Since the pandemic has arrived, more and more people raised problems related to mental health. With the several lock downs and isolations, professionals started to point out that mental health is as important as physical health.
Depression is a serious condition nowadays that impacts an increasing number of persons and is usually not cured or at least not in the good way.
Thanks to social network and the internet itself, information has become a lot more accessible. Including informations about the environment. Even if scientists have been claiming for years that the climat crisis was a serious issue, it is just now that a lot of people are really realizing the emergency.
Within the hearthquakes, bush fires, heavy heat that are more and more likely to happen all around the globe, people finally realize the impact of global warming on themselves, their children and the futur generations. It is the fear of that futur that can create a state of true fear and lead to a strong anxiety. This anxiety is increased by the fact that, even though the information on global warming – climat change and biodiversity crisis is available, the changes are not in line with the emergency of the climate crisis.
This condition is growing since 2020 and is more likely to happen on a younger scale of patient.
“A 2020 survey of child psychiatrists in England highlighted that more than half (57%) are seeing children and young people distressed about the climate crisis and the state of the environment. That climate anxiety is not confined to the UK was confirmed very recently by the “largest and most international” survey of climate anxiety in young people aged 16 to 25 to date, which showed that the psychological (emotional, cognitive, social, and functional) burdens of climate change are “profoundly affecting huge numbers of these young people round the world.” ”
This article from ThebjmOpinion shows that this issue is worldwide. Some countries are already suffering strongly from climate changes, such as heatwaves in some locations. Within the globalisation of the world, everyone is now aware of the weather disasters from the other side of the earth.
However, eco-anxiety is not a brand new condition, the number of people suffering from this pathology is increasing. The hard part about this illness is that the heart of the problem is really out of our hands.
To overcome eco-anxiety there are few things you can do :
First of all if you are not mentally strong enough, you can disconnect yourself to the social climate-crises for a period of time, just to avoid the informations till you get better and feel strong enough to cope with the updates.
Another solution can be to learn more about global warming and climat change, because when you are informed wisely it is easier to understand and to put things into perspective.
A good way would also be to become more active in the fight against climat change. You can change your habits to fit in a sustainable way to consume but you can also get involve in a charity or non-profit organization that fights to defend the environment as an exemple.
