Heat prevents thinking and worsening memory

This summer has become in many places of the planet the hottest in the history of observations. People are saved under air conditioners, but they are not at all, but in student hostels it is quite a rarity. And this is unfortunate, because the heat can not only spoil the mood, but also make a person a bit stupider than it happens at normal temperature.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health for two weeks, observed 44 students who were preparing for exams in hostels in the hot summer of 2016. Those students. who lived and spent most of the time in air-conditioned rooms, coped better with attentiveness tests and simple math problems than those who suffered from heat.

In the hottest days, the unfortunate from the uncon- servated rooms were 13% slower to perform tasks for speed and concentration and to solve problems worse. “It is considered that the heat does not affect cognitive abilities, but it is not so,” one of the authors of the work comments on the results.