{"id":6619,"date":"2025-07-25T15:05:57","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T05:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/?p=6619"},"modified":"2025-10-18T08:38:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T22:08:29","slug":"%f0%9f%8c%8f-caring-for-the-planet-and-ourselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/student-health-and-well-being\/2025\/07\/25\/%f0%9f%8c%8f-caring-for-the-planet-and-ourselves\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udf0f Caring for the Planet and Ourselves"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Climate distress is a rational response to an irrational situation, and through connection, care, and collective action, we can turn overwhelm into momentum.<\/p>\n

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Climate Week is coming to Flinders, and with it a chance to talk about something that\u2019s increasingly on my mind at least (and I suspect on many), climate distress.<\/p>\n

Properties, Facilities and Development (PFD)<\/a> are planning some Sustainability Week activities at the Bedford Park and City Campus from the 2nd to 4th September.<\/a><\/p>\n

They put out the call to us at BetterU and Oasis to see if we’d like to be involved. Why thank you. I will!<\/p>\n

I thought it was a good opportunity for me to update myself on the topic of climate anxiety.<\/p>\n

You see, climate change doesn\u2019t just affect the environment, it (not surprisingly) affects those of us living in that environment. The damage we\u2019re seeing across ecosystems, species, and weather systems has real psychological consequences.<\/p>\n

I know that I often feel overwhelmed, heartbroken, anxious, or just deeply unsettled by it all and the literature would suggest t<\/a>hat this is the case for many young people (and I am sure many in my age bracket and older as well). I’ve even written about it before<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve developed a few ways to work with that distress myself (with more still to learn), but I wanted to write about the topic with the hope that those of you who feel distress about climate-related issues might gain insights into how to manage it for yourself.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s not just anxiety \u2014 and it\u2019s not a disorder<\/h3>\n

‘Climate anxiety’ is the most commonly used term to describe distress arising from climate change, but it probably isn’t the best term (see some others below). In my world (psychology), the term anxiety<\/em> is generally used as a clinical term, applying to specific types of mental illness or disorders.<\/p>\n

But the general consensus in psychology at the moment is that climate-related distress is not<\/strong> a mental illness – it is arguably a healthy response to an unhealthy situation. Feeling anxious, sad or angry about the state of the planet and how we treat it is not pathological, it’s logical!<\/p>\n

Secondly, the term ‘climate anxiety’ implies that anxiety is the primary emotion\/feeling. But we know that climate distress can take many forms: worry, fear, sadness, anger, helplessness, betrayal, just to name a few.<\/p>\n

The distress is real though. And it can affect your mood, your concentration, your sleep, your work\/study and your sense of hope for the future. So, it’s worth understanding better and working out how to address it.<\/p>\n

But rather than making it an issue related to the individual (i.e. something is ‘wrong’ in them that needs treating), the current view is that we should approach it as a collective, namely channelling that distress into collective action.<\/p>\n

So instead of asking \u201cwhat\u2019s wrong with me?\u201d<\/em>, we might ask \u201cwhat does this distress want me to know, and where could it take me?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Climate distress comes in different forms<\/h3>\n

Researchers have identified at least three major types of climate-related emotional pain:<\/p>\n