Lately, everything feels more challenging. I have been sleeping more. Some days I take two or three naps. I feel lethargic and become cognitively stressed more easily. My productivity, which is already limited by chronic illness, is even more impeded2. Simple tasks require more effort, decision-making takes longer, and concentration is harder to sustain. I wondered what was wrong. Then I started looking more closely at the role heat may be playing.

Many of us have been taught to think about hot weather as a minor inconvenience. We complain about it, drink a little more water, and carry on. But for people living with conditions like Complex PTSD, CRPS, dysautonomia, chronic pain, chronic illness, and other conditions that affect the body’s regulatory systems, prolonged heat can become a significant physiological stressor. Understanding that has helped me give my body more grace this summer.

Relational Neuroscience teaches us that our experience emerges from the ongoing flow of information in the body, within the brain, and between us and our environment. We do not exist separately from our surroundings. The body constantly takes in information about temperature, hydration, circulation, energy availability, social connection, physical safety, and hundreds of other variables..Heat changes the equation.

When temperatures rise, the body has to work harder to maintain a stable internal environment. Blood vessels dilate, sweating increases, heart rate often rises, more fluids are needed, sleep can be disrupted, and energy is diverted toward cooling and maintaining basic physiological balance.

For someone with a healthy, flexible nervous system and no chronic health conditions, these adjustments may not be particularly noticeable. For someone like me, they can become impossible to ignore.

I live with severe Complex PTSD and quadrilateral CRPS. One of the features of my CRPS is hyperhidrosis. When the weather gets hot, I am not simply sweating a little more than usual. I can have sweat literally dripping down my legs from old scarred areas. At the same time, I am trying to stay hydrated, which is difficult enough under normal circumstances.

The result is that I often feel depleted before I have even started my day.  But I know fatigue is not laziness, naps are not a character flaw, and te cognitive difficulties are not a lack of motivation. My body is dealing with an increased physiological workload.

I expect many people with chronic conditions are experiencing something similar without realizing it. It can be particularly challenging because the effects of heat do not always show up in obvious ways. Sometimes they appear as increased pain, irritability, brain fog, poorer concentration, greater sensory overwhelm, reduced stamina, disrupted sleep, or an increased need for rest. People often blame themselves for these changes.They assume they are failing, that they should be able to push through, or that they are imagining it. Yet from a neurobiological perspective, there may be very real reasons their capacity is reduced.

Complex PTSD already involves a nervous system that has spent years adapting to chronic threat, unpredictability, or relational disruption. CRPS involves altered pain processing, sensory processing, circulation, temperature regulation, and autonomic function. Add prolonged heat to that mix and it is not surprising that many people find themselves struggling.

The body is being asked to do more. At the same time, many of us are trying to maintain the same expectations we had when the weather was cooler. That can create a great deal of unnecessary self-criticism.

One of the most useful shifts for me has been moving away from asking, “Why can’t I keep up?” and toward asking, “What is my body dealing with right now?” That changes everything. Instead of treating my fatigue as a problem to overcome, I can treat it as information. Instead of seeing naps as evidence that I am failing, I can recognize them as part of how my body adapts to increased physiological demand. Rather than trying to force myself through the hottest parts of the day, I can build my schedule around what my body needs.

For me, that means spending more time in air-conditioned environments. I have an air conditioner in my bedroom, which helps me sleep reasonably well. But I cannot spend my entire day in my bedroom. That would quickly become isolating and miserable. But outside my bedroom the house is often 88-95°F.

So I have been thinking differently. Rather than staying home and struggling through the hottest hours, I am strategizing to spend more of that time in air-conditioned public spaces: libraries, coffee shops, community spaces, and other places where I can cool down, conserve energy, and perhaps most importantly, have some contact with other human beings.

That social connection matters too. From an IPNB perspective, relationships are not separate from health. Human beings regulate one another in countless ways. Supportive social environments can reduce physiological strain. Isolation often increases it. My strategy for staying cool also supports.overall well-being.

I am also paying attention to when movement feels most accessible. For me, that often means walking first thing in the morning or about an hour before bed. I especially like walking before bed. It seems to help me settle into sleep more easily.

If you find yourself more fatigued, less productive, more cognitively stressed, more symptomatic, or simply less able to do what you normally do during periods of prolonged heat, consider the possibility that your body is responding to real physiological demands.

You are not imagining it or failing. You may simply be living in a body that is working very hard to maintain balance under challenging conditions. When the heat turns up, it is vital to listen more carefully to what our bodies are telling us.