(Newswire.net — May 25, 2022) —
Have We Become Desensitized or Depressed by Bad News?
‘Salacious News Sells!’, but ‘No News is Good News’ – it’s a conundrum for the news media. While we enjoy a feel-good news story, they are few and far between. We are primed to follow murder, mayhem, scandal, pain, suffering, corruption, and political tensions all around us. A perpetual deluge of bad news is an assault upon our mental health and wellness.
According to Psychology Today, Graham Davey Ph.D., we cannot escape the relentless onslaught of news. It’s on TV, radio, and the Internet 24/7, and even when we’re not watching the news, we are constantly updated on our smartphones, tablets, PCs, and Macs. The more shocking the news, the more we are drawn to it. We are all a part of the fear-driven news cycle, with wars, economic meltdowns, malfeasance, and mass shootings to name but a few.
A growing body of evidence suggests that bad news deeply affects our stress reactions, causing heightened anxiety and depression. We begin our days with tidbits of the latest news, and we typically end the day catching up on the latest stories. Many of us frequent news channels less and less, and rely more on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates. We can certainly highlight many past events, but our current news cycles are dominated by an avalanche of breaking news stories. Many of these are difficult to digest.
How does News Affect Our Mental Health?
Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and the medical community at large agree that consumption of too much bad news can be toxic to your mental state. Our collective psyche is impacted by the unrelenting barrage of bad news stories. Recall the fight or flight reaction? That’s precisely what happens when we feel threatened. News can do that. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and major depressive disorder (MDD) are but a handful of the many mental health issues we have to contend with.
Fact #1: Our bodies produce stress hormones. These include adrenaline and cortisol. When we start to feel stressed, physical symptoms manifest. These include sleep problems, fatigue, and depression. High-stress news elicits a negative reaction in our bodies. Naturally, people with a predisposition towards depression and related disorders should not willingly place themselves in the firing line with a barrage of bad news. Fortunately, there are many ways to deal with depression if and when it arises. Treatment options include:
- Healthy lifestyle choices – better nutrition and more exercise
- Removal of stress factors – reduce your exposure to bad news cycles
- Medication and therapy – antidepressant medication and cognitive behavioral therapy
- Alternative treatments for depression – especially with treatment-resistant depression*
* Treatment-resistant depression generally does not respond to antidepressant medication or traditional therapy. It requires a more targeted treatment regimen. Among others, the FDA-cleared Deep TMS™ is increasingly being used at clinics across the United States and Europe. Known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, this innovative technology generates electromagnetic fields housed in a helmet. A non-invasive treatment, Deep TMS uses a patented H-Coil helmet to generate magnetic waves for targeting problematic neural activity and improving symptoms of depression.
Is News Designed to Spread Fear?
Fear is an overpowering sense of dread, angst, and tension. It sits right in our gut, and sends shockwaves through the body, overpowering our thoughts and causing a fight or flight reaction. We are being brought ever closer to the horrors of the news as if we were there in person. Our eyes are assailed with graphic images, the likes of which we probably shouldn’t be seeing. These harsh realities burn into our brains, evoking strong reactions from us. Affective reactions, emotional reactions, and the power of suggestive thought tend to weigh heavily on our mental state.
More recently, the world has been held captive to the death grip of COVID-19. The pandemic has ravaged lives, destroyed livelihoods, and sent the world economy into freefall. The news media couldn’t get enough of it. Countless individual stories of pain and suffering were relayed in print, online, and cable news networks, generating anxiety, fear, and dread in the global populace. COVID-19 is certainly catastrophic, with 521 million+ cases of the disease worldwide (May 2022) with 6.26 million deaths and a mortality rate of 1.20%.
The bad news is unhealthy because it provides cannon fodder to fuel our fears. People with a predisposition towards an apocalyptic scenario will latch onto perpetual bad news cycles and create the reality they already believe exists. Our self-identity is reinforced by the ‘news’ that we choose to watch – it’s a willingness within each of us to turn on CNN or Fox News, MSNBC, or C-Span. The sensationalism of the news takes a heavy toll on our mental health – there is no doubt about that. We get down when there are lockdowns, when the economy is tanking, and when another mass shooting has taken place. News definitely affects moods.