In a world facing environmental challenges unprecedented in human history, it’s no surprise that eco-anxiety – a pervasive worry about the current and future state of our planet – has become an increasingly prevalent mental health issue.

As people witness the devastating impacts of climate change, deforestation and loss of biodiversity, it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed and disheartened. I happen to live in Phoenix, Arizona, a “heat apocalypse” city with dwindling water supplies, so I have some skin in the game.

But amid doom-and-gloom predictions, there is hope. As a therapist and clinical social work professor, I have seen firsthand how paralyzing eco-anxiety can be, and I’m dedicated to finding solutions. Here are a few evidence-based tips to tackle your climate woes.

What is eco-anxiety?

Eco-anxiety is a broad term that encompasses dread about environmental issues like pollution and disposal of toxic waste, as well as climate-specific fears, such as increasing rates of extreme weather events and sea-level rise.

Common symptoms of eco-anxiety include worry about future generations, trouble sleeping or concentrating, feelings of frustration and a sense of helplessness. These feelings can range from mild and fleeting concerns to deep despair, panic attacks and obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

Sound like you or someone you know? There are a number of tools that can help people cope with these feelings, summed up with the acronym UPSTREAM.

Understanding and self-compassion

Be kind to yourself and know that you are not alone in these feelings.

Caring about the world you live in does not make you a “crazy” alarmist. In fact, growing numbers of people across the globe feel the same way, with two-thirds of Americans reporting being at least somewhat worried about climate change in recent polls.

It makes sense that people would feel nervous when basic needs like safety and shelter are threatened. Give yourself grace, because beating yourself up for these very valid feelings will only make you feel worse.

Participate in the solution

It can be hard to feel empowered when environmental harms are taking a toll on your mental health, but the escalating global crisis still demands urgent attention. Instead of burying your head in the sand, use that mental discomfort as a catalyst for action.

Individual efforts to reduce your carbon footprint matter. Joining larger movements has the potential for even move significant impacts, as well as the potential to buffer anxiety, research shows. Volunteer your own unique passions, talents and skills to advocate for systemic changes that will benefit the planet and humanity.

When you feel anxious, use that energy as fuel for the fight. Harnessing eco-anxiety in this way can reduce your sense of powerlessness.

Self-talk

The weight of the climate crisis is heavy enough as it is – don’t let your brain make you feel even worse.

When it comes to thinking about climate change, a realistic mindset puts us in a “just right” psychological Goldilocks zone. Don’t numb your psychic wounds, but also don’t over-catastrophize.

As a therapist, I often help clients identify and reframe unhelpful thinking patterns. For example, while it is true that there are many environmental problems to grapple with, there is also positive news, so don’t discount it. Recognize and celebrate victories big and small.

Trauma: Process it so you can heal

The climate crisis has been conceptualized as a collective trauma, and many individuals are struggling with eco-grief from climate impacts that have already happened. Processing past trauma from events like weather disasters is a crucial step in enhancing your ability to cope with new experiences.

Even people who have not yet experienced significant climate impacts directly may have signs of pre-traumatic stress, a clinical term for the distress experienced in anticipation of a high-stress situation. A licensed mental health professional can help you process these emotions.

Reduce isolation

It’s no secret that having a strong social support network is a key ingredient for happiness. Surrounding yourself with compassionate, like-minded friends is also key to sustained efforts in doing your part to make a difference.

Consider joining or starting a Climate Cafe or similar group to talk about climate concerns. Visit a 10-step climate grief meeting. Join a local environmental organization. Or simply call up a friend when you need a listening ear.

Ecotherapy

Get outdoors and enjoy nature.

Go for a quiet walk in the woods and observe nature all around you – it’s a Japanese practice for relaxation known as forest bathing. Spend time gardening. Exercise outdoors or otherwise spend time outdoors in a place that is relaxing and restorative for you.

Acts of self-care

Self-care is paramount when it comes to managing the emotional toll of eco-anxiety.

Engaging in self-care practices, such as getting adequate sleep, eating healthy and having fun, helps us maintain a sense of balance in the face of overwhelming environmental concerns.

Remember what they teach you on airplanes – you should always put on your own oxygen mask before helping other passengers. Likewise, when we come from a place of wellness, we are better equipped to handle the stresses of eco-anxiety and make a difference in this area.

Mindfulness

Because eco-grief is focused on the past and eco-anxiety is future-oriented, reconnecting to the present moment is a powerful way to combat both.

By cultivating mindfulness – a nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment – people can become more attuned to their thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in response to eco-anxiety triggers. This heightened self-awareness helps people to acknowledge worries without becoming consumed by them.

Mindfulness practices, such as meditation and deep breathing, provide a calming and grounding effect, helping to reduce stress and alleviate feelings of helplessness. Moreover, mindfulness fosters a deeper connection to nature and an appreciation for the present moment, which can counteract the sense of despair associated with future environmental uncertainties.

In the face of eco-anxiety, these strategies can build resilience, reminding everyone that they have the power to shape a more sustainable and hopeful future.

Karen Magruder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Humans have contended with dust storms for thousands of years, ever since early civilizations appeared in the Middle East and North Africa. But modern desert dust storms are different from their preindustrial counterparts.

Around the world, deserts now increasingly border built structures, including urban dwellings, manufacturing, transportation hubs, sewage treatment and landfills. As a result, desert dust lifts a growing load of airborne pollutants and transports these substances over long distances.

This is happening throughout the Global Dust Belt, an arid to semiarid region that stretches from western China through Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Similar storms occur in the U.S. Southwest and central Australia.

To our thinking, modern desert dust storms have been overlooked as a public health crisis. Elevated exposure to these events is likely to contribute to rising respiratory and other diseases, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. We are environmental researchers whose work shows a need for better public health practices to protect people from dust storm pollutants.

Massive, fast-moving dust storms

To appreciate the scale of the threat, consider the Arabian Peninsula, where asthma rates have been the world’s highest for the past two decades.

In spring 2011, one of the most severe desert dust storms in recent decades swept across the Middle East at the peak of the dust storm season. Its plumes spread from the west coast of the Persian Gulf to the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, covering northern Saudi Arabia, southern Iraq, Kuwait and western Iran. One quadrant of this large storm alone covered most of the Arabian Peninsula.

This storm reached vertically as high as 5.5 miles (9 kilometers) above the ground. Its wind speeds exceeded 45 mph (72 kilometers per hour) – higher than average wind speeds in the region. Dust particle concentrations peaked at 530,000 micrograms per cubic foot (15,000 micrograms per cubic meter), blocking sunlight for days.

One study found that a large proportion of individuals exposed to sandstorms had symptoms that included increased cough, runny nose, wheezing, acute asthmatic attack, eye irritation and redness, headache, sleep disturbance and psychological disturbances. Another study reported that increased dust storm exposure in western Iran led to increases in hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and more deaths from respiratory causes.

Needed: A climate + health framework

Researchers study desert dust storms in a dozen different fields, each with its own terminology, expertise and body of knowledge. This work includes analyzing satellite images, creating simulation models for predicting dust particle transport, and identifying each dust storm’s particle content. So far, however, the health effects of desert dust storms and their changing particle content have gotten scant attention.

As we discussed in a recent review article, studies have found pollutants in dust storms that include bioreactive metals such as copper, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc, as well as pesticides, herbicides, radioactive particulates and aerosolized sewage. The extent to which desert dust storms transport a special class of pollution particles, those even smaller than one micron – or one millionth of a meter – is not yet clear.

This is the class of submicron pollutants, abbreviated as PM1.0, which includes degraded microplastics, metallic nanoparticles, diesel exhaust and fine particles from degraded tires. Of all particulate matter classes, submicron particles are the most harmful to human health because when once inhaled, they enter the bloodstream, affecting every organ in the body, and even crossing the blood-brain barrier.

Public health recommendations

We offer several practices here that we believe would help public health agencies successfully tackle the problem of polluted dust storms.

1: Identify particle content for each dust storm.

Existing technology now makes it possible to identify the types of particles being carried in any particular storm. Scientists can already conduct particle trajectory analysis to trace dust and pollutant particles back to their sources.

Knowing the particle content of dust storms can identify ways to make these storms less hazardous, whether capping sewage systems or securing waste at ports to prevent materials from being picked up by dust storms.

2: Archive samples from each desert dust storm.

One physical catalog for dust storm particles already exists at the 19th-century dust storm archive kept by the Natural History Museum at Humboldt University in Berlin. We see a need for a modern archive that collects digital data on particle types, particle trajectory analysis, spatial coordinates and meteorological data.

Keeping both physical samples and data from each dust storm would allow for a comparative understanding of how and why particle content is changing. This has been done to analyze particle content related to military activity in the Middle East.

3: Protect indoor and closed spaces from the smaller dust storm particles.

During a major dust storm, high-speed winds blow fine particles around windows and doors for days. The particles most likely to penetrate indoors include the smallest, most harmful submicron class.

Typically, a gray, fluffy residue appears inside buildings after a dust storm, but there is no data so far on the identity and size of these particles. Our concern is that submicron pollutant particles are highly concentrated in this residue.

For a safe cleanup, we recommend that people should avoid dry vacuuming, which lofts particles back into the air. Instead, it is better to remove residues with water and a wet mop. We also recommend wearing face masks indoors before, during and after dust storms, since particulate concentrations start to rise ahead of the main storm. In our view, people should treat dust storm residue inside built structures as hazardous material until studies show otherwise.

4: Educate biomedical and meteorological experts together.

The rising human-made content of desert dust storms, particularly fine and ultrafine submicron particles, is a neglected public health concern that we believe calls for combined medical and meteorological expertise.

By educating biomedical and meteorological experts jointly about dust storms, public health agencies would have more complete strategies for how to best protect people. It would be valuable to have teams of health and weather experts carry out joint analyses of dust storm exposure data, and then apply the best statistical methods to both civilian and military health records.

Climate change is making already-dry areas around the world more arid. As deserts increasingly adjoin cities, industry and transportation corridors, desert dust storms will increasingly mirror human activity on land. These storms are becoming flying waste dumps, and we believe a public health perspective will help produce more effective responses.

Fatin Samara has received funding from the American University of Sharjah and the Sharjah Research Academy.

Claire Williams Bridgwater does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

As climate change warms rivers, they are losing dissolved oxygen from their water. This process, which is called deoxygenation, was already known to be occurring in large bodies of water, like oceans and lakes. A study that colleagues and I just published in Nature Climate Change shows that it is happening in rivers as well.

We documented this change using a type of artificial intelligence called a deep learning model – specifically, a long short-term memory model – to predict water temperature and oxygen levels. The data that we fed the model included past records of water temperature and oxygen concentrations in rivers, along with past weather data and the features of adjoining land – for example, whether it held cities, farms or forests.

The original water temperatures and oxygen data, however, were measured sparsely and often in different periods and with different frequency. This made it challenging before our study to compare across rivers and in different periods.

Using all of this information from 580 rivers in the U.S. and 216 rivers in central Europe, our AI program reconstructed day-to-day temperatures and oxygen levels in those rivers from 1981 to 2019. We also used future climate projections to predict future water temperature and oxygen levels. This enabled us to consistently compare past and future river water temperatures and oxygen levels across hundreds of rivers, which would not have been possible without using AI.

On average, we found, rivers were warming by 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit (0.16 degrees Celsius) per decade in the U.S. and 0.49 F (0.27 C) per decade in central Europe. Deoxygenation rates reached as high as 1% to 1.5% loss per decade. These rates are faster than deoxygenation rates occurring in oceans, and slower than those in lakes and coastal regions.

Urban rivers are warming up most rapidly, while rivers in agricultural areas are losing oxygen most rapidly. This could be partly due to nutrient pollution, which combines with warmer waters to fuel large blooms of algae. When the algae die and decompose, this process depletes dissolved oxygen in the water.

Why it matters

Oxygen is crucial for plants, animals, fish and aquatic insects that live in rivers. These organisms breathe dissolved oxygen from river water. If oxygen levels drop too low, river species will suffocate.

While scientists know that oceans and lakes have been losing oxygen in a warming climate, we have mainly thought that rivers were safe from this problem. Rivers are shallow, and fast-moving water can absorb oxygen directly from the air more rapidly than standing water. Rivers also harbor plants that make oxygen.

The health of rivers affects everything in and around them, from aquatic life to humans who rely on the rivers for water, food, transportation and recreation. Warming rivers with low oxygen could suffer fish die-offs and degraded water quality. Fisheries, tourism and even property values along rivers could decline, affecting livelihoods and economies.

As the air warms in a changing climate, rivers will also become warmer. As a liquid’s temperature increases, its capacity to hold gases declines. This means that climate change will further reduce dissolved oxygen in river water.

At extreme levels, this process can create dead zones where fish and other species cannot survive. Dead zones already form in coastal areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie. We found that some rivers, especially in warmer areas like Florida, may face more low-oxygen days in the future.

Low oxygen in rivers also can promote chemical and biological reactions that lead to the release of toxic metals from river sediments and increased emissions of greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide and methane.

What’s next

Most of our data on dissolved oxygen was collected during the day, when plants in rivers are actively making oxygen through photosynthesis, powered by sunlight. This means that our findings may underestimate the low-oxygen problem. At night, when plants aren’t producing oxygen, dissolved oxygen levels could be lower.

I see this research as a wake-up call for more study of how climate change is affecting river water quality worldwide. Better monitoring and more analysis can make the full scope of river deoxygenation clearer. Ultimately, I hope more research will lead to policy changes that promote responsible land use and water management and better stewardship of rivers, our planet’s veins.

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

Li Li (李黎) does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.