When it’s raining outside, you feel terrible, and when the sun is shining, you immediately have the impression that your mood changes for the better? No wonder – more and more people notice the symptoms of meteoropathy, i.e. the impact of meteorological conditions on the human body. The problem here is in our psyche, but you can minimize this condition and enjoy the day regardless of the weather!
A person’s life and well-being are influenced by many factors – both internal and external, i.e. weather conditions. Meteoropathy has been talked about since ancient times, but (according to scientific reports) there are now many more people complaining about this ailment than ever before.
The most vulnerable to this type of ailments are the elderly, children, as well as people with low blood pressure, lowered or subjected to long-term stress. Another factor is hormonal changes, to which women in particular are exposed – mainly during puberty and during menopause, but also outside these periods, because their hormonal balance is constantly subject to cyclical fluctuations.
More interestingly, people living in cities have an advantage in susceptibility to the weather. It is believed that this is because people living in the countryside are more hardened by being close to nature, so they are relatively less likely to suffer from this condition. Meteoropathy, just like obesity or heart disease, is referred to as a civilization disease.
What changes occur in the body depending on the weather?
Our body’s defense system, i.e. resistance to diseases and external factors, is definitely weaker than it used to be. Increasingly, we spend most of our time indoors, we make our body lazy with air conditioning and heating, so its adaptive abilities decrease. Lack of exercise (e.g. driving a car or a bus instead of walking to work) and a poor diet also contribute to the appearance of meteoropathy.
Although everyone may have different, individual feelings about particular weather conditions, they most often manifest themselves in the following ways:
- When a cold front appears, i.e. thunderstorms, wind and clouds, we feel a changeable mood, headaches, shortness of breath.
- With a warm front, i.e. relatively warm weather, pressure surges, rains, the meteorologist may experience problems with concentration, drowsiness and lack of energy,
- When the pressure goes up (high pressure, dry air, frost) we have headaches more often, we are more susceptible to stress and blood pressure rises, which makes it easier to have a heart attack these days,
- In the case of low pressure (pressure drop, cloudiness, humid air, little light), joints and head hurt more often, drowsiness and bad mood appear.
If you see symptoms of meteoropathy and it hinders your normal functioning, be sure to contact your primary care physician who will conduct the necessary tests. Sometimes hypersensitivity to weather changes can be a signal that something is wrong in the body. In addition, it is recommended to lead a healthy lifestyle and toughen up by spending as much time in nature as possible, which will stimulate the protective mechanisms in the body.