I don’t want to be totally uninformed about what’s going on, but I also don’t want to fall into doomscrolling.
I know that I could very easily just avoid any news sites and only find out about these things secondhand from people I talk to whether in real life or online. I also know that it’s not good to bury your head in the sand quite that far.
I could also very easily doomscroll different news sites and actively seek out more depressing news when I’m done scrolling one site. I’ve been doing more of this option lately, and as a reaction to that I’ve started doing total avoidance, which I know isn’t good.
So how and where did you strike a healthy balance between reading enough news to stay informed, but not enough to be in a constant state of anxiety about the world?
I’m looking for genuine advice here. I don’t want to be mean but I’m not too sure else how to say the following: I don’t want to come back to a lot of replies about “I didn’t find a balance lol I just doomscroll/stick my head in the sand” and “I feel this, same.” Not really sure if that’s going against the spirit of the chatting community, but seeing a lot of “same problem” and zero advice tends to make me feel more in despair. I already know this is a common problem, so what would usually be the correct social move of saying you relate in order to empathize and let the other know they’re not alone isn’t helpful for me in this particular instance.
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I dont think its possible. Either you are informed about the shit happening in the world and you feel despair about it. Or you are uninformed and live a happy(?) life.
Learning more about socialism gave me hope for the future.
I sort of feel the opposite. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s only possible to fully achieve through violence and power, and I can’t morally support that happening, there are good people on both sides.
You can get a mix of socialism that helps band-aid the problems caused by capitalism, but the root of the problem is still there.
I don’t consider something like a general strike to be violent. It could definitely result in violence by the ruling class against the working class, especially when they bring cops into the mix, but then the working class will look even better in the public eye.
I like the MLK Jr. idiology.
I also struggled with this in the last years. I felt overwhelmed with what is happening and thinking we need to do something and not seeing it happen left me despaired.
What helped me most was putting it (whatever it is) into perspective and decoupling what I hear about from what I feel compelled to do about it.
I am not an omnipotent being that can solve the world’s problems by myself. I can only do what I can do and within the area I can control, I do what I can, using the abilities I have. Sometimes that also means not doing it, because I’m tired/exhausted/etc.
Only I can judge what I can and cannot do and that’s fine.
Disclaimer: living in USA. I used to doom scroll a lot a few years ago… What helped me was initially leaving the feeds (head in the sand as you say), but this was not a good permanent solution. Since then, I have done a few things that have helped (your mileage may vary depending on what you’re trying to stay informed about). The first and easiest was to switch how I was getting my news. Now, I will get international news from different country’s sources (ie:https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int.html or https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world). I’ll swap up which one I go to each day normally. It’s interesting seeing world news from different perspectives. If I find a story that is particularly interesting, I’ll look more into it. Secondly, I believe it is often more important to be aware of your local news than anything. To that end, I follow quite a few local sources of news. Most are hinted with my interests (urbanist improvements, community meetings, local discord servers), but some are more general. Also, I listen to a few podcasts not aimed at news, but as a queer person consuming queer media I occasionally hear things I didn’t know. Promptly, I might look into it more. My motto is if something sounds really crazy, it’s probably being misconstrued. You’re never going to be informed on everything, but if you want to get less biased news, there are ways. Hope some of this helps in any way
Similarly to this, I mostly don’t read or engage with news feeds on social media and keep up to date by reading a local news site that’s curated by hand and the international version of the guardian website for the big stuff … although the Guardian is generally doom and gloom there are upbeat stories listed too and it’s not a never-ending list of depression like Facebook/reddit/some communities on Lemmy.
Ya, feed trolling is often the source of a lot of stress and outrage. It’s designed that way
A lot of the news going on in the world doesn’t affect your life every day. That’s my reasoning. But it’s good to know what’s going on and file it away.
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I, too, find striking the balance between staying informed and protecting myself from negativity to be daunting, disheartening, and frequently unrealistic.
What helped me was my coincidental transition to services that have little or no “algorithmic” influence, such as switching to Lemmy/Mastodon. It requires me to be more intentional with my willing exposure to content, at the cost of being less convenient to find new content.
Like, I don’t get as many new songs in my playlists since I jumped out of Spotify. It means I need to get creative in order to try new artists, but I’m not hitting the skip button as much, either.
I’m perfectly happy with it being harder to find new content. Finding new content online usually just results in more scrolling and more consumption from me. If I try something new/expand my horizons into something that isn’t just trying a new game or watching a new video, if I do something new to me that isn’t just consumption, it’s usually as a result of talking with people in the real world. For me, finding new content online tends to give me zero benefits and more wasted time. I assume you are not the same and new content is actually useful for you?
I will say that Lemmy and the like aren’t the most useful unless you curate it, although this may vary per instance. I had to go out of my way to block Politics and similar communities here on Beehaw, and am about to go block the Technology community too. I usually spend more time rabbitholing into doom than I should as a result of what I see on Technology.
Sometimes it’s easiest to think about what we have evolved to do, and compare that against societal expectations of us. By which I mean, as little as a thousand years ago, “staying informed” meant being up to date on the goings on in your village or town, with a vague notion of there being a wider world out there which was the purview of other people.
Over those past thousands years, our brains have barely evolved, but the sheer volume of information we’re expected to take on, has.
So ask yourself whether you have the capability to keep on top of All The News without it getting you anxious? And if you decide that you can’t, then give yourself permission to detach. Listen to one news bulletin a day so you can have a vague notion of events, but bear in mind that there’s almost nothing you can do to affect those events. War in Ukraine? What can you personally do to solve it? Not a lot, I wouldn’t have thought. Earthquake in Syria? Did you cause it? Can you travel to Syria to help dig people out? Seems unlikely. Hell, even if you were in a different bit of Syria, the chances are high that you couldn’t afford to take time away from work to go and offer help.
You’re not a bad person if you disengage.
Stay up to date on local news, be mindful of what your friends and family are up to, but you have no obligation AT ALL to ‘Stay Informed’ if it harms your mental health.
I don’t really care about politics, so I don’t watch/read mainstream news. For local news, I usually come across it it via local subs/chat groups/people, but I don’t go actively looking for it. For everything else, I use various news reader apps, all tuned to deliver my main interests (none of which contain any anxiety inducing stuff).
As for dealing with anxiety in general, over the years I’ve found a combination of things work for me. I used to have bouts of anxiety in the past and used to blame it on external factors, but really, I was the one to blame for not taking care of my body.
You’ll probably ignore this advice like most people do (I guess people hate to admit they don’t have a healthy lifestyle, or they’re are after a quick fix, or want to blame everyone/everything else but themselves)… But I’ll post this regardless, just in case someone finds it useful:
- Breathe: Anything from taking conscious, steady and calm breaths when you’re feeling anxious, to having a daily morning breathing yoga exercise routine, helps immensely. Check out some articles or YouTube videos on pranayama to start off with.
- Meditate: Meditating anywhere from 10-40 mins daily can reduce stress, boost your mood, improve emotional and mental health.
- Exercise: Pretty self-explanatory, get at least 30 mins per day. Exercise is a massive stress-buster.
- Foods to consume: Make sure you’re eating a balanced diet, in particular, ensure you’re getting enough Magnesium, Zinc, Folafe, Vitamin C and D, to combat anxiety. Bananas in particular are excellent at reducing anxiety because they’re natural beta-blockers - they prevent adrenaline from binding to beta receptors. This slows nerve impulses to the heart and counteracts the effects of adrenaline to keep a lower heart rate and calmer state of mind. Other good foods to have include Asparagus (for Folafe), Berries (for Antioxidants and Vitamin C), and Chamomile tea for extra calming effect. As for Vitamin D, most people in the world are deficient in it, so you may need to take supplements. Check with your doctor or a nutritionist to see how much you need. In fact there’s a ton more nutrients/foods you can (and should consume), all of which have an effect on reducing anxiety, but I won’t list them all here. Eating right is one of the most effective ways to combat anxiety and everyone should spend some time into paying closer attention to what they’re eating.
- Foods to avoid: Avoid, or limit consumption of alcohol and caffeine. If you must consume caffeine, drink in moderation and do not consume any after lunchtime, as that affects your circadian rhythm. Also avoid junk food, sugary drinks, processed foods and excess consumption of salt in general.
- Sleep: If you’re following all of the above strictly, then you shouldn’t have any issues getting quality sleep for 8 hours a day (unless you’ve got other medical issues like sleep apnea, or external disturbances like blue light or noise). Lack of sleep is a big contributor to anxiety (and other health issues), so use a sleep tracker on a fitness band/smartwatch, or an app such as Sleep As Android, to keep an eye on your quality of sleep.
This may all seem like obvious stuff so most folks will ignore this, but if you’re succeptible to anxiety, I sincerely urge you to read the above and take a deep look at your lifestyle. You don’t need pills, you don’t need to block off all social media etc to combat anxiety, nature has given us all all the tools, it’s up to you to use it, and learn to respect and pay attention to your body and mind.
I do appreciate this, but my anxiety problem is only caused by news. I hope others find the anxiety tips helpful, but luckily it’s not a problem I have in general so I’m going to ignore the health advice as you predicted. I think solving my news problem and consuming at a good balance would take less effort to do than following all of the health advice. Especially since I hate meditation, no matter how many times people cite health benefits for it for so many different things. Thank you for all the effort in writing those tips and I hope someone who needs to see it will see it :)
My personal methods for this, may or may not work for others.
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don’t take personal responsibility for things you can not personally control. This is the source of despair.
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choose where you get your information from carefully. If the source is pushing a particular version of events too strongly they’re trying to get a reaction from you. Drop em.
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Getting more than one source prevents being pulled too far in one direction. Having too many causes confusion and uncertainty. Two or three good sources of news is enough.
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study history. Read about politics and events throughout all of human history. This gives you context and can be very soothing as you get a perspective broader than any single human life.
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focus on yourself and your life. Is that improving? What small steps do you want to take to improve that?
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drop the scripts you’re given. You’ve been told what Your life should look like but it’s rarely possible to meet those expectations and the news re-enforces this. Drop the scripts and live your own life based on what is possible and desirable for you.
There’s probably more I could say here but that feels like the heart of it.
This is pretty much my approach as well. If I don’t have agency over what’s happening I stay deliberately months to years behind the news cycle. By then, I can study it as recent history, with less panic, rancor, and propaganda. That also gives me space to stay up to date on the few things I can affect, like decentralizing the internet, breeding locally adapted potatoes, and enjoying life.
A friend commented on how wonderful a life we must lead, to be unconcerned about the news. I don’t understand it, because all you have to do is stop watching it.
don’t take personal responsibility for things you can not personally control. This is the source of despair.
Also one of the reasons why I no longer participate in activism. As a cisgender, hetero white guy, it was expected that I assume personal responsibility for a lot of things I never actually did.
As a cisgender, asexual Asian woman I don’t experience most of the oppression I’m “supposed” to and functionally share the experience of a cishet white guy. This is what everyone is supposed to have, a privileged experience, and yet I’ve managed to feel bad about not having more problems which is incredibly fucked up.
I’m not sure what the activists are doing that focuses on guilt-tripping you instead of actually helping the underserved and oppressed. The point is for those in a position to help to help others, not to tell the people in a position to help to feel bad about themselves for being well-off/unoppressed enough to be able to help. My sympathies that that happened to you. I always thought that was more online behavior that would disappear in real life, but I suppose I forgot that as much as people would like to think otherwise, nasty people online sometimes get off the keyboard and do things in the real world—they “touch grass” just as much as normal people.
As a cisgender, hetero, white guy, I’ve never felt like I needed to feel responsible. Is this something you experienced specifically in the activist circles?
Although I think OP meant responsible as in needing to do something to fix it. The same responsibility every person has. And accepting that you as an individual only have so much influence. Not about being responsible for causing it.
I still struggle with this one. I feel like my life lacks meaning without having some kind of external interaction. It used to be building a small community, then a random poly disaster came flying through and revealed a lot of problems with half of my friend group, including three of the 7 saying “I’m not a transman because men and transmen are toxic” (to me, a transman). So I dropped that half of the friend group, fortunately the other half also saw that as a red flag. I feel like they’re the only external interaction I have that’s worthwhile but I don’t really ‘build’ anything anymore, and that makes me feel like I’m wasting my life.
Then I tried activism, but I hate feeling angry and sad all the time, because there’s certainly no good news and probably never will be.
I try engaging with the pre-existing queer communities around me, but they’re massively fem/enby skewed so even when there aren’t any problems with misandry (which is rare), I end up feeling like I’m a weird relic of the past that shouldn’t exist anymore. Plus they’re heavily skewed towards unstable poly so it’s just a constant ongoing orgy/disaster all the time.
It feels like regular society doesn’t want men who are anything left of far right. Conservatives don’t want you because you don’t agree with them, moderates are rare and often have their own problems, the left doesn’t want you because you’re a man and men are guilty unless proven otherwise (if there’s even a way to prove otherwise). I just don’t know.
I’m sorry you’ve had that experience.
I grew up in a huge family so, for me, having a handful of really great friendships has always been perfect because I spent two decades being vastly overstimulated.
With that said, I know enough of the trans experience to know that, for transmen, it can be very jarring to experience the existence of manhood and how society in general treats us. Forming friendships can become significantly more challenging post-transition, and I wish it weren’t that way.
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Some habits I use:
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Lemmy really helps. Lot smaller then other places and not the engagement engineering. If it is really important national or global news someone will post it here too.
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Use RSS feeds if you want more than Lemmy.
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Bookmark then read. Review the bookmarks ruthlessly and only read stuff that is actually going to give you information related to you and actions you will take. Other stuff is just noise. Great example, I rarely look at stuff about Trump now. I know him and his minions, where I stand, and what my actions are… no more info needed on my end.
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Have some perspective. Human history over the long span has been a story of improvement. We however live in interesting times.
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Live you life best you can on your own terms. Does no one any good to do otherwise.
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Lots of really good suggestions here, but I’ll add installing a browser addon that blocks social media and news sites after an amount of time you set. I’ve found it really helpful because it pushes me to prioritise just reading the stuff that I feel is really important, and prevents me from doom scrolling for hours.
I try to ignore those posts as much as I can, though of course some of them do indirectly concern me; I just don’t really read into it. At the same time, I’m trying to do something about it. I would like nothing more then a good book or video game and to stay in my room with it all week/month, but I couldn’t do that in good conscience knowing what’s happening. So, despite my NEET soul, I’m in school slowly learning what I can do to hopefully pull the rug out from under the feet of a particular industry. It might be too late, but I’ll try regardless. I still sometimes fall into that doom-scrolling-it’s hopeless-why even bother mood, but a few hours of video games or a good book bring me out of it. ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
I actively avoid news. If something is important enough then it’ll make its way into my life one way or another. Besides, me being aware of the billions of problems in the world doesn’t change their outcome one bit, it just makes me unhappy. I’ve been more engaged with the news since joining Lemmy, since I don’t have my feed completely curated yet, and I’ve noticed a significant decline in my overall happiness. As a result, I’ve become more aggressive with my blocklists this last week.
