Caring about the environment can feel especially daunting these days. Even before our current political challenges, environmentalists faced long, drawn-out battles that take a toll on their mental health. With the continuous churn of anti-climate and environmental attacks, it’s no surprise that many people feel worn out, beaten, overwhelmed, helpless, and overpowered.

This is burnout, a very serious psychological state that you must attend to. It is not to be ignored.

Understanding and treating burnout is especially important for the people who care for the Earth, who are compassionate, passionate, and acutely aware of the destruction of our world. This makes them more sensitive and vulnerable to the machine-driven apathy and cravenness of those powerful forces that capitalize on the destruction of the planet or who silence our efforts to uphold equity between big industry and nature.

But emerging science has revealed that the same aspects of nature you’re trying to protect can heal you, make you more resilient, relieve stress, and give you more strength for the fights to come.

Many people don’t know that they’re in or approaching burnout. Even the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association do not yet officially recognize burnout as a health condition. That makes it harder to diagnose — or self-diagnose.

But burnout still has several signs to look out for, including:

• • Emotional hyperreaction and aggression to small matters and triggers.
  • Inability to rest and enjoy life due to guilt that you’re “not doing enough” or feeling that your efforts are ignored or insignificant.
  • Inability to stop racing thoughts of doom, sadness, and rage.
  • Overwhelming feelings of helplessness and ennui.
  • Severe imbalance in life/work balance and creative time.
  • Depression: Trouble getting out of bed, unhealthy habits, trouble making decisions, overwhelming negativity (anger, bitterness, nihilistic rumination).
  • Loss of energy and self-purpose.
  • Physical feelings of fatigue and illness (that are unexplained by another medical diagnosis).
  • Learned helplessness, meaning that one gives up and just becomes embittered and whiny.

This isn’t strictly a psychological problem. The very environmental concerns from which we’re trying to protect people also contribute to burnout, because they also take a physical and emotional toll on us:

• • Pollution: Air and water pollution negatively affect physical health and mental wellbeing and have been linked to stress, depression, and an increased risk of dementia.
  • Extreme temperatures: Scientific studies indicate they can increase depression, anxiety, aggression and other mood disorders.
  • Noise: The World Health Organization defines noise above 65 decibels — typical to what you’d experience from traffic, airplanes, construction, and restaurants — as noise pollution. Constant exposure can cause high blood pressure, fatigue, respiratory distress, and a host of other health problems.
  • Increased allergies and asthma: Feeling sick all the time can wear us down, especially now that climate change has extended the allergy season and caused plants to produce more pollen earlier and in greater amounts.

Burnout can drag us down for a long time. Left untreated it can reduce our effectiveness at work, damage our relationships, and even harm our physical health. But it doesn’t last forever — if you take steps to address it. Here are some ideas to get back on track with your passion for helping the environment.

Self-compassion is a relatively new concept in psychology. It means developing compassion toward oneself during difficulties or feelings of inadequacy and helplessness.

Self-compassion is a powerful tool for recognizing that suffering is a shared human experience, learning to foster human connection rather than isolation, and developing awareness of one’s emotions without judgment, accepting both positive and negative inner attitudes without getting overwhelmed.

And sometimes self-compassion and compassion for the planet overlap.

New scientific studies increasingly prove that a walk in the forest or a park, the beach — any natural setting, wherever you live and work — gives you gifts for your senses from the very resources we seek to save.

Here are a few ways to let the natural world help you with compassion fatigue, defined by the Canadian Medical Association as “the cost of caring for others.” It is also known as vicarious or secondary trauma.

Have you ever taken a walk in the woods and felt a sense of peace or calm? There’s a way to take that to an even higher level: the forest bath or Shinrin Yoku.

The name of this Japanese practice translates as “taking in the forest atmosphere,” and it involves spending time in nature, particularly forests, to promote mindful relaxation and well-being. One immerses oneself in the sensory experience of the forest to connect with nature and experience its restorative effects.

Scientifically proven benefits of forest baths include lowering high blood pressure, heart rate, cortisol, and other stress chemicals in your body, and stimulating your parasympathetic nervous system so you can feel calmer.

How this process works: Plants and trees give off aromatic compounds called phytoncides, byproducts of their immune systems. They expel phytoncide aromatic liquids, which become gaseous and disperse into the air. Humans, when near trees and greenery, breathe these gases in, and some amazing physiological events happen: All humans have natural white blood cells, part of the immune system, which battle infections. Among our white blood cells are an extra-powerful type called lymphocytes. When stimulated by the inhalation of tree and plant phytoncides, these “warrior” white blood cells activate, strengthening your immune system. And the effects can last for a month after exposure.

And you don’t need to travel to a forest to get this benefit. You can modify your indoor life- or workspaces to create the same healthy effect. Learn how to cultivate indoor plants, care and feed them, and cluster them in groups like little forests near the indoor places you spend most of your time.

You know that feeling when you’re sitting next to a babbling brook and your mind and body just…relax? There are scientific reasons for that, and you can duplicate the effect wherever you are.

There are many ways to adjust the soundscape your work and living spaces — from earbuds to house structuring — to reduce or enhance the sounds that calm you or activate you.

Research confirms these personal experiences with music. Music around 60 beats per minute can cause the brain to synchronize with the beat, causing alpha brainwaves, keeping us relaxed and conscious, which may be good for work. Delta brainwaves, which originate from sound/music that is 5 or so hertz, help induce sleep.

Nowadays sound apps, recordings, and new technologies for listening offer anybody access to sound as a strong stress reduction tool. By studying the sounds of the natural world, technology and science have found ways to create relaxation when you are not in a natural setting, like a busy city or airplane.

Want to go deeper? Try a sound bath, a practice that immerses you in deep sound vibrations. “The idea is that these vibrations are at specific tones and frequencies and have the ability to heal your body,” reports Washington University “sound bath” facilitator and mindfulness researcher Diana Parra Perez, Ph.D., who adds that “sound is not only perceived through the ear, but also by the body through vibrations from sound waves that travel through the air.”

Participants often lie down on a yoga mat, or sit comfortably, while the sound bath facilitator plays instruments in a range of resonant tones and vibrations. These may be singing bowls, gongs, chimes, and even the human voice. The soundscape is designed to be immersive and nonrhythmic. This experience is believed to reduce stress and anxiety, improve sleep, and increase relaxation and well-being. Researchers believe vibrations from the instruments may stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for relaxation and healing, releasing endorphins and other relaxing brain chemicals.

Of course, the best sound therapy to release those stress-relieving chemicals in your body is in nature: Sounds of soothing ocean waves, babbling brooks, lapping waves near lakes and ponds, rain on leaves, wind in the trees, birdsongs, crickets at night… Combine this natural tonic with your forest bathing and you’re on your way to reducing burnout.

Even if you live in loud, artificially lit urban areas, there are new technologies to modify your surroundings. Nature recordings are excellent now, in HD, and readily available for personal and home use. Find ways to sound-proof your living space then soundscape it.

Long scoffed at by science and academics, the use of essential oils —  compounds extracted from plants — has now been proven to stimulate the olfactory system when inhaled or applied to the body, releasing brain chemicals that significantly affect the mind and body.

Like forest-bathing, scent and taste are affected by these chemicals, which release molecules that interact with specialized olfactory receptor cells in the nasal passages, which travel into the brain. The brain reacts by signaling activation of the limbic and parasympathetic systems to the physiological body, resulting in behavioral and mood shifts.

Studies show that essential oils may help:

• • Boost mood.
  • Improve job performance through reduced stress and increased attentiveness.
  • Improve sleep.
  • Kill bacteria, funguses and viruses.
  • Reduce anxiety and pain.
  • Reduce inflammation.
  • Reduce nausea.
  • Relieve headaches.

There have been some ethical questions about the sustainability in collection of the plants that produce essential oils, but the industry is taking steps to ensure that you know where to purchase ethical, sustainably produced essential oils.

We have a wonderful support loop with nature, which can try to heal us as we try to care for the environment. It’s a two-way street, if we’re willing to stop and literally “smell the roses.”

There are a zillion books, articles, classes about self-care, but are we really disciplining ourselves to follow the science of sleep hygiene, reducing screen time, eating healthily, exercising, and cultivating in-person creative skills? Caring for our world requires great self-discipline and attention in our own care.

Connect with other environmentalists nationally and globally to diminish feelings of isolation. One organization, The Citizens’ Climate Lobby, exists to create community for personal and political power. “You Can’t Solve Climate Change Alone” is one of their mottos, and they have an abundance of resources to connect you with other people who are passionate about climate solutions like you.

Take this lesson to heart: If the healer can’t function, the healer can’t heal. Nature offers us so much for our efforts to protect it. Let’s make sure our engagement with nature is as strong and balanced as our dedication to protect and heal it.

Now turn off the screen and go for a walk. Nature misses you! Go!

Self-Compassion — an essential site maintained by Dr. Kristen Neff

Environmental Psychology: An Introduction 2nd Edition

The Citizens Climate Lobby Resilience Hub

“Environmental Stress”  by Evans and Cohen (Cornell and Carnegie-Mellon Universities)

“Aromatherapy: Do Essential Oils Really Work? Integrative Medicine Boosting Your Mood” (The National Institutes of Health)

“The Effects of Various Essential Oils on Epilepsy and Acute Seizure: A Systematic Review.”  Bahr TA, et al. (2019)

“Clinical aromatherapy.”  Farrar AJ, et al. (2020)

“Essential oils for clinical aromatherapy: A comprehensive review.”  Vora LK, et al. (2024)

“Increase in diastolic blood pressure induced by fragrance inhalation of grapefruit essential oil is positively correlated with muscle sympathetic nerve activity.”  Kawai E, et al. (2020)

“11 Essential Oils: Their Benefits and How to Use Them.” (The Cleveland Clinic)

“How to Soundproof an Apartment: 9 Tips for a More Peaceful Space” by Jessica Dodell-Feder and Lauren Murphy

“What Is a Sound Bath?” (The Cleveland Clinic)

“Music Can Be a Viable Alternative to Medications in Reducing Anxiety Before Anesthesia Procedures.”  (Penn Medicine)

“Releasing Stress Through the Power of Music.”  (University of Nevada, Reno)

“The Healing Power of Sound: Meditation Research Suggests Sound Can Reduce Anxiety & Pain.”  (University of Washinton, Saint Louis)

“The World’s Most Relaxing Song.”  (Jordan Passman, Forbes, 2016)

Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back by Chris Berdik, Norton Books, 2025

“A comparative study of the physiological and psychological effects of forest bathing (Shinrin-yoku) on working age people with and without depressive tendencies.” Akemi Furuyashiki, et al., (The National Institutes of Health)

Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Dr. Qing Li

Forest Bath  by Jen Barton and Felishia Henditirto, Magination Press — American Psychological Association. A children’s (5-9 years) picture book. Available October 7, 2025

Feeling Anxiety About Climate Change and Other Environmental Threats? These Five New Books Can Help