Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – After dealing with an excessive amount of heat this past week and being in an “extreme heat warning” we ask: where does your mental health stand? Barbara Wheatley, Lead Clinician at Memorial Behavioral Health here in Springfield, stopped by the WTAX Morning Newswatch to answer that question.

Does dealing with heat effect us mentally?

“ Environmental factors do apply. Our embedded crisis team that works with Springfield Police Department took several individuals to the ER (Wednesday) for heat related illnesses. Staying hydrated, staying cool as possible, taking your medications as scheduled is still very important, and it decreases the amount of stress you experience because this is one of those environmental factors that affects our mental health.” 

Besides staying hydrated and keeping up on medication, what else can we do to keep our mental health in check?

“One is being preemptive. Like I said, so like in environmental stress situations like this heat wave we’re having, staying hydrated, taking that medication. 
Remembering to take breaks out of the sun is super-duper important. But then they’re grounding activities like the 54321-grounding technique where you think of 5 things you can see, you do 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. I usually tell people to keep sour candy in their pocket because it’s a great sensory tool to like reset you and help you feel like you’re in the present because a lot of anxiety is about future worry or past events, but being in the now kind of decreases that experience of anxiety.”