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in collaboration with
Sabrina Philippe (Psychologist)
The weekend will be hot, very hot. The barometer will be in the red over the entire country. Organizations too. Heat can even be particularly harmful to our mental health. Dr. Sabrina Phillipe, psychologist, tells us more.
Irritability, bad mood, near-zero tone, fatigue… When it’s hot, our mental health takes a hit. In 2013, a Californian study revealed that a simple increase of 1°C compared to the seasonal norm led to a 4% increase in interpersonal violence (crimes, domestic violence, murder, rape). Heat and aggressiveness, the infernal couple?
Heat exacerbates fatigue and irritability
In general, cold and heat have an influence on our behavior.
“Temperature variations have an impact on our personality, our emotions and the way we deal with them. The heat is often much more suffered than the cold: the body spends a lot of energy to cool off. Result: in case of high heat, we are tired, sleep is interrupted and daily tasks seem more difficult to carry out”, confides Dr. Sabrina Phillipe, psychologist.
We have all experienced it: when the temperatures are (very) high, it is generally more difficult to fall asleep. As a result, we become more irritable and/or more violent.
In addition, the loss of water, and more particularly the loss of salt, also tires the body, which undergoes a drop in tension. So you have to compensate and add a little salt to your water bottle.
At the same time, the vessels are more dilated: the heart sends more blood than usual to the rest of the organs, in order to cool our body – everything is done to keep it at 37°C. thermoregulation process. As a result, we tend to have more impulsive reactions: this is called unusual aggressiveness.
Finally, the heat increases even more the inequalities of lifestyle: some people benefit from air conditioning, others do not. In case of prolonged exposure to heat, swelling, blisters, cramps, painful spasms and loss of consciousness may occur. In the worst case, the increase in temperature can damage the connections between nerve cells in the brain (sign of significant dehydration), and lead to death by failure of thermoregulation.
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Heat wave: what attitude to adopt at work?
During a heat wave, certain measures can contribute to reducing the risks, such as dehydration, migraine or heat stroke:
- Arrange your working hours by favoring the cooler hours of the day;
- Limit your time of exposure to heat by rotating with other colleagues;
- Increase the frequency of recovery breaks, in cool places;
- Limit or postpone physical work;
- Modify or even mechanize certain tasks;
- Provide sources of drinking water near your workstation;
- Avoid working in isolation;
- Get trained and informed about the risks associated with heat, the warning signs of heat stroke and first aid measures.