Increasingly, research shows our digital habits (internet, mobile usage) are also contributing to the climate crisis due to the massive data centres and servers powering the internet which most of use daily and stay on it for hours, but how are you personally contributing to it?
In fact according to UNFCCC, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector is responsible for two per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it just as harmful as the aviation industry. (United National For Climate Change - unfccc.int). And how much of this is contributing to our mental health, stressors or anxiety?
What if our approach to life, our behaviour and our positivity was able to change not only how we felt but how others felt, and what if every negative thought you ever had contributed to increasing your individual and collective carbon footprint negatively – would this make you want to positively change?
Here we explore the correlations between digital habits, personal habits and climate change and how we are contributing to both the climate crisis and the mental health crisis due in a multitude of ways with our thoughts, feelings, actions and behaviours which we can change and transform with more positive action.
‘the similarities between how negativity and negative habits are also contributing to the mental health crisis, and the overload of anxiety and increasing toxic thoughts requires us to be more personally responsible to try to change it and our carbon footprint’
There are so many interesting correlations between inaction, habits and carbon increase, climate change and how our increasing anxiety, stressors and negative behaviours effects our personal habits and how we feel .
Anytime you are using electricity, your mobile telephone, your computer, tablet, internet or any device you are contributing to increasing carbon and adding to the pollution in the world just like anytime you are feeling profoundly negative or sorry for yourself you are contributing to emitting negativity out into the world.
Let’s look at some more interesting parallels...
Wasting electricity and leaving the lights on when you are not using them is like wasting time and being upset about something that you have control over but are refusing to take action to change and similar to inaction itself - still focusing on the problems relentlessly but doing nothing.
Not paying attention to the maintenance of your vehicle and allowing it to emit more carbon is like not attending to an issue when you are the one with an 'overload of anxiety' and not getting some support for an issue when you need to and just letting matters get worse in the process.
Using water haphazardly such as taking long showers is like brewing over a problem, overthinking it and spending hours endlessly worrying about it rather than attempting to resolve or solve it faster and in more efficient ways.
The parallels between trying to reduce climate change and trying to transform our behaviours and habits is endless but it helps us to understand how anxiety and stressors form and how we can learn to reduce them both by transforming what we actually do and take better action.
Not realising that your negativity is having an effect on the people directly around you and the rippling affect that this is having externally is like thinking that your carbon footprint is just your problem. Climate change and growing mental health initiatives are everyone's problem to seek answers to resolve and transform.
The act of not segregating your rubbish waste or composting contributes to increasing carbon is like thinking that you have no control over your thoughts and that ‘everything is going wrong’ rather than realising that one simple action could separate your thinking, improve time efficiency and simply transform how you feel.
Being online and ‘surfing’ the internet often and shopping for items and using it like ‘retail therapy’ is like covering up a problem with another problem instead of simply dealing with an issue with something like communicating with an actual person or seeking a useful ‘real therapy’ like counselling, hypnotherapy or coaching
Other ways to reduce climate change include not planting grass so you don’t have to water it which is like stopping yourself from thinking negative about something in the first place or avoiding starting an addiction altogether so you can avoid all of the unhealthy habits which go into supporting it.
By simply being more positive and having a more aligned approach to reducing climate change we feel that we are positively contributing to a better way of living such as when we are trying positive behavioural changes and positive thinking, we are emitting healthier positivity and we feel better
‘Everything that we do can contribute to either raising our positivity and consciousness and climate change or reducing climate change such as deciding to walk instead of driving, or putting your clothes out in the sun to dry instead of using a dryer or choosing a healthy snack over an unhealthy one.’
In the great pool that is our subconscious thinking negatively increases negativity and positive thoughts increase positivity, it is that simple. But sometimes it does not feel so easy to change how we feel and can take time to learn simple new routines to feeling more positive.
If the pool of our subconscious reflected the similar pool of increasing climate change then maybe we would be a little more inclined to change our habits to reflect a more positive space and ways of being.
And finally helping yourself by putting on a jumper and not using the heater so much is like taking action yourself – reading a book or going for a walk rather than mopping around and feeling truly feeling more control over your circumstances and self-supported and nurtured in so many simpler and healthier ways.
Being more positive is about taking more positive actions and steps that can make you feel more empowered and genuinely feel like you are contributing to healthier ways of reducing your carbon footprint whilst also supporting better mental health.
Sometimes just stepping out into nature will help support your mood and utilising the simplest approaches to maintaining greater mental health will help and effect not only you but the people and environment around you and the world.
Here you can realise that you can contribute more positively to reducing your carbon footprint and have more control to actually lesson your stressors than you thought.