How climate anxiety affects our behavior

Hidden Brain podcast: 

Hot topic. If you’re feeling anxious about climate change, how might that anxiety affect your day-to-day life? A new study explored this question by tracking the generalized anxiety and climate anxiety of more than 200 volunteers in Spain over the course of a year. Researchers measured generalized anxiety using something called the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 2-item scale. They assessed climate anxiety by asking volunteers how anxious they felt about climate change on a scale from 0 to 10. The study found that, in most cases, climate anxiety didn’t necessarily overlap with generalized anxiety, nor did it seem to impact habits like sleep, diet, or exercise. Put simply, feeling worried about the climate is different from generalized anxiety. “Our findings suggest that interventions to induce climate anxiety in order to encourage pro-environmental behaviour may not have significantly negative health implications,” the study concluded. 

So induce away! 

LISTEN