This is what the extreme heat does to our behavior

Goodness, I know I'm going to sound like the ultimate complaining Dutch person now, but wasn't it incredibly hot yesterday? A full 30 degrees and not a breath of wind to be found. Yet you don't really hear me complaining, because secretly I do enjoy that tropical heat. Although I must admit that I stayed inside almost the entire day because I just can't get a word on paper outside. Sometimes I take a chance and go out on the balcony with my laptop, but that often results in chatting with the neighbors, looking at all the cheerful gardens, and then sweating and exhausted moving back inside.

Because as lovely as that sunshine is, once those temperatures shoot up, we can become quite sluggish. On such days, we literally can't get anything done and achieve very little. Fortunately, you don't have to feel too guilty about it, because research has shown that our brain reacts a whopping thirteen percent slower when we are exposed to heat. Scientists from Boston University studied a group of 44 students who had to perform various thinking exercises for twelve days. This group was split in two: one part had to perform the exercises in a room where the temperature was 21.6 degrees, and the other part of the group had to do this in a space of 27.6 degrees.

The participants in the warmer environment made significantly more mistakes than those in the other room. Based on these results and after extensive research, the scientists concluded that our brains react slower in high temperatures. Our concentration clearly decreases due to the heat, but the exact reason for this has not yet been established.

But besides our brain causing the necessary delay, we seem to become more aggressive in our actions during extreme heat. John Cotton from Purdue University examined American police statistics and discovered that there is much more violence occurring at a temperature of thirty degrees or higher. The higher the temperature, the quicker we seem to get irritated. American psychologists Robert Baron and Victoria Ransberger also confirm this and state that the risk of riots increases with the heat. Once it hits thirty degrees, demonstrators start throwing objects more quickly, protests last longer, and the police have to intervene more.

Well, that sun doesn't always do people good. Extreme heat makes us sluggish and at the same time extremely combative, quite a combination. Well, as long as the temperature stays below thirty degrees, there's nothing to worry about. And let that be the case for the coming days.

Could the expression 'heated discussion' have something to do with this?