It’s easy to feel overwhelmed at the constant news cycle – but how can we lessen the heavy load a little? A few thoughts.
Hello, friends. How are you, today? I don’t know about you, but I am tired. Exhausted, actually. Care to join me for a cuppa, a biscuit, and a chit-chat?
Life feels a little extreme, right now. Like a Tea Cup carousel ride with dreams of being a Waltzer ride; it’s doing the same thing, but with more intensity than we would like.
As the days tick on we are being continually bombarded with headlines, images, videos, statistics, and seemingly endless timelines of events we are unable to control. Whether we’re looking at war, or climate change and storm damage, victims of a political tug-of-war, or an inability to live a standard of life we had only a few short years ago, the fact is that the word ‘crisis’ seems to have lost all meaning. And that does not even include conspiracy theories or existing crises relating to general human existence.
These things have always been problematic, but lately it seems like we’re heading for something big and scary. And it is irrelevant which side of the political, social, or economical fence you find yourself on; there is no escaping that everything just feels ‘wrong’, somehow.
It is mentally, physically, and emotionally draining to just be, and I have spoken to many people about it. To say people are overwhelmed is an understatement.
However, there are things we can do to make things a little easier.
We can temporarily turn away from wherever we get our news. It’s not needed 24/7, not if we want to retain a shred of sanity. We don’t need to know every single thing, and there are nowhere near enough feel-good stories to make it bearable. Who on earth thought 24 hour news channels were a good idea?
Also worth considering is taking breaks from social media – I do this often; every few months I will strip my friends/followers lists back, then take a few days or weeks off with only necessary interaction. It’s so refreshing. Social media is your own personal space, like your childhood bedroom; why fill it with things that make you feel bad?
Take some time to engage in a hobby or activity you haven’t done for a while, or even try a new one. Perhaps you want more time in the gym, or you could finally use that Ouija board (carefully, of course – we’ve seen enough horrors, for now). I would like to get back out with my camera as my skills are a little rusty, and I’ve barely touched my DSLR this year.
How is your streaming service watch list? Anything on there you haven’t seen before? Or it might be worth watching Supernatural for the umpteenth time. (Ahem.)
Day breaks and holidays are allowed. Go for a night out clubbing. Read a new book. Bake a cake. Make a playlist of cheesy 80s music and release your inner Kylie Minogue.
Sure, some of the suggestions come from a place of privilege, but we need to use that to our own advantage in order to keep ourselves calm, safe, and in-the-moment. We are allowed to step aside for the detriment of our own health and wellbeing. It doesn’t make the problems disappear, but it does allow us to remember that life isn’t always shit. We are allowed to enjoy ourselves. You are allowed to take some time to be yourself.
Life is about balance, and right now life is just very heavy. So sip your drink, eat the biscuit, and take the weight off for a while. Tell me the last thing you did for yourself.
Me? I had a bubble bath.