Ecoanxiety: psychophysical consequences of an advancing disease

The concept of eco-anxiety refers to concern about the impact of environmental change on people's lives. In other words, excessive and hopeless concern about climate change and its consequences about the fate of the earth.

A real concept that has taken on greater prominence as we become aware of the degradation and mistreatment to which we subject our planet. This idea, which has been developing for some time but has recently gained prominence, mainly affects young people between the ages of 16 and 25 years of the most developed countries, because in them the basic needs are better covered than in others with less luck. Effective movements have been developed to raise awareness about the importance of caring for the planet and concrete measures to be taken, but for now they are insufficient.

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What is eco-anxiety?

In this article we will refer to eco-anxiety as concern for the climate and environmental impact negatively affect people in their daily lives and their mental health.

It is important to know the symptoms and the consequences on people's mental health, understanding that this trend will increase over time and that it will extend to the population in general.

As it happened in the pandemic, the disease will not be subsumed to a mere description, fear and uncertainty about what will be the fate of humanity when the effects of climatic reality become more evident than they are at this moment, they will make anguish prevail and blind the ways of coping with the problem.

The real consequences of the lack of state intervention on the subject plus the addition of the dilemma in the face of concrete actions will unleash progressively, in the best of cases, a wave of symptoms that will compose a characteristic syndrome; that is, the reality of climate degradation will be a fact within health clinics in the immediate future.

Still, it is a growing influence, although the reason is highly rational and indisputable, there is a personal component that it affects or makes flesh in the personality of some subjects and not in others, which is the point that we will deal with in this article.

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How is this phenomenon expressed?

The particular symptoms that this picture develops are similar to the well-known anxious crisis. Fear, sweating, hyperventilation, sleep disturbances, both when we sleep too much or when it occurs as insomnia. Palpitations or sweating can occur and when this picture progresses it can lead to suffocation, triggering depression, due to lack of coping skills.

Social isolation, the feeling that there is nothing to do and that the world is ending, it is playing tricks on many people who, having already an anxious base, develop this picture more easily.

With this, what we are trying to say is that you have to have a personal base that allows the scourge anxious about the real idea, that the world as such can end if we do not take action on it, it takes on an extra dimension and leads us to develop more severe pathologies than those that already occur, such as depression and its consequences. Above all, in young people who are more likely to find no way out or find the most extreme ones, due to their immaturity as a result of a lack of concrete experience in the world. Furthermore, due to their chronological age they have not yet acquired sufficient experience to develop their potentialities and assets to be able to face the vicissitudes of life effectively and with less cost psychic.

What plays against to face a psychological treatment in these cases, is that, Being an absolutely real situation, a state of hopelessness is naturalized due to the lack or paucity of effective measures on the part of governments. Feeling so small in terms of what the problem encompasses, and understanding that a little help is a lot but that the visibility of it is not the same, leads the youngest to despair.

The subject is much broader and we leave issues out, there is much more to see, question and act on. But the warning of this silent and growing evil begins to flood the offices. This way of approaching the subject is also related to the way in which the parents dealt with their own anxiety, due to generational issues in them, it could have been related to their professional career or the future economic. That is to say, the anxious base is acquired by examples and behaviors learned at home, mostly. That is why the same concern is not addressed in the same way by everyone, nor is it the way to find possible solutions.

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How to deal with the problem?

Those who deal with problems in such a way that while they are part of the problem, they have also learned to be part of the solution. find themselves more prepared to live this reality in a different way and to find possible, real and valuable measures aimed at solutions.

Among these measures is the participation in organized activist communities, participation in NGOs, for example, taking care of knowing if the clothes we buy are sustainable, looking for ways to recycle, are very healthy ways to put our ideals into practice "echo" without it becoming an obsession and if an action.

The inclusion from the companies to take 'Eco' measures, would allow prophylactically to decrease within the same situations that disturb the proper functioning of the same in terms of human capital, especially if it belongs to the age group most affected by this matter.

eco-anxiety It is not yet considered within the diagnostic classification manuals. like the DSM 5 or the ICD-11, as a disorder, the argument that is maintained to maintain this measure is that since it is a real reason that triggers said symptoms, it cannot be included. I think this will vary in time and this reason will be reviewed.

Some of the expressions that can be collected from people who suffer from eco-association is that, for For example, that it causes them anxiety and guilt just thinking about putting their car.

The possibility of educating positively and raising awareness that every act counts and has its mark it is a way to counteract hopelessness. Currently, the messages related to climate change are negative and catastrophic and increase fears for a bleak future.

Regarding the peculiarity of the office, the idea is to help the patient to manage the catastrophic thoughts and ideas that they have associated with their fear coupled with psycho-physiological deactivation activities, such as breathing and relaxation exercises to relieve palpitations and the sensation of He drowned. Fostering hope by channeling concrete actions from the personal and from companies and institutions, promotes not only the mental health of those who are affected, but obviously for all of us who inhabit this generous and patient planet.