Manar Mohammad
Posted in: Wednesday 24 February 2021 – 11:54 AM | Last update: Wednesday, February 24, 2021 – 11:54 AM
Tyler Moore, a psychiatrist who previously worked with the agency “NASA”, said that space affects humans mentally and this may lead to failure of missions, and endanger the lives of those on the spacecraft to danger that may reach death.
He added that the impact on the astronaut may be caused by the bad sleep cycle, since once ascending to space the time varies and the day 24 hours does not become disciplined like the Earth, and that is why the astronauts have to set a schedule of sleep times and wake up daily to maintain their health and mental state. The diary of the astronaut, “Lebedev”, it turns out that he was not sleeping well since the beginning of the flight, according to the US “Massachusetts Institute of Technology” website of the University of Cambridge.
Andrew Liu, a research scientist at the American Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained that time does not only affect the sleep cycle of astronauts, but also lighting, as the artificial blue light in the station makes the body awake for a longer period due to its effect on the secretion of the responsible hormone “melatonin”. About sleep.
He stressed that when the astronaut loses the ability to sleep well daily, he finds it difficult to work, especially when doing things that require intense focus and decision-making.
He pointed out that exposure to harmful radiation in space may be the second reason for astronauts to experience mental health problems, and sometimes it comes to damage to the nervous system and an increase in the chance of cancer, and the longer the mission, the greater the exposure to diseases.
He said that there is a third factor that affects the mental and emotional health of astronauts, which is living in a closed and secluded place for a long time, and this sometimes leads to imagining unrealistic things, and this was evident in 1976, when some astronauts reported feeling that there was an unpleasant smell in the vehicle, but they They did not find the reason for it and it disappeared after a while, in addition to seeing some of the handles open and when they go to close them they notice that they are already closed.
Dr. Gary Bevin, a psychiatrist at NASA, explained that going to space is a task that causes strong psychological pressure on astronauts, and most of them do not seek help because they believe that they are able to deal with problems on their own and that seeking psychological help indicates their weakness, and this behavior is wrong and leads to The end to suffering from stress, depression and nervousness.
He confirmed that NASA is currently making an effort to protect the mental health of the astronauts, and this appeared in designing realistic simulations of space missions on Earth and training astronauts to accept life there from a psychological point of view.
https://cmsw.mit.edu/angles/2019/headspace-how-space-travel-affects-astronaut-mental-health/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=2013
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