“Eco-anxiety” is now a common term for the stress people feel in an age of multiple environmental threats. However, its effects on psychological well-being, particularly among young people, are not fully understood.
Is eco-anxiety a normal, manageable response to today’s environmental crises, or does it pose a genuine threat to mental health?
To find out, researchers surveyed over 10,000 Australian high school students. The international research team included Diana Cárdenas Mesa, a professor in the Department of Psychology at Université de Montréal who studies how societies experience social change.
The teens completed a series of questionnaires assessing eco-anxiety, positive mental well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect and resilience) and negative mental well-being (loneliness, anxiety and depression).
The researchers also recorded the student’s sex (male, female or other), academic year, level of parental education, language spoken at home, and whether they had a disability (based on requests for academic accommodation).
The study measured how often the teens experienced four dimensions of eco-anxiety: affective symptoms (“not being able to stop or control worrying”), rumination (“unable to stop thinking about losses to the environment”), behavioural symptoms (“difficulty working and/or studying”) and personal impact anxiety (“feeling anxious about your personal responsibility to help address environmental problems”).
Among these dimensions, behavioural symptoms—that is, concrete disruption of daily tasks—emerged as the most significant. The mental well-being assessments also revealed clear psychological effects.
"Teens who reported being distracted at school and having difficulty concentrating or completing their school work also reported the lowest levels of well-being.”
Diana Cárdenas Mesa, a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Université de Montréal
“They had lower life satisfaction, reduced happiness and more symptoms of depression, anxiety and loneliness,” said Cárdenas Mesa.
In short, eco-anxiety is real and is negatively impacting young people’s daily functioning and mental health.
The results also show that eco-anxiety is more prevalent among teens from minoritized groups, such as nonbinary students, students whose parents don’t have a university degree, and students living with a disability.
Cárdenas Mesa believes this is due to the cumulative effect of multiple structural vulnerabilities, such as less power, fewer financial resources and less stability.
“Think of a person as a chair," she saisd. "A person with few vulnerabilities is like a chair with four strong, stable legs. But a person from a minoritized group is like a chair with bent legs, so any new stressor—a forest fire, an extreme weather event, an unusually high electricity bill—further destabilizes their fragile balance.”
How can teens be helped to cope? In three ways, Cárdenas Mesa said.
First, normalize eco-anxiety. “It’s possible to be concerned about climate change without experiencing severe psychological distress,” she pointed out. “Concern is a healthy and legitimate reaction.”
Secondly, create spaces where teens can learn about eco-anxiety, talk about how it’s affecting them, and develop coping strategies.
Lastly, give more support to minoritized individuals, whose vulnerabilities put them at greater risk of behavioural and psychological consequences from eco-anxiety.
“More generally, we need to depoliticize the climate crisis,” said Cárdenas Mesa. “It’s a public health issue, not just a political issue. It’s about the future of humanity and so it concerns all of society.”
“A snapshot of Australian adolescents' eco-anxiety and impairments to mental well-being1,” by Diana Cárdenas Mesa, Katherine J. Reynolds and Samantha K. Stanley, was published Jan. 13, 2026 in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Reference:
1) https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(25)00543-9/fulltext
(Newswise/HG)
