Eco-Anxiety
When Sandy Rosenthal’s husband Steve burst into their son’s bedroom at 6am on 28th August 2005, he told him to “pack like you’re not coming back”. They had spent the previous day boarding up their home in uptown New Orleans, but the inbound hurricane had just been upgraded to a category 5 – the highest severity on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
The family were fortunate enough to have the resources to evacuate to a hotel, but as Sandy watched the devastation of Hurricane Katrina unfold on television she found that she couldn’t relax. She became transfixed on the news. Unable to watch, listen to, or read about anything else.
“I was constantly working, constantly reading, constantly digging, asking questions.”
This went on for 3 months. She couldn’t relax; couldn’t socialise; couldn’t participate in casual conversation. Only years later did she realise that the hurricane had caused an episode of mental ill-health. Susan recounts her story in the book Words Whispered in Water: Why the Levees Broke in Hurricane. Her experience is a stark reminder of the impact natural disasters can have on our mental health.
The effects of climate change are making natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts more frequent and more severe. Studies have found that Up to 54% of adults and 45% of children suffer depression after a natural disaster. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, 49% of survivors are thought to have developed an anxiety or mood disorder; 1 in 6 developed PTSD. Suicide and suicidal ideation more than doubled.
More generally, psychologists have found evidence of an increased frequency of ‘distress reactions’, such as insomnia, irritability and increased substance use – which, if not addressed, can rapidly lead to more severe conditions such as PTSD, depression and anxiety.
Longer-term impacts
Beyond the acute impacts directly associated with extreme weather events, there is a growing body of evidence that describes the longer term effects too. Rising sea levels, deforestation, droughts and desertification all displace communities and create climate refugees. Losing your home, your sense of place, your job security or your livelihood can have significant impacts on your mental health. Research has found that populations experiencing the long term effects of climate change report higher rates of psychiatric conditions such as PTSD, mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, elevated rates of suicide and substance use; and increases in aggressive behaviour.
Communities ravaged by natural disasters also experience disruption to their healthcare and social welfare systems. Struggles over scarce resources can lead to conflict and outbreaks of violence within and between communities – all of these factors further compound the mental (and physical) harm climate change causes. As is all too often the case, it is the most vulnerable and marginalised communities, who experience the sharp end of the physical disasters and who are at the greatest risk of the mental ill-health which follows.
Eco-anxiety
But you don’t even need to be directly impacted to suffer. Simply consuming the news and other media, or hearing about friends and family caught up in natural disasters can be deleterious for your mental health. Humans aren’t very good at dealing with existential threats over a prolonged period of time, particularly when they have no direct agency or means of mitigating them. When the cause of this threat is the climate crisis, the phenomena is called “Eeo-anxiety”, and although there are no official statistics on how widespread it is (or at least I couldn’t find any!), it is not the preserve of woke snowflakes. It is very real.
Eco-anxiety does not yet have a universally agreed definition, but it describes a range of symptoms that lead to chronic or severe anxiety related to humans’ relationship with the environment. It is characterised by severe and debilitating worry about climate and environmental risks. It can elicit dramatic reactions, such as loss of appetite, sleeplessness, panic attacks, substance abuse, aggression and feelings of helplessness.
Sound familiar? How can you cope?
Acknowledge your feelings and talk about them – it’s ok to feel anxious about how climate change affects you and your family’s lives. There’s a good chance many of your friends and colleagues will share your feelings. A problem shared really is a problem halved.
Take action – volunteer in a beach clean-up; change your consumption habits, like reducing meat and dairy intake or try to cut out single use plastics. Doing something positive. It’ll make you feel better and that you are regaining some kind of control.
Education – particularly at a community level can empower people and help them build up resilience and cope better with the psychological aftermath of disasters.
Stay optimistic – People who feel positively about their ability to overcome stress and trauma and who try to reframe things in a positive way may find it helps them handle anxiety better. Positive thinking may also help break negative thinking cycles associated with chronic or severe anxiety.
Stay active (and outside) – the benefits of exercise and nature on mental wellbeing are very well documented. Serotonin is powerful stuff!
Know when to switch off – being informed is important, but knowing what to consume (even the true news) and when to consume it is vital. Shutting out the cacophony of doom and gloom every so often can be enormously beneficial.
Seek help – Mental health professionals are seeing ever-increasing numbers of people struggling with forms of eco-anxiety. More and more are becoming trained to be able to diagnose and treat it. It’s ok to seek help. You’re not alone.