16 Jul Eco anxiety: how to cope and find hope
Happiness is partly about fostering and developing positive emotions.
But happiness is also partly about managing and reducing the so-called negative emotions.
One of the most common negative emotions that can take away from happiness is anxiety.
And one of the more common forms of anxiety, especially in recent times, is eco-anxiety. Here’s how you can cope better, find hope and more happiness …
via Psychologies
Watching footage a few years ago of bush fires ripping through Australia, many of us felt a wave of emotions barrel over us. Guilt: we should be doing more to help the climate; fear: is it the beginning of the end?; grief: will our collective inaction mean the future generations won’t enjoy the beautiful world the way we have?; anger: why aren’t I doing more? Why isn’t everyone doing more?; and despondency: is there any point anyway?
For many of us, this wave of emotions is a frequent occurrence, triggered by anything that reminds us of the climate crisis – from forgetting to put out the recycling to getting on a plane. And, while this response may seem disproportionate, University of Bath teaching fellow and climate psychology therapist Caroline Hickman reassures us that it is a normal, psychologically healthy reaction to the climate emergency, and she feels these emotions every day.
Hickman, who is involved with the Climate Psychology Alliance, says she is seeing a rise in people of all ages coming to her with eco anxiety, including young women who feel they shouldn’t have children with the world in this state and mothers having nightmares about the fate of their offspring.
What is eco anxiety?
‘Eco anxiety is not like ordinary anxiety because we cannot reassure ourselves that “this will pass”, or effectively minimise the problem,’ Hickman says. ‘A lot of everyday anxieties can be avoided or managed, but you can’t with this one, so it’s a constant, low-level concern in the back of our minds.’
… keep reading the full & original article HERE