Heat: Our Brain’s Biggest Enemy?

Heat affects us physically and mentally to a big extent, in this article we will talk about why and how to protect ourselves and our brain from the heat.

Heat waves all over the world are becoming more and more frequent, the most notable of which is the heat dome over the Eastern and Southwestern U.S. as of the 24^th of June. Safety precautions on health are being shared all over headlines, most addressing physical health, warning people about dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke. What is less known about, however, is the effect of heat on our mental and cognitive health which gets as much of a hit.

Researchers are calling for us to pay attention to the fact that heat also worsens our ability to think clearly, makes us more prone to mood swings, impulsivity, aggression and overall feeling grumpy and tired.

One of the known reasons for this is the fact that in intense heat our body concentrates most of its energy to cool us down, leaving no energy to properly function and do our daily activities as well as regulating our behaviour and/or moods.

Now that we answered the question of what is going on and why it is important, we will look at how we can protect ourselves and our brains from the heat.

Wearing Cooling Devices

Researchers from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute who published a study, “Local wearable cooling may improve thermal comfort, emotion, and cognition”, in the Building and Environment magazine have found that wearing cooling devices significantly reduces negative emotional states, which can potentially help us in our everyday life to regulate our emotions, positive or negative.

Another study “The effects of head-cooling on brain function during passive hyperthermia: an fMRI study” conducted by Xue et al. (2018) has found that in extremely hot temperature neck and head cooling devices help us think and function better.

Cooling Your Homes/Neighbourhoods

Homes that have air conditioning (AC) have a straightforward way of cooling the house, but in most places houses that do have them are far from being the majority, so what can you do if you don’t have AC?

A long-term decision that can help with this is planting as many trees, bushes and plants as possible, green roofs and walls are also helpful. However, this takes a long time and planning, and the heatwaves are happening now, so what can we do right now?

We can visit air-conditioned public spaces, like malls, libraries, and movie theatres. However, even this might not be accessible for all for various reasons. This is why there are many scientists who are working very hard on finding solutions that work to protect us in the face of future heatwaves.