Thursday, October 4, 2012
Weather and Your Health
It's long been known that the weather can affect a person's physical and/or mental health in myriad ways. Do some research and discover one way the weather can have either a positive or negative effect on one's physical or mental health. Does it have a name (i.e., a disorder or disease)? Why does it happen? How does it happen? How does it affect a person's body or mind? Give your information in proofread (check punctuation, capitalization, subject-verb agreement, spelling, and sentence structure), clear sentences, and remember to cite your source(s).
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Many people would say that we are products of our surroundings, weather is a simple reflection of that. Weather does in fact have an effect on our behavior and mood. A study done by Howard and Hoffman in 1984, proved this to be true. By having college students complete a mood evaluation over the course of 11 days, they were able to detemine how weather affected the student's behavior. The study stated that high levels of humidity causes less concentration, vigor and affection. Rising temperature lowers levels of anxiety and skepticism and the amount of sun that you are exposed to can affect your optimism.
ReplyDeleteThere are a variety of triggers that can inflame airways and provoke asthma attacks. For people with severe asthma, weather can be one of them. Medical director at the Vanderbilt Ashtma, Sinus and Allergy Program says that for people with exercise-induced asthma, "When breathing in fast, the air they exchange doesn't have a chance to warm up." Thus, the increased cooling of the airway causes the airway to swell. Also, thunderstorms have been shown to trigger asthma attacks. A study in the journal "Allergy" describes how thunderstorms carry pollen grains at ground level that eventually enter the lower part of the airway and trigger asthma attacks.
ReplyDelete"http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/the-weather-wreaking-havoc-on-health"
From doing my research I found many effects that weather has on physical and mental health. The most common disease I found was arthritis. Cold damp weather and falling barometric pressure can escalate the effects felt by arthritis. Also when temperature drops it expands sensitive joints which increase pain. Therefore people with arthritis can sometimes predict the weather without setting a foot outside.
ReplyDeleteIt's been known that the weather has an effect on a person's mental health. This happens because the temperature outside, and precipitation, make our mood either happy or tired. In my life when it is sunny and a nice breeze I am usually in a good mood because the weather is so great that it makes me feel good even if I am not having a great day. when it is raining and cold I am almost always tired and slow. The way it effects our body is when we see this good or bad weather it makes us feel better or worse depending whether we like the cold and cloudy days or the sunny and warm days. Weather is not always the main reason why you feel good or bad it just sometimes makes you feel a little better or worse. If someone died in your family and if it is sunny out it does not mean the weather will make you feel a hundred percent better, but it could help out.(source-myself because i already knew the effects of weather on a humans mind because i have someone in my family with depression)
ReplyDeleteEric Rivera
ReplyDeleteThe most common known symptom that has a negative effect on one's physical health is allergies. An allergic reaction may be occurred depending on how hot or cold it is outside. Typical cold weather illnesses are the flu, bronchitis, or pneumonia. These illnesses are caused by exposure to too much cold or disruption in the bodies temperature. Drought can cause hallucination to a human through lack of water. By a shortage of water and excessive heat, the brain begins to lack what it needs to function properly causing hallucinations. Drought may also cause stress specifically to farmers because of their financial income is cut by the drought and too much exposure to the sun may have an influence on the persons emotional state. The cold may also cause hypothermia as a result of extreme exposure to the cold. Hypothermia has three stages going from mild to severe.
http://www.searo.who.int/LinkFiles/Regional_Health_Forum_Volume_12_No_1_Climate_change_and_mental.pdf
http://www.uiltexas.org/health/info/cold-weather-illness
Weather's affect on the human psyche has been studied by many people. Some results may differ by opinion, unable to be proven. Other's, however, are more definite and supported by facts. For example: The Lunar Lunacy effect. This theory suggests that the moon causes weird or rather spuratic behavior with the changing of it's phases using the same "tidal effect" within us that it does on open bodies of water, disrupting our nervous system. However, this theory has more facts to discredit it than to support it.
ReplyDeleteThis brings me to my main topic, where mood is subject to seasonal changes: Seasonal Affective Disorder. It is thanks to countless studies that scientists and doctors have declared this illness real, with numbers of men and women suffering from the same illness. This is because with a changing environment, our bodies must also regulate to the change. If they don't/can't this causes an inbalance (which shows up as depression or a change in behavior that leads to depression).
Sources:
ReplyDeletewww.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=lunacy-and-the-full-moon
www.nami.org/Content/Contentgroups/Helpline1/Seasonal_Affective_Disorder_(SAD).htm
There is one disorder that I came across which is called SAD. SAD stands for "seasonal affective disorder," which means your mood change with different types of weather. Symptoms of SAD are, these symptoms can affect your job and your family, depression, sadness, fatigue, excessive sleeping, decreased activity and socialization, apathy, irritability. SAD can be caused by too little sunlight which seems like a small thing but it can make the body's time clock get all out of whack. It can make you feel sad, mad, fatigued, sleepy, depressed and irritable.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.essortment.com/weather-affect-mood-61020.html
ReplyDeletehttp://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/11/09/weather-can-change-your-mood/
http://healthyliving.msn.com/diseases/depression/does-weather-really-affect-our-mood-1
There is a 2011 study that says mental illness rates will rise due to changes in climate. It says that the loss of social cohesion during severe weather brought on by climate change could lead to rises of anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc. Now this was a study done in Australia, but I think it can also apply to the united states, a country riddled by severe weather especially in the mid-western region and places below sea level like New Orleans, as there are an infinitesimal amount of people who are mentally intact after Katrina. The study was presented in an article on http://www.smh.com.au/environment/mental-illness-rise-linked-to-climate-20110828-1jger.html
ReplyDeleteVarious weather conditions can affect a person both emotionally and physically. According to healingwell.com, increased irritability and aggressiveness are both conditions that weather-sensitive people are susceptible to. Adversely, sunlight can have a positive impact on a person. For example, according to medicine.net, it is clinically proven that sunlight can help solve issues with depression. Therefore, weather can both have positive and negative affect on human behavior.
ReplyDeleteIt is a true fact that weather has certain effects on the health of people.Climatic changes can effect different people in different ways. Not everybody is influenced in the same way by climatic changes, it varies from person to person. For example, the intensity of light(exposure to light) can effect different people in more than one way. One might feel drowsy and dull whereas the other might feel active and energetic due to the exposure to light. Every individual is unique and has a different body structure which leads to several different effects on various people due to climatic changes(that is same for every individual).
ReplyDeleteSo we can conclude by saying that the effect of weather on people is strictly on an individual basis.
In my opinion I believe that the weather can in fact affect one's mental health. I have had multiple experiences where I feel worse because it was a rainy, muggy, or an over casted day. Often times in the summer, it tends to get humid and that puts me in a horrible mood. Doing some research I came across a site where two college students took personal surveys for 11 consecutive days and actually found some corrilation between weather and mood patterns. Most of it relating to humidity. As we know heat can affect us by changing our state of mind from normal and level headed to being moody and being angrier. Physically, I know that the weather can affect us by causing a raise in body temperature. For certain people whenever it is really humid they have breakouts around their face.
ReplyDeleteThere are a few mental health problems associated with weather. They usually range from increased anxiety or extremely low mood. Many people find it difficult to work under extremely warm conditions. What happens to the body is, the increased moisture content on warmer days lessens the body’s ability to evaporate perspiration. This induces heat stress. Lethargy, irritation, and procrastination are common results of this heat induced stress. Some studies have actually been done in the past decade or two that shows the relationship between increased heat and crime rates.
ReplyDeleteResearchers in Ukraine have found that slight low frequency fluctuations in atmospheric pressure can cause short-term memory loss and changes in attitude. According to the online science magazine, Helium.com, “The hypothalamus in the human brain controls the body's main functions like mood, activity, sleep, temperature, appetite, and sex drive. This hypothalamus is stimulated when natural light passes through the retinas in the eye. People feel good when sun shines because sufficient light passes through the retina and the functions controlled by the hypothalamus perform optimally.”
Yes, weather can affect your mental and physcial state. Due to that fact that being in direct sunlight turns a chemical in your skin into vitimin D3, which make you happier,being deprived of sunlight can cause depression. It can also cause some people to experience anxiety due to too much sunlight during the summer. These are examples of how weather can have a positive and negative affect of people's physcial or mental health.
ReplyDelete