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Eco Anxiety: Everyday Strategies to Cope

This article offers everyday strategies for adults and children to cope with eco anxiety.

What is eco anxiety?

Eco anxiety is an individual's emotional response to real or perceived threats to one's environment, causing chronic fear of environmental doom and resulting in anxious behaviors. This could be due to natural disasters such as fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, flooding, or global warming.

Clinical Breakdown

According to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), "Anxiety disorders include disorders that share features of excessive fear and anxiety and related behavioral disturbances. Fear is the emotional response to real or perceived imminent threat, whereas anxiety is anticipation of future threat. Anxiety disorders differ from developmentally normative fear or anxiety by being excessive or persisting beyond developmentally appropriate periods."

Are you anxious?

Are you wondering if you have eco anxiety? If so, what are some strategies that you can incorporate into your daily routine to help you cope?

One of the first things you can do for yourself and any children who may be experiencing anxiety over environmental concerns is to acknowledge these worries.

Common Anxiety Symptoms

Common anxiety symptoms include

• Fatigue
• Sweating
• Excessive worry
• Nausea
• Stomachaches
• Trembling
• Avoidance of perceived threat
• Fixation on the perceived outcome/doom
• Difficulty concentrating
• Decline in academic or job performance

Steps to Combating Anxiety

Step 1: Acknowledge that you are anxious.

Step 2: Understand that anxiety can be managed.

Step 3: Be willing to seek support via natural and/or paid supports (self-help, counseling, local government, family, yoga instructor).

Step 4: Identify (1) people, (2) places, and/or (3) things that cause you to become anxious.

Step 5: Identify (1) people, (2) places, and/or (3) things that help calm or release you from anxiety.

Step 6: Recite this daily affirmation: "The anxiety is a part of me. I am not a part of the anxiety." This affirmation is to remind you that since the anxiety is within you, ultimately you are in control—despite anxiety seeming as if it's in overwhelming control at the moment.

Step 7: Since you are in control, you can choose to "let go" and attach to helpful things.

Ways to Manage Anxiety by Impacting Change in Your Environment

"I can impact change in my environment."

One of the important steps in managing anxiety is to recognize that you are in control and have the ability to choose to do things that will provide you with a sense of assurance that you are doing something to make a difference. With children, parents can help kids find volunteer opportunities or other ways to feel that they are making a difference. Below are examples of things that a person can do to alleviate the fear of environmental doom.

Global Warming

Plant trees, recycle, and engage in advocacy efforts to educate others about global warming.

Tsunami/Flood

Learn to swim, identify a safe place to go to that is inland and on high ground in the event of a tsunami/flood, and (if you can) purchase a boat and safety gear.

Heat Wave

Check air conditioning ducts, have a first aid kit, drink water, be prepared for power outages, and have a box of games that can be played inside.

Ways to Manage Anxiety by Using Grounding Techniques

"I can cope with anxiety over changes in my environment by using my five senses."

Understanding that you are anxious and being aware of the things that are triggering your anxiety are important. Below are some helpful grounding exercises to incorporate into your daily life and to help children survive and thrive.

Grounding techniques are relaxing and pleasurable activities that decrease stress and anxiety. When you are anxious, you are out of touch with the present moment. The below techniques help you reconnect to the present and feel calmer and safer in the here and now:

• Carry a polished stone or soft piece of cloth with you to touch.
• Find your pulse on your wrist or neck, and count the beats per minute.
• Get active. Do the dishes, clean your room, or redecorate. Organize your living area.
• Watch a favorite TV program, or go to your favorite website.
• Pet or play with an animal (or stuffed animal).
• Visit a friend.
• Look up pictures or paintings online that you find beautiful. Save them as your computer background image, or hang them in your room.
• Go to the park.
• Turn on a fan that provides soothing background noises.
• Purchase a white noise machine. (These can be purchased online or in many retail stores.)
• Visit a place with enjoyable smells (e.g. bakery, candle shop).
• Use essential oils. (Consult with your doctor prior to using essential oils.)
• Press your feet firmly to the ground to remind yourself where you are.
• Recite a positive affirmation that you selected ahead of time. "I control what I think about."
• Take a warm bubble bath or shower, and pay attention to the water touching your body.
• Color in a coloring book (there are adult and child coloring books that focus on meditation).
• Realize that no matter how small you feel, you are in control of your body. Envision yourself being safe, strong, and capable.

"You can impact your environment by choosing to take care of it and by first taking care of YOU."

By Annie Shaw, Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor (LPCS)