Original studyFrontiers in Psychology, 2026Read the paper →
Worry about the climate crisis is now part of daily life for many people, and some describe it as an anxiety that follows them through the day. Yet less is known about what eco-anxiety actually feels like from the inside. A new interview study suggests it can change how people experience time, information, and their own power to act.
Researchers at the University Psychiatric Clinic Ljubljana, the University of Ljubljana, and a research centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts carried out 58 in-depth interviews with 30 adults who said they experienced eco-anxiety. The findings appear in Frontiers in Psychology. Participants were recruited through Slovenian environmental groups and EU-wide climate projects, and all lived in the European Union.
Most were women (22 of the 30), their average age was about 31, and they had spent an average of 17 years in education. Fourteen had a psychiatric diagnosis, most often major depression or generalised anxiety disorder, while 16 reported none.
Participants described fatigue, poor sleep, and isolation, and many felt tightness in the chest; two had panic attacks. Rumination was common, either replaying the same scenarios over and over or searching for a solution and finding only a deeper problem. Guilt and shame were frequent, and anger was the most common emotion, aimed at themselves, people they knew, and distant figures such as the very rich.
The team identified two forms of eco-anxiety. One came from information about the climate crisis, while the other came from seeing its effects directly, such as a full bin of plastic waste, the absence of bees, or extreme summer heat. Seeing the effects first-hand was felt as less distressing, and for some a natural disaster even brought a sense of clarity and agency.
Information played a central role. Many participants felt they had to stay informed and felt guilty if they did not, even though this added to their distress. In 22 participants, the researchers saw a habit they called epistemic sprawl, in which the climate crisis became loosely tied to almost everything, from the housing crisis to acts of violence.
Time also felt different. Many said the future felt empty or did not exist, while the present felt rushed. This went with a strong sense of powerlessness, and many said it shaped drastic life choices such as dropping out of university or deciding not to have children.
Ways of coping varied widely. The most common was seeking out a community, mentioned by 12 participants, followed by compartmentalising, detaching, thinking about something else, and making art or new knowledge, while six cut back on digital information. Participants rated community and a restricted digital diet as the most helpful.
The study has clear limits. The sample was small, almost entirely from wealthy Western countries, and largely well educated, and participants were chosen because they already saw themselves as eco-anxious, so the findings describe experiences rather than how common they are. The team, mostly from psychiatry, also notes that its person-centred interview methods may miss the social side of the problem.
Cognitive behavioural therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy have already been tried for eco-anxiety, but both focus on the individual. The authors point to a 2025 UK Health Security Agency report that found community-based approaches the most successful, and suggest citizen science projects could help people regain a sense of agency, an idea that still needs testing.
