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How is Mental Health connected to Climate Change?
In order to care about the earth, I think you have to care about yourself first. Mental health has got to be one of the bigger problems in our society today, I will construct a survey based on the happiness of individuals and how they are affected by climate change, or not. I hope my results help me confirm and understand that our society today is having a lot more trouble dealing with climate change than any other because of the lack of support provided on mental health and our community issues.
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10 Comment(s)
Hey Jaycee,
So I came across this article yesterday and thought of you:
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for...
Did this term come up in your research?
Cheers,
Jessica (program assistant @ GreenLearning)
Hey, Jaycee!
I think it's a really cool idea to construct your own experiment to find the information you are interested in. I have never really thought about the effect our climate has on the way we feel. It will be super interesting to see the results of your experiment find out how global warming is affecting our mental health.
I've never really thought of this before, but, after reading it, I completely agree with you. I'm sure many people are affected emotionally by the state of our planet. The feeling of dread can really impact an individual's mindset and our surrounding always seem to influence us in one way or another (like how if your friend is sad you'll feel somewhat sad and whatnot). I completely understand how our climate can may make us feel different (just based on my feelings of everday weather alone) so it's not very hard to imagine this on a larger scale. I think this is an amazing and unique concept, and I'd love to hear the results off your research.
hi,
i completely agree! Many people have mental health issues and don't know how to cope with the pressures of today's society. So yes, you are right we do need to address the topic of mental health and how climate change affects it.
Hey Jaycee,
I really like your idea, it’s creative and should be fun to conduct. I do agree that we need to take care of ourselves before we move on and face climate change head on, but do you think that maybe if we take care of our earth first our mental health could improve? Just something to think about. I really wish you luck with your survey and I hope you get the information you want and need. Best of luck!
That's a very good question that I never actually thought about. I just think it's hard to get people with poor mental health engaged in the project of helping the earth. Thank you for the ideas, I hope I find good results.
After reading about your blog post I completely agree with what you said because there has been a big push on mental health in society, mental health is something everyone deals with in there life in terms knowing people who struggle with mental problems or helping people deal with it. With the idea of climate change it begins to worry people about the world ending soon and that sometimes people may overthink a situation and it definitely reflects back on their health. I like the idea of you starting a survey with confirming your question and we need more people to support this idea. This is completely different from what I have researched on because I never really looked into when I was doing research and coming up with a question but now that I saw it, it’s definitely something we need to look into.
This is absolutely true! What I was thinking about is if a Canadian citizen has depression,and he/she is depressed about the world deteriorating rapidly because of climate change, everything will look like it is coming to an end. If you are in the state of worrying and stressing about the problems around you and not taking care of your self it is not going to help and you won't be able to contribute to helping to stop clime change. You have hit on a problem that I think is at the heart of the climate change problem: you can't help others if you can't help yourself. Somewhere along the way a person has to break the cycle in order to contribute to positive change. I'm interested to see your results!
thank you! I hope I can find positive results
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/02/28/climate-change-is-wreaking-havoc-on-our-mental-health-experts.html
Hey Jaycee,
This is very interesting and unique topic of Inquiry!
I'll be keeping an eye out to see what you come up with, in particular: if you do find a link between mental health and climate change literacy, what possible solutions or actions to take would be..
Great work!
Jessica (program assistant @ GreenLearning)
Mental health is a huge issue in today's society. I know that many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in the winter so with global warming happening that might mean happier people but it's definitely not good for the environment.
I do believe seasonal depression is a real thing, global warming in my home town is affecting people lots because the weather has been unbelievably crazy. If people don't want to take care of themselves then how do we expect them to care about the environment? It starts with us and the happiness we choose to carry around and if the weather isn't consistent and making people miserable that's another negative factor.
Jessica Karafilov
Apr 7, 2017