What it is and how to deal with solastalgia, the anxiety for the future of the planet that is growing among young people

Panic crisis, feelings of guilt because not enough has been done, burnout:this is how the discomfort linked to fears for the environment manifests itself

Last July a girl was intervened at the Giffoni Film Festival by addressing the minister directly Gilberto Pichetto Fratin and confessing that she suffers from eco-anxiety, that she is very afraid for the future and therefore has no intention of having children.This fear that the planet may come to a bad end, the environment may continue to deteriorate and that individual efforts will not be enough to halt the decline is growing among young and very young people.This has been discussed recently, as reported by the Corriere della Sera, at the seminar Walking psychology for wellness organized in Rhêmes-Notre-Dame by the Order of Psychologists of Piedmont in collaboration with the Order of Valle d'Aosta.The forty professionals, together with the climatologist Luca Mercalli, also discussed the close link between the environment and mental health, bringing up the case of solastalgia, or eco-anxiety, or even climate anxiety:that state of malaise caused by the Earth's problems of pollution and climate change.Among the most common symptoms of this discomfort are panic attacks, feelings of guilt for not being able to do enough, burnout, stress, apathy.As that girl said addressing Pichetto Fratin:«I think I don't have a future.These days in my homeland, Sicily, everything is burning.I don't know if I want to have children, and since you talk about 2030, 2050, goals that I sincerely feel are distant, aren't you afraid for your children or your grandchildren?".According to the very first overseas studies by the American Psychological Association, it can be a wake-up call which, if identified and addressed in the early stages, can also encourage you to adopt virtuous behaviors.Such as a greater commitment to separate waste collection and in one's daily purchasing choices.But if associated with other factors, it can become pathological and paralyzing, to the point of associating with and triggering other disorders such as eating disorders.Because if the planet is exhausted by human exploitation, we give up food and find ourselves paralyzed in our choices.According to some scholars, the key to defusing eco-anxiety paralysis lies in nature.To address this discomfort, during the seminar the researcher and psychologist Francesco Becheri proposed immersion in uncontaminated nature, to regain distance and serenity, just as in Northern Europe people are encouraged to make an active commitment to the environment as well as recovering an intimate relationship with nature.