After 9/11, I felt like I had to bear witness to the unfolding tragedy. Despite how painful it was for me, surrounded on a daily basis by the reality of the wreckage in NYC and coping with my own loss from that event, I forced myself to read every news story I saw about the others who had died. I was powerless to help, I couldn’t actually change anything, but I felt like ignoring the news would have signified tacit consent or, possibly worse, apathy.

2001 and 2022 were difficult years for me. Looking back, I realize headline anxiety post-9/11 was a big part of that. I knew I was getting anxiety from watching the news, but I couldn't bring myself to turn it off. By forcing myself to follow every moment of the news, I convinced myself that I was somehow honoring the victims and survivors. "I see you," I thought to myself. "I see what's happening, and I'm with you."

Headline anxiety is extremely common

I know I was not alone in this. As members of a digitally connected society, we are constantly inundated with negative news. In 2001 we were seeing video clips of 9/11 and reading stories about devastating earthquakes and recession fears. This year, we're watching Ukraine in horror, while reading about climate change and COVID (just to name a few).

The never-ending onslaught of crises and tragedies on the news is problematic. How can we be the informed, engaged citizens we want to be when watching the news makes us anxious, hopeless, and burned out? It's a tough balance to strike.

As anxiety therapists, we have worked with many patients who don't know how to deal with news-related anxiety in healthy ways. If you're experiencing worsening anxiety from watching the news, here's what we recommend:

Acknowledge your limitations

Psychologically, we weren't designed to process the amount of content we now have access to. For millions of years, we lived in small tribes and knew very little about the rest of the world. Today, we are the first generation of people in history with access to unlimited, 24-hour access to global news. We haven't had time to adjust, so we do not have the defensive structures to deal with it.

We love the concept of the global world, but there is only so much we can handle. Last month everyone was dying of Omicron. This month, there's the Ukraine crisis and the threat of being pulled into a third world war. We are so tired and compassion-fatigued that many of us don't have the capacity to deal with yet another crisis.

We also have limits in terms of what we can actually do in response to world problems. There's no way that we as individuals can address every single crisis everywhere in the world all the time. Recognizing that can help relieve some of the anxiety and guilt of witnessing far-away tragedies from the comfort and safety of your living room.

2. Limit your news consumption

Keeping yourself informed allows you to make educated life choices aligned with your values. But watching every detail of every atrocity that takes place won't help you make better choices. It will dysregulate you and make it harder to function.

Instead of checking the news as it comes into your feed, we recommend limiting yourself to one short daily news session. Checking in the morning could wreak havoc on your workday, and checking right before bed could make it hard to sleep. So, we typically recommend looking at the news for a half-hour right after work. That gives most people enough time to digest what they've seen, regulate their emotions, and be calm enough to fall asleep at night.

3. Fortify yourself with personal care

It's a real privilege that we get to worry about anxiety reduction while other people are just trying to survive. For many of us, the thought of turning off the news and engaging in some self-care feels disgusting and disgraceful. But the harsh truth is that sacrificing your mental health isn't going to help anyone.

You can't undo the world's traumas by making yourself into another casualty. Nor will it improve other people's access to privilege by rejecting your own. If you want to help extend the rights and freedoms you enjoy to other people, you'll need energy and resilience.

If watching the news gives you anxiety, but you still want to be informed, you'll need to shore yourself up in other areas. Whenever you feel stressed, do some deep breathing, go for a run, go to bed early—whatever it takes to care for yourself. You can also counter some of the negative news you consume by getting your information from balanced sources and incorporating uplifting programming into the mix.

4. Focus on what you CAN do

There is so much wrong with the world, and there's no way one person can fix it all. Instead of focusing on what you can't change, concentrate on what you can. If you've been fortifying yourself and avoiding excessive news consumption, you'll have the emotional capacity to recognize opportunities to make a difference.

You can't hug the little girl whose father was killed in the war on Ukraine. But you can donate to an organization that will serve her a hot meal. You can't stop wild horses in the west from being rounded up and sold to slaughterhouses, but you can vote for local politicians who support animal welfare. You can't stop companies from manufacturing single-use plastics, but you can refuse to buy them.

You could, but you don't have to do anything drastic to make a difference. There are all kinds of creative ways to support vital causes that resonate with you without compromising your own health.

5. Remember: you're not alone

Group of friends grabbing lunch - NYC 10003

Our unlimited access to world news can make it seem like we're living in apocalyptic times, but many points in history probably felt the same. Consider what living through the bubonic plague, American slavery (not that that’s anywhere near concluded, given the prison-industrial complex), or the Great Irish Famine would have been like. It's not super uplifting to think about this stuff, but it does remind us that our ancestors were able to survive difficult times.

It's also helpful to know that you're not the only one struggling to cope. People don't always talk about it with friends or colleagues, but our anxiety therapy patients consistently tell us that current events have hurt their mental health. Recent research confirms this. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, anxiety and depression rates increased by at least 25 percent.

Begin Therapy for Anxiety in New York City

If you would like support coping with excessive stress, consider working with us. Through our secure online platform, our anxiety therapists teach people in New York City and throughout the state how to deal with news anxiety and other common stressors. Schedule a free consult to learn more about virtual anxiety treatment.