If you turn on your TV, scroll through Facebook or open the paper, you can’t avoid hearing about current events. From the climate crisis to a possible impeachment to school shootings, it’s hard not to feel stress and anxiety about what’s happening in our world.
With a few simple strategies, you can reduce negative impacts of news and current events on your mental health. Limiting your exposure, recognizing triggers, and channeling your concern into activism or community engagement are some great ways to keep yourself in a healthy mindset.
A young beaked whale dies after washing ashore in Alimos, Greece. Vaccine exemptions in Finland lead to one death and hundreds of cases. The father of a murdered child takes revenge and kills his rapist. Psychologist Jacqueline Toner, PhD, who has written the Magination Press book “What to Do When the News Scares You,” says it’s important to identify red, yellow and green lines when it comes to news and current events.
Red lines are those news stories that elicit feelings of fear or panic. Yellow lines are those that make you uncomfortable but don’t affect your emotions as intensely. Green lines are those news stories that you can comfortably discuss without feeling anxious or upset.
Sensationalism in news coverage is a strategy to maximize audience engagement by using words, narratives and images that convey a story as more dramatic and interesting than it really is. This can contribute to people’s heightened perception of risk, especially when it’s related to lethal natural disasters, plane crashes or terrorist attacks.