Why you cannot think when it is too hot
Heatwaves Can Make Thinking 13% Slower: Study TOI 13.07.2018
Heat waves can sap productivity by slowing down thinking, even in the young and healthy, a study suggests. Harvard researchers found that during a summer heat wave, students living in dorms without air conditioning consistently scored lower on daily cognitive tests over nearly a week than students in buildings with AC.
“For the first time, we’ve been able to find a detrimental effect of heat waves in young healthy adults,” said lead author Jose Guillermo Cedeno Laurent, associate director of the healthy buildings programme at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “Among that group (who had no AC) there were longer reaction times and lower accuracy compared to students who lived with air conditioning,” he said.
The researchers followed 44 undergraduate and graduate students in their late teens and early 20s for 12 consecutive days during July of 2016. Twentyfour of the students resided in buildings constructed in the 1990s that were equipped with central air conditioning, while 20 lived in low-rise brick buildings built between 1930 and 1950 with no cooling system.
The researchers designed their experiment so that the 12 days included a five-day heat wave, preceded by five days with more moderate temperatures, and followed by two days of cooler weather. Temperatures inside the building without air conditioning averaged 26.3° Celsius and ranged as high as 30.4° Celsius. Average temperatures in the air-conditioned buildings were 21.4° Celsius, ranging up to 25° Celsius.
Each morning the students took two tests of cognition on their smartphones. One test, which required them to correctly identify the colour of displayed words, measured their reaction speed and ability to concentrate and block distractions. The other test, which presented basic arithmetic problems, measured mental quickness and working memory.
During the heatwave, students in buildings with no cooling had 13.4% slower reaction times on the colour-word tests and 13.3% lower scores on the math tests, compared to those living in dorms with air conditioning. The study suggests this decrease in cognitive ability might be attributable to “an increase in thermal load” along with the combined influence of other factors associated with heat exposure including sleep loss and dehydration.
Previous research on effects of extremely hot weather has been in vulnerable populations that are at risk of dying: either the very young or the very old, the authors noted in ‘PLOS Medicine’.
“This study looks at the effects of heat in a population we all think of as generally being resilient,” said study coauthor Joe Allen, co-director of Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard school. And while much media coverage has been on people dying prematurely, “the fact is, millions are impacted by heat waves,” Allen said. “And with climate change, and the increased duration of heat waves, we’re going to see an increased impact on performance and learning.” AGENCIES
BEAT THE HEAT
Heatwaves Can Make Thinking 13% Slower: Study TOI 13.07.2018
Heat waves can sap productivity by slowing down thinking, even in the young and healthy, a study suggests. Harvard researchers found that during a summer heat wave, students living in dorms without air conditioning consistently scored lower on daily cognitive tests over nearly a week than students in buildings with AC.
“For the first time, we’ve been able to find a detrimental effect of heat waves in young healthy adults,” said lead author Jose Guillermo Cedeno Laurent, associate director of the healthy buildings programme at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “Among that group (who had no AC) there were longer reaction times and lower accuracy compared to students who lived with air conditioning,” he said.
The researchers followed 44 undergraduate and graduate students in their late teens and early 20s for 12 consecutive days during July of 2016. Twentyfour of the students resided in buildings constructed in the 1990s that were equipped with central air conditioning, while 20 lived in low-rise brick buildings built between 1930 and 1950 with no cooling system.
The researchers designed their experiment so that the 12 days included a five-day heat wave, preceded by five days with more moderate temperatures, and followed by two days of cooler weather. Temperatures inside the building without air conditioning averaged 26.3° Celsius and ranged as high as 30.4° Celsius. Average temperatures in the air-conditioned buildings were 21.4° Celsius, ranging up to 25° Celsius.
Each morning the students took two tests of cognition on their smartphones. One test, which required them to correctly identify the colour of displayed words, measured their reaction speed and ability to concentrate and block distractions. The other test, which presented basic arithmetic problems, measured mental quickness and working memory.
During the heatwave, students in buildings with no cooling had 13.4% slower reaction times on the colour-word tests and 13.3% lower scores on the math tests, compared to those living in dorms with air conditioning. The study suggests this decrease in cognitive ability might be attributable to “an increase in thermal load” along with the combined influence of other factors associated with heat exposure including sleep loss and dehydration.
Previous research on effects of extremely hot weather has been in vulnerable populations that are at risk of dying: either the very young or the very old, the authors noted in ‘PLOS Medicine’.
“This study looks at the effects of heat in a population we all think of as generally being resilient,” said study coauthor Joe Allen, co-director of Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard school. And while much media coverage has been on people dying prematurely, “the fact is, millions are impacted by heat waves,” Allen said. “And with climate change, and the increased duration of heat waves, we’re going to see an increased impact on performance and learning.” AGENCIES
BEAT THE HEAT
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