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Thursday's Health Report: Extreme heat can take toll on mental as well as physical health
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BATON ROUGE — It's the number one weather-related killer in the U.S.
Extreme heat can take a toll on a person's body, but it may also have a significant impact on the mind.
"Studies have shown that excessive heat triggers, stress, anxiety, frustration, and cognitive difficulties,” Susan Albers, a Cleveland Clinic psychologist, said.
One study linked days of extreme heat with higher rates of mental health-related emergency department visits. While extreme heat doesn't cause mental health issues, it can make ones that exist even worse, Albers says.
"When we are trying to cool down, it creates a lot of stress on the body and this releases cortisol, the stress hormone which triggers the fight or flight response. And this is why we may be a little bit more agitated during heat waves,” Albers said.
Albers says the heat can impact our ability to get quality sleep, which is strongly tied to mental health.
To help your mood in the heat, get things like errands done in the morning or evening to avoid the hottest hours of the day, wear light clothing to help keep you cool and if you get too hot, she says a cool shower or cold washcloth on the forehead or back of neck can help. She added that it is always important to stay hydrated.
"This is the time to pull out the popsicles, hydrating foods such as watermelons, cantaloupes. Anything that is going to help you to mitigate some of the features of dehydration which really drag down our mental health,” Albers said.
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