CAN WEATHER CHANGE HOW WE FEEL AND FUNCTION? A NEURODIVERGENT PERSPECTIVE

This summer, a client told me that headaches, and a hard-to-name feeling of being unwell, seemed to arrive whenever the temperature changed. She also said that starting tasks became harder on those days.

It made me think of my grandmother, who used to say she got severe headaches whenever the weather changed. I did not understand it at the time.

I hear versions of this now in coaching. These experiences are real for the people who describe them, yet I found very little research that directly examines how everyday weather affects task initiation, focus, energy or feeling unwell in neurodivergent adults.

This matters because changes in capacity have consequences. If weather affects someone’s ability to start tasks, focus or manage everyday demands, that experience can easily be misread, by others and by the person themselves. Better research could help separate the roles of temperature, pressure, light, sleep, hydration, migraine, sensory load and routine disruption. It could also guide more useful adjustments in education, work and healthcare, and help individuals understand their own patterns and plan around them.

What people describe

Headaches are the symptom most people mention first. People also describe feeling heavy or flat, thinking less clearly, becoming more irritable, finding sensory input louder or brighter, and experiencing greater difficulty starting tasks. Sleep and appetite can shift too.

Some people say they can tell the weather is about to change before there is any sign in the sky. My grandmother’s headaches came before the rain. Others describe feeling a shift in their head, ears or joints, or even tasting or smelling a change in the air. Barometric pressure, the weight of the air around us, usually falls before rain, which makes it a natural suspect. Whether it affects neurodivergent people differently is something I could not find research on.

These are lived-experience descriptions, not diagnostic terms. They deserve to be taken seriously without being treated as proof of a particular cause.

A person may be responding to temperature or pressure itself, or to several things that often change with the weather: sleep, light, hydration, routine, air quality, pain or sensory demands. Weather also adds decisions. What to wear, how many layers, which fabrics feel tolerable, whether to take a coat: on changeable days these small choices can add up before the day has properly started. The same outward experience may therefore have different explanations for different people.

What the research does show

For headaches, there is real but modest evidence that weather may act as a contributing factor for some people with migraine, usually alongside other things. A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis found associations between migraine and weather, particularly temperature and atmospheric pressure, but the effects were small and did not apply to everyone (Li et al., 2025).

Research has also found an association between ADHD and migraine, although the reasons for the overlap are not yet clear (Salem et al., 2018).

One exploratory study found greater weather salience, meaning more attention to and interest in weather, among autistic participants. That is not the same as showing that autistic people are physically more sensitive to changes in pressure or temperature (Bolton et al., 2020). A very small classroom study of three autistic children found no clear link between behaviour and pressure, humidity, temperature or moon illumination, but its sample was too small to draw firm conclusions (VanBuskirk and Simpson, 2013). Research on weather and neurodivergent experience is limited, and I could not find any studies on dyslexia or dyspraxia.

Seasonal affective disorder is better researched, and shows that light and season can affect mood and energy. There is some research linking seasonal patterns with ADHD and autism, but it looks at seasons, not the day-to-day weather changes people describe to me.

Two laboratory studies look at something closer to executive function. Extreme heat, a core temperature of 39.5°C, affected inhibitory control in 11 adults, but that was far beyond ordinary summer weather (Tan et al., 2024). In the other, a change of about 4°C in indoor temperature, or sudden noise, affected attention in autistic participants but not in the comparison group (Marzi, Caniato and Gasparella, 2025).

Neither study looked at everyday weather, task initiation, fatigue or energy in neurodivergent adults. So there is relevant work, but as far as I can find, nothing yet connects it to how neurodivergent adults start tasks, manage energy and get through the day.

Executive function: the missing piece

Executive function covers how we plan, start tasks, switch between them, keep information in mind, hold back from distractions and manage strong feelings. It is a central part of many neurodivergent experiences. We know much less about what changes it from one day to the next.

In coaching, I saw this most clearly this summer, during one hot spell after another. Some clients told me that planning, starting and switching between tasks all became harder in very hot weather, and that this eased when it cooled. Some also said they lost track of what they were doing, or found strong feelings harder to manage.

Here is one idea about why. Starting a task draws on the whole body, not only the mind. If your body is already dealing with a headache, a hot night, bright light or a changed routine, there may be more load to carry before you begin. Differences in interoception, the sense of what is happening inside the body, could also play a part, because people notice heat, thirst and tiredness at different points.

It is also possible that weather is not the main factor, and that sleep, routine or something else is doing most of the work. You do not need to know the cause to adjust for it.

What I would try

Keep a short diary for a few weeks. Note the weather, temperature, sleep, food, fluids, headache or migraine symptoms, sensory load and energy. Then note how thinking and doing felt: starting tasks, planning, keeping things in mind, switching between tasks, staying focused and managing strong feelings. A few words, or a number out of five, is enough.

The aim is not to prove anything. It is to see whether a pattern is there and whether weather still seems relevant after other factors are considered.

On days when you expect a hard start, change the conditions for starting. Make the first step smaller. Reduce distractions. Ask someone to sit with you while you begin, or use a body double, a verbal prompt, a visual cue or a familiar routine. Plan lighter days where you can. Low capacity is useful information about what your body needs that day.

A last thought

If this sounds familiar, notice what happens for you, and what else is happening around the same time. I would love to hear what you find. You can reach me at [email protected].

My grandmother had no language for barometric pressure or sensory processing. She noticed that something kept happening before the rain, and she was right to notice.