More Answers... (06/30/26 Newsletter): Heat Wave Warnings at Work

More Answers from Ask Christa! 

Hi Everyone, 

Here are More Answers... to help you head into the work week. Remember, you can see previous newsletters at askchrista.com/MoreAnswers.

Today’s topic: Heat Wave Warnings at Work.

We in the northeast have a "heat dome" forming, where the heat-- and moreso, the humidity (everyone now, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity!")-- will be at dangerous levels. 

Here's what makes the heat and humidity so dangerous: our bodies are built to release heat not just by sweating, which is one of the physical ways our bodies respond to dangerously high temperatures, but also by allowing that sweat to evaporate. That evaporation is what carries heat away from the body and helps restore a safer internal temperature (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2025).

That got me thinking of how that happens in the workplace, too. 

It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity... (and the heat...)

If we overheat emotionally or mentally, we manage that stress through stress responses as a first step: maybe we go silent, maybe we get "snippy," maybe the first response isn't behavioral at all-- maybe it's all physical (Hi, everyone! That's me!): flushed face, burning ears, pounding heart... maybe even stress tears, which are far more common than most people realize. Crying during periods of overwhelming pressure is a recognized physiological response to emotional overload, and while it may feel embarrassing in the workplace, researchers have found that crying can play a role in emotional recovery after intense stress (Sharman et al., 2020). Yes, the workplace may judge the tears-- although thanks to people like Jefferson Fisher sharing practical knowledge about this, perhaps less so than they used to-- but the body often sees them as one more way of responding to overload before it begins finding its way back toward the right balance (Becker et al., 2018).

Now, we all know we can become sick from high heat outside, and we also know we can become sick from stress at work. But rarely do we put those in the same category, right? 

We think of dangerously high heat outside as dangerous because it's IMMEDIATELY obvious that it's unhealthy: we step outside, start sweating right away, perhaps have a harder time breathing, and recall the warnings and recommendations to stay cool when it's THIS HOT outside.

Now imagine if we had that kind of preemptive care (warnings and recommendations) for when it's about to get that hot and humid, or simply "stressful out of the ordinary" at work?

One month before product launch... two months before an IPO... one month after an audit with findings... one week before and one week after a big event... performance review time when the company barely cares about performance (that happens when and if you only talk about performance once a year for three weeks)...

Imagine if we all received the same warnings of heat and humidity at work the way we receive it for the outdoors?

What if We Received "Heat Warnings" at Work, Too?

Imagine that for just a second and how we'd have the same allowance to proactively adjust and prepare:

• We'd learn better hacks to proactively protect ourselves from the dangers of that level of stress
• We'd check in on each other more frequently
• We'd invest in ways to release the stress (mental swimming pools or emotional cool-off places, for example)
• Perhaps companies would even tell the workforce, "It's been unusually high in stress the last few weeks. Please work with your teams and determine ways to balance your time and energy, take responsible breaks, and find the right balance so you do not burn out. I've asked our HR team and all managers to facilitate this in a compliant, fair way. I ask that you be respectful to each other and not take advantage in a way that could hurt your teammates, but rather, take advantage of your breaks in a way that enables you to maintain health, perspective, and productivity."

Just like with dangerously hot heat waves, these accommodations wouldn't be all the time, but it WOULD give people a permission structure to manage their health during high stress times when stress (heat) might get so high that your body (and emotional and mental health) can no longer tolerate, manage, or ultimately fix the known, universal stress in the workplace driven by one or two unusually stressful events.

Who Argues About the Heat Outside Being Dangerous? 
(not many...)

The interesting thing about outdoor heat is: very few argue over it.

When the forecast says temperatures could become dangerous, we don't tell people to "tough it out." We don't accuse them of lacking strength or "mental toughness" because they need to sit down, or drink water, or get into the shade, right? 

We can feel the heat and feel how unhealthy it is. We recognize an extraordinary condition for what it is and we support extraordinary support, knowing (and feeling) how our bodies weren't designed to operate at maximum capacity indefinitely in that kind of heat.

And yet, when faced with unusually high and chronic stress at work, we seldom provide the same level of support to ourselves or others. 

TRUTH: some seasons of business are harder than others. If you're in a tax cycle, you'll feel it in Q1 of every year, for sure. If you're in health benefits management, you'll feel it in Q4 of every year. Product launch time, audit time, big strategic efforts like an IPO or a Merger / Acquisition. There are times when everyone pulls together to get really hard and high-stress work done because the work genuinely requires it. 

But those times are like getting through a heat wave: the stress is much higher, and the care we need during those "sprints" is far more pronounced than in other times during the year.

The Spend to Get Started vs the Spend to Keep Going

Organizations spend an incredible amount of time planning for risk and high stress moments, both known and unknown: operational risk, financial risk, cybersecurity risk, supply chain risk, client risk. And yet, one of the biggest risks to any organization is intense periods of high stress for our employees (which, of course, impacts ALL the other risks we are so good at listing and proactively avoiding or managing).

We know chronic workplace stress contributes to burnout, poorer physical health, lower engagement, and decreased performance (Maslach & Leiter, 2016; World Health Organization, 2019). 

So why not pay closer attention to ad-hoc or short-term / high intense stress in the workplace in a more proactive way? (like a weather forecast?)

Imagine a leader who says, "The next four weeks will be unusually demanding on all of us. I've made sure that your managers are prepared to work with all of you to proactively manage your time, energy, stress, and engagement so we can pull for each other and avoid distractions and burn out." 

Then imagine a team that offers support to each other without taking undue advantage of a workplace that cares about how hot it gets at work and whether your health (and productivity) will be impacted by it-- just as we do when there's a heat wave outside? 

Booster for the Week!

This weeks it's about how to prevent burnout. I'm offering a great video from Dr. Liane Davey titled, "You're Not Going to Burn Out on My Watch!" Within the first minute you'll hear her talk about something many of us focused on performance talk about: that stress and burnout are not the same thing, and often each has the opposite effect on us.

Browse around on her channel-- she offers great insights, tips, and wisdom in a variety of workplace issues and scenarios!

With kindness,

Christa

(Helpful? Interesting? Please feel free to forward and invite others to subscribe at askchrista.com/newsletter.)

References

Becker, W. J., Conroy, S. A., Djurdjevic, E., & Gross, M. M. (2018). Crying is in the eyes of the beholder: An attribution theory framework of crying at work. Emotion Review, 10(2), 125-137. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073917706766

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025). Heat and your health. https://www.cdc.gov/heat-health/about/index.html

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Understanding the burnout experience: Recent research and its implications for psychiatry. World Psychiatry, 15(2), 103-111. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20311

Sharman, L. S., Dingle, G. A., Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M., & Vanman, E. J. (2020). Using crying to cope: Physiological responses to stress following tears of sadness. Emotion, 20(7), 1279-1291. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000633

World Health Organization. (2019). Burn-out an "occupational phenomenon": International Classification of Diseases. https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases

(remember: most public libraries in the USA offer access to academic papers; however, if yours does not, then Google these papers or chapters to see where they are listed, how you can learn more about them, and how you can find similar papers to learn more about this topic)