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Are you in a bad mood but don’t know why? A new study finds that air pollution could be to blame.
Breathing polluted air can cause mood swings and changes, increasing the risk of long-term mental health effects, a new study has found. study A study led by a team from Stanford University found that people’s moods fluctuate with daily changes in air pollution.
The researchers called their findings “emotional sensitivity to air pollution” and the study involved repeated sampling of 150 people over the course of a year.
The study helps to further explain previous research linking increased anxiety and depression to long-term exposure to air pollution, the team said, and they hope their findings will draw more attention to the impact of the climate crisis on human health and well-being.
“This novel concept can be utilized to better integrate emotions and mental health into climate adaptation policies, plans and programs,” said the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal. PLoS One On Wednesday it read:
Air pollution events, such as devastating wildfires, will only increase in intensity and frequency as the human-caused climate crisis worsens.
Climate researchers have already made connections between mental health and the climate crisis: Two years ago, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced it would begin including the impacts of climate on mental health in its reports.
Their findings revealed that mental health problems may be linked to trauma caused by extreme weather and climatic events, and high temperatures, loss of livelihoods and cultural loss due to the climate crisis have adverse effects on mental health, the commission said.
“We are also seeing cascading and compounding impacts, such as Australia’s Black Summer fires being followed by floods and other extreme weather events,” co-author Catherine Bowen said of the 2022 report.
Air pollution isn’t just a mental health threat: a recent study from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore found that air pollution has killed 135 million people in the past 40 years.
In addition to rising air pollution, the climate crisis has made 2023 the hottest year on record, and this year is expected to break records as extreme temperatures affect communities around the world.
Rising temperatures are also contributing to ocean warming, resulting in a record-breaking and destructive hurricane season in the Atlantic, with researchers predicting about 23 named tropical storms and hurricanes through November.
In June, unprecedented ocean temperatures caused Hurricane Beryl to strengthen into the first ever Category 5 storm, causing devastation across the Caribbean.
