When all the news about climate change gets you down

We worry about a future where it is too hot or too cold and extreme environmental events become the norm. That affects our mental health now.

Shrinking glaciers, intense wildfire smoke and unusually low snowfall amounts. These are just a few of the changes Andreas Kondos-Sheppard saw in the ecosystem around him while growing up in Revelstoke, British Columbia, a Canadian ski town located in the world’s only inland temperate rainforest. 

He was around 10 when he began to notice the impact of those changes on his mental health. He would repeatedly check weather forecasts and monitor snowfall amounts, to the point that it distracted him from his daily life. 

It grew harder for him to enjoy being outdoors, and at times, he felt isolated. “Sometimes, when you look in the news, it feels like, am I the only one who cares about what’s happening to the planet right now?” he said. 

But Kondos-Sheppard is far from alone. In high school, he got involved with research that has shown just how common it is for youth to feel anxious about climate change and the environment. 

He joined the Youth Advisory Council, which provides youth perspectives that help inform the work of the Youth Development Instrument (YDI) research team in British Columbia. The YDI is an online survey that collects data about the health and wellbeing of high school students across the province.

Recognizing eco-anxiety

Judy Wu, a doctoral student working with the YDI team, said that many young people experience some degree of concern or worry about the environment but once someone is experiencing symptoms which impact their daily life, such as sleep disruption or excessive crying, it is considered eco-anxiety. 

Wu found that about three in four youth in British Columbia are concerned about the environment and 13.5% have significant eco-anxiety, meaning that they experience eco-anxiety more days than not and also have eco-anxiety manifest in multiple ways. 

Her findings are mirrored by research which has found that across the globe, 84% of youth aged 16-24 are at least moderately worried about climate change. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said that worrying about the environment has negatively affected their daily lives and ability to function. 

Wu hopes that her research will guide the development of resources for youth experiencing eco-anxiety. She sees a need for short-term interventions, such as breathing exercises when experiencing intense emotions in the moment, but also for longer term, sustained activities such as climate group sessions or community sessions.  

Wu found that young people who are under higher financial pressure, have existing mental health challenges such as depression, or identify as LGBTQ, intersex or asexual are more likely to experience eco-anxiety. The reasons for these associations are not clear, but Wu said it’s critical to understand who is most impacted by eco-concern and eco-anxiety so that specific, targeted supports can be created.

Coping with eco-stress

Wu emphasized that it is important not to view eco-anxiety as a disorder or an abnormality because the emotional reactions to climate change and environmental issues are justifiable. 

Kondos-Sheppard agreed. “It’s important to recognize that your feelings are valid, but also to recognize that you control your feelings and to make sure that they don’t consume you into a negative spiral,” she said.

On the other side of the country, Beth Grant, a sustainability researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada, explored strategies for coping with eco-anxiety as part of her undergraduate thesis. She provided students with two questions about climate change and invited them to take photos in response. She also asked them to describe their photos and their experiences in writing. 

She found that students relied on five main coping strategies: spending time in nature, connecting with a like-minded community, participating in political and environmental action, avoidance and humour.

Spending time outdoors was both a source of solace and grief for students, because there they saw the impacts of climate change firsthand but also felt rejuvenated and inspired by the beauty of nature. Grant compared spending time in nature to reconnecting with an old friend.

“If you’re spending time outside, there’s a ton of physical, mental, emotional benefits to that,” Grant said. 

Isolation can heighten anxiety.

Building relationships was identified as another key way to manage eco-anxiety. It is easy to feel isolated so it is important to have someone to talk to about experiences who also goes through the same things, Grant said.

“If you have a chat with your family and they don’t understand where you’re coming from or the severity, that can feel a little diminishing in some ways,” she said. 

Students also found it helpful to participate in political and environmental action, such as eating less meat and working with local organizations. Grant said that opportunities to take action could help students overcome feelings of powerlessness and paralysis. 

Avoidance was also mentioned as a coping strategy. Students said they would sometimes shut off the news or social media, for example. Grant added that some people might consider avoidance a negative coping strategy because it could lead to inaction, and that students sometimes expressed feelings of guilt for relying on it. 

However, she thought that it was important for students to find a middle ground — doing what they could to help the environment while meeting their own needs to avoid burnout. 

Sometimes it helps to laugh.

Lastly, some students used humour to cope with their feelings of sadness and worry about the future. “As humans, humour is something we lean on to try and alleviate pain,” Grant said. 

During her subsequent Master’s research, Grant found that it is common for students to feel grief, anxiety and hopelessness when studying environmental issues and that there are specific ways that educators can support them. 

Students told Grant that it was important for educators to welcome emotions in the learning environment and suggested educators could share their own feelings and experiences and then give students the chance to do the same. 

Students also wanted the opportunity to take climate action within their courses whenever possible and said that they appreciated learning about solutions. 

Similarly, Kondos-Sheppard said he has found it helpful to be around people who are actively working on new technologies and solutions to the ecological crisis. He is studying chemistry and physics, and wants to develop more efficient ways to store and produce energy. 

To someone who is struggling with eco-anxiety, he said he would assure them that regardless of what happens, they will be okay.

“The world will be different, but you are still there and you have the power in yourself to persevere through difficult times,” he said. “We’re all in this together and we’ll figure something out to get through this.”

Questions to consider:

1. What is eco-anxiety, and is it something that you have experienced? How does it affect your life?
2. What is one way that you have found to cope with eco-concern and eco-anxiety?
3. What advice would you give a friend who is struggling with worries about the environment?

Liana Hwang is a family physician in Alberta and a past fellow in Global Journalism at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. 

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