Climate change is in the news during COP30. We’ve got tips to tackle your climate anxiety

Every fall, news feeds are flooded with stories about climate change. Indeed, every year around this time, world leaders gather to discuss collective efforts to limit our greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from oil, gas and coal.

Some of the information coming out of the COP30 conference is grim. But it’s not just about COP. Climate stories can be difficult to consume throughout the year, whether it’s about natural disasters, victims of heat waves or sea level rise, or new studies on the impacts of global warming.

“When you throw a ton of scary facts and information at people, their nervous system shuts down. It’s a coping mechanism,” said Sarah Newman, founder and executive director of the Climate Mental Health Network.

This feeling of dread, doom, fear or despair is grouped into one term: climate anxiety. Surveys by the American Psychiatric Association have repeatedly shown that a significant number of Americans suffer from climate anxiety.

Dealing with it, like dealing with climate change, is an ongoing process. Here’s how to get started.

Imagine leaving the house in the morning and realizing you left the stove on. There is a risk of fire at home and you are concerned about it. So you turn around and turn it off. The problem is solved, and so is your anxiety.

Climate change doesn’t work that way.

It activates different parts of the brain, according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health. While generalized anxiety disorder often involves the part of the brain that deals with fear, threat, and emotion, climate anxiety activates parts of the brain that contribute to elevated cognition, willpower, and toughness.

“This is an ongoing, larger problem that I need to address over time and is largely out of my control,” said climate psychologist Thomas Doherty. “I can’t just flip a switch around climate change.”

Anxiety is more complex than a stove left on, because climate change is a more complex issue. The threat is indefinite, it largely escapes everyone’s control and to deal with it, we must act in a repeated and variable manner.

Doherty, who wrote a book about managing climate anxiety, said it is not inherently negative. It is a natural response to a threat and the first step in a cyclical relationship with climate change.

“The rest of the cycle is ultimately about taking action to resolve the threat as best we can,” he said.

Newman said one of the most effective ways to combat climate anxiety is to find other people who are also experiencing it and talk about it.

Every year, New York City holds an event called Climate Week. People from all over the world come to Manhattan for hundreds of events and panels on energy, the environment and climate change.

Between 15 and 20 people attended an event about finding connection and hope in the face of climate change. It was intimate, but so is confiding feelings of terror and isolation in a room full of strangers.

“How many of you wake up in the morning with feelings of hopelessness or hopelessness? » asked the leader in front of the room.

Almost every hand went up sheepishly.

“Not just in the morning!” » said a man in the front row. And an embarrassed laugh of understanding swept through the room.

This group addressed what Doherty saw as one of the biggest risks of climate anxiety: isolation.

“Just like working on any problem, any issue, once you have a team around you, you feel better. You’re not alone. You feel stronger,” he said.

Meetups like Climate Cafés or groups like the Climate Psychology Alliance host online and in-person events where people can share their experiences and build resilience together.

Much of Newman’s work with the Climate Mental Health Network is about bringing people together to combat this feeling of isolation.

“When people start to recognize that, they are no longer alone with how they feel,” she said. “There is an opportunity for people to move from this state of powerlessness to a state of empowerment.”

Many general anxiety treatments aim to calm the body and clear the head, and Doherty said all work with climate anxiety.

“It’s our same body. Our same brain, our same heart rate, our same blood pressure, our same ways of thinking,” he said.

Immediate grounding exercises include the 3-3-3 technique, in which you name three things you see, three things you hear, and three parts of your body you can move. Another technique is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, in which you identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

Doherty also recommends prioritizing rest and exercise, getting out in nature, and focusing on the present moment. He calls all these practices basic mental hygiene.

Doherty recommended channeling climate concerns into something controllable, like the impacts of climate change in your neighborhood, or even in your home.

“Take care of my own garden so to speak, before I try to plant one elsewhere,” he said.

It begins with what Doherty calls ceremonial actions. They don’t really change the world, but they are easy, they can be repeated, they match a person’s values ​​and make them feel better, like picking up trash or bringing reusable bags to the grocery store.

Then, these ceremonial actions fuel the desire and resilience needed for something bigger, like getting rid of gas appliances in the home, which might take years to afford and invest in. The UN lists 10 actions to reduce a person’s impact on the planet.

Climate anxiety is cyclical, as sources of anxiety continue to emerge, as does the need for coping mechanisms and actions. Newman said it’s not easy to move from climate anxiety to climate optimism.

“I still carry those emotions and I still have worry and anger and sadness, but I’m able to live with them in a different way,” she said.

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