{"id":846782,"date":"2026-08-05T08:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/846782\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T08:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T08:54:09","slug":"heat-anxiety-this-year-has-been-the-worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/846782\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat anxiety: ‘This year has been the worst’"},"content":{"rendered":"

“When it’s hot the air feels different in your lungs. Your brain just starts going, ‘Something’s different – and therefore bad’ even though it’s not.”<\/p>\n

The hot weather and high temperatures can trigger anxiety and other mental health problems, according to new research<\/a> from Oxford University.<\/p>\n

Lauren Murphy, from Southampton, has anxiety and agoraphobia, a disorder defined by an intense fear of feeling trapped.<\/p>\n

The heat can trigger this feeling of panic, making her feel “really isolated” and like she cannot breathe.<\/p>\n

“You end up overthinking every single sensation, even if it’s a regular everyday occurrence,” she says. <\/p>\n

The 34-year-old has had anxiety for about a decade, but noticed it became worse after she became a parent and was diagnosed with ADHD.<\/p>\n

“When you’re an anxious person, especially with health anxiety, you’re so much more in tune with your body,” she says.<\/p>\n

Then her anxiety also got worse as the heat got stronger, which she first noticed when she went on holiday abroad a few years ago, and the high temperatures made her feel like she could not breathe.<\/p>\n

When similar conditions arrived in the UK, she says those fears returned.<\/p>\n

“It really brought it all back. This year has probably been the worst.” she said. <\/p>\n

A fourth heatwave of the year is affecting parts of the UK<\/a>, with a drought declared across large parts of England and the whole of Wales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“When it’s hot the air feels different in your lungs. Your brain just starts going, ‘Something’s different –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":["post-846782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}