[00:00:00] Welcome to the Autism and Theology Podcast, brought to you by the Center for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Autism and Theology Podcast. I'm Zoe, and it's great that you've joined us this week. This podcast is a space where we engage in the latest conversations in the field of autism and theology, sharing relevant resources and promoting ways that help faith and non-faith communities enable autistic people to flourish.

This podcast is run from the University of Aberdeen's Center for Autism and Theology, [00:01:00] which we've shortened to CAT. If you would like access to the transcript for this episode, it can be found via the link in the show notes. So today I'm here with Krysia and Ian, and as we're recording in the UK we're experiencing a little bit of a heat wave.

So for this catch up episode, we thought we'd have a bit of a chat about heat and temperature sensitivity and autism. This is not something I experienced, so I'm giving the expertise of this all over to Ian and Krysia.

But I wonder if one of you wants to kick us off by just explaining what it means when autistic and neurodivergent people are sensitive to temperatures.

I guess for me it means I struggle to know when I'm too hot or too cold. Um, at the moment I'm in one of the hottest places in the uk. It gets about as hot as Heathrow Airport where I live, even though I don't live at Heathrow Airport, and it's about 29 degrees. A couple of weeks ago it did get up to 34.

Very, very [00:02:00] concretey. So there's lots of kind. Heat coming off of concrete, and I find that it's not only hot, but the U, particularly in the UK it's quite muggy when it's really hot as well. So we have a lot of moisture in the air, so it feels quite different perhaps living somewhere like where perhaps Ian lives.

When I used to live in Berlin and in Grenoble, it felt more like a dry heat, but a lot of the heat in the uk, especially around where I live. In the southeast is a very, very wet heat, so it feels like you are sating a little bit.

Yeah. And also, so a lot of autistic people have difficulty with regulating body temperature as well, and I don't think we really know why, but, but basically our bodies don't cool off as easily. In in, in a lot of cases. Our bodies don't cool off as easily or as readily as neurotypical folks do. Um, and in addition to [00:03:00] that, with a lot of autistic people have poor interoception, so they're, they don't really.

Um, they have difficulty interpreting their feelings and sensations. So like Krysia said, not knowing when you're hot, but also not knowing how the, the heat is affecting you other ways. So like, I get really cranky if it's, if I'm too hot, but I don't always know that A, that I'm cranky or b, that that's why I'm cranky, right?

And so sometimes just turning the air conditioning down a degree or so, uh, all is suddenly right in the world. 

And Ian is very lucky 'cause Ian has air conditioning. I don't have air conditioning, so we have kind of, I have a big industrial van on. I've also got a neck cooling tube that I got recently in one of the shops nearby me.

So I basically pop it in the freezer. It comes out and it sits around my neck rather than having to put, kind of put a bottle or something. It's really much more useful if I may be at work or if I'm out and about or I'm on. Out on the [00:04:00] train because it's not kind of melting and getting that weird condensation, sensory, yuck and kind of making your clothes wet, which is quite good.

Um, and I guess also for me it's the interception again. 'cause I don't realize till I'm hot or cold, until I'm too hot or too cold and it takes that much longer to cool down or to warm up, I find, which I'm sure many of our listeners would experience as well to varying degrees. 

Yeah, 

it's so interesting, like as something I've never experienced, like I find it really hard to imagine that not knowing if you're too hot or too cold.

Um, really like, oh, I have a few questions. Firstly, we'll put the link to Krysia's neck thing in the show notes if anyone wants to look into that. Um, yeah, we're. This isn't like a promotion that we're doing, but yeah, if you're interested in seeing what she's got, you can have a look. But yeah. I have a couple of questions.

Firstly, you said that no one [00:05:00] really knows why autistic people experience heat sensitivity. Is there like, or like temperature regulation issues? Like what? Like is it literally just No one really knows why? It's just a thing. 

I, I, I could be wrong on that. I have, I, I have not come across any research explaining the why or the how of that.

But there is data to back up the idea that autistic people's bodies do not regulate, uh, as a general rule. And this is not a universal that, that in general, autistic people's bodies do not regulate self-regulate temperature as readily as neurotypical bodies. 

And I guess for me it's, I think partially it folds into the fact that where the money goes with an autism.

Research is more likely to possibly be done by some, an autistic leg group or a neurodiverse in the pure sense of mixed neurotypes working together because it doesn't necessarily, it's a quality of life thing. The [00:06:00] other thing that I'm thinking of is a lot of autistic people are hypermobile and have other health conditions and bendy bodies and all that kind of stuff going on, and I do wonder if the heat, the heat.

Into sensitivity and management is almost part of the whole caboodle that a lot of autistic people do have bodies that work a bit differently and they are just that bit more sensitive to everything, notably kind of collagen being wobblier, um, interception being different, and actually it's probably gonna be possibly part of that package as well, or maybe not, just a hypothesis of mine.

Yeah, for instance, I'm also diabetic, which carries its own set of problems with regulation, with temperature regulation. So that's, you know, that's a whole other, um, ball of wax too, that, that just gets added to the equation. So. I, I struggle mightily in hot temperatures. So it's lovely that I live where I live 'cause Krysia I do not in fact live someplace with the dry [00:07:00] heat.

It is. I live on an island surrounded by marshes. Uh, the humidity is often a hundred percent and the temperature is, uh, in the summer in particular, frequently over 95 Fahrenheit, which in Celsius is, um, around 35. 

Yeah. So it's about what we've got. We're gonna be heading in this way here. Yeah. At the moment.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, and sometimes even beyond that, so like 37, 38 degrees Celsius, which is just, I, it's just miserable. And there's often, I, I just wanna say. Um, maybe this doesn't need to be said, but there's also often sort of a snobbishness for people who live in the southern United States about heat waves in, in the UK because they see the temperatures listed and they're like, that's not even hot.

Well, it is. If you don't have air conditioning, it gets oppressively hot very quickly, even if it's not a hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Right. It's just, yeah. It's just. Miserable quick. 

It is, and I've experienced a heat wave in the Arizona desert when I went to see family about 15 years [00:08:00] ago, and the heat over there is very different to the heat over here.

They have, I mean, even with air conditioning, it felt hot. Felt hot over there. Um, and it wasn't hot cold enough for me because I'm somebody who likes to have the windows open and have fresh air blowing through. I think it's possibly because I have a very kind of German thought process around fresh air, and I like to loft them.

Flat. Um, so kind of having fresh air coming in and out and having that freshness. But yeah, having experienced Arizona and Nevada temperatures in the desert, they are very different to being somewhere with really high humidity and that the temperature on its own doesn't necessarily indicate a hundred percent what we're experiencing over here or, or where Ian is.

This is also so funny because like our heat wave in Aberdeen is 24 degrees and that is like as hot as it'll get. So that's probably also why I'm happy And you're not Oh, so much 

that's delightful in [00:09:00] comparison to 34.

But yeah, it is. To kinda think about this in terms of like autism and tangentially theology or like kind of theology I suppose.

Um. I'm just thinking like when the weather's like this, and if you're struggling with heat regulation, I assume that impacts executive functioning as well if you're like too hot all the time and then like that is a tiering thing and I'm just wondering about like. Churches, it probably depends what kind of church you're in, because some churches will be a bit of a haven when they're like old freezing buildings.

Um, but then I just wonder if, because it is not something I would've ever thought of when we're thinking about inclusion in churches. Like you think about the sensory stuff, but like temperature isn't, it's not something that springs to mind. So yeah, I just wonder like what churches could do to be more aware of that when it's like insanely hot temperatures.

Um. And yeah, what kind of, what's helpful, [00:10:00] what's not? How do you kind of have an understanding of it, I guess? 

I'll say the, the beautiful thing about being a priest is that I get to control the thermostat in the church. Um, so I get to keep it relatively cool. But the, but the difficult thing is, I mean, I have to, I have to keep in mind that if I'm comfortable, if it's a comfortable temperature for me, especially when I'm wearing all the vestments, then that means everybody else is turning into popsicles, right?

Um, and so. Having to sort of strike that balance and realize that, yeah, by virtue of what I'm doing and, and where I am, I'm, I'm going to be a little bit uncomfortable temperature wise and it takes a toll. But, um, yeah, I, you, I've been a lot of churches and I get it right, where you're trying to save a little bit of money and so you don't.

Turn the air conditioning down as much as you could. And with a lot of people in a church building, singing expelling hot air, it can get really, really warm really quickly. 'cause we [00:11:00] are, our bodies are really good at radiating heat. So especially if you have a full church it, I have been in some absolutely miserable church services where you just cannot even focus because of the temperature.

Um. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's hard if that's the case. Um, I just, I don't know how to function well when I'm so worried about dripping sweat and being miserable.

I guess also from an inclusion perspective, there's always gonna be people going, well, it's not gonna be the right temperature for everybody, but I think a lot of what Ian and I are saying is it's not just we're a little bit uncomfortable, it's we're incredibly uncomfortable and we only noticed actually possibly when we are heading towards distress, rather than it necessarily being, oh, I'm a bit hot.

I better take my jumper off. I don't [00:12:00] notice until I'm radically overheating that I need to take a jumper off or that I need to perhaps have a cold drink. And then you kind of need to do it quite quickly so you don't end up really poorly. And I think just awareness perhaps that actually there might be congregants, parishioners, et cetera, who.

Have these different lived experiences of temperature and in validating them if they're saying it is really hot in here or it's really cold in here, doesn't necessarily mean that you go and start fiddling with the thermostat app. But it might be that perhaps you keep, if it's really, really hot, have a all really, really cold, have drinks available that anyone can access.

Perhaps being really clear how who has access to things like opening windows or if the can't open windows or anywhere that's particularly cool in the church, or particularly warm. So it's almost about enabling and empowering people to [00:13:00] self-advocate and sort themselves out rather than going, we're all gonna sit in a freezing cold church, we're all gonna sit in a boiling church.

It's allowing people to think, actually I would benefit from perhaps taking a cold water bottle with me, or a hot water bottle with me, or a blanket, or, you know, something like that so people can then make the space work for them.

Yeah, and I, I, I, you know, um, in defense of slightly colder sanctuaries and churches, what I'll say is, uh, two things. One, running it a little bit cooler, a degree or two for an hour on Sunday morning isn't likely to break the bank. Um, in terms of the added electrical expense and also it's, it tends to be much easier for people to, to warm themselves up than to cool themselves down, right?

So if the church is cold or [00:14:00] chili for some people they can always bring a sweater or a blanket or something like that. If it's too hot, there's only so much you can do. Right. Um, especially in a church setting. So it's like, I don't want to say tough luck if you're, if you get cold easily, but it's much easier for people who get cold easily to put a sweater on than it is for people who are, who are dripping sweat to cool themselves down.

Yeah, and I think that's really helpful for like someone like me who I'll be, because I get quite cold quite easily, I will be sat in a church service when it's really warm and the doors are open and I'm like, shut the doors. And I have been guilty, especially when I worked at for the church and I felt I could do this more.

I was quite guilty of just like shutting the doors if I was too cold. Especially like if I was on media at the back. You can then kind of like do like that kind of thing, like. It would've never crossed my mind that it would actually be distressing for someone to be [00:15:00] too hot. And I think that's a really helpful thing to keep in mind for people like me who just don't experience that to be like, as you said, like it's easy to put on a jumper or just sit there being a little bit cold, isn't the end of the world like you can survive.

Um, and I think that's a really helpful thing for people like me to keep in mind. To just be aware of some. It's not as simple as like, oh, I'm just a bit too hot, I'm a bit too cold. It is that like distressing as you put it. And yeah, that's definitely something that a lot more people need to know about, including me.

Well thank you for joining our chat chat today. If you have any questions or any thoughts. Bouncing off of the conversation we've had today. You can message us at Autism Theology on Instagram or Blue Sky, or you can send us an email at cat@abdn.ac.uk.

Even if it's just to say hi. We would love to hear from [00:16:00] you.

Thank you for listening to the Autism and Theology Podcast. If you have any questions for us or just want to say hi, please email us at cat@abdn.ac.uk or find us on Twitter at Autism Theology.