Career Prep Archives : Jenny Wren Rambles

5 Tips for Dealing with Eco-Anxiety

Living in an age of extinction and mass ecological degradation can be hard to bear for those of us who have a love of nature (and desire for a habitable planet). The toll this has taken on our mental health has even coined a new term: eco-anxiety. According to Medical News Today, eco-anxiety (or climate anxiety) is “a fear of environmental damage or ecological disaster. . . largely based on the current and predicted state of the environment and human-induced climate change.” It affects a wide range of people, from scientists and researchers to young children as well as people who have experienced extreme weather events such as wildfires and hurricanes. If you find yourself feeling more anxious about the environment, as I have at times, then here are 5 tips for dealing with eco-anxiety.

1. News/Technology Cleanse

Sometimes you just need to turn things off and step away.
Photo by Aleksandar Cvetanovic on Unsplash

We live in a time where we are constantly connected and receiving endless updates on anything and everything that is happening. However, this constant feed of bad news can cause us distress and impact our health and ability to work. As a biologist, I frequently face the news of damaged habitats and declining species. This has led to some sleepless nights and feelings of depression. After a particularly bad bout of such news, my dad told me to stop reading it. I felt like I couldn’t, that it would be morally wrong to ignore what was going on. But it was becoming too much to handle. So I took a week off from reading the news. At work, I found other things to occupy my spare time and at home, I focused on cooking meals for myself and keeping my apartment tidy. Over the weekend I cleaned and re-organized my apartment and relaxed at home working on my hobbies and catching up on my favorite shows.

Photo by Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash

I felt. So. Much. Better.

The constant drag of the depressing headlines on my mentality every day had been building up and wearing me down. Going a week without it I felt fresh and more awake. I was able to focus on other things and just generally feel better, both physically and mentally. Since then I’ve been trying to restrict how much news I read during the day to just 1 hour in the morning and nothing during the weekend. I also try to avoid reading too many negative stories.

If the bad news is getting you down, try a news/technology cleanse. Turn off news alerts or take a break from taking it in at all, for one day or even a whole week. It doesn’t have to be forever, just long enough for you to recover and have the mental and emotional energy to handle it. Then set a reasonable limit for how much you can consume without compromising your emotional health.

2. Self-care

A scented candle, a good book, and a hot drink are just one type of self-care. What’s yours?
Photo by Stella Rose on Unsplash

Self-care isn’t just a hashtag on Instagram, it’s a necessary part of our health and well-being. It’s also going to mean something different to each person. Maybe it’s taking the time to pamper yourself a little with a face mask or a relaxing bath. Maybe it’s working on your physical health and trying some healthy recipes or exercising. And maybe it’s just giving yourself the time to relax, take a break from work, and enjoy your hobbies or some entertainment. Regardless of what shape it takes for you, we need to take time to care for ourselves, something we often neglect in our busy modern world. By taking this time for ourselves, we can recover and be better placed to handle the stresses of the news cycle or work.

For me, self-care is treating myself to a movie or bingeing a favorite show after work. Especially comedies or relaxing shows that will put me in a good mood at the end of the day. It also means taking some time to work on my hobbies: crochet and hand stitching. I find crafts like these where there is simple repetition to be relaxing and helps occupy my mind. In fact, craft therapy (which includes knitting, embroidery, and other hands-on crafts) has been used to help veterans and those suffering from PTSD, physical, and other emotional trauma since the first world war.

Self-care can take as little or as much time as you need, but the important point is you making the time for it. Set aside the time and make it a part of your daily or weekly routine.

3. Look for the Positives

Look for the good and count the positives in your life.
Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash

The almighty algorithm seems to favor the shocking and most negative headlines, pushing them to the top of your feeds. In the face of this, it’s important to make an effort to find the positive stories. Following pages or sites that focus on these positive stories is one way to ensure you get your dose of positivity in the news cycle. Also, it’s important to focus on positives in your own life as well.

In my case, I follow groups like “Zoos Saving Species” on Facebook so I can see the positive impacts zoos are making on species recovery and a biological station where I can see trail camera photos. I also follow some of my favorite zoos and aquariums on Instagram so I can enjoy the great photos of animals and laugh at the excellent sea puns by Monterey Bay Aquarium (seriously their Instagram is on point). Each month I also make a point of writing my list of accomplishments in my journal. What counts as an accomplishment varies, but making yourself recognize the good things can help drown out the bad.

Do a bit of research on the platform and field of your choice and see if you can find some accounts you are interested in to follow. The good news is many more scientists and professionals in their fields are becoming active on social media. This can give you a window into their work and the progress they’re making in their field. For positive science news, there’s also the “Good News Network“. You can check out positive news stories at work via their website or on the go via their mobile app.

4. Find a Focus

This is going to be a weird place to bring up a fiction series about dinosaurs, but one thing that comes to my mind is the 7th code of Dinotopia: “Do one thing at a time”. Many threats are impacting our planet’s ecology and the species we hold dear, but there is only so much we can do at one time. Rather than let yourself be pulled in a million directions, choose one thing to focus on. Choose one change to make or one action to take at a time. This can help you dilute the barrage of information you are subject to a more manageable amount and give you the motivation and energy to follow through on your goals.

There are already tons of posts listing the various individual actions we can take to reduce our footprint, so I won’t go into it too much here. I will say that a personal effort I am working on is reducing how much meat I eat and adding a little more variety in my diet. I’ve made a page to track the amount I eat in my bullet journal and I’m trying to lookup more recipes to try. If a lifestyle change is what you choose to focus on, choose something manageable. Keep track of your efforts and at the end of the week or month, reflect on your progress. What problems did you encounter in trying to make this change? What are some ways to address these problems? Is there a different change that would be easier for you to make?

Lifestyle changes aren’t the only thing you can focus on though. Find a specific issue of interest to you to read up on. Get educated on it and find out what actions you can take to try and address it. This could mean getting involved in volunteer activities or contacting organizations and government representatives. It can be hard to make large scale changes, so start local. Even helping get the word out among your friends using social media to bring awareness to the issue is a step in the right direction.

5. Volunteer

Joining local volunteer or conservation groups are one way to take action and find some social support.
Photo by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash

This last suggestion is of course for those that have the time or opportunity available to them, but if you are feeling like you’re not making a difference, try joining in on some volunteer activities in your local community. By volunteering you can feel like you are making a tangible difference; like you are taking action. Getting out and being around like-minded people may give you some social support for dealing with your eco-anxiety and open up more opportunities to take action.

If you can’t get out in person, don’t worry. You can try volunteering some time on online citizen science sites. I recently found Zooniverse and have tried out a few different camera trap projects. Classifying the photos is easy to do and you can enjoy seeing the animal pictures. Plus, how much time you give is completely up to you. A few spare minutes or even a longer session, however much time you spend it will be helping out real scientific efforts.

Bonus: Get out in nature!

Take in the sights, sounds, and scents of nature.
Photo by Zach Betten on Unsplash

How exciting! A bonus tip! If you are worried about the environment, surrounding yourself in nature can actually help you feel better. Studies have shown that spending time outside in green space, even listening to natural sounds or having natural materials and house plants can trigger physiological changes that lower our blood pressure and stress hormones. There is even a growing field of ecotherapy, where outdoor activities and exposure to nature are used to improve our physical and mental health.

Knowing about all the loss that is occurring can be hard to bear, but all the more reason to get out and strengthen your connection to nature. Take a walk in a local park and get some fresh air. Head down to the beach or out to the forest for a hike. Or, if the air is not so fresh where you live (or you are lacking green spaces), try looking up some nature podcasts to listen to. Sound by Nature is a podcast that has long tracks of outdoor recordings of things such as rainfall, birdsong, and frog calls in a variety of natural locations.

Whenever you start feeling eco-anxious, try these tips to take a break, recover, and find your focus. This will help you maintain your emotional and mental health and be ready to face whatever life (and the news feed) throws at you.

5 Useful Skills for your Zoo Internship

If your dream is to work in a zoo or sanctuary, you may already have an idea it will entail some dirty work cleaning enclosures and prepping food. And that would be the right idea, but that’s not all it requires. Here are 5 useful skills for your zoo internship you might not have thought of but will definitely come in handy.

1. Carpentry/Tool Use

At my internship, we were required to build a donation box and an enrichment item for one of the animals.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Being able to use a variety of tools (power tools, saws, etc.) and having some building experience can be useful in a variety of ways.

Enclosure maintenance/Repair:

Depending on the size and budget of the facility, there may or may not be maintenance staff on hand to deal with enclosure issues like a jammed door or broken platform right away. If you are working at a sanctuary, you may be needed to help repair cages or fencing for the safety of the animals. Having the ability to assist with minor building and repair work will save time and allow you to quickly resolve any issues so you can get the animal back out in the enclosure and carry on with your work.

Building Enrichment:

Enrichment is an important aspect of ensuring the mental and physical health of the animals in your care. While some enrichment items can be bought (like balls or puzzle feeders) it may be necessary for you to build something yourself. Building platforms for animals to climb or sit on, and adding complexity to their living environment, can help do this. You can also adjust it to fit individual animals’ needs, such as lower platforms for elderly animals.

Clearing Debris:

Trees rot or storms come through and all of a sudden you have a bunch of branches in the way that need to be moved. Clearing away this debris is important for the safety of the animals and guests, and that may require the use of power saws to break them down into more manageable pieces. If you can help with this, the job will go a lot faster.

What you can do:

Personally, I wanted to take the carpentry class in high school but was unable to because of scheduling issues and a focus on taking more academic classes to prepare for University. If you can take a class or join a club that lets you get the experience working with tools and building things yourself, I would say go for it. If not, see if anyone in your family would be willing to work on some small projects with you and help you get comfortable using different tools. Family not big on tools? Check your local hardware store and see if they’re running any workshops that you’d be interested in and could apply to your future work.

2. Driving

Stick shift is still my weak spot.
Photo by Alok Sharma on Unsplash

I’ve seen many internship and job listings that put a valid driver’s license as a requirement or preference but depending on the facility you work at, experience in specific vehicles might be a plus. At my internship, the ability to drive stick shift was a plus because we could assist with driving the feed truck around. Having driving experience for a variety of vehicles can help you be prepared for driving whatever is at hand right when you are needed. Tractors might be used for moving supplies or large loads and you may be sent out in company vehicles to do supply pickups so feeling comfortable and confident to drive what’s needed is a big advantage.

What you can do:

If you’re a teen learning to drive, or even an already experienced driver, ask your parents, friends, or relatives if they can help you practice with different types of cars (stick/automatic, SUV/truck). Tractors might be trickier if you don’t live in a rural area but ask around in your friend group or community to see if anyone would be willing to show you the ropes on some smaller tractors. If you don’t have experience before you start, don’t worry. See if some of your coworkers would be willing to help you learn how to drive the facility’s vehicles. Order a pizza and turn it into some quality coworker bonding time!

3. Knife handling/ Butchery

Carnivore feed truck. At my internship, we had to chop the heads and wings off chickens and then de-feather them for the large carnivores.

Animals eat a lot of different things, and one of those things is meat. To provide for carnivores you may have to butcher some meat. Regardless of personal beliefs, your job is to provide for the animals in your care and if they eat meat that means you need to provide it. Part of that may include butchering things like chickens or donated cow/deer carcasses. Knowing how to safely and efficiently prepare and cut up meat for the carnivores is important for completing your tasks on time. This can include de-feathering chickens or descaling fish. If a large carcass is donated you may need to gut it and cut it into smaller more manageable cuts of meat for storage, and you may need to skin it as well.

What you can do:

If you have farmers or hunters in the family you may already have some experience with these skills but not everyone is going to be able to practice butchering whole chickens or field dressing a deer. An easy place to get started is with fish, whether it’s whole fish from the supermarket or self-caught. Fish require some careful handling (slippery!) but are manageable to practice at home. Remember to take it slow and wear some gloves with a good grip if needed. And don’t forget, you’re still going to need to chop fruits and vegetables for the herbivores and omnivores, so make yourself a fruit smoothie and a salad and tell everyone you’re practicing food prep for animals 😉

4. Weight Training

Definitely going to need some upper body strength. . .
Photo by John Arano on Unsplash

Working with animals can be a physically demanding job. You’ll need to be able to carry feed buckets and supplies around and will often need to work through heat, cold, rain, and snow. At my internship, we had to be able to lift at least 50 pounds so that we could carry the bear feed buckets and shift large trays of meat for the carnivores. Other tasks you may need to help with are helping move animals in large rolling cages to other habitats or, as I mentioned above, helping clear and remove debris.

What you can do:

The good news is this is probably one of the easiest skills to work on from this list. A lot of the people I worked with had participated in sports in school (soccer, track and field, baseball) so if you’re part of a sports club you’re already on the right track! If you’re really serious about working out you can join a gym or fitness classes, but if that’s not your vibe no worries! There are plenty of bodyweight exercises you can do at home and free apps and videos to learn from. My advice though is definitely work on your arms and upper body strength so you can lift those bear buckets like a pro!

5. Communication Skills

As an intern, I often had to give educational tours around the zoo. Good thing I like to talk about animals!
Photo by Ravi N Jha on Unsplash

As an animal lover, you might prefer the company of animals to humans, but unfortunately, you can’t escape having to deal with that most irksome of beasts, “the public”. During an internship you will likely need to pull some shifts answering phones, working the register for tickets or the gift shop, or leading educational tours. For these reasons, communication and public interaction skills are a must. If you’ve ever had a part-time job you may already have some experience in this area, so don’t worry if your only jobs so far have been retail and not animal-related. They still apply!

What you can do:

For educational tours, you will probably get some instruction on this at your internship but for additional preparation consider visiting a local museum or zoo and joining in on a tour. Take note of how they relay the information (word choice, speed, volume) and answer questions. If they have time after the tour, see if they’d be willing to share some tips or answer additional questions about how to give tours or handle guests. In the meantime, you can work on your public speaking skills through school presentations, soliloquies to your cat, or pretend tours to friends held captive. Whatever you do, practice your speaking and get comfortable with it because even if you aren’t giving a tour, there’s always a chance a visitor will stop you to ask questions.

Did anything from the list surprise you? Or anything you thought was missing? Going into my first internship a few of these I expected but had no experience in (butchering) and there were others I hadn’t thought of (driving). Truthfully, all five of these were things I was bad or inexperienced at, and I wished I could have had more practice in them before my zoo internship. If you’re looking for ways to prepare for an animal career though, I hope this list is helpful and gives you some easy ideas for how to develop these skills before you get that dream internship!