Advance preparation – thinking about where you will take shelter, making sure you have several ways to get weather warnings and information, and having a plan for you and your family – can help reduce your fear and stress levels when storms are in the area.
Weather-related anxiety is common, especially in children and people who have previously experienced major weather events. Signs of weather-related anxiety include obsessive thoughts about the potential for storms, distress when you know a thunderstorm is forecasted, and extreme fear or dread during weather events.
Storms can trigger inward fears of not feeling safe and feeling out of control. The back emotional part of the brain, responds to these fears of not feeling safe by activating the sympathetic nervous system. This activation triggers the fight/ flight response to protect a person in danger.
While few people seek help for astraphobia, therapy can be highly effective. This can take the form of cognitive behavioural therapy, stress management techniques or exposure therapy, whereby the patient gradually gets used to storms by listening to recordings or watching video under supervision.
Some people experience increased anxiety and panic attacks in the summer. This can be due to disrupted sleep, climate anxiety and pressure to make the most of the summer months. Thinking about overheating symptoms like high heart rate, sweaty palms and shortness of breath can also trigger anxiety and panic attacks.
Climate anxiety, or eco-anxiety, is distress related to worries about the effects of climate change. It is not a mental illness.
About agoraphobia
Agoraphobia is a type of anxiety disorder. A person with agoraphobia is afraid to leave environments they know or consider to be safe. In severe cases, a person with agoraphobia considers their home to be the only safe environment. They may avoid leaving their home for days, months or even years.
Climate anxiety skews young.
Nearly half of 18-to-34-year-olds who've experienced climate change firsthand described having mental health problems as a result — a response that was much smaller in the 65+ population (10%).
If you're feeling overwhelmed with climate anxiety and have been unable to manage it on your own, anxiety therapy can help. There are currently no evidenced-based treatments specifically for climate anxiety, but some available forms of therapy may be helpful.
Many people are worried about climate change: 64 percent of Americans in our last national study said they were at least somewhat worried about global warming.
Hot temperatures can increase stress hormones, and the feelings and symptoms of anxiety. Adverse weather events, such as intense thunder storms, strong winds, hail, and tornados can cause an increase in anxiety for those who worry about adverse weather events.
Agoraphobia is a rare type of anxiety disorder. If you have it, your fears keep you from getting out into the world. You avoid certain places and situations because you think you'll feel trapped and not be able to get help.
Someone experiencing climate anxiety may feel worried, nervous, or scared of the consequences of climate change, and what the future holds for our planet. They may also experience low mood connected to a broader sense of hopelessness or helplessness.
The American Psychology Association (APA) describes eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations”.
You can heal and retrain this entrenched system in your brain by giving the limbic system new information. Ideally, you would do this with the help of a counselor, but if the symptoms are relatively mild, you may try this on your own.
Symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders are thought to result in part from disruption in the balance of activity in the emotional centers of the brain rather than in the higher cognitive centers. The higher cognitive centers of the brain reside in the frontal lobe, the most phylogenetically recent brain region.
In most cases, feeling afraid of everything indicates a problem with anxiety, and that's all. However, there are instances where feeling afraid of everything could be a sign of a more serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia.
Overall, anxious people believe their anxiety symptoms are scary because they threaten their very existence. A common core fear is that anxiety and its symptoms have the potential to ruin or prematurely end a normal life. This core fear activates the body's most basic survival instinct.
When atmospheric pressure decreases body tissues swell slightly. This can put increased pressure on joints and sinuses. Low temperatures also causes blood viscosity, or thickness. Your blood pressure gets a double whammy.
Eco-anxiety received more attention after 2017, and especially since late 2018 with Greta Thunberg having publicly discussed her own eco-anxiety. In 2018, the American Psychological Association issued a report about the impact of climate change on mental health.