On reading the news
If there is one piece of advice that is as omnipresent as "wash your hands," it's "limit your exposure to the news."
In general, this is excellent advice. If it works for you, and it seems to work for most people, great! Definitely limit your news exposure!
However, even the best advice regarding mental health, as opposed to public health, is not going to be right for everyone. And if the universal advice doesn't work for you, then you end up not only struggling with the issue the advice was supposed to help, but feeling like it's your own fault for failing to take it and that you're Doing It Wrong.
I'm definitely not in the category of people who are floating through this time totally unaffected in a enlightened cloud of peace. I'm finding it very difficult to concentrate on anything. With all the time in the world to read and watch Netflix, I haven't been doing much of that. I'm writing some, but it's not easy. I've baked bread exactly once since this all began.
The problem, of course, is that so much of my mental space is occupied by pandemic, there isn't room for much else. This is exactly the problem that is supposed to be solved by limiting my exposure to pandemic news. However, I find that if I stop reading pandemic news not because I want to stop, but because I think it's good for me to stop, the result is not that I go do something peaceful and/or productive. Instead, I putter around doing nothing at all while thinking about the news I'm not reading. I look up, and the day is gone. For me, this is not a better alternative.
Yes, ideally this is not what would happen. Ideally I would occupy the no-news space with something else. But that is not what is actually happening.
So I have decided to read all the news I want. If that means a couple hours in the morning before I go on to to other things, fine. If it means all day, fine.
This is a unique, world-changing, life-changing event. It's not weird or wrong to be struggling. It's not weird or wrong to want to know what's going on. And in terms of your own coping mechanisms, there's no right or wrong way to react to it. Yes, we should be doing what we can to preserve our mental health, but pressuring yourself to be mentally healthy can just mean you're pressuring yourself.
I am more relaxed obsessively reading news than I am blaming myself for obsessively reading news, or by having to exert stringent willpower to not read the news, or by staring at a page of a book for hours while wondering what's on the news. I spent a couple days doing nothing but reading the news, and today I read it for a couple hours, and now want to spend the rest of the day gardening.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your mental health is to give yourself permission to not do the thing everyone says is the mentally healthy thing to do.
comments
In general, this is excellent advice. If it works for you, and it seems to work for most people, great! Definitely limit your news exposure!
However, even the best advice regarding mental health, as opposed to public health, is not going to be right for everyone. And if the universal advice doesn't work for you, then you end up not only struggling with the issue the advice was supposed to help, but feeling like it's your own fault for failing to take it and that you're Doing It Wrong.
I'm definitely not in the category of people who are floating through this time totally unaffected in a enlightened cloud of peace. I'm finding it very difficult to concentrate on anything. With all the time in the world to read and watch Netflix, I haven't been doing much of that. I'm writing some, but it's not easy. I've baked bread exactly once since this all began.
The problem, of course, is that so much of my mental space is occupied by pandemic, there isn't room for much else. This is exactly the problem that is supposed to be solved by limiting my exposure to pandemic news. However, I find that if I stop reading pandemic news not because I want to stop, but because I think it's good for me to stop, the result is not that I go do something peaceful and/or productive. Instead, I putter around doing nothing at all while thinking about the news I'm not reading. I look up, and the day is gone. For me, this is not a better alternative.
Yes, ideally this is not what would happen. Ideally I would occupy the no-news space with something else. But that is not what is actually happening.
So I have decided to read all the news I want. If that means a couple hours in the morning before I go on to to other things, fine. If it means all day, fine.
This is a unique, world-changing, life-changing event. It's not weird or wrong to be struggling. It's not weird or wrong to want to know what's going on. And in terms of your own coping mechanisms, there's no right or wrong way to react to it. Yes, we should be doing what we can to preserve our mental health, but pressuring yourself to be mentally healthy can just mean you're pressuring yourself.
I am more relaxed obsessively reading news than I am blaming myself for obsessively reading news, or by having to exert stringent willpower to not read the news, or by staring at a page of a book for hours while wondering what's on the news. I spent a couple days doing nothing but reading the news, and today I read it for a couple hours, and now want to spend the rest of the day gardening.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your mental health is to give yourself permission to not do the thing everyone says is the mentally healthy thing to do.
comments
No comments have been added yet.
