How to care without burning out

Part of being an adult is seeing how the issues you read about in the news have concrete consequences in your own life. When you find out that taxpayer money meant for public projects has instead gone toward funding the lavish lifestyles of politicians and contractors, or you encounter confidential-fund receipts named after Mary Grace Piattos, Mico Harina, and Andy Lim, you think about all the long hours you have put in at work just to achieve some measure of financial security.

Add to this the three-hour commute you spend on the road because of flooding that trillions of pesos’ worth of infrastructure projects were supposedly meant to prevent, only to learn that many of these were substandard or, worse, never materialized at all. And when politicians facing corruption cases manage to escape, you are reminded of how rarely those in power are held accountable and why a culture of impunity persists.

Except perhaps for tennis darling Alex Eala’s winning streak, there has been very little to feel hopeful about lately in the current state of affairs. Part of what makes all of this harder is that it is now so easy for information to find us even when we are not looking for it. And once we encounter something unsettling, it can become surprisingly difficult to look away.

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The news-stress loop, commonly associated with doomscrolling, is a self-reinforcing cycle in which consuming alarming information heightens our stress and anxiety, which in turn can compel us to want to know more. Our brain treats alarming headlines as threats, so it craves additional information to understand how it can protect itself. Scrolling gives us the temporary feeling that we have some sense of control, in the hope that the next update will help us identify a resolution. Instead, many people end up feeling more overwhelmed than when they started.

Repeated exposure to bad news can keep the body’s stress response activated, triggering physiological responses associated with threat. When this happens again and again, our nervous system has fewer opportunities to calm down, which can lead to significant psychological distress. Some studies have found that people who spent more time repeatedly watching coverage of traumatic events reported greater acute stress than people who were directly exposed to the event itself.

This highlights an important challenge posed by modern life. We have unprecedented access to information about what is wrong with the world, but being aware of the issues does not necessarily leave us better equipped to do something about it.

So what should a conscientious and concerned citizen do?

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Some problems are structural precisely because they cannot be solved by a single individual. They require governments, institutions, communities, and organized citizens to address them. The danger, however, is allowing the enormity of these problems to convince us that we have no agency at all and to disengage from political and civic life altogether.

Democracy reminds us that while our influence as individuals may be limited, our collective power is not. If people working together can produce change that none of us could accomplish alone, then part of our duty as citizens is protecting our capacity to engage and contribute to collective action.

Psychologists advise being more intentional about when and how we consume the news. Rather than remaining connected 24/7, it may be healthier—and ultimately more productive—to tune in only when you are able to read the news with a good balance of concern and some emotional distance. Rather than indulge the infinite scrolling feature, it’s better to pause and check if you have the mental and emotional space to process what you’re seeing. If you’re already anxious and stressed out, doomscrolling for an hour might only exacerbate these feelings and is unlikely to make you feel more informed or empowered.

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Nighttime is an especially vulnerable period for doomscrolling. When we are tired, our ability to regulate impulses and pull ourselves away from the screen is weaker. Experts recommend making the habit more difficult (e.g., putting your phone on airplane mode or charging it somewhere out of reach), so you can focus on rest and return to it when you have more emotional bandwidth.

I recently went on a three-day self-imposed writing retreat in Dumaguete to finish my master’s dissertation in clinical psychology. An unintended consequence was that I also went on a full news detox.

After just three days of distancing myself from the constant stream of updates, I noticed it was easier to tune back in with less emotional reactivity. I could read the news again through the lens of a pragmatic optimist: aware of what is wrong, but still asking what can realistically be done about it.

Perhaps that is the mindset we must constantly protect. Responsible citizenship does not require bearing witness to every terrible thing in real time. Staying informed should help us engage with the world, not leave us too exhausted to participate in it. ###

—————- eleanor@shetalksasia.com