Do you feel anxious when you see a television set left on standby? Does the sight of a plastic bottle haphazardly tossed into a paper-only recycling bin make you feel nauseous? Are you consumed with rage when someone has left an empty room and not switched off the light? Have you recently found yourself overcome with a desire to spit on your car-driving friends and family? When a loved one tells you that he is flying off for some winter sun, do you feel like bludgeoning him over the head with a blunt instrument until he appears no longer to be breathing?

If so, don't worry! You are probably suffering from "carborexia'', Or "energy anorexia''.

Being environmentally aware is one thing, and being obsessed with it, is another, say US psychiatrists, who warn that extreme environmental awareness may be creating a generation of "carborexics".

In a new survey, it was found that seven per cent of Americans come into the category of "dark green" — hard core recyclers and carbon footprint worriers.

However, scientists claim that there is a thin line between these behavioural traits qualifying for eco-leadership or bordering on the obsessive-compulsive.

Jay Matsueda, who might also answer to the name energy anorexic, or carborexic, has neither heat nor air-conditioning in his condominium in Culver City, Calif.

He runs his car, a 1983 Mercedes SD Turbo, on waste oil from a Los Angeles restaurant. When he gives a gift, it is usually an organic cookbook, a copy of Al Gore's book ''An Inconvenient Truth'' or reusable bamboo flatware.