During these difficult and disturbing times of wars, natural disasters, and an excess of violent images inundating our everyday lives, it is important to understand how to manage media and mental health. Most of the available information is terrorizing and fear-inducing.
While staying informed is important, it is also important to maintain your mental health. Taking in excessive graphic images and stories can have a negative impact on your body, mind, and soul.
The recent news has been highly distressing and painful.
So, how do you stay informed while managing positive mental health? You want to avoid an all-or-nothing approach. A healthy approach is neither ignoring nor saturating yourself in it. It is about managing, balancing, and processing the information in a healthy way.
So, here are some helpful tips to help you consume the news while taking care of your health and well-being.
1. Reliable News Sources
Choose only 2-3 reliable and trustworthy sources for your news intake. You do not need to click on every article, watch every video, or look at every picture to understand and sympathize with the pain and suffering that is happening around the world right now.
2. Set a Time Limit
Choose to set a time limit. Being informed does not necessarily mean you spend hours and hours consuming information. You can set a time limit, like 15-20 minutes per day on the sources you have already chosen.
You can also turn off news notifications on your phone and computer, you can purposefully watch a show or movie with no commercials or news coverage, and you do not need to respond to every post. What you do need to do is figure out what is best for you and what your capacity is.
3. Listen to Your Body
Choose to listen to your body when it is telling you it has had enough and needs a break. You need to be attuned to your body and brain enough to know when it has reached its limit, and then to listen to what it needs when you have reached that point.
Hearing and listening to yourself deeply will help you know what to do when you can do it, and how often you can do it.
4. Take Care of Yourself
Choose to take care of yourself. You need time to relax and recharge. Just as you choose time to be informed about the events around the world, also choose time for self-care.
You need sleep, you must eat and drink healthily, you need to have fun, spend time with friends and family, etc.
You still have a life to live, decisions to be made, errands to be done, and people in your life you are responsible for. You need to find ways to live life, even when the life around you is in chaos.
5. Make a Difference
Choose something you can do. This can be donating to a cause, volunteering, joining an aid group, or advocating for your passion. You can take the pain, anger, and grief you feel and use it in a more constructive and positive way.
You do not need to do all these things, so choose one you can and will really do, and do that one thing.
6. Find Moments in Your Life
Choose not to see things as all good or all bad. Recently, my daughter and I went to a movie. As the credits were rolling, this little girl went up front in the theater and started spinning around to the music. It was such an innocent and beautiful moment that my daughter and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes and we knew we needed to hold onto this moment.
We still go back to that when everything seems beyond hope.
7. Connect with Others
Choose a connection with others. Do not isolate yourself. Having supportive people in your life you can process what you are taking in is essential. You are not alone, your thoughts and feelings are valid, and it is okay to lean on others to help you bear your burdens.
Bonus Tip manage media and mental health… Choose reading over looking at pictures, videos, and graphic images. It is not necessary to see everything in detail to know and understand how horrible the situation is.
Choosing to do any of these things does not mean you do not care, that you are not compassionate to the pain and suffering happening to our fellow humans, it does not mean you are putting your head in the sand.
Following these helpful guidelines protects you, your mental load, and your mental capacity. It is healthy to understand and balance what you can and cannot take in.
If you need help managing, balancing, or processing all of this, please reach out to Life Giving Counseling Services and we can help with immediate appointments.
