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- #thefutureisfemale
We’re used to thinking of heat as a physical strain, but are we paying enough attention to what heat is doing to our minds? How is heat affecting how we think, feel, and function? On this episode of #TheFutureIsFemale Melisa Idris speaks with Dr Praveena Nair Sivasankaran, Director of Taylor’s University’s Clean Technology Impact Lab, which leads climate-focused research that considers human capacity alongside infrastructure. Dr Praveena is studying how extreme heat affects our mental health, and exploring cooling solutions for those most affected.
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00:10Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to The Future is Female. This is the
00:16show where we find the extraordinary in every woman. I'm delighted to introduce my guest today,
00:21Dr. Praveena Narasiva Sankaran, who is the director of Taylor's University's Clean Technology
00:28Impact Lab, which leads climate-focused research that considers human capacity alongside
00:33infrastructure. Dr. Praveena is studying how extreme heat affects our mental health and she's
00:41also exploring some cooling solutions for the people who are most affected by extreme heat.
00:47So it's lots to discuss today. Welcome to the show, Dr. Praveena. Thank you so much for joining me.
00:53What an interesting topic because I think many of us in Malaysia, we're so used to dealing
00:57with the Malaysian heat. We don't really think about how it affects us beyond the physiology,
01:05right? So I'm curious to know how you started to kind of question that or pay more attention to how
01:13heat affects our mental health. Thank you so much, Melissa, for having me on the show.
01:19So basically, I'm an engineer by profession. Generally, what do we do? We investigate problems.
01:26We find solutions. We find solutions. And basically, this particular angle came into picture when I was
01:33invited as a panellist at a World Mental Health Day event at Bukit Aman with the police force.
01:40That's when I spoke to the police force members over there and they came up with this thing saying that,
01:47you know, the attire, the heat, the work environment, all this was a bit of a disturbance.
01:53Because they're in the heat for a long time, you know, out during the day, the bright, bright sun, right?
02:00Correct, correct. And what strike me most was they also mentioned about irritable, how irritable they can get
02:08and how it affects their decision making simply because of this heat. And that's when this idea came up
02:17that I should have, you know, to focus on this research. Climate is not just environmental per se,
02:24it's also human related. And more importantly, it's also mental health related. So this is a different
02:33perspective that I'm looking at. As an engineer by profession, I've actually not gone out of my field
02:38that much. It's just looking at a different angle in this matter. I actually, now that you've mentioned
02:43it, that's so true. When we are under extreme heat conditions, we're so irritable. We are uncomfortable
02:52and that impacts our, I guess, ability to make sound decisions and maybe even respond to stimulus differently,
03:02right? Yes, yes. So talk to me about the intersection of that with engineering, because
03:08you're also looking at how things are designed. So it's not just the human impact, but how humans live
03:17in a world that is now increasingly getting hotter. Okay, so how does it intersect with engineering?
03:24Engineering, we come up with solutions where there's wearable devices that has cooling sensors in it.
03:31We can also come up with prototypes of cooling shades. And engineering does not only touch that,
03:38it's not only the technical perspective that we look at. We look at coming up with policies,
03:44frameworks that includes a rest cycle, a hydration cycle, apps that works on, you know,
03:52reminding people to drink water on time, also a behavioural resilience toolkit, whereby to talk
03:59to them about the effects of heat and how it affects our mental health. So we are also coming up
04:04with a
04:04project whereby students, they create a mental health first aid, a behavioural resilience toolkit,
04:10climate resilience framework. We are trying to look at a holistic approach whereby it starts from
04:17awareness, implementations, we deploy the solutions and also to come up with policies that can actually
04:25work, that is actually implemented. So you are referring to the cooling, heat, healing the mind.
04:31Exactly, that's the project. So introduce us to this project, more specifically what you're trying to
04:38understand through it, through the research and what you're hoping to address.
04:43Cooling the heat, healing the mind. It was inspired by that event.
04:47That was NPDRF with the Bukit Aman police force. And it's an intersection between climate, heat stress
04:56and mental health. This is a different perspective that we look at. Yes, we talk about the heat, the air
05:04conditioning and things like that, but nobody has ever related it, at least to my knowledge and to my
05:10students knowledge related it explicitly to mental health. And a fact 65% of depression actually comes
05:21from heat related issues. So these are the things that we are trying to look at and with the help
05:29of
05:29my students, we are coming up with a base level implementation, data collection. My students have
05:35gone out to the design school students, they've gone out to interview street vendors, construction workers,
05:41delivery drivers, to ask them about the situation. It's a baseline study that we are conducting.
05:48So they're out there collecting the research. I'm sure they will have more research than they can handle.
05:53Yes. But you mentioned the design school. So that means part of the solutions or part of the project,
06:00I'm sure, will be to design solutions for heat stress. What kind of solutions are we thinking?
06:09And I think of how much innovation has happened in the past few years that helped humans adapt to
06:17extreme temperatures, right? We all have little fans that we carry about now. Air conditioning units are
06:24becoming smaller and more portable than ever. How do you see, how do you and your students view cooling
06:32strategies from a design and engineering perspective? Right now, we've actually thrown the idea to the
06:39students to come up with solutions and they've pretty much come up with very cool innovative ideas. So some of
06:46them have come up with apps with which we are still refining, a prototype of a cooling shelter, a
06:51hydration station where these delivery drivers can actually go and, you know, have that place as a
06:57rest place, like a hydration station. There's nothing much to elaborate there. The name suggests that
07:05it's a place where they can actually rest. And also, we have, yeah, this group of students,
07:12they came up with a quick-try T-shirt with a sensor, with a cooling sensor in it.
07:18So this is all still in refinement stages. So these are some of the ideas that the students have
07:23come up with. You mentioned policemen, you mentioned delivery workers. That's quite interesting. I wonder
07:33how many people are more affected or what groups of people are more affected by situations of extreme
07:41heat than others. And whether they are remembered in the policies around addressing heat stress.
07:51All the people who work outside, the delivery riders for one, but we think about all the outdoor workers,
07:57the construction workers whose livelihoods are affected by how hot the temperatures are getting now, right?
08:06Yeah. And the fact is, some of us, we don't experience that. When we are in the office,
08:12the aircon is on, it's cool, and we are fine with it. But when we go out, the moment we
08:17go out,
08:18you can feel that, what they call that bahang, the heat wave.
08:22Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about.
08:24Yeah. So when we did this baseline study, we interviewed people who are actually outdoors most of the time.
08:30Who are you thinking about? Delivery drivers, construction workers, police force, traffic police,
08:40street vendors. Right, they are. Yeah, yes, yes. Sometimes very little shade as well.
08:46Yes, yes. And this heat is unbearable at times, isn't it? So yeah, we've interviewed those.
08:53That's great because I think sometimes they're often overlooked in policy design. Exactly. The policy design
09:02is a general thing that we have right now. We don't just advise them to drink water and things,
09:09but there must be something that has changed, something that has suited the situation. And you're
09:16right. They are mostly overlooked. Yeah. Can I ask you how you think workplaces should rethink
09:25practices? Especially, we're in a period where Malaysia is suffering from a heat wave. And I say
09:32suffering because we're collectively going through all of that. So we have a heat wave that's really hit
09:39the north particularly in certain parts of the country. And now we are also in the middle of a war
09:48on Iran, where it has caused oil prices to rise and everything is going up. So we're thinking about
09:55fuel and electricity prices and working from home is now becoming an option for many people. How do you
10:06think workplaces should adapt to rising temperatures? Because clearly not everyone's going to be able to
10:13be sitting in an air-conditioned room. But for many of us who are quite privileged to be able to
10:19do that,
10:19that's not going to last forever. And we're going to keep, you know, making it cooler and cooler and
10:24cooler because outside is getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Dependency on aircon is definitely not
10:30the right thing to do. If you're talking about workplace environment, I believe designs, design of a
10:38building should be suited not against climate or against nature but with nature. Okay, so maybe this
10:47may seem something very futuristic but it's actually not. We've already had these designs embedded long,
10:54long, long time ago. Centuries ago, our buildings were very climate responsive, very, how do we say,
11:03with nature. Example, the Malay traditional houses that we have. Have you seen their design? Like
11:10there's a layered roof, courtyard design with the sarambi. Yeah, yeah, lots of ventilation. Lots of
11:18ventilation and these houses are all on stills. So you have air ventilation down there as well. So
11:26it's quite a complete design. We have actually proof of previous designs that did not work against
11:34nature. Right now, all our designs are kind of trapped and that's why we're feeling very hot.
11:39It's so different. To be very honest, if you go out and you feel really hot and that means your
11:47dependency on aircon is really, really high, that means the system itself is fundamentally flawed,
11:51isn't it? So designing of the buildings, designing of, go back to the previous ones, take back things
11:59from the history that we had, our previous designs. We have to invest more in creative and innovative
12:05designs like this. Do you think it could work? Because, you know, we have adopted a very,
12:10I guess, Western temperate climate thinking of our built environment, our infrastructure. We're all in
12:20concrete and almost hermetically sealed cubes now where there's no ventilation really. Do you think we
12:28are able to move into adapting to, as you said, climate responsiveness back to our traditional and our,
12:40I guess, our back to our roots, essentially, in terms of our built environment? Can we make that
12:46that switch again? Definitely. We are able to, with all these young minds that we have out there,
12:51especially in my field, when we talk to students, they can come up with solutions like this. And no
12:56offence to the Western design, but you're spot on when you mentioned that we have Western design
13:02buildings and things like that. It's all blocked up for winter. It's all blocked up because of the
13:06winter. Yes, yes. So we definitely can go back to that old, old way of thinking. And I believe our
13:13students, the younger generation, the change makers, they are the ones who can come up with,
13:18with solutions like this. Simply make the buildings more open, more and, and plant more trees. This
13:25are all very generic solutions. There are a lot of things that we are working upon. But with proper
13:31study, with sustainability in mind, I forgot to mention sustainability. Right now, we have all
13:36solutions that are for the short term impact. It's just, you know, okay, this is the problem. I solve
13:42this. Done. It's not that we have to have a holistic, complete solution where sustainability is embedded
13:49in every stage of implementation. And when you have that in mind, your solutions will not be temporary.
13:57Yes, I think that's, that's the other point is we have to think of this as long term because the
14:04climate crisis is not going anywhere. You know, it's hot today, but next year might be even hotter.
14:10When you look at that as a whole, from maybe an engineering and design perspective,
14:15how do you see the way we're approaching this? I do wonder whether policymakers, first of all,
14:23whether they understand the mental impacts of heat stress or extreme heat, whether that trickles
14:31down to employers, whether they're taking that seriously. What would you think? Do you think the
14:36focus is so very much on physical safety, physical comfort and wellbeing?
14:42Whatever that I'm saying right now, it's, it's my personal opinion based on our research and studies
14:47and data. Yes, we very much believe that it's more on the physical, physical component of things,
14:53physical component of the human being. Even in fact, a few days ago, there was, there was a reminder
14:59saying that we should drink more water, we should hydrate ourselves, but there was nothing about
15:04the mental impact. You know, take some time to rest, take some time to, you know, cool on yourself.
15:09All this, this, this mental health impact things were not addressed. And I, I hope I'm not being too
15:17blunt about this, but, but it's a fact that mental health is often overlooked in this situation.
15:24Why are we becoming more irritable? A very simple example, within, if you are thirsty, we don't get
15:29water within the next half an hour. We, we get irritable, we get angry. That's so interesting.
15:36Do you remember when we were in lockdown during COVID, there was so much emphasis on how isolation
15:42and loneliness would impact our mental health? Exactly. I, I feel like we're in yet another type
15:48of crisis, a climate crisis, an extreme heat crisis, but yet we don't see how it affects us and our
15:55relationships and our social connections, right? Simply because it's often overlooked. It's the
16:00invisible impact. Okay. Yeah. What would you like to see beyond what is currently in place? And I've
16:06been having this conversation with many people about how they've adapted their lives to deal with the
16:12heat. From an engineering and design perspective, is there anything else that you'd like to see or
16:19you'd like to see policy makers consider when it comes to climate and human wellbeing?
16:28Okay. So in our research, we are actually looking at training early career researchers to,
16:35to come up with the, to be well equipped with mental health first aid frameworks and climate behavioural
16:42framework. So what I would like to see for policy makers is for them to, to embed solutions that are
16:50holistic, sustainable solutions. That means it must be a full loop to, to, you know, to close that loop
16:57from implementation to, to action and awareness must be there. So this is something that I would like
17:04policy makers to look at. In my field as an engineer, where I deal a lot with students,
17:09it is a dream hopefully comes true whereby we see the younger generation come up with innovative
17:19solutions to, to address this heat issue. And climate is not centralised only to the environment.
17:28It's a human centric issue. If your human doesn't function well, your systems collapse. It's something
17:34that we have to look at. So this would be my message to, when you come up with solutions, make
17:40sure it's,
17:41it's a, it's a complete solution. I would say nothing, nothing to do with a, with a short term kind
17:46of a
17:47framework, make it a complete solution. And for the future generation, yes, there's a lot of work to do.
17:54But if done right from the beginning,
17:57this will definitely work. You work with so many young people. Do they give you a lot of hope?
18:03Particularly the people, the young people that you teach. I think about how much
18:10climate leadership and climate action has actually been driven by young people in the past few years.
18:16And that gives me hope. You work with people who are the generation that directly will be impacted by
18:23a planet that is hotter than ever. What do they tell you about why they're passionate about this and
18:31how does that give you hope in your work? They're passionate about this because it directly impacts
18:37them. You see half of them having portable fans and the, the, the heat stresses, the heat stress is real.
18:46You know, when we go to, um, indigenous villages and work with people over there,
18:50they don't have this portable fans. So these are things that we instill in the younger mind. You see,
18:57there are people who are not as privileged as us to be in the air conditioning environment all the time.
19:05So the thing that gives me hope is they are very action oriented. They're very fast. You know,
19:11they're very aggressive in wanting to implement solutions. There's an urgency for them.
19:15Yes. Yes. Because they are directly affected. Of course, we are also affected, but we, our duty is more to,
19:22to
19:23hold the steering wheel and guide them accordingly, guide them accordingly. It's, it's, there must be
19:30some basic guidelines to be followed, not just rushing into implementation, but you have to have your
19:35proper study. So this is where my role comes in. Yes, excitement is good. We all ride together in this
19:41excitement wave, but there must be some, you know, some hold to it. In the field of engineering,
19:47are you seeing a lot more climate focused thinking and perspectives, um, more systemic as opposed to
19:57just being an afterthought? Because sometimes, um, you know, being climate responsive is something that
20:03you think about later or sustainability is something that you think, uh, something you check off a list.
20:09Is it different now for the fields of engineering, the industry? Um, is that changing?
20:14From what, uh, we've noticed? Yes. Yes. It has, uh, changed significantly, I would say,
20:20especially with, uh, ESG frameworks, we have, you know, reporting, we need to report our, our
20:27environmental emissions, so on and so forth. It is quite, it is, uh, there's a significant change
20:32there and people are aggressively trying to implement this. It's just that we need to implement it the
20:38right way, not just to check the boxes. Yeah, or a stopgap measure like you said, you know, it's just
20:44addressing one problem without thinking about entire systems. Are there a lot of young women that you
20:50work with in this, in the intersection between engineering and climate? Yes, yes. Um, in fact,
20:58our co-researchers are from Maldives and India. The Maldives counterpart, there are a lot of
21:04women working in this climate-health intersection, so we're actually working together on a, on a
21:11international project, cooling the heat, healing the mind, going international. Do you have any advice
21:16for, um, any young women watching tonight who want to, who are passionate about this and want to work at
21:23the intersection of, uh, climate and social work and social impact? Is there something you would like to
21:29say to them tonight? It's just being passionate about it. For me, the drive is always wanting
21:36to solve that issue and if you are passionate about it, you can definitely excel in this field
21:43and, uh, just, just have that right intention, right intention, clarity in thoughts, so don't get
21:50yourself into this, uh, uh, how do we say, don't get yourself so drenched into what the trend is about,
21:56do what is right. So, yeah, that would be my advice for all women out there. Thank you so much
22:01for
22:02being on the show with me today. I appreciate your time, Dr. Praveena. Thank you. Thank you so much,
22:05Melissa. That's all the time we have for you on this episode of The Future is Female. I'm Melissa Igris
22:10signing off for the evening. Thank you so much for watching and good night.
22:26Thank you, Dr. Praveena,
22:26you're right.
22:26Thank you, sir.
22:27Thank you, Dr. Praveena.
22:27Thank you, Dr. Praveena,
22:28you're right.
22:28Thank you, Dr. Praveena.
22:28You
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