How to cope with eco-anxiety if you’re worried about climate change.

Our Founder and CEO, Lucy Johnson, is a qualified psychotherapist with experience in working with eco-anxiety. She sat down with Georgia Brown of HELLO! magazine to talk how eco-anxiety is a growing issue and what psychotherapists are learning about how best to deal with it. Here’s the full transcript of that interview:

Pyschotherapists are reporting growing levels of eco-anxiety in clients around the world

It’s hard to avoid the term climate change nowadays as the world wakes up to the scale of the challenge in repairing the planet. However, while being aware and concerned are valid responses to the situation, this can tip into eco-anxiety. A recent report* found that 34% of Brits felt anxious about the state of the planet, with 29% saying the felt overwhelmed. This figure rose to 40% amongst younger people aged 16-24.

Our Founder, Lucy, is a qualified psychotherapist who works with clients struggling with eco-anxiety. She has also launched a Green Wellbeing Coaching programme to help clients work through this anxiety and redirect it towards sustainable actions in their daily lives. On Earth Day, she spoke to Georgia Brown - journalist by day, designer for Green Salon by night - for an article in HELLO! magazine. Here’s what they discussed.

“Is eco-anxiety justified? Do we actually have anything to worry about?

The short answer is yes, we do have something to worry about! Our climate is already becoming more unstable and it is currently touch and go whether we will be able to limit global warming to a rise of 1.5*C by mid-century — above which, the UN’s panel of top climate scientists say the climate is in danger of becoming perilously unstable.

So some anxiety could be considered a normal human response to a potential danger to us all. However, while a degree of anxiety can be helpful; too much anxiety can be overwhelming and cause us to switch off or constantly distract ourselves. The term “eco-anxiety” is increasingly used to describe that feeling of being overwhelmed by anxiety, where anxiety gets in the way of being able to take some actions in our everyday life which can help the situation.

If I'm feeling an impending sense of doom about the climate, how can I ease these symptoms?

Anyone who reads the news about climate change is likely to have experienced some sensations of impending doom. The amagdyla, a small almond shaped part of the brain, is hardwired to react to danger in this way. However, through tens of thousands of years of evolution, the rest of our brain has become pretty adept at managing that primordial fear. As a psychotherapist and green wellbeing coach, I help clients learn how to best use our natural abilities to handle this fear and anxiety. 

Here are a couple of things you can do to ease the symptoms: develop a psychological safe-space in your imagination to go to when your nervous system begins to feel overwhelmed. My clients often find this is an imagined space in nature, such as a shady glade in an ancient forest or a warm sandy beach with gently lapping waves. Make time to visit this imagined space for a while a couple of times a week so that going there becomes second nature. 

Connectedness to nature is associated with a greater sense of calm and mental resilience

The second is to understand that what we resist, persists. If you are having intrusive anxious thoughts and difficult feelings about climate change, then trying to avoid them will be like pushing a balloon under water. They will pop up again! So, with the safety net of your safe imagined space, allow yourself to feel some of these feelings.

My clients tend to experience intense emotions like fear, grief and despair about the climate crisis. To manage the intensity of these feelings, imagine yourself stepping back a little and watching the waves of emotion as they come. See if you can see these emotions as messengers letting you know what’s going on in your body and mind and that, if you allow them to deliver the message, they will pass on by. Your mind can then free up energy used avoiding those difficult feelings and turn to what it can do to help with the situation.

I feel powerless and frustrated in this situation, is there anything I can do?

Absolutely there is! The first is to really focus on learning how to look after yourself. To deal with situations like the COVID pandemic, and climate change, we need to develop our emotional and mental resilience. Rather like going to the gym keeps our physical health in good shape, our mental health also benefits from us making the time to take care of it.

In my Green Wellbeing Coaching programme, I use tried and tested ways of managing emotional overwhelm that then free us up to move from despair to action. And the other huge benefit of self-care? When we take good care of ourselves, from eating planet and gut-friendly food and using more organic products that are free of synthetic chemicals to easing single-use plastic out of homes and walking or cycling more, we end up taking better care of the planet. The simple fact is that what’s good for us is good the planet.

Is eco-anxiety a medical condition?

Officially, no, eco-anxiety is not classed as a medical condition. The bible of psychiatry, known by the not very jaunty name of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - 5th Edition (DSM-5), does not classify eco or climate-anxiety as a mental disorder. However, increasingly psychotherapists like myself, are seeing clients with extremely high degrees of eco-anxiety that are affecting their day-to-day lives. There is a very live debate currently among psychology professionals about how to classify these symptoms so we can further understand and research the most effective treatments.

Kids love to be involved in eco-challenges like bicycling to school as many times a week as possible

How can I help my child with eco-anxiety?

Talk about the climate crisis with them! That may seem entirely counter-intuitive: why would I talk to my child about something that seems to be distressing them? What we know, and what every child will tell you, is that fear grows in the dark. If children are left alone with their fears about the future of the planet, they may grow out of all proportion to the threat. So it’s important to make sure that your child is not catastrophising about the imminent end of the planet.

It’s also important that as adults we are managing our own levels of anxiety around climate change and have found ways of transforming our own concerns into action. Like you, your child is likely to feel better if they’re feeling like they’re doing something. So finding ways of bringing sustainability into your home and life are great ways of getting kids energised and involved. How about setting a challenge like how many days can you bike to school each week?

And, finally, if you or your child is finding eco-anxiety is becoming all consuming and you are struggling to get on top of it, there are many trained psychological professionals out there who can help.”

www.counselling-directory.org.uk

As well as her Green Wellbeing Coaching programme, Lucy work with clients who are struggling with eco-anxiety in her private practice: info@lucyjohnsonpsycotherapy.com. She currently has a limited number of spaces available.

*Triodos Bank Survey 2019

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