Climate anxiety: How to care for the planet without compromising your mental health

Topics mentioned: climate anxiety, eating disorders

About: Molly shares her experience of climate anxiety and the pressure to be a “perfect” environmentalist while struggling with her mental health.

When I think about climate change, I feel overwhelmed, anxious and sometimes honestly quite hopeless. It can feel impossible to switch off from constant conversations about rising temperatures, floods, pollution, and environmental destruction. Everywhere you look, there are reminders that the future feels uncertain. And as a young person, that can feel incredibly heavy to carry.

At the same time, though, I also have a lot of faith in our generation. I think young people care deeply. Sometimes so deeply that it becomes painful. We are constantly encouraged to do more for the planet. Not only to do more, but to do it flawlessly: recycle perfectly, consume perfectly, eat perfectly, live perfectly. And all these pressures are intensified by social media, which can make environmentalism feel less like compassion and more like a performance. If you’re already struggling with your mental health, that pressure can become exhausting.

For me, that pressure became tied to food. I wanted to become vegetarian for environmental reasons, but for a long time I couldn’t commit to it because I was recovering from a disordered relationship with food. I felt frustrated and guilty, like I wasn’t doing enough or that my care for the environment somehow “didn’t count.”

Only when I had properly recovered was I able to approach vegetarianism in a healthy and sustainable way. Even now, while part of me would love to be vegan, I know that for my own mental wellbeing, veganism would not currently be sustainable for me.

That can still feel frustrating sometimes, especially when environmental conversations online become very black-and-white. But I’ve learned that hurting yourself in the name of helping the planet is not sustainable activism. You can only care for the world properly if you are also caring for yourself.

Another difficult part of climate anxiety is the frustration I feel towards people – often older generations – who dismiss environmental concerns or don’t seem to understand why young people are so anxious about the future. It can feel isolating when something that feels so urgent to you is treated as exaggeration or pessimism by others. But I try to remind myself that everyone processes responsibility and change differently.

I also don’t think there is one “correct” way to deal with climate anxiety or contribute to change. Some people protest, some change their lifestyles, some educate others and some focus on small everyday choices. Personally, I feel like I “do my part” through academia. At university, I explore environmental issues through theology and philosophy, thinking about ethics, humanity’s relationship with nature and the moral responsibility we have towards each other and the planet. For me, understanding and discussing these issues is also a form of action.

Ultimately, what helps me most is balance. I try to stay informed without letting myself drown in constant negativity. I remind myself that caring deeply is not a weakness, and that trying your best does not require perfection. Climate change is real and the anxiety surrounding it is real too, but young people shouldn’t feel like they have to carry the entire weight of saving the world alone.

Sometimes hope is not about believing everything will magically be okay. Sometimes hope is simply believing that imperfect people can still create meaningful change.