase in domestic violence. Not only from the father to the mother, but from the father to the children. For children, the psychological well-being in hot weather has a much bigger impact on them, not due to the hot weather on their bodies, but due to the impact of the anxiety at home.

With hot weather, in a short period, the body can recover, but over such long periods as we have had, it has caused significant psychological setbacks in their stability.

The other impact it has on the psychological well-being is the excretion of a lot of stress hormones, also called glucose corticoids. These things can have short term and long term negative impacts on the body. Physiologically it affects the body in many areas that are too long to even discuss here. This ranges from the brain to the muscles, to the heart, to pancreas and many others, the joints, the skin and I can carry on.

The anxiety hormones have a severe negative impact on the body more than people realise and over the long term that has a secondary impact on the psychological wellbeing on people.

Socially under such stress, people tend to isolate themselves more from others, not just from physical discomfort from heat, but also because of the higher stress levels. They tend to be less social and interactive and this is not just husbands and wives, but on a wider context within families and within the community.

Mmegi: What can people do to protect themselves against negative psychological changes during persistent months of high temperatures?

Van der Walt: First of all it’s about a sense of security. For farmers and others where the heat has a negative impact on their financial survival, of course the key is good financial management so that you have a buffer to pull you through at times like this. I know a lot of people in the poultry sector that have lost so many animals and others the financial stress of supplying water to them. So it’s about trying to regain a sense of financial security.

On the social level, it’s about more integration with positive people. There’s a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Social support, meeting with family, close relatives, friends, religious fellowships, such things can help people to overcome and better handle the challenges.

For those who are not religious, also, they can take physical action to protect their bodies from the impact of the heat.

Stay out of the sun, drink lots of fluids but be careful not to drink sweet fizzy drinks too much. Although these put water in the body, the osmotic potential, is not optimal. Water or soda water are better or a little bit of lemon juice in cold water, adding a little of this or that.

Use air conditioners in your house or car where possible. If you don’t have that, at least have good ventilation.

I have seen that some people open all the windows but the temperature outside is more than the temperature inside of the house, so then they are making their house like a sauna. Have a temperature thermometer ready or check on your phone so that you don’t let the heat from outside come in.

Replace water in our bodies and plan your work schedule so that you don’t overload yourself. If you have to, postpone non-essential tasks to another time because the concentration will also not optimum.

If you have to do important work on your computer in extreme heat and your body is affected, the chances of you making errors and missing details are much higher. So, manage your workload and daily activities to prevent yourself from being overloaded and overworked.