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Even Mild Weather Changes Impact Mental Health
- June 30, 2026
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
Heat domes, soaking rains and savage winter storms have left their mark on people’s minds and moods this year.
And little wonder — even modest, short-term changes in weather can affect a person enough to make them seek therapy, a new study says.
Fluctuations in temperature and levels of sunshine are linked to U.K. residents seeking mental health care through the National Health Service, researchers report in Frontiers in Psychiatry.
“Everyday weather conditions influence mental health and when and how people seek support, not just extreme weather such as heatwaves,” lead researcher Richard Elson said in a news release. He’s a research fellow at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England.
For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 4.6 million mental health contacts between 2014 and 2022 in England, either at emergency rooms, at family doctor out-of-hours services or calls to the National Health Service’s 111 telephone advice line.
The team compared these calls to weather data for the same period, and found that demand increased with rising temperatures up to around 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Demand also was higher on days with fewer hours of sunshine.
NHS 111 calls were associated with self-harm, alcohol intoxication or problems sleeping, while family doctors’ out-of-hours contacts included anxiety, depression, self-harm or sleeping difficulties. ERs saw more cases of anxiety, depression, self-harm and drunkenness.
Interestingly, rainfall was not associated with any consistent effect on mental health calls, suggesting that specific weather patterns affect people’s psyches more than overall conditions, researchers said.
“Understanding factors that influence fluctuations in mental health-related healthcare demand is an important public health priority, and may help planning and preparedness efforts for mental health services under current and future climate conditions,” Elson said.
More information
Change Mental Health has more on weather and mental health.
SOURCE: University of East Anglia, news release, June 29, 2026
