Crazy from the Heat

Photo by Michal Průcha on Unsplash

And so Labor Day weekend comes to an end, and with it, for many of us, summer vacation too. Here at the Jersey Shore the nights have already begun to cool, yet plenty hot days lie ahead. Much of the world is still experiencing record highs and, not surprisingly, higher admissions to emergency rooms for mental health emergencies. The heat can be irritating and mood crushing, and sweaty, sweltering days can be as depressing as the early darkness and bone-chilling cold of winter.

August has always been difficult for me. Even as a child I’d acquire some nervous tik or flight of agitation late in the summer. This year has been especially trying as summer’s end left me on leave from work because of a mixed episode that persists as September gains its foothold and the temperature still surges every afternoon. Apparently I’m not alone, as new research shows that hot weather is devastating to people with mental illness.

Emergency room visits surge 8% during heat waves. While I thought that maybe this statistic was skewed by a confluence of challenges brought on by the Covid pandemic, which has also been brutal to the nation’s mental health, the data collected during this study was gathered from the years 2010 to 2019. Hundreds of thousands of insurance claims were surveyed and every year hospital admissions for mood disorders and substance abuse spiked as hot weather settled in.

If you didn’t have enough to worry about climate change and the increasing temperatures it brings, here’s one more thing. And it’s a significant thing, because it’s one more challenge we must prepare for as the earth warms and heat waves become more regular and drag on longer and longer.

I’m tired of debates about the cause of climate change. What I know is that during the period studied the average temperature we experienced did increase, and there’s a reasonable expectation that temperatures will remain elevated, if not increase even higher. The data clearly show that this presents a problem in mental healthcare and it’s one we must prepare for.

The highest rates of emergency room visits were by men, presumably because more men work outside and bear the full brunt of heat waves. Visits were highest in the Northeast, Midwest and Northwest US, where facilities and homes are less prepared for long heatwaves that didn’t occur with such consistency when these buildings were built. Air conditioning is less common and less reliable than that found in traditionally warmer parts of the country. The highest category of cause of visit was overdose, another scourge that has been increasing over the last decade, and increasing with greater occurrence in men.

For many people it is not possible to just keep cool, so we must look forward to increasing mental health resources and emergency room preparedness during heat waves. Yes, summer is ending and the beauty and cooling of fall is right around the corner. But so is another summer, and another one after that. Awareness of a problem is key to solving it, and now we know. Hotter weather brings more difficulty to people with mental illness. We need to develop strategies and treatments for the inevitability of hotter days, and more emergency room visits, ahead.

For unique ideas on how to predict, prevent and manage episodes of anxiety, depression and mania, please have a look at my book Practicing Mental Illness - Meditation, Movement and Meaningful Work to Manage Challenging Moods.