Do stories of bad news leave you feeling bad?

Focus on what you can solve

Instead of, or as well as, unplugging from the news, one way of coping with news-related anxiety is to focus on issues that you can help solve.

Negative world news, regarding acts of violence or the impact of a devastating event, for example, can make people feel powerless and defeated.

But everyone can do a little something to make the world better — by contributing to positive changes in their communities, families, or even themselves.

One reader who said that constant exposure to bad news made her want to spring into action — so she did, at a local level.

“I was feeling helpless and useless after a summer of bad news, so I joined a small but passionate political party,” she told us. “It can be tempting to disengage, but stepping back was making me feel like I was letting others decide my future for me.”

Another reader took a similar approach and found that making a conscious decision to turn away from the news and start focusing on positive changes in one’s own life can feel empowering and help relieve anxiety.

“It feels like, increasingly, the news causes me anxiety.(…) It used to really get me down, especially thinking about what kind of world I’m bringing my children into,” this reader told us.

But one morning, after getting wound up by more anxiety-inducing breaking news, she and her partner decided that enough was enough:

“(My husband and I) briefly discussed (the distressing news), agreed (…) that it’s not worth focusing on, and then quickly changed the subject to talk about what we are focusing on this year to make our planet and immediate community better. Doing that takes away the feeling of hopelessness and puts some power back in my own hands to make the change I want to see in the world.”

Research has shown that getting involved in one’s community by volunteering for local causes can boost a person’s sense of well-being, reinstill a feeling of purpose, and solidify a sense of identity within the community.

Search for positive news roundups

When it feels as though a barrage of bad news can reach us all too easily, we sometimes need to make an effort to find positive news. This can help counteract news-related anxiety.

While we may feel that it is our responsibility to understand what is going wrong in the world so that we can find a way to fix it, it is also very important to find out what is going well so that we feel motivated, hopeful, and uplifted.

In an older study, researchers from the University of Sussex, in Brighton, United Kingdom, have shown that when we watch, read, or listen to negative news, it can exacerbate our tendency to worry about and formulate catastrophising scenarios about issues in our own lives — even if they have no obvious connection to the news topics.

“The results of (our) study show that watching a predominantly negatively valenced news program raised self-reported measures of anxious and sad mood and subsequently led to the enhanced catastrophizing of personal worries,” the researchers write.

That is why Karen McIntyre, Ph.D., from the Virginia Commonwealth University, in Richmond, and Cathrine Gyldensted, from the Open Eyes Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, argue that we need a lot more constructive journalism.

The two researchers coined this term to describe a type of journalism that focuses more on possible solutions to ongoing problems and on presenting “the other side,” rather than just focusing on the problems themselves.

“Constructive journalism seeks to counterbalance the skewed portrayal of the world produced by classical news journalism and strengthen traditional journalistic ethics,” McIntyre and Gyldensted write.

“We have (…) defined constructive journalism as ‘journalism that involves applying positive psychology techniques to news processes and production in an effort to create productive and engaging coverage while holding true to journalism’s core functions,’” they say.

One person emphasised how important news with a positive streak has been when it comes to fighting anxiety that results from negative news.

“I’ve been reading] positive news, (which) helps me balance out the negatives, and (it) also provides some actionable ideas. Traditional news tells you about trauma and sometimes points out the ways in which you’re complicit, but it doesn’t give you the next step.”

This person was eager to access news written from different, more constructive perspectives — articles or segments that “provide great examples of people making progressive change, which people can then emulate and feel like they’re making a difference.”

When the news cycle brings us down with an outpour of calamities, it is crucial to ask ourselves more about our relationship with the news. Why do we access it, and what do we hope to get from this?

When we turn on the news, we must seek to prioritise our own well-being, in order to make positive changes in the world.

****

Source: Medical News Today