What is eco-anxiety and how can we overcome it?

[Pelican Press 0]

What is eco-anxiety and how can we overcome it?

Eco-anxiety is a rational response to ecological breakdown

Peter Summers/Getty Images

WILDFIRES, floods, droughts – over the past few years, more and more extreme weather events and natural disasters have been attributed to climate change. And things are only predicted to get worse.

Given this apocalyptic

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, it is hardly surprising that some people feel overwhelmed by anxiety about our prospective future. But how widespread is this eco-anxiety, and what can we do to overcome it?

There is no formal definition of eco-anxiety, also sometimes called climate anxiety. The

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– a collection of therapists and researchers interested in the psychological impact of the climate crisis – describes it as “heightened emotional, mental or somatic [bodily] distress in response to dangerous changes in the climate system”.

It is the anxiety that keeps on giving. “With ordinary anxiety, the expectation is that with some form of intervention, some form of support, you will recover,” says

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, an eco-anxiety specialist at the University of Bath, ***. “But the thing about eco-anxiety is that it is unresolvable, because the eco-crisis is not being resolved.”

Increase in eco-anxiety

The label “anxiety” is overly narrow, says Hickman. “We use it as an umbrella term to describe a range of emotional responses to environmental breakdown, which includes *****, grief, rage, despair, sadness and hopelessness.” For that reason, some have tried to rebrand it as “eco-distress”, but even that seems inadequate, says Hickman. “I think we should call it ‘climate *******’ or ‘climate oh-my-********-****’.”

Recent research suggests that…

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climate change,stress,extreme weather
#ecoanxiety #overcome

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