Recently I read some speculation that climate change would also change human bodies in the long run. It made me realize how my attitude toward heat has changed now that I have been through menopause.
I don’t complain about the local heat now that I’ve experienced hot flashes and have thus felt a heat that the midwestern climate cannot produce.
I womdered if people who live by the equator don’t complain of hot flashes because they are used to extreme heat.
Turns out, studies show hot flashes (or flushes, as they are known by the equator) are exacerbated by ones general emotional state.
(Fair warning, that study linked above really suggests that women who get hot flashes are out-of-shape whiny slugs.)
2 responses to “TWIL: Hot Flashes”
(Thank you for the warning. I have known people who were the opposite of out-of-shape, and were minimally whiny, who got fairly nasty hot flashes, so I am dubious. BUT worse when there’s a lot of stress is something I’ve heard from some women, and… well, *most* physical things are worse when stressed [inflammation, pain, nausea, most autoimmune disorders, GI stuff, etc.], so that would not surprise me at all.)(and I have enough stress than I’m gonna skip reading that study at this time because stupidly-shaped questions and stupid bias in medical research drives me up a wall.)
I’ve seen some things that point out that while humans partly adapt to higher temperatures, there are still hard caps as to what temperatures are survivable (in terms of being able to keep your body temperature below the brain-goes-zzt temperature and similar), so it’s not a… solution… to climate change. Also it wouldn’t happen fast enough. Also we’re less healthy and productive at higher temperatures; it’s perhaps parallel to how you can “adapt” to loud noises with extensive exposure, but it’s still not *good* for you.
KC – yes, I am not endorsing that study’s findings. Just interesting they studied something I wondered about and ruled out my hypotheseis. What they came up with was nonsense. (‘Whiners complain more about subjective things.”)