Does the Wind Cause Anxiety?

A whooshing, swirling sound fills my house, not unlike a ghost, and I feel my ears perk up in attention as tension steadily creeps up my spine settling into my neck and jaw. Tree branches scrape against the exterior of my home and the clothes on my clothesline fly around the yard. The wind controls them like puppets. A sock dances up into the air, exposing its rainbow stripes and then just as suddenly, the wind crashes the sock to the ground and it rolls around momentarily, then is again lifeless, waiting for instruction from the next gust.

 Throughout my life, I’ve observed how the weather impacts my mood and created strategies to be OK, like making sure I go outside and spend time in cold and wind, understanding that bad weather can only be tolerated and appreciated with direct contact. A long hike, ski tour, or climb in crappy weather starts out feeling oppressive and challenging. But as you keep moving, you’re rewarded and the story of that day becomes one of perseverance and joy.

At the end of the day, it’s no longer you versus the weather. You are out there with it, in it, part of it and this shift feels like therapy.

Because I have small children, we go outside every day no matter the weather. But also because I have small children, I don’t go on 8-12 hour hikes, climbs, or skiing adventures right now.

These adventures are bookmarked for the future like a promise of reacquaintance with a part of myself that’s quietly put away and patiently waiting. The link between how I feel and what’s happening outside feels especially acute this past year with a new baby, a long pandemic and no travel. My expectations are too high. I find myself thinking, we need good weather because outside is the place that doesn’t let us down when everything else does. When the fires were raging last summer all I could think about was escape. I looked up plane tickets and places to stay anywhere that wasn’t covered in flames and smoke even though it was impossible to flee.

When the skies are blue and clear and the air is windless, my brain reflects this clarity and the world feels kind and possible. Because I live in the desert, rain and snow are a welcome relief, especially when perfect sunny days start to feel unrelenting and oppressive in their own right. On gray days, I’m frustrated and want to fight against Cirrus and Stratus and on windy days I feel caged and the wind feels violent. It blows dust into our eyes and yanks the covers off of the garden beds simultaneously threatening, and sometimes succeeding, at blowing over whole trees and buildings.

 Certain that I’m not alone in my wind-induced anxiety, I looked into the scarce research on mental health and wind.

Most studies examine seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which focuses on how seasonal weather changes (mostly sunshine and temperature) influences depression rates, but I’m more interested in the day to day fluctuations in the weather and it’s relationship to mood. Stories about wind and mental health abound. In central European countries, dry winds from the south that blow over the Alps, or Foehns, are associated with increased suicides. The Santa Ana winds in California, the Hamsin winds in the Middle East, the Mistral in France and Sirocco in Italy are reportedly connected to psychological distress. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) wind is considered to be a major cause of illness, or one of the six ‘pernicious influences.’

The theory is that wind creates motion in the body where there wasn’t motion before. In other words, it is disruptive to the system. External wind usually shows up during seasonal transitions or changing weather patterns and symptoms include stuffy nose, congestion, facial pain, stiff neck and shoulders, back and hip pain. The treatment is to encourage wind, which obstructs Qi, back out of the body by restoring balance via a healthy lifestyle and relaxation techniques.

Some research has found that wind direction influences anxiety and energy levels with warm, inland wind lowering energy levels and increasing anxiety. The idea is that wind from the “wrong” direction makes us feel lousy while wind from the “right” direction might make us feel less anxious and more energetic.

I’m not sure which direction is right or wrong for me, just that windy days make me feel apprehensive, occasionally rage-y, and in need of more chocolate than on normal days. The only cure that reliably works for me is getting myself into the wind and facing it head on. I want to feel it beat against my whole body, almost knocking me over on the top of a wind-swept mountain, and I want to feel myself root down into the ground and remain steady. I want to feel it almost defeat me then give me a near weightless boost as a tailwind. In this year of so many windy days, I’ve come to rely on this predictable faux foe to challenge me to find my center even when everything around me is swirling in charged ions and chaos.

References

Bos, Henriette Elisabeth, Rogier Hoenders, and Peter de Jonge. “Wind Direction and Mental Health: A Time-Series Analysis of Weather Influences in a Patient with Anxiety Disorder.” BMJ Case Reports (2012). doi: 10.1136/bcr-2012-006300

 Dashtdar, Mehrab, Mohammad Reza Dashtdar, Babak Dashtdar, Karima Kardi, and Mohammed Khabaz Shirazi. “The Concept of Wind in Traditional Chinese Medicine.” Journal of Pharmacopuncture 19, no. 4 (2016): 293-302. doi: 10.3831/KPI.2016.19.030