Mental Health Effects by Air Pollution

When we hear the term “Air Pollution”, the things that come to our mind are all the physical damages it does to the human body. Little do we know that our daily dose inhaling of all the harmful pollutants in the air also causes a fair number of psychological and mental health effects that go unnoticed by us due to its slow eradicate effects.

Some the mental signs that are caused by Air Pollution are:-

Anxiety
The symptoms of anxious behaviour by people who are exposed to air pollution and its components. There are several signs of mental uneasiness and discomfort which only exceeds if more amount of exposure is there if pollution is there.

Impatient Behaviour
There are several components in the air that are degraded by air pollution, this indirectly makes our nerves weak making us intolerant to wait for things to happen. Thus, there is need to get all the things to be done quickly, thereby leading to an impatient behaviour.

Laziness
As much as laziness is dependent on an individual to individual basis, it is also caused by the variants of air pollution. The will to do anything moderately decreases making people lethargic to do or complete any work.

Unsocial Behaviour
The prominence of different kind of pollutants breaking down, as mentioned leads to a lethargic behaviour which can also cause a will to not want to have any kind of interaction with people. Thus, making a person unsocial and not wanting to talk to others.

Lack of productivity
Due to the density of exposure to harmful air pollution, there is a mere clouding of ideas, which leads to lack of ideas and potentially lowers the creativity streak of people, thus leading to lack of productivity in workplaces or even amongst a group of people.

Crankiness
Due to inhaling a fair amount of pollutants in the air, the nervous system can become very feeble and weak leading to irritation all the time by minor acts or reasons. This obviously leads to a cranky behaviour.

Insomnia
The pollutants are present in our environment 24/7, there are pollutants that are visible but also some that are transparent to the naked eyes such as PM2.5. These kind of pollutants in addition to being present in our environment are also present on our bedsheets, pillow covers. Thus, inhaling such pollutants while trying to sleep causes irritation to our brain making us unable to sleep.

Depression
There are certain researchers which have shown Air Pollution as a major cause for the symptoms of depression. A part of the brain called hippocampus which is important for learning, mood, and memory gets irritated by the inflammation caused by the pollutants in the air leading to depressive behaviours amongst human.

Therefore, as much as Air Pollution has all the negative effects on the human health it has an equal amount of effect on the mental health and productivity of a person at their workplace or a normal social environment.

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