News overload

Staying informed without burning out.

Welcome to my weekly newsletter building a supportive community for Highly Sensitive People (HSPs).

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Whether it’s a subtle sense of unease, or waves of gut-wrenching dread, everyone’s feeling the pressure of global events. It’s hard to comprehend the suffering for those directly involved. But in our hyper-connected world, we’re all affected in some way by the images and headlines scrolling across our screens.

I created The HSP Revolution because I believe that Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) have a crucial role to play in harnessing our emotional intelligence and creative vision to confront the world’s many challenges. But we won’t have much to give if the news is flooding our nervous systems. How do we stay engaged without burning out?

A highly sensitive friend captured the dilemma as we were discussing events of the past week:

But she added:

Heightened feelings

In 2011, a study in the British Journal of Psychology found that watching negative news caused increases in both anxiety and sadness among participants, and also a significant increase in the tendency to catastrophize a personal worry.

I don’t know of any formal research showing that HSPs are more affected by the news, but I suspect that our high levels of empathy and finely tuned sensory systems make us more prone to internalise what we see playing out on the world stage.

And as deep processors of thoughts and emotions, we can’t simply “unsee” traumatic headlines and images — we can end up ruminating so much that we can’t sleep. Conversely, we may simply hit a saturation point, tune out and go numb.

Our intense reactions to the news can also exacerbate the sense of being “different,” or the loneliness that many of us already experience. With other people seemingly able to carry on more or less as normal, we may feel even more like the odd one out as we process our heightened feelings of anxiety, anger, sadness and confusion.

If we’re going to be part of the response to our many crises, we need to find ways to stay balanced, so we can act from a place of clarity.

Greater awareness

So how can we bring greater awareness to our relationship with the news?

Here's a few initial thoughts — ranging from practical tips on managing our media diet to some reflections on how we can claim a greater sense of agency in these times. As ever, I’d love to hear more about how you are getting on in the comments.

Setting news boundaries

Conscious choice — With so many feeds at our fingertips, it’s easy to get drawn into the vortex of updates and viral videos. You glance at your phone, and before you know it an hour’s gone by. Experiment with checking in at set times a couple of times a day. And as my friend has discovered, there’s one thing to avoid at all costs:

All in good time — If you find yourself checking headlines before you’ve woken up properly, consider the impact on your finely-tuned HSP nervous system. Commit to refraining from reading the news until a certain time in the morning, or until you’ve completed part of your routine — such as taking a shower or having a coffee.

Negotiate shared spaces — Some people like to have the TV or radio news on constantly. As an HSP, you may wish to avoid such spaces — or negotiate ways to turn the news down — or off entirely — for periods of time. There’s nothing wrong with telling somebody: “I’m taking a day off the news today.”

Online “debates” — With events triggering reactivity in every direction, think twice about diving in to heated discussions on social media. When was the last time you saw somebody on Facebook or Twitter change their mind about something because of something you posted? Is it worth it?

Mindful media

Check in with yourself — If you’re feeling especially tired, stressed, irritable or vulnerable, wait until you feel calmer before engaging with the news.

Create a buffer — Some HSPs like to take breaks from the news but stay informed by asking a friend, partner or family member to keep them up to date on any key developments, or summarise what’s going on from time to time. That way we get to stay connected while buffering ourselves against overwhelm.

Diversify your diet — For fresh perspectives, give Positive News, Daily Good or The Alternative UK a try (or check out this uplifting digest of optimistic stories from the creative agency Greenspace). I loved this LinkedIn article by Pat Kane on how creative and futures-oriented people can respond to what’s going on. (And if you have other sources you like, please do share in the comments).

Take guilt-free time offline — As an HSP, structuring downtime into your week is essential for staying mentally and physically well — even in calmer times. If your nervous system has spiked, then find ways to come down again and ground. Whatever’s going on outside your immediate sphere, it’s not only okay to look after yourself — it’s essential.

Breathwork — I’ve been practising Soma Breathwork, developed by Niraj Naik, for just over a year now, and I find it so valuable at times like these. You can access free 22-minute sessions online. I’ve found these are great for shifting any stuck emotion out of my system — especially a build-up of sadness or anxiety linked to the news.

Get coaching — Anastasia Dedyukhina used to work in senior digital marketing roles until she realised her smartphone was running her life — and gave it up. This is her verdict on the decision, as quoted on her website:

“It was the single best thing I'd done for myself in years. It freed up space in my head so I could focus on what really matters, be more creative, and feel the joy of being human.”   

Now she runs consultancy Consciously Digital to help people navigate today’s distraction-addled world. She wrote this great article yesterday on “information hygiene,” in which she explores the negativity and viral brain biases that can suck us into the whirlpool of fear and anxiety online:

“Viral bias: we are more likely to share information that provokes one of the following emotions – anger, anxiety or awe. It means that you are more likely to react to and share an upsetting social media post and that fake news spread much faster than non-fakes, as they trigger our worst emotions.

The war is happening not only in the physical space, but also in the virtual one. This is the war for your emotions, which tries to get you involved into co-creating negativity and hate.

To resist it, try instead to spread positive and constructive emotions. This does not mean that you are ignoring sad facts, you are just refusing to amplify the viral negativity loop.” — Anastasia Dedyukhina

And her team is offering coaching sessions (free or for a modest fee) on how to strike a better relationship with your devices.

Going deeper

Get involved — It’s completely normal and appropriate to feel upset and anxious about what’s happening in the world right now. The scale of global problems can seem paralysing – but even a small step to engage in some way with a social movement, campaign or organisation that we resonate with can help us feel more aligned with our values. Our HSP qualities of intuition, empathy and big picture thinking are precisely what’s needed right now.

Acknowledge there may be deeper layers at work — If you’re especially upset by something in the news, then it may be a sign that a deeper part of you is crying out for attention. We all carry unprocessed trauma — layered like sediment in our unconscious mind, and in the cells of our bodies. These layers were often laid down in childhood, by the culture we grew up in, or inherited from past generations. By finding ways to work with this buried material, we can discover that our parents and their ancestors didn’t only pass on their trauma histories — but bestowed gifts of creativity, resilience and innovation that we can reclaim as our birthright.

Explore radical connectivity — In her new book You Matter More than You Think: Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World, Karen O’Brien, a professor in human geography at the University of Oslo, draws on quantum physics to argue that we can each exert more influence on global crises than we may realise.

If you’re struggling with a sense of overwhelm, give this wonderful April, 2019 talk by Karen an hour of your time:

Building community — If you want to explore your relationship with world events more deeply, I recommend the Pocket Project, a non-profit run by the spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl, devoted to healing individual, ancestral and collective trauma. The Pocket Project supports people to build a more conscious, and embodied relationship with the news through a process called Global Social Witnessing:

“We shift from being a mere bystander, mentally processing the latest news, to an active witness, responding from our bodies and hearts, as well as our minds. Global Social Witnessing teaches us to gently turn our attention towards rather than away from challenging events in the world.” — The Pocket Project.

For more, watch this video interview with Thomas on the site.

Long post today — but it seemed important to explore this topic in some depth.

I hope everyone’s doing as well as possible in these uncertain times.

See you next week!