Write@Home
Winter 2015

Health

storm clouds

I recently realized that I have been mentally and physically affected by low pressure because I have often had a headache when it rains or if it is cloudy. I was wondering about where it come from. In the mean time, some idiom crossed my mind, which is "under the weather". When I learnt the expression for the first time 20 years ago, I totally didn't understand what the idiom is saying exactly. As time goes by, I find myself “under the weather”.

To figure out the cause, I searched for articles related to low pressure and headache. It said that my symptoms are also called “meteorological disease”. Sometimes this can cause illness or weaken existing diseases for some people. In addition, expressions such as “I feel like it is raining” and “I feel sore because of the rain” is due to this. Our body has a regulatory function that adapts to changes in various weather. However, if the weather such as temperature, humidity, or air pressure changes rapidly, our body cannot keep up with the changes. As a result, the control funtions are deteriorated and cause the body rhythm to break. On the other hand, it said that blood rises in the brain much more easily on cloudy and rainy days in the low pressure system. Especially for those who have a twisted neck bone or cervical spine, the blood sent to the brain does not come down well which may result in severe headache. Furthermore, low pressure system can cause depression or knee pain. Actually, I also used to feel depression and knee pain in rainy days and say "I am under the weather".

Now that I found out the cause, I searched for solution to prevent myself from being under the weather frequently. It said that maintaining biorhythm is much more important than anything else to be less affected by weather. In addition, It is good to do regular aerobic exercise. Since the endorphins released during exercise keep a good mood, blood circulation improvement is accelerated when the soles of feet are stimulated by aerobic exercise such as walking and running. It also said that good sleep routine helps people maintain mind-body balance. I will try to set the time for good sleep and do exercise to maintain my biorhythm effectively so that I can be the one who is less affected by weather.