| When News Stresses You |
| Written by Rene A Lacape | |||
| Thursday, 03 September 2009 21:01 | |||
|
You feel as if you don't want to go a single day without knowing what's going on. You feel out of the loop if there is a news event that you are not familiar with. You know the talking heads on TV on a first-name basis, and you're familiar with all the major news anchors. Yet, at times, you feel as if you are on information overload.
You feel as if you don't want to go a single day without knowing what's going on. You feel out of the loop if there is a news event that you are not familiar with. You know the talking heads on TV on a first-name basis, and you're familiar with all the major news anchors. Yet, at times, you feel as if you are on information overload. The desire to be informed is certainly an attribute. In a democracy, we want citizens who are knowledgeable about major issues. Knowing about current events can help you to protect your property, to improve your health, even to protect the lives of yourself and your family. People who ignore current events altogether do so at their peril. Obsession with the current news can cause a whole lot of pressure to oneself. Already burdened by one's own problem, major world issues could add more to one's anxiety's factor. Many a time one can feel weak at the knees when faced by grave world situation where one can only observed and yet do nothing. What a heartache this may cause! In order to determine whether you're putting yourself under too much stress, consider taking a little quiz to determine if you are a news junkie. Do you watch more than two hours a day of television news? Do you read more than two major papers? Have you foregone music radio for talk radio? Are you on the Internet for more than an hour a day, searching for news headlines? Positive answer of "yes" to questions posed earlier on, one is threading on the fine string of stress both to body and mind. Even though watching and listening to the media may be a passive act but the effects on one's self is still there. One may feel annoyed and at times fear may crouched in. All the same, some news can be very distracting. After some times one may even feel an increase of annoyance as stress slowly makes itself visible. Being over informed is bad to your stress system. If you have gone off the limits in gathering news consider yourself a news junkie. You need to learn ways to work this out of your system as it can be deteriorating towards your well being. There is a time when knowing too much can hurt. It is advised to work ways that may counteract this extra stress. To begin with, try to limit the amount of time you spend viewing cable news. You might have noticed that the news is updated every half-hour. Therefore, you can just watch the headlines at the top or bottom of the hour and get all the information you need about the top news stories of the day. On occasion, you might want to tune in longer in order to hear in-depth reporting of a particular issue. But try to limit your viewing time to an hour at the most. Other then that you should try to reduce the amount you spending surfing for news online. Knowing just the headlines and a few sentences after that is good enough. You don't have to know every gory detail that the reporter has to put forward to judge if your neighborhood crime buster works. By reading just a few major papers should be enough to give you a concrete knowledge of major news surrounding you. It is not a crime to be well informed but at least not to the when one's stress level is jeopardized. So switch off the cable. Don't forget the internet especially when the news can't get any better. Instead lay back and try to relax. One can learn to view the news without being overly affected by the news. This may take some time but it's worthwhile. One will be pleasantly surprised by how one is able to loosen up when this become a habit. About the Author: Rene Lacapeis a seasoned health staff that faces the people under the stress management section. He knows well what to do with them and has been a great help to them too. You can check his website anytime and call him to know more.
|