Climate anxiety is the fear, grief and guilt that come from paying attention to a real threat. It is not a condition. Almost three in four adults in Great Britain say they worry about climate change.
The worry makes sense. This page is about what to do when it takes more of your life than you want to give.
Source: ONS: climate worry 2022
How common it is
In 2022 the Office for National Statistics asked adults across Great Britain how they felt about climate change. Most said they were worried. Among adults under 30, about one in three said they were very worried.
So if this is you, you are in the majority. What differs is how much room the worry takes up.
Source: ONS: climate worry 2022
How it feels
Mind describes a wide range of feelings that climate change can bring. You may recognise some of these:
- Dread about the future, for yourself or for people not yet born
- Guilt about what you buy, eat, drive or throw away
- Anger at governments and companies that could act and do not
- Grief when a place or a season you loved changes
- Feeling helpless, or that planning ahead is pointless
- Feeling alone, because people around you do not seem to feel it
Mind names the guilt around having children as one of these feelings too. So is the pull to keep reading about it, long after it has stopped helping.
Source: Mind: climate change
A response, not a condition
Mind says climate anxiety and eco anxiety are terms people use for their own experience. They are not labels a doctor can give you. Its view is that these feelings are an understandable reaction to a threat, and that they are valid.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists says the same, in a page written for parents of worried children:
Eco distress is not a diagnosis or mental illness. However, professionals recognise that it can affect people's mental health over time.
That last line matters. A feeling can be reasonable and still wear you down.
Sources: Mind: climate change, RCPsych: eco distress
When the worry takes over
Mind says climate worry can become part of an existing problem, such as anxiety, depression or OCD. The worry itself is not the problem. The problem is when it stops you sleeping, working or resting, day after day.
If the fear has spread to most things, start with our anxiety page. If you feel flat and hopeless, read our depression page. If checking, counting or cleaning has attached itself to the worry, our OCD page explains why.
The news carries the climate to you every day, alongside war, elections and disasters. Our world events page is for that wider weight. And grief for a lost place is real grief, which our grief page covers.
Source: Mind: climate change
What helps
Mind offers practical ideas, and says that what helps varies from person to person:
- Let yourself feel it. The worry comes from care, and pushing it away rarely works.
- Set limits on how much climate news you take in, and when.
- Choose reliable sources over the loudest ones.
- Do something at your own size. A litter pick, a garden, a local group.
- Talk to people who feel it too. Climate cafés exist for exactly this.
- Spend time in nature, even when it is also a reminder of what is changing.
None of this asks you to stop caring. It asks you to care in a way you can sustain.
Source: Mind: climate change
What talking therapy can do
Mind says there is no single recommended therapy for the mental health effects of climate change. What a therapist offers is space. Somewhere to say the whole of it, including the parts that feel too big for a friend.
A person-centred counsellor will not try to talk you out of the fear. They take it as real and stay with it. Cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, works on the loops the worry runs in, such as endless reading.
Some therapists are adapting their work to climate distress. Mind suggests asking a therapist whether they are comfortable talking about climate change before you decide to work with them.
Runs online climate café listening circles and a directory of therapists with an interest in climate change and mental health.
Source: Mind: climate change
Who to look for
Look for a professional who names climate anxiety, eco anxiety or eco distress in their profile. If none do, look for someone who works with anxiety, grief or guilt, and ask them the question Mind suggests. A good answer is honest, not rehearsed.
Mind advises checking that any therapist is registered with a professional body before you start. Every professional found through us has been through that check.
You do not have to solve the climate to feel better. Tell us what the worry does to your days, and we will find someone who can help you carry it.
Source: Mind: climate change
Thanks for your interest. We're not taking on new clients at the moment.
Ready to carry it differently?
We ask what matters to you, then find professionals who fit.
- I cannot stop thinking about the climate and it is wearing me out
- I feel guilty about everything I buy, eat or throw away
- I do not know whether to have children because of the future
- Nobody around me seems to feel this and I feel alone with it
