Just hanging out with a small group of people and learning what’s going on in our immediate area. This is how people are created to live if they want to feel good. It’s a big step to stop reading up on world-changing events on the other side of the world and remembering hundreds of names of old classmates, B-listers and friends of friends.
– We are not designed to process every disaster across the planet in real time. Sometimes we go around thinking the world is more dangerous than it is, sometimes we get into a kind of chronic hypervigilance. The body releases stress hormones for threats on the other side of the world from which you can neither fight nor flee. “In the end you give up,” says Anders Hansen.
But everyday life does not stop at geopolitics. Despite the state of the world, people should try to eat a vegetarian diet, exercise, and rinse every packet of crème fraîche before putting the lid in one container and the container in another.
Here are Anders Hansen’s tips for dealing with…
…doing the right thing for yourself. For example, waste separation, training or choosing a bicycle instead of a car.
– We feel comfortable making things concrete. And in the end, it’s what we do, not what we worry about, that makes the world a better place. Prioritizing what’s here in your life over what’s happening in all the other places you have no control over is both a way to protect your own mental health and give you the opportunity to direct your resources where they can do good.
…to stay informed.
– Normally I think it’s not irresponsible not to know everything. Prioritizing what’s here in my life over what’s going on in all the other places doesn’t mean burying my head in the sand. The world won’t get better if I read ten new analyzes of the Iran conflict.
…to read the news feed.
– Divide the information a little and try to develop some information awareness. For example, by deciding to read news from reliable sources two to three times a day. Skip the doom scrolling because social media business models show us things we can’t look away from.
…their mental health.
– Today we are informed every minute about the disasters occurring across the planet. You can become completely paralyzed. But if you want an updated worldview, you also have to deal with things that are not new. Mortality from cancer is falling and many fewer are dying from heart attacks. These processes are so slow that they don’t make headlines, but they show that care can always do better to help people. Read the National Board of Health and Welfare’s list of causes of death. It’s very uplifting when you look at it over time.
…the immediate surroundings, rather than all events everywhere and at any time.
– There was a study conducted after the Boston bombings in 2013. It found that Americans in other cities who spent a lot of time absorbing news had more acute stress symptoms than those in Boston. The media thus acted as a channel that spread the burden of the attacks far beyond the affected area. Remember that the brain has difficulty distinguishing between what you read about in the media and what is happening around you.
