This blog contains information about Eco-anxiety. In the start, it tells about Anxiety disorder. Then it defines and introduces Eco-anxiety in detail. It also discusses the Causes of Eco-anxiety. Then it elaborates the Factors Influencing Eco-anxiety. In the end, it informs about the Management of Eco-Anxiety. This blog contains information about Anxiety, Eco-anxiety, Causes, Factors influencing Eco-anxiety and Management of Eco-anxiety.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is the emotion characterized by feeling, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure. It includes recurring intrusive thoughts or concerns that may avoid certain situations out of worry.
Anxiety is a very common mental disorder that cause the patient to have unpleasant feelings like tension, bad thoughts and not getting over the bad feeling about anything that hurts you with the things roaming in your mind. This can cause by Biological factors, Environmental Factors and Traumatic events of your life. Anxiety can be extreme enough to disturb a patient throughout their life. You may feel irritable and disgusting because of recurring thoughts and it can become extreme if it is untreated for years. This blog is about a type of anxiety that is related to environment.
What is Eco-anxiety?
Eco anxiety is defined as a chronic fear about environmental catastrophe that ranges from mild stress and to more severe mental health issues. It mainly focuses the irrevocable impact of Climate Change.
This term has many name such as Climate Change distress, Eco-trauma, Eco-angst, or Ecological grief. The Eco-anxiety adds many more severe symptoms that normally occurs in case of Anxiety. Climate change is a Global Concern as it effects each and every individual on Earth.
People who have witnessed any harm as a result of Natural Disasters or catastrophe creates anxiety because of the consequences of that disaster. This makes a person so anxious and irritable by when any environmental hazard or disaster occurs.
They behave abnormally and their anxiety turns into hypertension, stress, trauma etc. The patients of eco-anxiety feel very bad and depressed about the drastic changing in the environment due to human activities and or natural changes with passing time.
Eco-anxiety is a disorder that relates with the environmental field and environmental changes. People who are concerned about environmental damage, degradation, climate change, global warming and other environmental issues gets this anxiety.
They over-react on even a small act they see or observe against the environmental protection. This disorder can be very dangerous as people can become out of control and anxious about even very common and minor activities that contributes in Environmental Degradation.
This type of Anxiety makes a patient too dedicated and concerned about the environmental protection and Climate Change Adaptation. This blog contains Causes, Factors influencing Eco-anxiety and Management of Eco anxiety.
What are the causes of Eco-anxiety?
Following are the Causes of Eco-anxiety:
1. Personal Experiences:
When a person has any personal experience or any incident with their loved ones. Such as abandonment of houses, property damage, life loss etc. These effects of Natural Disasters gives rise to Eco-anxiety. Another possibility is experiencing the extreme climate change and its harmful effects in front of your eyes. These personal experiences creates the risk of extreme eco-anxiety.
2. Latest News:
As we all know that weather forecast and news channels provide latest updates about Climate Change, Weather patterns, wildfires and other environmental damages. These news updates makes people very curious and aggressive because of climatic activities. This raise eco-anxiety in the public as they see devastating environmental degradation related news by the footages and short videos.
3. Regret on your Activities:
We are using harmful materials and substances in order to survive in the world. We use plastics, synthetic fertilizers, harmful chemicals etc. Sometimes using these materials creates the eco-anxiety in the public. As they cannot change their past and they feel guilty about their Carbon Footprint. So, after the awareness about their toxicity, they will regret their past activities.
4. In the Love of Mother Earth:
You may be prone to eco-anxiety if you are conscious about your home Earth. When people develop this realization in them that we are destroying the one and only home called Earth. And get awareness about the fact that there is no planet B free as Earth to live for humans. These concepts lead to the eco-anxiety at great extends and even a single ignorance makes the patient feel very guilty about it.
These are some Major Causes of Eco-anxiety.
What are the Factors influencing Eco-anxiety?
Following are some factors that influence eco-anxiety most often:
i: Rapid Environmental Degradation:
In the past, the process of environmental degradation, such as Soil Erosion, Desertification, Water scarcity and other such conditions were not visible to the public. Because their activity and processes were very slow and most of the people could not observe them. But in the present time there is a rapid environmental degradation due to industrialization and Human activities. Observing these rapid and extreme changes in environment, especially in Climate, influence the eco anxiety at great extents.
ii. Pollution:
As the human population is increasing, the pollutions are also increasing because of increased wastes and inefficient disposal of wastes. These pollutions include, Air pollution, Water Pollution, Plastic Pollution, Land Pollution etc. They provide a very bad effect on mental health of people, especially for those who love the Earth and its natural environment. This can make people anxious about Environment. So, eventually this can be an influential factor for Eco-anxiety.
iii. Coastal Proximity:
Coastal Proximity refers the closeness or good relation with the coastal areas. People become obsessed with the beauty and facilities of coastal areas. This makes their attachment with the coastal locations and their existence. As the people get to know that the coastal areas can be submerged in the seawater, they become insecure about the drastic climate change and they have a fear of losing these coastal areas because of environmental impacts on Earth that leads to Sea level rise.
iv. Awareness and Know-how:
Awareness and know-how about Climate change is now becoming popular. Everyone is getting information of the extreme level of climate change in the present time. People who know about Environmental degradation and the activities triggering it, are more prone to Eco-anxiety because they can’t tolerate the negligence in protecting the environment. So, having awareness and being well-known to climate mitigation practices, can lead to Eco-anxiety about everything you and other do.
These are some of the factors we observe in our daily life that influence Eco-anxiety. This blog contains Causes, Factors influencing Eco-anxiety and Management of Eco-anxiety.
How to Manage Eco-anxiety?
Following are the strategies to manage Eco-anxiety:
1: Adopt Green Habits:
If you have eco-anxiety, you should first of all have a look on your own activities and Carbon Footprint. If your own activities are suitable for the environment and you have a reduced Carbon Footprint, then it will lead to the rehabilitation of Eco-anxiety and you will be extremely satisfied with yourself and anxiety will be lowered. The Green Habits include 4R strategy, Use of energy-efficient appliances, Drive smart etc. This will increase you potential and moral in saving the environment.
2: Do not Accept Denial:
To recover from this disorder, you must accept the reality and accept your own thoughts and fears so the denial will only trigger the disorder and acceptance will make it recovered and make you feel better. As it is not a negative fear or a negative thought to save the world. It is our ethical duty to be aware and save our Mother Earth from being degraded. But in order to make it painless, we have to do whatever we can to meet our satisfaction and accept our fears and realities about us.
3: Connect with Suitable Community:
Being connected with suitable community and the groups of people having same disorder and same perspective as yours, will increase your immunity and confidence to deal with it. In this way, your group can validate your feelings about Environment and Climate Change. This will make you confident on your concepts and experiences. You can also run campaigns and cleaning programs with your groups and make your inner-self satisfied and healed.
4: Take actions as a Family:
Make you family aware about your concerns about environment and climate change and take actions collectively with them so this will increase your efforts and increase the man-power involved in environmental restoration. Family support can make any difficult task very easy. This step can also contribute in recovering of a patient of Eco-anxiety by taking some collective steps and cooperating with the patient in every possible way.
These are some managing strategies for Eco-anxiety. This blog contains Causes, Factors influencing Eco-anxiety and Management of Eco-anxiety.
To learn about more topics, Click the links below:
Comments