By PROFESSOR TREVOR HARLEY – Professor Trevor Harley is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Dundee.
Excerpt: …it might surprise you that I have also experienced many positive benefits on my mental and physical health from what might be dubbed ‘bad weather’.
And the research backs me up. Bad weather – rain, hail, wind and snow – can be good for us, improving everything from cognition and immunity, to our cardiovascular system and optimism levels.
Discovering all this led me to write a new book on the subject – for as well as being a professor of psychology, I am a weather fanatic, creating forensic records for the past 30 years of weather in my local area.
Watching the weather has taught me important psychological coping skills –acceptance being one of them. I’ve learned to enjoy ‘bad’ weather and such acceptance is one of the most powerful non-pharmaceutical interventions for depression and anxiety there is.
Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that the weather has saved my life. It may sound trite, but seeing that even the worst weather can change has made me realise that my own mental darkness will pass, too.
This, as well as research that agrees with me, may help you see the positives about a bad spell of weather, too…
RAIN BOOST
Rain is an all-round health booster, particularly for our stress levels.
This is because it has a predictable sound pattern, close to what scientists call ‘pink noise’ – this is like white noise, but sounds slightly less hissy. Pink noise helps us to relax and promotes healthy sleep.
Studies show pink noise shifts brain waves to the patterns associated with relaxation. Other studies have found we feel less pain and stress when hearing the sound of rain.
Rain can also elevate our immunity. When raindrops hit dry soil, they form bubbles that carry chemicals from the soil into the air. As well as a fresh, calming fragrance, these chemicals – most notably a compound called geosmin – boost the immune system, reduce inflammation and increase levels of the happy hormone serotonin, studies show.
Our cognition has also been shown to get a shot in the arm on a rainy day: a 2014 study of bank workers in Japan found their productivity rates were significantly higher when it was rainy.
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But thunderstorms also make changes to the atmosphere, among them producing ions (i.e. charged particles) in the air.
In a thunderstorm, positive ions migrate to the top of the cloud, and negative ions accumulate at the base. These are then attracted to the positively charged ground, which results in lightning.
Lightning generates more ions which are further attracted to the ground, leading to a temporary accumulation of negative ions near the surface.
