The New Eco-Therapy - Tree Hugging

And you thought "tree-huggers" was just a funny way to refer to environuts:

Sarah Edwards worries about the gasoline she burns, the paper towels she throws out, the litter on the beach, water pollution. She worries so much, it literally makes her sick.

"Fear, grief, anger, confusion and depression," Edwards says, pointing to the negativity that has manifested itself in real-life symptoms such as neck and shoulder pain, fibromyalgia and fatigue.

"I had so much pathos. It's so sad," says Edwards, who moved from California's crowded Santa Monica to a secluded cabin in Los Padres National Forest to help her cope.

Now, she says: "We only drive to the grocery store every three weeks. We have our own source of water. We compost and no longer heat every room on the first floor."

Edwards suffers from eco-anxiety, the growing angst experienced by those who can't handle the thought that they — or anyone — are in some way contributing to global warming, species extinction and dwindling natural resources.

She recently launched a blog called "Eco-Anxiety" because she believes environmental dangers should be taken seriously. "This is severely disturbing," she says.

Experts say discussions about the environment — a growing favorite topic in the media — often focus on worst-case scenarios and ever-dwindling resources. So it's no surprise that all that bad news is taking a toll on some psyches.

But not all psyches. John Berlau, author of "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health," said eco-anxious people need to get a life and get the facts about the environment before freaking out.

"It may put their mind partially at ease knowing that not all experts subscribe to these apocalyptic views," he said.

Things have gotten so bad, a new kind of therapy has sprouted up to keep people from going nuts over the environment.

It’s called "eco-therapy" or "eco-psychology." The time on the couch isn’t spent delving into a patient's childhood to find the source of misery. Instead, it looks at how much time a person spends in nature, the person's carbon footprint and what the individual is doing to save the planet.

And the prescribed treatment may be as simple as a dose of recycling or — you guessed it — hugging a tree.

I'll bet a bunch of these people think they were a tree in some past life.