Oppressive and inescapable - heatwaves and sadness

The summer of 2026 has broken heat records. No news there. It’s been tough to sleep, a sense of weary ennui at the inescapable warm air. Tiredness is a major contributor to feeling less good. Perhaps you’re not able to exercise as much as usual. Everyday tasks are that little bit more difficult.

But aside from the challenges of living in hot weather in a famously cool and damp country, there’s something about the nature of heatwaves that speak to the experience of depression. The heat is everywhere. Even if you find a blissful patch of air-con, step aside and the heat remains. It’s there in the morning, on the walk to work, at lunchtime. It hangs thick in the home, perhaps pushed around by a fan, but you cannot escape it. Sleep brings no relief and the next day is the same again. And then again. And again.

Living with depression can feel the same. Pockets of relief from an inescapable, oppressive sense of a life lived slowly, stickily; not really lived at all. But with heatwaves, we live in the knowledge of their transience. They’re survivable (in the main) because they will end. Apps can tell us when the weather will break and the rain will return. And we share our misery in the heat - the shrugs at a soaking shirt, the “it’s a bit much, this!” in the local. Get your head down, try to buy a fan online and things will get better.

With depression, or even just low mood, there’s no shared narrative. We don’t share because we don’t know who else feels our private, oppressive sadness. And we can’t check Accuweather, shrug and look forward to a cool spell on Thursday. But some of that mindset can help us. Things haven’t always felt this way and so they won’t in the future. Moods, challenges, relationships, experiences - they all shift over time. Plus, even if it doesn’t feel like it, there are people to talk to who understand your world. 

So, perhaps we can start to see our unhappiness like the heatwave - horrible, real, powerful and inescapable. But also temporary and survivable. And, most importantly, not unique to us and no cause for shame. Cooler, calmer normality is coming, just hold on.