When I think of summertime, I think of lemonade stands, sand in my bathing suit, and three blissful months during which it’s okay to eat ice cream every day. But sultry weather gives rise to more than overindulgence in Ben & Jerry’s: statistics show that people behave differently during the summer months than they do the rest of the year, and sometimes in the most unexpected ways, such as eating small French fries.
Hot Tempers
Violent crimes tend to become more frequent in summer, according to a study in the medical journal Stress and Health. Study author Dr. John Simister, summarizing his research to the Brooklyn Paper, explained that stress hormones, like adrenaline, increase in hot weather, causing people to be more aggressive. The human body is good at acclimating itself, so most of us become used to the rise in mercury and adrenaline before too long. We deal less well with extremes, however, which is why the most gruesome violent crimes occur during temperature spikes. Simister refers to this phenomenon in his study as “thermal stress.”
“All types of violence—from murder to assault—get worse on extremely hot days,” Simister told the online lifestyle magazine Asylum. “But they’re mostly impulse crimes, not premeditated. For example, if it’s cool, you may not react much if someone parks in your parking space. But in very hot weather, you might be so angry that you want to shoot someone.”
Simister’s research doesn’t account for the fact that we don’t all run around carrying .45s in case someone takes our parking spots, but his message is worth noting.
Take Me Out to the ER
Simister’s conclusion supports the theory that emergency room doctors and nurses get “slammed” during the summer months. For example, NHS Direct, the hotline of the British National Health Service, reports that during a typical week in summer, it receives more than two thousand calls regarding heat-related symptoms requiring emergency care. And, as Simister’s research suggests, not all heat-related illnesses show such a direct relationship to the hot weather.
In addition to heat exhaustion, dehydration, insect bites and stings, sunburn, fainting, breathing difficulties, and hay fever, emergency room visits for allergies (including food allergies), food poisoning from food left out in the sun, injuries from outdoor activities, and heat-related diabetes complications increase from June to August. (Oh, and don’t forget those aggravated-assault injuries over parking spaces.)
