“Environmental anxiety”: What is its relationship to climate change and what are its symptoms?

Weather of Arabia - The term environmental anxiety has become prominent after numerous weather and climate events that affected a number of countries around the world, some of which had severe catastrophic effects in the region. According to the New York Times, the term environmental anxiety (Eco-Anxiety) clearly appeared and reached its peak.

What is environmental anxiety?

Eco-anxiety refers to people's fear about climate change and other environmental crises.

The New York Times also reported that the people, led by Europe, are on the verge of a nervous collapse due to the tension of the population, which has suffered from severe weather and environmental conditions such as heat waves, forest fires, rain, floods and other events, the most recent of which happened in Libya after Storm Daniel affected large parts. An entire area was wiped off the map after it was covered by floodwaters. This had a negative psychological impact on many people and they began to feel fear for the future of future generations.

The era of environmental anxiety

According to a report issued by the New York Times, these tensions have become known as the “Age of Environmental Anxiety,” and they are getting worse day by day and are already affecting the mental health of citizens, despite the fact that environmental anxiety is not recognized as a clinical disease or mentioned in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. For mental disorders, however, experts report that the feeling of depression and doom resulting from all these inescapable images of disasters and events around us has become more widespread than ever before.

The term environmental anxiety is becoming more widespread

Dr. Paolo Ciancone, a member of the Department of Environmental Psychology and Mental Health at the World Psychiatric Association, pointed out, “The psychological and mental consequences of climate change are certainly moving faster than psychiatry, as well as psychology.” He added that the term “environmental anxiety” has been around for more than a decade, but it is “spread widely” these days, and that the situation will worsen in the future.”

He continued: “When people start worrying about the planet, they don’t know that they have environmental concern. When they see that this thing has a name, they will understand their condition.”

Eco-anxiety is the chronic fear of environmental destruction

Ciancone and some colleagues published a paper in June in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine that mentioned the terms “environmental PTSD,” “eco-burnout,” “ecophobia,” and “eco-rage.”

However, the focus has been shifting towards extreme environmental anxiety , widely known as “chronic environmental doom” . This anxiety is experienced by individuals who are directly affected by traumatic climate change events, and by people who are exposed to climate change threats to their livelihoods and ways of life. This also includes climate activists and those working in the field of climate change, as well as people who spread images of climate change through news media. These individuals are vulnerable to feelings of anxiety, according to the newspaper.

Symptoms of environmental anxiety

Symptoms of environmental anxiety can include “frustration, helplessness, feelings of being overwhelmed, and hopelessness,” according to Ciancone and colleagues. It can also be manifested by a combination of “related clinical symptoms such as anxiety, agitation, sleep disturbance, anorexia, and panic attacks.” According to psychologists, extreme environmental conditions represent a real crisis for many people who have been exposed to crises over the past decade.

Source: nytimes