With the seemingly endless array of news coming from all sources, as well as the ease of access most people have to absorb it, it’s no wonder that over the last two years, American society has been bursting with stress. A study conducted in January of 2019 by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that over 40% of Americans cite politics as a source of stress, and between 10% and 30% have said that politics took an emotional toll on their health by increasing the intensity of emotions such as anger, hate, and guilt. While it is good to keep up with current events and to stay passionate about politics, this engagement should never come at the cost of one’s well-being, especially mental health. In this article, I will outline some general practices that you can implement to control your flow of news and grapple with the implications of the news you consume.

Silence your phone or hide it while working: While not exclusively tied to news consumption, these two actions are some of the most effective ways to deal with your news intake. Silencing your phone stops you from becoming distracted by that little flash of light out of the corner of your eye when a new tweet, news story, or message notification pops up. This can allow you to focus on your current task, which (hopefully) will reduce stress later down the line, as you’ve gotten more work done. Hiding your phone seems ridiculous, but a study done by scientists from a number of universities around the country found that by simply having your phone around you reduces cognitive ability, causing a phenomenon referred to as “brain drain”, which can negatively impact short-term and long-term memory creation and one’s attention span.

Fact-check/Cross-examine: For popular news sites, especially those owned by large media companies such as CNN or Fox News, accurate storytelling is an ancillary directive, and their primary directive is to make money. As such, articles are often grossly exaggerated, which paints reality more bleakly than a story free of embellishment. By fact-checking and cross-examining articles, you can get a more complete picture of the story, making you more informed. In doing so, you can be more certain about the ramifications of an issue, which can help further reduce anxiety.

Don’t fall for fake news: A 2018 study conducted by three MIT scholars found that “falsehood diffuses significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, in all categories of information, and in many cases by an order of magnitude.” Even the most skeptical readers are susceptible to this kind of disinformation, especially on social media, where algorithms are designed to cater to your biases, regardless of the truth. The act of remaining vigilant for “Fake News” stems from the practice of fact-checking what you read, but can even be applied when skimming the titles of articles. A good rule of thumb is that if the title uses extravagant and unprofessional language or contains superlatives like “always” or “never,” it isn’t true, or at least is embellishing the truth.

Dealing with the Implications: The tips above are meant to help you consume media in a more diligent manner which, when properly employed, allow you to live a healthier life by reducing anxiety. But what do you do with the information once you have it? Even after sifting through all of the exaggerations contained in mainstream media, there are many important issues going on in the world, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic, that you are going to want to fix. The simplest, yet most difficult, action to take is to realize what you can and cannot control.

For 99% of the problems going on in the world, you as an individual cannot really do anything about them. There are small steps you can take to help with some issues, such as donating money to disaster relief funds, but for larger scale issues such as climate change, systemic racism, and income inequality, the issues are so massive that no single  individual should feel like they need to bear the burden. If you can fully accept the fact that the world’s largest issues are beyond your individual capabilities, you can feel fully liberated from the anxiety that these problems induce. This is easier said than done, but why should you carry the stresses of these issues when you do not have the ability to change them? The important thing is for you to make a difference where it counts and not to succumb to pessimism. With an optimistic attitude and these new tools for navigating an increasingly hostile world of news, keeping up with current events will no longer induce dread.