Climate Psychology 101: Understanding Our Minds in the Face of the Climate Crisis

Written by Christine Homan for Climate Karen’s Substack

The climate crisis isn’t just an environmental emergency—it’s a psychological one too. As wildfires rage, floods displace families, and ecosystems collapse, our emotional and nervous systems are being deeply impacted. This is the realm of climate psychology: a growing field that explores how our mental, emotional, and relational lives are shaped by the reality of ecological breakdown.

At its core, climate psychology invites us to ask: How do we process the emotional weight of living in a rapidly changing world? And how can we care for our minds and hearts as we try to care for the planet?

Why Naming Climate Emotions Matters

Most of us have felt it—that sudden pang of fear reading the latest IPCC report, the helplessness while scrolling through headlines (or frustration with lack of headlines), the exhaustion that comes from caring so much, for so long. These feelings are valid. But many of us don’t have the language—or the space—to name them.

Naming our climate emotions helps us process them. Whether it’s eco-anxiety, climate grief, solastalgia (the homesickness we feel for a place that’s been altered), or anger at systemic inaction, being able to say, “This is what I’m feeling,” opens the door to awareness, resilience, and healing. When we don’t name or acknowledge these emotions, we risk staying in a state of chronic stress, numbing out, disconnecting, or burning out altogether.

What’s Happening in Our Nervous Systems

As the climate crisis accelerates, it’s not just ecosystems that are under pressure—our emotional and physiological systems are too. In the field of climate psychology, researchers have identified three primary psychological impacts of climate change: direct, indirect, and psychosocial. Each of these affects our nervous system in unique and often invisible ways.

(1)  Direct Psychological Impacts

When we’re faced with an immediate threat—like a wildfire evacuation or a heatwave—our bodies activate an acute stress response, turning on our sympathetic nervous system. This is our fight-or-flight response, preparing your body to act quickly to survive short-term danger. Our heart rate increases, our breathing quickens, and we enter a state of hyper-alertness. But when we stay in this heightened state for too long, the nervous system can remain stuck in overdrive, leading to longer-term dysregulation, hypervigilance, or emotional exhaustion.

(2) Indirect Psychological Impacts

The climate crisis is also an existential threat—something vast, slow-moving, and complex. Even if we haven’t been directly affected by a climate event, simply witnessing the destruction—through news coverage, social media, or scientific reports—can lead to climate anxiety, helplessness, grief, or despair. As much as we would like to, we can’t solve it in an afternoon; it feels like the proverbial elephant in the room, always looming in the background.

The nervous system can respond in multiple ways here. In addition to the chronic sympathetic activation named above (staying stuck in fight-or-flight), others may enter a freeze state—a parasympathetic response also known as dorsal vagal shutdown. In this state, we disconnect to protect ourselves: we feel numb, overwhelmed, shut down, or hopeless.  This response isn’t about laziness or apathy—it’s our body’s way of coping with something that feels too big to face.

(3) Psychosocial Impacts

The climate crisis also disrupts our social fabric. Displacement, community breakdown, intergroup conflict, and a loss of trust in institutions can lead to collective grief, isolation, and chronic insecurity. These psychosocial effects often go unrecognized but have profound consequences on mental health and resilience—especially in already vulnerable or marginalized communities.

When social supports erode, so does our ability to co-regulate—the process of calming our nervous systems through connection with others. Without consistent relational safety, people may remain in prolonged states of distress or shutdown. Chronic uncertainty and community-level trauma keep the nervous system in survival mode, and without spaces to release or reconnect, we carry the stress inward.

Understanding these patterns can help us respond not only with awareness, but with care—for ourselves, and for each other.

How to Care for Your Mental Health When Climate Distress Is High

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to climate distress, but here are a few foundational practices that can help you stay emotionally resilient:

1. Connect with Others

Isolation makes climate distress worse. Find spaces—like climate cafés, peer support groups, or community workshops—where you can talk openly about how you feel. Sharing your story and hearing others’ can reduce shame and create a sense of belonging.

2. Practice Nervous System Regulation

Simple tools like deep breathing, grounding exercises, time in nature, and gentle movement can help bring your nervous system back into balance. You might also explore practices like meditation, somatics, or climate-aware therapy to support emotional integration.

3. Allow Space for Grief

Climate grief is not something to fix—it’s something to feel. Give yourself permission to mourn what’s been lost, what’s changing, and what’s uncertain. Making space for grief can actually make us more grounded and capable of meaningful action.

4. Engage with Purpose (Without Overworking)

Taking aligned, values-based action—whether that’s organizing, educating, creating, or supporting others—can restore a sense of agency. But remember: sustainability applies to you, too. If your activism burns you out, it’s not sustainable.

5. Reimagine What Wellness Means

Climate psychology encourages a broader definition of wellness—one rooted not just in individual coping, but in collective care, relational resilience, and systems-level healing. We don’t heal in isolation. We heal in community, in connection, and in relationship to the living world.

A New Kind of Resilience

The climate crisis asks us to evolve—not just technologically, but emotionally. It asks us to build a kind of resilience that isn’t about pushing through or numbing out, but about feeling deeply, caring courageously, and staying connected. Climate psychology offers us the language, tools, and community to do just that.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. And you don’t have to navigate this alone. We believe tending to your emotional world is not a distraction from climate action—it is climate action.

Let’s care for ourselves, each other, and the earth—with clarity, compassion, and courage.

Learn more here about why nervous system regulation is so important in climate work.