Dealing with Climate Change Anxiety
If you live in or near a mountainous state, you know that this has been an exceptionally mild winter with historically low snowpack. Within my my circle of outdoor enthusiast friends here in the Pacific Northwest, palpable fear is mounting.
What does this mean for summer?
Will we be doomed for another difficult wildfire season?
Will the AQI dictate our mountain run plans yet again?
This fear extends far beyond the immediate concern for the upcoming season and summer plans.
Will every summer be like this from here on out?
What kind of planet will be here for my kids when they get old?
Are we doomed?
I write this blog post not as a weather or climate change expert, but as a psychologist who understands anxiety, an outdoor athlete impacted by climate change, and as a human being who shares these same fears.
First, let’s normalize feeling anxious about climate change.
We are biologically wired as humans to experience fear and anxiety in response to dangerous and/or life-threatening situations. Anxiety is a normal, healthy emotion that serves a protective function in high-risk situations. The human mind has evolved not only to respond to danger in the present moment, but also to predict and anticipate danger in the future.
Climate change poses a real, immediate risk to our safety and the safety of, well, everyone and everything on the planet.
Feeling anxious in response to real, immediate risks is a healthy nervous system response.
Let’s also normalize feeling helpless.
As humans, we are natural “fixers.” We love nothing more than to solve a problem, find a solution, get rid of an issue, or make something better.
This works great for problems that can actually be solved.
However, when we face an enormous, complex problem such as climate change, we also are confronted with the reality that there’s no single solution that any of us as individuals can implement.
Experiencing distress in response to an complex, not-immediately-fixable problem is a healthy nervous system response.
That being said, there are some things that can help us understand and cope with climate change anxiety.
It’s important to understand the difference between pain and suffering.
Pain (emotional/mental/psychological) is an inevitable part of the human experience. We cannot skirt through life without experiencing pain. There’s no shortcut around it. If you are a living, breathing human — congratulations, you’ve got pain.
The extent to which pain is accompanied by suffering depends on your mental and behavioral response to the pain.
In this example:
Pain = climate change anxiety
Suffering = all the stuff you do in response to your anxiety that might help temporarily, but actually makes the anxiety much worse (spiraling, doom scrolling, self-criticizing, obsessing, drinking alcohol, zoning out, etc.)
A place to begin is to ask yourself these questions:
What am I doing when I feel anxious about climate change?
What do I say to myself when I feel anxious? Am I being kind?
How can I take care of my anxiety in a calm and loving way?
Check the cognitive distortions.
When anxiety is hogging the microphone, it says all kinds of unhelpful (and not true) things:
The worst case scenario WILL happen and it will happen NOW.
The problem needs to be solved NOW or not at all.
There’s NOTHING I CAN DO to effect change.
When these unhelpful thoughts happen, take notice. Begin to practice taking a step back, checking it, and reworking the thought to be something more balanced or useful. (There’s a helpful phrase to remember this sequence: catch it, check it, change it).
This doesn’t mean that you should only have positive thoughts, because that’s also not helpful or realistic.
Get in the practice of reworking anxiety thoughts to something more balanced and in-the-middle.
There’s a chance that this summer will be a rough fire season, but there’s also the possibility for spring snow and summer rain.
Even if it’s a rough season, I’ll be able to cope through it.
It’s okay to feel stressed out about this.
Take notice of behaviors that are making your anxiety worse.
Sometimes the things we do in response to anxiety help really well in the short-term, but not so well in the long-run. Doom scrolling is one in particular that tends to just make us feel like garbage, especially in light of uncertainty.
It can be tough to strike a balance between protecting your peace and being informed. When you notice your anxiety spiking wildly, it’s probably time to put the phone down.
Just be here, right now.
When things start to feel overwhelming, come back to what’s true for you today.
Lean on activities that help put you back in your body and feel a sense of connection to the present.
Start a gratitude practice.
Do something physically indulgent.
Take some deep breaths.
Exercise.
The future will be the future, and uncertainty still exists, and we still deserve to be present in our life that’s happening right now.
Identify small action steps that can effect change.
We as individuals cannot solve the climate crisis, but individual actions do matter.
Come up with a list of actionable steps - things you can get started on right now. Things that will make an impact to someone in your life or your community.
These actions don’t even need to be directly related to climate change.
Go out of your way to hold the door open for someone
Donate blood.
Support a small business.
It feels good to feel a sense of agency during uncertain times.
When all else fails, lean on avoidance… but only for a little bit.
Avoidance is generally not a helpful coping skill in the long-run, but in the short-run? It does serve a function.
When the horrors of the world get to be too much, it’s okay to take a break.
Watch trashy TV.
Call your best friend and laugh until your stomach hurts.
Listen to millennial nostalgia music.
Get yourself a fancy coffee treat.
Do whatever it is that you need to do to take a pause and reset. Come back to the rest when you’re ready.
Reach out for support if you need it.
I’m here to help if you need support navigating life’s stressful times. Reach out to set up your free consultation call.