When the Headlines Give You Head Lines – how to thrive in a world going mad

Greetings!

If doom-scrolling is your latest procrastination tool you can be forgiven.  There are black holes a-plenty to disappear down. 

What’s your poison?

Trigger-happy Trump.  The Labour “leadership”. Heat or Eat. The limping NHS. Climate change. Water outages/polluted rivers/seas. ICE. Reform. The Trans Movement. Super flu. Social media. Islamophobia. Food banks. Grok. Musk. Colonialism. Gender vs Sex. Virtue signalling. Cancel culture. Greenland. Fat jabs. Brooklyn Beckham. Iran. Life ...

One could go on. The grim news is never ending, often troubling and, like cellulite and taxes, always with us.



Ordinarily any one of the above would have been sufficient to create enough tossing and turning to register as an HIT workout on your Fitbit.

It's no wonder you are feeling flat and defeated, lacking focus; a bit “what's the point?” right now.  

You are not alone. 

So, we eat, drink, shop online for useless “treats” and wait. The headlines are relentless. If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother (sorry). But seriously, how do we keep sane when the world has gone crazy?

Here are a few suggestions for when the headlines give you head lines:

• Limit your access to the news to once or twice a day and actively search for the positive going on in the world. It is there too. (Try In Other News – good news stories from across the world BBC Radio 4 Sunday at 8.50am)
• Don’t allow your brain’s negativity bias to blot out the sun. Notice instead what you are grateful for.  Food in the fridge, friends, pets, warmth, hot water, a home.
• Show yourself compassion - now is not the time for self-recrimination and harshness. Inner critics are bad motivation coaches.
• Some days are better than others – accepting that helps. The bulbs are stirring under the cold earth. Spring IS coming. Aslan is on the move.
• Find the control you need by staying in the present and doing what you can to support yourself and keep your dreams alive right now.
• Don't compare your life to others – you've no idea what their story is and if it's on Insta it's probably far from the truth.
• Keep a diary or a journal of this time to help tame your thoughts and record this moment to look back on.
• Learn that most stuff is out of your hands – let go of a need to control.
• Make space in the diary for fun. Literally diarise it and equally make “white space” for creative loafing. Bizarrely doing very little can be very liberating.
• Write a list of what you want and what you need. So easy to write the What I Don't Want list.
• Write down what is most important in life for you. Are you honouring those things?
• Wave the white flag – give yourself a break and surrender. Resistance is pointless. Make it a day you leave anxiety in your footlocker.
• Actively go out of your way to do a good turn for others. Instant feel-good karma.
• And finally, acts of kindness and investing in self-care, really is a gift to the world. It’s not futile. You can make a difference by looking after yourself first.

Fancy a chat? Have a cuppa and a call with me here.