What impact does Climate Change have on Mental Health?
By Meemansa Narula
We have heard and read a lot about Climate change, global warming, it’s effects on health, economy, politics, industries, animals, humans, etc.
Despite that, climate change’s effect on mental health is in itself a not much talked about and deliberated upon. So, here we tried to bring out some interesting yet concerning insights about how it is impacting human behaviour, mental health and actions in day to day life.
As per an article published in The Print, climate change-induced destruction has become one of the world’s leading health risks. While observing climate change, various effects which are seen and acknowledged are heatwaves, floods, droughts, etc. There hasn’t been enough talk about the psychological impacts on people living in a world with the growing risk of global warming.
Climate Anxiety And the Sheer Need of Awareness
Ever heard of the word ‘Climate Anxiety’? Or do you know if it’s Real? Then you are in for a big surprise because it’s very very real! The impact of it can be very momentous as the growing number of people are getting to know the scientific reality of breakdown of ecology and of those who have experienced climatic disasters which impacted them.
Eco-anxiety is understood as the presence of anxiety about the existential threat that the climate and ecological crises represent.
People with mental health challenges are at increased risk of heat-related deaths. It has been observed that people with mental illness have greater vulnerability to heat stroke which can lead to neuropsychiatric syndromes such as altered consciousness, restlessness and even death.
This particular discussion is classified as ‘Climate and Environmental Psychology’. It is a section in the discipline of psychology which deals with the people who have Climate Anxiety and people who have experienced emotional trauma after a climate disaster or there is pre-climate change stress. The aim of the discipline is to move people from a place of inaction, grief, anger, trauma and dissociation to a place of motivation, power and action and where they feel confident about the future.
There is a definite increase in the number of people who are experiencing anxiety over the potential impact of climate change in the last few years as per the psychologist Mansi Thakker. She believes that young people are more vulnerable to eco-anxiety as they interpret climate change as a “threatening phenomenon”.
How is mental health affected due to Climate Change?
Climate change affects mental health in 3 major ways: 1) Directly, due to natural disasters, 2) Indirectly, through consequences of climate change which affect various aspects of life like social, economic, political, etc. 3) Having overarching awareness regarding climate change and its consequences which further adds to physical health problems impacting mental health.
Many mental health clinicians have seen people who deal with climate anxiety and it impacts mental health in a variety of ways. For instance: There was a case of a 17-year-old patient who was so concerned that she became delusional and believed that if he continued to drink water or use it for tasks at home, millions would soon die because he was consuming water.
A study on individuals in Australia who have an obsessive-compulsive disorder and it was surprising that every third person who had OCD had compulsions focused on checking light switches, water taps, etc to reduce their carbon footprint.
Environmental factors are equally important in psychiatry as they can induce congenital defects, and even trigger endogenous disorders. Moreover, disasters like hurricane Katrina and tsunami have brought mental health issues into the limelight, in the form of maladaptive responses, such as trauma, chronic stress, PTSD, etc.
People who are in disaster-prone areas are more affected. For example, there have been reports of people that just seeing a storm cloud triggers deep anxiety. According to the American Psychiatric Association, the mental health professionals are seeing the full range of psychiatric disorders from Major depression, PTSD, adjustment disorders to drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, child abuse, etc.
In India, more than 22 million people have been affected by extreme weather events in 2017 which made India one of the most vulnerable countries to the climate crisis. But there always is a person we know who has experienced first-hand psychological effects of breathing in the toxic Delhi air, water pollution in Bangalore, or the floods in Bihar, Assam or Kerala. Moreover, the condition of groundwater in Chennai is alarming.
Dr Patrick Kennedy- Williams, who is a clinical psychologist from Oxford, treated normal mental health problems which includes anxiety, depression and trauma. However after a while, climate scientists and researchers started approaching the psychologist, which he found surprising.
When he spent time understanding the reason he got to know that most of them were realizing what needs to be done and the more they were engaging with the topic they realized that negative information was bigger than their capacity to practice meaningful change. Consequences were anxiety, burnout and professional paralysis.
How to Frame Conversations Around Climate Change?
According to the psychologist and founder of the project Inside Out, Dr Renee Lertzman, this is how the conversations on climate change need to be changed: “People need to be heard and guided and not pressured or shamed into action”.
Further, Dr Carolina Vera, Full Professor at the University of Buenos Aires said that “we have spent many years researching the negative impacts of climate change and have been communicating only the bad news”.
While Dr Lertzman believes that News can trigger a myriad of responses in different people: from feeling concerned, motivated or engaged, to feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed. Another important thing said by Dr Vera is that they have been co-producing knowledge, involving different actors who have given different and valid perspectives and expertise to develop solutions. Plus this thing helps them to provide information more effectively.
Showing positive sides and positive steps which can be taken to combat climate change to give people a sense of purpose and direction .
Researchers at NYU’s Environmental Health Clinic, which prescribes climate-friendly actions and group activities to its visitors. Moreover, it has been observed that there’s less space for anxiety emotionally when you take practical steps.
Key Solutions
A chalked out plan to cope up with climate change and mental health issues can be a starting point towards building Resilience which will further help people to improve their mental health by practising sustainability and helping the green world around them by taking small yet important and meaningful steps.
Kennedy feels that the important thing from the perspectives of the psychologists is that they soon realized that the cure to climate anxiety is the same as the cure for climate change- TAKE ACTION.
It’s about going out and doing something that helps to make a difference.
A chalked out plan to cope up with climate change and mental health issues can be a starting point towards building Resilience which will further help people to improve their mental health by practicing sustainability and helping the green world around them by taking small yet important and meaningful steps.
For example: conducting a group activity which sets out a positive message, like distributing cloth bags in the market as to spread awareness to not to use polythene and whenever people step out of their home, they carry a cloth bag.
Plus every month a society can organize a plantation drive and a plant can be allotted to every person who participates in it and can be incentivised into taking care of the plant.
And what mental health professionals can do is become Climate-Literal Professionals so they can be well informed about climate change and can help people in a much better way