5 Strategies to Cope With Climate Anxiety, According to Psychologists
because of fears over the future. But it’s worthwhile, Rosmarin says, if you’re caught up in vague, overwhelming eco-anxiety.is a normal, healthy emotion,” Doherty says. On a basic level, anxiety is “fear wrapped in a cloud of uncertainty.” It arises when we’re faced with a situation that may or may not be threatening to us—and he describes it as helpful because it prompts us to step inside that cloud and take steps to protect ourselves.
Rosmarin recalls a patient who worried about her health in the same way many others worry about the environment; it’s natural to worry about the big issues that affect you. He encouraged her to not try to push her anxiety away, but learn to live her life alongside it. “She remarked that it was very empowering to think that she doesn’t need to get rid of her anxiety to have a happy life,” he says.
It’s easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of sad, scared thoughts about the environment. But eco-anxiety, by its very nature, comes from a love of the. “I try to get people to see a 360-degree view of emotions in general, and also regarding the environment, so we’re not stuck on just a few different emotions,” Doherty explains.
“Once you start opening that up, you build more capacity to deal with your anxiety,” he says. “People realize they have more emotions in there, such as hope, curiosity, empowerment, or compassion. Once we get a lot of emotional channels going, then that anxiety has better context.” Although this can apply to any anxiety, it applies especially well to climate change. Reconnecting with why you love nature in the first place, especially by getting outside , can help you pair your negative thoughts with wondrous ones.Many newcomers to eco-anxiety are not experts on the environment, Doherty says, so he recommends exploring climate issues to create what he calls an “environmental identity.
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