"If we're news junkies, or just extremely online, we're a little like that traumatised journalist. A little. More removed from frontline carnage, sure, but subject to a similar onslaught of non-stop bad news: polarisation, the climate crisis, grim domestic violence statistics. The rising cost of living, the rise of the far right, and AI threatening to upend our livelihoods. What to do with all the angst stirred up by negative headlines?"
"So, as a new year of news begins, I'm counting on spiritual habits to survive the bad headlines of 2026. Not by looking away I can't but by looking better and deeper, which is why I'm asking for new eyes to see. A fragile hope, perhaps. But I've a hunch that that a shift in perspective will prove transformative. After all, as the British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist writes: Attention changes the world. How you attend to it changes what it is you find there."
A journalist found solace in silent reflection after witnessing horrors, illustrating how overwhelming exposure to bad news affects people. News consumers face relentless negative headlines—polarisation, the climate crisis, domestic violence, rising living costs, far-right growth, and AI threats—that can produce anxiety and a narrowed view of possibility. Avoiding news or numbing out is common but insufficient; a 2025 Reuters study found 40% worldwide already avoid news. Deliberate spiritual habits and a shift in attention can expand perception and foster resilience. Doomscrolling constricts perception and primes noticing only the terrible, whereas humility about incomplete information opens space for other possibilities.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]