I had my first full-blown climate panic attack in the frozen food aisle of Tesco. It was summer 2019, right after that terrifying heatwave that shattered temperature records across Europe. I was standing there, sweating through my shirt despite the refrigerated air, staring at rows of plastic-wrapped vegetables harvested from drought-stricken regions, transported thousands of miles, and preserved in energy-intensive freezers. Something in my brain just… snapped.
My heart started racing, my vision narrowed to a pinpoint, and I became absolutely certain that everyone around me was insane. How could they be calmly selecting frozen peas while the world literally burned? Did they not understand what was happening? I abandoned my shopping basket right there on the floor and fled to my car, where I sat hyperventilating for twenty minutes before I could drive home.
Not my finest moment, I’ll admit. And certainly not productive from an environmental activism standpoint. But judging from the emails, comments, and tearful conversations I’ve had with readers over the years, I’m far from alone in experiencing what’s now recognized as “eco-anxiety”—that overwhelming sense of dread, grief, and helplessness that comes from being acutely aware of ecological collapse while society largely carries on as usual.
The American Psychological Association defines eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental doom.” Dramatic phrasing, perhaps, but accurate for many of us who spend our days reading climate reports, tracking biodiversity loss, or working on environmental issues. When you understand the science and see the disconnect between what needs to happen and what is happening, it’s profoundly disturbing. It’s like watching a slow-motion car crash while most passengers argue about whether to adjust the radio volume.
After my frozen food freakout, I realized I needed to develop better mental health strategies if I was going to continue my environmental work without completely losing my mind. The past four years have been a journey of learning how to navigate this emotional terrain—not to eliminate eco-anxiety (which is actually a rational response to a real threat), but to transform it from a paralyzing force into something I can live with and even channel productively.
I’m not a mental health professional, so everything I share comes from personal experience, conversations with therapists and climate psychologists, and the collective wisdom of other environmental workers who’ve faced similar struggles. Take what’s useful, leave what isn’t, and always seek professional support if your eco-anxiety is severely impacting your functioning. This isn’t something we should navigate alone.
The first breakthrough in my own journey came from an unexpected source—my friend Sasha, who works in emergency medicine. Over slightly too many glasses of wine one evening, I confessed my recent panic episodes and growing sense of hopelessness. She looked at me thoughtfully and said, “You know, this sounds a lot like the trauma responses we see in emergency workers. Have you considered that you might be experiencing vicarious trauma?”
Vicarious trauma—sometimes called secondary traumatic stress—typically affects people like first responders, therapists, or humanitarian workers who are regularly exposed to others’ traumatic experiences. But Sasha suggested that constantly immersing myself in climate disaster information, biodiversity loss statistics, and environmental destruction narratives was creating a similar response. I wasn’t directly experiencing these traumas, but I was absorbing them daily through my research and work.
This framing helped immensely. It normalized my reactions and gave me access to strategies developed for people in high-stress helping professions. I learned about emotional boundaries, the importance of metabolizing difficult information rather than just accumulating it, and specific techniques for preventing vicarious trauma from becoming debilitating.
One of the most practical approaches came from climate psychologist Dr. Leslie Davenport, who introduced me to the concept of “both/and thinking” as an alternative to the binary catastrophizing that had overtaken my thought patterns. I’d fallen into seeing climate futures as either total ecological collapse or miraculous technological salvation—with the former seeming far more likely given current trajectories.
Both/and thinking acknowledges multiple truths simultaneously: Climate change is causing irreversible damage AND we can still prevent worst-case scenarios. Species are disappearing at alarming rates AND conservation efforts are saving others. Corporate interests block necessary policy changes AND grassroots movements are gaining unprecedented momentum. The future contains both peril AND possibility.
This isn’t toxic positivity or wishful thinking—it’s a more accurate representation of complex reality than my catastrophic thought spirals. Practicing this cognitive approach didn’t make the dire facts any less dire, but it created space for agency and hope alongside the very real grief and concern.
Speaking of grief—that’s another emotion that needs proper acknowledgment. What we’re witnessing is genuinely sad and scary. Species that evolved over millions of years are disappearing forever. Communities are losing homes to rising seas and intensifying storms. Ancient forests are burning. Pretending these losses don’t hurt is another form of denial.
After resisting for months, I finally attended a climate grief workshop run by the Good Grief Network. I expected it to be depressing—just a bunch of environmentalists crying together in a room (which, to be fair, did happen at points). But the experience was surprisingly cathartic and even energizing. There’s something powerful about collectively acknowledging losses rather than constantly suppressing them beneath a veneer of determination or optimism.
The workshop offered structured practices for processing climate grief, including specific rituals for honoring what’s being lost, expressing rage at systems causing harm, and connecting to deeper values that sustain commitment. I still use a simple grief ritual whenever I feel overwhelmed: I write down a specific loss I’m mourning (like a recently extinct species or a climate-displaced community), acknowledge my feelings about it, and then write one action I can take that aligns with my values—however small that action might be.
This connects to another critical insight: action is a powerful antidote to anxiety. Not just any action, though. Specifically, action that’s aligned with your values, skills, and sphere of influence.
After my panic attack, I initially tried to do everything—changing every personal habit while also joining every protest, signing every petition, and donating to every environmental organization. This approach led straight to burnout within months. I was exhausted, ineffective, and more anxious than ever because I could never do “enough.”
Working with an environmental therapist helped me develop a more sustainable approach. She had me map out three concentric circles: my sphere of control (personal behaviors), my sphere of influence (where I can affect others’ decisions), and my sphere of concern (everything I care about but cannot directly impact). Then she asked me to identify my unique skills, resources, and position—what could I specifically contribute that others might not?
This exercise revealed that my most meaningful contribution wasn’t trying to do everything poorly, but focusing my energy where my particular abilities could have greatest impact—primarily through environmental writing that translates complex issues for mainstream audiences and highlights solutions. This didn’t mean abandoning personal sustainability efforts or collective action, but it meant recognizing where my primary contribution lies and prioritizing accordingly.
For someone else, the highest-impact contribution might be community organizing, sustainable business development, teaching children, legal advocacy, or any number of other approaches. The key is finding your place in the ecosystem of change rather than trying to be the entire ecosystem.
This brings me to perhaps the most important realization: we need community for this journey. Eco-anxiety intensifies in isolation and eases in connection with others who share both our concerns and our commitment to addressing them.
My lowest points always coincide with periods of working alone, doom-scrolling through climate news late at night. My strongest moments of hope and resilience come from active engagement with others—whether that’s volunteering at the community garden, attending climate café discussions, or simply having dinner with friends who understand without requiring explanation.
During particularly difficult periods, I’ve found it helpful to establish specific boundaries around climate information consumption. Not permanent avoidance, but intentional limits that prevent overexposure. I now have designated “climate news” times rather than constant monitoring, and I balance difficult information with exposure to restoration stories and time in nature.
Nature connection itself deserves special mention as a protective factor against eco-anxiety. Research consistently shows that time in natural settings—even urban parks or gardens—reduces stress hormones, improves mood, and promotes psychological resilience. The Japanese practice of shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing” has become my weekly ritual, providing not just mental health benefits but a visceral reminder of what we’re working to protect.
My relationship with nature has evolved through this journey. Earlier in my environmental awareness, I primarily saw nature through the lens of damage and loss—focusing on plastic pollution in streams, invasive species outcompeting natives, forests fragmented by development. While these concerns remain valid, I’ve consciously expanded my perception to also notice resilience, regeneration, and beauty that persists despite challenges.
The oak tree in my local park that survived Victorian industrial pollution, two world wars, and now climate disruption continues producing acorns and sheltering birds. The urban peregrine falcons that have adapted to city life after nearly being wiped out by DDT. The roadside verge wildflowers creating habitat corridors through concrete landscapes. These aren’t reasons for complacency, but they’re reminders of nature’s tenacity that nurture my own.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive discovery has been learning to welcome uncertainty rather than fear it. Early in my climate awareness, I craved certainty—specific predictions about exactly how bad things would get and by when. When climate models presented ranges of possibilities rather than definitive outcomes, I automatically assumed the worst-case scenario was inevitable.
Working with these fears has taught me to see uncertainty differently—not as a threat but as a space where multiple futures remain possible. As long as exact outcomes aren’t predetermined, our actions still matter. Uncertainty contains possibility.
Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy frames this beautifully in her concept of “active hope”—hope not as optimism about predetermined outcomes but as a practice of actively creating possibilities through our choices and actions. This approach doesn’t require certainty that we’ll succeed, only clarity about the direction we wish to move and willingness to take steps regardless of guaranteed results.
Four years after my frozen food aisle meltdown, I still experience eco-anxiety. The difference is that now it visits rather than defines me. It arises, I acknowledge it, and I have practices that help me transform that energy into purposeful engagement rather than panic or paralysis.
Last month, I was shopping in that same Tesco when news alerts about record-breaking floods in another part of the country pinged my phone. I felt the familiar tightness in my chest, the racing thoughts beginning. But instead of spiraling, I took a deep breath, put my phone away, and finished selecting what I needed. Later that evening, I attended my regular climate action group meeting, where we discussed community-based flood resilience measures that our town could implement.
The anxiety was still there, but it had become a companion rather than a captor—a signal to pay attention, to care deeply, to act with purpose, but not a reason to shut down or give up. And really, that’s what navigating eco-anxiety is about: not eliminating justified concern for our planet, but developing the psychological resilience to remain engaged for the long journey ahead.
Because this is a marathon, not a sprint. Creating a more sustainable, just, and resilient world is the work of generations. We need to pace ourselves accordingly—caring for our mental health not as an indulgence but as a necessary foundation for effective, sustained environmental action. After all, we cannot create healthy systems from unhealthy states of being.
So if you’re feeling overwhelmed by climate knowledge, be gentle with yourself. Find your community. Set sustainable boundaries. Honor your grief. Connect with nature. Focus your unique contributions. Embrace uncertainty. And remember that caring deeply about our planet isn’t a burden—it’s a profound expression of being fully human in these extraordinary times.
