Why does hot weather increase anxiety?

[Marc0133]

My anxiety has been through the roof ever since we got hot weather over here. I've tried looking it up but I would like a more condensed answer. Why does hot weather/summer increase anxiety? Thanks

[Agora1]

Hi Marc0133 I don't care for the heat anymore. I think for myself it's because

it brings back the memories of those hot flashes of Anxiety. Breaking out in a

sweat whenever we were anxious. Waking up in the middle of the night feeling

scared and hot or cold sweat. Medication at that time would also cause that

heat feeling.

Once I overcame Anxiety and got off my benzos, all that disappeared. Looking

forward to Fall xx

[Tranquilwaters]

There is a biological reason - hot weather increases cortisol which is one of our stress hormones. We're also sensitive to brighter light when we're anxious too as our pupils dilate more when we're anxious to scan for threats, letting in more light which can feel sensorially overwhelming to us anxious types. This is part of the ancient 'fight or flight' response to help us to be more alert to scan for threats. Anxiety makes us feel as if something threatening is about to happen at any given momemt, and the primitive limbic part of our brain which governs our survival instincts kicks in. See? As much as we like to think we're quite sophisticated in this day and age, our brains still act as if we're cave dwellers at risk from predators when in fact we're not! I find Shaan Kassam's youtube channel extremely helpful as he explains things so well and has great steps to anxiety recovery. The DARE app and book are also fantastic too (the app is free to download). Keeping cool of course definitely helps - I have always really hated the heat myself and we're going to have a really hot weekend where I am, so I relate to you for sure.