2023-10-10 08:29:00
What can climate change do to mental health? This is what World Mental Health Day, which falls today, October 10, proposes.
Many reports and studies on mental health confirm that we cannot ignore the anxiety, sadness, shock, depression, and severe mood changes resulting from this environmental and climate degradation. The reports describe these damages as the invisible toll of the climate crisis on mental health.
Current economic systems put profits before people, making the mental health crisis much worse. Prioritizing profits also leads to climate change.
As communities around the world grapple with increasingly frequent and severe climate disasters, from raging wildfires to catastrophic hurricanes, another crisis that goes unmentioned is the negative impact on our mental health.
Reports indicate that more people, especially younger generations, are experiencing environmental anxiety and climate grief. This is not surprising given that they will face the long-term consequences of the climate emergency.
Stress worsens
The impacts go beyond natural disasters and individual stresses. Climate change has made life more difficult for people who already suffer from mental health conditions. Unstable living conditions exacerbate chronic stress and increase the risk of depression, anxiety, and physical health problems. Losing a home due to a massive fire or flood can cause permanent psychological trauma.
Truly addressing these issues and protecting mental health in this context requires significant structural changes, not just individual coping strategies.
Current climate policies emphasize improving infrastructure, but the psychological impacts require just as much attention.
Research shows that psychological trauma and exposure to extreme weather and disasters can affect external social phenomena such as educational attainment, criminality and suicide, and indicates that climate change can lead to an increased risk of dementia and other mental and behavioral problems.
But what is more alarming is that many studies confirm that the increase in drug use might also be linked to climate change due to the extreme heat and stress associated with it.
Addiction and suicide
According to a new study published in the journal Communications Medicine, data collected over 20 years showed a 24.6% increase in hospitalizations associated with alcohol disorders and a 38.8% increase in hospitalizations for other substances, including opioids, cocaine, cannabis and tranquilizers. The researchers in this study say that the planet has warmed on average by 0.08 degrees Celsius per decade since the mid-19th century, although the majority of this warming occurred from 1975 onwards and at a rate of 0.20 degrees Celsius per decade. According to this study, climate change leads to “psychosocial stress resulting from destabilization of social, environmental, economic, and geopolitical support systems; increased rates of psychological disorders; increased burden on physical health; increasingly harmful changes in established patterns of behavior; and concern regarding the risks of climate change.”
This study linked the increased risk of anxiety, psychological disorders, fear and panic to the increasing frequency of bad weather waves around the world.
The study pointed out that exposure to climate-related stressors – such as storms, floods, wildfires and drought – can lead to physical and psychological distress that often lasts for months following the event. “Young people face disproportionate risks due to their high exposure to mental health problems and substance use disorders,” the study said. “.
On World Mental Health Day, many mental health organizations are keen to take environmental factors into account, and for governments to realize that confronting climate change is no longer a luxury.
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