Category: Survival

Doomscrolling

16/3/2025

‘Stop scrolling. Start doing.’ (Kati Kaia)

You see the headline. Another war, disaster or existential threat looming on the horizon. Your breath shortens, your heart tightens and for a moment, just a split second perhaps, you feel that primal rush of adrenaline. Your body is gearing up for battle – but there is no enemy in front of you. There’s no fight to be won and no obvious action to take. Just a screen, glowing with catastrophe, and the realisation that you are completely powerless to stop it.

This is the fight-flight-freeze response, an ancient survival mechanism designed to protect us from immediate danger. But, in the digital age, it’s being hijacked. Instead of running from a predator or standing our ground in a real-life threat, we’re reacting to the relentless tide of global crises flooding our news feeds. And the worst part? There’s nowhere for that energy to release and dissipate.

When faced with a real, tangible danger, our nervous system activates to help us respond – fight back, escape or play dead until the threat passes. But when the threat is abstract, distant or beyond our control, this energy has no resolution. Instead, it lingers, simmering beneath the surface, manifesting as anxiety, burnout or even physical symptoms like fatigue, headaches or stomach cramps.

Chronic exposure to distressing news can lead to what’s called ‘headline stress disorder.’ It’s a psychological phenomenon where constant exposure to crises keeps the nervous system in a perpetual state of high alert. The body can’t distinguish between immediate danger and an article about geopolitical tensions. The result? We’re left feeling exhausted, restless, and emotionally drained – and yet, somehow. unable to disengage.

While I believe it’s important to remain aware of global events, especially given the international scope of my own interests and work, we don’t have to sacrifice our mental well-being in the process. Here’s are some tips for how to break the cycle (that I’m practising too):

1. Recognise the physical response: The next time you feel that surge of stress while reading, listening to or watching the news, pause. Notice your breath, your heart rate and any tension in your body. Awareness is the first step to regaining control.

2. Limit your exposure: Set boundaries on your news intake. Try checking the news only once or twice a day instead of constantly refreshing your feed. Consider turning off push notifications for breaking news unless it’s directly relevant to your life.

3. Engage in physical activity: Since the fight-flight-freeze response is designed for action, find a healthy outlet for that energy. Exercise, go for a walk or even shake your arms and legs. Physical movement can help regulate your nervous system.

4. Focus on what you can control: Instead of fixating on problems you can’t solve, redirect your attention to actions within your reach. Chat with others, write to your MP, support a local cause or do related volunteer work to restore a sense of agency.

5. Balance negative news with positive (*see below): Despite media narratives, the world isn’t only crises and catastrophes. Seek out stories of resilience, innovation and positive change. Follow groups that highlight solutions, not just problems.

6. Practise grounding techniques: Breathing exercises, prayer, meditation and mindfulness practices can help signal to your nervous system that you are safe. Simple techniques like the 5-4-3-2-1 method (naming five things you see, four you touch, three you hear, two you smell, and one you taste) can pull you back into the present moment.

Yes, the world is full of challenges, but it is also full of people who care, who take action and who make a difference. And that includes you – even if your first step is simply putting down your phone, taking a deep breath, saying a prayer and reclaiming your own sense of peace.

[*For positive news channels, see: Good News Hub; Good News Network; Positive News]

12 Comments

Resilience

26/11/2022

28 Comments

'The optimism of the action is better than the pessimism of the thought.' (Greenpeace)

Resilience is a common buzz word today, partly in response to the complex mental health challenges that individuals and communities face in a brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible (BANI) world. Who would have imagined 3 years ago, for instance, that Covid19 would strike or that Russia would invade Ukraine, with all the ramifications this has precipitated in our personal and collective lives? It can feel like too much time spent on the back foot, reacting to pressures that may appear from anywhere, without warning, from left field – rather than creating the positive future we hope for.

A psychological, social and political risk is that people and societies develop a ‘Whatever’ attitude, an apathetic ‘What’s the point?’ mentality. After all, what is the point of investing our time, effort and other resources into something that could all get blown away again in a brief moment? A good friend worked in Liberia with a community that was trying to recover from the effects of a bloody civil war. They started to build schools, hospitals and other infrastructure and, just as things were beginning to look hopeful, a violent, armed militia swept through the area and burned everything to the ground.

This can feel like an apocalyptic game of snakes and ladders. Take one step forward and, all of a sudden, back to square one again. A close friend in the Philippines befriended people in a very poor makeshift community, surviving at the side of a busy road in boxes and under tarpaulins. She worked hard to improve the quality of their lives, to ensure that they felt and experienced authentic love, care and support, and it started to have a dramatic human impact. Faces brightened and hopes were lifted. Then, out of nowhere, government trucks appeared and bulldozed that whole place to the ground.

It could be tempting to give up. One coping mechanism is to focus on living just one moment, one day, at a time because, after all, 'Who can know what tomorrow will bring?' This may engender an element of peaceful acceptance, akin to that through mindfulness. It can also morph into a form of passive, deterministic fatalism: ‘We can’t change anything, so why try?’ Martin Luther King's response stands in stark contrast who, in the face of setbacks, advocated, ‘We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would more tragic than to stop at this point. We’ve got to see it through.’

Psychologically, both approaches could be regarded as survival strategies, as personal and social defences against anxiety. In a way, they are adaptive responses: ways of thinking, being and behaving that seek to create a greater sense of agency and control in the face of painful powerlessness. In the former case, a level of control is gained, paradoxically, through choosing to relinquish control. It's a letting-go rather than a clinging-on. In the latter, a fight-response (albeit a faith-fuelled, non-violent fight in the case of MLK), control is sought by changing the conditions that deprive of control.

Each constitutes it's own way of responding to an external reality – and it’s out there as well as in here that the real and tangible challenges of resilience and transformation persist. The social, political and economic needs of the poorest, most vulnerable and oppressed people in the world don’t exist or disappear, depending simply on how we or they may perceive or feel about them. MLK’s call to action was radical: ‘We need to develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. It’s no longer a question of what will happen to us if we get involved. It’s what will happen to them (and us) if we don’t?’

[See also: Resilient; When disaster strikes; Clash of realities]

28 Comments

Doomscrolling

Resilience

Nick Wright

Archives

Categories

Doomscrolling

Resilience

​Nick Wright

​Archives

Categories

Nick Wright

Archives