Healthy news consumption and mental health

More recent the issue of anxiety related to macro related issues have been coming up in therapy. In part this seems to be due to the ongoing political and economic volatile state of the world - and in part this is due to the increased access we have to the 24/7 365 news cycle.

It’s undoubtedly a tricky balance in that of course we would like to stay informed about what is going in the world and we would feel bad about totally neglecting that.

On the other hand, at risk of what? our own self-care? anxiety about the future and rumination?

Here are some tips and reminder that I like to provide some of my clients to help mitigate this stress.

For one, it could be helpful to set a very specific time and limitation on when and how long we watch the news. For example, challenging yourself to spend no more then 15 minutes a day checking in to see what is going on. Alternatively many have found checking in even one time a week for this amount of time is enough to catch up on what is going on.

Alternatively, for those with higher anxiety - I offer and suggest a complete “news diet”. This entails taking a complete break from checking the news for some amount of time (a few days, a week or even a month). I try to remind people that even without checking in on your own, chances are if any significant happens, chances are high that somebody will inform you or that you will hear about it unintentionally regardless.

I also suggest being mindful of what specific news sources you are checking in with. If there are particular networks or sources of which are known to you for the more dramatic click bait, I suggest eliminating checking in on these networks all together.

To that end, know that there are a lot of networks out there now that focus on maintaining a neutral perspective as possible. If you think it might be helpful, only check in on these networks.

News or macro-related anxiety is not uncommon. Please consider setting these boundaries with yourself if you find this is something that you struggle with. If this is something that persists then therapy may help!

Philadelphia therapist Noam Dinovitz specializes in various types of anxiety including that related to what is going in the world! He can be contacted at Noam@Dinovitzcounseling.com or 484 424 7722