Mind Spa Mental Health Centre’s Post

Preserving our Mental Health in the fight for planetary health The facilitator, Toronto-based Kady Cowan opened the conversation by prompting others to acknowledge any climate change-related concerns weighing on their minds. Worrying her, Cowan said in her soothing voice, were the unprecedented “zombie fires” burning in British Columbia that feed on peat and woody tree roots over the winter and re-emerge in the spring. Climate peer-support groups, like Cowan’s, are increasingly recognized as one way to help build mental health resilience in a world that can sometimes appear indifferent to the effects of climate change. As more Canadians grapple with catastrophic impacts of climate-fuelled extreme weather, the question of how a person can keep up the fight for planetary health while tending to their mental health has extended beyond the environmental circles. Mental health effects from climate change have been dubbed a pressing, but still largely understated, public health challenge in Canada. A report prepared for the Public Health Agency of Canada | Agence de la santé publique du Canada of Canada last year, based on interviews with more than 20 key public health experts, said the impacts had been underestimated and Canada’s health-care system was “wholly unprepared and understaffed to address this growing issue.” Climate anxiety is a piece of that larger public health challenge. It often refers to the heightened distress a person feels about the impending threat of climate change. Those fears may be rooted in a direct experience with extreme weather or exposure to climate change messages. “There is a looming mental health crisis coming with this anxiety about the climate crisis,” said Nate Charach, a Toronto psychiatrist who hosts climate-focused group psychotherapy sessions. Researchers out of Lakehead University conducted a survey of people between ages of 16 and 25 across Canada and found four in 10 reported that their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily functioning. It’s left some parents grappling with how to support their children through heightened climate emotions. Severn Cullis-Suzuki the daughter of environmentalist David Suzuki and now executive director at the Suzuki Foundation, said her preteen son experienced a “very dark” period of depression. Overcome by stories about humanity’s ecological destruction, he did not want to be human anymore, longing to be a different species, she said. “I think (communities) have, for the most part, been able to move through a lot of the climate anxiety and start to think about how to build resilience,” said Wale, who works with the Canadian Climate Institute. “We want to be involved in building resilience for the next generation.” https://lnkd.in/dcDQ22EZ #mentalhealth #planethealth #climateanxiety #anxiety #depression

In the fight for planetary health, how do we preserve our mental health?

In the fight for planetary health, how do we preserve our mental health?

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