The heat IS making your TMS worse

https://www.vox.com/even-better/23805603/extreme-heat-impacts-mental-health (Why you feel grouchy on super hot days)

This article is reporting on factual observations, and manages to mostly miss what is obvious to me from our TMS point of view, which is that extreme heat, even more than extreme cold, ignites a primitive fear response. I've certainly felt it. When the Pacific Northwest experienced days of temperatures over 100, combined with smoke in the air and orange sunlight, it felt like the Apocalypse was upon us.

The interviewee in the article FINALLY gets around to saying this:

"A thing that people don’t tend to think about as much is that a lot of people right now, and especially a lot of young people, are already facing additional levels of anxiety and stress around climate change. Having that baseline level of anxiety already elevated because you’re anticipating future events is also a problem. It might limit our ability to cope as these events are occurring. It might reduce our resilience in the face of future summertime extremes. One of the things that I’m really interested in is what are the ways in which this anticipation of ongoing climate change is also impacting people’s need for emergency care or other types of health care."​

 

Thanks for the timely bump, @jbrooks! A year after I posted that, and the existential crises keep piling on

I would say "stay safe and stay cool" but us TMSers are pretty good at employing physical relief measures. We just need to remember to take care of our emotional safety needs as well!